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Double Bass upgrade or customize

L

loon784

Dec 6, 2006
18
1
Lincoln, New Hampshire
#1
I bought a romanian carved bass last year and have been playing it in a swing/folk/irish band. It's ok with a few minor quirks, a buzz on the 7th position A string, a loose thuddy feel to the E, intonation problem on the G. Most likely it needs a finger board dressing or possable replacemet. I paid $1700 for it and put another $600 into it, bridge, strings, cheater dots, post adjustment.

Should I continue to have it worked on untill it's perfect, running another $500-$1000 or should I get a new bass. If so what is the next step up? I played a Christopher hybred it felt the same as mine, as did a Shen 300 . I'm hoping to stay under $5k but if paying more means getting a "pleasure to play" I would. Thoughts?
 
#2
maybe 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
but, if it were me, i would say that there are lots of options out there within that budget -- and most of those basses will be perfect right out of the box. a christopher or a shen from someone like AES or maybe Nahrmann (closer to you but i dont know if he does those) would come all set up and ready to play, without any buzzes or thuds or any of that. maybe you just got a great deal but a carved bass for $1700 may never be a great bass no matter what you have done to it.
 
#4
The buzz can be removed with a dressing done. Thuddy E? Maybe use a differen't E string? Intonation on the G... are you sure that's not pilot error?

If you are feeling the need to spend more money to feel more confident/inspired about your instrument, well that's a different story and depends on how far you're willing to go. If a $1700 bass isn't good enough for you then maybe you need to look in the $4K range.
 
#5
I'm not familure with "AES or maybe Nahrmann" I'm assuming they are NE Luthiers. If you could give me thier addresses/phone #'s it would be greatly apprieciated. I had Rutman Violins of Boston do initial work, I was not happy with his work, the buzz began after he worked on it. The G just won't micro tune, it gets close than it pops and goes very flat.

I imagine we are all looking for that ultimate bass. With electrics you can go to the store and try a dozen, with uprights not so easy.
 
#6
loon784 said:
I had Rutman Violins of Boston do initial work, I was not happy with his work, the buzz began after he worked on it. The G just won't micro tune, it gets close than it pops and goes very flat.
Click to expand...

It pops and then goes flat? That doesn't sound very good and likely something else is wrong with your bass? The buzz probably arised from fixing another high spot on your fingerboard. Removing that particular buzz probably revealed another high spot that is now buzzing. I would just take it to another luthier and have them look at it. Either that, or if you paid good money, you should take it back to Rutman and complain?
 
#9
The kind of problems you are describing could probably come about on 9 our of 10 poorly set up basses in any price range. I've seen lots of string instuments and almost all of them I have seen, regardless of price paid, could be improved in playability and function by more attention to small set-up details. In the case of the g-string going flat, that is something slipping or like mentioned above, the string was not properly wound onto the spindle in the pegbox.

Mind if I ask where you got a carved Romanian bass for $1700? It sounds like a deal. Some pics would be nice. We might be able to tell you more if you had some details of the pegbox and the windings in there.
 
#10
I bought the bass from a young collage aged kid off of craigs List. He told me he paid $2500 for it. The bridge was warped and in the wrong place ,about an inch below the f hole notches, as was the sound post. He was set up with guts that had seen thier day. I restrung it with but it was off due to the bridge issues. Rutmans fixed all those things and was supposed to check the finger board for high spots, he didn't and desputed that request. Not a real easy guy to talk with.

I'm going to try the rewind thing, thanks for that tip. I'll post a few pics soon.

I'm getting the overall impression that working on the bass is the majority opinion. That no matter the bass the set ups fix most issues except ofcourse tone, which it does have a very cool growl.
 
#15
I recently had some work done by Jed Kriegel and I'm very pleased with feel and sound of the bass now. This is an older German hybrid that I bought a few months ago. The neck was warped so Jed straightened and reinforced it so it will not happen again. It also needed a new fingerboard, bridge and soundpost but it is properly setup so it plays easily and sounds great. I'm going to have him work on my carved bass, too.

You can reach him at [email protected]
 

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