Double Bass and Beyond - Gary Upton of Upton Bass
Double Bass and Beyond - Gary Upton of Upton Bass
Guarding Your Bass: Navigating Extreme Temperatures and Humidity
Did you know that improper humidity levels can drastically shorten the lifespan of your beloved bass instrument? Join Gary from Upton Bass, as he uncovers the secrets to preserving the condition of your bass by maintaining stable humidity levels. In this episode, Gary delves into the science behind humidity control and its critical role in preserving the integrity of various bass components. From the neck and fingerboard to the body, discover how fluctuations can spell disaster for your instrument. He will also share why hygrometers are indispensable tools in the shop and how they can help you monitor and maintain a stable environment for your bass—even if it's made of plywood.
Traveling with your bass? Don't fret. Drawing from personal experiences, Gary will provide you with practical advice on how to manage your instrument's humidity on the go. Learn how to navigate extreme temperatures, use Dampits effectively, and why you should never leave home without a hygrometer. Whether you're adjusting the heating in a hotel room or prepping for an extended tour, these tips will ensure your bass remains in optimal condition, no matter where you are. This episode is a must-listen for every bassist dedicated to preserving the longevity and performance of their instrument.
Hey guys, it's Gary with UptonBase. Thanks for checking out our podcast. We just wanted to let you know that a lot of these podcast audio files are pulled from our videos. So if we're chatting and talking about certain features and things about bass topics and you're scratching your head going what's he talking about, hop on over to our YouTube also our coursesuptonbasecom, and oftentimes Instagram for partials and entire videos that will describe what you're hearing on these audio files. Again, thanks for listening and we'll talk to you soon. Hey guys, it's Gary here and in this video I want to talk about something very important humidity.
Speaker 1:At UptonBase we make our bases at 35 percent%. That's our approximate goal for the relative humidity in our bass shop. Now you might say that's a little low. You know humidor cigars so on and so forth are kept much higher. I've seen instrument makers that make their instruments at higher humidities, say 50% very famous guitar makers. Then their instruments get shipped around the world and they get used. They go on gigs, they get put in cars they unfortunately are in situations that are not 50% and they just blow up. Today we're at 38% on this little hygrometer or humidity sensor. You should get one of these. We're at 38%, I'm sure it'll go up because I'm holding it as I hold it. It's going up to 39. But we're at about 38%, something we regulate in the summertime with air conditioning and in the wintertime much less, because it's naturally drier here. That's why we like to make bases in this nice dry climate.
Speaker 1:Temperature is less important, but keep in mind, the higher you push the temperature in a building by heating the building, the lower the humidity goes, because the flame or whatever heating source you're using dries out the air. So if you're having a hard time keeping your base humidified or the space that your base is humidified in, take a look at your temperature. If it's running really hot, if you've got a wood stove going, you need to to be humidifying. So that brings me to my next point the best thing for your base. There's things called dampeds that go inside the base. I've seen a lot of different types of contraptions, but the best thing for your base is that the room the base is in is humidified. And again, for me it's 35, 40%. I'd much rather see you hit 35% all the time than the often college student thing, which is they've got a humidifier, they fill it up, they set it to 50. All week long. It's good they go home and see their parents. It empties on Saturday night. The base goes from 50% to 25, to 50, to 25. And that's making the vertical grain, as one of the things, the vertical grain of the top. Each time the humidity is changing it's quite literally swelling and contracting.
Speaker 1:We also have the maple in the neck, the ebony in the fingerboard material, the ribs, the bridge, all of the wooden componentry that makes the base. So this is where people will say well, I'll just get a plywood base and I don't need to worry about humidity. Right, wrong, the neck of your base is still maple. Its grain is oriented like. So the fingerboard of your base is ebony. These things are very sensitive to humidity, just as much so as the body. Now the damage won't be catastrophic. So you're not going to generally dry a base out. That's a plywood and the necks come so dry that there's a problem. But we will see a fingerboard come loose from a neck because the glue joint doesn't want to be stressed by the two contradicting pressures and the different swell and contraction of the grain that's in the ebony and the maple. So I want to again say just because you have a plywood base doesn't mean you can disregard humidity. If it's plastic plastic on the neck, plastic fingerboard plastic, top plastic, back and sides it's going to sound like plastic, but you're not going to have to worry about humidity, are you? The glues we put instruments together with are water-soluble. And keep in mind they're actually designed intentionally that if you have a back seam pop on a base or a top seam pop on a base, it's usually an indicator to us that the instrument's been subjected to some pretty harsh environment. You know this 28, 26, 29 inches across these lower bouts, if each grain only moves a tenth of a millimeter over hundreds of grains, only moves a tenth of a millimeter over hundreds of grains, you'll get a significant maybe one, two, three millimeter variability in the top, while the ribs themselves are going to stay in place and the top will come loose. Also, keep in mind, you have the pressure of the bridge pushing on that same object. That is changing in dimension. So in recapping, consistency is key.
Speaker 1:And I am someone I use the crap out of my bass. I'll leave my bass in the car. I shouldn't. I'll whip it out cold. I'll do whatever I need to do. But when you're moving from an environment to another environment.
Speaker 1:Say, you walk down the street with your bass in the bag and you're in Boston or New York City, or maybe you're down in Arizona. The bass is hot or the bass is cold. Let's use the cold example. You show up to the gig, the bass is in the bag. You've been walking outside for 20 minutes. You can put your hand inside the bag and go wow, my bass is freezing. You take it out of the bag and you just get ready to play.
Speaker 1:It's like a soda can on a summer day. It's going to condensate because it's cold and all the relative humidity in the building is going to settle on it. And it's not only going to settle on the outside, it's going to settle on the inside. So it might be okay one time, two times, five times. But after that repeated essential showering of the base with water, you're just helping it come apart. Never mind if it gets condensate, it's gonna absorb it into the wood. Then the wood's gonna be going, crazy going. Oh, we've had a nice drink and you shouldn't be surprised if something happens.
Speaker 1:It's about consistency. If you wouldn't leave a dog or a baby in the car for obvious other reasons, but if you wouldn't leave a dog in the car because it's too hot. Don't leave your bass in the car. Same thing with the cold. I will argue this. Cold is less of an issue, and when I say cold I mean 30, 40 degrees, negative 30 degrees terrible idea. But cold is less of an issue. Heat and the presence of heat and the way in which it will just dehydrate and destroy your instrument very quickly.
Speaker 1:Put a bass in a bag, throw it in a car, leave it in the sun, let the car get to 140 plus degrees. You're going to come back with damage or you might not know it then, but it's compounding. You've got the condensation, you've got the gig environment. The bass is designed in a way it's kind of a feat that it functions the way that it does, but it's designed in a way. It's kind of a feat that it functions the way that it does, but it's designed in a way that it really shouldn't be able to withstand the pressure that we have on it. They're all going to break. I guarantee you. All the basses are going to break. It's a terrible thing to say. It's a matter of when, and the number one determining factor in that is you and how you take care of your instrument.
Speaker 1:So, humidification we want to use a console humidifier with a large capacity. There's a few nice ones out there on the internet that have 13 and 15 gallon tanks. I'm not looking for a misting humidifier that's spraying mist into the air. We're looking for wicks with a fan. So you're looking for a wicking humidifier. And remember, we're keeping your bass out of the bag, we're keeping it in the environment, which is maybe our music room or our basement or whatever it is, and we're humidifying that air or dehumidifying.
Speaker 1:If you're up in the 70 range, you need to get the humidity out of the air. I will say the presence of humidity is less of a concern than the absence of humidity. I'll repeat that again the presence of humidity 50, 60, 70 is less of a concern than the absence of humidity. I'll repeat that again the presence of humidity 50, 60, 70% is less of a concern than the absence of humidity 10, 20%. That being said, 35 is that perfect number. So if you're setting your console to 40, I'm not asking you to go to 45, 50, 65, and everything's changing. Keep the heat modest, keep the humidity modest and you'll have an instrument that lasts for a long time.
Speaker 1:What are some of the indicators that a bass has been dried out or over-humidified. I'll often feel the joint between the fingerboard and the maple. This should be, with my eyes closed, seamless. It just should be soft as a baby's butt. There should be no seam there. When I feel a seam there, it's an immediate hmm, what's been going on with this base? If I see a seam that's open which I'll check by tapping the edges If I see a seam that's open, maybe there's a trauma in the rib or maybe just the base has been played for five, ten years and the top's been pumping and it's come loose. But it's usually an indicator that there's some dryness going on. I look for cracks by the F-holes. I'll also look for any kind of indication down here by the tailpiece that we might have saddle cracks or little things that are building tension into the instrument. I do like to see a little space by the saddle here so the top's not pinching that piece of ebony. And the same thing can actually happen around the neck joint. People like to imagine that the neck needs to be set so tight in the top. If it's overly tight you'll actually see cracks start to come here when the instrument gets too dry.
Speaker 1:People talk about flatbacks versus roundbacks, and flatbacks have a really bad rap because there were so many German basses made in the early 1900s and the late 1800s that were very thinly wooded. A well-wooded, well-braced flatback, in my opinion, is just as structurally sound and safe as a roundback. We use a diagonal brace across the backs Again, sorry for the fingerprints. We use a diagonal brace across the back and smaller piano-style bracing so that the bracing really can't control the back too much. The tension of the soundpost is pushing against the back. Roundbacks backs, you know they have a little bit more of a stretch to them.
Speaker 1:We've talked about this in others other of our videos, um, but I do want to say that this concept of flat back bases are problematic and round back ones aren't. That, in my opinion, is a very, very untrue statement and it's been made very true factually by the hordes and hordes of flatback German bases that were made too thin. So therefore, players looked in the marketplace and said well, that's a flatback, that's crack, that's a flatback, that's crack. Therefore, flatback bases crack, go back to humidity, go back to tension. Remember a lot of those bases were being played with steel strings when they were made to have gut strings on them so they're kind of being pushed beyond their limits. So those are big indicators for humidity.
Speaker 1:Really, it is something that between you and your bass, if you wanna keep your bass playing consistently, if you feel that your string heights have drastically changed, even though you've checked your bridge location, you've seen our bridge location videos and you have everything right and things are changing, or your fingerboard's doing something funny. I always turn to humidity first. Another one is you know you have purfling in the top and on a lot of instruments you have purfling on the back. If you start seeing seams and things open up here, that is always a telltale that a bass is being dried out and it's pretty intense. Instrument makers will see this and say, oh my gosh, gary, what are you talking about? But when you see the purfling channel start to open up and you have, you know essentially you could stick your finger in and pick the purfling out you know that someone's really drying their bass out.
Speaker 1:I like to make people paranoid because fixing and repairing new basses is not fun. It's the whole. An ounce of prevention you can save yourself thousands and thousands of dollars. Remember, this top is like a muscle and every time you pull on the strings. This top is moving and if it's dry it's brittle. It's easy to crack the top. Keeping it well humidified will serve you for so much longer and it'll give you an instrument that's predictable, so that when you're traveling and you're playing with it it's showing up able to do exactly what you intended it to do.
Speaker 1:So I know I mentioned ideal humidity and at your at-home setting or your studio setting where your bass lives, obviously you have to go on the road with your bass, even if it's just for the night, to a gig, and come home that day and typically myself in those settings, if I've been well humidifying my bass and I'm not torching the heat in my car and I'm not walking on the street freezing cold or boiling hot with my bass, I'm usually not going to worry intermittently, like if I've got to go do a gig up towards Boston and I've got to take my bass with me, I'll go. I'm not really that worried. I'm coming home. I'm not going to leave my bass sitting in the car in an ideal situation when I pull up at night. I'm going to bring it in the house, I'm going to leave it in the case.
Speaker 1:But if you've got to travel for a few days, or a lot of you guys out there that travel for weeks or months, my recommendation would, unfortunately, be damp. It is essentially a little silicon tube with a stopper on it that goes inside your base. This is something that you gently moisturize using some water. You towel it off and you put it inside the base. If you are traveling, it is a necessary evil. I want to make sure they're not dripping inside your base. Just because you're trying to protect your base from not drying out doesn't mean you need to saturate the ribs. If you get water inside your base, you're going to make the glue come apart, so we've got to be careful there. I've seen many an instrument damaged by dripping dampens.
Speaker 1:So if you're traveling, you're on the road. If you can humidify, if you can figure out what the humidity is, if you're in a hotel, if you can travel with one of these they're $5, $10. You can find out what the hotel room is, maybe get your base out, turn the heat down a little bit so that you're comfortable. If you're traveling in a very cold climate and you're in and out of hotels and it's cold and you're cold and you want to crank the heat up, just remember that humidity number is just going to drop the higher the heat goes. So I'd recommend if you had your loved one traveling with you and it was important that this loved one was able to show up healthy and comfortable each time you play it and not crack and blow up on you I'd recommend traveling with a hygrometer so that you can keep your eye on the relative humidity. So that's my flyover on humidity, and if you have any direct questions, please ask me and I'd be happy to guide you guys.