Double Bass Hyler Touchstyle Excalibur

[Francois Blais]

Is there a sound clip of this bass? There' s one for sale in my area.

Fred

Hi Fred.
I'm not sure you read the thread.
I'd stay away from this at any rate.

As for sound clips in general: will all due respect, I personally don't care about this at all. Furthermore with fretless instruments.
A good player will get a good sound out of a cheap bass.
And a bad player won't sound good even with a $25000 bass.
I mean no insult, just stating facts.

Hope this helps,
François

 

[MrWalker]

Hello, Fred!

If you are considering buying this, you shouldn't rely on a clip alone. There is more to this instrument that you need to check out than the sound. I can not recommend you to buy it without inspecting it in person and check out that the flaws are not killing the deal.

I do not have a sound clip of this bass as it was. The built-in piezo that resides inside the body has now stopped working consistently, so the "original" sound is not there any more. The instrument sounds decent with a Fishman BP100 in a sandwich I created for the bridge. However, string spacing is uneven, fingerboard finish is uneven, nut is badly cut, headstock design kills strings, back of neck is unevenly finished, the bridge was cut wrong, and there is a lot of noise being transmitted from the stand arrangement to the built-in mic.

The original sound is somewhat boomy and thumpy, and does a somewhat acceptable job of imitating an upright bass. It is, however, very uneven from string to string, and as it is a piezo pickup mounted inside a cavity of the body, it turns the bass into a "stomp box". Every touch or knock is reproduced through your amplifier with painful accuracy.

You may be luckier than I was. But I will not make you a sound clip, as I think the sound is your least concern with this instrument. I will not in any way encourage you to buy this instrument unless you visit the seller and confirm that it is in acceptable shape.

I hope I have made my point clear. If you want an uprightish bass like this, I think you should go for a Kydd. That is what I wish I did.

 

[bass_snake]

I' ve decided that I' m not going to buy it anymore. I wanted to see it first in person but it' s just it' s a long drive to get there.

Thank you for your input though.

 

[MrWalker]

Last update on this bass.

I have added a string retainer bar at the headstock to press the strings down over the nut, I have made new string grooves in the nut (on the sides I had to make them almost 2mm deeper than they were originally), I have polished the fingerboard, I have made string guide grooves from the tuner holes to avoid string breakage, I've added rubber pads under the stand mount to avoid too much sound from going through, I have sanded the back of the neck to make it more even, and I've made new string grooves in the bridge and installed a new Fishman BP100 pickup system on it.

The builder sent me another piece of crap mic for installation under the bridge of the bass, but as you guessed... it's not very usable. It probably works, but the wires are too short to connect easily, the finishing is very uneven and the bridge wouldn't have sat straight on it.

So I ordered a trusted Fishman BP100 and have now made myself a bridge sandwich using some spacer bars from a Roland GK3 pickup that I had and some double sided tape and the original bridge.

The bass is now playable, except from a smaller section of the fingerboard on the treble side (1-5th position) that buzzes a lot. The rest of the bass is however now playable. It sounds decent, too. The Fishman mic system works great, and I have now basically a "Kydd clone" bass. It sounds like a "cross-over" between an upright and a fretless with flats. It's ok, not quite the uprightish sound I had hoped for, but not totally useless either.

Given the total final price and everything, I'm still at 2/3 of the price of a second hand Kydd.... but the workmanship is probably way inferior to the Kydd. And if you count in the hours spent... I'd say definitely not worth it.

So my advice is... save yourself the trouble, just go get a Kydd if a Kydd is what you want.

If it looks like a turd, smells like a turd, it most likely is a turd.

Hopefully my bad experience with this builder and this instrument will save someone the disappointment in the future.

Spent another couple of hours with this bass today, fixing it up (took it right after swapping the electronics of my Yamaha TRB6 out and the soldering iron was out and the spirit was high)

The original piezo element is very poor, and it's just tucked into a hole drilled from the jack socket. I removed it, used the jack (a locking jack, no less.... the only worthwhile item on this bass besides the wood itself) over again, and connected my home-made Fishman equipped bridge to it. Drilled a neat little hole under the strings into the "control cavity" (the mentioned hole) and put it together again. It seems to be making a little resonance so will put back the foam that was put in there originally. The original piezo element was very flimsy (no suriprise).

The Fishman sounds decent, although it picks up a little finger noise (since the distance from the strings to the pickups is a little short, they pick up string noise). But it sounds uprightish.

So the bass finally plays and acts sort of properly now. Fed through my K&K upright preamp, it sounds decent in fact. And electronically noiseless (as opposed to the original electronics that were put in there).

The Hyler store has been closed for quite a while... I don't know why that is... probably they have gone out of business... no wonder... with the crap they marketed.

Still.... go get a Kydd any day over this instrument. But at least it's now usable.

 

[scojack]

Glad you at least have a usuable intrument now MrWalker..shame how it all turned out though.