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fretless that sounds like a upright...

#43
Lelander said:
Fretless with flats seems to be the de facto recommendation for a DBish sound on and EB. Flats accentuate the fundamental and I conceded that DB can be characterized by an enormous fundamental. That being said all that wood coupled with the ultra long scale length IMHO make the DB an extremely harmonically complex instrument, especially when pickups are there to help amplify the higher harmonics that don't carry as well acoustically.

Are jazz EB players shooting themselves in the foot by using strings that weaken the instrument's harmonics on a slab of wood that already has weaker response than the instrument being emulated? It seems like there would be better advice, tonally, than simply putting a set of flats on an EB and rolling off the tone.
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Tapewounds offer a brighter and more harmonically complex tone and I find that setting the mids properly re more important to getting an uprightish tone than rolling off the high end.
 
#47
Snarf said:
There's nothing that sounds like an upright except an upright. If you can ONLY play electric, then swing electric, don't try to make it something it's not. If you want the upright sound, learn to play upright.
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I find I am in this camp as well. There aspects of an upright sound that are a product of its size and its resonance that simply cannot be reproduced on the smaller instrument. Conversely, there are things that EBs do well that uprights are horrible at. In my personal opinion there are some great hollowbody EBs out there that have a killer tone, sound great for a lot of applications including those where DB is traditional, and can emulate some of the recognizeable characteristics of a DB.

If you find you like the tone of a good hollowbody it makes more sense [to me] to focus on getting the best sound for that instrument rather than trying to make it sound like another instrument entirely. A RA Mouse is a killer sounding bass guitar that is completely at home in a jazz setting. One should worry less about whether or not it sounds like a DB and more about how useful that unique Rob Allen sound is.

Yes DB and EB have the same tuning and play the same range. If that somehow makes them able to sound like one another you may as well hire a keyboard player to replace the bass, the guitar, and the vocalist.
 
#48
I had a bass custom made by a friend at "Angel Guitars" in Florida. With lots of research (and little capital) we chose:
- ebony fingerboard
- corina body
- Seymour Duncan custom shop Alnico 5 pick-up (Music-Man replacement).

After playing a Rob Allen bass, I installed LaBella Tapewounds. This was the kicker. The strings seemed to tie everyting together.

This bass can sound like an upright, an electric bass and there are times I can actually get it to sound like a sousaphone (similar to Dirty Dozen Brass Band). The active electronics help make this happen.

This being said, if I had the dough, I'd definitely obtain the Rob Allen.

Building this bass was more fun than buying one, and I learned quite a bit at the same time.
 
#49
chicagodoubler said:
play with your plucking hand by the fingerboard, and don't boost too much treble.

Jimmy Hayslip gets an amazing upright-ey tone out of a fretted.

But

that's why he's one of the best!
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Yep, he does.

I actually do all my jazz gigs with a fretted 5. No one complains, but we're not all that "particular" around here. I thought about getting something more "uprighty" but figured if a good old fretted electric is good enough for Jimmy, it's good enough for me.

Peopple who ask me to play know how I sound and how I play. I'm guessing if they didn't llike either of those things I wouldn't get asked to play.
 
#52
The thumb advice is excellent. I reccommend playing with the meaty side of your thumb while applying gentle muting pressure with the back of your left hand. Many reggae bassists use this for older rock steady, ska and early reggae song covers. It tkes some practice, but you'll see what I'm talking about. Of course use flat wound strings, favor the neck pickup and adjust the eq.
 
#54
dvh said:
I was lucky and got a great deal on mine so it's easy for me to say it was worth it. But ,even at regular pricing I would definitely say it's worth it. Godin make quality instruments.

I have TI flats on mine and I really like it. This is the bass I'm using to keep up and learn with cats in jazz jams and it really cuts it.

BTW, my A4 does not have neck dive.

Cost is relative to anyone's personal pocket book of course but I would recommend this bass to you. From what you're describing it sounds like it's what you're looking for.

Cheers
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Many thanks. I was mostly sold on it just from playing it, but you know, always good to have a second opinion. And having a bass like this is going to be helpful- I've been getting with a guitarist friend and playing some jazz, and it looks like a great bass for jazz.
 
#55
dave251 said:
Here's a couple of soundfiles from some great players. First one is Brian Gingrich of Chicago

Second is Jeremy Cohen of Berkely. I'm currently working on Jeremy's second bass.....

Quintet

Invalid Link Removed

This is the bass I made for Artie Fahie(he posts on here)...
Weighs less than six pounds. The light weight( western red cedar; double carved body)contributes to the uprightishness of the tone. Passive dual pickup system(MagPi). No extra charge for left handed. I like TI Jazz flats for strings.

brownsmall.jpg
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Wow! Very impressive. That looks great! :)
 
#56
Marcury said:
Tapewounds offer a brighter and more harmonically complex tone and I find that setting the mids properly re more important to getting an uprightish tone than rolling off the high end.
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+1

TruBass 88's on my MK Dragonfly 5 made a world of difference. Whatever bass you end up with, definitely go with tapes.
 
#57
Just a comment on how an upright "works"....

I think most of the harmonic aspects of an upright can be obtained through many different "electric" designs...that is, the actual secondary harmonics that are generated above the fundamental note that's being played.

HOWEVER, it's in the time domain vs. the attack transient harmonics where things can get bungled up. A URB has a bit of a "delay", or "swell"...it just takes a bit of time to get all of that air and lumber moving, and in the right directions( phasing ). I've heard, and tested a lot of the piezo systems for URB, and they have TOO MUCH immediacy to the sound. Too upfront....no "swell" to the tone. All of the harmonics generated happen to close to the front end of the attack transient. Some systems are better than others, particularly those that rely as much on the body sound as the string sound. Of course, the problem with that is higher feedback/resonance problems......

So when trying to design an "electric" counterpart to the string bass, it's not just harmonic content we need to find, but rather the combination of ATTACK TRANSIENT and harmonic content.

Simply put, piezo systems are generally WAY too FAST in response, and magnetic pickups don't have the frequency response range....( a mag is really a mid band device ). However, and this is the trick that I use in my MagPi passive system design, is to use the inductance present in the magnetic pickup to SLOW DOWN the attack transient dynamics of the piezo. And it has to be a passive intermixing of the signals to accomplish this. If you can plug directly into the simplest( ie, fewest gain stages) amplifiers, you can get VERY close to that URB response. So what I"ve tried to accomplish with my pickup system design is not just putting current pickups systems into my lightweight cedar bodies, but actually designing the pickups to work as a system with the thinly carved cedar.
 
#60
i am not sure what exactly your price range is, but the most upright sounding fretless i have ever heard (and owned) was a Rick Turner renaissance (sp?) bass. it's a hollow body instrument with piezos in it, and comes with bronze wound nylon core strings. i had a 5 banger that had a 35" scale, and with the tone knob rolled back and playing finger style on the top of the neck made it sound like a upright.

the strings take a little bit to get used to compared to normal bass strings, the nylon cores are a bit squishier and you kind of have to play on top of the beat to get the notes to swell right. but it does sound a lot like an upright, so much so that it has fooled more than one upright player (and a good one at that) on recordings. wish i could have bought my dingwall without having to trade it in. :(

new they run from $1500 to 2 grand, but bass NW had a used 4 string right now for $1200 a week or two ago, if memory serves me correct. it's definitely worth it if you can afford it.
 

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