LeftyBassist.com

I will have some more thoughts on the UBass to post tomorrow, it looks like. Customer service-wise I won't have a whole lot of news unfortunately . But otherwise, I will keep you all posted, since there's been some interest on this board.

Ok guys here is the scoop. I went ahead and decided to give Kala a second chance. The instrument I received today is..... wait for it.... ACTUALLY LEFT HANDED. Surprisingly, it was ready to play right out of the box. This is the experience I should have had last November when I first attempted to own one of these.

Here's the original thread that devolved into utter disappointment and a Kala crony towing the company line:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2108

Bottom line- I love the instrument itself. All the positives I said about the bass in the old thread still stand. Kala as a company- ehhh. I dunno. It's apparent they don't take a certain section of their demographic seriously. But I get it. It's economic. Lefties are not important to an instrument maker's bottom line, blah blah blah.

This doesn't mean I personally would let Kala off the hook however. They made a supposed lefty instrument, and I bought it, thinking the damn thing would be built left handed and it wasn't. This doesn't make them look good. On a side note, two weeks after I had placed my order at a Kala dealer, Kala had forgotten to ship my bass out, along with a couple other instruments that were going to the same dealer. Holy shit.

Anyhow, here is a quick demo of the correctly constructed UBass:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNuZ9BIgbns

Cheers guys.

Thanks Matt, I'm tempted by one of these too so I appreciate your input.

Sounds great!

No problem. When I have time I'll post something that makes me sound less of a hack. Just noodling a bit in that clip haha. One other thing- I had to remove one of the shims under the bridge. Intonation improved big time, and of course playability with it as well. Lemme know if I can be of any help on these.

Hey Matt
If you recall, a few months ago you saved me a lot of trouble.
I had a deposit down to get a lefty spruce U but after reading your posts
here and on FB, I was able to cancel without any problem.
If my order had gone through and I got a U-bass with an incorrect bridge,
it would have been a major headache to return it for a refund.

So I'd like to know more about how you finally got a "real" lefty.
Was this a special order? If so, how long did you have to wait?

Or are they now making true lefty models in production?
Is the Spruce model the only one available in lefty?

I'd rather ask you since at this point I think
you know more about their lefty models than they do!

Go through your dealer and you should be fine. My bass has great intonation and sounds/plays great. I still say they are a bit incompetent as a company, but that was my personal experience. I like the bass and they are the only game in town as far as this type of instrument goes, so what can I say...

OK well I'll ask again
....Was yours a special order that was made for you?
Or did Kala have "true" lefty models available in stock?

Well, if you're talking about a "true" left handed instrument, you're right, but I've owned a converted righty Ashbory bass for a number of years now and it's a relatively simple conversion. Looks cooler than the righty configuration too :



My biggest question with the U Bass is how it would compare to an Ashbory, since the concept's obviously based on it. I love the sound of the Ashbory, and it's fun to play WHEN it's set up right, as it can be a high maintenance instrument (The guys on the BigSound Ashbory forum naturally prefer the Ashbory tonally, though others differ). Does the U bass hold tune well and immediately, or is there a certain stretching acclimation period? With the Ashbory, it definitely takes some time to "break in" the strings, and they're also silicone and susceptible to stickiness and breakage so you have to talc the strings fairly often (it will inadvertently snap a string in the middle of the night and fools you into thinking a mousetrap was triggered). I also read on Bob Gollihur's site that he recommends the fretted version because tonally it doesn't differ much from the fretless version but you have the benefit of an intonated instrument, so I may mean towards a fretted one after all. (once you get passed the 7th fret on an Ashbory, the fret lines only approximate correct pitch, and poorly at that).

Yes as I stated in my post above, this ubass is now correctly built left handed. Was not a special order. Kala offers lefty models. The strings do need to break in and stretch, but it didn't seem to take long at all to get them to stay in tune. I gigged it the other night an it did great. Band loved it and so did I. I don't know anything about the Asbory basses so I can't comment in that regard.

If you get a chance to grab a video of you playing the Kala live Matt please do and post it here. I'd like to hear you play it with your band.

OK thanks Matt.
I sent Kala an email to ask about the availability and price on the 3 different acoustics in lefty. I like the Mahogany.

I think the Asbury is only made fretless. The thing to remember is that unless you know your way around playing fretless, a shorter scale neck is going to be a challenge. Shorter scale means less margin for error in finger placement. The fretted Kala models are going to be much more forgiving as long as your fingers hit behind the right fret. Not saying the fretless models will be impossible to play, but they will be tougher.

From what I have heard, the fretted Kalas can still deliver tone that sounds remarkably close to an upright and at least for me, that's what I am after.

The Kala strings are not the same as the Asbury. I don't think you need to use the talc on them.

You'll only get the spruce top in lefty. I should have a live video soon.

Too bad, the mahogany one is my favorite.