- Mar 19, 2002
- 800
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- President: Upton Bass String Instrument Co.
JMP, you have number #1 of 3 and #2 of 3 goes into varnish tomorrow! Guess it's time to start #3 of 3!!!
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Double Bass Upton Bass Club
- Thread starter kamakiriad7
- Start date
Here is my new Upton Hybrid that arrived on Friday last week! I also got the new Deluxe Upton Bass Bag that doesn't appear to be on their website yet. It is very nice as well. It is a nice burgundy color and they removed the wheels I was planning to remove myself. These new bags came in a few days before my bass shipped, so Kate called and offered to send me one, since I had put in an order for one of the old black ones. It turned out that the new bags were still being processed when it came time to ship my bass, so they shipped it in a gig bag so I would still get it on the day I was expecting. They shipped the Deluxe bag the next day via USPS, and it actually arrived before the bass! These guys are awesome.
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Nice looking bass! From the pic it looks like the top is made of several pieces?? Looks like different wood near the lower bouts. Whats the deal with that?
yesterday was my new bass day, Upton-style. I made the trek to Stonington with my Standard laminated (and the dogs) to pick up the new Hybrid ... and Jack had offered to do a little necessary work on the Standard while I waited.
The Hybrid is sweet ... a different tone from the Standard, more clean, bright and singing, whereas the Standard is a little darker and thumpier. Jack re-set the Standard (needed a bridge adjustment) and now they are both playing great.
I play in two styles in two locations about 100 miles apart and was tired of the bass making the trip with me every weekend. So now the Hybrid hangs out in Brooklyn for jazz and lessons
while the Standard will live in the Hudson Valley for rock, blues, bluegrass and rockabilly.
I had a couple hours to kill while Jack worked on the Standard. I recommend the old part of Stonington over Mystic ... interesting old town and not as commercialized. Anyway, as always, the Upton people were 100%, esp. Jack and Kate, and the experience was great ... sorta like going to bass heaven. The new bag style is better too, not quite as challenging to get the bass in there.
The Hybrid is sweet ... a different tone from the Standard, more clean, bright and singing, whereas the Standard is a little darker and thumpier. Jack re-set the Standard (needed a bridge adjustment) and now they are both playing great.
I play in two styles in two locations about 100 miles apart and was tired of the bass making the trip with me every weekend. So now the Hybrid hangs out in Brooklyn for jazz and lessons
while the Standard will live in the Hudson Valley for rock, blues, bluegrass and rockabilly.I had a couple hours to kill while Jack worked on the Standard. I recommend the old part of Stonington over Mystic ... interesting old town and not as commercialized. Anyway, as always, the Upton people were 100%, esp. Jack and Kate, and the experience was great ... sorta like going to bass heaven. The new bag style is better too, not quite as challenging to get the bass in there.
The top is definitely made from several pieces of wood; most bass tops are made from at least two pieces. All of Upton's tops, other than those on the high-end Concert basses, are made from four pieces. I was curious about why it is so obvious with my bass and Upton told me that because wood is an organic product, it has idiosyncrasies over which they have no control. It bothered me at first, but the bass sounds so good that I have decided to try to forget about it.
- Mar 19, 2002
- 800
- 130
- 53
- Disclosures
- President: Upton Bass String Instrument Co.
Yes, the top is four pieces, but all of spruce. We have "rules" about how far into the plate we will do them...but in all honesty I trust the glue joint more than the wood around it. All seams are reinforced with diamond shaped spruce cleats just for added security. I'm making a bass for Lynn Seaton that has a four piece spruce top and a three piece fully carved poplar back, our new UB "Boston" model. The competition bass that Tony Falanga now owns has a four piece top too. The grain was so nice and tight on that bass...and so clear...I had to use it for that bass. It was such nice wood.
Also, a two piece top takes a billet that is 15+ inches...and QUALITY spruce of that size is very hard to come by at prices that make our basses able to price out favorably. If we were restricted to only using wood large enough to make a two piece top on our Hybrids, our prices would have to go up. I would rather use good quality wood that occasionally needs wings to hit our dimensions and keep the prices where they are.
I had a Stradivari violin once to drool over...it had a six piece top...and none of them had ever popped! A violin needs less than a 5 inch billet to make a book matched top...so what was he thinking? Was he out of wood that day and pillaged a cello bass bar stock? Yes...I know I'm not Stradivari and I would never liken myself to him...but I never forgot that violin. If the materials are good and the joint and the glue is strong...you have nothing to fear.
True...when possible the wings are from the material not needed at the upper bouts...that makes for a very good match. When the piece is not wide enough to do that we try to match color and grain. When you're looking at a "white" piece of wood it looks great...and sometimes when you hit it with stain the wood takes the stain differently. This is the "idiosyncrasy" we talk about...how wood takes varnish.jhillman said:
I know how high the bar is on our basses. In many ways our $3K Hybrid Standard is held to the same expectations as $5k or $8k Professors and Concerts. It's with that internal expectation that nothing leaves here that we wouldn't want to own ourselves. We don't make boomerangs...we make basses!
There is a right way and a wrong way to do multi piece tops...and I feel our execution and protocols make for basses that will last the test of time. I want my great grandkids to be running this shop with Gary's great grandkids 100 years from now and be restoring basses we made in 2007, not me fixing basses I made last month!
D
We don't make boomerangs...we make basses!
Hmm, a boomerang bass.. That'll open a whole new world of tricks for the rockabilly-people
Seriously, though, a couple more comments -
- it looks like the top on the Hybrid I just got is a single piece, although maybe my eyes deceive me. I understand that it depends on the wood you start out with.
- I played the Hybrid tonight with my usual jazz crew, which is piano-bass-drums-violin. (Yes, violin. He's someone in the music business whose products have been discussed here on TB.) Interesting reactions - the violin player heard the clean, singing tone of the Hybrid right away, and loved it. But the drummer had a hard time adjusting after being used to the percussive thump of the Standard. We'll work that out and I can EQ it a little differently. But what it showed me is how nice the Standard plys are for the price.
Anyway, I'm in a pretty good mood about having a nice DB in both locations now, each well suited for the musical task at hand. It's not like I love one more than the other; they are both great for what they do.
- it looks like the top on the Hybrid I just got is a single piece, although maybe my eyes deceive me. I understand that it depends on the wood you start out with.
- I played the Hybrid tonight with my usual jazz crew, which is piano-bass-drums-violin. (Yes, violin. He's someone in the music business whose products have been discussed here on TB.) Interesting reactions - the violin player heard the clean, singing tone of the Hybrid right away, and loved it. But the drummer had a hard time adjusting after being used to the percussive thump of the Standard. We'll work that out and I can EQ it a little differently. But what it showed me is how nice the Standard plys are for the price.
Anyway, I'm in a pretty good mood about having a nice DB in both locations now, each well suited for the musical task at hand. It's not like I love one more than the other; they are both great for what they do.
Your eyes deceive you.
I'm quite sure that it's at least two "book-matched" pieces. It's often virtually impossible to see the seam.
Eric tells us that many of the hybrids are made with more than two pieces book matched, but does that mean that none of them are 2-piece? If my hybrid 2007 opus 113 is more than two pieces I sure can't tell...
Is the center seam usually cleated - or just the wing seams? I have never popped a mirror in mine to look. My favorite feature on my bass' top is that there is a four line "bear claw" in the upper right wing exactly where my hand follows through after a hard single slap. Did they plan it that way? I doubt it, but cool cool cool!
Is the center seam usually cleated - or just the wing seams? I have never popped a mirror in mine to look. My favorite feature on my bass' top is that there is a four line "bear claw" in the upper right wing exactly where my hand follows through after a hard single slap. Did they plan it that way? I doubt it, but cool cool cool!
Your eyes deceive you.
You are right. The seam runs right down the middle vertically, so it's underneath the strings. It's very hard to see unless you are looking closely for it. But there seem to be just the two matched pieces.
- Mar 19, 2002
- 800
- 130
- 53
- Disclosures
- President: Upton Bass String Instrument Co.
Thanks for the 1of3 pics JMP, I gotta get em on the site. 2of3 is done and pics (and vid) are up. Talking to someone now about possibly 3of3 being a 5 string high C Karr with an extension! We did one of those recently on a Hybrid...and what a BLAST to play on!!!
Yes, I'll post a few more when I get home from work. I also have a few compared with my NS Cleveland.
- Mar 19, 2002
- 800
- 130
- 53
- Disclosures
- President: Upton Bass String Instrument Co.
Man, I hope I don't get in trouble at work for looking at bass porn. WOW! That finish job is hot. Upton Bass = anything is possible. Shoot, I just have an Upton Standard Ply in flat dark chocolate and these peeps in East Tennessee cannot keep their paws off it now. I'd hate to see what would happen if I brought DrBassie's Upton to a gig.
