Double Bass and Bass Guitar
For bassists and music lovers
Portrait of Philip Baumgarten by Maarten Welbergen
I am a bassist
Welcome! Let me first introduce myself: my name is Philip Baumgarten and I heve been playing the double bass and bass guitar for a long time. I play jazz and genres akin to jazz. If you are interested in my music, please go to the Baumgarten bands page. I added information about three of my bands to this site.
The bass
The bass is what this site is about. There are five pages about the bass: Special Basses, Double Bass Heads, Double bass building, aluminium double bass, Bass Lessons and the Bass Movie and Bass Gallery page that is renewed every week. There also is a page about my bands ans a discography. And there is a Dutch version of this site.
Izabel
The new album Izabel by Pot, Baumgarten & van Astenrode is out! More information.
My setup
I use a Hevos amplifyer and box for my double bass playing. The box and amplifier for my bass guitars were made by Van der Kley. My bass guitars were built by Herman Mulder of Mulderbass. There was a time I did not enjoy playing bass guitar so much: my double basses sounded great and my bass guitars did not. Now I can play on the beautiful bass guitars Herman made for me (fretted and not fretted), I’m having a lot of fun with them.
Czech double bass
Nowadays I play on a wooden double bass that was probably built in the Czech Republic. I’m very happy with the way it sounds and plays. Until recently I played on a carbon fiber bass by Cosi. It has 5 strings, with a low B string and those extra low notes can be great. Right now I prefer the woody, clear and powerful sound of my wooden bass. I like that instrument a lot. I do miss the low B string though.
A lot of work has been done on my bass
It is not the same bass it was when I got it. Quite a lot has been changed. Some changes were okay, others were not and then the bass had to be changed back all over again. I’m happy with the current state of affairs, so I won’t be changing anything anymore. But were it not for the changes, this would not be the great instrument it is today.
I have had the help of Jurgen Preyer, who made the top of the bass thinner. He scraped off an enormous sack full of wood chips! That made the sound much more direct and full. It still is a heavy bass, but it is lighter than it was and that is very important for someone who’s back is not very strong, like me.
Dirk Jacob Hamoen devised beautiful tuning machines that work very well. Good tuning machines are important; if they do not turn easily, it is vert tiring to change strings. I used to have very tiresome tuning machines and that was not nice.
Ferdinand Rikkers adjusted the height of the strings for me. This is not only important for the playability, but also for the sound. Every height of the strings sounds different. in the old days, when amplification of the double bass was a huge problem, the action of the strings was high. That gave a loud, hyumpy sound. Not a modern sound, but these bass players made the most of it.
Contact
You can contact me by mailing me.
