Hi all! I'm a lifelong music geek, a prolific electronic musician with Eurorack modular and non-modular synths and software. I learned violin in school in the 80s, was consistently first chair and also was in the Florida West Coast Youth Symphony... but I pretty much fell out of the habit. I also played Rhodes (poorly) in the high school jazz ensemble, was a taiko drummer with St. Louis Osuwa Taiko for a couple of years, and have dabbled extremely casually in various hand percussion and stringed instruments. My main pursuit is definitely on the synth side. But for 2022 I want to get into regular practice and jamming with a U-bass.
No doubt the violin set my standards for stringed instruments: 4 strings, mostly monophonic, not too large, consistent intervals between strings, and no frets! Guitar doesn't make sense to me and I don't tend to think in chords so much as intervals. (And a lot of my electronic music is xenharmonic or freely tuned by ear.) I've enjoyed noodling on a short-scale fretless bass but it feels too large to me, thus: U-bass. And I really enjoy that quasi-upright and almost synthy sound it has.
I hope to incorporate some U-bass playing into my "serious" synth music, which is best described as spooky dark ambient / drone / abstract electronic, improvised and recorded live in single takes (no multi-tracking). So while I'll probably be doing a fair amount of processing to my sound, I do want to be able to play simple parts competently.
I've done a bit of online research and bought a fretless Hadean bass uke, which the previous owner had strung with Kala/Gallistrings flat-wounds. I will probably leave those on for a while at first, but in terms of tone I think I like the more mellow Pahoehoe or Thunderblack strings a bit more. I could see myself needing two U-basses, or one plus an Ashbory, to have both worlds though...
No doubt the violin set my standards for stringed instruments: 4 strings, mostly monophonic, not too large, consistent intervals between strings, and no frets! Guitar doesn't make sense to me and I don't tend to think in chords so much as intervals. (And a lot of my electronic music is xenharmonic or freely tuned by ear.) I've enjoyed noodling on a short-scale fretless bass but it feels too large to me, thus: U-bass. And I really enjoy that quasi-upright and almost synthy sound it has.
I hope to incorporate some U-bass playing into my "serious" synth music, which is best described as spooky dark ambient / drone / abstract electronic, improvised and recorded live in single takes (no multi-tracking). So while I'll probably be doing a fair amount of processing to my sound, I do want to be able to play simple parts competently.
I've done a bit of online research and bought a fretless Hadean bass uke, which the previous owner had strung with Kala/Gallistrings flat-wounds. I will probably leave those on for a while at first, but in terms of tone I think I like the more mellow Pahoehoe or Thunderblack strings a bit more. I could see myself needing two U-basses, or one plus an Ashbory, to have both worlds though...
