My wife plays cello and had been hemming and hawing for several years about getting a ukulele so I got her one for Christmas. She’s been learning and I’m considering getting an acoustic bass and/or guitar to play along with her. I’m not familiar with acoustic basses or guitars of any kind. Any recommendations or things to consider?
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Harley benton has two new models that are very interesting
Long scale version:
or the short scale version:
I had a Kala Journeyman, and it sounded absolutely wonderful!
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If it is to play along to her playing cello, I fear that an acoustic bass might be very quiet compared to a cello. You might end up still needing an amp to be heard.
If it is to accompany her playing ukulele, I’d pick an instrument that doesn’t sit in the same frequencies, which shouldn’t be a problem. Due to body size, an acoustic guitar will probably be louder than en ukulele, not sure about the acoustic bass however.
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Acoustic bass guitars are ususally rather quiet and don’t project bass well. I’d go for the guitar. On the other hand, I’ve played acoustic basses and it is fun. 
… and why not get an upright bass? 
(Don’t do that lightly, it is as if you have another roommate. These things are large and you need to play them regularly).
Or this:
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I actually watched this video this morning…
The basic message is really one of ‘don’t bother’…
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I looked at several video about acoustic basses and the overall message is indeed - don’t get one to play with other
But I bought one (Fender CB60) for Xmas with the intent to play in the eveningwith my iphone playing music through speaker and me playing over the songs with my bass .
It arrived only a couple of days back. It is perfect in this set up and quite fun (no need for headset which is more comfortable)… and not disturbing the neighbours/ my kids asleep (you can conclude from this that the volume is quite low).
My wife initially wanted me to send the bass back as she didn’t get what I can do with it that I couldn’t do with the other instruments. Surprisingly, she enjoyed it a lot (listening to my playing while she was doing other stuff in the background)… so it’s a keeper
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Volume wise, if you want to play the bass acoustically along with a Cello and be heard you’d want the Mariachi style Bass with huge body.
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From memory, so I can be completely worng, my cello is louder than an acoustic guitar without me trying.
I have not played them at the same time so might be more depening on the strings on the guitar but I would give an acoustic bass no chance if you don’t get an actual double bass (if you have 300€ to spare it might be fun enough around a camp fire to be worth it but restringing a cello might work better for the money, I have not tired it)
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I’m not sure why I included the bit about the cello as it’s not really pertinent to my question. This would be for accompanying her playing the ukulele. I chalk it up to having been up for about 20 hours at the time and not thinking clearly.
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I love my Fender Kingman. It’s huge, and bulky, but it allows me to grab and go if I want to do a quick, not loud, practice of a song or part of a song.
I keep a UBass next to my desk for noodling, but if I want to try something out in full-size I grab the Kingman.
When I was investigating, I tried an Ibanez that had the thumb-rest and found it to be in the way, and felt more comfy with the Kingman.
I have been playing the ukulele bass for 5 years, it’s fun and has great sound.
Have both acoustic and electric solid body and acoustic.
Kala makes some really great ones but there are other companies.
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Have you considered a U-bass? I have this one from Kala:
It’s basically a very short-scale (20”) bass guitar. Most ukelele groups are eager to have someone play U-bass with them, so you and your wife could join the same group.
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A friend gave me a hollow-body acoustic bass that someone gave him. In my experience, playing with a guitarist on his acoustic guitar, the acoustic bass was not even loud enough for that to work. The bass does have a pickup and jack - so I can plug it into an amp. But, if I’m plugging into an amp I’d rather use one of my non-acoustic electric basses (as the one he gave me isn’t an expensive model and it doesn’t play that well). My wife also plays cello, BTW.
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As everyone else has said, acoustic really isn’t loud enough to keep up with much of anything else - upright basses are as big as they are because that’s really the only purely acoustic way to get them loud enough to be heard with the other instruments.
But if you want something a little less involved than dragging out your whole bass setup, $100 can get you a little portable amp that’s shockingly good, and will give any bass enough volume to keep up with an acoustic guitar, ukulele, or other unamplified instrument (pretty much anything but a drum kit, I think). Can even run it from a USB-C battery if you want to play by the campfire or something without running an extension cord.
If you still want an acoustic for the vibe/sound, just get one with a pickup so you can plug it in when you need the volume, and the amp is just a little unobtrusive cube.
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From memory there is a “crappy" plywood cello that you can buy for 400€ that I will guess is way more useful as a campfire bass for two reasons. First the tuning is way better for a small group, if you can get used to CGDA or have patience to finding bass strings that’s one octave brighter, since the EADG bass was never built for small groups but large string groups so it’s unnecessary bulky for a small group of four especially on a camping trip.
Again just from memory but I think that the electric double bass bowed ain’t all that far from the acoustic bass I used at a camping trip so I would pick the cello every time since it’s way louder and you can do all bass things on it and bowed you can probably play louder than an acoustic guitar 
You can get a cello threated but do it to a cheap one so you don’t anger the string community