5 string acoustic bass bass guitar

[Alan Carruth]

A Smith/Manzer wedge is actually quite effective, and much easier to do. It may require a deeper case, though.

Added depth doesn't seem to actually lower the 'main air' resonant pitch to speak of. A long time back Fred Dickens made a classical guitar that was 6" deep, checked it out, and then started cutting it down in 1/2" increments, replacing the same back ever time, until he could not go any further. At that point I think the sides were 2" deep. The 'air' pitch rose by 7%; just over a semitone.

There are a couple of different ways to explain this; the one I prefer is that making the box shallower gives a greater pressure change inside for a given a mount of top motion. This strengthens the coupling between the top and the air in the 'bass reflex' action. The coupling serves to push the two resonances apart in pitch; the top moves up and the back moves down. Reducing the box depth does raise the 'real' Helmholtz frequency, but the stringer coupling pushes it back down again, so it ends up not changing much.

Sadly, I never got to see or hear that guitar, and when Fred told me about it he didn't talk about other aspects of the sound that might have changed. The deeper box gives a broader 'main air' resonance, in my experience, which tends to produce a 'rounder' or 'fuller' sound in the low range, all else equal. In the couple of cases where I have cut down the body depth, the shallower box also has a stronger air resonance, which may or may not sound 'louder', especially to the player and close up in front of the guitar. This all gets complicated, especially when you start trying to relate the objective changes to perceptions of tone. At some point it would be useful to duplicate Fred's experiment, but if I do I won't use Brazilian rosewood, the way he did.....

[JW Stapleton]

This is a interesting design, I am to far along to try this now, but if I build another one for myself I would seriously consider this design- if nothing else it would make a better fit against my big belly!

[JW Stapleton]

I am using the x brace system for this project. I have radiused the braces at 28’ and made them a bit larger than normal because of the added tension of the bass strings, on my standard acoustic six strings I have built, I have always scalloped the braces, I am wondering if I should plan on scalloping for the five string bass 34 inch scale, any suggestions, I’m in unknown territory at this point, either way I plan to glue them in as is and carve and tap and flex till things sound right and feel right, I sure would appreciate suggestions, insight

[William Stapleton]

Well, I’m almost through with the acoustic bass build, I have learned a lot over the past few months, this has been quite a experience! Waiting for the nitro to cure out now- will soon post photos!

[Eric Crawford]

Any updates?
My next project will be an acoustic bass, I’m curious about lessons learned…