NickA

Played with a bloke playing a hollow fretted Kala u bass with the rubber strings on the other week. It sounded "nearly" like a double bass ..much more than a fretless electric bass does. It genuinely did sound like a real one except when compared to my real real one, upon which the difference was immediately apparent. But given the difference in price, size, effort to play, it was quite upsettingly decent. Had a go playing it ... flummoxed by the teeny weeny scale length and miniscule distance between frets. But I'm used to full scale electrics and a 4/4 dB. Visual impact is a bit odd in a jazz band.

Congrats. The core Wal tone is there in that one pickup. Check out Geert Maesschalk's posts on the "Wal lovers of the world" Facebook page. Plus many iconic Wal bass lines (early Percy Jones for instance) were laid down with an ash bodied pro bass. Nice maple facings too. Shame about the thumb rest. So, pray tell .. how much does a passive pro 1 reissue Wal cost these days? ( They were £250 on Denmark St in 1984, but one sold in the states via reverb for £3900 recently ).

Bargain of sorts. Bloke in the states just coughed up $11900, plus import duty, for a MK2 off ebay Madness. One pickup is likely all you need for the classic Wal sound, but I use the neck pickup more and more on mine. The subject of this thread is also weird in that it's solid walnut, not the usual mahogany plus fancy face wood.

Mine only suffers feedback if I do up my " sound clamp" pickup too tightly (too much pickup gain, I think). The pjb combos are pretty directional and "non-boomy" too which helps. I guess the other option is a phase reverser ( built into lots of dB specific amps .. but not mine); not needed one so far. But yes there are sometimes non bass sounds coming through the bass amp ... that huge front picks up quite a bit of the other instruments.

Too right. One hand one semitone?

60" ??? How on earth would you play it?

I'm always trying to make the amp output sound like my double bass "only louder", so don't like to boost the mids too much. Although, the tutor at one of my Jazz sessions keeps leaning over my amp and turning up the low mids in the hope the horns can hear what I'm playing ..... could be putting out too much bass. I guess the lesson is that what we want to hear is maybe not what the audience and the rest of the band want to hear!

Getting it in the right place is still an issue. Then knowing how much to crank it up. The only "de-skilling" is the fact that the feet self adjust to the curve of the instrument; then maybe some time saved as you can adjust the length in situ rather than taking it out and filing the end a bit. As you have to get someone who really knows what they're doing to fit it, there seems little advantage over a (much cheaper) chunk of pine. I'm sure there will be some instrument adjusting expert who will tell you that the sound post material has to be carefully matched to the instrument to get the best sound (as per wooden bridges, where basic engineering suggests carbon fibre should work better but people in the know are still using a lump of maple). Though I have a couple of carbon bows which I'm very pleased with.

I've got the bg150 (2 Up firing, 2 front firing). Great for rehearsals and jam sessions Too quiet for performing without a PA. Sits on top of a pb300 ( 6 front facing) for gigs. Only need a PA when playing outdoors. Still needs the eq tweaking for room acoustics. Ps: that bg150 isn't great value, especially when you factor in shipping from athens and post Brexit vat; I paid much less. Then again, they're out of production ( because the neo speakers got so pricey I think ).

I was at a professional jazz gig last night, superb bass player beset by a boomy acoustic. I think it was because the room was a bit echoey and they'd put him and his coda combo in a corner, those codas sound great but are deliberately omnidirectional. Room placement seems critical. I'm surprised you get affected by PA speakers, aren't they usually out front firing forwards? I don't like them either from an audience pov because the sounds no longer come from the individual instruments, but it's never bothered me when standing at the back. I only really hear the sound from my amp (it's a pjb flight case which has a couple of upfiring speakers) and feel the vibrations from the bass itself.

Ok I was wrong. I've met Owen a couple of times ... I didn't know he was of the German persuasion. 😁 My "really expensive", as I thought, bass bow was about £900 .. bottom of the range arcus S3 carbon one. But it's true they really do get better with price. I had some cello bows on trial from caswells, chose the arcus T4 (£950). went back to the shop to return the others and thought "I'll just try the T5" ( £1350), world's apart. Bought it. Didn't dare try the S6 (£1950). Now itching for a bass bow upgrade. Dangerous game!

... You are correct. I use French, (I started as a cellist, so it's what I'm used to) and have never met any German bow users; I conclude that it's not so common in the UK. However many of the world's best players use German ... seems both work equally well. There's a French Vs German thread here somewhere, but we only concluded that it's a matter of personal choice.

https://www.bassbags.co.uk/product-category/double-bass-shop/double-bass-bows/ https://caswells-strings.co.uk/product/student-double-bass-bow/

What he says. Get a cheap one to start with; though probably avoid the fibreglass ones. Go "Brazil wood" or carbon.

It is nice to be made welcome. But once they know you have a double bass, you'll never get to play electric again. Same goes for my clasical playing; no one wants me to bring my cello ( except for a tiny chamber orchestra in a tiny church, where the dB just doesn't fit!)

I got a thing called a ganglion years ago.. hard hemispherical lump near the first joint on my ring finger; calcium buildup on a tendon or something. Had it sugically removed. The doc said it would probably go away, maybe, and sometimes you can squash them away by slamming your hand hard on a table...... .... see a doc and ignore the above "advice". Presume no history of Dupreyens in your family ... as you'd have heard about it. Tends to make your finger bend before any lumps appear ( my wife and mother in law have it). Ps long haul that Messiah, especially the aptly named continuo parts. Need to be fit for that!

Low D! Back before it was made illegal I used to play slap in a funk band, the guitarist for some reason wrote some tunes in D requiring a D slap pedal note. Used to down tune ( then forget to up tune ). Slapping D on a 5 just doesn't sound the same. Sometimes fewer strings works better. But I'm keeping the 5.

Left hand = totally different. The scale is too big for one finger one fret. You need to use 1:2:4 right the way up to first finger on D on the G string, then, usually 1:2:3. Evidently this means more position changes and it's easy to get lost. I think some nxt basses have a little "false heel" on the back of the neck, where the neck of a double bass would join the body. Thumb on that and your first finger will be on a D on the G string. Total godsend. If it's not fitted, fit one. It's perhaps the dullest book on earth, but the Simandl New Method ( it's ancient) is a good foundation for upright bass technique. Also David Heyes "daily exercises for double bass" is a good workout. On the other hand there's a lass in my home town who never got beyond clamping her whole hand around the fingerboard ( bunch o bananas style ) and simply moving her whole hand up and down. She plays in tune, can sing whilst doing it and knows a million bluegrass tunes .... she gets loads more work than me ☹️

Youd think czech-ease would be vat registered, so able to knock off the Czech vat before exporting. And there's no duty to pay on imports from the EU. Hence only UK vat to pay. Though the shipping company has to collect the vat from the importer and charges a fat fee ( plus vat) for doing so. Then the importer has to claim the VAT back again! I was at Tim Bachelor's a few weeks back and he was complaining about all the hassle of eori numbers etc, says brexit has almost killed his import business too. What a total mess. Still, if there is a demand, maybe someone with import export knowledge, VAT registration and a eori number, (bass bags perhaps), could be persuaded to be a UK dealer.

Do you find you're using higher positions on the 5? I can do it if I think it out but still drift back to 1st position on the top 4 strings a lot. On the other hand, found some useful 4 string fingerings I only found through playing the the 5. Must say, the 5 string feels cumbersome after the 4s... but sure it will be worth having if I ever master it.