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Lowest tone of a double bass?

RJohan

pfm Member
Four string electric bass guitars do around 41 Hertz on an open E string with normal tuning. But what is the lowest of a double bass?
 
Four string electric bass guitars do around 41 Hertz on an open E string with normal tuning.

That is the fundamental, depending on the bass amp there can be lower frequency information in the form of a real subsonic ‘push’ or ‘thump’ from the actual pluck/hit of the string and the speaker accelerating from stationary (0 Hz) to pitch.
 
Thanks guys! On the acoustic jazz recordings I listen mostly to today, one nearly never see a note under ca 50 Hz. On rock music, often with the bass lined, 41 Hz is common. There is of course often assorted sounds lower than that, some of it related to the music, some just noise from ventilation and outside traffic.
 
An Octobasse will drop below 20hz in standard tuning. One can only imagine what the bowing of Mingus, Miroslav Vitous or Eldee Young would have produced on such a device.
 
I have the lower four of a five string set on my 1970s Grant Jazz-copy defretted four-banger electric bass, tuned to A, D, G, C (A = 27.5Hz). It's good fun and puts conventional E, A, D, G at the strongly resonant 7th-fret (perfect 5th) position.
 


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