Double Bass Stagg vs Dean Pace Contrabass vs Ergo

[BassSuperPower]

I'm looking for an EUB that plays and feels similar to a normal upright, but is very cheap. I play a mix of both pizz and arco. My budget is about $400-600, but I can give $700 max. The Stagg is the cheapest, and I found several on Ebay for less than 500. I also heard that it is a good EUB for the price. I'd imagine that the Dean (the 42" model) is similar to the Stagg.

I don't really know anything about the Ergo, but I do know it's handmade and everyone says it seems to be of a good quality. I'm also thinking of maybe getting the 5 string model if I do get the Ergo.

Anyone know which EUB is the best choice for me?

 

[bassie12]

Ergo is American made. Jesse is very approachable and you can have some input your instrument's build.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

Stagg probably if you want to hold it similae to an acoustic DB. But the Stagg is still cheap and needs a lot of adjustment and setup (like planing and shaping the fingerboard), which makes it a bit expensive.
I got two Staggs with the simple, black fingerboard one OK, one which needs either planing or a high action. The rosewood neck that I got needed a lot of planing and shaping and I'm still not finished with it after several hours of scraping. Maybe half the way. Too expensive to go to a luthier.

The Ergo is the fingerboard only. You need a tripod (not very DB-like) or an endpin and a body support for it.

None of the cheap EUBs I tried come close to a DB. The Stagg is probably the best of the worse, but get one with a rosewood fingerboard that can be planed and only accept one, that does not buzz with an acceptable action height. The body support is a bit weak too, new or old version doesn't matter.

 

[Oneirogenic]

I can vouch for the ergo being a fine a instrument (mines a high C fiver) BUT it does not feel like an acoustic upright. It's a different animal that mimics the sound of an amplified acoustic pretty well but that's about it. Not having the same tactile landmarks as an acoustic is a problem for some people. Not for me and many others though.

 

[Mark Gollihur]

We just got a Dean Pace Contrabass in, and it's surprisingly decent. Plays rather well right out of the box, and sounds reasonably good for the price; they sell online for $699. I think it's possible that they're just rebadged Stagg basses, but as a budget option it's not bad. Comes with an onboard preamp with headphone jack and mp3 player input, tone control, and standard 1/4" output. Sound is a little dark and slightly "muffled" in tone, but that can be tweaked at the amp. Also includes a pair of mounted "bouts" to simulate the bass body for playing comfort. Everywhere I've seen it elsewhere says it's a 42" or even 44"(!) scale, but putting a measuring tape on the bass gave me a very 3/4 size typical 41.5".

 

[rolandm]

@Mark Gollihur ... What is the string height on that Dean?

 

[Mark Gollihur]

@Mark Gollihur ... What is the string height on that Dean?

At the end of the fingerboard, as supplied by Dean, looks to be about 3/8" (E) to about 5/16" (G) -- so pretty low, very playable. But it has an adjustable bridge and a truss rod, so you can make changes to suit your preference.

 

[rolandm]

Thanks for the response, Mark. I'm making the transition to include an EUB in my arsenal, and my wife and daughter surprised me with one for an early Father's Day present that I found out about last night. LOL. The irony is, I was trying to figure out how to somehow get a 3/4 (or even 1/4) size upright into the Ford Focus. Internally, it can be done with the 1/4, but actually maneuvering it into the vehicle is impossible. So when I mentioned to the wife that I had been looking for an EUB, she gave me the most disgusted look and complained that I was impossible to surprise sometimes.

I asked her what she bought and she said it was a Dean Pace. Having done some homework, I was concerned because the Pace is more of an upright fretless bass guitar than an upright bass, and I already have two fretless basses I love. So she showed me the purchase link, and I was relieved to discover that it was a Dean Pace Contra, 3/4 size scale length.

Should be here Thursday.

 

[rolandm]

So, essentially, the Dean Pace Contra is a Stagg with different badging, something we all know. I got mine today, set it up to have the appropriate relief at the truss rod, then dropped the action as far as I could get it down without it buzzing like a bandsaw on crack. Best I could manage is 8/64 at the E and 6/64 at the G.

Spent a few minutes chasing down a low-frequency hum that lead me to open up the end pin section and the preamp section and discover that none of it was shielded. I came to this conclusion after I touched the preamp section and the hum disappeared. So, as with all my basses, I shielded it.

Once that was done, I buttoned it back up and played it for a few hours checking the intonation and checking tuning occasionally. It held tune nicely, and even had a bit of a growl to it if I dug in, not unlike the fretless basses I own with an ebanol board. Overall, it has hints of sounding like an upright. The string clack is there, the finger noise is there, and there's a definite difference between how a 34" scale Fender sounds vs. a 42 inch upright in terms of overall timbre. But due to the board being maple and covered in ebanol, that woodiness you get with an ebony board is not there. So, I suspect those folks wanting that true-to-form upright sound might not dig that.

But if you're ok with a somewhat more modern sound to your upright, and even a bass you can make growl with a blend between upright and fretless electric, this might be your pig. Add in a bit of chorus, some tasteful reverb, and it will do very well, especially for bassists coming over from the electric side.

Now I just have to learn to play the bloody thing. The switch into the upper register is fun, and fast runs up strings like in Ants Marching by DMB I was able to pick up easily enough. Good bass, and I look forward to owning it.

 

[rolandm]

Two gigs in on it, and I'm getting the hang of it. Been looking at upgrading the strings (the D on this bass is very weird, and doesn't appear to be wound correctly, as there are humps in it at certain parts of the string). The strings that came with it are higher-tension strings (similar to the D'Addario Chromes on my fretless), which makes passages in the upper register challenging, but not entirely impossible. I was thinking about getting a bumped set from Gollihur of the RS4000s. The one thing that concerns me is, I don't want a string that is low tension to start with, and then bump it down a fourth and have it really flopping and have to raise the action substantially to make up for it. Even letting out the truss rod wouldn't do much in that regard, as this neck is VERY stiff. I tried detuning the bass to BEAD to give it a whirl, and I liked where the tension sat with that. Not knowing anything about the string maker other than the fact that they aren't the best strings on the planet, it's kind of a crap shoot.

@Mark Gollihur, can you tell me if the differences in the string sizes would cause them to wallow around in the nut a bit? I mean, putting an A in the E nut slot, seems like it would leave some room for it to move a bit? Will I have to fill the slot and re-file?

 

[Mark Gollihur]

@Mark Gollihur, can you tell me if the differences in the string sizes would cause them to wallow around in the nut a bit? I mean, putting an A in the E nut slot, seems like it would leave some room for it to move a bit? Will I have to fill the slot and re-file?

A bumped set of Rotosounds on the Dean will actually have thicker gauge than the stock strings on the bass -- meaning that the Roto G string is actually marginally thicker than the Dean's D string, the Roto D string is marginally thicker than the Dean's A string, and so on. If anything, you might need to slightly widen the nut slots.

By the way, this isn't from looking at the numbers, I just pulled a set of Rotosounds off the shelf and held them up against the strings on the Dean bass in my showroom.

 

[rolandm]

Ah. Good thing I have that set of files, then. So essentially, for that bass, the feel will be much the same as the stock set of strings. Awesome.

 

[rolandm]

Update. Stagg vs. Dean. Ever so slightly different in sizes. The lower bout on the Dean is a bit wider. How do I know? The Stagg hardshell case just arrived. I applied a little Judy Tenuta logic to the situation.

"You can't get a [bass] like mine in a [case] unless you push real hard!"

Better than a 10mm padded bag, though, and with a little encouragement, it fit. Do yourself a favor, however and place the endpin in first.

 

[LilyT]

Update. Stagg vs. Dean. Ever so slightly different in sizes. The lower bout on the Dean is a bit wider. How do I know? The Stagg hardshell case just arrived. I applied a little Judy Tenuta logic to the situation.

"You can't get a [bass] like mine in a [case] unless you push real hard!"

Better than a 10mm padded bag, though, and with a little encouragement, it fit. Do yourself a favor, however and place the endpin in first.

Indeed, rolandm is brilliant -- putting the endpin in first lets the rest of the EDB easily slide right in, even though my Dean is exactly the width of the _outside_ of the case being currently sold as the Stagg GEC-EDB. Being that the case is made out of something thinnish (i.e. cardboard, which was optimistically called ‘wood’ in one of the descriptions), it simply bows out to accommodate the width of the 'lower bout'.

But how to get the latches to latch? I can only really get the ones at the very ends to clasp with a bit of struggle and rotating the body a bit so the edge of the instrument is ‘down’ in the fro t of the case and away from the latches. Anyone out there want to chime in on how this is done? Does cutting some of the foam out help?