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Upright Bass Information:
My foray into upright bass started a few years back when I watched the local classified ads for an old bass and ran across a month-old Englehardt C1 with Pro-tec gig bag for $500. Needless to say I purchased it in all of its direct-from-factory splendor. I upgraded the bridge, made and installed bridge height adjusters, replaced the tailpiece holder with a synthetic cable type, replaced the factory strings with Helicore Pizzicatos, and modified the tuner installation by adding oilite bushings on the shaft end of all four tuners opposite the gear plates. Instant transformation into a very playable and decent sounding bass. It suits me, at least.**************** ADDING TUNER BUSHINGS TO AN ENGLEHARDT BASS ****************
Here is a close up of one of my Englehardt tuners showing the oilite bushings I added to improve their functionality. The tuners canted slightly when brought to pitch, and adding the bushings at the end of the tuner shafts made the tuning very easy, as well as holding pitch much better than when the tuner post would flex under tension. The bushings were found in the stock selection available from my local hardware store.
**************** HOMEBREW PIEZO TRANSDUCER FOR BASS ****************
Here's a shot of my home-brew piezo bridge transducer fastened to the bridge with a low-mass nylon screw and wing nut. It works about as well as any bridge transducer I've heard, and cost me about $15 to put together. There is information and a drawing of how it is assembled at the electric violin page which you can reach by clicking here.In use, it is attached and the wing nut is tightened until the output to your amp increases to an acceptable level while maintaining good tone. Over-tightening will increase the output substantially, but the tone will suffer. Tighten or loosen the wing nut to find a good balance point. Different bridge attachment points obviously produce different tone also. A little trial and error will produce a pretty good sounding upright tone. As with any piezo, feeding to a preamp before continuing to an amp or PA system will improve the tonal quality.
Here is a shot of the actual transducer as built. It is fashioned from the ubiquitous Radio Shack piezo element, 10 feet of George L cable, a few bits of scrap ebony, epoxy, and a 1/4" output plug.
**************** COMPACT UPRIGHT BASS, ELECTRIC (yup, "CUBE") ****************
Shown below is a EUB design I've been playing with. It has a 3" body thickness and folds to 22-1/2" by 48" for easy transport. When the body is in playing position the overall length is 59" not counting the endpin length. When this bass leaves the drawing board and joins the herd I'll post pictures and a full downloadable pdf construction drawing here.
I've thought long and hard about all of the pros and cons relating to a EUB build, especially dealing with the scale vs. size vs. string cost vs. appearance issues. I'm waffling on this one a bit at present, as I have not decided exactly what I want to put my efforts into building.
Why would anyone want a EUB? There are a few good reasons that I can think of. A compact and easy to transport design is the biggest consideration, and if you're using a bass in a live performance situation it becomes problematic to achieve relatively high volume without feedback or poor sound.
I love playing my acoustic upright, but the practical considerations of hauling it around make it a less than attractive proposition when someone asks me to play bass for them. That's why I'm stirring this one around a bit. If I'm going to put all the effort into making one, I want to address all of the usual shortcomings of the standard EUB designs. There are some commercially produced EUBs that are close to what I would want, but still not ideal. I'm glad that I haven't fallen in love with any of those, as they also tend to be a little too pricy for me. So that leaves designing and building my own. The great thing about the build your own option? If you don't like it there's only one person to blame.
Stepping off my soapbox, it's back to the design issues and what I'm looking at as a solution:
1. Appearance
This one is not too difficult, as my main focus is to produce something with the looks of a traditional bass but downsized a bit. I'm not personally a big fan of the usual EUB "bass-on-a-stick" look.
2. Size
The big factor here is not the size of the instrument, but bulkiness when transporting it. My solution is a body that rotates on a central pivot point to shorten the instrument considerably for travel without requiring slacking the strings or neck removal.
3. Cost of strings
This one ties in to the whole sound issue, but suffice it to say that I have an aversion to paying $100 for strings when I play so many different instruments. I'm also looking for good magnetic properties for the use of the magnetic pickup so that leaves out many of the standard choices in upright strings. Since I'm working with trying to make the design as travel-friendly as possible I'm going with a 34" scale, so the string choice is a factor here also. A nice set of flatwounds should fit the bill nicely. At the present time it looks like I'll go with a 34" scale using Rotosound long scale flat wound strings.
4. Sound
Arguably, the biggest factor. If your bass doesn't sound like a reasonable facsimile of a standard upright then you might as well just take up the tuba.
In my attempt to reach the stated goal there will be two separate output jacks for signal flexibility. The main output jack will feed from an end of fingerboard magnetic split coil hum cancelling single pole pickup and the other from a piezo transducer mounted to a "soundboard" panel housed within the center section and acoustically coupled to the bridge area to add in a simulated body tonality. The idea is to blend these two signals for and acceptable tone, but the magnetic output could be used as a stand alone source when you just want lots of "quick and dirty" bottom.
I've started accumulating parts for this project, so I've got tuners, strings, and a few other items on hand. Now I just need to prototype! So many instruments, so little time...
Stay tuned!
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Please visit my other website designed to provide information on musical instrument construction. There are free plans as well as construction tips and techniques available at the present time.
Rudy's Sketchbook of Musical Instrument Plans, Ideas, and Inspiration
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