Upton Basses

[Jeff Gellis]

Originally Posted by Greg Clinkingbeard

Let's keep this place open and free where we can all agree to disagree. Time for a beer.

There exists an air of civility here that TB could only dream about. Great reparte!

[Ron Lacey]

Originally Posted by Jeff Gellis

There exists an air of civility here that TB could only dream about. Great reparte!

Yeah, this is pretty disgusting . If you guys don't start some decent flame wars I may have to go talk to my wife.

[Michael Case]

Flame on:
Why is talking to your wife better than being on this board?

[Drake Chan]

As long as we're being free here, let's not forget that this is Ken's site, and that he will definitely push his products here.

At the same time, there's no pretending here that this is a totally impartial site like TBDB seemed to claim. It was a good site with good information, and it still is. But some things just started to get to me.

There was that whole saga of flaming one another in one of the threads. This has happened at least more than once. Once everything died down, it was better.

But the one thing that really got to me was in the "Strunal vs. Upton" thread.

Within the thread, someone asked whether to get a bass from Upton or a Strunal setup by a local luthier. Now I didn't really know the luthier, but it seems like a few people did and said he did good work. I though at that point that the luthier seemed okay, and I posted that the guy should try both basses (or more) before buying. I think at this point, Michael Case started to challenge Upton.

Anyway, a few posts later, Gary implicitly claimed that one of the posters before who praised the Strunal, with the name "mike" within his username, was really the luthier himself, who also happened to be named Mike, and was posting separately as a shill. At this point, the luthier himself wrote a post in angry, formal letter form in response to Gary and everyone else to try to clear his name.

Eventually, everything calmed down. The "shill" was a kid named Mike who studied with the luthier. People came down to the point of actually trying out the basses before buying.

[Drake Chan]

In my opinion, the world of Internet forums is no different than the real world in many respects. One respect is that people will form friendships and will be able to speak with each other in an informal, friendly way.

Another respect is that these friendships can become cliques, and that these friends will stick with each other if anyone ever threatens one of them or their ideas. Things can become very contentious if this happens.

So for future references, you could state your own opinion, but it is almost never going to be completely respected and honored unless they are the general opinion of the masses or you are able to defend your opinion successfully and coherently.

[Drake Chan]

As for Upton Basses, I feel that they are a solid, reputable company. If you call them, they will take the time to talk to you about whatever you have a question about. I remember going up to Mystic once, and talking with one of the luthiers, Jack, for about an hour or so on all sorts of things I wanted to know about the bass. I guess I just like talking about basses, and Jack was very patient.

In this day and age of music companies ripping students and beginners off with crappy instruments, they lend a fresh breath of quality and value in many of the instruments and services they provide.

At the same time, they're business practices are indeed questionable. While they lend this "fresh breath", we must not forget that we have many other options out there. It is never Upton vs. crappy music companies, and no one else.

One example is our host, Ken Smith. This is a man who has done years of research on double basses and bows just because he truly enjoys it. And he sends this knowledge down to us free of charge. He is of strong opinion, but only because he has already done his homework. We double bassists have a hard time finding any information or resources on our instrument that violin players and bass guitarist will easily find.

I went down to Ken's workshop in Perkasie to try out bows once. His shop closed down about 4:30 or so in the afternoon, but I didn't get there till about 4:40. Many employees were still there, but they all eventually left after 5:10 or so. Ken stayed there talking with me until 7:30, well after closing time. He let me try out several basses and bows, taught me how to audition bows, talked about how to play better, and talked about his basses. He even taught me to use the "Italian" grip with the French bow.

But the one thing that stands out was that he was willing to talk to someone he never even met before for hours. As for his bows: his brazilwood bow blew my Upton $99 bow out of the water. I've recommended this bow to any kid that I've seen with a Glasser fiberglass bow.

[Michael Case]

Hello Drake, I don't really want to get to involved with explaining things so here is the short story. I got into a heated discussion, with a poster who instead of honestly answering questions regarding an opinion about either Upton or ANY other bass all he will do is question an opinion that doesn't support Upton. That is what got to me in the thread you described above.

In another thread a poster located in Ireland asked if people could recommend a bass that was comparable to Upton, but available in Europe (since he didn't think ordering a bass online from the states and having it shipped to Ireland efficient). So I recommenced Strunal as they are a European company. That's when the Upton guy questioned the validity of my recommendation and talking about how he felt Upton basses were superior to Strunals. Yet he never answered the question. It got me angry because that kind of blatant sales tactic is exactly what has ruined TBDB. In the fall out I took some actions that led to me deleting my posts, but also the Upton guy deleting his posts in that thread too.

I'd started another thread that showed some very insight into the advertising tactics of UB it got some reads and replies and led to the Dr. deleting his posts in our heated thread. I deleted the thread I started after about 15 to 20 minutes fearing it may have been inappropriate, but it proved a point in the brief time it existed.

Anyway, I didn't post this to start a war or anything, and I don't wish to go further into detail about my knowledge of UB's sales tactics.