Trying Something New - Acoustic Bass

My new Dreadnought JR acoustic bass arrived yesterday and It’s so light and tiny! :rofl:

Despite the miniature size, 24” scale, I’m pleasantly surprised with the sound that comes out of this thing. I went to a neighbor’s house for a tenor uke and bass jam and it performed brilliantly without an amp. Planning to give it workout over the weekend with my other neighbor and his acoustic guitar.

Today, I plugged it in to my Rumble 500, set the volume about 25% on the bass and got such a wonderful tone!

This will never be a replacement for my electric, but it’s nice playing with the neighbors and not lugging around all of my stuff!

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Have you considered tapewounds?

I’m always one to try new things. But I’ll be honest, I haven’t figured out how to release the strings from the bridge - or even adjust the bridge yet. lol

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I find I’m using mine more and more when I’m learning a new song. Then switch to the electric when I want to start playing along to the track. It’s just so easy to pick up and practice a few bars and then put it down again.

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Once undone from the tuners they should pull straight out. Can be a bit stiff and you can get special pullers but they will generally come straight out. I wouldn’t adjust the bridge without a luthier on hand. I got a luthier to set mine up.

Got it. I’ll let it ride for a while before I mess with it. I’ve played the heck out of it so far. You’re right - it’s very handy to pick up for a bit and to put it back down.

Assuming you have something similar to one of these Junior bases, have you tried different strings?

I have a Fender CB60 SCE medium scale bass. the action was way high when I bought it making it difficult to play. Local luthier took the bridge off, filed it down and put it back on. He actually wasn’t too confident of the result but afterwards both he and I were very pleased with it. I replaced the strings it came with with flats which I much prefer.

Actually technically it was the saddle he adjusted.

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That’s a nice instrument! Mine is a 24.5” scale and supposedly requires special bronze wire coated nylon strings. It plays and sounds fine right now, so I’m not too worried. But I’ll eventually get the itch to change the strings just so I can see what other kinda sounds I can make with it. :rofl:

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OK so at 32” mine is considerably longer, but I’d imagine the same principles apply. However for those very small scale basses choice of strings is, I believe, quite critical so they don’t end up floppy. Others here can give much better recommendations on that than myself.

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