String Instrument Setups: 10 Setups That Will Make Your Instrument Louder, Better and Easier to Play

by Chuck Traeger

Overview

(Music Pro Guides). String musicians, know only this: everything is vibrating . The movement of the spheres? A guru's cryptic musing? Hypersensitivity to plate tectonics? Not quite. This is the briefest possible distillation of Trager's Principle, which states, "When a string instrument is being played, everything is vibrating, from the top of the scroll to the tip of the endpin." This simple formula, the purest distillation of master luthier Chuck Traeger's lifetime of learning, holds the key to configuring your instrument to your specifications. It also forms the crux of his third and final book: String Instrument Setups: 10 Setups That Will Make Your Instrument Louder, Better, and Easier to Play . At the height of the Big Band era, Traeger, a double bassist, performed alongside a veritable who's who of New York jazz musicians including the likes of Louie Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. In was in this capacity as Charlie Traeger, one hip cat and a regularly frustrated client of NYC's instrument repair shops that he began his pursuit of sonic perfection. In 1969, satisfied with his abilities but devoted to constant self-improvement, he opened his first repair shop. Before he knew it, his reputation was preceding him, and he found himself handling the instruments of school band novices and the New York Philharmonic alike. On his seventieth birthday, Traeger retired from musicianship and devoted himself to comprehensively documenting all he had learned about his craft. Two decades later, shortly after he put the finishing touches on String Instrument Setups , Chuck Traeger passed away on November 9, 2016. Scarcely a month had elapsed since the death of his beloved wife, June, to whom he was married for over sixty blissful years. Albeit with a heavy heart, we at Hal Leonard Books are proud to present this remarkable man's parting gift to generations of current and future musicians. String Instrument Setups is the culmination of forty-five years of acoustic research involving Trager's old standby, the double bass, and, in turn, any string instrument with a moveable bridge and a moveable tailpiece, or one that can be made moveable. Armed with this book, we're confident that the average musician can enter almost any string instrument maker or repair shop in the world (the exception being a shop that has already read String Instrument Setups ), ask for their best repair or restoration, then make that instrument sound louder, better, and easier to play, every time. This is neither braggadocio nor hyperbole; rather, it's the confidence instilled by one man's extensive research, wholehearted devotion, and firm belief in the sacred bond between instrument and musician. After reading String Instrument Setups , we're sure you'll feel the same.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781495064999
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	02/01/2017
Series:	Music Pro Guides
Pages:	138
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Chuck Traeger (Yulan, NY) was born in Manhattan in 1925. He was a successful bass player in New York City, playing in mainstream jazz ensembles. Traeger made his first record in 1945 and continued to record for another ten years. He graduated with a BS in civil engineering from the Columbia School of Engineering in 1959. Traeger opened up his first repair shop in 1969 as a luthier specializing in the bass. He retired from playing the bass at age 70 and has written two other books, Setup and Repair of the Double Bass for Optimum Sound (2003) and Coda to the Setup & Repair of the Double Bass for Optimum Sound (2009'), 'both by Henry Strobel, Violin Maker and Publisher.

Table of Contents

Sevenword vii

Preface ix

Introduction xvii

Part 1 Traeger's Principle and 10 Setup Adjustments

1 Resonance Response Comparisons 3

2 Traeger's Principle 5

3 Setup No. 1-Endpins 9

Exotic Wood Endpins-Three Nonslip Methods 13

4 Setup No. 2-The Sound Post 15

The Sound Post-The Krazy Glue Effect 20

5 Setup No. 3-The Bridge 25

6 Setup No. 4-Teflon 29

7 Setup No. 5-Mode Matching 33

8 Setup No. 6-The Tailpiece 37

9 Setup No. 7-String Spacing 43

Tuning in Fifths 46

10 Setup No. 8-The Saddle 47

11 Setup No. 9-The Fingerboard 51

12 Setup No. 10-Tuning Machines and C Extensions 55

Part 2 Repair (Internal) Adjustments

13 Repair Adjustment No. 1-Decreasing the Size of the Neck Block 61

14 Repair Adjustment No. 2-Top Plate Regraduation 65

15 Repair Adjustment No. 3-Round Backs 71

16 Repair Adjustment No. 4-Flat Backs 73

17 Repair Adjustment No. 5-The Kay Plywood Bass 75

18 Repair Adjustment No. 6-Tuning the Bass Bar 79

Part 3 Ancillaria

19 The Mystery of Projection 83

20 Don't… 87

21 Motions of the Top 91

22 Useful Measurements for Bass 93

23 Troubleshooting 97

24 My Sound Post Setter 105

25 Repair Oddments 107

Punch Hole in Rib 107

Crack Alongside the Bass Bar 108

Small Splinters Missing from the Edge of a Newly Removed Top 108

Before Replacing a Top 109

Finishing a Fingerboard 109

26 Bass Thoughts 111

Special Thanks 113