Let's face it: if there had been no upright basses, there would be no bass guitars. Wanting to play upright bass used to involve major investments for the bass itself and for a car big enough to haul it. That's no longer the case.

Electric Upright Basses (EUBs) first appeared in the 1930s, but really weren't used to great effect until the 1960s, when the Ampeg Baby Bass appeared in many a salsa band. However, EUBs seem to have come into their own in the '90s when high-profile artists like Sting, Tony Levin and other rockers and jazzplayers began to use them. These days, there are more than a dozen EUB manufacturers, and the basses come in configurations that have a small, hollow body (Azola, BSX, Eminence & Palatino are a few) or no body at all (NS Design, Kydd, Stagg & others). Some use proprietary stings, and some use standard UB strings. Some come in standard upright scale (usually 42") and even 35" (Dean Pace) and the hybrid, 34"-scale NS Design Basscello.

Do you use a EUB, either exclusively or in combination with a bass guitar? If so, what brand, and what are your impressions? Are you happy with the sound or do you think an EUB simply sounds like a fretless "bass on a stick?" What are the pros & cons of EUB playing, and if you switch between BG & EUB, how do you handle the transition?

I was trying to find an EUB to try out back when I was first starting college, but the only places that had them in stock for me to try out were either all the way in New York City, Arizona, or somewhere far, far away from Pittsburgh. I had been looking at BSX for a while and thought they were pretty cool (my teacher had one with a zebrawood hollow body at the time that was extremely warm and resonant), and started gathering information about them.

After planning a trip with my dad over to Connecticut to one of two shops that sold them in the country (the other was in Washington, the state), I found out that they were located in a city called Aliquippa. 15 minutes from my home. =)

I've had the pleasure of knowing Dino Fiumara for several years know. He's still a pretty hip bass player and plays an old Czech bass with a hole drilled into it on the lower end of the fingerboard. His basses really get close to the upright sound, partly, he says, because the pickup is actually inside of the bridge and therefore very much in touch with the wood of the bass. Higher end models in the line have hollow bodies and mini f-holes and sound incredibly smooth and warm with a nice little "mwah" to each note.

If you want to listen to what one sounds like, take a listen to Brian Bromberg's "Hero." After you put your eyes back into your sockets and your relocate your jaw (hint: look down) take a second to try and listen to where the sound differs from a real upright. They're pretty close. I actually played on his green BSX once when I was visiting Dino for some repairs, and the bass, surprisingly or not, wasn't that much different from my own, apart from a much lower action and an angled endpin.

These days, I play mostly on my real upright, and the EUB hasn't gotten much play time, but the problematic switch for me isn't so much between bass guitar and either upright, but between the two different upright basses themselves. They have two different scale lengths, so the notes are divided up differently. When you're playing without frets, this means that each fingerboard has to be learned and relearned under muscle memory each time you switch instruments. I haven't needed the portability of the EUB lately, so the fullsize upright has been getting the majority of the playing time. Why substitute when you can have the real thing, right?

Still, I get it out every now and again to make sure I still have my chops on the EUB neck, just in case a gig calls for it.

Since I don't play upright often, I was looking for something inexpensive. When the NS Design WAV came out, I jumped on it because I had good experiences with the Steinberger headless electric bass. The WAV is well made and sounds fine, but even after a string change to UB strings instead of the bass-guitarlike strings that come on the WAV, it never achieved enough of an upright sound. So I sold it after three years because I just wasn't playing it that much. I picked up a Stagg EUB about two months ago as areplacment, and it is much closer soundwise to what I had in mind. The workmanship is fine, but of course it's not up to the Steinberger's. It cost less than what I sold the WAV for, so it was good deal for me. I've seen the BSX basses but the price is still to out of my range. If I played upright all the time, I'd look into it.

When I got my BSX, it was $2,000 for the top end model. It was also part of a graduation gift from my parents, so I only had to pay for half. Now that I'm trying to do this on my own, it's a different story coming up with money for instruments. Hello, real world, right?

I also parted with my NSD WAV
for lack of an URB-like voice.

Then I got a Palatino EUB. Good
voice, but the body fell apart.

Now I have a Carruthers which is
a stick, simply a big neck, like
the NSD and so many others. But
Carruthers does some magic with
the way the bridge is supported,
to get a more URB-ish voice ...
and it works pretty well. Not a
true acoustic voice, but a nice
URBy decay, and it doesn't have
the "guitar on a stick" voice that
the WAV has. I play in a duo, with
no drums, so the voice of my bass
is quite audible, and Ms Diva just
looooves the Carruthers.

Also, the Palatino 500 and the WAV
depend on a truss rod in the neck.
The Carruthers is verrry beefy. No
truss rod involved.

I liked the look of the Carruthers, but the Stagg was about $300 cheaper. Since I don't play EUB that often, it'll do fine.

Just spinning my wheels mentally, I can only
semi-agree. I'll agree that the BG was more
easily marketed "in-relation-to" the existing
URB, considering the portability advantage
and a growing trend toward amped-up sound.

OTOH coupla thought in disagreement. Ideas
meant as seeds for discussion, rather than as
complete arguments for "winning or losing" a
chicken-and-egg type of debate.

Thought Uno:
If URB's had never been born someone sooner
or later woulda added the missing half octave
to the bottom end of the cello. I don't know if
I imagine such a "sub-cello" keeping to fifths
or going to EADG, but just as BG's ultimately
grew an extra low end string, the same would
quite likely have happened to cellos. Witness
the 5-string 34" electric bass cello by NSD.

Thought Dose:
Even if URBs had never come to be, and even
if the cello never morphed to fill that void, so
long as the Fender Tele/Strat had come to be,
Fender's "huge bassy 4-string Tele/Strat" was
prolly inevitable just cuz Leo Fender was such
a pragmetic innovator/developer.

Final Cogitation:
In an era of electric/amped-up bands, if the
URB had never existed, nor the Fender Bass,
a desire for heavy electric bass would likey
still have arisen, leading to bands lugging a
Hammond B3 everywhere they go. Or more
rationally, many venues would've installed a
B3 to win over the electric music audience. I
see it as a parallel to the tendency of some
venues to keeping a piano on hand.

`

It's all about VOLUME!!!! Ever hear how loud a 19-piece jazz band can be? I have to laugh when I see old films of bands that have a guitar player comping away trying to get over the other 18 pieces. I have to wonder who the first bassist was who thought of sticking a nmic on his upright and running it through the PA.

`


Well for sure, you can no waaaaay bury a B3 ! !


`

That's funny 'cause a B3 weighs more than a coffin.

`
Yup. Every 1st Tuesday of every month. OK, it's
"only" 17 pieces, not 19. Got 13 horns. And the
URB comes thru a 150W 12" GK MB. The KB is
the only other amped player. It all works.

`

I have little to no knowledge about the electric upright other than the bass player I rock with at church plays one and it sounds pretty darn good though his little Ampeg kickback. Although I have tracked a good amount of stand-up in the studio and there is no beating it!

I know - a bit off-topic, but I was enjoying the conversation and felt nosy enough to butt in!

One of the cool things in the EUB scene
is the lack of an iconic precedent ... IOW
there's no equivalent of the "Original '51
Fender P-Bass". So it's a clean slate for
designers and anything goes.

`

I Always laugh when someone tells me they want the SPL at the back of aroom to be "no louder than a symphony orchestra." The apparently never sat in front of an orchestra that's doing Mahler or Stravinksy. They are thinking of the volume that comes over the car radio, apparently. Ask the musicians sitting behind the French horn section how loud those wacky left-handed contraptions are.

I like my Stagg EUB -- it's basically a neck stuck on a slab of wood. Sounds better than the NS Design WAV I first had. Even has an endpin so I can twirl that sucka.

Thats what our bass player has...a Stagg. He is an older guy and actually started Spectrum Audio a long time back which is now a huge gear supplier and touring sound company!

He had told me he didn't know many people who played one and will happy to hear that you are rockin' one!

`

Someone had a Stagg at a jam laznite.

It wasn't cutting it with the horns and
geetar when I listened from in front of
the stage. Then I went to the side, and
was also a bit behind the horns and out
of the beam of the geetar amp. There I
could hear the Stagg player. From what
I could hear, it was mellow with a long
decay, kinda just a bigger version of FL
electric BG tone. The player was sitting
down so perhaps he didn't really dig in
enuf to bring it to life ?

If you don't stand up so that the 'upper
bout simulator' can serve its purpose, I
spoze that reduces the energy you can
deliver with your right hand. I've tried
sitting next to my Carruthers and that
feels plainly unworkable.

`

Can't see how you could play upright sitting in a regular chair -- maybe on a stool. For me the Stagg sounds more like a real URB than the WAV did. A friend just borrowed it to do a salsa gig in NYC and loved it. Dedicated URB players didn't like the lack of a bout simulators on the WAV, either. Since I never played URB, that didn't bother me -- no thumb position, no problem.

`

I wasn't refering to anything that helps
locate the thumb positions. Would that
be called a "neck heel simulator" ? I was
just thinking of the extension pieces that
mimic the SIDE of an upper bout curve,
and rest against the player so the bass
doesn't just spin on its endpin with the
attack of the right hand on the strings.
Thaz why I thought that lack of the bout
simulator could be related to the player
not digging in enuf to wake up the tone.

And, yup, when I said he was sitting, I
meant in a chair. When I tried sitting,
and it wasn't workable, that was also in
a chair. I've seen stools used with URBs
and EUBs and I'm sure I could use that,
altho I've never tried it. But a regular
"table sitting" chair is just all wrong !

`

Yeah -- the neck heel simulator. Sounds like a ride at Disney. The Stagg has two wire bout simulators, one for each side. The one on the treble side is to approximate where you'd go into thumb position. I don't use that one. The other one lets you stand away from the bass, the way a real bass body does. I never felt comfortable with the WAV on a stand -- the Stagg moves with me. Not that I'm Michael Jackson onstage.

Soundwise, the WAV gets a lot more "uprighty" if you use real URB strings instead of the proprietary NS ones, which are more like heavy gauge BG strings. I put Obligatos on my WAV and it sounded much more like an upright. They cost $160 a set, though. I Have no idea what strings are on the Stagg -- bought it used.