Kala UBass Megathread, Part 6

[edmidlifecrisis]

Dear all, for those who has contacted Ryan at Kala before,
could you please kindly let me know how to get in touch with him?

My E string out put is so low and would like to ask for help to resolve this.
Thank you so much.

Hi, JCKA

I have been in touch with him in the last week over a tuner issue with my older spruce u-bass. I didn't have too much luck with email but when I called and left a message he returned the call in a timely manner and was extremely helpful.

ed

 

[JCKA]

Hi, JCKA

I have been in touch with him in the last week over a tuner issue with my older spruce u-bass. I didn't have too much luck with email but when I called and left a message he returned the call in a timely manner and was extremely helpful.

ed

Thanks ed,
I just called him. Indeed like everyone said before, Ryan is very helpful. He did confirm with me that if the pick up is good, all four strings should produce similar output.

He suggested a few things for me to test first and we will go from there. (my E and A strings have low output.)
Thank you all for your help.

 

[dougness]

Hi

In what way is Fretless better?.Or why do some want to play a Fretless ..?

Davesound

The main benefit of fretless, IMO, is that you can adjust for intonation problems. If you want to play up there at the 12th fret and above, a fretless allows you to adjust to be in tune. As others have said, playing above the 12th on a fretted U-Bass is probably going to be noticeably out of tune, especially if you prefer the Pahoehoe (stock) strings. Also, on the fretted u-basses, you can get some nasty fret noise if you don't fret dead on. I've found that I've grown accustomed to the fret noise and it doesn't bother me when I'm playing, but when I hear recordings of my playing, the fret noise is rather unpleasant.

 

[CostyoUbass]

Thanks ed,
I just called him. Indeed like everyone said before, Ryan is very helpful. He did confirm with me that if the pick up is good, all four strings should produce similar output.

He suggested a few things for me to test first and we will go from there. (my E and A strings have low output.)
Thank you all for your help.

Dear JCKA, would you be so kind to spread Ryan's suggestions, because I think there might be more of us having the same problem of string output unevenness.
Thanks in advance!

Zsolt

 

[martyin3d]

Thanks ed,
I just called him. Indeed like everyone said before, Ryan is very helpful. He did confirm with me that if the pick up is good, all four strings should produce similar output.

He suggested a few things for me to test first and we will go from there. (my E and A strings have low output.)
Thank you all for your help.

Good luck, hope you get it sorted!

 

[JCKA]

Dear JCKA, would you be so kind to spread Ryan's suggestions, because I think there might be more of us having the same problem of string output unevenness.
Thanks in advance!

Zsolt

Well, I will try to describe what I understand from him.
Hopefully what I understood was correct, but please don't take my words for it. If there is an issue with your ubass, please contact Ryan at [email protected]

The issue I had with my 2013 model U-bass is that the A and G strings have significant lower output when plug into the amp. The way to check whether the pick up is good or not is to tap on the saddle. Saddle is fused with the pick up.

I tapped on my saddle and found that the area around A and G strings made less noise. To be sure whether this is the case, I also took the strings out and removed the saddle.
BE VERY CAREFUL, because the saddle is fused with the pick up and there is a wire attached to the saddle.
I tapped the saddle and found that the D and G string end made more noise. So...I guess the saddle/pick up is defective.
All the test was done while the ubass is plug into a bass amp.

I will have to return my Ubass to the dealer.

@martyin3d, thanks a lot..

 

[Gorn]

I'm getting tired of stories about poor qc from kala. If they're not gonna try hard enough to make sure each instrument at least as even volume from string to string, they ought to charge way less than $400-$600. My current ubass is coincidentally flawless, but this is the 4th one I've had over the past few years. Their customer service is top notch and that's great. And Ryan in tech support is a standup guy and has always been helpful and responsive and they're quick to replace faulty parts, but c'mon.....it's not a cheap instrument. Whoever's doing their manufacturing in China needs to get their sh** together.

And Mimmo, if you're out there I hope you're feeling better. I wish you happiness and health. I'd still very much like to send you some money in exchange for a set of thunder reds.

 

[martyin3d]

I'm getting tired of stories about poor qc from kala. If they're not gonna try hard enough to make sure each instrument at least as even volume from string to string, they ought to charge way less than $400-$600. My current ubass is coincidentally flawless, but this is the 4th one I've had over the past few years. Their customer service is top notch and that's great. And Ryan in tech support is a standup guy and has always been helpful and responsive and they're quick to replace faulty parts, but c'mon.....it's not a cheap instrument.

Totally aggree... I had no idea there were so many issues with them until I read this thread.

I was happy to pay the price I did for mine, but I definitely assumed that there would be no issues with the instrument. Had I known people were having so many problems I might have thought twice.

I've still not had mine amped up properly (only running it through the computer) and my amp is turning up tomorrow so fingers crossed it all works!

 

[CostyoUbass]

@JCKA: Thank you very much for the information, indeed!

Do you have the black monoblock pickup, or the older white one?

 

[CostyoUbass]

Totally aggree... I had no idea there were so many issues with them until I read this thread.

I was happy to pay the price I did for mine, but I definitely assumed that there would be no issues with the instrument. Had I known people were having so many problems I might have thought twice.

I've still not had mine amped up properly (only running it through the computer) and my amp is turning up tomorrow so fingers crossed it all works!

And on top of all, there are countries (as my country, Hungary), with no wholesalers and possibility to try before buy. For example, I ordered a fretless hog modell through a local retailer and first of all they ordere a fretted model instead of fretless, and that turned out to be unusable because of the unballanced strings. Then they ordered the proper one and it turned out that there were no fretless hog models in Europe because of quality issues of the picup/preamp. So I had to wait more than 3 months to grab this little wonder.
And now I have an u-bass with minor(?) problems, and I have to decide whether to send it back and wait another 3-4 months or try to use it as it is.
Besides that I like he u-bass concept and the instrument as well.

 

[JCKA]

@JCKA: Thank you very much for the information, indeed!

Do you have the black monoblock pickup, or the older white one?

I have the black one.

 

[martyin3d]

The amp turned up today and it sounds amazing! But my E string is way quieter than the others... Tapping the saddle as suggested above I get a nice thump through the amp on ad&g but E is pretty quiet... I'm a bit gutted because I bought the bass in the UK and have since moved to Portugal so not quite sure what I can do about it. It's my only bass out here too.

 

[Gorn]

Cool little ubass/ashbory comparison

 

[Orangeclawhammr]

Cool little ubass/ashbory comparison

Both have some nice tones, but the Ubass wins for the best lows.

 

[little george]

Cool little ubass/ashbory comparison

I really like the ubass much better. The Ashbory seems to glide from out of tune to in tune in miliseconds (ooOOOamp...) wich sounds funny, but quite limitated.


Today, after a long time spent testing thunderguts and silverrumbles, I decided to try back to original pahoehoes. All of a sudden all the fun came back as an stream For me the search is over, pahoehoes are the strings I´m going to play from now on.
I finally accepted the ubass must be played plugged in. Allways.

 

[1stnamebassist]

Yeah little george I did the same thing after trying Silver Rumblers. I couldn't get past the squeaking and squeaking sounds they made and got tired of putting baby powder on them!

 

[martyin3d]

I've just been trying out the thunderguts today. I love the tone and for the first 10 minutes they felt absolutely amazing. The string tension makes them infinitely more playable. But roughly 10 minutes of heavy use and they were seriously sticky, almost unplayably so, I'm using a fretless and with these slides aren't really an option. Has anyone tried something to lubricate them?

 

[Gorn]

I've just been trying out the thunderguts today. I love the tone and for the first 10 minutes they felt absolutely amazing. The string tension makes them infinitely more playable. But roughly 10 minutes of heavy use and they were seriously sticky, almost unplayably so, I'm using a fretless and with these slides aren't really an option. Has anyone tried something to lubricate them?

Sucks, doesn't it? They're great at first but then the squeak and stickiness takes over. Any common lube from finger ease to nose grease breaks down the string. Others use powder, which i suppose works fine if you dont mind a house/bass full of powder. Some lucky people with a certain finger tip chemistry can play them squeak free. Most can't. Same goes for the silver rumblers. Aside from the continuous tuning, super long break in time, and low tension, the stock strings are the best.

 

[martyin3d]

ah that's lame... I only changed them to see if it would fix the rattle at the nut which it didn't. I guess I'll switch back to the old ones then. Thanks for the help

 

[tymbrewolf]

Been reading this awhile bit obviously missed something. Is there some easy way to stretch these strings? I bought the first 2013 hog fretted that sweetwater got in this spring but it has had more case time as I have been remodeling my house in free time.