Anyone had a good experience with bow and EUB?

[dougal]

[quote name='jakesbass' post='172480' date='Apr 8 2008, 06:16 PM']Anyone had a good experience with bow and EUB?[/quote]

I can honestly say that I haven't. I've been playing my Atelierz Mini-CUB (http://www.atelierz.co.jp/cubpassive.htm) with a bow as I'm still searching for a decent upright that isn't going to cost the earth.



The first thing is actually bowing: for some reason I have much more control over an acoustic: the bow tends to run away much less. Dynamics are easier etc.

Secondly is the sound. It's REALLY quiet through the on-board magnetic pick-up. I've attached a cheap piezo to the bridge which makes the overall level (arco vs. pizz) much more level.

Interested to see how people's mileage varies: I know the Yamaha Silent Bass is designed to be bowed...

[Bassworm]

[quote name='dougal' post='172637' date='Apr 8 2008, 09:57 PM']I can honestly say that I haven't. I've been playing my Atelierz Mini-CUB (http://www.atelierz.co.jp/cubpassive.htm) with a bow as I'm still searching for a decent upright that isn't going to cost the earth.



The first thing is actually bowing: for some reason I have much more control over an acoustic: the bow tends to run away much less. Dynamics are easier etc.

Secondly is the sound. It's REALLY quiet through the on-board magnetic pick-up. I've attached a cheap piezo to the bridge which makes the overall level (arco vs. pizz) much more level.

Interested to see how people's mileage varies: I know the Yamaha Silent Bass is designed to be bowed...[/quote]

I found my old NS CR4M reasonably easy to bow (Even with my abysmal bowing technique) and the sound was fairly convincing, especially with the piezo orientation set correctly. But I know what you mean, there's that indefinable something in the sound of a 'proper' acoustic bass when bowed. I get far more pleasure sawing away at my acoustic upright (Not sure about my listeners though) than I did with the EUB.

As far as the control goes, could there be a difference in the way your EUB stands and therefore a slight change in the ralationship between your bow and the strings, compared to when you play a traditional bass? I found I could never get the NS to stand in exactly the same way as my acoustic bass due to the different body shape, endpin set up, balance etc. Perhaps that slight difference in position is enough to affect the way you attack the strings?

Mike E.

[jakenewmanbass]

Thanks for taking my question into a thread Dougal I think it could be a useful reference point for EUBists. I think what you have both said is what I was getting at in the other thread, the purpose of a body of a bass is to amplify the vibration of the string and of course it is by it's nature a very woody tone that is produced, and the instrument has been developed on the basis of which materials produce the most pleasing tone.
That is why I asked the original question, because I couldn't imagine a scenario where the lack of a body on the EUB could be compensated for.
Interestingly, the same seems to be less of an issue with pizz.

[guyl]

My Bridge Cetus sounded great with a bow. In fact it sounded great with everything!

Was a bugger to play though - body was too big to stick on a stand and too small/slidy to get a good grip when swinging away

[Alun]

My NS Wav is a lot better than I expected for bowing. With the pickup set to arco and the tone rolled off it's pretty realistic, although the dynamics are hard to control ( admittedly that's probably more down to me than the bass!!)

Cheers
Alun

[Biarnel]

As an EUB builder, I tried several ideas in order to have that natural bowed sound.
Well, first of all, NEVER use piezo pickups with two elements: they somehow go into phase-canceling and the bowed sound is thin witha great lack of harmonics.
Second, you have to use a bridge that's more "classic" you can. Piezos need a bridge capable of vibrating in a nice way, and super-short bridges just can't.

The strings angle - you need a certain angle at the brigde: too flat, bad sound; too sharp... broken strings

And above all forget magnetic pickups for bowing

This is just the humble opinion of an italian EUB enthusiast. And, by the way, this is my first post here!

[Gareth Hughes]

I've had great results with my GEL Eminence bass, with a David Gage Realist pickup. A better pickup sound than on my regular size upright. With the Eminence I can keep the same EQ/volume for arco as I do with pizz. With the regular upright, using a K&K Double Bass Max, I have to use a different EQ for each. Not sure why.