Considering the number of stringed instruments I have, I don’t change strings that often. I estimate about 80 strings between them and hesitate to figure out what it would cost in time and money to do the whole lot! However, this afternoon, I decided it was time to get round to putting on the new double bass strings I got last autumn.

Previously, I’ve been using the strings that came with the bass and I’ve never changed upright bass strings before. However, after a bit of searching, I found a helpful video from Geoff Chalmers which ran through what I needed to know.

The job is now done, with a little help from an improvised device for turning the tuning mechanisms (a piece of dowel with a slit, held in my electric drill). That saved a lot of time as double bass strings have a lot of excess length and Mr Chalmers recommended not snipping them shorter (which would be common on guitar-type instruments).

Now, to play them in a bit and get them to the point where the tuning is stable.