Calgary, AB - Each Ham Double Bass is a unique hand-crafted masterpiece, with innovations that make the bowed string instrument remarkably "player friendly" and unmatched in sound quality. Now the builder of this newly designed bass, virtuoso instrument maker James Ham of Victoria, B.C. has received a prestigious Manning Innovation Award.

Ham, 52, is a luthier and violinist who has repaired string instruments such as violins, guitars, cellos and basses for 30 years. He started constructing his own double basses after realizing the big concert instrument, with a reputation for being very difficult to play, could be dramatically improved.

The standard of bass playing has risen tremendously in the past few decades, Ham says. But due to the way most old double basses had been designed, built and repaired, "There isn't anything harder in the world than playing a bass well."

Ham's many innovations include an adjustable neck that allows bass players to easily lower or raise the string height to accommodate ever-changing environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity. He also designed new mechanisms that enable quick string changes and more precise tuning.

Each Ham Double Bass has a streamlined body shape that gives the player easier access to the fingerboard. The instrument's sides are made of two wafer-thin but very dry and pliable maple veneers, with a layer of silk sandwiched in between. This innovation produces a bass whose sides are only half the thickness of many other basses, yet which resists cracking and projects a magnificent sound. Ham always uses locally available wood, such as British Columbia's big-leaf maple and Sitka spruce.

"It might be one tree in 100,000 that has what you need," he notes.

Ham spends more than 500 hours crafting each double bass. He has built 10 on commission and has a waiting list. Each instrument sells quickly for about $38,000 to the world's finest musicians.

Gary Karr of Victoria, acclaimed by Time Magazine as "the world's leading solo bassist," commissioned the first Ham Double Bass. Karr was so impressed, he toured the international concert circuit with his Ham instrument, choosing it over his rare double bass built in 1611 by Amati brothers Antonius and Hieronymous, the father of Nicolò who taught violinmaker Antonio Stradivari.

Karr says Ham has created "not only a double bass which has a sound that compares favourably with the great instruments of the past, but is the first truly user-friendly double bass on which I have ever played."

Ham, who plans to write a textbook on how to build the double bass, says: "I want these ideas to be used . . . I'd like some day to have instruments like this in all of the schools."

Ham has won the Edper Foundation $5,000 Manning Innovation Award. The annual awards program has recognized leading Canadian innovators since 1982 with $135,000 in prize money each year. The Manning Innovation Awards Foundation will announce all five of this year's recipients, including the $100,000 Manning Principal Award, throughout September prior to the annual awards gala Oct. 1 in Calgary.