Kala UBass Megathread, Part 3

[SBassman]

One would imagine it's only a matter of time before Kala introduces an acoustic-electric UBass. More models from other manufacturers are coming out, and they'll need an AE model to keep competing.
Kinda crazy that it's not already out there.

 

[scotch]

One would imagine it's only a matter of time before Kala introduces an acoustic-electric UBass. More models from other manufacturers are coming out, and they'll need an AE model to keep competing.
Kinda crazy that it's not already out there.

An onboard pre w/built-in tuner would be welcome!

 

[slaerts]

Yes, I have the same tuner. So good I bought 2 of them. One for my bass and one for my acoustic guitar. I've now just bought a bongo 5HH and the kala will buy 2 more when the wife isn't looking.

Did you find the headstock of the kala a bit thin to properly fit the tuner?

 

[Timmy-Watts]

SnapJack. Just pull it off-muted: stick it back on and start swinging again. I use the Samson clip on tuner. It is excellent. But I only really have to check it between sets. Once tuned my U-bass is pretty good for the whole gig.

 

[scotch]

Yes, I have the same tuner. So good I bought 2 of them. One for my bass and one for my acoustic guitar. I've now just bought a bongo 5HH and the kala will buy 2 more when the wife isn't looking.

Did you find the headstock of the kala a bit thin to properly fit the tuner?

Nope. The NS-Mini fits great! No problems on either of my U-Basses.

 

[Timmy-Watts]

Gig report rereamps. In this very live room, the Fishman sounds ok on the upright, but on the Ubass the Baggs is the clear winner. The Fishman is just so wooly in the low end and the Baggs is inherently strong but tight. And the highs are clearer. I noticed the EQ bands seem to be Very wide on the Fishman and narrower on the Baggs. the Baggs can make drastic cuts without gutting the sound. And the sweepable EQ bands can easily pinpoint problems. It is becoming clear I need to keep both. I'll report more later.

 

[BassBron]

Thank you for the replies everyone. In my case it is more about volume adjustments, as we practise in a garage (how original) and the amps have all been put above the roll up door on a shelf facing us. So adjusting volumes at the amp becomes a bit of a schlepp, and the convenience of being able to do that on the spot where you play is desirable. Our cables are suspended and come down from the roof trusses to avoid the clutter on the floor. So using the Kala with a Mixpro with either one or two ports is the kind of information I am looking for, as this will be usefull if we play at another venue, where I have experienced that the crew who control the board can get me annoyed, which throws me off my game a bit. The Mixpro can handle various accoustic and passive instruments if I am not mistaken and would enable me to make my own adjustments? What would be your take on this ?

 

[jamesczar]

My one wish was that one of the two (baggs/fishman) had a mute switch as the kala needs lots of re-tunning. Please tell me this will fix itself after a week or so? I know there is a baggs (next model up) which does this with a built in tuner but I prefer to run off of phantom power and it doesn't do that.

A volume or mute switch on the kala would be ever so handy too. I do suppose kala have thought of this and dismissed it though. Surely the extra few $ in components and time to fit it wouldn't be that much?

I was wondering about that same issue, and although I didn't want to bring another pedal, I killed two birds with one stone...

For most of my UBass gigs I didn't want to bring my pedalboard... Just a small simple setup: UBass, Fishman Plat Pro, and my Acoustic Image Ten2. Unfortunately, I've been running into the problem of having trouble tuning my E string (and sometimes A) with my clip-on tuner. The other night I was standing between a guitar and a violin on stage, and I they were vibrating the body of my hollowbody UBass, making it difficult to tune those low strings.

Even if I had my Ten2, which has a mute button, that doesn't fix the vibration issue. So, I guess I'm just using the clip-on tuner for practice and pulling my Korg Pitchblack tuner pedal off of my pedalboard and bringing it with me for future gigs (it mutes while tuning, and is very accurate).

 

[jamesczar]

SnapJack. Just pull it off-muted: stick it back on and start swinging again. I use the Samson clip on tuner. It is excellent. But I only really have to check it between sets. Once tuned my U-bass is pretty good for the whole gig.

How strong of a hold does the magnet have on a snap jack? As light as a Mac Book magnetic power cord? Or stronger (hopefully)? I'd hate for it to pop off often while playing/moving.

 

[Timmy-Watts]

How strong of a hold does the magnet have on a snap jack? As light as a Mac Book magnetic power cord? Or stronger (hopefully)? I'd hate for it to pop off often while playing/moving.

I'm not familiar with the Mac cord thing. But this is very strong. I was skeptical til I tried one. It is very solid. But it will pop off before you destroy a jack. That's the point. No pops or buzz. Just instant mute. I got an extra end and leave it in my P bass for doubling with the U-Bass. Just pop off and switch. Perfect since I use the same settings for both instruments.

 

[bluecab]

Are there any (minoritarian) Solid Body players who tried various preamps?
Please share your opinions...
My tube-preamps, Reussenzehn Bass Max and Hughes & Kettner Bassmaster emphasize the upper harmonics including finger noise too much.
The LR Baggs seems to be interesting as well as the VT, somebody tried the Eden WTDI?

 

[Timmy-Watts]

Are there any (minoritarian) Solid Body players who tried various preamps?
Please share your opinions...
My tube-preamps, Reussenzehn Bass Max and Hughes & Kettner Bassmaster emphasize the upper harmonics including finger noise too much.
The LR Baggs seems to be interesting as well as the VT, somebody tried the Eden WTDI?

All I know is that what generally works well for the hollows works for the solid. Except I thought the VT was not as pleasing or effective on the solid. And the MXR M-80 was awesome on the solid, but not for the hollow. Kinda kicking myself for selling mine. I do know for sure the Baggs is excellent on the solid. I have a Latin gig next week on the solid. I'll try the Fishman out and report back.

 

[Timmy-Watts]

Are there any (minoritarian) Solid Body players who tried various preamps?
Please share your opinions...
My tube-preamps, Reussenzehn Bass Max and Hughes & Kettner Bassmaster emphasize the upper harmonics including finger noise too much.
The LR Baggs seems to be interesting as well as the VT, somebody tried the Eden WTDI?

And I think I have access to a WDTI. I'll see if I can bum it for a week and report back.

 

[SBassman]

Youse guys are tone PhDs.

I guess that's why my tone isn't that good sometimes.
I sorta plug in and go usually.

On drum gigs, I'm amazed at the time our bandleader will put into
getting the tone on my bass drum right. He literally spends more time on that than EQing the vocals. Actually, he does no tests on the vocals. He dials it the same way for every room and goes. For the bass drum, he can dial that sucker for 10 minutes until he's happy.

 

[bluecab]

Thanks a lot Tim, what a nice person you are. I'm looking forward to your report. I thought about the MXR 10 band EQ too, there is a guy over here modding it with highest quality IC's, so there is ZERO hiss and more headroom. But he ends at 210.- €, maybe it's worth, cause I often use the Micromark 801, which has no tone controls, except a useless VPF, which is for the slappers. The Micromark is an astonishing good sounding, relatively expensive mini combo for practice and small acoustic settings, but the highs get a bit penetrant with higher volume.

 

[caeman]

I own a MXR 10-band, and it is dead quiet. At 18v operation, it has more than enough head room for the highest of bass pickups.

 

[slaerts]

Nope. The NS-Mini fits great! No problems on either of my U-Basses.

Wow, that is interesting. I wonder where you put yours, it fits best at the top of the headstock on mine and if the headstock was even 2 millmetres thicker it wouldn't be a problem but it slips around a lot, I actually kinda achor it next to the G stringtuner so it rests against it.

I stretched all my strings last night, that E is a difficult thing to move. I found sitting on the arm of the lounge with my feet on the seat and putting the body under my legs with the head and neck sticking up between my legs and using my legs to hold the body I then have one hand to pull the strings and one hand to hold some plyers and pull the string to work well. The lounge is nice and soft and there are no hard surfaces to scratch the u-bass.

And an added thought on pre-amps etc, I was quite surprised how upping the input gain helped clean the signal. I've only used active basses the last few years and haven't needed to adjust this at all but my suspicion is that pedals with an input gain feature will work best with this bass.

 

[scotch]

Wow, that is interesting. I wonder where you put yours, it fits best at the top of the headstock on mine and if the headstock was even 2 millmetres thicker it wouldn't be a problem but it slips around a lot, I actually kinda achor it next to the G stringtuner so it rests against it...

I clamp mine on the end of the headstock as well. Fits snugly. I guess your headstock is a little thinner? Maybe try putting a little plastic or felt 'pad' from the hardware store on the thin 'arm' part of the tuner to act as a spacer?

 

[Timmy-Watts]

I, too have a MXR 10-band, the M-108 I think... It is dead quiet and has gobs of headroom. I have not used it alone with the passive Ubass. The input is purportedly 480kOhm... We usually look for at least 1meg. So I would put it after a preamp or in the effects loop. It is the single most effective EQ pedal IMO. For tone shaping it is king. But these preamps have built in dynamic control like compression, buffering, phasing, shelving, etc. all those thinks determine speeds of attacks in different frequency ranges to make the attacks and decays and "punch" sound different, not only the harmonic content of your notes.

 

[caeman]

Mod that MXR with a 10MOhm input and it will be golden.