The history of bass tuning also reveals many interesting details about the instrument’s development.

One of the historical predecessors of the modern double bass, the violone, was often tuned:

D – G – C – E – A – D

This tuning reflects a typical viol-family system, where most intervals are tuned in perfect fourths, with a major third placed in the middle.

Before the 19th century, bass instruments were frequently built with three strings tuned A–D–G. Both Domenico Dragonetti and Giovanni Bottesini, two of the most influential bass virtuosi in history, performed on three-string instruments.

The use of fourths tuning in the bass can be explained in several ways, but it also reflects the instrument’s historical relationship to the viol family. Discussions of bass tuning are incomplete without mentioning the Viennese bass, which followed a completely different tuning system—though that subject deserves a more detailed discussion elsewhere.