Fiddler Dan Violins & Workshop, Brisbane

Almost gone are the days of using a tuning fork to tune your instrument. Actually I still have one in my case but usually I’m tuning to a piano. Enter the rise of violin tuners….

For the beginner a tuning fork takes some getting used to , its only one note (and its 440Hz but thats another story). There is an abundance of tuners out there today and they are great for young players to tune the violin too. These clip on tuners tune by vibration so you clip them to your violin peg and adjust the screen so you can see them. The violin tuners are more of a general instrument tuner, so if you see it advertised as a guitar tuner …relax it still works on a violin…and pretty cheap on ebay too!.

My favourite of these clip on style is the D’Addario one, its harder to find an a bit more pricey,  but worth it because you can leave it on your instrument so really convenient. Clip on violin tuners are also great for a noisey environment, because as it tunes by vibration it doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing, thus especially useful in a contemporary band situation.

At my workshop people ask if I sell tuners, I tell them they have one already in their pocket, which is good for a laugh. Yes take out your favourite smart phone, go to the App/ play store and search for instrument tuner and your goog to go…  Your welcome, no need to buy one……unless the convenience of a clip on is desired.

The big daddy of the string family the double bass often makes an appearance in my workshop, and when they do they usually get A list high priority treatment from me. Why you might ask?…well double bass repairs take up a lot of room in the workshop so I can’t let them sit for too long. The repair principles for the double bass  are similar to that of the violin and cello repair (in particular the necks), but because of their size they have added structural components on the inside which tends to make them a bit more agricultural to look at (and work on).  Thus where possible because of their size I try to leave the tops on as many repairs can be done from the outside and taking a top of takes time…and time is money (well your money anyway )

They also bring other challenges, there are a lot more pieces of wood (and obviously bigger pieces of wood)  in a double bass , with the bracing required for the instrument. This brings with it some challenges around differential expansion of these timbers. On comparatively small pieces of timber a few percent shrinkage is a small number but on a double bass this is a much bigger number. Ebony, maple and spruce all shrink differently with moisture and age and this is a bigger deal on a double bass. The top plate for example is a comparatively huge piece of spruce and with the normal contraction in the lateral direction to the grain as it ages it amounts to a lot more movement than you might see on a violin. If you’re lucky this just means some open seams (the glue on the top plate is a weaker glue to allow is to break rather than the top plate) but more often that not it will crack. On old basses you can count them on one hand if you’re lucky. 

Internally with the cross bracing, running, well cross wise to the grain, if the back shrinks a bit laterally the cross grain piece won’t,  so there is a tension between the two pieces that means a crack or a join between the pieces will open up.  Happy days this is all repairable and to a certain extent normal, it is something that comes with the territory of owing a double bass.

The other significant challenge with basses is their sheer size necessitates large tools, in particular clamps to work on. Many of these tools are the province of a luthier to build their own, according to what works for them and they are not generally available at Bunnings any way 😉 Mine are no exception, the collection grows  and are constantly being modified and tweaked for the job at hand – String instruments are ready designed for ease of clamping thats for sure!