1940's '50's

[gypsyjazzer]

What strings do you think the likes of Charles Mingus / Ray Brown / Milt Hinton used in the 1940's '50's 60's before the advent of D/B pickups?

[Beer of the Bass]

I have a copy of Ray Brown's bass method which was written in the late 50s. That has some good close-up photos which look like he has plain gut on the D and G and wound gut on the E and A. Also notable in those photos are his big beautiful Italian bass with the hollow tuning keys, and his great suit jackets!
I'm not sure of the exact date when steel strings started being used for jazz, though I'd guess they caught on and became ubiquitous through the 60s. From what I've read Thomastik made their steel Precision strings surprisingly early (they claim 1926), but those were stiff solid-core jobs, and I don't think jazzers started using steel strings until more flexible types were available in the late 50s. Lots of older bass players still rave about Lycon strings, which were one of the earlier flexible core steel sets available.
Mingus sounds (to my ears, anyway) like he only adopted steel strings late in his career - I think he held out with the gut for longer than most.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Beer of the Bass

[bassace]

I was playing bass in the late fifties and sixties and if you asked me what strings I used I wouldn't have a clue. I'd say strings, just strings. They used to break from time to time whereas today a break is almost unknown. I still take spares to the gig, though.

Incidentally, when I was buying my first DB - £35 at Footes - I met Ray Brown. The tragedy was that back then I hadn't really heard of him. It wasn't till he left that the salesman said 'that was Ray Brown.'

[gypsyjazzer]

Thanks for the replies.
bassace--met Ray Brown. Wow! Bass icon. To my ears anyway today's guys do not have that 'projection' that the likes of Ray Brown, Charlie Mingus, Milt Hinton, Pops Foster had--they had to cut through a band--big bands as well--with no amplification. Like Eddie Lang, early Django,Freddie Green on acoustic guitar.

Call me old fashioned------------------------------Time to raise the action---------------

[keeponehandloose]

I think Red O Rays were a popular choice ..

[JazzCat13!]

Gut strings were the norm for the greats you mentioned during the era. Strings like Red O'Rays, Artones, and the famous (almost mythical) Golden Spirals were some of the brands of guts available at the time. If I gather from recordings around the late 60's, a lot of bass players sounded like they were still using guts and I believe steels didn't become the norm until the 70's (I'm sure the older players can better chime in). t funny story about Mingus I heard in an NPR story is that in the early 50's when he was about to start playing in Red Norvo's trio, he got an early set of some sort of steel bass string so he could work on classical arco pieces. Norvo heard him using these strings and told him to stop, that if he was going to play with him he wanted the gut string sound, so Mingus put Guts back on and that was that until the 70's.

[The Jaywalker]

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Edited November 28, 2017 by The Jaywalker

[The Jaywalker]

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Edited November 28, 2017 by The Jaywalker

[Beer of the Bass]

I dug out my copy of the Ray Brown method (which is from 1963, not the late 50's as I'd thought). While he clearly has gut strings in the pictures, the closeups of his right hand don't look as if his action is punishingly high. It's higher than you'd have a set of Spiros, but he was playing in and out of thumb position, doing double-stop 10ths and things, and I think had his bass set up to allow for that.
There is a kind of "Emperor's new clothes" thing around no-amp bassists where no-one wants to admit they couldn't always hear Mingus or other greats clearly. Actually, it goes on to this day if you look over on Talkbass!

Edited June 19, 2017 by Beer of the Bass

[The Jaywalker]

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Edited November 28, 2017 by The Jaywalker

[JoeEvans]

I was thinking about this today - as far as I know, the practice of using a bass played pizzicato came along more or less when recorded music also started to boom. Before that, I think people in bands (as opposed to orchestras) either used brass for bass (e.g. sousaphone in New Orleans, tuba in the Balkans) or bowed their basses (e.g. gypsy music in Hungary and elsewhere). When the band was big and loud, people sometimes used two bowed basses. Even early jazz double bassists sometimes used a bow (e.g. 'Slam' Stewart).
I suspect that isn't coincidence...
Anyway, here's Slam sounding great playing arco in one of the best jazz/dance sequences ever - I love this so much!

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mb2tN-aa2s"]https://www.youtube....h?v=9Mb2tN-aa2s[/url]

Edited June 24, 2017 by JoeEvans

[keeponehandloose]

http://doublebassguide.com/?page_id=9
read this.

[mtroun]

Wow, controversial thread. I use gut strings, but clearly 'no amp' isn't going to work in the majority of circumstances. That said, there's nothing worse than seeing a double bass played like it's a big fretless bass guitar to my ears.
I can't help but feel that a few of the posters seem to think there's no logic in wanting your bass to sound like 50s or 60s records because technology has moved on. Having had all sorts of different strings on my bass I'm happiest with gut strings because of the very low tension, but I must admit that the sound is also deeply satisfying. For me it's not really about trying to invoke a previous era but a desire to get towards a sound that some heroes of mine had, and the common denominator was gut strings.
As much as I like Ray Brown, he isn't the last word on gut vs steel strings. Charlie Haden sounded fantastic on a setup (gut plus spirocore) that I have tried out and absolutely hated! If you really love the sound of gut strings on classic recordings, it would seem logical to try it out for yourself.

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='JoeEvans' timestamp='1498332694' post='3323938']
Anyway, here's Slam sounding great playing arco in one of the best jazz/dance sequences ever - I love this so much!

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mb2tN-aa2s"]https://www.youtube....h?v=9Mb2tN-aa2s[/url]
[/quote]

Late to this thread, but good to see Hellzapoppin again after all these years.

Getting back on topic, though, and it's hard to ignore how the bass simply vanishes from the mix as soon as the rest of the band gets going ...

[bobmartin]

I do know of bass players that could be heard playing acoustically through a band, one in particular who played a 3 string bass with Trad jazz band, and never owned an amp. These players where specialised and never had good intonation, and when amps came on the scene many gave up when they where actually heard for the first time.

Also, the big-bands of yesteryear had a very different sound from the bands of today. The sax sections where softer, the brass players used smaller bore instruments, which produced a quieter but brighter, punchier sound. Also "NO MONITORS".

But the biggest difference was that the music was arranged around the rhythm section. The other musicians had to consider them, and play by consent, rather than over them. So in practice than meant that a soloist would play slightly louder but the supporting instruments would come down to create a good overall balance.

Edited August 3, 2017 by bobmartin

[bassace]

Spot on, bobmartin. I first started playing with dance bands and my double bass, unamplified, cut through very well. A typical band with two trumpets, three or four saxes and perhaps a trombone or two would play without PA, save for a solitary microphone for announcements or a clarinet solo. I never had a problem with drums but the arrival of electronic organs caused me a few problems.

The first amplified double bass I saw/heard belonged to Johnnie Hawksworth with the Ted Heath band. He used a contact mic going into a 15" combo made by Teddy Wallace. Crude by today's standards but effective in its day. He was a larger than life character and featured with the band. If you can imagine Holiday for Strings played on the upper register of the double bass, that's your man. His bass, a blonde, never had a cover but was chucked on the back seat on his vast American car.

He encouraged me to amplify my bass and I rigged a hifi amp onto a speaker cab that I built myself, starting with a 12" and progressing to an 18". To think that my favoured cab is a 10" these days.

I was amused by bob's point that many players with poor intonation gave up when amplification came in. It wasn't just poor intonation, they had got away with playing the wrong notes for a long time until the amp found them out. Known to us as bassfakers. There are still some about.

[The Jaywalker]

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Edited November 28, 2017 by The Jaywalker

[ufobass]

I understand that to many who post here, gut strings are preferred to steel, and the gut sound is meant to cut through the band without amplification.

But in today's loud stage environments, the challenge is to get everyone to play softer.  Often I have to ask the sound guy to either unplug my monitor or point it away from me. 

Currently using Thomastik Spirocore 'weigh' (light) gauge on an old Czech flatback.  My ears miss the punch of Mediums, but I want to be kind to the bass.

Old basses were made with gut strings in mind, no?   Doesn't an old bass 'prefer' gut for their lighter tension?  But can they be bowed?

Gut strings a re a significant investment.  How well do gut strings (or Lycons) amplify, with a pickup like a Gage Realist? 

 

[zbd1960]

I don’t play double bass, but I do play the Viol (viola da gamba) both tenor and bass. The bass is cello sized. They use gut strings. You can get wire wound gut for lower strings. Yes they can be bowed. I obviously have no experience of using them on DB but gut is a natural material that ‘breathes’ and tuning moves until the material reaches equilibrium with its environment. 

[pete.young]

When I started playing double bass in my father's folk dance band in the late '60s / early '70s there was no thought of amplifying the double bass. High action, make as much noise as possible, and where possible use the village hall stage as a sounding board through the spike. Amplification was for bass guitars, I wasn't allowed one of these due to lack of space in the car (the bass went on the roof).

I don't recall gut strings being as expensive then, since they were ubiquitous on everything from fiddles to basses. The other option that no-one seems to have mentioned is nylon strings. These were cheaper than guts. I have 3 strings from a set of Rotosound Student Double Bass strings from the period. These appear to be some kind of flatwound tape on a nylon core. I remember the excitement when I got my first Lycon D string (we only ever bought replacement strings when one broke, and never a set). This must have been in about 1973. It was 3 times as loud as the other strings. Eventually I got an A and G, and the E was replaced with a much lower tension Rotosound steel core.

Remarkably I still have those strings somewhere - I took them off the bass about 10 years ago when I got a second-hand set of Spirocore Weichs from this forum. They must have lasted about 35 years. Not bad.

[Waddo Soqable]

2 hours ago, zbd1960 said:

I don’t play double bass, but I do play the Viol (viola da gamba) both tenor and bass. The bass is cello sized. They use gut strings. You can get wire wound gut for lower strings. Yes they can be bowed. I obviously have no experience of using them on DB but gut is a natural material that ‘breathes’ and tuning moves until the material reaches equilibrium with its environment. 

Don't these effectively have frets, also made of gut ( or other string material) that are tied around the neck in the appropriate positions.. ?

[NickA]

On 16/07/2021 at 04:25, ufobass said:

 

Old basses were made with gut strings in mind, no?   Doesn't an old bass 'prefer' gut for their lighter tension? 

Old instruments often have modern strings.  In the case of cellos and violins they've often been heavily modified to project better anyway.  Plenty of 1700s instruments fitted with tungsten wound steel strings.

I like the sound of my 1880s double bass with low action full weight Spiro's on it. I can hear what I'm playing and have some sustain.  But yes, if people ( drummers and pianists) would play quieter and sax players would forgo the microphone we could all maybe learn to like gentler strings.

NB: used to use silver wound gut on my cello, loved the gritty woody sound, but they we always out of tune and frequently broke .. now using silver wound synthetics and steel larsens.

[gypsyjazzer]

Great info. Many thanks.