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Kala Ubass Megathread, Part 1

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#241
Downunderwonder said:
Venting.....friggen NZ Customs has latched onto my U-bass and they are taking their sweet time to send me a bill for import tax. I thought being a "uke" it might go through unmolested. Dangnabbit, that's be an extra 15% to pay on the uke and the blimmin airmail.
Click to expand...

I guess this must be purely a revenue tariff, since to be a protective tariff there would have to be U-bass-type products made in NZ, which doesn't seem likely, does it? Or perhaps NZ customs thinks it's just a uke and is competing with ukes made in NZ. (Are there ukes made in NZ?)

Anyway, sorry to hear about the expense and delay. But be sure to let us know what you think of your fretless and its intonation situation when you finally get it, okay?
 
#242
Does anyone know of a store in the Los Angeles area that stocks U-Basses?

I'd really like to buy one, but first I'd like to see how tough it is to get correct intonation on the fretless model.

This guy's fretless intonation seems solid enough:

 
#243
Jack Clark said:
I guess this must be purely a revenue tariff, since to be a protective tariff there would have to be U-bass-type products made in NZ, which doesn't seem likely, does it? Or perhaps NZ customs thinks it's just a uke and is competing with ukes made in NZ. (Are there ukes made in NZ?)

Anyway, sorry to hear about the expense and delay. But be sure to let us know what you think of your fretless and its intonation situation when you finally get it, okay?
Click to expand...
Yeah, revenue, basically sales tax I would have paid if I had got it from an importer. They let it slide up to about 50 bucks of tax collected. Still nothing in my mailbox, maybe it's just taking them awhile to process parcels atmo wot with terrorist mailings of late.

There are a few ukes and guitars and basses made in NZ btw. I have a very nice Sanderson bass.

Will sure let know how I find the intonation, I expect it'll be fine. If you never played anything fretless before you might find it a handful.
 
#244
I thought I would post something here regarding my customer service experience with Kala. My experience has been great. I'll try to keep this short.

I have the spruce top model, and the g-string was buzzing really bad on open. I thought it was because of the excessive string winding that was occuring on the tuning post. The winding was running over itself, and there was no longer a good break angle over the nut. I thought this was the source of my buzz, so I took the the strings off the tuning posts, cut the excess windings down, and restrung it. To my surprise - it didn't help at all. So I sent Kala an email about it.

I got a response from them the same day. The let me know that they are now using a different G-string to correct this issue. I had a new (free of charge) G-string for the ubass in my mailbox 5 days after I contacted them - no questions asked. So within a week the problem was taken care of. The bigger G does correct the problem.

So in short, I've had a great customer experience with Kala thus far.
 
#245
Jack Clark said:
I'm interested in the fretless model, too. But Gollihur Music recommends getting the fretted one instead. (Invalid Link Removed)

I suspect it may have to do with intonation on such a short 20" scale, but my own odd, fretless, upright bass has only a 26" scale, so I'm still interested. What comments do you have now that you've had your fretless for a while, mwesth?
Click to expand...

I just love it - still so fun to play! Of course, intonation is more difficult than on a fretted, but with practice, I manage fairly well. Still have to look at the fretboard while playing, though... If your main interest is to have a bass, that you can play in the dark after drinking a lot of beer, then go for the fretted one :smug:

I play in a band playing 50/60'ies rock'n'roll, and use the ubass on a few songs, mainly those, that were originally played on an upright bass. The "upright" sound is awesome, I just love the "thump" coming from the little bugger..
 
#248
Downunderwonder said:
Will sure let know how I find the intonation, I expect it'll be fine. If you never played anything fretless before you might find it a handful.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm hoping that that was what caused the intonation-reservations comments. . . . Although the Gollihurs certainly are accustomed to playing double basses, and they are recommending against purchasing the fretless. That's what has me somewhat concerned. But maybe when they made that recommendation they were just concerned about their customers who don't play a fretless bass buying a fretless Ubass. Did they mean to suggest that even double bass players would be happier with a fretted Ubass? I dunno. . . . Maybe I should ask them. There's a novel idea.

I'll let folks here know what they tell me.
 
#249
can I join?
 

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#250
Jack Clark said:
I'll let folks here know what they [at Gollihur Music] tell me.
Click to expand...

Okay, I spoke via PM with Bob Gollihur regarding his website's recommendation of the fretted UBass over the fretless one, and he suggested that I refer to his description at GollihurMusic.com: Invalid Link Removed.

As I understand Bob's explanation, he feels that: (1) for some reason the fretless UBass does not produce the "mwah" sound that you can make by rolling a finger on a fretless BG; and (2) the frets are quiet, giving the fretted model a warm, organic, fretless sound anyway. So, he feels there is nothing to be gained by going fretless and it's easier to get good intonation on the fretted model.
 
#251
Downunderwonder said:
Yeah, revenue, basically sales tax I would have paid if I had got it from an importer. They let it slide up to about 50 bucks of tax collected. Still nothing in my mailbox, maybe it's just taking them awhile to process parcels atmo wot with terrorist mailings of late.

There are a few ukes and guitars and basses made in NZ btw. I have a very nice Sanderson bass.

Will sure let know how I find the intonation, I expect it'll be fine. If you never played anything fretless before you might find it a handful.
Click to expand...

Coulda saved yourself the hassle by ordering one from Alistair's Music in Wellington. I know that would depend on where you were but it would beat getting it through customs. Oh well :) I hope to pick up the fretless one from there when I have the dough
 
#253
Back in May of this year, I was on a plane on my way out to Full Compass to do PA demos for their staff. I had thrown a trade mag in my bag to read up on FC's recent expansion. Being just prior to Summer NAMM, it was chock full of new product press releases, including the UBass. I was intrigued and thought it would be cool to have - my carved 1931 Miceli upright has been beyond reasonable repair for a while, and thought we are a rock band, there were at least a few tunes that call for upright sound, plus the stripped down shows we do from time to time. I also thought is would be perfect for camping and summer festival jams along with the Traynor battery amp.

So I file it away in my brain and get back to editing tracks for the demo...

... get back on the ground and our rep picks us up. We stop for lunch and he grabs a fiddle case out of the back and says, "Ben you play bass right? You gotta check this out!" Turns out he also sells Kala and was bringing it to FC to hip them to it. I plunked on it and thought it was a little screwy but had potential.

FF to the next day - we're doing demos in the big demo room they have in their impressive new facility. We were running them every 30 min and kept them short as their sales team is pretty focused on hitting phones and email. Some of the sessions had no one show (they're on their own schedule), so I spent a lot of time killing time. I realized the Kala was tuned FCDA like a uke. I retuned to EADG and all of a sudden I was much more interested...

Thought about it on the flight home (after sprinting the length of a terminal @ O'Scare in Chicago to make my connecting into B-lo).... called the rep the next Monday andtold him to get me the Acacia - they were going to be a couple months at best, so I took the 'hog. He ended up hooking me up with one of the Summer NAMM demos so it could ship back with our trade show stock.

A week later it was out on a gig. My singer LOOVES it - to the point where I need to make sure I can still play my electric some nights! It's second gig was outdoors through a 12-box per side EAW KF760 rig with 8 Yorville TX9S (2x18) subs per side. I've played it indoors and out through my Demeter/Alto/Schroeder rig as well as my B15N. Never even been close to feedback.

I do wish it had a little hotter output - it's easily 6dB down from my SR4 and old G&L SB-1.

Great instrument - sounds great and chicks dig it even more than my scrubboard.

btw - I use a Levy's mandolin strap with a tie and it works fine for me.
 
#254
oh, I ended up using a battery amp for a weekend at a festival - it worked great and was plenty loud for a jam including accordian, fiddle, two hand drums, mandolin, banjo and 2 acoustic guitars.

Regarding the impedance - it will not be an issue at all if you are using a buffered pedal tuner like the Boss TU-2.
 
#255
Jjango said:
Does anyone know of a store in the Los Angeles area that stocks U-Basses?

I'd really like to buy one, but first I'd like to see how tough it is to get correct intonation on the fretless model.

This guy's fretless intonation seems solid enough:

Click to expand...


I have seen one at Sam Ash. I got to play it for a few minutes, but this was before I really knew what it was and whether it was cool (who knew?). The store I frequent is Puente Hills, but you could find one at other locations if you call around.
 
#259
Jack Clark said:
As I understand Bob's explanation, he feels that: (1) for some reason the fretless UBass does not produce the "mwah" sound that you can make by rolling a finger on a fretless BG; and (2) the frets are quiet, giving the fretted model a warm, organic, fretless sound anyway. So, he feels there is nothing to be gained by going fretless and it's easier to get good intonation on the fretted model.
Click to expand...

I agree with Bob on this 100%.

- Steve
 
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