Need More Low End? Make Way For The Octobass

I love listening to a symphony orchestra and getting to feel that amazing low end coming from nothing but acoustic instruments. For some composers, that low end isn’t enough sometimes, and then they turn to the octobass, an extremely large and rare bowed string instrument that was first built around 1850 in Paris by the French luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume.

The octobass is indeed a real instrument and not just an attention getter. It has three strings and is essentially a much larger version of the standard double bass as it stands between 11 and 12 feet tall, or about twice the height of a double bass.

Since it has such an extreme fingerboard length and the strings are as thick as power cables, it can’t be played like a typical bass. As a result, the musician stands on a platform and plays it using a system of levers and pedals that engage metal clamps that are that act like frets along the neck.

Even its bow is different from a normal bass bow, being quite a bit larger and shorter.

The three open strings are tuned C₀, G₀, and C₁, or 2 octaves below a cello. The fundamental frequency of the lowest C note is an incredible 16Hz. The vibrations of the strings are so slow that you can actually see them oscillate without any electronic help, which makes for a great learning tool.

Reportedly only 7 instruments are in the world today. Vuillaume built 3 of them, two of which still exist. The rest are replicas that are mostly kept in museums, although the Montreal Symphony Orchestra has one, as you can see from the graphic on the left.

The octobass video below comes from the Musical Instrument Museum (or MIM) in Phoenix, AZ.

---