DIY U-bass got new strings ...

Hi there,

I made a short video using my DIY U-Bass. It was made of a Dimavery UK-300 baritone ukulele, which got new tuners, a tailpiece, new nut/saddle, and a simple piezo underneath the top.
As I got it, it was strung with regular strings from a standard 5-string bass (BEAD) tuned to EADG. This worked for a while but didn't satisfy me. Last week, I switched strings to Pyramid copper wound strings and they opened the world for this little bass.



The ukes used were:



Technically, both ukes were attached directly to a laptop and recorded though Audacity. Different voices were mixed but not further processed.

Happy to take any questions,
cheers,
-ruukie-

That's excellent Ruukie, nicely done, and your video work is top notch as well.

I just started learning bass after 50 years of playing guitar, only because of the availability of small basses. I got a Gold Tone GT MicroBass, but I got caught up in SBUS (small bass acquisition syndrome) very quickly that I decided to have a custom fretless bass uke made by my uke builder in Vietnam, it's on it's way.

As well, I decided to convert a small electric guitar when I found an Epiphone Les Paul Express for $99 US. The strings I'm using are 30" scale (Rotosound Tru-Bass flat wound black nylon coated), but the guitar is 22" scale so I have to mount the strings to be as long as possible by wrapping them around the tail of the body to a plate I added on the back side.



Custom being made now, with a custom gig bag:

Nice projects, Mike! For the BWA custom U-bass take care that the nut has some compensation. The thumb rest appears to be a nice idea. I'm excited to see how it works.

Btw, here another sample of my baritone-bass played solo:

Thanks very much Ruukie. Did you have any problem with intonation because the bass strings are shorter than intended? Did you have to do anything special to the bridge position, is the scale measurement the same as when it was a uke?

Hi Mike,
surely I had to change something to the bridge. Without big efforts I extended scale to 510 mm by positioning the nut beyond its original position:

An additional compensation was done to the nut with another 6 mm difference between G and E-string:

Still not perfect, but satisfactory.

I'm hoping on my conversion that I can leave the bridge in place, it has individual saddles for each string with about 18mm of adjustment. As I showed, to retain the length of the Rotosound Tru-Bass 762mm scale strings on the 558.8mm scale guitar, I'm running the strings to the back of the body, which I just redid by drilling string-through holes just to have a cleaner look. I'm waiting for the nut to be delivered, then I can test the intonation/compensation and decide if I need to to use the plate on the back side to get more length for the strings.