Stagg EDB-3/4 BK Electric 3/4 Size Double Bass with Gig Bag Included - Black

I ordered a bad one (buzzing all over the board, strings were defective in that they had lumps and wrinkles in them, even at full tension). So I sent it back and ordered another, giving the product one more shot. What a difference! Apparently there are some bad apples in the bunch, but when you get a good one it's a very comfortable, functional instrument. The nut was a perfect height (about a business card thickness under the strings), and I had to adjust the bridge down about 1/4". After that it played and felt honestly better than my acoustic upright. The strings on this one were flawless. The only issue was very very slight shipping damage. The brace that you can screw into the bass was loose inside the case (poet didn’t know it), and it very lightly scratched the neck by the headstock. I can’t see the faint scratches while playing, or feel them, and you’d be hard-pressed to spot them, but alas, be sure to check yours for any major shipping damage. It plays so nicely that I really didn't care to chance a replacement with some other set of issues. I mostly care about playability. It obviously doesn't have the warm attack and quick decay of my acoustic upright, but it also costs far less, is incredibly easy to transport, and with some foam on the strings, one can achieve a very convincing upright sound. Otherwise, it has a nice, usable, electric fretless bass with flatwounds type of attack, tone, and sustain (which is basically what it is lol). I can use it with a strap, sit in my office chair, and learn jazz charts for hours. On the acoustic upright, I would get fatigued over long practice sessions. I can now focus solely on the music, rather than being distracted trying to find a comfortable position with the acoustic upright. Also, I can go get the setup my acoustic upright needs and not have to go without a 3/4 upright while the work's being done (just not the same practicing on an electric bass with the shorter scale length). My fingerboard was not black, but I don't mind. It's kind of a cool transparent slate, and far more interesting to look at than fake ebony. It's very flat, no high or low spots, and I didn't even need to adjust the truss rod. I noticed that using a straight 1/4" connector is probably not great for the output jack if it gets bumped, as it'll probably become loose over time. I tried a cable with a 90-degree 1/4" connector, and it handles being bumped far better than the straight connector. The headphone output was somewhat hissy, but whatever, I play it through an amp anyway. One common complaint I saw in other reviews is that the position markers on the side were incorrect. I must have received a good one because mine were all spot on. Like really spot on. I tuned up, closed my eyes, compared fingered notes with open positions just by listening, rolled my finger sharp or flat, and when I found the sweet spot, I looked at the board and my finger was right on the dot. I did this several times for repeatability, with various string sets, and they were all on. I also compared to a tuner and they were on. My 12th fret two dots weren't perfectly next to one another. Looks funny, but I figured the person making it fell asleep on the job or something. We all get tired sometimes, so it's forgivable. The important thing is that it accurately marks the octave. For playing I use a leather guitar strap, with one end of the strap at the neck strap button, and the other end of the strap under the thumb screw on the back side of the bass, with the strap wrapping around over the top, under the strings between the endpiece and the bridge, in order to pull the bass toward my body, as it'll just flop forward away from you without doing this. I'm not sure if that's how it should be done or whether that's the intended purpose of the thumbscrew, but that's what I use it for and it's very ergonomic. I can play very comfortably standing or sitting down, though I am 6' 3". Overall I'm really happy I found a good one. It's a very functional, simple instrument at a reasonable price point. I'll be sad if it somehow gets damaged while transporting it to a gig or jam session, but definitely not as sad as damaging my acoustic upright!

The trans Red is very red. Not in a bad way, but like a red you would put on a car. The transparency is slight, if you look closely you can see the wood grain. Build quality is fantastic, solid feel on the floor as the rod is held in with two finger nuts, on on the bottom and one you put in the back lower part of the body. Neck and fretboard are one piece and look dark and well made. Tuners are fine, and work smoothly. Pick up is a piezo in the hard plastic-looking bridge ( top is wood to metal to wood(?) finish looks like black plastic), works well thru the 1/4 jack but the headphones have a ground hum that is constant but at a low volume. (not something I plan to use anyway). Has a volume and "bass boast" both raise the volume, with the boost being around 80-100hrz( my guess ) and a input for playing along with the headphones. (probably why it has a buzz in the headphones). Super happy with the purchase and even the "bag" is great quality, along with the strings, (although my G has a burr at the octave (along with a shipping dent from the zipper ( looks like a fingernail dug in) but not worth replacement or fixing as it is between strings on the fretboard). Bag also has a bow case holder zipper pouch thingy.

The product came with one bridge adjuster broken which disallowed me to raise the action which came very low making it unplayable without buzzing. After spending $60 on repairing the bridge adjuster (and getting knowledge from the luthier that the bridge is made of cheap, soft wood which is likely to break again in the future), the buzzing continued in the low end. This is due to the too small nut at the top which did not properly support the strings. The additional body parts which hard to screw in and work with. There was a crack in the body that had potentiometer to spread and cause issues. However, the sound of the bass aside from the buzzing was very close to that of an upright. Its ashame there were so many hardware issues.

After nine months and about 50 gigs, I feel I can give a detailed review to help the buyer make a decision. First, the good. The honey color gets a lot of compliments. The electronics are well designed for the most part. The controls can give you a nice thump or great sustain. The solid construction means temperature and humidity extremes don't affect the instrument much, if at all, a considerable load off my mind where I live. Now the bad. The adjustable tail piece digs into the protective tape covering the battery and signal wires. After a few times of raising and lowering the tail piece, the aluminum sticky back RF shield tape got caught on the tail piece shaft inside the instrument and pulled the signal wire out of the circuit board, bringing my future with that instrument to a halt. After replacing the tape, inserting the signal wire back into the circuit board, and replacing the access panels on the back, I had confidence in the instrument again. The original strings couldn't hold a note. They had only a single wire rope in the center and cut my fingers despite being flat wound. A set of nylon-wrapped flat wounds and $150 later and I have strings I can trust. The A-string tuner arrived broken. The tuners appear to be made of inferior metal and have a hard-to-turn tuning ratio. Rather than have the rest of the band tune to my A-string, I replaced all the tuners with some Grover classic bass tuners. It's almost a perfect fit. The mounting screw holes were exact copies of the Grovers. The tuner machine head post holes are exactly across from each other. There's not much room for the posts, and replacements may be too long and interfere with each other. The original tuner posts are very short. A better configuration would have been to stagger the post holes. The belly brace is useless. Can't imagine using it for a real gig. The supplied belly brace was too long. This resulted in an unusually long arm reach to the neck and you compensate by either bending the wrist at a sharper angle or turning the instrument away from you. The fret markers don't appear to be accurately placed on the side of the fingerboard. The fingerboard has some minor dips and rises in it, making exact fingering interesting. There's a single strap button on top. Still looking for Stagg strap suppliers. The tail piece allows the bass to not only move, but also twist. Very annoying during high energy pizzicato or plucking. The nine-volt battery is easy to replace, which is good considering I've had to replace it four times in the last nine months. A fellow musician who plays a guitar says he changes his battery once a year. In summary, the bass appears to be well engineered, but the construction leaves a lot to be desired. The gig bag has good proportions, but two of the three zippers have broken off. If you don't mind changing your own strings, searching for replacements and changing the tuner mechanisms, replacing the shielding on the signal wires and possibly removing the circuit board to reinsert a pulled signal plug, this is a good first electric upright bass for relatively little money.Update: replaced the gig bag zipper pulls with better quality parts. The jack in the back for the signal wire to the amp is exhibiting intermittent connectivity. Guess I'll have to take it apart again and troubleshoot the jack this time. (edit) Jack was not the problem. Turns out it was a loose connector from the jack to the circuit board. Easy fix, press the connector back onto the mother board, put circuit board back into body. As they say at NASA, "this isn't rock science".

Full disclosure: I'm left-handed, and the first thing I did when I got this was restring it with new strings. So this review will be more for southpaws. After switching the strings, I had a bit of a buzz on the A string, probably caused by a different thickness string in the wrong position. I fixed this by making a shim out of a piece of paper and crazy glue. Raised the string just enough to eliminate the buzz. My only complaint (only had it a few months, keep in mind) is that playing this doesn't at all feel like playing an acoustic bass, though this is probably obvious. It's not the same mass as an acoustic, so the instrument wants to move as you pluck. Because I made it left handed, the two removable brackets (which I assume help with this if it remains right-handed) don't really solve this problem. I've sort of modified one of the brackets, so I and use that a bit to stop the rotational motion, but not optimal. It may just take some getting used to. As for sound, I've run it through a regular electric bass amp and a practice amp, and it sounds good in my opinion, including when bowed (though I don't bow very often). Haven't had it long enough to know if the electronics are going to hold up, but I'm happy with the purchase. I take it along as a backup in the event something happens to my acoustic.

This bass has a few quality control issues that make it a hard buy unless you like to tinker or plan to invest some extra cash to make it playable. 1. The body arrived with a long crack from where the heel attaches and down - about 3 inches long. 2. The neck had a big dip in the surface on one side of the bass - because of this the E string had a buzz in that location but nowhere else on the neck had this problem. 3. My bass came missing the body size support wing so it’s hard to say how comfortable it feels. 4. This is the worst of all the problems I found out of the box - the end pin is not isolated from the body. It is metal on metal contact and it must be contacting some of the Electronics inside the body. Whenever the base is shifted with the weight being supported by the end pin it makes a noisy rustling sound that must be the piezo picking up the vibration of the metal. If the end pin can be isolated then this may not be a problem. The bass sounds incredible and is surprisingly similar to an acoustic upright bass. I was expecting more of that fretless electric bass sound but this is warm, Woody, and with some EQ shifts, you can probably get very close to that sound if that is what you desire. Unfortunately I will be returning the copy that I got and may or may not try another copy to see if this is just a quality control issue. It may just be worth it to save up for a quality plywood acoustic upright and call it a day.

This is really a great bass in my opinion. Double bass is new to me so I may not be the best resource. However, I have been playing bass guitar and performing for over 50 years. I’m using a bow at times and this bass sounds wonderful. It is the best for the price for sure.

Electric bass player of 5 years, not a lot of experience. I loved playing this thing out of the box, did a little tuning and away I went! The struts provided seem a little fragile, will update if they prove troublesome. The fret markings appear to be pretty darn on the money, though it is hard getting to anything past the 9th for me. A bow and rosin will come in at a later date and I will give a try at being classy and using arco. My excitement at playing this EUB has me forcing everyone to listen to me play again, especially stuff that was written for upright. It has a different flow than regular songs. The brand name on the head is...odd. Had to check the website to make sure they stagger their letters normally that way. They do. Its weird, but I won't dock any points. Plays just as well. Additionally, this was delivered a day early. Being a bigger purchase, and my first foray into this style of bass, the early delivery was absolutely *chefs kiss*

I play a 4-string bass, and wanted a standup electric. It will take several months for me to learn to play the upright well enough, but I'm slowly getting friendly with it after playing it for only four hours a week. I play by ear, and I love the sound of this instrument! It arrived with one of the 'body spacers' (rubber-covered aluminum forms) not assembled correctly, and had lost a fastener. I sent a fault report, with pictures, to the vendor, but never heard back. I can live with the discrepancy, for now.

Very disappointed. Received with a crack right throught the neck pocket making the neck easy to move, and what looks like a bent tuner key possibly? Box had a giant 'R' written on it in Sharpie. A possible return that was resold? I am returning and ordering a replacement so I'll change my review if that one comes in good shape. ***Updated review-new one came and it is perfect!! Excellent product for the price! It was also packaged in a much nicer manner, leading me to believe the previous one was a damaged, returned, then resold item. Highly recommend this bass!!

I received my Stagg Electric Double Bass EDB-3/4 BK well protected against transportation hazards. It is a wonderful instrument built like a tank. I was surprised with the high level of craftsmanship quality and sound. The protective case supplied with the EDB is very well made. All the electric features work super well. The size of the fingerboard is the same as my ¾ acoustic double bass evaluated to 10 times the cost of the Stagg EDB. The fingerboard curvature as a slight difference with my acoustic db but it was not a challenge to get used to it in less than one hour. Bridge adjustment is very easy and effortless and it is really well made for bowing. The sound produced is easily adjustable and the sustain is very long. To obtain a decay that is very close to a real acoustic instrument, I added a Behringer Compressor/Limiter CL9 and it gave great results. I attached a picture of the ideal adjustment of compressor (in my point of view and experience). I had a minor technical problem but most important, Stagg After Sale Service gave me excellent support and I highly recommend this product and Company. If you try the Stagg EDB, get ready for a very good surprise. Also, it is easy to take outside and play it during a sunny day. It is small and easy to travel with. I wouldn’t want to do without it anymore.

J’aime beaucoup cet instrument. I love this bass. It was my first contact with a double bass, but I use it relatively easily.

J'ai reçu et retourné tout de suite l'instrument. J'ai probablement été malchanceux. De ce fait je ne l'ai pas testé plus.