I love playing bass, unfortunately I'm not terribly skilled at it. Yeah, I'm primarily a guitarist, but I do take the instrument seriously, it's not just a "fill-in" part nor something to do when no one else can do it. However, my acoustic bass's neck recently seriously broke and I've got a very small chance of fixing it myself. Since a shop repair is going to be prohibitively expensive, I can't rely on my non-existent wood-working skill, but I'm still going to try gluing it.
Find a luthier in your area that works on guitars and uprights. You may be surprised at how little it costs to get that neck fixed. A good luthier, like Stephen Wise in Austin, can make repairs that are incredible. I tuned a guitar every Sunday for 10 years for the pastor of our church before the service and never noticed that it had been repaired, big damage to the body. Once he pointed it out, I could see it, barely.
Anyways, I like electric basses alright, but there's something I really dig about the acoustic bass guitar, or the acoustic anything. You actually feel the notes and hear them from the instrument itself. Still, a lot of them are fighting a losing battle against physics, with small body size required for comfortable playing, but big size required to give them acoustic push and depth.
I love upright and all, but I don't have the pockets to get one (and I can't intonate to save my life). I would steal one, but I don't think they let you take them to prison.
If you like the way that the acoustic bass feels, wait until you are standing next to an upright! THAT is a sweet sounding, feeling instrument!
I wanted one for 20 years (I have played bass for 37 years.) One day I saw one listed for $150 in Craigslist. I got it and it had problems of course, broken string, neck cracked badly at the headstock, really poor shape. But I took it to the luthier I mentioned and for $350, he repaired all of the problems it had. I put on a set of Thomastik Infeld Spirocores for about $125 more and it is good to go. He has offered me more for it than I have in it, but I love to play the thing.
You can get an Engelhardt (they bought out Kay and still use the same molds and designs) for ~ $1,000. Stay away from the Chinese stuff on Ebay. It will cost you more to get one playable than you would have spent on the Engelhardt.
You can get an Engelhardt setup and ready to go from this guy, who really knows his stuff:
http://www.fretwellbass.com/engelhardt.htm
It is worth saving up the $ to get one of these. They are a blast to play in living room acoustic jams or at bluegrass jams.
I took about 5 lessons to get the fundamentals down of "the claw" shape of the left hand. If you use that technique, you pretty much play in tune in the first 2 positions, which is where most of your money notes are anyway. If you play guitar anyway, I bet your sense of intonation is better than you think it is.....
If you want to go electric, I can't say enough good things about a plain old Fender Pbass or one of their cheaper Squire clones will do. But you are not going to feel those notes the same way......
My son is a better bassist than me now and for a spare, he picked up an SX Pbass clone for about $125 somewhere out on the net.
http://www.sxguitarspain.com/sx_vintage_p-bass.htm
It's not my Pbass, but I could make it through one of my weekend gigs with it fine. Definitely useable, not a toy, plays in tune, stays in tune.
If you find a LOUD acoustic bass, I would like to know. They really don't put out enough volume, at least the ones I've tried.
Get the upright, you'll be jamming bluegrass before you know it!
bilco
