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This lil thing was kewl ! It had huge sound " Amplifier helped " "Grins" However this got played for several songs and I was impressed at the design and the sound . Just thought I'd share this one with you all .

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Jim is right. I saw and played this little guy. All quarter sawn sycamore. Just plain cool.

Only problem was that I think the guy got arrested for having a bass amp at a Bluegrass festival. And if he didn't, he should have been!

I hope this is inspiration for Jim's next instrment.

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

I like that. I have something similar on my "one of theses days" list (strangely enough I was thinking quartersawn sycamore too). That looks like a lot of compensation, I hadn't thought about how much it would need. I know you didn't build it, but I am asking a bunch of questions anyway:
Are those the polyurethane bass ukelele strings?
Is it fretless?
Is the pickup (piezzo I assume) in the bridge or under the soundboard?
How did it sound unamplified?
When amplified, did it sound like an upright?

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Yes Poly , Uke , Not sure .....Yes ..... Yes , under soundboard ...... Sounded great , yes alot like an upright to me .

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

Bryan,

The strings are these polyurethane:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UBassStrings/

It is fretless.

The transducers are, surprisingly, under the sound board. I thought with those strings they would have to be under the bridge feet to be of any use, but they worked fine.

Un-amplified was kind of like... not playing at all.

The sound plugged in was pretty amazing. I had no idea you could get that sound out of a bass with that short of scale. I guess it's all in those strings. And yes... just like an upright (plugged in of course) but with no slap. In fact putting my thumb on the top to anchor did give a little boom.

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

Thank guys! I played around with this idea in 2005 (before the poly strings [or at least before I was aware of them]). At the time I lived down the street from a custom o-ring and gasket manufacturer. The nice little old lady spent a few hours telling me all about the different types of rubber compounds available in chord stock and gave me samples of them to try. I set up a test rig, which was just a 1x2 with one tuner and started playing around with bridge design. All of my tests were with piezo material sandwiched inside the bridge woods.

That project got forgotten when I moved, but having ready made strings (other than the ashbory strings) makes me want to re-visit this. Do either of you guys know if there was a preamp of any kind?

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

After seeing that one I have a build in my head as well . We shall see how the thoughts progress . That is the problem though , To many designs in my head -so little build time I have kicked the Bass Mando idea around before but didnt give it much thought because I wasnt sure it was even feesable . After seeing that one I believe that its a doable idea and I will build it now.

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

We should make some sort of a pact to build them at the same time. We could pick a start date or completion date that works for both of us, that might get us off our duffs.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

How about a start date of March 1st. Have them done by May 19. I'll play them both at the gathering in St. Louis and take home the winner!!

_________________
Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

sounds good to me , bryans gonna win !

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/

These are also a huge bang for the buck.

http://www.kalaukulele.com/UBASS.asp

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Regards from RangeView, Bill

That's actually not a bad idea, not the part about taking our instruments. . . what if we had a challenge/contest (whatever you want to call it) to build one of these and bring it to the next gathering (not this year but the following). I wonder how many people would give it a try if they had a year to do it.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.