NEUBD

[NickD]

So this happened!

It's something I've been meaning to do for a while... I blame Ronnie Scott's live streams and José Riso on KJazz.

More seriously I've been listening to the recordings we're in the middle of and thinking that despite its generally rocky nature, a fat, plummy tone might have worked well with some of the riffs. I know it's not exactly what the instrument is for, but figured I'd give it a go anyway.

My god it's a different beast, my brain is scrambled and my fingers are raw, but it's fun. I downloaded a 3Sigma IR for the Helix, and for a quick start it sounds pretty good right off the bat!

Can't help but feel I'm looking up a pretty steep curve right now.

 

[petebassist]

I'll bet you'll have a lot of fun with this mate.

If you're going for the jazz acoustic upright tone, lift the action as high as you can I'm told.

[NickD]

Oh it's certainly fun!

Coming from BG the action feels really bloody high as it is. I don't think I understand enough about it to change it, nor the strings for that matter, which sound pretty decent to my untrained ear, but there seems to be a fair bit of tension.

I'm really impressed with the Impulse response (3Sigma Berliner, taken from an 1894 Lowendall) it really makes a difference, pushing it a lot closer to the Upright sound than I expected.... again, to my untrained ear.

At this stage it would probably be comforting to get caught up in the technical aspects, strings, action etc, to make me feel better about my incompetence on the instrument, but I'm just going to leave everything as is and hammer at my technique... because we all know that's where the problems usually lie.🤣

Despite only having it a couple of days I jammed with my drummer yesterday (Covid safe, we live together) and it was a ton of fun. Despite my crappy playing, some really cool stuff came out.

[Downunderwonder]

Mine is the BG scale version. Leave in all the mids and cut the bass a little for more uprightness.

[Marc S]

Belated happy NEUB day. 
I've got a 4 string NS Design, and it's a lovely instrument.
Mind you, with lack of gigs (or even rehearsals) I'm not playing anywhere near as much as I should, or as the instrument justifies.

As yours is your "new toy" - I'm sure you'll be playing it plenty. Enjoy  

[Owen]

The action is easy. It is an allen key in from the back. It really does make a huge difference. Get stuck in.

[NickD]

6 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

Mine is the BG scale version. Leave in all the mids and cut the bass a little for more uprightness.

Thanks... I'll give that a go too, see how close I can get to the sound I want.

1 hour ago, Marc S said:

Belated happy NEUB day. 
I've got a 4 string NS Design, and it's a lovely instrument.
Mind you, with lack of gigs (or even rehearsals) I'm not playing anywhere near as much as I should, or as the instrument justifies.

As yours is your "new toy" - I'm sure you'll be playing it plenty. Enjoy  

Cheers! 

Hopefully the 'new toy' effect will carry me through this dead period until there are signs of recovery. (I say dead period... I've been writing and recording loads throughout, what with getting 3 hours a day back that I would have spent commuting)

46 minutes ago, owen said:

The action is easy. It is an allen key in from the back. It really does make a huge difference. Get stuck in.

That's good, I'll take a look when I have more of an idea of what I need... ditto with strings. It's not something I currently understand anything about, and it looks like experimenting can be pretty expensive!

[Owen]

Yep, experimenting with strings is eye-wateringly expensive. But the reality is that 2nd hand strings are not dead and minging like 2nd hand bass guitar strings. However changing the action might well be all you need. 

[NickD]

5 minutes ago, owen said:

Yep, experimenting with strings is eye-wateringly expensive. But the reality is that 2nd hand strings are not dead and minging like 2nd hand bass guitar strings. However changing the action might well be all you need. 

I've been looking round t'interweb for string height recommendations.

To be honest I suspect it's ok, it seems high, but playable with some effort compared to BG. From the bottom of the fingerboard to the underside of the string it's about 7mm, 6mm, 6mm, 5mm, 4mm B to G. It's pretty thumpy and there's no real rattle, but maybe the G sounds a little dull acoustically compared to the others. I think I probably just need to play, not get caught up in something I don't know much about and then tweak to taste as I start to get an idea.

Being the WAV version the output is a little low, but that's easily tweaked in the Helix for now. I'll worry about balancing impedance with an amp when the time comes... It's not like I'm cracking under the weight of my gig diary ATM!

[Owen]

Drop it down 1 turn on each. If you like it, happy days. If not, whack it back up again.

[NickD]

May well do that... It's worth a try!

Cheers!

[Marc S]

31 minutes ago, owen said:

Drop it down 1 turn on each. If you like it, happy days. If not, whack it back up again.

The action / string height is different from BG - it's usually noticeably higher, but again, this will depend on taste, playing style, technique, truss-rod & set-up etc etc.
If upright is new to you, it will take a while to develop positioning and finger strength, together with right hand technique... be patient, do plenty of exercises and build up the time you spend playing......

As Owen says above, it's easy enough to "tweak" the truss rod and the string height on your bass - give it a whirl, perhaps just a little bit at a time, starting with string height at the bridge. Let us know how you get on, and you have reminded me - I MUST do some rehearsing tonight when I get back from work.

[Beer of the Bass]

How things feel and respond at a given height varies with the amount of relief in the board, but 4mm G to 6mm E is already at the low end of what you might see on acoustic double bass.  So if the goal is to achieve a tone and response that resembles double bass, or to develop technique that could be used on double bass later, I perhaps wouldn't go down from there. Of course, if you want to do something that's more unique to the electric upright, then anything goes.

[NickD]

21 minutes ago, Marc S said:

The action / string height is different from BG - it's usually noticeably higher, but again, this will depend on taste, playing style, technique, truss-rod & set-up etc etc.
If upright is new to you, it will take a while to develop positioning and finger strength, together with right hand technique... be patient, do plenty of exercises and build up the time you spend playing......

As Owen says above, it's easy enough to "tweak" the truss rod and the string height on your bass - give it a whirl, perhaps just a little bit at a time, starting with string height at the bridge. Let us know how you get on, and you have reminded me - I MUST do some rehearsing tonight when I get back from work.

I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually. As it stands, straight out of the box it plays ok, in that it's manageable, and it sounds pretty good too. I think I've pretty much sorted positioning on the stand for comfort and posture, and the biggest challenge now is dealing with the monstrous scale length in terms of fingering for good intonation. I intend to focus on that first, then if I think setup/action/strings are getting in the way of actual progress I'll address it. 

7 minutes ago, Beer of the Bass said:

How things feel and respond at a given height varies with the amount of relief in the board, but 4mm G to 6mm E is already at the low end of what you might see on acoustic double bass.  So if the goal is to achieve a tone and response that resembles double bass, or to develop technique that could be used on double bass later, I perhaps wouldn't go down from there. Of course, if you want to do something that's more unique to the electric upright, then anything goes.

As mentioned above, just based on reading around I don't think there's too much wrong with the out of the box setup, but I'm speaking from semi-ignorance there. What I can judge is that it sounds ok, feels ok (though obviously tougher on the hands), and doesn't have anything in the way of rattle & string noise. I can get a slap out of it, but even on BG I have a pretty percussive right hand technique, if anything the increased action on the EUB plays to my advantage as it seems to like a heavy hand.

I'm going to try not to get caught up in the whole thing of trying to get the sound and response of a DB... because it's not a DB, and I will fail. As it stands, with the IR engaged it's kinda close enough for my purposes (maybe that will change in a mix though). I'm sure further down the line I can look at trying to refine things, by then I might have a clearer idea of what I want from it.

[Downunderwonder]

5 hours ago, Marc S said:

tweak" the truss rod and the string height on your bass - give it a whirl, perhaps just a little bit at a time

I'd say one at a time and only a very little at a time. You always want to be able to get back to where you started. That's a lot easier with one variable.

[Downunderwonder]

5 hours ago, NickD said:

the whole thing of trying to get the sound and response of a DB...

is what it's all about! The purists like to tell you it's a fail, but near enough is good enough for me. Then they tell you it's it's own thing, enjoy. Whatever, get your best tones!