Got a Douglas WEB-846 -- review

So the GAS bug bit again a while back, and I was itching for something different, yet familiar. But I didn't want to lay down a lot of money to satisfy what was essentially a whim. What finally caught my eye was a Douglas WEB-846, a fretless 6-string bass from Rondo Music. I ordered the sunburst one because, well, it was cheaper, and I wanted to play it, not look at it. The order went in last Monday and the bass arrived on Wednesday. How's that for service? And as I found out, it's worth every dollar I spent for it -- for good and bad.

Here's a picture of it:



It seems decently built; the parts all fit together tightly with no obvious slop or gaps. The strings that came with it are pretty good too, some kind of bright chrome-ish un-named brand that weren't corroded or dead. It tunes up tight and stays in tune. And to it's credit, the active pickups and electronics are nice, too. I can get lots of different sounds from it, from deep rumbling to bright and punchy. And the low B string!!! That's a wonderful new experience for me. Although I don't know how relevant the high C string will be.

The problems I had were with the neck. First of all, it's a long scale (34") and I've been used to the 30.5" scale of my EB-3 for so long. Not that that's a problem with the bass, and I've been having fun getting used to it. But there were other things that were less than perfect.

First of all, the fingerboard was "ebonized," i.e., painted black. I couldn't see that staying on for long, so I stripped it down to the rosewood right away and dressed it with lemon oil. Then, in the process of stripping it, I discovered a small gouge in the fingerboard, either a tiny knot that fell out or an errant tooling mark. It's not in the way of any fingerings, so I decided to let it ride. It had probably been filled with putty and painted over at the factory, and I exposed it when I stripped it I can always re-fill it in with some epoxy resin if I decide to later. After all, I didn't spend top dollar for the thing. Here's a closup picture:



Finally, the neck had a strange geometry, and I spent the last 3 days slowly tweaking it back into the correct shape. It has double truss rods, and they were badly mis-adjusted -- the one on the treble side was cranked way down tight and the one on the bass side was loosened almost the whole way. I adjusted, let it settle, over and over again, and had to spray the bass side with WD-40 and cleaned chunks of black paint out of the slot. But I eventually got them working together with the proper relief, and it plays pretty smoothly now, no buzzing or clatter with an acceptable action (3/32" on the E string at the octave).

By the way, the dot makers on the side of the neck are placed where they would be on a fretted fingerborad, so I added a couple "fret lines" along the side with a silver marker.

Like I said, it was worth every dollar I spent on it, but I had to put some time and effort into getting it tweaked to my satisfaction. If you enjoy going at your instruments with wrenches, screwdrivers and steel wool, it might be worth investing a buck or two into.

 

My thinking exactly -- how can you go wrong? After letting the neck settle for another week and a half, the relief ran completely proportional and smoothly along the full 2 octaves of the fingerboard. So I was able to lower the action even more, to 5/64" on E at the octave. No buzz at all, plays sweet, sounds nice. I'd like to put a set of flatwounds on it, but 6 string? Not available at my usual outlets. I'll have to check out this Mike on eBay. Thanks!

 

Looks like we got the same set of strings for the bass. I found I needed to widen the nut slots and a few of the strings, and enlarge the through-body holes below the bridge for the B and E strings, and the saddle slots, too. Plus I needed to re-adjust the relief in the neck and saddle heights. The neck takes a long time to settle in. It plays nice and smooth, although it certainly doessn't sound as bright as with those roundwounds, but deep and growly instead.

 

I have a set of small files that includes a small round one that tapers. Started on the small end and worked up. It also worked for widening the nut slots.