Carved top Bass guitar?

[dwc]

I was wondering, would it be possible to make a carved top bass guitar, sort of like an archtop guitar with a 34' scale length? #Freddie Green played an unaplified archtop with Count Basie and he definately had no volume problems. #However, all of the acoustic basses I have played have been too quiet. #Would a carved top help the volume of an acoustic bass?

[Greenmando]

Works for cellos

[tope]

Should work, we have a cello in out group and he cuts throught quite nicely when he plucks a base line.

[Mario Proulx]

Bill Moll builds an archtop bass guitar.

Haven't heard one yet, but he does make them.

I would have to believe the tone may be "better" with the carved bass guitar VS a flat top(think of the depth of tone in a carved mandolin VS a flat top mando), but the volume still won't be there like it is in an upright. If it were, we'd(bass players) be all over them in a second.

[LouisianaGrey]

You mean like this?

It's louder than a solid body, but still quiet. I don't think you can get an acceptable acoustic volume out of an acoustic bass guitar, whether it's a flattop or an archtop. That's why I built my resonator bass, which is loud enough to hold up in acoustic jams of up to about half a dozen instruments. (You still have to pick harder, though!)

Even then you get the low notes but you don't get the deep frequencies. That's what standup basses are for.

[pklima]

1/4 size double basses exist, have a scale length of about 35" and work well enough for folk jams even if they're plywood. You could base your design on that - just make the fingerboard flat and fretted, flatten the top of the bridge, and maybe do a guitar-style headstock. I can see there being a market for such things.

The best portable folk bass I've found so far, though, was a big Windsor cello banjo. Had nearly as much percussive power as my 7/8 size carved double bass, though obviously not as much depth. I sold it, though, because I really only used it at church choir practices and I got tired of not being able to bow it.

[Bill Snyder]

There was a lengthy thread on acoustic bass guitars on the Musical Instrument Makers Forum that must have just recently expired. One of the builders that posts there said he has built some Selmer styled acoustic basses. His initial impression is that he will be able to build a louder instrument this way than the flat tops. I think the builder is Al Dodson, but I am not sure.

[pklima]

Just to throw in two more bits of information: even the largest double basses are theoretically "undersized" compared to the proportions of the violin or violoncello. But they work. Violas are theoretically undersized also.

If you don't need to bow this bass, you won't need a violin-style soundpost and can go with conventional parallel or X bracing. I believe Bill Bussmann and Steve Wishnevsky have done that sort of bracing on double basses.