The truth about acoustic basses from a doctorate in bass performance

[whm3223]

Yawn. Don't tell me what I can and can't like.

 

[LBS-bass]

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Denson Angulo, who is the bass guitar professor at the University of Utah with a PHD in bass performance, about acoustic bass guitars. He has decades of experience playing electric bass and upright bass in just about every situation you can imagine, and he had a lot to say about the topic.

TL;DW There are only a few situations in which an acoustic bass is the best tool for the job. It's too small to project enough sound to be used like an upright, and if you're going to plug it in, you might as well play electric bass. There is something to be said for the unique tone of an acoustic bass and the convenience as a practice tool, but it's not a very useful instrument for many working bass players.

Check the video down below for the full conversation.

I was asked a few weeks ago if I own an ABG because a local venue is doing outdoor shows but they don't want amplified bands. I said they could either do it without me or I would bring a small amp and play quietly, and explained exactly this. It's my opinion too, and if you want me there with an unplugged ABG you're wasting my time because nobody will hear it. I don't play upright, so that wasn't an option.

 

[Cave Puppy]

I've had several ABGs. Key word - HAD. I find them to be an unrequired instrument for me. They're good for recording but as a daily driver? Nope. Unless you get one of the Taylor or Guild mini ones where you can easily pick it up to fiddle around, they're pretty much useless IMO, but like I said, they do have their place.

 

[swarfrat]

Frankly, anyone who spends the money to get a PhD in something that will never repay the investment is... In need of some grade school education in economics.

You don't need a PhD to play or write music. Only if you want to talk about it and expect other people with PhD's to listen to you.

 

[Polkatronixx]

We actually talked about that specifically toward the end of the video, starting about 31:50.

I remember reading an article on the guitarron when I was in school and, if I recall correctly, they also play octaves almost exclusively.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

Frankly, anyone who spends the money to get a PhD in something that will never repay the investment is... In need of some grade school education in economics.

You don't need a PhD to play or write music. Only if you want to talk about it and expect other people with PhD's to listen to you.

University faculty staff, not adjunct pays decently. And has benefits. But that path is going away with more and more adjunct profs.

 

[B-Mac]

If you play an ABG with a super low action and the limp wristed dead fish handshake light touch approach like how is done with many electric players who let the amp do the work you will certainly not be heard. The ABG requires a different playing technique with a higher action to allow the strings to move in order to be heard unplugged. How hard is this to understand?

I believe this is just as much a playing technique issue as the overstated laws of physics issue.

 

[selowitch]

I was asked a few weeks ago if I own an ABG because a local venue is doing outdoor shows but they don't want amplified bands. I said they could either do it without me or I would bring a small amp and play quietly, and explained exactly this. It's my opinion too, and if you want me there with an unplugged ABG you're wasting my time because nobody will hear it. I don't play upright, so that wasn't an option.

Yup. There have been a handful of ABGs that some here on TB say are actually audible in a band setting, like the long-discontinued Tacoma Thunderchief, but for the most part ABGs need to be plugged in to be heard and IMO folks buy them because they look at home among acoustic instruments.

Recall the ruckus that occurred when Bob Dylan showed up at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 with a Stratocaster. It caused quite a controversy. If Dylan had been a bassist, he could have showed up with an ABG and an amp and probably no one would have minded.

 

[Johnny Fingers]

Sitting around the campfire I would be more worried about what an ember going into the soundhole might do than what the Piled higher and Deeper’s opinion is.

 

[Gorn]

This isn’t a great analogy, but just for the sake of argument imagine acoustic guitars weren’t loud enough to be heard unplugged. No one would suggest you might as well plug in a strat if you’re gonna have to plug in an acoustic guitar.

 

[skycruiser]

If you want to successfully monetize youtube, you have to create click-bait, sensationalist video titles like this. It works, and youtube percolates these to the top of the search results. Good job to the OP for working in the system. I expect he will get tons of views, comments, and probably some subs.

 

[Ric5]

I want an 8 string acoustic bass guitar

(1104) Emerald Select Series (Feb '18) Balor 8 String Bass - YouTube

 

[Deleted member 165050]

If you play an ABG with a super low action and the limp wristed dead fish handshake light touch approach like how is done with many electric players who let the amp do the work you will certainly not be heard. The ABG requires a different playing technique with a higher action to allow the strings to move in order to be heard unplugged. How hard is this to understand?

I believe this is just as much a playing technique issue as the overstated laws of physics issue.

I'm now wondering who has played their bass with a dead fish... Claypool is probably the first you'd expect to have done it.

 

[VoodooJazz]

So does this mean there isn’t a best ABG for metal?

(@dalkowski I waited 4 pages for you to ask...)

 

[Johnny Fingers]

I wouldn’t bring an unplugged Les Paul Custom 3 pickup guitar to a campfire jam just because it doesn’t have a soundhole to ease my emberphobia.

 

[droo46]

There are a lot of people in this thread making comments who obviously did not watch the video lol

 

[LBS-bass]

There are a lot of people in this thread making comments who obviously did not watch the video lol

I didn't watch it; why would I watch a video at 9:00 in the morning when I already agree with the original post? I don't expect that video to add new information, based on the post it's supporting. If there's some other reason to watch it, that would be nice to know.

 

[Ron Berenato]

I have a Washburn AB32 acoustic. It's my go to when learning songs playing along to a stereo. It also has an impressive tone (IMO) when plugged in and it's plenty loud when jamming unplugged with a guitar player - especially with a pick. It's just personal preference. I have 4 basses and if I could only keep one of them, this is it.

 

[brianrost]

I once caught a bar band with an upright player. When they started he sounded for all the world like a P bass.

Amplified DB almost never sounds like an unamplifed DB. Over in the DB subforums, that holy grail is called MBOL...my bass only louder.

In some cases the look is more important than the sound. Playing DB got me a lot more gigs simply because at the time (the great swing scare of the late 1990s) there weren't as many of us around. It took me a few years before I could both play the darn thing well and get a good sound out of the amp. None of that mattered, I still got the gigs.

While I can get my DB to sound electric just by adding a magnetic pickup (which I use for really high stage level gigs), with a piezo pickup it sounds somewhere in between. As it should, it's not a bass guitar and the way the strings vibrate (attack, decay, sustain) is different. Also the way it is played. My right hand technique is different on the DB than on the bass guitar. Even with my mag pickup, it still sounds like a DB to my ears although not the same as that bass unamplified. More upper midrange, more growl, more sustain. It still lacks the quick attack and retains the "thump".

I've played many ABGs. The best one I ever heard in terms of volume and projection was the Taylor. I do remember the Earthwood as sounding good and loud, but that was a looong time ago and we all know memory of sound is poor. To me, they sound like guitars, which they should because that's what they are. They don't have raised wood bridges, soundposts, wood nuts, etc. Almost all are built just like acoustic guitars with longer scale fingerboards. The real mystery is why Gibson wasn't the first to sell an ABG After all, they invented the mandobass...

 

[BadSanta1281]

I have two questions...

1- Do any of you really sit around a campfire playing your ABG?
2- A doctorate in bass performance... what do you do with that?


BTW-I love my Ibanez AEB-10 that I scored from Craigslist for $80.