Bass Of Tomorrow
Planet Earth’s most forward-thinking bass-makers interviewed by Hywel Davies. This month: Dr Jonathan Kemp of Kemp Strings
For most of us, the science that surrounds our basses often gets overlooked. We pluck a string; the string vibrates; the vibration makes sexy sounds; the audience shake their tail feathers; and it’s another job well done. Well, that simply isn’t enough for one of the top minds in music technology today. Dr Jonathan Kemp of the Music Centre and School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of St Andrews in Scotland has focused his research on the effects of inharmonicity in lower-sounding strings, helping to improve the tone.
But first, Doctor, please explain what inharmonicity is for us uneducated bassists? “Inharmonicity is the resonances of the string going increasingly sharp of the true harmonic series,” explains Kemp. “It leads to problems because it can sound as if more than one note is being played at once – even when you’re only playing one note. This tends to occur as you go up the neck.” Got that? Good, let’s move on.
Dedicating most of his time to research at the University, Kemp uses his findings in his own string business. The Kemp Strings range is the result of countless hours of scientific study, giving the phrase ‘string theory’ a whole new meaning. The journey began with guitar before moving to bass, he explains.
“What got me into it was using tremolo bars. It opened up a whole rabbit hole, which ended up with me getting some strings made. Once I got my electric guitar strings it was time to get to bass strings and start research into those. The thing about bass strings that needed to be worked out was inharmonicity – you want to minimise that. I wanted strings with taper on, to find out what that meant for harmonicity.”
He adds: “I wanted to come up with a formula for the optimum length of taper to get a particular reduction of inharmonicity. I actually found it was the other way around, because the taper increases the inharmonicity. During my research, I found that at the University of Edinburgh they already had a formula to work that out on piano strings. I produced my own code which predicted what size of lump you would need at the saddle that would result in inharmonicity being reduced. I was very happy, because the research has been there since the 90s for piano but was never picked up by any of the big companies.”
Packed as they are with enough science to send a colony to Mars, are Kemp’s strings the best on the market, we wonder? “They’re better than anything else,” he laughs. “I can quantifiably prove that they’re better – but are they better enough that they’re going to outweigh the competition? We’ll see...”