Double Bass Stagg EUB megathread

[DoubleMIDI]

Using the support helps a lot with bowing. Maybe your cello bow doesn‘t pull as much as a bass bow, but without the support, the Stagg tends to rotate around its axis with every bow stroke.
The support is made out of Aluminium, so you can bend it where you ned it as long as you don‘t bend it too much in one point.

Personally a cello bow would be too light for my taste, but a violone bow can work well.

I like a bit more of the neck angle, so I put a shim at the lower part of the neck pouch, but that adds pressure to the piezos. Too much wouldn‘t be good.
With a bass bow (or plucking a bit harder) and the original neck angle, I can rather easily pull the E string out of the bridge groove. Still with the higher fingerboard. I dislike the bridge. Coated with black epoxy and equal height formal strings by design it doesn‘t do it well.

The adjusters should be equal height to be turnable and the weight of the bridge with the adjusters is simply too high.

Since I have a better EUB too, I just use the Stagg to practice on a 4-string (my DB and better EUB are high C 5ers) or to take them with me during the holidays.
If you are lucky with your cello bow, good. Just some remarks what I have experienced.

There are shorter scale EUBs, but only with bass guitar strings and scale and that means strings that are not made for bowing.

If you ever want to change strings for better DB strings, 4/4 Spirocore works well and hold for most players for a decade or more. The stocks strings often paint your fingers black.

But I needed to replace a broken nut. The nut can break very easily (at least with my old version of the Stagg). It would be wise to file it down (carefully not to break it) so the only a third of the string diameter lies in the nut. Or better replacement with a wooden one.

Synthetic core strings like Obligato are popular on EUBs, but thicker and need a wider nut groove. I think I broke the nut when mounting a higher diameter synthetic core G on the unchanged nut.

I haven’t seen a newer Stagg for a while, so they may have changed the nut, but if the nut looks like a comb with the tips above the strings, it‘s still the old one.

 

[GwennyG]

Using the support helps a lot with bowing. Maybe your cello bow doesn‘t pull as much as a bass bow, but without the support, the Stagg tends to rotate around its axis with every bow stroke.
The support is made out of Aluminium, so you can bend it where you ned it as long as you don‘t bend it too much in one point.

Personally a cello bow would be too light for my taste, but a violone bow can work well.

I like a bit more of the neck angle, so I put a shim at the lower part of the neck pouch, but that adds pressure to the piezos. Too much wouldn‘t be good.
With a bass bow (or plucking a bit harder) and the original neck angle, I can rather easily pull the E string out of the bridge groove. Still with the higher fingerboard. I dislike the bridge. Coated with black epoxy and equal height formal strings by design it doesn‘t do it well.

The adjusters should be equal height to be turnable and the weight of the bridge with the adjusters is simply too high.

Since I have a better EUB too, I just use the Stagg to practice on a 4-string (my DB and better EUB are high C 5ers) or to take them with me during the holidays.
If you are lucky with your cello bow, good. Just some remarks what I have experienced.

There are shorter scale EUBs, but only with bass guitar strings and scale and that means strings that are not made for bowing.

If you ever want to change strings for better DB strings, 4/4 Spirocore works well and hold for most players for a decade or more. The stocks strings often paint your fingers black.

But I needed to replace a broken nut. The nut can break very easily (at least with my old version of the Stagg). It would be wise to file it down (carefully not to break it) so the only a third of the string diameter lies in the nut. Or better replacement with a wooden one.

Synthetic core strings like Obligato are popular on EUBs, but thicker and need a wider nut groove. I think I broke the nut when mounting a higher diameter synthetic core G on the unchanged nut.

I haven’t seen a newer Stagg for a while, so they may have changed the nut, but if the nut looks like a comb with the tips above the strings, it‘s still the old one.

Thanks for all the info -- I have no pretensions to be even mediocre, but it's fun. The main advantage of the cello bow was/is that I already have it, will probably get a bass one at some point. I've got a set of NS traditional medium strings when I get around to putting them on...bought them for around $30 a few years ago when Amazon's warehouse site was much better.

That's also where the Stagg came from in December. I bit when the price dropped below $400. The box arrived in terrible shape, so I thought it would be broken and blue (as pictured, ordered, and marked on box). It was a shock to discover it was in perfect shape, tags attached, obviously never used etc., but a strange red. It may have gone back several times because it wasn't blue. Amazon gave me a $15 (fifteen) promotional credit, not as a partial refund, for the wrong color.

So it may be at least 10 years old, it's got the black fingerboard. I'm also thinking about temporarily attaching a magnetic pickup(s) so I can torture the neighborhood with my e-bow.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

Thanks for all the info -- I have no pretensions to be even mediocre, but it's fun. The main advantage of the cello bow was/is that I already have it, will probably get a bass one at some point. I've got a set of NS traditional medium strings when I get around to putting them on...bought them for around $30 a few years ago when Amazon's warehouse site was much better.

That's also where the Stagg came from in December. I bit when the price dropped below $400. The box arrived in terrible shape, so I thought it would be broken and blue (as pictured, ordered, and marked on box). It was a shock to discover it was in perfect shape, tags attached, obviously never used etc., but a strange red. It may have gone back several times because it wasn't blue. Amazon gave me a $15 (fifteen) promotional credit, not as a partial refund, for the wrong color.

So it may be at least 10 years old, it's got the black fingerboard. I'm also thinking about temporarily attaching a magnetic pickup(s) so I can torture the neighborhood with my e-bow.

Of course, first use what you already have. But there is the risk you may break the bow with bass strings or your bow might not grab the strings well (specially the lower ones).

Did I already mention that you need a softer (bass) rosin to grab the strings?
With a cello bow the string won’t jump out of the bridge groove, but with a bass bow, soft to medium bass rosin and a hard stroke (specially with a German bow) it can happen.
If you make the bridge grooves deeper, the light wood will become visible.

NS Traditionals are shorter D’Addario Helicore Orchestrals. Not a bad choice for an EUB. But they are made for EUBs with an extremely short underlength and might be too short for the Stagg.
(I didn’t understand if you already have it on your instrument or not.)

I have a red one too (and a honey and a sunburst one). Like the honey most but almost as much the red one. Dislike the sunburst one, only bought it very (!) cheap and incomplete to get the rosewood neck and put it on the honey.

If your Stagg is about ten years old, you might have the old narrow headstock. That one can easily break with a side impact at the top corner.
Even the newer one can, but not as easily.
If you remove the black paint on the back of the headstock and glue (and also screw) a backplate to the headstock it will become a lot more robust. It becomes similar to a classical bowed pegbox that way.

My neck with the rosewood fingerboard has the newer wider headstock, the black coated necks which are more than ten years old have the old narrow one.

BTW, since you are used to 5th tuning, there are also a very few 5th tuning sets for DB, but given your short body size you might prefer 4th tuning on the 3/4 EUB.

An alternative might be a low F string for your electric cello. Ideal if you have a 5-string cello. That way you keep a shorter scale and reach (almost) as deep as with the EUB. And with a 5-string you still have the normal cello range too.

 

[336v]

@GwennyG: on Stagg the electronics is ON only if either line output jack or head phones jack is inserted. If nothing is plugged into the instrument, the negative of its 9V battery is just disconnected from the rest of the circuit, so the instrument is completely OFF and the battery is not being drained. I can tell this confidently because have traced the schematic of Stagg's preamp. If you are into electronics, you can see it here (scroll to the very bottom of the page).

 

[GwennyG]

@GwennyG: on Stagg the electronics is ON only if either line output jack or head phones jack is inserted. If nothing is plugged into the instrument, the negative of its 9V battery is just disconnected from the rest of the circuit, so the instrument is completely OFF and the battery is not being drained. I can tell this confidently because have traced the schematic of Stagg's preamp. If you are into electronics, you can see it here (scroll to the very bottom of the page).

Thanks for the diagram. Mine is not ON with just the headphones inserted...the input jack has to be plugged as well. (I haven't tried just the input jack and no headphones).

But this makes me wonder why the battery is a problem for some people. If nothing is plugged in, the battery doesn't drain...I can see devising alternatives but a couple in this thread are specifically to keep the battery from draining, so there must be something I don't get.

 

[rumblinbass]

Thanks for the diagram. Mine is not ON with just the headphones inserted...the input jack has to be plugged as well. (I haven't tried just the input jack and no headphones).

But this makes me wonder why the battery is a problem for some people. If nothing is plugged in, the battery doesn't drain...I can see devising alternatives but a couple in this thread are specifically to keep the battery from draining, so there must be something I don't get.

There are a lot of amplifiers in the preamp.
As amp count goes up, battery life goes down.

 

[336v]

@GwennyG:
Either you don't have any malfunctions, your preamp board revision must be different from mine I used to trace the circuit diagram from. The amps must be on when only headphones' jack is plugged in and no jack in the line output, otherwise the intended practice mode where an MP3 player input is fed with an audio signal will not work - you won't hear this audio mixed with bass through your headphones. Can you check this? Plug anything into your MP3 input and headphones, you should hear your MP3 audio played through, which would prove that the amps are ON. Note, the amps might be on but the blue LED might not be with your board revision.

@ rumblingbass:
You can see there are exactly 5 ICs on the schematic - 3 are in preamp and two - Right and Left channel for the headphones. Internally - 11 Op. Amps circuits are used and one - unused. Sure, as amps count goes up, battery life goes down, but that applies to when all amps are on.
I believe the discussion is about life of the battery when the instrument is off and the battery isn't supposed to be drained at all. People mention that they install fresh battery and 2 weeks later it's dead, but they don't mention if they meant they played every single day for 8 hours during these 2 weeks, or just turned off their power amp but neglected to pull out line cord from the instrument, thinking that everything is off. If I leave my line jack in for two weeks, of course 9V battery will be totally drained at the end even if I don't touch the instrument. The current consumption (excluding headphones' amps) is steady ~25mA regardless if it's idle or being played.
If you play through headphones, the batt. life is even shorter as power consumption depends on how loud your phones are.

 

[rumblinbass]

@GwennyG:
@ rumblingbass:
You can see there are exactly 5 ICs on the schematic - 3 are in preamp and two - Right and Left channel for the headphones. Internally - 11 Op. Amps circuits are used and one - unused. Sure, as amps count goes up, battery life goes down, but that applies to when all amps are on.
I believe the discussion is about life of the battery when the instrument is off and the battery isn't supposed to be drained at all. People mention that they install fresh battery and 2 weeks later it's dead, but they don't mention if they meant they played every single day for 8 hours during these 2 weeks, or just turned off their power amp but neglected to pull out line cord from the instrument, thinking that everything is off. If I leave my line jack in for two weeks, of course 9V battery will be totally drained at the end even if I don't touch the instrument. The current consumption (excluding headphones' amps) is steady ~25mA regardless if it's idle or being played.
If you play through headphones, the batt. life is even shorter as power consumption depends on how loud your phones are.

Yeah...I would assume that they play quite a bit, are plugged in and possibly listening with the Stagg pre headphone output.
Or their preamp has a fault.

I don't typically plug in me Stagg when I pick it up. But occasionally I do and have not had a dead battery. I am very conscious of the current draw from this preamp.

 

[GwennyG]

@GwennyG:
Either you don't have any malfunctions, your preamp board revision must be different from mine I used to trace the circuit diagram from. The amps must be on when only headphones' jack is plugged in and no jack in the line output, otherwise the intended practice mode where an MP3 player input is fed with an audio signal will not work - you won't hear this audio mixed with bass through your headphones. Can you check this? Plug anything into your MP3 input and headphones, you should hear your MP3 audio played through, which would prove that the amps are ON. Note, the amps might be on but the blue LED might not be with your board revision.

@ rumblingbass:
You can see there are exactly 5 ICs on the schematic - 3 are in preamp and two - Right and Left channel for the headphones. Internally - 11 Op. Amps circuits are used and one - unused. Sure, as amps count goes up, battery life goes down, but that applies to when all amps are on.
I believe the discussion is about life of the battery when the instrument is off and the battery isn't supposed to be drained at all. People mention that they install fresh battery and 2 weeks later it's dead, but they don't mention if they meant they played every single day for 8 hours during these 2 weeks, or just turned off their power amp but neglected to pull out line cord from the instrument, thinking that everything is off. If I leave my line jack in for two weeks, of course 9V battery will be totally drained at the end even if I don't touch the instrument. The current consumption (excluding headphones' amps) is steady ~25mA regardless if it's idle or being played.
If you play through headphones, the batt. life is even shorter as power consumption depends on how loud your phones are.

Thanks for the test! Plugged in a device and headphones...light on, heard device in headphones. Unplugged device -- power still on to headphones (no instrument/amp cable plugged in)!! Then I realized I was using a different set of headphones than when it required the instrument/amp cable also in...so you inadvertently diagnosed the problem. The first set of headphones was not plugged in far enough, I think. Anyway, no problems with the second set.

That's a very good summary of what the battery issue seemed to be (the one that popped up throughout the thread).

Anyway, why didn't they use an 'on-off' switch?

 

[sixway]

Anyway, why didn't they use an 'on-off' switch?

The jack acts as the on-off switch. To add an on-off switch would require more cost for the switch, and another manufacturing step to drill a hole, and to add a spot on the board that would require more wire, more soldering, which would also require most likely a worker to solder the wires in place, and screwing the switch into the hole. Add that up over thousands of Stagg EUB's, and you have a lot of extra money tied up in that switch... the jack works just fine, you just have to remember to unplug your bass after practices, or between sets when you're not playing....

 

[rumblinbass]

Anyway, why didn't they use an 'on-off' switch?

The jack acts as the on-off switch. To add an on-off switch would require more cost for the switch, and another manufacturing step to drill a hole, and to add a spot on the board that would require more wire, more soldering, which would also require most likely a worker to solder the wires in place, and screwing the switch into the hole. Add that up over thousands of Stagg EUB's, and you have a lot of extra money tied up in that switch... the jack works just fine, you just have to remember to unplug your bass after practices, or between sets when you're not playing....

I prefer not having a switch. I would never remember to turn it off.
I never leave my instruments plugged in.
My $0.02.

 

[336v]

Audio jacks doubling as power switches is actually a good idea, aside lower cost for the manufacturer, it guarantees the power is off when you unplug your instrument when you're done playing you cannot "forget" to turn power off as you could with a switch. Of course you can forget to unplug your jacks, but this is more unnatural IMHO. Personally, I can occasuinally forget to turn something off, but always unplug all the cords from electronics to put them away.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

When I added an internal
impedance buffer to my Clevinger EUB I made both, the output jack switch and a switch at the volume pot in series, so that a cable has to be plugged in and the volume turned up to power the circuit.
That way I can leave it plugged in and just turn the volume off but also be sure that the circuit is disabled when I transport or store the instrument.

 

[jimmyb]

Anyone replace the endpin rubber stop? Looks like it would be a very small attach hole.
Any ideas on a turnkey replacement?

 

[DoubleMIDI]

Anyone replace the endpin rubber stop? Looks like it would be a very small attach hole.
Any ideas on a turnkey replacement?

Try one for a cello.

 

[jimmyb]

Has anyone ever replaced the rubber endpin tip on theirs? If so, what did you use and where did you get it?

Mine definitely needs to be replaced (the bass keeps slipping all over the place, and it’s getting worn down).

U ever get a replacement? I bought a bag of cello sized tips that fit like a glove. Way more than I'll need. Pm me and I'll send u a couple

 

[davwir]

Just picked up a Stagg 3/4 EUB. Ive only ever played electric bass, but currently playing some musical styles which I think it could be cool to use. Trying to learn some upright technique. The scale and hand reach is def first thing I noticed!
Anyway, when I got it last week, I lowered the bridge height, and now it buzzes, specifically only in the area you might describe as 3rd to 5th fret.. Should I raise it back up, or is it more a truss rod adjustment needed?

 

[BlacksHole]

The true rod in a Stagg does not have much effect. A very thin shim in the neck pocket can help, but you most likely have to raise it back up a little. String size and length tend to require higher action than a bg

 

[GladkiiKriminal]

Hello. I need help from fellow Stagg EUB users.
I found Stagg EUB for sale, owner says that it's HDB-200. Is it EDB 3/4 or it's different bass? Cause I can't find HDB 200 on it's own. Catalog of Stagg also missing HDB-200. I looked photos of EDB 3/4. If you look at the spot with volume and tone knobs it looks like HDB 200 sign is there. So I am confussed.
My questions:
Is HDB-200 a different Stagg EUB model?
If so, what is the difference between EDB 3/4 and HDB-200?
Does EDB 3/4 also have HDB 200 sign on that spot?
Thank you.

 

[mateybass]

Hello. I need help from fellow Stagg EUB users.
I found Stagg EUB for sale, owner says that it's HDB-200. Is it EDB 3/4 or it's different bass? Cause I can't find HDB 200 on it's own. Catalog of Stagg also missing HDB-200. I looked photos of EDB 3/4. If you look at the spot with volume and tone knobs it looks like HDB 200 sign is there. So I am confussed.
My questions:
Is HDB-200 a different Stagg EUB model?
If so, what is the difference between EDB 3/4 and HDB-200?
Does EDB 3/4 also have HDB 200 sign on that spot?
Thank you.

Both of my Stagg edb 3/4 basses have HDB-200 on the control plate.