tonal tail piece, any experiences

[GoPractice]

Most things new are worth a glimpse, while good reviews worth a look.

While I wish them good luck in their continued research, will we see how this pans out? Most carbon lay up in early production is by hand. And working with the fibre is not very fun. So the cost is reasonable. The first one I can get used, at a reasonable price, I will buy and try. 

Professor White's approach should be interesting to most as if one wants to play with tailpieces, this is the way for many play with the idea and see if it works on their particular instrument with their particular choice of set up.

In the audio world, in sights occur during play. Easy stuff. So the Gluey method works on tailpieces too. I have drilled and carved cavities into tailpieces and have added weights. One silly instance was when a student took off their metal tuners on their teachers request, the instrument lost focus and some power. Though it took a few hours to discover why, it turned out to be some mass at the tailpiece. So we put back the a- string tuner and added some mass under the tailpiece. 

I am sure the student would have played around the problem given time but the teacher feared that playing a public concert with 4 metal tuners on the tailpiece would not be a good thing. It's just image? Taking the tuners off was easy enough but the change in sound was pretty drastic and re- checked the adjustments. One of the few times I truly panicked. If the teacher had made the change much earlier, the student could have dealt with the issue.

Lightweight 3D printed tailpieces are interesting too for concept but they do break easily.

[baroquecello]

4 hours ago, PhilipKT said:

But you are a perceptive musician can you tell me whether you changed your strings, and what was the improvement? Was it the volume, or clarity, or purity, as in fewer wolfs?

The main difference is playability. The strings respond quicker and better over the whole dynamic range. I also believe the dynamic range has widened somewhat. The sound is more resonant and open, somewhat brighter, but not shrill. Before using this tail piece, there always was a string that was less or more prominent than the others; g honked and d was subdued. That mysteriously is a thing of the past; The tail piece evens out the sound on both cellos I had it on. The wolf tone has not become less prominent, but is more focused on one pitch, and less of a range of tones. I have tried different strings, and all of them have their own characteristics, but the positive changes I've noticed are the same, independent of the string brand. 

[David Burgess]

4 hours ago, PhilipKT said:

I like the tailpiece on my cello, which is quite heavy and made of Cocobolo wood.

One day long ago I changed the tailpiece to a B’ois Harmonie. I’ve bought dozens of those for my students’ cellos They have always made an improvement, but they sounded so horrible on my cello I immediately put the original tailpiece back on and left it there, so I’m a bit skeptical.

That's the thing: Different accessories (and strings, and bows) produce different outcomes on different instruments. One size doesn't fit all.

[baroquecello]

8 hours ago, David Burgess said:

That's the thing: Different accessories (and strings, and bows) produce different outcomes on different instruments. One size doesn't fit all.

That has been my experience as well. But I have to say that I have yet to meet a cellist that tried a ConCarbo and didn't notice a positive difference. I don't know any cellist who rejected such a tail piece. My father in law, who is a cellist and instrument collector, and is otherwise very skeptical regarding the tweaking of setup, tried one and then decided to put them on his six cellos he uses regularly. I really recommend trying the tail piece.

 

Btw I tried a fench model with carbon fibre fine tuners, not the titanium fine tuners, with which I have no experience.

[Deo Lawson]

We need someone to make an atonal tailpiece now so we can compare.

Perhaps then soloists could switch to an atonal tailpiece for contemporary music, and back to a tonal tailpiece for classical music!

[David Burgess]

1 hour ago, Deo Lawson said:

We need someone to make an atonal tailpiece now so we can compare.

Perhaps then soloists could switch to an atonal tailpiece for contemporary music, and back to a tonal tailpiece for classical music!