Double Bass Is this bass worth repairing?

[Kai Sanchez]

My korean carved bass suffered a major accident and now I've got a huge dillema about what to do next (note: the person responsible for the accident will be paying for the cost of the repair). You've heard about how some asian basses have a really thin top (4 mm measured by the bridge area) to get a bigger sound at expense of durability.

So far these are my options:

1.Repair the top= about $2,000
2.A brand new top= $600-800 for the wood + labor= $$$$$$$$$
3.Save the money for another bass.

Take into consideration that I paid $3,000 for it and then spent $1,500 on upgrades. Is it worth it to repair this bass. The bass sounded good but still.
Thanks all in advance for all the help in these dark days.

 

[Mark Carlsen]

Get a new Bass, period !!

 

[Paul Warburton]

Holy Christ and ****!
Do what Mark said.

 

[LouisF]

In general I agree with Mark above, BUT...

I spent a lot of time with Linear basses, made in Korea. They have since gone out of business (taken over by Korea's Universal Music). They supply a line of basses to lots of dealers now (I think the Jim Laabs basses are Korean now etc).

SOME of the older Korean basses can be quite good, especially for the money. And only you and or your luthier will know if this one is worth it. I guess it's economics. If someone is paying for the repair (??) and the bass is stable and served you well, I would do it. If the bass was a frustrating POS and you were thinking about getting rid of it, then you have to see what you can get for the money and how much better that will be than what you've got.

If you're in the $1500-$2000 range there are probably basses out there now (Upton, Thompson, Kohr) that will be as good as the average Korea bass was.

Does that make sense?

Louis

 

[Gearhead43]

That pic is horrifying!

For the kind of dough it will take to fix that you could get a nice Upton hybrid that would sound better and be alot more durable, IMO.

Sorry about your loss.

 

[Kai Sanchez]

In general I agree with Mark above, BUT...

I spent a lot of time with Linear basses, made in Korea. They have since gone out of business (taken over by Korea's Universal Music). They supply a line of basses to lots of dealers now (I think the Jim Laabs basses are Korean now etc).

This is not one of the Jim Laabs basses. I bought it new in November 2006 and I assume it was made on that year or maybe 2005.

SOME of the older Korean basses can be quite good, especially for the money. And only you and or your luthier will know if this one is worth it. I guess it's economics. If someone is paying for the repair (??) and the bass is stable and served you well, I would do it. If the bass was a frustrating POS and you were thinking about getting rid of it, then you have to see what you can get for the money and how much better that will be than what you've got.

I bought this bass because I liked it's resonance when I played the open strings, but it had a lot of buzzes all over the neck, I tried getting rid of the buzzes until I gave up and got a new fingerboard and problem solved. If you'd look inside you would see some construction flaws which makes me wonder if it would cause some problems in the future. Also, the top was very thin when I bought and I'm afraid having it repaired will make it even more fragile than when it was brand new.
Is it really worth it?

If you're in the $1500-$2000 range there are probably basses out there now (Upton, Thompson, Kohr) that will be as good as the average Korea bass was.

Does that make sense?

Louis

A LOT.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

You could also see the broken bass as a learning project for an aspiring luthier and recoup some of the loss that way too.

 

[Martin Sheridan]

In general I agree with Mark above, BUT...

I spent a lot of time with Linear basses, made in Korea. They have since gone out of business (taken over by Korea's Universal Music). They supply a line of basses to lots of dealers now (I think the Jim Laabs basses are Korean now etc).

SOME of the older Korean basses can be quite good, especially for the money. And only you and or your luthier will know if this one is worth it. I guess it's economics. If someone is paying for the repair (??) and the bass is stable and served you well, I would do it. If the bass was a frustrating POS and you were thinking about getting rid of it, then you have to see what you can get for the money and how much better that will be than what you've got.

If you're in the $1500-$2000 range there are probably basses out there now (Upton, Thompson, Kohr) that will be as good as the average Korea bass was.

Does that make sense?

Louis

I saw some Korean basses about ten years ago, and had the top off of one. I was surprised to see that the bass bar was only about the size of a cello bar, and I suspected that the top was pressed. Is this your experience. I had another bass from a Korean company that was made in, I believe, Sri Lanka. It had plywood sides, but the rest was carved. It was a real killer sound wise.

Are there any good Korean basses on the market now? Can you share company names?

 

[Mark Carlsen]

Take what I say w. a grain of salt...... The Korean's I have seen and worked on are thin and sound good in the beginning, but the tops are what we call "Punky Wood". They do not stand up over the course of time.... I would move on because after all the Bass is just the machine, and there's a lot of machines out there..

 

[Marktwain]

Why not experiment and make it a small electric upright. Trim the back and sides if you can. If not keep the neck , finger board and add on the bottom so handle a peg and you could have a very light weight compact electric upright. Just a thought. Thats is what I would try to do if it were mine. Good luck. If you don't do anything with it let me know maybe I can take it off your hands. Good Luck, Marktwain

 

[LouisF]

Just to be clear - when I was dealing with Linear, they tried to address certain issues: poorly set necks, sloppy finish, thin tops, small bass bars etc, on a line of higher quality instruments. To make a very long (and what turned out to be fairly ugly) story short and sweet, the corporate mentality there means more "student" level stuff, which they actually expect to have a short life span (trade in/trade up etc). Some dealers held them to pretty high quality control (I think Lemur was one, but I'm not sure if this is still true, i.e. - I'm not sure if they're having basses built in Korea).

So the short answers are - a) I don't there are any quality basses coming out of Korea at the moment (but I may be wrong); and b) it sounds like you are better off getting an Upton/Thompson/Sunrise instrument and not putting the $$ into this one.

Louis

 

[Kai Sanchez]

Thank you all for your responses. I'll probably go with upton. My intention with this thread was to find opinions that would help me decide what to do next. There are still some good basses coming out of asia, but as when buying any bass, you have to make sure the bass is well made. I trusted who sold the bass to me who probably trusted the distributor/maker of the bass I bought.
Thanks,
Kai Sanchez

 

[Martin Sheridan]

Just to be clear - when I was dealing with Linear, they tried to address certain issues: poorly set necks, sloppy finish, thin tops, small bass bars etc, on a line of higher quality instruments. To make a very long (and what turned out to be fairly ugly) story short and sweet, the corporate mentality there means more "student" level stuff, which they actually expect to have a short life span (trade in/trade up etc). Some dealers held them to pretty high quality control (I think Lemur was one, but I'm not sure if this is still true, i.e. - I'm not sure if they're having basses built in Korea).

So the short answers are - a) I don't there are any quality basses coming out of Korea at the moment (but I may be wrong); and b) it sounds like you are better off getting an Upton/Thompson/Sunrise instrument and not putting the $$ into this one.

Louis

Cam sam nee dah.