So I've been using my wav4 regularly for more than a year as a substitute bass for rehearsals and 'special circumstance' gigs. My 1930 Tsjech bass remains my main instrument, but the EUB is very usefull and I even like the 'not quite db' sound. So I'm not on a impossible quest for a eub that sounds exactly like a db. I know that's impossible. Still, I think it can be better.
Foremost I find it really irritating that my wav4 feels different. I would really like to have a EUB that has a neck exactly like my DB, has a real volute at the right spot, has a neckheel you can actually lean on, has a endpin that's at the exact axis as my DB and balances in your hand like an actual DB. I would be really forgiving on the sound, as long as I could get all that.
Why is it that al EUB's have to be flat. The wav is just a stick, but also the upmarket eminences are just a shallow representation of how a db feels. Is it protability? I don't really care about extreme portability, I'd much prefer to be able to hold it loosely in my left hand without it turning over.
Sure I also fantasise about it sounding exactly like my beautifull URB. It should be possible to get closer to a DB sound too. Almost every EUB I've tried or seen is built as a brick, while a URB absorbs sonic energy as a black hole. Everything moves and resonates on a DB, while most EUB's are one massive log with endless sustain.
This got me thinking. What if one would build a EUB with an actual full size neck heel that extends down, along the line where the back of a DB would be and bend forward to where the tailpiece normally would be. as in the attached clumpsy sketch:
This would result in a bass that would balance like a real DB and make an endpin construction possible that's on the same axis. Also if the bridge would rest on a top that bridges between the neck heel and the 'tailpiece', and that top would not be very thick I'd think that would possibly make for a sound that's more influenced by the wood.
Am I making sense with this design (if you can call this a design)? I know it would be big compared to a lot of EUB's, but not that much bigger. It's still very flat if seen from the front, as long as there's a removable side bout. I think it would still be pretty portable.
I don't have the money, and the serious need to actually go out and build this thing now, or ask someone to do it right now. It just might be a nice idea to try one day though.
Although I'm sure, this being talkbass, someone is going to come along in 5 minutes with a picture and a link to a luthier in Panama who has been making this exact bass for 20 years now and there are already 8 threads on the subject and suggests I do a search first.
Foremost I find it really irritating that my wav4 feels different. I would really like to have a EUB that has a neck exactly like my DB, has a real volute at the right spot, has a neckheel you can actually lean on, has a endpin that's at the exact axis as my DB and balances in your hand like an actual DB. I would be really forgiving on the sound, as long as I could get all that.
Why is it that al EUB's have to be flat. The wav is just a stick, but also the upmarket eminences are just a shallow representation of how a db feels. Is it protability? I don't really care about extreme portability, I'd much prefer to be able to hold it loosely in my left hand without it turning over.
Sure I also fantasise about it sounding exactly like my beautifull URB. It should be possible to get closer to a DB sound too. Almost every EUB I've tried or seen is built as a brick, while a URB absorbs sonic energy as a black hole. Everything moves and resonates on a DB, while most EUB's are one massive log with endless sustain.
This got me thinking. What if one would build a EUB with an actual full size neck heel that extends down, along the line where the back of a DB would be and bend forward to where the tailpiece normally would be. as in the attached clumpsy sketch:
This would result in a bass that would balance like a real DB and make an endpin construction possible that's on the same axis. Also if the bridge would rest on a top that bridges between the neck heel and the 'tailpiece', and that top would not be very thick I'd think that would possibly make for a sound that's more influenced by the wood.
Am I making sense with this design (if you can call this a design)? I know it would be big compared to a lot of EUB's, but not that much bigger. It's still very flat if seen from the front, as long as there's a removable side bout. I think it would still be pretty portable.
I don't have the money, and the serious need to actually go out and build this thing now, or ask someone to do it right now. It just might be a nice idea to try one day though.
Although I'm sure, this being talkbass, someone is going to come along in 5 minutes with a picture and a link to a luthier in Panama who has been making this exact bass for 20 years now and there are already 8 threads on the subject and suggests I do a search first.
