regarding fiberglass basses...

[zpkunkle]

Hi. I have recently purchased a upright made entirely of fiberglass, with the exception of the bridge and the tuners, and tuning plates, which are plain steel. The color is entirely black, and falls in the 3/4 size. I was told that it is a Scherl-Roth bass, probably late 60s, maybe early 70s. There is no label, serial #, or any other identifying characteristics on it. Does anyone know about these basses, or any history of fiberglass basses. My internet searches have turned up nothing, and everyone I've talked to says they've seen one, but never heard it. Any help or info woud be appreciated. Thanks.

[Andrew McGregor]

Well, I can't say I know anything about that bass, but I had a brief play of a carbon fiber bass while I was in Canada recently, and that was interesting. It could have done with different strings, but it had a really strong tone, if a bit unusual. It's plausible that it could be rather good once you came to terms with it.

I think it's possible to make a really nice sounding composite bass, I'm just not sure if anyone has actually done it.

[mcnaire2004]

I played one briefly about 6 years ago. It was a piece of crap. I barely trust ply basses, let alone a fiberglass. Good luck

[lhoward]

zpkunkle,

I don't know if Scherl-Roth made any, but Roth-Finch made 3/4 fiberglass basses (and perhaps other sizes) during the '60s. Scherl may have been the distributor, but I don't recall their name associated with the basses. Ron Carter endorsed the instrument and the ads ran in Downbeat and other music publications of the period.

I purchased an old one about 14 years ago that was not setup, no bridge, tuners, endpeg or soundpost (plus someone spray-painted the thing a dark red). I was going to use it as a project, but that probably won't happen. I've heard various opinions over the years about their sound, some good, most bad. The thing is heavy, I'd estimate about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 times that of a wood instrument and would be heavier when completely setup.

WRT carbon fiber basses that Andrew McGregor mentioned, there's only two manufacturers of them that I know of, Luis and Clark in Massachusetts, and Quintus Strings in Arizona. Although Ed Fugua, in the 150911 thread link below, stated he played one in France in the late '90s:
http://www.luisandclark.com/

There's a few threads over the last three years on carbon fiber basses:
luis and clark carbon fiber instruments
Carbon fibre double basses
Carbon fibre bass?

And here's a thread that mentions carbon fiber basses, but more directed to the functioning of Wikipedia;
Wikipedia Double Bass Entry....?

Here's another link at The Associated Board of the Royal Schools Of Music regarding carbon fiber instruments.
http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=17883

Quintus Strings' site is available at the following link and they offer different finishes on their instruments:
http://gracestrings.com//basses.html

Note that these carbon fiber basses are pricey. In 2005, Luis and Clark's price for a 3/4 was about $8,000+, and their current price is $12,939. Quintus lists their 3/4 for $7,200. Someone mentioned that they could buy 4 plywood basses for that price, but I think you'd be paying for the different technology and the increased durability. I would expect that the sound quality will improve from where ever its at currently, but whether it will sound 'better' that a quality wood instrument - well, that's something else.

Personally, I wouldn't put too much into an old fiberglass bass (I've jokingly thought of how it would look as a large, rural mailbox in front of my house). If you really need something that will survive a tumble on land or use as a floatation device if your ship sinks, then carbon fiber has probably got some points going for it. I'm not really trying to be facetious. I though about a carbon fiber instrument when I was considering the cruise ship environment, although I haven't completely ruled that out yet.

Lloyd Howard

[Andrew McGregor]

Ok, so the bass I played was a Luis and Clark. I liked it a lot. It vaguely reminded me of the time I got to play Gary Karr's Amati in a masterclass… way more bass than I could handle. So I can't really say just how good it was because having not played DB at all for four or five years, I wasn't up to finding out.

I will say, knowing a fair bit about carbon fiber from model sailplanes, that it's an absolutely top-class bit of composite fabrication. Stunning finish, not a misplaced fiber anywhere to be seen, and a one-piece seamless instrument. Should be utterly and completely indestructible. But also, they wanted $15k Canadian for it. I'd buy one, but my 1950s Höfner is enough for now.

[BPeder]

My old/spare instrument is a Scherl and Roth. I bought mine back in the mid 80s for $500.00 with a stand and a gig bag. It was a spare at that time for my main ply bass but it saw front line service too after I let the ply bass go. If yours is black, it may have been painted. Mine was stock when I found it and the the color of the fiberglass was an ugly flower pot terra cotta clay red. Shine a flashlight in the F hole and see what color the material is. Mine does have a sticker so I suppose it could be researched but I went to the Scherle and Roth site http://www.glaesel.com/ and information there was pretty thin. I was playing in a rockabilly band at the time so of course it got painted gold sparkle, then black with white perimeter and F hole stripes. Mine has fairly heavy brass plates and machines with steel pegs and brass keys, one of which broke off and I replaced it with a Sacagawea Dollar. It's a 3/4 Gamba with a 41+change" scale length. I don't know when it was made. Maybe it doesn't matter. If you get many responses to your post, I think they will be mostly of the "those basses are crap" flavor, and some guys will even complain that they smell bad! let me remind you that even a crappy bass will cover certain repertoires just fine if it's set up OK and that you can make a bass sound decent by the way you play it. Also many bass players have a certain aroma about them too so let's not talk about odors! So, it's a fiberglass and plastic constructed bass that was OK for the type of banging on and around it got on the road and in the trenches all those years in the rock band. I just stuck an old junked out "P-Bass" pup on it and as long as it went "whack" followed by some sort of deep "boomp" that was fairly predictable and with relatively good intonation, I didn't ask much more from it. The bass was in kinda rough shape after those years of war and when I started playing it in the acoustic groups during peacetime, it became clear that I would have to do something about it. The finger board had begun to de-laminate from the neck so I took it all the way off. The neck was like a canoe inside, with a bar of aluminum sitting in the bottom and covered with a long, ugly blob of fiberglass resin to hold it in place. I filled this hollow space with high quality epoxy and clamped the FB back on. I got lucky. After trimming and sanding the squeezings, the FB sat pretty darn well and I don't have any really terrible issues with buzzes, twists, warps or wolf tones. I guess it wasn't all luck, I did take exquisite pains before the epoxy set, to place the dozen or so clamps as carefully as I could. I then cut a new bridge, taking two days to do it and put a new set of medium Erurosonics on it. My bridge is a pretty good amateur job if I do say so. I really took my time and did not wus out on it. I am too chicken to mess with the sound post however. Luck again, that it stayed in place throughout all the other repairs. I wish there was more overstand though. The bridge is very short.
OK, that's a medium/long story with a medium happy ending. My bass sounded twice as good as it ever had. Louder and better tone and I no longer was afraid that it was going to fall apart on stage like the Three Stooges car. It's really a good slap bass. The plastic fingerboard makes a nice click and it has good low end. Plus, it's bullet proof. I did a lot of cruise ship gigs and I always joked that I had my own private life boat. Water and humidity or the lack there of and extremes of temperature have no effect on this bass which is why it was popular with schools I think. It was probably a bit more expensive initially than a ply bass but less problematic in the long run. If you have the same bass as me, you have a tough playable instrument that will, if cared for, give you many years of faithful service. Don't let the guitar player stand on it, the sides are very thin. Also, as I have discovered, Black may not be the best color choice. Full-on sun won't harm the bass, but the body will expand up faster than the strings can stretch and they will go out of tune sharp. You have an excellent garage bass, That's where mine is right now and I live in Minneapolis. I love my new Upton Hawkes Hybrid and I won't be bringing Blackie out on many of my acoustic gigs, but the occasional Rockabilly call comes in and I'm glad to have the old girl. Good luck with your bass whatever it turns out to be, and don't let people tell you it's a piece of junk. decide that for yourself and if you do, there are sure a lot of fine basses out there you can look into. Cheers!

Some added information: My bass has a nice ebony tailpiece and a wire type hanger with a cheap "ebonized" end pin. The fingerboard flexes quite a bit above the neck which makes triple slapping chancy. It records well with a fat tube mic placed low and a hot condenser up by the fingerboard. It had the "tubby" tone that others have noticed but the coats of paint simmed it down. It has a nice, even mellow tone these days. Finally, my Upton bass is most definitely not in the garage, just in case Gary happens to read this post... Peace-out

[Martin Sheridan]

My first bass was a Scherl and Roth black fiberglass bass. I bought it in Chico, California in 1973 for $450 and sold it a couple of years later to my band mate Ted Smith. Ted called me the other day and said that Rob Bonner wanted to buy it from him because it recorded so well.
That last time I saw it, a couple of years ago, the top was somewhat collasped. As a luthier I don't know how you would repair something like this short of taking it to a fiberglass shop.

I thought the bass was somewhat tubby sounding, but it got me started.