Top tips please for getting a new DB

[Burns-bass]

Fair enough. I don't know enough about these instruments, but if people on here love them then that's enough for me.

Personally I wouldn't buy a DB I hadn't seen or played, but I appreciate there are some amazing instruments coming out of the Far East. Particularly if cost is the deciding factor it's probably your only way to get something new.

I guess the internet has enough advice on how to seat a bridge, check the soundpost is in the right place and so on.

I'm conscious I may be annoying the original poster here as my views may not be particularly helpful.

[JacksonBass]

Not annoying at all, I've only just put my toe in the water so every viewpoint about potential rocks are helpful ([i]that's enough metaphors. Ed[/i])

The sort of consensus seems to be that [u]in order to get the best value for money[/u] - either get lucky with a nice bass for reasonable money from a good forumite or buy a plywood, ebony fingerboard bass from a luthier who has set it up right.

I'll hope for the former but start making the calls to the shops after Christmas, who knows what deals might appear in the New Year

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='Burns-bass' timestamp='1482576705' post='3201516']
Fair enough. I don't know enough about these instruments, but if people on here love them then that's enough for me.

Personally I wouldn't buy a DB I hadn't seen or played, but I appreciate there are some amazing instruments coming out of the Far East. Particularly if cost is the deciding factor it's probably your only way to get something new.

I guess the internet has enough advice on how to seat a bridge, check the soundpost is in the right place and so on.

I'm conscious I may be annoying the original poster here as my views may not be particularly helpful.
[/quote]

It's just hard to find something in a reasonable budget that's playable, I've seen very few come up and even then they can be hundreds of miles away. Shops don't appear to stock much under around £1500 and from what I've seen my Gedo is much nicer than the sort of student stuff shops sell, probably because of the shops mark up.

It's not easy at all and I'd recommend a good used bass from a player that is upgrading that has had the bass looked after by a luthier over a new one like mine all day long, but man are they rare!

[fatback]

I'll stick my neck out and say ply is not necessarily a negative. For a start, you'll likely have fewer feedback problems than with solid. From what i hear, solid is way more pone to problems from temperature and humidity fluctuations as well.

A hybrid (solid top) can be a great compromise.

[NickA]

OK. Points took. I don't say setup is unimportant .. far from it; but it won't make a rattly or dull sounding bass into a good one. And a lot of the "set-up" mystique is just a matter of meddling and talking to other bass players (read the thread on changing bridge height) and you can get an adjustable bridge and tweak it anyway. Bridge position, you can start with the "standard" place and move it back and forth a few mm. Sound post admittedly rather hard, but a good bass teacher will help. Nut height - not an issue, if it's too high file the notches down. A warped or dished fingerboard needs to be avoided - but can be planed flat for £150 or so.

You [b]can [/b]get decent plywood basses (an Eastman for instance) but for jazz and classical you will soon grow out of them and want to trade up. So I still wouldn't buy.

It think what the OP should do is call up one of the bass rental places - Bassbags.co.uk are good at the lower to middle end, Thwaites at the middle to very top end and ask about rental. For £35+ a month they will rent out a new or good as new bass that is perfectly set up. A £1600 Vivente or a £2500 Westbury for instance - you may even (I'm not sure) get a discount if you decide to buy it. They will also advise on what you should have for your ability and body size.

In my case (prior to the interweb) I started on a horrid half sized boosey and hawkes plywood horror. Then Trawled round bass dealers and music shops trying things out for months - at each stage deciding I needed to spend more. Finally bought (for £1800 in 1988 - which was all my savings) an old german bass, full size (bad idea) and perfectly set up by a proper luthier (Malcom Healy) but it still buzzed. It was only after it fell over and had to be dismantled (at a cost of £1500 to the insurance people) that the buzzing was fixed and it was only in the last year or so that I finally got the string height right. Now it's great, but still too big - but it's my friend of 28 years, it's worth a small fortune and I'm keeping it. Had I only known then what I know now ... could have got here a lot quicker ;¬)

Good luck and don't be put off .. and you are so lucky to have people to play with at an early stage, enjoy.

[stingrayPete1977]

Also the better Gedo and Thomann basses are not from the far east.

I think even the cheapest Gedo ones actually go through their German workshop before shipping because you can spec strings and the setup to taste on all of their basses, I had Spiros and an adjustable bridge fitted to mine, you tell them what you want and they give you a price all in English, if you want to proceed they create the bass on their site where you can purchase it like a stock item, I used a credit card to give me some buyers protection.

Mine was listed as a regular model for a while as they thought it was a good value to quality spec, Romanian made half carved, adjustable bridge, ebony board and tail piece with Spirocore weichs.


I've just had a look through my emails it should have been €1143 and they did it including the extras fitted and shipping to the UK for €1050 which I'm still very pleased with a few years on. If you took away the carved top, Spiro string upgrade and the adjustable bridge the budget would be not far off and possibly a decent enough bass but I can't vouch for the fully ply ones.

Edited December 24, 2016 by stingrayPete1977

[Burns-bass]

I like the story Nick, that sounds like a real friend you have there. It's interesting the physical intimacy you have with an upright translates into a different - and perhaps more intense - relationship than with an electric bass.

I had a similar thing when I was searching for an electric bass. I used to import vintage basses from the States as a business, and could never find one I genuinely loved. In the end, I found one an hour away and it's been my best friend for years. Entirely impractical, and worth a fortune, but I will never part with her.

In terms of upright basses, my plywood bass is perfect for local gigs, travelling to lessons, practising and so on. She's no looker, granted, but I've no complaints with the sound. It's a little agricultural though, hence me investing in something a little more refined for recording and so on.

I agree with the principle of always buying the best you can afford, but I guess in this instance the OP may be dipping a toe in the water.

This is for the OP now - if I hear of anything, I'll send you a DM.

[JoeEvans]

For what it's worth, for my first bass - after talking to quite a few other double bassists - I bought an older Eastern European hybrid (plywood with solid top) which was a bit battered but had evidently been owned by someone who actually played it a fair bit (decent set up, decent strings). Boosey and Hawkes 400, Golden Strad and many more obscure varieties. Resale value is generally exactly what you bought it for, if the time comes to buy a solid wood instrument.

[TheRev]

I have two basses, one an East German plywood bass from the 60s and the other a carved Hungarian bass from the 80s. I bought both locally and both cost me just under £600. Admittedly I had to spend amother £200 odd on each for setup work, but my point is that there are decent basses available for £600, but you have to wait until the right one turns up for sale and you'll need to be prepared to travel.
If you have to return your current bass in January, then renting may be the way forward as the chances of the 'right' bass coming up for sale in the next few weeks is pretty slim
As far as new basses are concerned, some of the £1000 range ones (Strunal/Hora/Stentor) are perfectly good instruments for the money - I hired a Stentor for a US tour and it was perfectly fine, but I've not played a £600 new bass that i felt was worth the money.

[Happy Jack]

I bought a Zeller from Clarky for not a huge amount more than your £600 budget, absolutely lovely "cheap" bass which he was replacing with his dream DB, an 1880 German flatback costing him several times more than he sold the Zeller for.

He spent the next three years trying to persuade me to sell the Zeller back to him because it sounded nicer than his flatback. It's not always about price and reputation.

So is my Zeller a bit of a special, a one-off?

At the DB Bash a few months ago, someone else had one just like mine, so I tried it.

Even with his string choice and his set-up, it played and sounded a lot like mine.

[BaconCheese]

For pizz, a plywood with good strings and a proper setup is absolutely fine.

[JacksonBass]

[quote name='BaconCheese' timestamp='1482666275' post='3202143']
For pizz, a plywood with good strings and a proper setup is absolutely fine.
[/quote]

Thanks. How do I recognise if it already has good strings - a real newbie question!

[BaconCheese]

Look for brand name strings- Thomastik, Pirastro, Presto...

[JacksonBass]

Thanks. There's no brand name obviously on the strings on the DB I've borrowed but they seem devilishly hard work, are orchestral strings harder to work when you're playing jazz?

[JoeEvans]

If you hunt around, there's a web page somewhere that shows the different colour codes used on most of the popular brands of db string. They normally have coloured thread wound round the top and bottom of the strings.

[BaconCheese]

If you could post a pic I am pretty shure we could tell what strings are currently on the bass.

There are big differences in sound, sustain, tension between different kinds of strings.

[stingrayPete1977]

http://www.gollihurmusic.com/faq/57-STRINGS_STRING_IDENTIFICATION_CHART.html

There you go, For example I have Thomastik Spirocore weichs , if you look at the chart you can see they have red silk at the tailpiece end for that model of string then, the lavender silk at the pegbox end on all four strings shows them to be weichs.


Just for info if you see a bass advertised as "has weichs on it" this is what it means.
weich- light tension
mittle- medium tension
stark- heavy tension

[JacksonBass]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1482829703' post='3202890']
[url="http://www.gollihurmusic.com/faq/57-STRINGS_STRING_IDENTIFICATION_CHART.html"]http://www.gollihurm...TION_CHART.html[/url]

There you go, For example I have Thomastik Spirocore weichs , if you look at the chart you can see they have red silk at the tailpiece end for that model of string then, the lavender silk at the pegbox end on all four strings shows them to be weichs.


Just for info if you see a bass advertised as "has weichs on it" this is what it means.
weich- light tension
mittle- medium tension
stark- heavy tension
[/quote]

Thanks - a great resource. Using that site I can see they're D'Addario Prelude which fits given the provenance of the DB as a school instrument. The string height at the end of the fingerboard is approx 7mm, none of the strings buzz but it's hard work to get them down hard enough to sound right - maybe it's just supposed to be!

[BaconCheese]

String height is more or less ok. A good pizz setup is 5,6,7,8 from G to E. Preludes are more or less an arco string and not really good. As much as the string height, it is a question of how the board is "bowed". Typically, basses for orchestra playing have a "bow" or "slope" in the board. You dont want to have that for Jazz... also strings like Evah Pirazzi light are much easier on the hands.

[JacksonBass]

[quote name='BaconCheese' timestamp='1482840950' post='3202980']
String height is more or less ok. A good pizz setup is 5,6,7,8 from G to E. Preludes are more or less an arco string and not really good. As much as the string height, it is a question of how the board is "bowed". Typically, basses for orchestra playing have a "bow" or "slope" in the board. You don't want to have that for Jazz... also strings like Evah Pirazzi light are much easier on the hands.
[/quote]

Yes it has a slope under the E with the ridge between the E and A. It's really hard work making that E stick down. I'm glad it's not just my technique making it such hard work.

[NickA]

Wouldn't get too fussed about that slope you mention on the E-side of the finger board (it's called a "romberg bevel" apparently - see here: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/70746-the-flat-angled-part-of-the-fingerboard-under-the-e-string/). Mine has one despite its "jazz setup"; never been an issue.. and the action is still 8mm on the E. Looking at album covers - I see Alec Dankworth doesn't have one but John Pattitucci does! Certainly don't avoid buying a bass simply because it has one.

High tension strings, incorrect neck angle and too high a bridge, on the other hand, have caused hard work in the past.

As the action at the end of the finger board is correct (6 to 8mm), then if the "hard work" is in low positions, then possibly the nut is a bit high (on mine, the gap between strings and board at the nut is less than the thickness of a credit card), if the hard work is in high positions then there could be too much "scoop" (aka "relief") in the fingerboard (on an electric bass you'd just tweak the truss bar, on a db sadly, it has to be planed out, then the finger board angle corrected by insertion of a wedge between the finger board and neck - which is not a job for home!).

I was having trouble with thumb positions a while back; I was told the nut could be lower, the scoop reduced and and the finger board angle raised up to the strings to lower the action - but fixed it all by dropping the bridge height (and doing more practice).

The bass is bassically a high effort instrument to play - which is why we do "hammer finger" exercises and stuff to strengthen up the muscles that drive the fingers. Half position always hurts IMHO (short fingers and a big bass don't help)! Practice, sadly, is the answer - and getting out of low positions to where the stretches are smaller and the string tension lower helps too. Supposed to be practising myself RIGHT NOW .. back to it!!

[BaconCheese]

Actually, what I was referring to has nothing to do with that slope on the E-string. That is just an old-fashioned way that is no longer used. I was referring to the "scoop" that most DB with an arco setup have. It means that there is a lot of scoop from both ends of the fingerboard to the lowest point of the fingerboard which is where you play when you reach the neck heel. This is needed on every bass to a certain extent but DB with a "classical/orchestral" setup have a much deeper scoop than DB with a Jazz setup.

[NickA]

I did wonder ;¬) ... as a result I've learned lots about romberg bevels, string height recommendations and scoop - I'd no idea they were different for Jazz and Classical.

I guess I have a "jazz scoop" but it works fine for classical (at my level, anyway).

Trying out basses in shops tho, I often notice that some just don't pizz very well, which I'd always put down plainly to string height and string type. Live and learn.

[JacksonBass]

Well I've just agreed a purchase on a great instrument. I collect on Saturday, needless to say it was over my budget and in no way local but no surprises there I guess.

I'll post photos and details over the weekend. Thanks to everyone for the advice, I sure learned a lot but I suspect there's more questions to come!

[philparker]

Hey, well done - I hope it turns out to be the right one!