I play very little bass but have several friends that do. If I'm going to buy a bass I want one that will hold its own at one of our open jams. The uprights basses seem to be the only ones that can be heard at these. I imagine that one of the new National Reso-basses would do but I'm fairly set on the idea of a fretless upright bass. Besides, there's a nice corner of the room that just looks empty, perhaps in need of an upright.

Elderly, Musician's Fiend, and Mandolin Brothers have little to no info on upright basses. Can any of you provide links as to where I can compare models and perhaps buy one? Any brands/models that you recommend? What things should I look out for or avoid? I assume a solid top is as important as on an acoustic guitar. Or is it?

But they sound very good those upright basses simply becouse the huge body is build for those low tones. Acustic bassguitars have too small bodies to get a real loud and nice tone imho.

A good acoustic upright bass location:
World of Strings, 1738 E 7th St., Long Beach, CA 90813, (526) 599-3913 (doesn't seem to have a website).

I use a Fishman bridge pickup with a Fishman bass preamp on mine. Sounds very good, and I've never had a need for the f-hole condenser mic. I run mine through a Hartke 3500 1x15" or GK150S depending on the venue size.

As for pure acoustic volume, you need to set the action high to get good volume...but that makes it much harder to play. If you're playing 2-beat stuff that's ok. I play a lot of jazz, so I set my action fairly low, but then I usually have to use my GK amp for "normal" volume.

I have recorded direct from my preamp several times with this setup, and it sounds great.

Sometimes school districts in our area no longer need their instruments and these turn up in music stores for sale.

A violin player who wanted to learn fiddle in bluegrass band, handed me his bass, showed me where C was and that was it. I could play it, more because I had played violin and was used to no frets and gauging distances and listening for the right pitch. Initially, blisters are a problem.

However, if you plan to play yourself, I take wholeheared exception to every opinion that the upright bass is easy. It is not. Luckily, I'm just echoing most of the posts here.

Playing crappy is easy. Even playing simple, in tune and in time figures on the upright is difficult and will not come overnight.

The upright bass is a beautiful instument. I have heard many, many people demean it in bad bluegrass bands over the years.

Good luck with your quest. Your best bet will be that you can observe others who can play well in the relaxed privacy of your own home.

I might be missing something here. I understand that playing a fretless *in tune* is a learning curve. It's really the same issue I face with a fretless bass guitar, right? or, in a different octave, slide guitar?

I agree that learning to play slide guitar is difficult, and that there are many bad players. But how many here would counsel a newcomer to slide (albeit a veteran of fretted guitarring) "be careful about playing slide guitar, it's very difficult and you'll sound bad."

Now in terms of the physical act of playing upright strings vs a bass guitar, I understand that they are fundamentally different. Which is why I said I thought one could get up to speed on simple figures relatively quickly. But what it is about an upright that makes it hard to play in time? Tell me what I'm missing here.

I mean, c'mon. Give me a simple I-V bass line and I'm there in three minutes. My tone and intonation might not be exactly there, but then again they might. I've got experience with slide guitar and the short distance between heaven and hell. Why wouldn't that knowledge apply to an upright?

Or are we just using different frames of reference for "easy"? By comparison, playing regular fretted guitar is "much easier" than playing upright or slide. And yet, it's taken me 19 years to advance to the level of "reasonably competent beginner."

I never said ten minutes or two hours or two years on the upright would make me Charles Mingus. But that's not the standard, is it? Or do I need to be as good as Brozman before I can play slide on stage?

Then again, I'm one of those people who says acoustic and electric guitars are fundamentally the same instrument. Not everyone agrees with that.

I get that ergonomically the upright is challenging and requires building up some muscles that aren't required for an electric bass.

I also get that hitting tone and intonation without even a visual cue would be challenging. But, correct me if I'm wrong here, one could easily "cheat" when learning an upright by, say, putting some drafting tape on the side of the fretboard to mark the 3,5,7,9,12 positions. Horrors! say the purists. But whatever works, right? And we're still talking about building muscle memory.

That's how I trained my ear to tune a guitar in the first place. Play the note, listen, watch the tuner needle. When the tuner needle is straight up, listen to how that sounds. Learn to recognize that sound with our without the visual aid of the needle.

there are sounds you can make on an electric bass that you can't make on an upright. That doesn't mean an electric bass is harder, does it?

I'm not trying to demean upright players here or trivialize the challenge of playing an upright well. Clearly there's a lifetime of learning there.

I just don't see it as *qualitatively* different from learning any other stringed instrument.

put it this way. Take me, and a piano player of equal overall musical ability, knowledge, and experience. Give us both an upright and send us to the woodshed.

I've got a huge advantage, right? because I'm a guitar player and he's a piano player.

yes, there are differences between electric bass and upright. But these differences, huge from one perspective, become minimal in another frame of reference.

imagine a guitar player telling another "dude, a Les Paul is COMPLETELY different from a Strat. You canNOT just jump from one to the other."

So this discussion is analogous to telling an electric player that he might need to respect that an acoustic guitar might need a different approach. I can respect that.

Sure wish somebody would have told them hair-metal dudes that before they embarassed themselves on "MTV unplugged", though...

"dude, I can NOT get those three-step bends on this stupid Martin. These acoustic guitars suuk!"

I spent the weekend at the Riverhawk Rhythm Festival listening to the likes of Fred Eaglesmith, The Waybacks, Jim Lauderdale, Hindu Cowboys, Ray Bonneville, and The Burns Sisters. And when not listening to these folks The Punta Gorda Guitar Army and Neo-Beatnik Revolutionary Ensemble spent our precious time jamming around the campfire. I ended up getting the chance to play several upright basses. It is hard but do-able. The learning curve is steep and I'm definitely at the bottom of it.

I met one gal who had a half size Englehardt that she got at a school sale for a $100.00! I need to find one of those school sales. Her's was nicely beat up as well. A shinny new upright just looks...well ugly like a brand new pair of unworn tennis shoes.

I've researched this topic a bit since I last posted and thought I would share.

Information on the upright bass is relatively hard to come by. It helps to avoid searching under the title of "acoustic bass" as you will mainly find info on fretted small bodied instruments. Its better to search under words like "upright bass," "double bass," or "string bass."

You can buy a brand new 3/4 size upright on Ebay for $299.00. But UPS won't ship instruments of this size so expect to pay up to $200.00 in shipping!

4/4 upright basses are almost nonexistent and are considered almost impossible to play by anyone of smaller stature than drDAve. You want a 3/4 size if you want to play Bluegrass or any other kind of music.

Most uprights less than $2000.00 are made of laminates. From my discussions with upright players there isn't as much snobbery towards solid topped instruments as you might expect. Of course, I didn't sample a large group of jazz or classical players who might tend to disagree.

Like any special interest there is a magazine devoted to it. Check it out at http://www.doublebassist.com

I did find a nice acoustic upright bass with a removable neck for plane travel! http://www.gelbass.com/PG_PRODEMRNBS4.HTM

Bob Gollihur has a website for all things double bass including a forum at http://www.gollihur.com/kkbass/basslink.html

Occassionally we are joined at the thursday night park jam by a trio that includes a guy who plays a "Jamaican Beat Box." This appears to also be called a Bass Kalimba. I think Peter Joseph Burtt might find this interesting. Here's a link for construction details. http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/bk.gif

For all things Washtub then go to The Washtub pass page at http://tubotonia.freehomepage.com/Tublinks.html

I checked out some of the homemade washtub basses and am strongly considering this 4 string upright. http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/db.htm
It would seem to me that this design could be improved upon by shortening the neck (but still maintaining the scale) so that the bridge is in the very center of the washtub. I'm interested in seeing what Charles Freeborn or some of you other amateur luthiers think of this design. This looks like something I could build. The bass player in Split Lip Rayfield plays a 2 string fretless made from an old ford gas tank. I'll try to post a link later.

Tim Mitchell, I have had other folks tell me the same thing. For kicks and giggles I'm strongly considering ordering the 18 inch scale DeArmand (Formely made by Guild) Ashbury. This fretless electric uses thick silicone strings. I remember playing one of these back in the late 80's or early 90's and it sounded pretty good. You can buy one from Elderly for $300.00. Check it out at http://www.elderly.com/fmic/items/DAB-BLK.htm

While searching the major chains I learned that Mars Music is going out of buisness. I picked up a couple of nice books and a CD for 40% off. They close doors permanently on December 28, 2002.

Sam Ash seems to be the only major chain that carries uprights for as little as $699.00 with gig bag and bow for a "Carlo Robelli" string bass. I found a new laminate "Struenal" in Tampa for the same price that has me tempted.

And here's a photo of the 4 string upright washtub bass that I'm thinking about building. http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/db2.jpg

Yeah, Hoodadoo, I've heard similar things. Sam Ash bought out Thoroughbred Music here in Florida. It has not been an improvement so far. I'm not a big fan of big music store chains but I thought Mars was the best of the bunch in my area. There's rumors of a Guitar Center replacing it.

http://www.guitarseminars.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/009278.html

I don't think that you should compare one instrument, eg, electric fretted bass to stand up fretless bass. Of course they are different but the problem I see in this discussion is comparing the two. You can't play both a once so just foprget about the one and play the other solamente.

This moight serve as an analogy: People in the USA who use standard or English measure (inches, feet, quarts, bushels, etc.) always complain about how difficult the metric system is. In fact the metric system is much easier. The problem is that they are always trying to compare and convert between the two, using one as a referrence to understand the other, which is very complicated. All they have to do is just forget entirely about the standard or English system (whatever that properly call it) and and just look at the metric system by itself. It is as simple as counting to ten, and counting to 100 by 10's.

I have played around with these big basses in music stores and I think they are beautiful, I would love to bring one home. I seem to have been able to find the spacing of the notes very quickly, but I may have a natural ear for it. Maybe the fretboard players have been spoiled or become too dependant upon frets and lost much of that sense of hearing (or listening) to what they play. The simple solution would be to take away the frets and not ry to compare.

As far as 'different position' stand up being more difficult that is only relative to the comparison of playing a guitar, which I think is irrelevent.

In my humble opinion with very limited experience, I think you just need to take the instrument and play it and forget about comparing it with anything else.

I had to comment on this topic because I just love those big stand up basses.

I also have big thin hands and long fingers which probably made it a easier to play.

I imagine that there are instructions/techniques that make it physically easier to play as well.
I don't find them intimidating at all and I wish that I could afford to have one.

I would also like to have a Tuba and a Baritone horn for bass parts. (old blues, funeral dirges and stuff) I was impressed with that New Orleans funeral scene in the movie 'Easy Rider'.

I am wandering off track, very tired.

Anyway, I just knew everyone would be fascinated by knowing that.

Ta ta,

Have you considered an Ashbory Bass

Needs amping but it is affordable, fretless AND playable by a guitarist.

And can sound really close to a double bass.

http://www.largesound.com/ashborytour/

Sound bite http://www.largesound.com/ashborytour/sound/brobob.mp3

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scott Jacobs:
Tim Mitchell, I have had other folks tell me the same thing. For kicks and giggles I'm strongly considering ordering the 18 inch scale DeArmand (Formely made by Guild) Ashbury. This fretless electric uses thick silicone strings. I remember playing one of these back in the late 80's or early 90's and it sounded pretty good. You can buy one from Elderly for $300.00. Check it out at http://www.elderly.com/fmic/items/DAB-BLK.htm

---

Man, its been over two years since I first posted this link and Elderly is still selling them for $300.00!

Being curious, I just did a quick google search on Chinese made upright bases with lots of interesting results- for example here is the first site that came up. I will just quote one comment from the page:

>>"i have a cremona that in my opinion is the best
bass that i have ever owned , i have owned a
50's model kay bass and man this cremona really
blows the doors off of that kay ...also i have
played many engleharts and i still think that
this cremona rocks and has more volume and tone
than any other upright that i have
played...............in my honest opinion the
cremona bass that i own is far the best bass
that i have ever had .....just my honest humble
opinion."<<

http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~dhavlena/cremona.htm

I think that you should look into Chinese made instruments. I understand that they use high tech German presses to press the parts for the bodies and have an abundance of high quality woods that have been exhausted in other parts of the world, so the results of these modern products are of very good quality.

Incidently, I read somewhere that the older Chinese made violins had an unnacceptable sound to the western violinists who were used to the 'strad' sound and in part that was because the Chinese were accustomed to the Chinese stringed instrument sounds and so their ear and concept of how a great violin should sound was different from the western ear. I understand that this difference is evidently no longer present these days. Some real "world musician" types of violinists might be be intrigued with that Oriental sound from the older Chinese violins. I don't know. The main point is that they are made very well these days

In any event the Chinese made Upright Basses come into the price catagory of me being able to save up enough money to buy a NEW one, where as before it just simply wasn't possible to even think about having a used one, so this instrument is now on my list of instruments that I "must have".

[edited for a few spelling errors]

:-)
nsolitude, near Seattle, WA