rondo music hadean ubass

At that price, I guess so. I like the mahogany acoustic.

I got the zebrawood (Merry Christmas to me!). I love it so far. One interesting thing: the one on the website had a logo (Omega) on the headstock, but the one I received is blank up there and has no label inside. Is this true for others as well? Also, the body is shallower than the Kala U-basses I've tried. Pretty cool. The thick rubbery strings are an adjustment--I'll have to play with a much lighter touch than I usually use on any other instrument, to avoid buzzing. Remarkable invention.

per e-mail with Kurt at Rondo they will be back in stock in March and fretless will possibly be available next fall.

My wife and kids got me the Swamp Ash Ubass from Rondo for Christmas. I'm a multi-instrumentalist and Ubass is the perfect solution where I'm playing an acoustic set or just need to cop a tone that is "upright-ish". As someone else had mentioned, some of these are shipping sans logo on the headstock or visible through the sound hole. Mine is one of these. All it has is, in terms of markings, is a Made in China sticker and a serial number sticker on the back of the peg head. There is a hang tag that is a promo for the silicone strings that the bass came strung with also.

Fit and finish are remarkably beautiful. The built in preamp makes it easy to dial in a number of happening tones. The only adjustments to my style is to use a lighter touch and to make sure that I fret the string far enough behind the fret so that the finger pad/tip does not contact the fret. In doing so, any buzzes or sour-toned notes are mitigated.

I keep missing these and they sell out before I can get one. I'll just have to keep refreshing their pages a few times per day.

In the meantime, I've hacked up a workable substitute, borne from the ruins of the Schoenhut fake Flea, inside which I had previously installed an UST pickup/preamp ( just could not bring myself to throw it out, nor inflict someone else with such disappointment), and with bridge, nut and tuner modifications and the addition of some Aquila Thunder REDS, I now have soprano-scale GCEA Octave-Uke that is 1 octave below a regular uke tuning.

FYI, this means that instead of G3-C4-E4-A4, it is tuned G2-C3-E3-A3, so while not a true uke-bass, it sounds more like an upright bass like the U-Bass, despite being only an octave down.

I could not get DGBE nor EADG with these strings since they are too slack at 14" scale length. It sounds decent and it more playable and useful to me than the terrible soprano it used to be, and for the initial $30 I spent, I turned lemons into lemonade (since I already had all the other parts and materials from other projects).

This was partly 'just to see if it could be done', partly inspired by the efforts and results by fellow UU brother Yeelaberbin, and partly due to necessity being the mother of invention combined with the frustration of the instruments on Rondo selling out so quickly before I could get one each time.

I plan to put a show-and-tell video up once I get the time.

Maybe now I dont need one of these Rondo uke-basses any more? UAS has an almost fatal hold on me - OY!

with that schoenhut scale you maybe should have considered going with ashbory strings which are for shorter scale. both thunderguts and pahoehoe's sell ashbory scale sets.

The schoenhut probably was a good choice since it does seem like the plastic bowl is well built and stable.

Sorry if this is lame but I finally figured out how to record my ubass and ashbory.
I used a usb instrument cable for both. Bass and treble knobs maxxed. I played these deaf, meaning no monitor.

The ashbory is wearing thunderguts.
The hadean omega sub (which I recently defretted) is wearing stock strings which are supposed to be thunderguts.

I played the omega first. I had some problems getting the ashbory volume dialed in.

https://soundcloud.com/traeak/sets/fretless-poly-u-basses

Speaking of Ashbory - have you seen what has happened to their value since Fender quit making them? I bought mine used 3 years ago, so I check the prices occasionally on eBay. Now, everybody is listing them as "rare" and they have gone way up in price. I'm not complaining, mind you.

i'm seriously considering selling mine since i defretted the hadean omega. My ashbory is really mint condition except for the thunderguts.

greyghost said:

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The Zebra Wood one on the Rondo site is the only one available. Their picture is pretty fugly. Looks like it's Masonite countertop material. I suppose that's that JPG compression talking. Yours is really nice looking. Really. Nice. Looking.

Anyway I emailed Rondo last night asking if others were forthcoming again. Theresa replied "We will have more Hadean Uke Bass guitars available in the very near future."

So do I wait? I checked on the count. they only have 60 of the Zebrawood ones in stock.

So what kind of amps are you guys pushing these things through?

sold my ashbory through reverb.com but still have the omega. I typically use a modified ampeg ba108 (original) for bass noodling but the E string does fart out more easily than with a full scale electric bass. Stronger fundamental. Hmm..still haven't hooked it up through my genz benz rig...

Well, I'm in. Decided to get the Zebra Wood one.

I love the UBass. But I just cant bring myself to cough up the price.

This is more my speed.

My olympic white hadean omega SUB I think was 149, I can't remember exactly. Pretty impressive considering all the features it has. The preamp is a bit sloppy. Two cr232 batteries that aren't held in well, but it still works so far.

bnolsen said:

sold my ashbory through reverb.com but still have the omega. I typically use a modified ampeg ba108 (original) for bass noodling but the E string does fart out more easily than with a full scale electric bass. Stronger fundamental. Hmm..still haven't hooked it up through my genz benz rig...

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You should give that a try. Playing my U-Bass thru a Genz-Benz Contour 500, really love the sound.

Croakie said:

You should give that a try. Playing my U-Bass thru a Genz-Benz Contour 500, really love the sound.

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hokay...i keep the ubass at work and play it through a zoom b1on.

I just stumbled across the Hadean tonight. I'm seriously considering one but I do have to ask about the Thunderguts. The Kala U-Basses that I've played I had a lot of problem getting used to the synthetic strings, they felt very sticky. Does this go away the more you play them? I string up all my basses with half-rounds or flatwounds so that's where I'm coming from if that tells you anything.

I find the Aquila Thuderguts to be way too sticky for me, they came with my Gold Tone and the Hadean (I just bought last week). I changed them to Road Toad Pahoehoe black on the Gold Tone and yellow on the Hadean, very smooth and comfortable.

I really like the Hadean solid body, the blue one I bought is going to be modified, and I also just ordered another to use all the parts with a solid body designed like a violin bass.

Original


Modified mockup I drew


Mockup violin replacing the body

Kohanmike - thanks for the pics of the BLUE ones. Those look awesome. My wife recently took up the bass - a cheap but decent Squier P-Bass - but she doesn't practice/play enough yet, so I don't want to venture into BAS for her, especially if she's not going to be fully into it. I have my own UAS to deal with already!

if the intonation is good on one you get they're definitely worth having. Bass in a compact size. Not quite as versatile as a magnetic pickup electric bass, but the size and weight are great!