Upright approximation - your preferred approach

[jonners98]

Takamine TB-10. Can be played as an upright, plays like an upright with easy access to the fingerboard above the octave. It’s a great instrument. Put 1/8 upright strings on it, and you’re set.

I've eyed them up before! If budget wasn't a concern, or I was making money from this bass, I'd probably consider it. As it is, my Maruszczyk makes the money as my function/wedding band bass - the big band runs as a co-op and is tons of fun (and gets a lot of gigs) but doesn't bring in money to justify a bass so expensive (which is a massive shame!)

 

[jonners98]

My two cents.

IMHO, one of the most important things about emulating an upright bass on electric bass is thinking about note selection within a bass line.

Because the scale of an acoustic bass is much longer than that of an electric bass, it's an instrument that makes everything more difficult. There are many things that are physically much easier on an electric bass.

With that in mind, I play electric with an upright bass player mindset and I play fewer notes.

A great point, for sure. As I did a lot of playing on upright in years gone by, I definitely make a switch to 'upright' playing mode for this band. Just still feel I want something that accompanies that style well.

 

[jonners98]

If you are willing to carry another bass in addition to an electric bass (if that's what the gig calls for), I would go for a semi-acoustic bass. Slightly bigger body than an electric, but the same scale length and overall feel. They do have fretted and fretless models. Obviously, if you go fretless with flats, you'll get closer into the upright territory. There are the three that come to mind, depending on your budget:

Rob Allen

Probably the cream of the crop in this type of bass. There are different models and they all sound great from the videos/demos I have heard.

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New ones can be pricey, but if you can find a used one, you might be able to get a deal. I had an (older) one and it really did the upright thing really well.

Sire GB5

This would be the budget version of the Godin and appears to be similar to the older models.

I would adore a Rob Allen if I could! Same thing for the Godins ultimately, this gig doesn't make me any real money as the band is a co-op so hard to justify. The sire is another great idea, though - definitely an affordable option.

 

[DownRound]

Ibanez SRH500F

 

[jonners98]

If I'm not playing upright, I'm playing fretless bass guitar. IMO the bass guitar will always sound like a bass guitar, but without frets you can play with similar expression to upright. Embrace the instrument you've got, and play with the best expression you can muster with whatever it is in your hands. Bass guitar can sound plenty woody and warm, just lean into technique that brings out those qualities.

For sure - I played fretless with the band for a while, and loved the sound and feel. I also hated having to do so much sight reading on fretless lol, and going to fretted felt like such an easier step haha! But I would love to move back to fretless.

 

[jonners98]

I have played bass guitar in big bands since the early 80s and never put any significant effort into making it sound like an upright. Early on my bass was a Ric 4001. I was the only bass player in a university big band for a couple of semesters (non-student). One semester the band had a student who played the school's Fender P bass. I would say the P sounded more like an upright than my Ric, but several of the musicians in the band told me they preferred my sound, as it allowed them to hear both time and pitch better.

My career was as a military bandsman. I played bass guitar and upright in plenty of big bands. Later in my career I also added electric upright. I was generally free to choose whichever instrument I thought was best for each arrangement. I chose the upright for jazz standards and bass guitar for funk and some ballads. I chose the electric upright for modern jazz and ballads that I thought needed more of a fretless sound. Oddly I felt more comfortable playing jazz standards on bass guitar than the electric upright. The electric upright I used sounded more like a fretless bass guitar than an acoustic upright. It had massive sustain and very little thump on the front end of notes.

On one tour I was told there would be a gig where I could only use one bass. The stage was simply too small. I asked members of the band, including the leader if they had a preference for which instrument I played. They said said all of them sounded great and suggested I should choose. I decided to use the electric upright as at least it is vertical, which IME seems to make a difference with many audience members.

After the show we had a reception and I took the opportunity to ask audience members what they thought. They were curious about the instrument, but did not know if it was a bass or something else due to it's unusual appearance. I told them it was a bass and asked if they thought it suited the music well. Everyone said they thought it sounded good and fit right in.

From this experience, my conclusion was it made very little difference to anyone but me which bass I played. However, I continued to play all three instruments in big band as it mattered to me.

So: Do whatever you want to try and make a bass guitar sound like an upright, but ultimately you may be the only one who really cares.

The one thing I did on occasion that meets your criteria is to use palm muting. I only did this occasionally for jazz combo gigs. There is no way I could palm mute continuously as my plucking hand gets fatigued after doing it for a few songs.

There are electric uprights that are designed to sound and play like an acoustic upright. AFAIK the most authentic is the top of the line Yamaha Silent Bass. This is not an inexpensive instrument though. I would rather put the money towards and decent carved upright.

I've had a few comments on basses - my old Stagg electric upright always got comments, but because people wondered what it was. I've had positive tone comments on many of my basses (always those with flats, though) and two criticisms - both of these were when using active 5 strings (never my basses of choice for this gig, but used when others were in the shop or not usable.

I would LOVE an SLB300. I had the silent guitar, loved it, and I've played the silent bass. It really is like an acoustic upright, but at the price I would rather a nice acoustic and a pickup, as you say

 

[jd56hawk]

Dean Exotica...D'Addario black tapewounds.

Slightly warmer tone here.

 

[jonners98]

Ibanez SRH500F

Great tone. The SRH is probably top of my list for this role at the moment. I love the side lines for the fret positions, and the ability to still get intonation adjustability and individual string height adjustment on a piezo instrument. Part of me feels like, spending that much on one, it would be worth it just getting the UB804 ibanez upright, which is the same electronics with the curved fingerboard and played upright

 

[aprod]

Palm muting is the simple answer.

 

[pfschim]

I can play upright (not great, but I can play in tune and in time) but I do not own one because it's kind of a pain.
When I need a quick upright-like sound for live work or tracking, I use a very cheap Rogue fretless AEB with Thomastic acousticores and a foam mute right at the bridge. I roll off the tone and play over the neck. It's really not going to fool an experienced upright player, but it works pretty well.

 

[MrAB4003]

That's pretty close to an upright bass! Fantastic tone!

The idea of a violin shaped bass with the pickup right next to the neck was conceived by Gibson. That was the original design of the EB-1 in 1953. Gibson included a stand so that upright players can play the EB-1 like an upright or a regular electric bass. Believe it or not, Hofner was inspired by that and that's how they created the 500/1 Bass that was made famous by Paul McCartney. Hofner first released their bass in 1956.

 

[J Wilson]

IF you can get an approximation of an upright tone on electric (I found it helpful to roll back mids and highs and pluck right at the fingerboard end), you want to play upright style lines.

When synths and drum machines became common, you could often spot horn lines only a keyboard player would play, or the infamous drum tracks with three kick drums and two hihats simultaneously. So a big part of it is playing as the 'real' instrument/musician would sound like.

 

[pklima]

Very few of our pieces have scored arco parts - when they do, I usually use the volume pedal on my multi effects to swell in the sound as an approximation. Would use a bow if I had the option.

I used an epi jack casady with the group for a while, but it sounded remarkably more 'p bass' than hollow. I may try something more vintage styled, perhaps with a wooden saddle.

Yeah, IME semihollow basses just sound pretty much like solids - have an ESP which is basically a chambered Jazz bass and sounds like a Jazz bass, had a Washburn AB95 that had enough string length behind the tailpiece that I even stuck an old set of Spirocores that had been shortened for an EUB on it, just to try... that shortened the sustain, but it still didn't sound that different than my Flying V with Chromes. But the fully hollow Atelier Z, I like that one a lot. And its bridge is , indeed, wooden, unlike the other two. I also owned a Defil Rytm for a while, terrible bass in many ways and the 32" scale was too short, but fully hollow body and wooden bridge and great tone? Yup.

Are the Epi Allen Woody basses fully hollow? That might be worth a try, along with the Starfire somebody mentioned, or various scale lengths from Gretsch.

But it really is the approach, and you're probably doing better than you think, heh. I once brought an active Ibanez BTB with Chromes on it to a choir rehearsal and plugged straight into the board. Conductor said afterwards he was worried when he saw it but "it sounded like pizzicato".

And I suppose you know the old swing band joke: "Arco is an Italian word meaning last note of ballad".

 

[devnulljp]

I just manned up and bought an upright

 

[Suho]

First, I'm not an upright player. However, I have an older (90s) MIJ Ibanez Soundgear 5 string that was converted to a fretless. These are the old high end SGs with the padauk bodies and wenge necks. I use black tape wound strings, This has old Bartolini pickups, and it just sounds so organic and woody. I've kept this Bass long after all others have been sold or replaced. I think the comment above on how you play is important too. I try to make the notes thump a little more than on my fretted basses.i don't play as fast either.

 

[bucephylus]

There is a whole spectrum of Double Bass sounds. Marshall Lytle (Bill Haley and the Comets)? Scott La Faro? Eddie Gomez? Edgar Meyer?

For my gigs, the ONLY one of those tones I find useful is that Bill Haley gut string thud. IF that is the tone we are talking about, then my answer for some time has been palm muting.



Unexpectedly, I have found that I get the best thump definition using a Jazz Bass with the Sadowsky preamp with either balanced pickup pan or slightly favoring the neck, and backing the VTC off about halfway. In other words, keep some highs, and use the palm to get the thump. Works on the P, but almost too much. FWIW / IMHE.

 

[vanderbe]

The discussion of 'How do I get an upright sound without one?' surfaces a lot, and most of us know the ultimate answer is that upright bass sounds come from upright basses. However, there's a lot of options to get closer/approximate this time. I play in a 20 piece big band and want to try and get closer to this for the older stuff we play (with my electric with rounds as the bass for modern and fusion stuff).

I've previously used a ubass, but found the any rubber strings (even the newer Aquila sets like thunder browns) just too rubbery for me, plus I hated the constant stretching of them - I enjoyed the galli nylon wound strings for it, but the short scale length just felt too small for me ultimately.

I've tried a p bass with flats, with tapes, plus mutes, plus IRs of acoustic basses, along with a more upright playing style.

I do play upright, but don't own one anymore as I simply don't have the space in my flat or car for one.

I'm now looking at the options of an EUB, but with limited budget it's hard to get something decent, or perhaps an upright-styled electric like the Ibanez SRH500f, or the Epiphone Zenith bass etc. What approaches have you personally found to work best, not as a replication of an upright, but something in the right area?

Check out a Rob Allen fretless…Deep 4, MB2 or Mouse 30. Great craftsmanship and lightweight.

 

[Ric Vice]

I’ve played Double Bass since middle school. If I wanted to sound as close to a DB as possible in a big band setting then I’d use my Kolstine Busetto Travel Bass as it’s less prone to feeding back. Since I’m pretty sure you’re approaching this as a EB player then the original Godin LR Baggs Acoustibass (fretless version) is as close as I can get. Just happen to be three of them for sale on Reverb at the moment. The unique thing about those basses is they have miniature tines inside the bass that vibrate in response to the strings. It gives the bass a sonic envelope that no other EB I’ve played has. Just my take. Don’t confuse this bass with the newer Godin A4’s and A5’s they’re not the same inside. That’s where the magic happens.

 

[groooooove]

roundwound strings, plucking up over the fingerboard, bridge pickup volume at 10 with neck pickup at 8/9.

the jaco thing.

it works really, really well, fretless or fretted.

 

[ravlin]

Fretless P Bass with Flats.