I am very fourtunate to have been blessed with the opportunity to enjoy steady work as a traveling bass player for a number of years now. I've been playing jazz in clubs and hotels in Asia and the Mid-East since 1999, more often than not 9 to 10 months a year. I have used four different travel basses, A Carruthers Sub 1, an Eminence RN 4, a Gage Czech-Ease and am now currently enjoying a new Azola Lightning Bug.
I have long admired the Azola's designs and craftmanship since first trying out one of the early model Bug Basses at a NAMM Show in the mid 90's. At that time I was just getting into EUB's with the Carruthers Bass. The Carruthers Bass gives a pretty good appoximation of a Double Bass with pick-up sound and it's very road worthy. But my big gripe with it was that it is not comfortable to play. There is no room to put your thumb under the fingerboard when playing pizz. Next bass, an Eminence. Terrific sounding bass, very close to the real deal in terms of it's sound and feel. But I found that I often had to pay very close attention to it's bridge and pick-up. My bridge feet often changed position slightly, even just from nightly playing, maybe I play too hard. Any change of pressure or position of the bridge feet on the Realist would cause it's sound to change a lot. After a while this stuff made me crazy! I got pretty tired of messing with the bridge and pickup all the time so I decided to go with something else. My choice was narrowed down to either going with the Czech-Ease or The Lightning Bug. In my quest for the elusive "big sound in a small package" I opted for the Czech-Ease, plopped down my $4500 plus tax for the bass and it's flight case and promptly headed off the Shanghai, to begin what turned into a six month gig. Now for for what it is, the Czech-Ease is a good idea. It plays nice, it's very well set up and most certainly produces a very DB like sound, which amplifies well. The down side though is simply this, it's not that great a sound, IMHO. My bass's E String never spoke very well in terms of volume compared to the rest, even after trying different types of strings, sound post adjustments and pick-ups. It's G string had some terrible wolf tones which were most apparent from about Bb to D, money notes for walking jazz bass lines. Very inconsistant and obvious to me while playing and I could hear this when others played the bass too.
It's a drag to deal with "dead notes" every night, after paying so much for an instrument. Plus, I found that even though the bass was downsized, I'd often get charged oversized baggage fees when flying with it. I decided that if I was having to pay these charges I might as well be flying with one of my full sized double basses, if I was in a situation where I just had to have "that true double bass sound" my Shen's sound better and in a worse case, should some damage occur due to rough handling from an airline, the cost to repair or replace a Shen would not be much different than to repair or replace the Czech-Ease, and the Shen's, being full sized and frankly, better made, sound so, so much better than the Czech-Ease did.
Now, what to do about these road gigs. What's important? Well, a decent upright like tone in a road worthy package with a superb set-up on an instrument that flies for free and sounds and plays the same from gig to gig. I now have this in my new Lightning Bug. It's built like a tank, well no, more like a good Fender Bass. A great neck and nice fingerboard, mine's ebony, a black german board that Steve Azola picked out special for me. He did a wonderful job with it, plays great! This bolted to an ash body with a nicely figured maple top. Nothing moves on this bass, unless you want it to. The bridge is non-adjustable, a blessing to me as I am an incourageable tinker, if it's got adjusters I'm often not content to leave them alone, even when things are OK. String height is adjustable via a clever neck tilt adjustment. I've got it where I want it and will most likley leave it alone, as it's not changed since getting the bass anot quite two months ago.
I'm now playing nightly at The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong with a nice trio, piano, bass and drums. The Lightning Bug sounds fine in this context, and I'm glad that I made the choice to get it. While I'd rather be playing one of my real double basses on a gig of this type I'm nevertheless happy enough with the sound I'm getting with the Lightning Bug. Gone are the "dead notes" and wolf tones which made the Czech-Ease such a drag. The Eminence certainly did provide a bit more of the acoustic vibe than the Azola's solid body configuration can provide, but the Azola's under-bridge piezo pickup system and three band pre-amp gives me a very warm and natural tone that's pretty close to the real deal. My drummer, who had been quite used to hearing me play my Shen's with pickups and and amps tells me if he closes his eyes, it sounds the same to him. No, it's not quite the same, but close enough for me. For now, for this gig and most likely any gig like it.
I have long admired the Azola's designs and craftmanship since first trying out one of the early model Bug Basses at a NAMM Show in the mid 90's. At that time I was just getting into EUB's with the Carruthers Bass. The Carruthers Bass gives a pretty good appoximation of a Double Bass with pick-up sound and it's very road worthy. But my big gripe with it was that it is not comfortable to play. There is no room to put your thumb under the fingerboard when playing pizz. Next bass, an Eminence. Terrific sounding bass, very close to the real deal in terms of it's sound and feel. But I found that I often had to pay very close attention to it's bridge and pick-up. My bridge feet often changed position slightly, even just from nightly playing, maybe I play too hard. Any change of pressure or position of the bridge feet on the Realist would cause it's sound to change a lot. After a while this stuff made me crazy! I got pretty tired of messing with the bridge and pickup all the time so I decided to go with something else. My choice was narrowed down to either going with the Czech-Ease or The Lightning Bug. In my quest for the elusive "big sound in a small package" I opted for the Czech-Ease, plopped down my $4500 plus tax for the bass and it's flight case and promptly headed off the Shanghai, to begin what turned into a six month gig. Now for for what it is, the Czech-Ease is a good idea. It plays nice, it's very well set up and most certainly produces a very DB like sound, which amplifies well. The down side though is simply this, it's not that great a sound, IMHO. My bass's E String never spoke very well in terms of volume compared to the rest, even after trying different types of strings, sound post adjustments and pick-ups. It's G string had some terrible wolf tones which were most apparent from about Bb to D, money notes for walking jazz bass lines. Very inconsistant and obvious to me while playing and I could hear this when others played the bass too.
It's a drag to deal with "dead notes" every night, after paying so much for an instrument. Plus, I found that even though the bass was downsized, I'd often get charged oversized baggage fees when flying with it. I decided that if I was having to pay these charges I might as well be flying with one of my full sized double basses, if I was in a situation where I just had to have "that true double bass sound" my Shen's sound better and in a worse case, should some damage occur due to rough handling from an airline, the cost to repair or replace a Shen would not be much different than to repair or replace the Czech-Ease, and the Shen's, being full sized and frankly, better made, sound so, so much better than the Czech-Ease did.
Now, what to do about these road gigs. What's important? Well, a decent upright like tone in a road worthy package with a superb set-up on an instrument that flies for free and sounds and plays the same from gig to gig. I now have this in my new Lightning Bug. It's built like a tank, well no, more like a good Fender Bass. A great neck and nice fingerboard, mine's ebony, a black german board that Steve Azola picked out special for me. He did a wonderful job with it, plays great! This bolted to an ash body with a nicely figured maple top. Nothing moves on this bass, unless you want it to. The bridge is non-adjustable, a blessing to me as I am an incourageable tinker, if it's got adjusters I'm often not content to leave them alone, even when things are OK. String height is adjustable via a clever neck tilt adjustment. I've got it where I want it and will most likley leave it alone, as it's not changed since getting the bass anot quite two months ago.
I'm now playing nightly at The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong with a nice trio, piano, bass and drums. The Lightning Bug sounds fine in this context, and I'm glad that I made the choice to get it. While I'd rather be playing one of my real double basses on a gig of this type I'm nevertheless happy enough with the sound I'm getting with the Lightning Bug. Gone are the "dead notes" and wolf tones which made the Czech-Ease such a drag. The Eminence certainly did provide a bit more of the acoustic vibe than the Azola's solid body configuration can provide, but the Azola's under-bridge piezo pickup system and three band pre-amp gives me a very warm and natural tone that's pretty close to the real deal. My drummer, who had been quite used to hearing me play my Shen's with pickups and and amps tells me if he closes his eyes, it sounds the same to him. No, it's not quite the same, but close enough for me. For now, for this gig and most likely any gig like it.
