Cremona Upright Bass

As I mentioned in the page for my former Dean Pace Bass, I have always been intrigued by the upright string bass. I always felt that the size prevented it from being practical for me to have. That probably is still true, but I got one anyway! I owned the Dean for a little over two years. It did what I bought it to do. An inexpensive Asian product, it was upright and it didn't have frets. I just wanted to see if I could adapt to that style.

I often eat dinner at a local diner in Dexter before the Ham Jam with a number of the players and "fans". One afternoon in June 2011, I happened to be sitting with Tom and Esther Hood, a couple who are both Baptist ministers in Adams. It must have been fate because they rarely eat there with us. Tom asked me about the Dean and I told him that I was thinking of selling it and getting an acoustic upright. He explained to me that they had an upright but they had sold their truck and could no longer transport it. He proposed that we trade. We agreed on the spot.

The next Sunday, Marcia and I were out waterfalling and stopped at their house. We left the Dean and took home the Cremona upright. The Cremona is a relatively inexpensive half-size upright. They bought it from Dave Nichols of Custom Pearl Inlay a few months after I bought the Dean. That was 2009 and it was new then. I believe that this will be a temporary item. Some day down the road I will get a higher end three-quarter size upright.

When I got it, the action was a bit high for my tastes so I had a friend who makes instruments help me out. Dale Streeter is a retired Gouverneur art teacher with a passion for music and musical instruments. We have a barter system where I maintain his web site and he helps me out with these kinds of issues! Dale took the bridge off and sanded it down so that the action was lower. I am playing around with it now to get used to it. We may repeat the process if I find that I want it lower still.