Hi to all
I've been following this thread for a while and finally bought a Stagg - in honey - through my LGS who got close to the online prices. It is my first upright bass of any kind, as I never learnt acoustic. I had previously tried a Wav4 at the Bass Centre in London, and found it hard work on the left hand due to not having a "body" to pull against, and thought the extensions on the Stagg looked a great idea.
Well I unboxed it, tuned it up, and found it surprisingly playable. The action was very high but easily adjusted, it's now about 8mm at the end of the board. I can see that the curvature of the bridge is greater than that of the fingerboard, which causes uneven string height (A and D are higher) which I might get my local luthier to look at, and the nut could do with being cut a tad deeper. But I expected to need to pay attention to setup. The hip brace extension does exactly what I hope it would do.
However I have another problem - hum. It hums quite loudly when plugged into my amp - its not the lead or amp (Acoustic Image Coda 2R series III - which I use with all my bass guitars). If I touch the body of one of the 1/4" jack plugs (I have Neutrik plugs with metal bodies) or one of the 3.5mm jack sockets on the preamp, grounding it, the hum stops.
Has anyone else had this problem? Do you think it means a return, or is it likely to just need sorting out the ground connection internally?
Any suggestions as to why it hums (and don't say "cos it doesn't know the words...")
Finally I hope it's OK that I've posted the same question here and on Talkbass, in the hope I might get more answers.
Cheers
Nigel
