"Baby Boomer" - a fretless bass ukulele
Aug 12, 2014 14:39:40 GMT
scorpiodog, Akquarius, and 1 more like this
Post by davewhite on Aug 12, 2014 14:39:40 GMT
Well I showed you “An Tairneanach Mór” – “The Big Thunder” which was a Leadbelly/Blind Willie McTell 12 string with back sides and neck of English Oak that came from an old chest of drawers in one of my daughter’s bedrooms. Well here’s "An Tairneanach Darach Beag" - “The Little Oak Thunder”, the closest in Gaelic I could get to “Baby Boomer” – which has top, back, sides and neck from the same source. This is my take on a fretless bass ukulele in the style of the Kala Ubass instruments.
Colin Veysey who runs the local Folk Club and who persuaded me to make my first mandolin for him cajoled me into making one of these. He plays upright bass and had heard a Kala UBass played that he said sounded just like a full sized upright bass. I agreed to make a prototype instrument and if it works make him a “proper” one.
The Kala instruments are based on their baritone ukulele body and I based mine on my tenor guitar body using a floating bridge. The scale length is 525mm (approximately depending where you put the bridge ) and it uses the polyurethane Pahoehoe Black Bass Strings made by Road Toad Music. Body and neck are English Oak and fretboard, bindings, bridge, nut, saddle and headstock veneers etc are Bog Oak ("Sinker English Oak" ). Purflings are black/pear/black and the tuners are Sperzel lockable bass tuners. It’s fitted with a K&K Pure Bass 4 String pickup.
The strings are weird but fun to play. The term “nut compensation” takes on another meaning because the strings stretch in and loose about 1-2mm diameter as they do so – cut the slots at the string’s initial diameter and when the strings have stretched they rattle in the slots, cut the slots to the stretched strings diameter and they initially bind in the slots until stretched making tuning “interesting”. Once the strings have stretched they stay pretty well in tune. Designed to be played plugged in it sounds remarkable loud unamplified and is huge fun to play. I don’t have a bass amp but took the instrument with me to Burwell at the end of July where there was one and plugged in to this it sounded amazing.
Colin will take it through its paces now with his bass amp and I’ll try and see if I can get a recording. Here’s one of me messing with the instrument purely acoustically recorded with my Zoom H4n:
"Baby Boomer"
Colin Veysey who runs the local Folk Club and who persuaded me to make my first mandolin for him cajoled me into making one of these. He plays upright bass and had heard a Kala UBass played that he said sounded just like a full sized upright bass. I agreed to make a prototype instrument and if it works make him a “proper” one.
The Kala instruments are based on their baritone ukulele body and I based mine on my tenor guitar body using a floating bridge. The scale length is 525mm (approximately depending where you put the bridge ) and it uses the polyurethane Pahoehoe Black Bass Strings made by Road Toad Music. Body and neck are English Oak and fretboard, bindings, bridge, nut, saddle and headstock veneers etc are Bog Oak ("Sinker English Oak" ). Purflings are black/pear/black and the tuners are Sperzel lockable bass tuners. It’s fitted with a K&K Pure Bass 4 String pickup.
The strings are weird but fun to play. The term “nut compensation” takes on another meaning because the strings stretch in and loose about 1-2mm diameter as they do so – cut the slots at the string’s initial diameter and when the strings have stretched they rattle in the slots, cut the slots to the stretched strings diameter and they initially bind in the slots until stretched making tuning “interesting”. Once the strings have stretched they stay pretty well in tune. Designed to be played plugged in it sounds remarkable loud unamplified and is huge fun to play. I don’t have a bass amp but took the instrument with me to Burwell at the end of July where there was one and plugged in to this it sounded amazing.
Colin will take it through its paces now with his bass amp and I’ll try and see if I can get a recording. Here’s one of me messing with the instrument purely acoustically recorded with my Zoom H4n:
"Baby Boomer"