James Ham took careful note of many bad double basses during 30 years of repairing every kind of string instrument. As a violinist with a keen appreciation of musical history, he knows it takes not only talent and practice to produce excellent music - it also takes a topnotch instrument.

The double bass got its name because it originally "doubled" the bass line, one octave below, in an orchestra. Unfortunately, the instrument also acquired a reputation as the "black sheep" of string instruments, Ham says. "It's tremendously difficult to play, just from a physical point of view."

To make matters worse, many old basses were built fairly crudely of materials inferior to those used in then-more popular stringed instruments, such as violins, violas and cellos. Aging basses are prone to cracking due to wood shrinkage, and many were damaged as they were lugged around.

"Most old basses these days have the insult of poor-quality repair work, which makes them that much harder to work on. That makes the best craftsman even less interested in working on them."

As a luthier (French for "lute maker") or maker of string instruments, Ham decided the double bass deserved better, especially since more and more musicians, such as contemporary bass soloist Gary Karr of Victoria, were taking the music to new heights.

Ham handcrafted a newly designed double bass for Karr in 1995. Since then, Ham has developed at least seven major innovative features that aren't found on standard double basses.

Perhaps most significant, especially to players, the Ham Double Bass solves a constant problem of the instrument's tone changing, as the top swells or shrinks due to fluctuating temperature and humidity. In the past, bass makers have tried to overcome this problem by making the instrument's bridge adjustable. "Unfortunately, the bridge is probably the most critical single piece of wood there is, in terms of determining the quality of sound that the instrument will produce," Ham notes.

Karr, with a curriculum vitae that includes performances with the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the London Philharmonic and the Paris Philharmonic, has likened playing on a bass with the old style adjustable bridge to "washing your feet with your socks on."

Ham moved the adjustment function away from the sound-sensitive bridge, to the bass's non-resonating rigid upper block, which he also redesigned and strengthened. He devised a screw mechanism that slides the neck up and down, the way the tiny wood and metal "frog" slides along a string player's bow. The player can adjust the bass's string clearance in seconds, by inserting a key in a small hole in the instrument's back. "You just turn (the key) and change it and keep on playing."

Karr says the innovation "is such a major contribution that I predict it will eventually become as common a part of the instrument as a bridge."

Mary Rannie, principal bassist of the Victoria Symphony Orchestra and proud owner of the second bass built by Ham, says: "Playing Bach on lowered strings is completely different from Beethoven or Tchaikovsky on higher strings, and both are possible on the Ham bass."

Basses are notorious for the time it takes to change just four strings - at least half an hour of "hard labour." Ham redesigned the string-holding rods in the instrument's peg box, enabling a player to change a string in a few minutes without working up a sweat. He also reconfigured the traditional tuning mechanism, incorporating more teeth in the gear wheels. "The resulting innovation allows for much more accurate tuning and a mechanism that is much smoother to handle," Karr says.

Ham also crafted a more elegant, height-adjustable end pin (the metal shaft projecting out the bass's bottom). He strengthened the back of the bass's body and streamlined its awkward "shoulders.

The design makes the upper register (the part of the bass that requires leaning over and reaching the left arm over as well) easily accessible, Rannie says. "The low shoulders make this bass suitable for both solo and orchestral music, because the entire range of the instrument is so easily performed."

Another Ham innovation is hidden in his bass's "ribs" or sides. They are constructed of two wafer-thin but very dry and pliable maple veneers, with a layer of silk sandwiched in between. This produces an instrument whose ribs are only half the thickness of many other basses, yet resists cracking and projects a magnificent sound.

Ham always uses locally available wood, such as British Columbia's big-leaf maple, and Sitka and Engelmann spruce, to build his instruments. "The properties of the maple and spruce that we have in this part of the world are, I think, as good as if not better than wood from anywhere else in the world."

He faces a constant challenge, however, in finding just the right wood that captures all those properties, such as colour, figure and size. "It might be one tree in 100,000 that has what you need."

Ham grew up in Augusta, Ga., but moved to Canada with his family in 1965. He has been fascinated by the way things work since he was a child. "I took apart a lot of things . . . bicycles, clocks, radios, anything I could get my hands on."

He studied industrial education and mechanical engineering, but is essentially self-taught as an instrument maker. He learned bow making and bow repair from cellist Francis Rutherford.

In his workshop, where he utilizes a collection of rare handmade Haida native tools, Ham takes the trial-and-error path to innovation. Sometimes he makes a sketch of an idea he has been pondering, and "occasionally a vision comes to me and I just start visualizing how to do it in my head."

Ham spends at least 500 hours handcrafting each of his double basses, a meticulous process akin to sculpture. "The most difficult part is to make the little decisions along the way, about the choice of wood or the graduations or a number of other little details that have everything to do with the sound."

His creations sell quickly, for about Cdn$38,000 to the world's finest musicians. He recently left Victoria's Old Town Strings shop, where he did instrument repairs, to focus on building his basses.

Since he can only construct two to four double basses a year, he plans to share his ideas by writing a textbook on building the bass. "I'd like some day to have instruments like this in all the schools," he says, so children are encouraged to play rather than discouraged by not having a decent instrument.

For now, Ham gets his greatest satisfaction from seeing and hearing his double bass being played. "It's getting the sound and seeing the response of players when they find they can do things that they couldn't before. The instrument becomes an extension of their musical mind, as opposed to a barrier."

Each year, Manning Innovation Awards presents $135,000 in prize money, distributed among four leading Canadian innovators, as well as $20,000 among eight Canada-Wide Science Fair winners. During the past two decades, the Foundation has awarded more than $2.75 million to encourage and recognize Canadian innovators.