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Double Bass Why are all uprights so freaking expensive?

#84
I see most people are defending the high price.
My Mexican Fender, cost me $900, and played and sounded better than their US Fender counterparts of $1200, and aside from the options, even were better than Fender's $1600 basses (the Deluxe series, that now cost half their price).

Squier came out with a copy, sounded and played like 95% a Fender, for like $300.
Even had curved frets!

An upright is nothing more than a regular bass, minus the body, and in some cases minus the frets even; and is literally a stick, with a pickup a nut and a bridge.
Smaller in size and weight, lower shipping cost, with only 1 or 2 additions:
The addition of a pole mount on the bottom to raise the instrument, and the optional $0.5 piezo pickup under the bridge.

That's it.
If squier released it, it would go on the market for $200 a piece.
 
#85
ProDigit said:
I see most people are defending the high price.
My Mexican Fender, cost me $900, and played and sounded better than their US Fender counterparts of $1200, and aside from the options, even were better than Fender's $1600 basses (the Deluxe series, that now cost half their price).

Squier came out with a copy, sounded and played like 95% a Fender, for like $300.
Even had curved frets!

An upright is nothing more than a regular bass, minus the body, and in some cases minus the frets even; and is literally a stick, with a pickup a nut and a bridge.
Smaller in size and weight, lower shipping cost, with only 1 or 2 additions:
The addition of a pole mount on the bottom to raise the instrument, and the optional $0.5 piezo pickup under the bridge.

That's it.
If squier released it, it would go on the market for $200 a piece.
Click to expand...

I assume you talking about the electric upright basses. The real price driver between a cheap BG and a cheap EUB is demand. Plenty of people want to play BG so Squier basses can sell for little above what it costs to make them. Very little demand for EUBs so those that do make them even the cheap chinese ones still cost more than a comparable Squier. Stagg EUB sell for $700 and they are the Squier of EUBs.
 
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#87
Lee Moses said:
I highly doubt that it would. Plus something about "if 'ifs' and 'buts' were candy and nuts..." Your sentence above has no relationship to reality.
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I would have to agree. I feel that the statement is just an unsubstantiated hunch or an unproven assumption. I've seen very cheap EUB'S priced around $6-800.00. Palantino' are typically price very low, if I'm not mistaken.
 
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#91
PauFerro said:
It's not an assumption, because you're missing hard cold facts about manufacturing and operations.

First, is economies of scale. You can buy 1000 fingerboards for a lot less than you can buy one or two. Second is specialization. If you recruit the right type of person for a set up position, you can train the guy by a master luthier. If he's setting up 8 of these a day, in two months he's done 320 setups and he's quite good at it on the two models the company produces. He learns to do it better, and fast, learning to keep tools he uses regularly close to him, dealing with the same set of problems regularly. Third is the learning curve. A company that makes 5000 uprights a year has lots of opportunities to get really good at it , particularly if they only make a couple models to simply production. With people eating, sleeping and drinking nothing but these two models, they can get the process down to a science. Throw quality improvement techniques in there, and supplier certification/quality programs it wouldn't surprise me if you could create some killer quality uprights.

I believe, that with experience, companies can produce good quality instruments at really cheap prices, even in the upright arena -- but only if they have the volume.

When I was building instruments a few years ago, I got rid of the fear of taking necks off instruments, uninstalling tuners, adjusting truss rods, retro-routing pickup cavities in a manufactured bass -- all the stuff that scares the average Joe like I was previously. I had a lot of basses of my own and took them apart for various reasons (like transporting them on a trip in my suitcase), and I saw the quality of mass produced basses -- good neck pockets, killer finishes, tight tuner installation, great pickups, good fretwork.

And the stuff that was greater quality in my own instruments didn't seem to matter much sonically. Example, my luthier/trainer showed me how to build a bolt on bass that had a neck joint so strong you can hold up the bass with the neck inserted into the pocket, parallel to the floor, and have the body stay in the neck even though the neck screws weren't installed. And this was with the body facing upward. The tightness of the fit held the neck in place, it was that precise. But did that matter sonically and functionally as long as the neck fit snugly in the pocket and had good screws? No! It makes great press for when you are trying to sell your boutique bass services, but functionally and sonically, it made no difference compared to m looser fitting neck pockets on other manufactured instruments in the $400 to $800 range -- basses that couldn't pass the test the luthier had me do on my own instruments I built.

Everyone carries on about high mass bridges as the be-all end all of tone and sustain (Badass bass bridges, for example). I know because I was on that plan and bought a pile of them. Then an engineer on Youtube did a test where he installed a low mass bridge on a bass, and then measured the length of the sustain using a meter. Then he installed a high mass bridge and did the same thing. The sustain was the same with either bridge.

So, I now consider brand loyalty and all the mystique about building as mere hype. Even George Harrison and Pat Metheny said its not the price, it's how they are set up and their native tone that matters. And you can get good tone with all kinds of different materials.

Even suppliers can be worked with to produce good quality. One trick I learned was to seek out suppliers that are small. Say they have an annual sales volume of $1 M per year. You come to them willing to commit 85% of your fingerboard volume with them over X years, increasing their sales by 50% per year. When you say jump, they will say "how high?" because you are their biggest customer and will work with you to get you the best stuff they can.

Again, I think prices are high for uprights due to the cost of shipping, and the perception that there is something mysterious about the construction. No one in that industry wants to pee in the pool. I think the rarity of 200 year old basses, and the tendency for basses to open up and sound better with time elevates the price of quality low-end basses. The prices of those older basses creates an anchor point for the lower prices upright basses, like a halo effect.
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Very, very well said comment! (One of the best revealing explanations I've heard since I first became intrigued with the instrument in the early 1970's. I wish your statement could be a new beginning conversation. It tears down so many myths that are out there Thank you much
 
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#93
okcrum said:
...When you're bottling Coca Cola, building PC boards, solid body guitars, automobiles, and the like, the process is relatively easily quantified and scaled up with the associated benefits.....
Click to expand...

About 18 years ago, I actually worked for one of the boutique acoustic guitar companies that ran into some growing pains and sold the company. They gave control to a guy whose background WAS working for Pepsi. He looked at building $8,000 guitars exactly like he looked at Pepsi bottles rolling down the line- turn the speed until bottles start exploding and somewhere there is a higher profit margin even with the losses than you would get from keeping things nice and tidy. He was the biggest dipsh!t boss I ever had and basically bankrupted the company with his cluelessness. At the time I was there 2/3 of the materials that went in the front door wound up in the dumpster from pushing it too fast every step of the way; he did not have any regard or care for how precious these woods were, and his approach to employees was even worse. Employee turnover was something like 230 people over ten years for a company with 18 employees...even the guy whose name was on the headstock went to work for someone else....
 
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#94
ProDigit said:
Why are all uprights so freaking expensive?
I mean, if Squire would make them, they would go for $300. You know that, right?
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Strange thoughts. It seems to me that the EUB are cheap in comparison with the prices of guitars and other instruments. Moreover, EUB are piece goods, and guitars are mass goods.
It also seems to me that the double basses are cheap in comparison with the prices of violins and cello.

I purchased my BSX-bass at the price of an ordinary guitar from a Fender-conveyor. While this bass is handmade and contains pouds of quality wood, including a topnotch ebony fingerboard.

You can buy a bass for $300-500, if you look at cheap models from China. Are you sure this is what you need?
 
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#95
ProDigit said:
I see most people are defending the high price.
My Mexican Fender, cost me $900, and played and sounded better than their US Fender counterparts of $1200, and aside from the options, even were better than Fender's $1600 basses (the Deluxe series, that now cost half their price).

Squier came out with a copy, sounded and played like 95% a Fender, for like $300.
Even had curved frets!

An upright is nothing more than a regular bass, minus the body, and in some cases minus the frets even; and is literally a stick, with a pickup a nut and a bridge.
Smaller in size and weight, lower shipping cost, with only 1 or 2 additions:
The addition of a pole mount on the bottom to raise the instrument, and the optional $0.5 piezo pickup under the bridge.

That's it.
If squier released it, it would go on the market for $200 a piece.
Click to expand...

If you paid $900 for a MIM Fender you got taken to the cleaners. It would make me seriously doubt anything else you claimed.

I'm not sure you understand what a DB is, either. Hint: It's more like a violin than a bass guitar :roflmao:
 
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#96
james condino said:
About 18 years ago, I actually worked for one of the boutique acoustic guitar companies that ran into some growing pains and sold the company. They gave control to a guy whose background WAS working for Pepsi. He looked at building $8,000 guitars exactly like he looked at Pepsi bottles rolling down the line- turn the speed until bottles start exploding and somewhere there is a higher profit margin even with the losses than you would get from keeping things nice and tidy. He was the biggest dipsh!t boss I ever had and basically bankrupted the company with his cluelessness. At the time I was there 2/3 of the materials that went in the front door wound up in the dumpster from pushing it too fast every step of the way; he did not have any regard or care for how precious these woods were, and his approach to employees was even worse. Employee turnover was something like 230 people over ten years for a company with 18 employees...even the guy whose name was on the headstock went to work for someone else....
Click to expand...

It sounds to me this was a management style problem, not an economies of scale problem.
 
#97
Don't forget that NS NXT4 first got released at $700, and stayed like that for about a year; which means they still made profit.
I think Stagg cuts in the profit of that sector.
I don't think it's much of a matter of demand, but supply.
Just like Fender, if you keep the prices high enough, and there's not a lot of competition, they can basically ask whatever price they want to.

There just hasn't been a company on the market that would offer honest prices for basses like this.
Like said, they make regular basses for $200-$300 nowadays, and they sound excellent!
No reason why an upright (electric upright) should cost any more.


I don't buy the hype that hand made basses are better than machine made.
In fact, for budget, machine based are better.
Machine based can still mean there's tests done on the body resonance, and right parts found to fit the variables of the bodies produced.


Anyway, I don't know what's with the support for outrageous prices.
Sure, if you want to pay $6k for a bass, be my guest.
But I probably will laugh hard, if you can't hear the difference between a $200 'broomstick' and a $6k upright...

Talking about broomsticks,
Youtube has proven that wood material makes up only a fraction of the sound.
They have cardboard and plastic guitars that sound just like the real deal!
As well as a guitar made out of a shovel, or just a steel pipe, or a steel oil can/jar.
 

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