Maker & Restorer of Violins, Violas, Cellos & Double Basses.

 

These individually made ebony and maple bass 'C' extensions can be fitted to most double basses with little difficulty and without the necessity to cut into the scroll. They are held on by 2 small wood screws and can be made with however many keys/gates a player requires. The nut can be fixed (see photo right) or an adjustable nut can supplied as illustrated in the other examples. An aluminium pulley is provided at the end of the extension to reduce friction.  Depending on the width of the scroll, the string either  passes beneath the scroll (as in the photo right ) or a small hole is drilled though the scroll to facilitate an ’easy’ line for the string which greatly assists   tuning, (examples below). In most cases the extension string is attached to the ’A’ string tuning machine as this is found to work the best. The extensions are varnished to match the finish of the instrument.  The work takes  3 days to complete and  costs in the order of £300 plus the string and VAT.   It is a straight forward matter to remove unwanted keys/gates or to have additional ones fitted, the extension themselves are  also easily removed and should a client wish an additional 'E' string nut can be made to simplify changing between having an extension or not,  some clients prefer a complete 4 string nut for this purpose. This is what a client had to say after having an extension fitted:-   Dear Martyn I just wanted to let you know that my bass is sounding really amazing since you did the bridge and soundpost. I'm also enjoying my new low notes a lot. Last Saturday I did Mahler 3 which has several very tricky low bits (probably not the best introduction to the joys of a C extension!) and it worked very well. The cellos particularly appreciated my low C's! Thanks so much for your brilliant work and for getting it done so quickly. Best wishes Philippa