Acoustic Bass Guitars

DMG 1972

Has anyone any comments on these - I have an electric bass already but tried an acoustic in a shop at the weekend and was impressed with sound quality. The one I played was over 600 euro which I don't think I could stretch too, have seen ones for 200 or so before though.

I would like to know if people have bought these and found they never played them and stuck to the electric bass or whether they are good for messing around with. Also are you wasting your time paying 200 euro? I know quality comes at a price and you get what you pay for but I have played relativley cheap acoustic guitars in the past which have sounded fine to me.

I like the idea of being able to pick up and play the acoustic bass without any set up, but have a feeling that it could be a bit of a novelty for me and also am leaning towards the bass should be played loud or not at all way of thinking.

Any thoughts / experiences would be much appreciated.

Fingers Mcginty

I used to have one and was under the illusion i could jam with friends playing normal acoustics. I tried it and couldn't be heard so you still have to plug them in to be heard in those situations. It's ok on your own. I sold mine shortly after buying it...i think they're more of a novelty.

Redjeep!

I've looked at a few over the years and although I think that they may be great from a practise point of view in that you can just pick one up and play it, they've also got a few serious disadvantages (in my opinion).

They're very quiet and you won't find one that will hold it's own against an acoustic 6 string. However the bigger they are the better so if you can find something the size of a bathtub you may just about get away with it.

The neck is different to any electric bass I've played - much more like a guitar and so you'd probably find that you couldn't swap between them very easily anyway.My main bass has a 35inch neck and so all the frets would be in a different place anyway to an acoustic neck (and I'm not good enough to adapt that quickly !).

I came to the conclusion that if you wanted something simple to play with you buddies on acoustic nights, you'd be better sticking with an electric and buying a small combo amp - there's a few battery powered ones around (would they get around the 'unplugged' criteria...hmm..not sure...). The Fender amp can is meant to be Ok as is the pignose battery powered bass amp. (played through the pignose but never thro' the Fender).

Anyway, this is only my opinion, but it does seem to be shared by most everybody I've spoken to about it.

DMG 1972

Thanks for the replies lads, was kind of 50 / 50 about the acoustic bass before I posted and this helps me decide - I think I will go down the route of looking for a smaller practice amp.

Rustar

I doubt I'd buy an acoustic guitar these days without electronics in it, so the same goes for acoustic basses, should I ever pick one up.