Great bass recorder

[clarification needed] The great bass recorder has up to seven keys, which serve to facilitate access to the finger holes.

Both are of the Renaissance type, despite the fact that the instrument of Hieronymus F. Kynseker [de] (1636–1686) is provided on the head piece with high baroque ornaments.

[citation needed] The great bass recorder requires a key for the bottom note, which was protected by a so-called fontanelle.

The instrument is only described in the Syntagma Musicum of Michael Praetorius (1619) and Marin Mersenne (L'Harmonie Universelle, Paris 1637).

The problem of the minor second above the bass tone, which can be achieved only by half-holing and which not every recorder player can get used to, is not solved by Mersenne's innovation by analogy to other instruments.