Archer double bass from gear4music

[Arno]

Hi guys,

I just got one of these and since posts on this forum helped me get one for myself, i thought i would post something as well that would help someone make the right choice

The story starts when my stupid robot vacuum cleaner knocked my old semi solid DB down resulting in the fingerboard cracked in half, the soundboard with a huge crack as well and the whole neck coming out of its slot snatching the top part of the back with it... I had done some DIY experiments at building basses in the past that were very fun (7 of them) but they never really sounded very good, but this made me think i could try and patch the poor DB which i did, but sadly wasn't enough to have it sound and play decently again...

Anyway i decided it was time to get a new one and after looking at reviews on here (i had a 2000€ budget for it), i hesitated between a Thomann one, a Gedo on off ebay but i decided to go for an Archer professional one from gear4music. I did not like the flat back of the Thomann ones, and learned about the Gedo ones a bit too late plus the photos are pretty bad whereas the Archer had a video, and pics from users on this forum.

I ordered it and got it about a week later which was pretty decent for a delivery to France

So first, the case it comes with is HUGE but really protects it, you will need some extra space if you want to keep it because it does not fold... so i sold it to my luthier that seemed very happy to get it to be able to put DBs on planes and be sure they would not get broken.

The bass itself is very very badly adjusted out of the box:

1- the soundpost is out of place (and does not fully touch the soundboard or the back),

2- the angle of the fretboard for the E string is too strong,

3- the fingerboard leaves black on your fingers because it was coloured (it is made of ebony but maybe not the darkest black, so they coloured it to make it look better which i think is very very stupid...)

4- the bridge is really not adjusted properly, on mine the D and G were extremely high, the A was too low and the E was ok. The bridge is adjustable, but when you adjust it, it bends the feet of the bridge and it looked like if i pressed it against the soundboard it would damage it... Also it's not fully centered on mine because the fingerboard is slightly misaligned)

5- Then the tailpiece is made of metal and when you play the bass it buzzes like crazy on almost every note because the tailpiece wire vibrates against it...

6- The ebony part that holds the endpin was not fully fitted inside the DB

7- The nut was extremely high, like 4mm high... making the first position unplayable or out of tune and hurt the fingers.

 

Besides that, i liked the tone of it, it is very responsive, has quite some bass, but also brightness which made it very detailed which already made a huge difference compared to my previous DB. From what i gathered, it's a chinese DB but i'm not 100% sure of that.

Also the neck, the wood used, the tuning keys looked pretty good (all that has been confirmed by my luthier) and DAMN it looks good

I counted in my budget the fact that it would need a luthier (but honestly did not thing there would be that much work...) so i went there and he fixed all of the points i made above and he charged me around 550€ (new soundpost, new (non adjustable)bridge, full fingerboard sanding to get rid of that angle, lowering of the nut, and a few other fixes).

And man now it's just AWESOME!!!!! It plays extremely easily, sounds awesome, has that growl (it's the reason why i love DB so much), does not have dead spots. In the Luthier's shop, i tested a few DB he had including a 18k€ one (i did not know the price before) and i preferred the sound of mine by a mile, his sounded too dark and lacked the detail i like about mine (that might be a matter of preference i agree).

One last thing, even the included strings (although a little too bright) are pretty good for pizz, i tried to replace them with my old thomastik superflexible set and quickly put the original ones back on it. I have no idea for bow though as i did not try and don't plan on it

Anyway, i'm very happy with my new DB, like VERY VERY happy  In the end, with the sale of the huge case and the full setup, i ended up paying around 1700€ for a pretty nice DB which i really doubt i would find anywhere else, but believe me, don't think you can skip the luthier's part, it's unplayable without it.

So special thanks to @OutToPlayJazz and this great forum that helped me get such a great instrument!