Cutaway DB?

[philw]

All,

Just watching Eric Clapton on Later with Jools and his bass player was using a double bass with a cut-away (i.e it had no upper bout on the treble side). Now, I've seen numerous similar instruments on Ebay but the cut-away idea has always stuck me as a bit of a pointless gimmick on a DB. I mean, it's not as if there's much chance of fretting with a conventional "guitar" hand position that high up the neck. You're really still going to have to use thumb position, cut-away or not? Am I missing something?

Phil

[thisnameistaken]

I suppose it means you don't have to arch your elbow up and over the shoulder to switch to thumb position, but I can't imagine that's a massive selling point really, given that every virtuoso ever has coped alright and "whole" basses look much nicer.

I suppose also it's somewhere to put your pint.

[Clarky]

Weren't the cutaways popular with rockabilly slappers? So may be it allows you to slap higher up the board rather than change to thumb position ?

[slap_it_hard]

What you're missing is that they look Fu**ing cool!!!

Also yes, the rockabilly's really love em, but best if they're an original one & not a Chinese one with a big thick neck, just like the ones on the net!

[BassBod]

Its a way of avoiding thumb position..or at least putting it off a bit! I have seen it on a few older basses (Art Pepper's bassist used to use one), but I'd imagine there is trade off with the acoustic sound, as you are losing some internal volume. Not much, but a bit.

[slap_it_hard]

Absolutely, experience does indeed tell me that the Cutaways are indeed quieter as there is less body size for the sound to travel round.

Also, the cutaway is there to make it easier to travel up the neck for high note playing.

The still look cool!

Anyone got one they don't want? If so, message me!