Review

Electric Upright Bass Prototype
When I decided to purchase the Allgower EUB, I was first sold on it's classic looking design. The $2000+ "sticks" like the Kydd bass seemed pretty lame after seeing the piece of art that Drew crafted.

It has a solid basswood body, maple neck, classic scrolled headstock, rosewood fingerboard, maple bridge, zircotte nut, strings through body and a K&K big twin piezzo pick-up with no internal pre-amp.

I plugged it in to a Yorkville 50 watt bass amp, with one 10" speaker, with no pre-amp and the sound was great. It has huge bottom end, nice subtle midrange growl and sweet mellow highs; all with a piezzo with no pre-amp !! This was very surprising since most unpowered piezzo's have a very thin and brittle sound when played directly into an amp. When I got it home, I played it into the same amp through a Tech 21 Sans Amp bass driver and was absolutely amazed at the huge sonic pallette that this afforded me.

Drew purposely left the action on his EUB quite high, as it is easier to lower the action to personal preference than to raise it, for obvious reasons. I sanded the bridge down to give the EUB an action more to my liking and it played just like butter. Because the bridge can be moved very easily, I adjusted the scale length to 38 1/2" instead of the standard 41 1/2" scale of the average "dog house" 3/4 bass. This, coupled with the low action, made the neck considerably easier to navigate, eliminating the need for the normal hand shift necessary on longer scale uprights. In other words I could easily reach four semi-tones making classic I, III, V, VI, octave walking bass lines very easy and fast. This is an important factor when you play fast swings and shuffles. Four hour gigs with my standard dog house were quite difficult and hard on the left hand. This EUB is no more tiring to play than any standard 35" scale electric bass.

The Allgower EUB came with a heavy duty cymbal stand for playing it standing. It can also accept a shorter pin for playing seated. I also added two locking guitar strap buttons so I can wear it like a regular bass guitar. It's a bit on the heavy side for this configuration, but it's fun to wear it this way at a gig for a few tunes at least.

I have played a couple of dozen gigs with it so far and everyone just raves about the sound and the incredible "cool" factor it has. I'm getting way more calls for blues gigs since I started playing the Allgower.The EUB will fit easily into a large bass gig bag with the headstock sticking out of the end. I just slide a big sock over the headstock and away I go.

The only thing I can think of that might improve the sound of this incredible instrument is the addition of a fingerboard mounted magnetic pick-up so the piezzo and the magnetic pick-up can be blended. This would make this instrument even more versatile. I am currently researching various magnetic upright pick-ups on the market and will be making this modification soon.

All in all this is an extremely well designed, playable, portable and classic looking EUB. If it was stolen, I would have Drew making me another one so fast it would make your head spin.

I would recommend this, or any of Drew's instruments to anyone without hesitation. For the record, his acoustic/electric bass guitars are killer instruments too.

I would be happy to discuss this with anyone considering one of Drew's EUBs. My email address is daglus@magma.ca

Mike Lush
Smiths Falls, Ontario.