The (unofficial) Upright Bass Showcase Thread

[hankster]

Casey, that recording sounds great.  I remember Vancouver fondly - when I lived out West Rene Worst was the young guy to beat - is he still around?  I also remember playing the Brandenburgs, or some of them, at Capilano College when I was in the University of Victoria string ensemble in 76 or 77.  Your recording brought back some memories for me.

I used a Don Underwood pickup that I bought from Don directly by mail in '77 or so until it gave up the ghost - I liked it, so I bought another one.  Still does the job, although I usually use my NS electric upright these days.  I remember the De Armond system well - and not fondly!  I also remember a system that was actually built into the bridge...but I can't remember the name.

[David Houck]

The Hot Five recording was nice.

[nosimplehighway]

Not a great photo, but these are my uprights:
Yamaha SLB-200 and 1968 Kay M3

[growlypants]

Looks like that Yamaha has lost some serious weight!!  (Which is my way of joking that I know NOTHING about uprights.)

[edwardofhuncote]

Oooh, I like that old Kay! 

I posted this on a shop thread a couple years ago, but here is my Dad's '51 Kay M1B, in the hands of its original owner, Buddy Yearwood. Cousin Buddy (my 2nd Cousin) was a weekend warrior like me back in the 50's and 60's, playing all over east-central North Carolina with a variety of country acts of the day. When he retired from playing, the old Kay was strung down and stored in a closet, until finally my Dad got him to part with it. These days, my Ol' Man is gigging it pretty regular. 

[nosimplehighway]

Thanks guys,
The Yamaha is a pretty nice EUB. Sounds great. 3/4 scale. "Semi-hollow" by their specs because of the large chamber under the bridge. Onboard preamp. Breaks down to a reasonable size. Carries easily. I don't play it much these days. I'll get bored and break it out again. The Kay is what I play now. It's a 1/4 size bass. Easier for me because I've always been an electric bassist and the neck and string spacing are more suited to my hands. Has a beautiful voice, but when I show up for bluegrass jams, I have to put up with about 5 minutes of ribbing from the other players because of its smaller size (where's the rest of it?). After they calm down, they always admit that it sounds pretty dern good. I put a Barcus-Berry transducer on it some time ago and later found a Schatten mini-pre...not the "premium" setup for electrifying an upright, but to my ears, that setup sounds as good as a lot of other more expensive setups. In fact, I haven't heard anything that sounds all that great for electrifying an upright.

[CaseyVancouver]

Kays bring back memories for me.

It was my first upright, used it on my first jazz gigs, '72-74. I bought the bass for about $150 and took it home on the public bus haha! I recall the bus driver stopped the packed bus on Granville Street downtown Vancouver. Granville is the main street in a city of 600,000 people.  I was a 17 year old with crazy long blonde hair (like Jack Casady) he looked at me, paused for a second and I could read his mind. He was thinking 'do I let this long haired kid on my bus with that thing' and then with a nod ...'hop on'. No words spoken but that is what he was thinking for sure 

It was a nice clean and good sounding Kay. Should of kept it. In those days 2 or 3 gigs could pay for an upright.

[edwardofhuncote]

I went looking for this old thread to find a picture. My (2nd) Cousin Buddy's old blonde Kay bass has since gone to a new home with a young married couple I play in a band with. (so now I don't have to carry a bass when I visit...) I wanted them to have its whole story.

While I'm here;

I can't even imagine the strength, to say nothing of the focus and discipline it would take to pull that cello suite off with a double bass. Not even if I had two lifetimes.

[David Houck]

Plus the finger joint flexibility.  The fingers of my left hand cannot get into some of those positions.

[rv_bass]

Love that piece! 

[edwardofhuncote]

Just to follow-up on the upright bass theme... I finally put a decent pickup system on my gig-bass. It's David Gage Realist, https://gollihurmusic.com/realist-lifeline-upright-bass-pickup/ with their 'docking port' attachment. https://gollihurmusic.com/realist-super-docking-station-preamp-active-tailpiece-mounted-volume-control-jack-mount/ The female end of the piezo pickup plugs into a male end that has a mount and a volume control, with a detent right above the [OFF] position. It fastens to the back of the tailpiece by hooking behind two string ball ends. Very handy, very compact, and sounds about 5 light-years better than my old AccuSound setup. I tried it out with my older F-1X unit, a Crown power amp, and an Avatar 2×10 cabinet loaded with a pair of ToneTubby SuperBoy 10's. Impressive, with nothing else. I'll probably use some more shaping though. My bass has some nasty lows that carry real well, and a couple midrange squawks that I dial out with a couple notch filters and parametric equalizer. All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with it.


I was thinking about it the other day... other than my old Martin D-18, I have had that bass longer than any instrument, and most of my friends too. Lotta' miles. Lotta' stages.

[hankster]

Nice. I put a Gage Lifeline in a couple of years ago, and it’s great. I was using an Underwood before that. Great sound, easy to use.

[sonicus]

I have a pending repair and restoration that I shall do on what I believe to be a 1/2 size upright that was gifted to me that needs repair. In the early 90s. I repaired and refinished a 3/4 size instrument that I since have sold. I most certainly shall follow this post with images and request for guidance suggestions when this new project commences.

[edwardofhuncote]

On my personal Mount Rushmore of bass players, Viktor Krauss. I met him at The Birchmere up in Alexandria, Virginia waaaaay on back. At the time he was filling in on bass with a band his little sister was producing a record on, and they were touring together some. I hung around after the show and got to check out his setup. It turned out too, we're close to exactly the same age. Anyway, that chance meeting and the resulting influence was a major turning point; I went home and set my bass up with Thomastik-Infeld Spirocores and started practicing hard.

There's some pretty good advice here. ^^

[Artgeckko]

Awesome series of videos. 
I've had acousticians give a far less comprehensive discussion of resonant frequencies and phase cancellation.
I hope, in addition to being a amazing player, he's teaching sound theory and live sound applications. 
Reminds me of late Malcolm Cecil, who had a similar knack of explaining difficult concepts to the less clear.
Nice and gracious man too.
Love it.  Great share.