Double Bass Warwick Triumph V NS EUB

if you want to get as close to a real acoustic bass sound as possible, i suggest you consider an EUB with as much of an acoustic body as possible. that is where the "natural" sound is going to come from. if you are exceptionally gifted (and patient) in the tweak department, that is to say if you can twiddle parametric knobs or eq faders in an uncanny way to build a great facsimile of acoustic sound then ignore what i just said and go for the NS, Triumph, or some such mostly solid body EUB.

I've been using the Eminence for a few years now. It's the best i've found so far but it has it's share of problems. i don't have such extraordinary abilities with knob twiddling and tweaking so i need all the help i can get. last summer i was playing a festival and the sound-dude was some kind of genius. i swear he made my EUB sound like a very good vintage upright. it took most of a two hour sound check, and he sweated bullets, but he also got the best sound i ever had from an EUB and proved that it was possible. In fact, the sound was so good that when i went into the studio a month later i took the digital video my wife shot at that concert to play for the engineer telling him: "make by bass sound like this...it is possible, and here is the proof!" - even the cheap little camera mikes picked up how good the bass sounded.

i like the Eminence but also there is a EUB being made in New Jersey called a BMX..? i'm really not sure about the name (i believe the fellow making it is named Dino - very nice man). i tried it at the NAMM show recently and the more i played it the more i liked it.

I think the bottom line is this: if you want acoustic sound you need as much acoustic body as possible. the more acoustic body you have and the louder you want/need to play, the more problems you will have and the louder you get the less acoustic you will sound...it's a law of physics.

If your eventual goal is upright and you want something resembling acoustic bass, go with Eminence. The NS is a great axe but not really very acoustic sounding at all. The Warwick Triumph is not much an instrument. It's not even that great an EUB (no disrespect intended towards Warwick).

I think you can make the NS EUBs sound like an amplified DB and I always get comments when I play mine, from people who say things like - how do you get so much sound when so much is missing?

I think you have to play it like a DB, raise the action and get proper DB strings - then you can get a lot further towards a DB sound...

Don't know anything about the Warwick - what scale is it? For me the big thing is to have roughly 42" scale - much less and you have no chance of getting anywhere near...?

Bert's Jazz said:

As my eventual goal is indeed to get a proper DB, then I wouldn't want an instrument with a compressed scale, but I'm pretty sure most EUBs have the standard 3/4 DB scale size (right?).

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Nope - there have been a lot of 34" scale EUBs made to make it easy for BG players...

There is a UK distributor for Eminence (click below) - I was tempted - they are about £1600 - £1700 (plus shipping!), but I am saving to buy a real DB at the moment.

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Just a little thing about the Eminence. It too needs the action jacked up like Bruce does with his NS. I bought one used and was underwhelmed with sound and feel at first. After changing the Helicore hybrids that came with it and cranking up the action it felt and sounded much better. It makes a huge difference.

A few comments:

1. Get a bass with a full 41-42" scale. Otherwise you may as well do what my nephew did when he was smaller- play my fretless P-bass standing on end. ;-)

2. You can make an EUB sound a bit more like a real bass by making it hollow, etc., but the more you do that, the more you'e going to start to resemble a real bass... at which point you have to stop and say "why don't I just get a real bass?"

3. If an EUB doesn't have a neck heel, you're going to have trouble relating your technique between it and a real UB.

I think the Azolas- particularly the floating top models- combine the compact size and ruggedness of an electric with a sound that is pretty close to an amplified DB. YMMV.

i like the Eminence but also there is a EUB being made in New Jersey called a BMX..? i'm really not sure about the name (i believe the fellow making it is named Dino - very nice man). i tried it at the NAMM show recently and the more i played it the more i liked it.

BSX: http://www.bsxbass.com/

Bert's Jazz said:

I'll look into the Azolas, but I just found this on eBay, and for that price, I can MAKE the room. I'm wary of a double bass at this price though, but what does everyone here think of this too-good-to-be-true offer, as a starting instrument anyway? I'll give them a call tomorrow and grill them about it first.

EDIT: Having looked over Link Removed, it at least seems that this isn't a nasty eBay no-no. I think I might just have found my bass... Please advise!

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A White Double Bass for £399 ..... !!! :scowl:

There is one thing you need to bear in mind -

"You get what you pay for!! "


Too-good-to-be-true basses....are!!


This is probably a Chinese factory plywood job, painted...ask around about these...?

PS there are even cheaper basses without using eBay - like here :

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But I wouldn't recommend them...

gotta agree with Mr. Linfield...you get what you pay for! A laminated white Bass?!
I too have had good feedback on my Eminence sound - especially the arco sound. Last week I took both my URB and EUB to a gig and alternated for side by side comparrison. The feedback from knowing listeners was unanimous: the sound of the EUB did not compare favorably to the the amplified URB (no surprise there). I also agree that setting up the EUB to closely approximate an acoustic setup is a good idea. I tried high action and gut strings on the Eminence and it did help with the sound. Unfortunately, after 30+ years of playing I have such nerve damage in my left arm (mostly from my first 15 years of playing on a Chubby Jackson model Kay that was converted to four strings with ridiculously high action which i practically had to stand on to depress the string to the fingerboard! ) I now lower the action way below the legal limit...