Last Saturday I met Steve of SMR Double Basses and one of his very talkative cats (the other guy went upstairs). I called him that morning saying I'm building a double bass and I haven't ever played one and I would love to pick your brain if you're cool with that—and he was!
I found SMR online a while back and was surprised to see that it's based in Evanston—right around the corner. It's a funny thing, Skokie has a good amount of violin shops, but they don't deal with the double bass. I've reached a point in my build where I really need to get up close and personal with some good basses and see what makes them tick. Steve was nice enough to show me all the basses in his workshop which resides on the lower level of his 2-flat.
I walked around plucking the A strings of basses from Germany, China, the Czech Republic… even some from Chicago and it was amazing how distinct each were. I promised to shower him with tedious and detail-focused questions as my build progressed and he seemed pretty OK with that. We said adios and took off for our respective gigs…
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