u-bass vs electric bass guitar

twentytabby

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I'm kinda sorta thinking of either a u-bass or bass guitar for my daughter. She plays upright bass and has wanted a bass guitar for years for ease of transport. I showed her a video from this site of a guy playing u-bass and she thought that was great too.

So, since she plays neither there's no current leaning towards one or the other. I'm hoping to get feedback from people who play both and can give me the advantages and disadvantages of one over the other.
 
As a bassist as well, I think it is a matter of preference. The biggest challenge I had with the Ubass after years of playing bass guitar was the scale length. My hands are sort of trained on the bass guitar length, so it really took some thinking to adjust to the very short scale of the Ubass. I imagine your daughter will have a similar challenge moving from the massive scale of an upright bass, but I imagine the same would be true of a bass guitar.

The biggest difference I see really is that bass guitars are everywhere, they have a lot of options for upgrades and strings and such, while the Ubass is still something of a novelty, and has limited options for customization.

For me, the biggest value of the Ubass is size--extremely portable and sounds good.
 
Richm, can you do everything on the u-bass that you can do on the bass guitar or is it limited some how?
thanks for your excellent response!
 
Richm, can you do everything on the u-bass that you can do on the bass guitar or is it limited some how?
thanks for your excellent response!

The biggest limitation I have on the Ubass is that I play up the neck a lot (that it is, closest to the body of the instrument). On the Ubass, the frets up the neck are very close together, making it very difficult to fret cleanly. They do make a fretless version, which I imagine would make this less of an issue.

I've only used the silicon strings on the Ubass. They deliver good tone, but take some getting used to. They are very thick and soft, and stretch forever when new. I haven't tried the alternative strings, like Aquila Thundergut, so I don't have an opinion on those.
 
I recently took up the bass only because so many small basses became available, never played one before. I looked at the Kala U-Bass 20" scale, but didn't like the configuration. I then talked to Brad at U-Space in Downtown Los Angeles and he suggested going to either the Gold Tone GT MicroBass or Tanger or Ohana. I liked the configuration of the Gold Tone, 23" scale, two more frets, cutaway, so I went with it. Brad gave me a deal of $375. I also don't like the Aquila Thundergut strings that came with it, not smooth and required powder on the fingers, so I changed them to Road Toad Pahoehoe strings, really smooth.

Since then I converted a 22" scale small electric guitar to a bass, $160, ordered a custom 21" fretless u-bass from Vietnam, $460, and a custom 22" Telecaster electric style small bass from Michigan, $500.

GT with yellow pahoehoe.jpg

LP Bass converted.jpg

U-Bass front.jpg

Tele Bass2.jpg
 
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I guess my first question is... are you looking for acoustic or electric?

If it is an electric bass guitar, and want a shorter scale, I would be leaning toward a 30 inch scale.

I haven't played a short scale acoustic.

John
 
Some questions:

- Does she want something like her double bass or does she want to be able to mix up sounds more?
- Does she want to stay fretless?
- What's the budget?

If she doesn't mind going electric bass the number of options can go through the roof.

Some initial options (assuming you are in the denver area):

ubass: it will travel the best and has the more thumpy sound. Available as fretless although less forgiving at the shorter scale. I wonder if the denver folklore center has some ubasses in stock.

ibanez mikro: 28.6" scale, fretted. The guitar centers at i25 and colorado and down by park meadows mall have these in stock. ~180usd.

musicman stringray: about as far from an upright bass sound you can get.

Any of the above will require she gets some sort of amp to play through. You need to add cost for that.
People seem to like the new fender rumble v3 series amps as they combines good power with very low weight.
 
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i don't know much about these, but I didn't think there were completely acoustic basses other than the upright - nothing else would be loud enough?
She probably would need something that could be heard in a jam.
Fortunately we have a at least one amp and one in particular would be good for a bass - at least for a start.

We are in the Denver area and now it sounds like it would be a good idea to go and try out instruments. The Folklore center could be a very dangerous place for me though - too many tempting things to buy for myself.
 
Hey, did either of you Denverites ever play with the Denver Uke Community that meets at Swallow Hill? I played with them when I was up there in July...fun group! Also played with the Boulder Uke Group...
 
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bnolsen, She mostly plays Old Time, Country, Folk and Celtic music when jamming on the upright bass, but I think she'd also like to get into more modern music.

UkerDanno , nope, haven't made it there yet. Been busy with performance stuff on other instruments. I hope to get to one or the other eventually.

At the moment it's cold and snowing and I wish I was in Arizona - Tucson to be precise.
 
Just a couple of times. Saturdays I typically have stuff to do with the kids. The organizer seems like a really good guy.
 
My wife is our bass player and she has small hands. She learned bass about 5 years ago. She started on a regular scale electric Squire bass. The fret spacing was to big for her, so we sold the Squire bought her a short scale bass - Fender Mustang Bass. Gotta admit, the Mustang has a great edgy tone. However, about 18 months ago she ended up with frozen shoulder and even the Fender Mustang was too heavy for her.

So, we bought a Kala u-bass. Now, even though her shoulder has healed, she plays the u-bass full time. We play it in our small band though a pre-amp, then a Mackie mixer and then a Boss Compact, and in our larger band she plays it through a Genz Benz Shuttle.

She absolutely loves the u-bass. The sound is similar to an upright bass.

With her small hands, the fret spacing allows her to do runs that she cannot do very well on the Fender Mustang (or a full-scale bass).

That is my 2 cents, whatever that is worth.
 
bnolsen, She mostly plays Old Time, Country, Folk and Celtic music when jamming on the upright bass, but I think she'd also like to get into more modern music.

Well kill the stingray suggestion. A ubass would work well in these venues.

If she goes for a normal standard electric bass she'll be wanting a normal p-bass, or better yet a pbass special (p bass with j pickup at bridge). The ibanez mikro would give her that type sound but might not look right on stage.

If she doesn't mind the weight something like a gretsch junior jet would fit in nicely as well. People on talkbass gig these stock (I have a single pickup g2202). Avoid the g221x's.

http://www.gretschguitars.com/products/index.php?partno=2514620552

Looks like someone has a passive kala ubass on craigslist. not sure about the asking price though...
 
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To chime back in. If she is playing out with others, I wouldn't even consider a u-bass. No offense to the instrument, but she needs a real bass.

You really need to go to a store with a decent selection, unfortunately that may mean a trip to Guitar Center and have your daughter play some electric basses and see what she likes. Ibanez used to make some nice but less expensive SR basses, but I've been away from it for so long, I can't/don't want to recommend. Generally active electronics are more versatile.

You will probably need a bass amp eventually. If you have a good PA system, you may be able to get away with just adding a good pre-amp (at least back in the day...).

As for more modern... coming from Old Time, Folk, and Celtic, that is pretty wide open genre.

John
 
As someone who plays bass some of the time I agree with the previous post. A UBass is a lot of fun; I use mine with uke players. But if she is going to be playing bass in a variety of music settings, the best acoustic bass by far is an upright bass - I'd go so far as to say an upright bass is the only acoustic bass that is usable when not plugged in for anything other than practice. If she is going to want to play jazz or rock, she's going to need a real bass.

You can do a lot with a U Bass, there are some pros who do just about everything with them, but since she is a bass player and not just a uke player who messes around with bass some of the time, I'd say a U Bass is nice to have and fun to play but she should get a real steel stringed electric bass. If you want short scale the Ibanez Mikro is very good.
 
To chime back in. If she is playing out with others, I wouldn't even consider a u-bass. No offense to the instrument, but she needs a real bass.

And just to chime in again, I think I detect just a teeny weeny bit of bass snobbery here.

Not a Real Bass. What do you mean? What nonsense.

A U-Bass is just as much a real bass as a bass guitar.

I can remember the same kind of thing being said about the bass guitar by upright bass players when it first appeared.
 
I agree 100%. The bass player in the CC Strummers plays a U-Bass exclusively, gigs and all, sounds perfectly fine. I'll be using one of my four 21-23" scale basses when I sit in, they all sound good too. It's not the instrument, it's the player. Look at all the YouTube videos of U-Bass players at gigs, no shortage there.

I was in McCabe's a few weeks ago and a band had just come in to set up for a gig that night. The young bass player noticed the U-Basses on the wall and the salesperson explained them to him. The bass player took one down and tested it out. I thought, wow, is this guy good, flew across the fret board. He was very impressed with the U-Bass.
 
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One day I'd like to learn upright. My instructor is a Jazz Upright player, but carries his Fodera 6 when he travels. Depending on who he plays with (I think), he may bring his Ubass.

My personal guitar is a custom neck-through P/J (see avatar). For upright sound, not only do you want to stick with a p, but you may also want to get a fretless (ditto for a fretless Ubass). My friend has a custom MIA Fender, with a P at the neck, and soapbar at the bridge. It because of his sound that I made mine P/J. The J pickup by itself is to growly, but strangely adds a nice fat sound when blended with the P.

I've heard and played a Ubass (couple of them). its a cool bass, and does what it needs to do. I wouldn't get one personally. I don't like how it plays. It really is TOO small. I'd rather design a short scale (note: the Hofner sounds cool as well). You can do way more with flatwounds on an electric, IMHO. BUT, if size is the utmost importance, the UBass is almost impossible to beat.

Key point mentioned: daughter wants to get into more modern music. In that case, I'm biased, but I love my P/J, with flats. String changes to rounds give a completely different sound if needed.

Also mentioned: amps (and cabs). If she wants an "upright" sound, she needs to do research and stay away from baked in tones like Gallien-Krueger, as an example. My personal rig: Eden WTX500 through a custom fEARful 12/6 (which is sometimes known as a Super 12 in bass circles). I'm currently searching for a tube preamp to match with my Crown XLS 1500 amp. The Eden has a nice warm tone, but I ran a G-K 1001RB through the fEARful, and the headroom gave me a huge fat sound. The cab can take it, so I'm wanting to up the power now.
 
Just a couple of times. Saturdays I typically have stuff to do with the kids. The organizer seems like a really good guy.

yeah, he has a lot of energy! The cool thing is after the jam, they have a "Cool Kids Lunch" where, whoever wants to, meets somewhere for lunch.
 
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