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Hey Steve, Thanks for the awesome link. Hooray for $20 piezos. You
offered some assistance with bass last time we chatted , so I assume you are
happy to share your wisdom. Thought I would take you up on it. I was thinking of sticking one of those piezos on my new (to me)upright
and I figured you might have some pointers being a bass demi-god and all. The
brand of the bass is engelhardt. It’s a student type bass I think and
is made of some kind of laminate. I can’t afford a real carved one
unfortunately. The fretboard is definitely not real ebony. Looks like dyed
basswood, poplar or whatever the dirt cheap white tonewood du jour was when
they made it. I installed a maple despaux bridge with the little aluminum
height wheels on it and I invested some serious time and effort into getting
the curvature of the bridge to match the top of the bass. The book I have on
bass setup really stressed making good contact between the wood pieces. It’s
actually pretty amazing how much of a difference something that simple makes. The
bass is significantly louder now and I can really feel the vibrations up the
neck which was not the case when I got this poor abused instrument. About the fretboard though, do people epoxy these like jaco did
with his J bass? Is there a good reason to do this? I’m also really
unhappy with the strings that are on it, but this may simply be because I am
not all that used to uprights. The tension seems quite a bit higher to me than
most uprights I have tried though and they are REALLY squeaky. I use
roundwounds on my Jazz bass and they don’t sound nearly as “catlike”
or feel as . Could you maybe recommend a set of strings for a noobie that are
good for pizzicato and some rockabilly slap bass ?( I would like to try my hand
at this because it looks insanely fun) . Upright strings are pretty pricey so I would prefer to keep the
experimenting to a minimum if possible but I’m okay with spending a little
more to get the right set. If I mount one of those $20 piezo mics you recommended, does it
have to go between the bridge and body, inside the f-holes, by the tailpiece or
somewhere else? Are these types of mics sufficient to plug the upright into my
amp or into the mixer and looper directly? My amp is an 83 rivera era bassman
20 tube amp. 18 watts all tube 1x15. Not very loud but KICK ASS bass tone (with
my electric at least) so I use the line out from it into the board. It sounds
MUCH better and richer than going direct to me. I have noticed that all the jazz players I like to watch use
some sort of a preamp, is this necessary? Also, how do I go about getting those
awesome finger and slap sounds from the fretboard? I don’t imagine
the piezo would pick those up, correct? Sorry about the length of this thing and thanks in advance for
your help. Ace P.S. I’m replying to the whole list just in case there are
any other upright loopers who might benefit from the discussion too. From: Steve Uccello
[mailto:stevebassbird@yahoo.com]
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