The double bass banjo was first created around the turn of the century when the banjo became really popular. All sizes were made from banjo-mandolin to bass-banjo in order to create a banjo big band. The bridges rested directly on the skin which unfortunately created a dominant tone related to the distance between the rim and the bridge, which colored the tone of all the notes with the corresponding frequency, especially up high, making it undesirable musically, hence the pretty rapid disappearance of the instrument soon after I guess. With a normal banjo that tone is much tighter and higher and further away from the notes played so as not to interfere with pitch perception and also lend that characteristic ringing component of that twangin' tone that almost sounds like a reverb. It is also what makes the out of tune banjo so horrible and gives the edge to the attack so it can cut through and compete with the horns in the ragtime band. The physics of the acoustical properties of the banjo family were pretty thoroughly studied very early on and I can highly recommend Roger H Siminoff `the best sounding banjo' as a good book on how to make a good banjo.

  I have found a picture of a Leedy timpani bass produced in 1925. Oh how I would love to find a Timpani wrecking yard, or even a marching drum!

Thanks to the web site, go visit it, I liked it.

I also found this picture of Duke Davis and his double bass banjo and a bit of old film on U-tube;

Here is another two videos of other ones I found, the latter is the two string `Thunderbucket'

   You can hear the percussive qualities quite a lot more prominently than the real life tone when recorded like this but it gives you some idea of the tonal differences available compared to the conventional double bass. There are smaller resonator electric banjo bass type instruments more commonly available but without a pickup and some processing to bring out some bass in the signal chain they don't have much bottom end sound but that interesting harmonics/attack. If you check out Les Claypool playing one with Buckethead you can see the fun to be had.

Another approach I found whilst surfing the net is for a spring loaded counter-balancer behind the bridge like what this rather enterprising and clever man has done here at xstrange.com whilst making his six string fretted double bass banjo. He even made the drum rim himself.

   Another one I found was the 'jobass at jobass.com which is being played by none other than Victor Wooten. These use a standard fretted electric bass neck and stand on three legs. I think the drum is a snare. Les Claypool has one too they say. The sound clip sounded nice, very twangy and banjo flavoured.

 Alan from Kent in the UK has a site bassix.com where you can buy his great composite bodied bass banjo, my favorite one so far, check it out. 

   So you can see the idea lives on in some small pockets of the world and is continuing to evolve.

   The design I have used employs a grid work of cedar under the bridge, made strong enough to withstand the enormous tension by using carbon fibre reinforcement and still being light-weight. This component serves to make the skin stiff in the middle and progressively floppier towards the edges so as to make it behave something like a speaker cone without too dominant resonances, this is the crucial element of the design for getting a good tone and balance and has the biggest effect on tone/timbre etc. The tighter I dare to make the skin the louder and better it sounds and the drum needs to be well tuned too to really get the sound super nice.

   I suspect the wave fronts on the skin are mostly running around the circumference in a planar wave motion so there is no set wave-length (being circular.) In and out and tri-wave motions being relatively damped by the grid. The tone is very similar to a double bass only the attack is a lot livelier and the notes round out and fill out much quicker due the the lower soundboard mass which also gives considerably better volume. Bassist's when playing pizzicato on a normal double bass (as in jazz style) must accommodate by playing harder when they play fast to get the sound to project as loud, it sort of goes clicky and loses bass response. On the bass banjo short notes have more body and a faster attack which is ideally suited for pizzicato playing and especially country/rockerbilly/hillbilly slap techniques where instead of a fretboard click on the backbeat you get a nice big punchy thunking sound. The Double Bass Banjo is not bow-able (except for the A string), due to the lack of bouts .

   The first one I called Birtha and she is based around a 22 inch Premier kick drum made from rock maple and has a rock maple neck with a Honduran rosewood fingerboard. She has been repainted, reconditioned and slightly modified and is probably going to be sold when I get the old stickers off. She is sounding in fine fettle.

   Here is a photo of the the neck and the fretboard in process, the foot, the headstock and one of her after the finish was restored and standing by the banjo bass viol. Lamberti's in Melbourne has the individual machine heads from the Czech republic in case you were wondering where I get them. The Chinese ones I bought later sucked.

Here is a bit of her being played

   The next one I made I called Fatima. She came about after a friend who played double bass tried out Birtha and was most impressed and asked if I could make her one too... I told her, find a bass drum and I will make you one. Lone bass drums of quality are hard to find at a good price. She did manage to wangle a 40 inch (!) marching drum out of a local school where she taught music and so it began.

   The result was Fatima. The neck is from Blackwood (Acacia melanoxolyn,) the lattice is spruce and cedar. The drum is birch which I stripped and sanded for a wood finish (epic area to sand by hand at the time when we had only a small solar system.) The head was $200 which was a surprise and all together the parts came to about 1200. She is FAT! Bigger is definitely better for bass. The tone was much louder in the fundamental and more harmonically complex, I suspect due to the more modes of vibration possible with a large diameter skin. The top of the headstock is a figurative rufus bettong head (not the playboy symbol as some have suggested.)

   I am still searching for another 40" drum and waiting for the promised photo and sound sample...she hasn't been played hardly, languishing in storage so far, but may get out soon I am told and live in a school. I found two photos of her, one next to Birtha the day she was completed and one of me recording with her in the perch creek family jug band dome sessions of circa 2002.

    The next one is a Premier 18" floor tom with a Blackwood neck and has been completed. She was on display in the front window of The Bass Shop, Parramatta rd in Stanmore, Sydney. Thanks to Suzi and the lovely folks there for their support and advice, look no further for purchasing a Double Bass or getting repairs done, these people are the experts and very nice to deal with too. Playing their various antique basses (some 220 years old!) has been one of the highlights of my 08 year, if you are a bass freak like me it is heaven. 

   Al (who was the owner and a really great guy, sorely missed by those who knew him) once gifted me some old bridges to butcher to make the first banjo bass and gave great encouragement and advice on setups too. I only wished he could have seen one before he passed on to bass heaven. 

   Now it is finished; it has a nice new batter and a surprisingly bassy sound. I thought it might not be as wide as the bigger drums but as this drum is deeper (20 inches) it probably does have a similar open air resonance although the grid work reaches almost right to the edge which probably helped too. It has a bit more punch, as I suspected it would, and a very pleasing top end too yet is very fat on the bottom string. I was very happy with the sound. It's hard to describe just how different it sounds so I better get around to making a recording and getting them up on the site soon...

	These are the bits for the 22" so far; a stripped sanded and finished seventies Premier birch bass drum and the foot is made from Blackwood and maple. It has a New Guinea Rosewood tailpiece and the gridwork is mostly done too. Now for the neck...a piece of rare nightcap wattle awaits...

This is a photo of the 22 inch, the 24inch and the 34 side by side for comparison;

  These photos are the bits for the 24 inch one which was completed but regressed a bit at the hands of a gang of child vandals but is now repaired and complete again and a joy to play.

   The neck is made of Tasmanian Blackwood and the fingerboard and tailpiece are Indian Rosewood. The lattice design is an experiment and this pattern worked well. This drum is made of maple and it has a Blackwood and Moody Gum foot. I have had to fully stress test the new lattice for the first few months just too see how the skin stretching goes. I have had her strung up for a few years now and it has stretched and stabilised and sounds very, very nice; free and open, full sounding with plenty of bass and volume. If I play it really hard it rattles and distorts a little which can sound great in the right song. She almost makes Birtha sound a tad dull and tight by comparison, (although to be fair her strings are very old and grubby) Birtha sounds more like a real double-bass, not at all unpleasant but just not so over the top rich and full, probably because the gridwork is a bit more heavy, solid and stiff and maybe also because it is quite a bit smaller than the skin. I also raked the neck back a bit further which looks and feels nicer but mainly to get a bit more clearance around the bridge and see what happened which predictably increased the pressure on the bridge a lot resulting in a tighter skin so this might have helped. I also made the gridwork substantially lighter too which helps with the sound but there will be a limit to how far I can go there without it either breaking the lattice or stretching the skin too much. The tension in the strings on a double-bass is somewhere near equivalent to ten tonnes of weight hanging on the tailpiece, those strings really go when they let go! I jammed with a drumkit and didn't need an amp to be heard (and felt!) and when i dug in it really moved air. I am truly amazed at the resonance this one has, it has become my favorite.

This is a movie of her being played and this one here is another in a different style.I will get better sound samples happening one day...      Here are the bits of the 34" so far; Premier vintage marching bass drum in maple, (thanks toBilly Hydes Drumcraft for trading with me for some little hand drums I made, I love barter,) Brazilian Rosewood tailpiece and New Guinea Rosewood with Moody Gum foot almost done and the gridwork is well underway too.