Acoustic Bass Guitar

Hello bass heads,

I saw an acoustic-electric (AE) bass online recently for a good price. This makes me wonder the following:

• Are AE basses common in any popular music styles? What genres might an AE be useful compared with an electric bass?

• Can an AE provide the deep slap sounds that a conventional electric bass makes?

• What are some use cases of AE bass, P-Bass, J-Bass, Fretless, 5 string, etc?

• What difference might an electric bass player notice immediately upon playing an AE bass?

• To what degree might price tag correlate with quality? Branding, Tone, controls, workmanship, maintenance, etc.

• What are the general Pros and Cons of AE bass guitars?

• Any maintenance concerns? My electric bass feels like it could go through a wall and play the same. I assume an AE would be much more fragile.

I will read all responses, but might not be able to reply for several days. Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer and help foster discussion in this sub.

ABGs get shit on in this community quite a bit. Almost as much as slap haha.

The main complaint is that they are essentially too quiet to be heard. There have been wild claims made in this sub about how they are essentially useless when unamplified. This never jived with my own personal experience. I play mine nearly all the time during the summer, whether it's on the deck, at the beach or around the campfire, and I've asked many many times if people can hear me, and they can hear me just fine. So what gives?

Part of it is undoubtedly because I play very aggressively: lots of slap/pop, lots of strumming chords, etc. But still it seems as though people are in disbelief when I tell them I can be heard no problem when playing around the campfire with a few acoustic guitars and hand drums and singing.

I'm a scientist (I perform and publish research in AI and computer aided decision making, but it still counts as "science"), so why not do a little experiment. I used the following:

1. Scosche SPL 1000 sound pressure tool. It's not the best, but I've been using it to check mix levels for years and it's consistent. It has a function to measure the max SPL which is what I used. I think it was targeted at people to use for those "loud stereo" contests that people sometimes have where they put a 10,000 watt stereo into a Honda Civic.

2. Warwick SSII-5 with new strings

3. Ampeg BA-112v2 set at volume "1", which is my normal in-my-living-room practice volume - it can be comfortably heard over regular talking but isn't so loud as to wake up the family when they are sleeping.

4. Ortega DS5 acoustic bass with mostly new strings (they've lost some zing)

I measured the SPL at 3 distances: 30 cm, 300 cm, 635 cm (which were just convenient measuring points in my living room that didn't have objects or walls between them and my amp - basically my longest straight run). Averaged over 3 trials.

In all cases both the amp and the ABG were aimed at the SPL tool which was elevated on a stool that's 1 m in height. My house is quiet (nothing running) and well insulated, I'm the only one home right now, and there's no traffic on my little dead end street.

I played the same run on both instruments: a slapped run on the E string with a strummed chordal part that lasts about 20 seconds.

For reference: Normal conversation is 60dB, alarm clocks are around 80dB, and typically acoustic guitars fall in the 60-80dB range.

If we can draw any conclusions from this, the ABG played as I do sits around the acoustic guitar level. This certainly makes sense with my experience. I also found it interesting that it registered as louder around the 6 m point, but only by a few dB which is negligible.

Is this scientific? Not really. The SPL tool I use isn't a precises calibrated instrument, I only did 3 trials and my environment isn't what anybody would classify as a controlled environment. I also have no way of proving that I played with the same intensity on each instrument (I mean, I did, but there is no proof). I also didn't do any analysis of my data beyond a quick a dirty averaging.

In any event, it's absolutely possible that an acoustic bass guitar can keep up with an acoustic guitar. I'm not saying the instrument is perfect, but it's not that bad people. They are odd instruments - terrible for projecting nice bassy lows (because they lack a large enough resonating chamber) but perfectly adequate at projecting the mid range. It's like the viola of the bass guitar world. Weirdly inadequate and yet somehow it still works.

Perhaps some day when I have more free time I can run a more thorough experiment with multiple instruments.

If anybody has any thoughts or questions I'd love to hear them.

Usually I would not ask this because I never thought it would be possible, but I was recently at an event where a blue grass band was playing and the bassist was playing an acoustic bass guitar that sounded like an upright. I didn’t have an opportunity to ask the bass player how he did it, and the only thing different that I could tell is that his strings were black. Maybe they were D’Addario nylon tapewound strings? Anyway, any insight would be very appreciated.

What are some folk punk bands that use a regular acoustic bass guitar vs. Using a stand up bass, string bucket or just no bass? Looking into the style of it.

Hey everyone. Got my first electric bass guitar back in November 2016 and have mostly trying to play a bunch of different songs and learn general techniques, so I'm still a novice player. However, I love the Violent Femmes and Please Do Not Go's bass solo was something that really got me to transition from the guitar to the bass. However, I'm not satisfied with its sound on the electric bass, and was wondering if the acoustic bass will end up being a good investment and something I can branch out into, or if it's something that is generally outshined by the electric bass.

Thanks!

I just started playing bass recently so I bought myself an acoustic bass guitar. I’d like to know what you guys think of them, is there a big learning curve transitioning from acoustic to electric? Are acoustic basses Noot as look/looked down apon?

Just finished learning this -- it's a lot of fun to play. Sorry for the bad audio quality, it's just recorded on my phone. I definitely welcome any feedback!

Video here:

Seriously, I've been humming and hawing over one for a while now. The lads in the band have been bugging me about acoustic jams and I finally picked up a used one (Beaver Creek, never even heard of it) and god damn it might be the second best thing I've ever purchased. It's plenty loud enough for acoustic jams, writing songs in the basement with the guys, playing tunes around the campfire. Definitely won't be loud enough for an actual show, but of course I could use an amp for that and that's just fine.

But the best part is that it's so easy to just diddle on. It just sits right there in the open, no dragging out my equipment and hooking it all up, no being too loud for the rest of the people in the house, or having to use headphones. I practice so much more now because of this, and I found my bass playing was getting a little stale because I never was motivated to pick it up.

I would buy one solely for the purpose of practicing regularly, it's more than worth it

I was looking at getting an acoustic bass so I don't always have to play plugged in and was looking for some recommendations on a bad that won't kill my wallet but still sounds good. Lastly, does any one have any hands on experience with the travel/compressed bass guitars? Are they worth it if you travel a lot?

I have been looking into buying a semi-acoustic bass guitar (Harley Benton B30), but generally speaking, on almost all youtube videos of testing semi-acoustic basses I notice that when plugged into the amp they sound a bit different than regular electric basses... Do they actually sound different or is that only the videos I've seen?

I started playing bass guitar like 3 months ago, and im loving it, but most of the time im not at home. I want a bass guitar for traveling, that i can play at my gf house, at the park, etc... idk if i should buy one or just deal with the lack of time i have.

If someone can recomend me an Abad guitar i will apreciate it.

(Sorry for my english, not my first lenguage. And sorry for my lack of information about bass guitar)

Edit: some mistakes.

bass sounds pretty good (of course it's plugged in)

singing is... questionable in a few spots but overall good show, especially the first and last tunes. I appreciate them pulling out the super deep-cut for the first one.

Just a question.