Right, they are afraid of selling too many basses so they charge more than they really have to
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Double Bass Why are all uprights so freaking expensive?
- Thread starter ProDigit
- Start date
Right, they are afraid of selling too many basses so they charge more than they really have to
I mean really, even a 3/4 bass is damn near furniture. There is a lot that goes in to making and shipping even a low grade one like I have. When I got mine my dad thought I ordered a refrigerator, that's how big the box was. So shipping costs are at least a big part of it, lots of materials compared to smaller instruments.
Totally worth the money though.
Totally worth the money though.
Oh boy. Go price the wood a maker needs to make a bass, and then calculate labor and learning.
Luthiers work CHEAP. Period.
Luthiers work CHEAP. Period.
When I first started looking for an upright bass, I set a very realistic sub $1k budget and began the search.
I looked at plenty of CCBs and a fair amount of firewood prior to negotiating a great price for my first upright, a Shen SB80. It took many months, but I had an absolute ball finding the right bass and digging into their history.
Set a budget, read all you can on here, and dive in!
Good luck!!
I looked at plenty of CCBs and a fair amount of firewood prior to negotiating a great price for my first upright, a Shen SB80. It took many months, but I had an absolute ball finding the right bass and digging into their history.
Set a budget, read all you can on here, and dive in!
Good luck!!
Right, they are afraid of selling too many basses so they charge more than they really have to
No, it's extrapolating from Cost Volume Profit Analysis. Given your tone of voice above, I'll be blunt and tell you its stuff we teach in introductory business courses
.You have the Price that is high, and you generate $1000 of profit by selling one bass. You drop your price, and you have to sell 3 basses to earn that much profit. If the market you are in is small, it wont' pay to drop your prices because there isn't the demand even at the lower price to generate enough units sold to reach the $1000 you can make on 1 bass in the current market. For a high demand item, dropping the prices often will work because you can make up the lost profit from dropping your prices in volume -- often tapping into consumer demographics that previously, couldn't afford the instrument -- . I don't see a specialty item like an upright falling into that category, unfortunately -- with demand skyrocketing just because the price falls. So the industry knows this and keeps their prices high.
There is the mystique about craftsmanship and that particular instrument I think that also keeps the price high for new instruments, and prevents manufacturers from trying out a low priced, quality upright bass product. When people don't understand things, they rely on brand, price, and other more distant factors to gauge quality and make their buying decision.
Also, tradition -- let's say someone does figure out how to make a $600 upright that has the same durability and tonal qualities as a $1700 bass. I seriously question if anyone here would believe it -- I've seen how tradition really seems to influence thinking heavily in the upright bass forums particularly. They'd lump it in with Cheap Chinese Basses and write it off as chaff due to its low price tag alone.
It's also a bear to play an upright at first. They are set up poorly in many stores, and even when set up properly "your body rejects the instrument" as Esperanza Spalding said in an interview. I think that also hurts demand.
I find the same was true many years ago with electric basses. If it wasn't a fender or a boutique bass, everyone thought it was garbage. But in the last ten years or more, I have seen that inexpensive basses like the ones sold at rondomusic.com are actually quite good. I have one that I payed $139 for 6 years ago and I get complements on the tone a lot, particularly from sound men. It's been my workhorse all these years. It's been dropped, stepped on and fallen over on various stands I've had it on, and it is built like a tank.
Now I feel the urge to pop some popcorn.
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okcrum
in your chest
There must not be enough my-ursa-is-better-than-your-carl-thompson threads on the EB side. 
Seriously, look for your answer in the EB market. The high end builders have not been pushed out by a flood of efficiently produced, high build quality, low cost offerings, and EBs are acoustically far less complex than DBs.
The literal and intuitive understanding of acoustics by the best luthiers is hard to quantify and even harder to simulate. That's what limits the tonal quality of mass-produced intruments.
Seriously, look for your answer in the EB market. The high end builders have not been pushed out by a flood of efficiently produced, high build quality, low cost offerings, and EBs are acoustically far less complex than DBs.
The literal and intuitive understanding of acoustics by the best luthiers is hard to quantify and even harder to simulate. That's what limits the tonal quality of mass-produced intruments.
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There must not be enough my-ursa-is-better-than-your-carl-thompson threads on the EB side.
PauFerro sips his soda, crunches on his popcorn.
okcrum
in your chest
PauFerro sips his soda, crunches on his popcorn.
So show me your master luthier robot (say, a Kolstein version).
So show me your master luthier robot (say, a Kolstein version).
Pau Ferro finishes off his popcorn and retires for the evening.
okcrum
in your chest
And there, friends, is the business school answer to the OP's Q.
And there, friends, is the business school answer to the OP's Q.
No, anyone who knew anything about business schools knows this is the business answer:
okcrum
in your chest
The fallacy is in the assumption that all the additional new production will have the same quality as the low volume production. It's required to justify the argument. In a perfect world, no bass would ever need a setup either.
- Aug 1, 2005
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There you have it. I don't think there is or will ever be a big enough market for EUBs to justify anyone setting up a serious scale of production with decent quality. With uprights you have enough demand for people like Shen to invest in such an operation, and even as meticulous as he is, there are still lots of compromises.
Pau, I have read your posts for a long while and I can appreciate that you are a band leader. You are a job creator, as they say, in many ways. You obviously take your business seriously and that's a great thing. You have my respect for putting people to work while running a business.
The 'average Joe' as you put it, doesn't have the years of experience, skill, tools, and general know-how, etc. that is necessary to work on, (much less build?!), a double bass. Not even closely.
Sure, I can tighten the screws, turn the truss rods, and oil the fretboards on my slabs when the seasons change here in the midwest. They are designed that way for a reason and that's what anyone would consider minor maintenance at best.
Could you confidently shape and fit a bridge, dress a board, set a soundpost, seal some seams, (much less fix a neck break *egads!*), etc., on a bass fiddle and get anything but, if through even the blindest of luck, a passable result? I highly doubt it. Could you learn how, through trial and error, or schooling and years of training? Of course. Maybe, EVENTUALLY you could if you're cut out for that kind of work. But it ain't gonna' be easy. They don't call them craftsman for nothing.
It's a calling, Brother.
Not a price point.
(Sorry for the derail, OP.)
The 'average Joe' as you put it, doesn't have the years of experience, skill, tools, and general know-how, etc. that is necessary to work on, (much less build?!), a double bass. Not even closely.
Sure, I can tighten the screws, turn the truss rods, and oil the fretboards on my slabs when the seasons change here in the midwest. They are designed that way for a reason and that's what anyone would consider minor maintenance at best.
Could you confidently shape and fit a bridge, dress a board, set a soundpost, seal some seams, (much less fix a neck break *egads!*), etc., on a bass fiddle and get anything but, if through even the blindest of luck, a passable result? I highly doubt it. Could you learn how, through trial and error, or schooling and years of training? Of course. Maybe, EVENTUALLY you could if you're cut out for that kind of work. But it ain't gonna' be easy. They don't call them craftsman for nothing.
It's a calling, Brother.
Not a price point.
(Sorry for the derail, OP.)
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PauFerro,
I understand the business issues quite well after 36 years as an engineer dealing with marketing tradeoffs.
I was (sarcastically) replying to a post that suggested double bass mfrs are deliberately price gouging. That poster clearly has no clue about how businesses settle on prices.
I understand the business issues quite well after 36 years as an engineer dealing with marketing tradeoffs.
I was (sarcastically) replying to a post that suggested double bass mfrs are deliberately price gouging. That poster clearly has no clue about how businesses settle on prices.
Go check out a 4x8 slab of the cheapest plywood you can find. Then compare the price of the highest quality you can find - pretty significant difference, right? Now go to the hardwoods. Look at a small billet, something like a 2x4 that is 4' long. Now compare that with an 8' 2x4. Now check out an 8' 2x12. Now try to find a piece suitable to make a neck for an upright. Now try to source wood for a back. Getting expensive, right? And that is consumer level stuff. The stuff for good instruments was cut a LONG time ago and has been properly aged. Just the wood for a good upright would buy you several top level EBs and all we have at this point is lumber.
Making a cheap playable instrument isn't too bad, but they make compromises on materials and construction all the time. How much repairing can you afford when the seasons change? The more you know about these instruments the fewer compromises you are willing to accept when it's your money and gigs on the line. If you buy a cheap new one, you will end up paying - maybe later than sooner, but you will pay. Then again I may be jaded because I see these things coming in the shop all the time and am starting to refuse to touch instruments which were extremely compromised from the beginning, even f they played very well when freshly built.
Making a cheap playable instrument isn't too bad, but they make compromises on materials and construction all the time. How much repairing can you afford when the seasons change? The more you know about these instruments the fewer compromises you are willing to accept when it's your money and gigs on the line. If you buy a cheap new one, you will end up paying - maybe later than sooner, but you will pay. Then again I may be jaded because I see these things coming in the shop all the time and am starting to refuse to touch instruments which were extremely compromised from the beginning, even f they played very well when freshly built.
This is a very important point...I still think the OP was talking about Electric UBs in particular (neck with a pickup...but then again, that's what a Steinberger is and those sure cost a pretty penny). Maybe somebody will 3-D print an acoustic DB some day.
The fact is, until you sit down and look at the costs of equipment, labor (in whatever part of the world one chooses to build these things) and volume pricing of materials, all this is conjecture -- your comments and mine.
To the comments above about the years of training thing -- about 15 years ago I hired a former full time luthier to show me to build electrics.He came to my home once a week for the better part of a year and trained me in instrument making. This guy built instruments from some big names in Canada when he did luthiery full time as a younger man. At the time, he had moved on to be a full-time pattern maker (he built wooden models from which die cast molds were made for casting precision automotive and aerospace parts). When I started with him, I had almost zero woodworking skills, and only basic power tools you use around your house. When I finished, I had a full blown bass-only luthiery shop, complete with a filtration system for spraying, professional spray equipment, a lot of tools, specialty luthiery tools etcetera. I built a few instruments for myself, and then went on and built two instruments for local professional players, as well as doing some specialty finishing work for a local guitar repair guy. I lost my woodshop when I had to take an international job, but I learned a lot about what goes on "under the hood" when you build an instrument.
I know electrics are a different animal than uprights, but there are many parts of the process that require similar skills -- how to make strong neck joints, how to shape a neck, drill holes without tear out. get a smooth, precision shape for the various parts, how to mate parts so they fit without error, etcetera. (In fact, in my view, the finishes on many new uprights I played in the $2000 new range make me wonder how the thing even got out of the shop and through quality control. We worked in thousandths of an inch.
Again, I recognize that electrics are not the same as uprights. But I learned that the mystique is not as deep as everyone thinks it is. If a non-tradesperson idiot like me could learn how to build basses and sell them to happy customers, the sky is the limit on what a person can achieve with persistence..
Also, if someone put their mind to it, they could probably figure out a way to get around the skill problem for uprights. For example, hire a master luthier who teaches lesser skilled labor specialized aspects of construction and oversees parts of quality control. Make the guy responsible for designing training, and critical parts of the assembly or manufacturing process. As well as quality. Alter the design in ways that make manufacturing and precision easier, while retaining tone and quality. Narrow the product line to get REALLY GOOD at making a couple models to reduce the variables you have to deal with. And of course, Demings, the Harvard professor who taught the Japanese how to build quality, has a number of techniques I've taught others to use to improve quality -- I can visualize how that might work.
So, I don't see the upright as some mystical animal. I believe the skills could be learned pretty quickly on a narrow range of products. Now, repairs to a wide variety of instruments -- that is a different story, but repairs and rework, if necessary, and manufacturing of the same model in different sizes, that seems attainable with work.
The fact is, I think we are in agreement there may not be the volume to do this effectively. I also think shipping costs are a big deterrent probably. But I don't buy the idea that the years of training is the main cause of the price. That's the perception people have, and its something a good business person would nurture and encourage to keep prices high.
The accountants and lawyers are really good at that. The price they charge for the simplest things is astounding to me (no offense to people in these professions).
To the comments above about the years of training thing -- about 15 years ago I hired a former full time luthier to show me to build electrics.He came to my home once a week for the better part of a year and trained me in instrument making. This guy built instruments from some big names in Canada when he did luthiery full time as a younger man. At the time, he had moved on to be a full-time pattern maker (he built wooden models from which die cast molds were made for casting precision automotive and aerospace parts). When I started with him, I had almost zero woodworking skills, and only basic power tools you use around your house. When I finished, I had a full blown bass-only luthiery shop, complete with a filtration system for spraying, professional spray equipment, a lot of tools, specialty luthiery tools etcetera. I built a few instruments for myself, and then went on and built two instruments for local professional players, as well as doing some specialty finishing work for a local guitar repair guy. I lost my woodshop when I had to take an international job, but I learned a lot about what goes on "under the hood" when you build an instrument.
I know electrics are a different animal than uprights, but there are many parts of the process that require similar skills -- how to make strong neck joints, how to shape a neck, drill holes without tear out. get a smooth, precision shape for the various parts, how to mate parts so they fit without error, etcetera. (In fact, in my view, the finishes on many new uprights I played in the $2000 new range make me wonder how the thing even got out of the shop and through quality control. We worked in thousandths of an inch.
Again, I recognize that electrics are not the same as uprights. But I learned that the mystique is not as deep as everyone thinks it is. If a non-tradesperson idiot like me could learn how to build basses and sell them to happy customers, the sky is the limit on what a person can achieve with persistence..
Also, if someone put their mind to it, they could probably figure out a way to get around the skill problem for uprights. For example, hire a master luthier who teaches lesser skilled labor specialized aspects of construction and oversees parts of quality control. Make the guy responsible for designing training, and critical parts of the assembly or manufacturing process. As well as quality. Alter the design in ways that make manufacturing and precision easier, while retaining tone and quality. Narrow the product line to get REALLY GOOD at making a couple models to reduce the variables you have to deal with. And of course, Demings, the Harvard professor who taught the Japanese how to build quality, has a number of techniques I've taught others to use to improve quality -- I can visualize how that might work.
So, I don't see the upright as some mystical animal. I believe the skills could be learned pretty quickly on a narrow range of products. Now, repairs to a wide variety of instruments -- that is a different story, but repairs and rework, if necessary, and manufacturing of the same model in different sizes, that seems attainable with work.
The fact is, I think we are in agreement there may not be the volume to do this effectively. I also think shipping costs are a big deterrent probably. But I don't buy the idea that the years of training is the main cause of the price. That's the perception people have, and its something a good business person would nurture and encourage to keep prices high.
The accountants and lawyers are really good at that. The price they charge for the simplest things is astounding to me (no offense to people in these professions).
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I am a carpenter by trade so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I think people can do it, but the tooling is what will get you. It to mention DB bridges get pricey quick and messing up would be costly. I have shaped my own bridge and it turned out well, but it took time and investment in new tools (which is fine for me, I can always use new woodworking tools).
Could the average person do their own setup? I think so, but it takes a time and money commitment. Could the average person build their own bass? I doubt it. It's a project I will tackle at some point, but will take me quite a while, and it's definitely a whole other beast than bolting some slate together and wiring it up.
Double bass players just have to accept that the instrument requires commitment. Either commit your time and energy into your own maintenance, or your money into a good luthier to do it for you. I personally choose the latter more often than not, and I shape wood for a living.
