I play electric and upright. I play in a big band, jazz trio and a community orchestra. I am struggling with my decision to purchase an EUB because I use the electric and the DB for the big band and the DB for the orchestra. But I am sick of carrying the DB to big band rehearsal and messing with the amps and pickups and never having it loud enough. On the flip side, using the same mid-grade DB for orchestra just isn't cutting it. I feel I need to upgrade the DB to a more of an arco-specific set-up (with maybe some Evah or something) and get a new bass for the big band. Hence, I am looking at an EUB for this for convenience, size and loudness (obviously still want good tone). Keen on the NXTa at the moment and really don't want anything lower in quality than that. Folks who already play upright extensively - have you regretted purchasing an EUB and do you think it can really replace the real thing? Also for upright players - do you still use thumb position and solo in the same way as a regular DB? I feel like that take some getting used to. Thanks all.
Hope this is helpful.
For your purposes I think the upper tier Yamaha EUBs will be you best bet. However, I am not necessarily recommending you buy one.
I toured with bass guitar, upright and EUB in Big Band. We sprinkled in pop and patriotic music. I used the upright for traditional jazz. I used the bass guitar for funk and most ballads. I used the EUB for some modern jazz and some ballads.
For the record, I have done plenty of big band concerts exclusively on bass guitar.
The EUB I had was an NS Design USA 6. The current EU 6 is almost identical. It's very smooth sounding and has really long decay. It lacks any thump on the front of the note. Overall, it sounds more like a fretless bass guitar than an upright. I believe this is true of all NS Design EUBs. I could never get comfortable on a fretless bass guitar, but I was immediately comfortable on the NS Design, although it has a weird concave neck. I missed the NS Design's unique voice when I retired and had to turn it in. I recently found and bought a used one....so no regrets.
When I toured in concert band, the EUB was put away. There were songs that I would have liked to use the EUB for, but unfortunately playing it had a negative impact on my intonation on upright. Explanation: In big band, I played loud enough to hear and adjust intonation on the fly. In concert band I often played upright at a lower volume in order to blend with the other bass instruments. I was not loud enough to hear and adjust intonation problems, so I had to nail it. My solution was to put the EUB away a few days before the music was handed out. Then I pulled out Simandl and worked through etudes to get my intonation to settle.
I would have the same problem playing acoustically in an orchestra.
Switching between fretted bass guitar and upright never caused me any intonation problems.
There should be no problem amplifying an upright to be loud enough for big band. It does require appropriate equipment, knowledge, and skill, but it's easily doable. However, the louder your play the more interaction there will be between the amp and bass. This interaction tends to reduce the authenticity of the sound.
My last touring rig used an Ashely MX508 rack mixer. I used Shure line matching transformers to plug my basses into the mic inputs. The channels had bass, treble, and sweepable mids. The channels also had a switch that I used as a mute. I would have liked at least one more channel of sweepable mids for the upright. Adding something like an Empress ParaEQ Mk2 Deluxe would be close to ideal.
The touring rack had a 260W stereo power amp. I had an Eden D210XLT and D410XLT. I sometimes used both in big band, but felt the D210XLT alone was usually plenty. I placed the 210 vertically on top of a 16sp rolling rack with a spare DI wedged under the front edge, so the cab aimed the mids and highs at my ears. This results is a very clear and focused sound, but if you like a lot of thump you probably won't like it. I feel elevating the cab reduces how much energy the cab directs into the bass's body; so there is less interaction between the bass and speaker. Some famous players are known for running a PA cab on tripod at ear level.
The Eden cabs were very efficient. The mids are forward, clear, and focused, and they are not known for huge lows. Overall they worked really well for me and seem to have a lot of headroom and excellent transient response. The biggest struggle I had was taming the frequency range where they cross to the tweeter. If the tweeter was turned up too, much they produced sort of a phasey, crunchy quality around 3.5kHz. I found it helpful to dial the tweeters down more than I normally do with 2-way bass cab. I also used a bit of EQ to further smooth the high mids. I wouldn't say they sound was perfect, but it was very usable.
The last big band drummer I worked with wanted bass with big pillowy lows. I started bringing the 410 for him and he used it pretty much as a stick table. My rack rig was stereo so I could adjust the level of the 410 and 210 separately. With this drummer the 410 was way louder than my 210.
For context, my touring rig was not expected to push the room. We usually had a full PA including 4 channels of monitors.
For rehearsal I used a GK 700RB/112 combo. This amp delivers 225W into a single 12. It's a bit fatter, smoother, and more HiFi than the Eden cabs, but not as clear, focused, or dynamic. This rig was always plenty for rehearsal. I could and did gig with it, but it seemed overly compressed to me.
