Geoff: Hi its Geff Chalmers here from discoverdoublebass.com.
If you haven't already seen the website please go and check it out after this video and you
will find a ton of free bass lessons.
Okay, today I'm going to be showing you the quickest, the easiest most painless way to
change the strings on your double bass.
To get started, I recommend laying the bass flat on its back and a great place to do this
is just to lay the bass on a bed.
Now with the edge of the bed around here, you've got space to the side that you can
easily access the peg box and you can tighten and loosen the strings as needed.
And you will also find that the body of the bass is really well supported.
You can do this by laying the bass on the floor again flat on its back but be very careful
that the weight of the instrument isn't being supported by the scroll.
With mine, my scroll comes back so far it could actually take up all the weight of the
instrument so I would need to put a pillow or something slightly under the side of the
instrument to raise it up a little.
Well, it's also possible to lay the bass down on its side and change the strings in that
position as well.
Again I'm not a fan for a couple of reasons.
One because its quite hard to get down on your knees and access the peg box completely.
But also, I prefer to have the instrument flat on its back so the sound post is facing
upwards all the time.
The sound post is a wooden rod which is in between - placed in between the back and the
front of the double bass on the inside.
So, the tension of the strings goes down and keeps the sound post in position.
What we don't want to do is release all the tension and then find that the sound post
falls down and you'll have a bit of a pain digging around in the bass trying to reset
that.
Another thing to look out for is that - especially if you are starting out doing this for the
first time, you may accidentally knock the bridge out of position.
A little tip I have for you is to use a soft pencil and just gently outline on the top,
don't mark your bass in terms of the varnish.
Just put a very soft like gentle layer of pencil, around the bridge beat and that will
help you re-position them in the event of accidentally knocking it slightly out of alignment.
Another thing that will help keep your bass in good shape is to think about the input
jack on the pickup if you have one and I recommend using an old towel or something and just unhooking
this before you get started and laying that on top.
I'd recommend that if this is the first time of that you've changed the string on your
bass.
Just take a quick photo maybe with your phone or something of the way the strings are laid
out in the peg box just in case you have any problems later.
But let's have a quick look at this now.
What we are trying to do is end up so the strings aren't rubbing against the side of
the peg box.
You can see there's a bit of room here.
This one is pretty tight there, perhaps a little tighter than I'd like but as you can
see, this string has to cross this one at this point and ideally we don't want the strings
crossing and rubbing against each other but with my old bass, it's always going to be
a little bit of a compromise.
Another thing I'd recommend is to buy a string winder.
They're are not expensive.
They're only a few pounds and will make the whole process a lot easier.
So, what we are going to do is we are going to start on the G-string side now you could
start on the E and work across that way.
I actually personally don't think it really matters.
I've heard people, you know, make different suggestions, different orders but frankly
as long as we try to keep the tension on the bridge by not removing all of the strings
we will probably be okay particularly with the bass flat on its back.
So that's the first point, never remove all the strings from the bass.
We are going to try and do it one by one.
However, with some smaller peg boxes, like mine, you'll actually have to loosen off a
second string as well.
So let's have a look how that's going to work.
So, I'm starting with the G and I'm just going to loosen that off.
So the string is quite loose now, but as we can see I can't access this very easily because
of the position of the D-string.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to loosen it off a touch.
There we are.
It will enable me just to pull the string, there we are, a little bit more.
Pull the string across just to give me a little bit of access to the G.
Now, ideally if you can access the peg box without, you know, loosening the D, I would
recommend doing that.
But as I say, if you have to slightly slacken it off like I've done here, I don't see that's
much of a big deal.
So I've just loosened off the string in the peg box and I managed to thread it through
the peg and what I recommend is accessing pulling the string out from this side of the
tail piece rather than feeding it through underneath which you can damage the string
and its a lot harder to do.
Now just before we put the new string on I actually wanted to recommend that you give
your finger board a bit of a wipe down just to get ride of any gunk that's accumulated
since you changed the strings last time.
Now the other thing that's really worth doing as well, is using pencil lead to lubricate
the bridge and the nuts and this is the point that the string, travels across and it just
makes the whole thing a bit smoother for the string, so let's have a look here.
I will just add a little bit of pencil in the slot there and I will do it in the D as
well since I've got that to one side.
Now I've got the string, I'm going to put a new set of D'Addario Zyex on my bass and
give those a try.
And if we just take this out of the packet here, it comes with a little felt washer and
they were also on my old strings as well.
I recommend using those if you have them provided, but if not it will be fine without one.
So I usually just thread that down from the top and it should end up down at the other
end of the string.
And I also recommend putting the string on again through the top of the tail piece if
possible, rather than stringing it from underneath.
Okay, so now we have the string in the peg box and now we are going to pop it through
the hole there, wrap it around itself, probably about 1/3 of the colored wrap that's at the
end of the string.
Let's have a loot at that.
Now what I'm going to do is wrap that around, put it out of the way, hold on to it at the
end and I'm just going to tie it in the string with my string winder.
Now what I'm trying to do is to make sure that I direct the string, in this case, to
my right and in that way it won't be bundling up on the wrong side and it won't be coming
into contact with any of the strings.
Okay, at this point of the process you can see I'm halfway through.
I've done the G and the D and I'm going to have to do the same thing with the E and the
A because as you can see I can't access my E-string without releasing the A and pulling
it to one side.
So that's exactly what I'm going to do.
Release the A string and then change the E.
So, let's have a quick look in the peg box and you can see that I've switched over the
strings here and I've managed to get them fairly neat.
There's a bit of touching there between these strings and there's this - there is a little
bit of room between the side of that string and the side of the peg box.
As I say, my bass is a little bit tricky and you might not be able to get it perfect but
try and avoid crossing them over and keep it as neat as you can.
I have got a couple of quick tips just to finish off.
As you are winding the string, you may find that the bridge is pulled in this direction
so you may have to pull it back ever so slightly.
Especially if the strings are looser, just to make sure that you are not pulling it out
of alignment.
Lastly, make sure that you never use wire cutters to trim the ends of the strings.
Persevere with this method, I know its fiddly, but of lining the up strings correctly in
the peg box and your strings will last a lot longer.
Well I hope you've enjoyed the lesson today.
It's been a bit of different for me, wrestling with the the bass on this work bench and of
course there hasn't been any playing.
If it has helped you please let me know by clicking that like button on Youtube and it
will help me reach new people, and of course you know where to go if you want more free
video double bass lessons please visit discoverdoublebass.com.