Quick question

[Tait]

does an electric upright bass (i guess thats what EUB stands for?) sound more like an elecrtic bass or an upright? jw cos do they have elecrtic bass pickups, and they'd have to go through an amp etc.

[synaesthesia]

It depends on the the construction, the nature of the bridge suspension, the action and the electronics.

Whilst many argue that a hollow body sounds closer to a real DB, some advances have been made with creating some give between the bridge and the surface that supports it. The Palatino modification is essentially this, some rubber underneath the bridge and some modification to the tailpiece. The Palatino is actually hollow but sounds like an electric fretless bass for various reasons. The Merchant vertical bass is solid but uses spruce suspension bars to support the bridge, therefore offering some give. A French design, the name escapes me now, has a similar suspension design and it is completely solid. It got some very good remarks for some seasoned symphonic players.

Before the onomatopoeia 'mwah' was popularised via the American press, the desired electric bass tone was referred to as fingerboard buzz. For this reason, Pedulla refers to his fretless models as "Buzz' basses. This, contrary to popular misconception, is not derived by any magical fingerboard material, coating or bass construction, but purely low action and a relatively flat fingerboard... the lower the nut height and the bridge height, the more buzz, and the steeper the angle of the string to the fingerboard, the less buzz you get. Try these adjustments on your fretless now if you don't believe this. Most traditional DB players will recognise this and when playing pizzicato, they usually avoid too low action. You can listen to DB players who play with low action, such as Brian Bromberg (sometimes, when he does his typewriting licks) , and Stanley Clarke (usually low action) and you can hear a greater, dare i say it, "Mwah". Listen to Marc Johnson and you will hear little if any fingerboard buzz. A parallel to this is the Coral electric sitar, the bridge is a flat piece of plastic and instead of a fulrum point for the string to bend over, it buzzes against a length of solid phenolic to create the sitar like sound.

Lastly - electronics, if you have a magnetic pickup, it will sound more like a typical EB. A piezo electric pickup system, can be installed to sense the different phase waveforms for arco and pizzicato playing. The placement of pickups also affects the sound. So far most Db like tones have ben achieved via piezos mounted in the bridge, usually in some kind of perpendicualr arrangement.

[BassBod]

See above. Some are indeed bass guitars on sticks, others can make a very upright playing experience - all depends on the design, setup, strings and pickups.

BB