Official Luthiers Forum!

Thanks for the effort to put up theses specs. I would never have expected to be rolling down this road. Surely there are a limited number of bass players who would want an acoustic at the price they must net?

I was guessing at the Applause, but it appeared to be their logo on the headstock. Fond Memories ay! I think that is common over some acoustic basses. Cumpiano really must have felt that way at one time....

With that tracing I believe I can build one, no problem. Adirondack Red Spruce and bracing. Exciting, thanks Bill.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

I went with an "amplicoustic" design for the Renaissances because a) You're never going to get real fundamental out of an acoustic bass guitar, and b) 90% of my customers are going to plug in, and c) If you plug in an acoustically active ABG, it's going to feed back.

The best sounding ABGs I've played have been the Ribbecke Halflings, and they really have more of a cello voice than a real bass tone.   

So I'd advise going for very strong 2nd harmonic content...80 Hz and up into what is really mid-bass.   If you think you're going to get real bass fundamental out of a bass guitar, you're fooling yourself and you're not really listening to BASS.

Thanks Rick. I totally respect everyone's opinion, yours and Bill Cumpiano's too. I believe Al Carruth explained the WHY of it once too, but I've not found that discussion.

Boy, what you said about feedback rings so true, experienced it just this afternoon on a ABG with pickup problems.

I'll take a look at your basses and the halflings too, thanks. Study study....

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Mine are semi-hollow with a cedar center block running down through the body.   With the Thomastik Infeld "AcoustiCore" nylon core strings that I helped design, the plugged in sound has tons of fat real fundamental and can come scary close to emulating upright tone...in an instrument that can go in the overhead in a gig bag for the touring musician. Check out the Prairie Home Companion band at some point. Gary Raynor has a couple of my basses and uses them all the time. He got the first when they started to fly around to country because of the extreme expense of buying a seat for his upright bass and the hassles of the TSA baloney in airports now.

I have yet to be convinced of an ABG in a real band setting beyond a living room, and even there a mandolin player blows the bass out of the room...

      I found the Thunderchief/Tacoma to be an excellent ABG! I don't really care about keeping up with a band type setting, as I am more into the Stanley Clark type of styles.

     The sound of an ABG compared to a electric is considerable. One can actually strum an ABG and not have that overloaded sound like and electric almost always gives. The sound is so much more richer and cleaner.

    Using it in a studio-miked, or for practice/personal enjoyment, I would take an ABG any day! I really wish there was such an animal when I did studio work!

     I believe most ABG's are over built because the misperception of more string pull, that's obviously unfounded. I was under the impression that there was the same string tension as guitar, and it look like in some cases there's less.

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Bill, the Breedlove Acoustic Bass with Cutaway tracing made it yesterday. I had no idea where you were located. Thanks for the trouble, I'll let you know when and if I ever get to build one of these.

Hats off to Bill, a big OLF Thanks to you!

Bruce

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

My pleasure Bruce!

May I ask why on earth you would copy the shape of existing model of instrument rather than designing one for yourself? I see a lot of beginning luthiers desperately asking for blueprints and I wonder why...   You'll learn a lot about building by developing your own patterns, and you won't be making thinly veiled knockoffs...which become so boring on the guitar market unless you have a specific goal of besting the originals.

Actually Rick, it's not a blueprint, just a shape of a successful model. I do plan on building it as an acoustic instrument and bracing it based on what I've learned building six strings.

The only acoustic bass I know of is the Michael Kelley that has been in the shop with pickup problems. It's a piece of crap. I'm definitely not using that for a pattern.

The MK Bass has a bridge plate between the two lower tonebars in acoustic fashion, it has all the parts of a true acoustic. But it's way overbuilt and just a junky instrument inside. Outside it looks good enough to sell.

One more slam, the dummies, bless their hearts, took a fretboard filled the slots and put this thing out as a fretless. The only problem is the dots are all in the wrong place. No doubt these folk are not players they are sellers. As you say Rick, this is a GLO, guitar like object. Or, since it's a bass a BLO!

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Well, the fishman cable transducer is laying on the bench. I installed a K and K Mini triple head Pure Western onto the MK Acoustic Bass bridge plate. And the sound is amazing.

Deiter thought the preamp of the Fishman should work and it did, really nice to have all the adjustments to tone. Normally I toss in the K and K's without preamps because there is plenty of power to drive an amp or make it into the sound board. Pretty amazing.

I put one in my son's Ibanez Artwood Series acoustic and it sees action every Sunday night and Wednesday night at the youth band.

Back to the Bass, one correction, this bass doesn't have two tonebars like I thought with a bridge plate inbetween. Once the Fishman preamp was out of the plywood side, it was easy to see what they did. It had another short x almost a vee it's so close to the tail block.

The bridge plate was a good two inches wide, but the two outside bridge pins were out the back corners, yep, they missed. It was fairly clean inside and the workmanship looked good, so I'll credit them that much. The embarassing mistake on this bass is the fingerboard dots being in the wrong place for a fretless.

K and K to the rescue, no more dead strings. I think the cable piezo was just not long enough for this five string, that was the problem. Would have worked fine on a four string.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com