A symphony bassist asked me to check out a L&C bass and cello at a local music store back in 2001 or so, can't recall exactly the year. Ward Music, before it was subsumed by Long & McQuade. He wouldn't say more, just "You have to check this out" so I did. Played the cello first (I play cello, though I did play a tiny bit of doublebass once in high school band, more electric bass, and never any good at either), and found the sound quite acceptable. I was surprised. Seemed a little expensive for a plastic instrument, but then again one could probably use it defensively in a dark alley without it going out of tune, so understandable why someone would want such an instrument.
Then I went to the bass, with a shop bow. Once downbow and I knew; this thing was AWFUL! I actually started laughing with the upbow. Couldn't believe it had even made it out the factory door. I looked more closely at it, and soon saw two things very, very wrongly made. The f-holes had little bridges at top and bottom, eliminating any flexibility of that region, essentially curtailing participation of the upper and lower bouts in sound propagation. What the maker insane? And inside, the bassbar was about 1/2 the thickness it ought to be, and rectangular and very rough. Couldn't tell what it was made from, whether wood or CF, but either way it was proportionally nonsensical, at least gauging with my finger and what little I could see of it in the dim store lighting.
I have a small bass I'm restoring right now. Made in 1923 at the shop of Bienvenido Fleta (though not really - his nephews apparently inherited the shop and were just young guys starting out that year) of Barcelona. Italians working in Spain, I'm told by the owner. Like the L&C bass, it had little tags of whatever punky conifer was used in the 7-piece belly bridging the upper and lower f-holes. I've cut those through and carved them to continue the f-hole design, and reinforced above and below them with linen/hide glue patches, as the wood is rather flexible.
I understand from an engineering perspective, with such poor material, why they would have done this. But the bass has never sounded like a bass. That's also partially owing to the bassbar, which ran the entire length of the belly, rib to rib. It was generously proportioned throughout, and surprisingly, angled correctly, so I just trimmed it to the correct 7:9 proportion and then carved down the outer thirds at each end, testing and carving until it rang properly.
This thing will be a proper bass soon, for the first time in 100 years. Yesterday I removed neck shims and then corrected the warp in the neck, added a 2mm wall, 12mm diameter CF tube to stiffen it, and today I'll glue on a fingerboard. Then there's a shim to add to the heel to raise the overstand - it was at about 1/3" overstand even with two ancient shims having been added - and fit that soon to the new upper block. It's a lot of work, this bass, but it'll be gratifying to fulfill the new owner's promise to the former owner, his dying friend, that the bass will be made to play properly at last.
