Double Bass and Beyond - Gary Upton of Upton Bass
Double Bass and Beyond - Gary Upton of Upton Bass
Bass Renaissance – Reviving a 1910 Hawkes with Matt Rybicki
Ever wondered what it takes to replicate a cherished instrument with precision and care? Join us as we uncover the secret world of custom bass design with our longtime friend and client, the talented Matt Rybicki. With two decades of collaborative projects under our belts, we revisit Matt's journey from hybrid bass models to his latest passion: recreating his beloved 1910 Hawkes bass. Listen to Matt’s fascinating story of using pencil-rubbing techniques on backdrop paper to capture the complex contours of his instrument, all while maneuvering around the bridge. Plus, we’ll explore Matt’s recent move to North Carolina and his significant contributions to bass education, including his Ray Brown book and upcoming courses.
Throughout our discussion, the craftsmanship and dedication to sound quality shine as we tackle the intricacies of bass design. Learn about approaches to creating remote replicas for noted musicians like Blake Hinson and Victor Wooten, and explore the unique qualities of flatback versus roundback designs with insights from Max Zeugner's Cassini bass experience. This episode celebrates the art of instrument-making, the joy of collaboration, and the anticipation of Matt finally playing his custom bass—a testament to years of shared passion and expertise. Whether you're a musician or simply fascinated by the process, this conversation is sure to resonate with bass enthusiasts and beyond.
Hey guys, it's Gary at Upton Base and I am here with Matt Rubicki. Matt is one of my friends and clients. For how many years now, matt?
Speaker 2:It's been well over 20 years.
Speaker 1:Damn, I thought you were going to say like 20. Yeah, man, cool. So we've done. What are things we've done? I mean we've done like you had a hybrid of ours for a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I started out with, ironically, if you remember the the Hawks models you were sort of importing.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And that was cool. And then you were like we got to get you something better. So we did a hybrid, which I had forever and it's so killing.
Speaker 1:And then, uh, I think you, uh, you turn that into some loot for a fun thing for a minute.
Speaker 2:Yes, and.
Speaker 1:I was like I hit Matt up and I was like, well, we're kind of like generally, we're like real friends where, like we can not talk for two years and then like reconnect, like it was yesterday, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And anyone real knows what we're talking about, I think, and we started dreaming up making a brush in right, right.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And we started dreaming up making a Breschen. Right, right, exactly. So you've always followed along. Matt's always been very kind but realistically I know that we keep getting better. And he's like bro, that bass you made for Max Zeugner is really sweet, oh yeah, and the work looks really nice. And so we started scheming on a Breschen and there are some slight variations of Brescians that very few people can see, but musicians that have been around the block, like Matt, he was like, oh, I like that square looking one and I kind of felt like, tell me if I'm wrong. You liked it because it was probably the closest to your main axe, which is an actual, legit Hawks.
Speaker 2:Exactly right, yeah, closest to your main axe, which is an actual, legit hawks. Exactly right, yeah. And and um, the you know the um, the top, the top, uh, bouts the upper shoulder, the shoulders, uh, while it is difficult to play with wide shoulders generally it's more difficult, but I like it, I'm used to it. You know what I mean. And so the breschen had that slight, gorgeous slope, but I was just like I knew it wasn't going to be quite the right shape for me. So we get to talking about sort of a dream of mine, which is to try to get a copy of this 1910 Hawks that I have.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I threw it out for those listening. I threw it out to Matt. I was like, bro, is what we're really trying to do? Basically make something like your bass? And he was like, well, yeah, and Matt's really polite and awesome and I recommend anyone work with Matt because he's a sweet guy and check out his. He's got some new educational courses coming on bass playing that I think anyone would be amiss not to check out. If you haven't seen his Ray Brown book, then you got to go look for that too. Um, yeah, you're welcome, but it's true, uh, great bass player too. If you need a bass player, I'd call Matt.
Speaker 1:Thank you, he but, he's now in North Carolina, not New York city, right?
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, a move three years ago for the family, and it's been great.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So back to the Hawks. I said, bro, let's just do it. And he was like really, are you sure? And I said, yeah, so what's fun is? We're not, in this case, going to get together. I've seen his base. I played his base, just to be clear for everyone, right? Um, and I've played many Hawks I don't mean to trivialize the Hawks base, um. So I asked Matt to make a tracing of his top. So can you put in your own words what I had you do, matt?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Well, what you had me do at first was be confused because, like, I don't want to waste your time either. So you gave me the general idea of like I need an outline of this, the top specifically, and I knew I wanted to do a good job because I wasn't going to see you in person, necessarily, and I wanted it to be accurate for both of us, and so on and so forth. And you essentially kind of to the you know, to make it short, so sort of said put a piece of paper on there. And I think at first you said cut it out. Make it short, so sort of said put a piece of paper on there. And I think at first you said cut it out. And I was like, okay, well, I'm going to try this. And my wife is a photographer, she has this big sort of backdrop paper, so I went to get that and painter's tape and I started to get it on the base and I'm like man, I don't want to take this bridge.
Speaker 1:It's like Lance Armstrong and his bicycle Right, it's all shit.
Speaker 2:So I figured out this way, after much consternation, of sort of cutting up the middle right the width of the bridge, but not all the way at the base. So it's one piece of paper and so I was able to lie it down and sort of cut a general shape around. And then Gary had shown me a very clever trick that I don't know if this is just a luthier thing or where you all know it from, but of rubbing pencil lead onto like an F hole to get the shape of the F hole. And so I did that to the whole top, I did that to all the edges and actually worked fantastic. So like just even seeing it come to life, I was like man, that's, that's, that's my shape right there. So great, it's going to work. Yeah, it's going to work totally.
Speaker 1:And so we look at it, did you? Sit back and look at it.
Speaker 2:I did. It looks so right. It looks so right. Yeah, and go ahead Sorry.
Speaker 1:Sorry, yeah. So just to explain what we do, if anyone could try this at home, you take a piece of printer paper, lay a piece of printer paper, lay a piece of printer paper on the F-hole of your base and off of the F-hole, just anywhere, even on another piece of paper or a notepad. You take a pencil on its side and you just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You make a little kind of mess with the, as we call it, the lead it's not really lead, right Then wipe your finger in it. So you've got the black stuff, the gray stuff, on your finger and then go to your F-hole. Don't move the paper. Hold the paper on the top of the base, Go to the edges of your F-hole and gently rub and you'll see it'll leave a nice halo outline of your F-hole. So that's what Matt did on the whole edges of his base and you attempted to on the F-holes. A bit right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So you've definitely got the position of them. You can clearly see where they are, but the shape is a little bit less obscure than I. Took printer paper into the F holes as well just to try to double, you know, give you double information. But because of the shape of the top, over over the years I wasn't able to capture a hundred percent of the holes because you know they sink. It sinks in a little bit near the bridge, it's not so much, but. But I don't want to press down too hard and so on and so forth. But I still think I gave you really good shapes to work with, for sure, and I know that with all the great work that you've done in the past and I say to you all the time how much your work has just blossomed over the years, as as a great, a great luthier does you know. So I mean I know that what you're going to come up with is phenomenal.
Speaker 2:And I'm so excited too because for I I love this base. It belonged to Ben Wolf before it belonged before him to Neil Swanson, or Swanson um, the cat from Canada who played with like Woody Shaw and stuff, um. So I love this base a lot. But I've always wanted a flat back. I've always wanted the professor model and they're very hard to find. And so Gary's like hey, let's put a flat back on this. I was like hey, you're talking my language.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so at this. The cool thing too about going back to the rubbing, like for you, just so you know, and so people that are listening. Though, if there are sections where I don't have data, remember, at the end of the day I'm going to cut holes in a piece of wood, right, and if I have the beginning of a line and the end of the line I'm going to, I'm going to fair it, cause I'm actually cutting it with a saw and a chisel and a scraper you know what I mean Like and a knife. So the reality, as long as I've got some data, I'll get there. We're going to make nice, nice tangent curves, we're going to make it beautiful, and that part will be not a problem to have missing data. The location is huge.
Speaker 1:One thing I do want to tell people and I'm telling you in this map. I already told you on the phone. I'm not going to copy everything. What I'm going to copy is one side of the base. Now I like to have people label their base, kind of like the upper bouts a, b, like the base side and the treble side, and then the C bouts, c, d, kind of like base side, treble side, and then lower bouts E, f and if you want, you could do this. You know you can label it unless you've already rolled the drawing up and shipped it off. But you could actually say I like a on the base side, I like d on the on the treble side for the c, c bout and I like you don't have to do this, I like e on the bass side. Right, yeah, I generally take one side. This is where we think about the usage of our instruments over the years. Your, your base is from what's the year on your base?
Speaker 2:191010.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we've got 115, 120 years of use, right, right, um, so think about guys, where you lay your base down. You're always putting it down on the treble side at the gig, um, and then when it gets repaired, a lot of times because of those dings and scratches and things that happen, we we do see the pattern of what the original maker made kind of mutilated on the g-string side, um, oftentimes not always because other shit happens to basses, but oftentimes the e-string side is more reflective of what the maker intended. When we choose a side, or if we choose a and c and f, we then mirror that.
Speaker 1:so we'll eventually we'll make kind of our perfect mold and I want to start with something symmetrical and so, and then in matt's case, we're going to make the top based upon whatever makes sense and I'll send him pictures and say how do you like this? I'll draw it out neatly, I'll give him the whole view of it and he'll go okay, I dig it. Um, then I'm going to do my upton stuff. So from here, matt gives me neck length, whether he's got d, e, flat string length, so on and so forth. I want to mimic that so that he can use both axes with, you know, interchangeably, and not feel like he's got to account for it on either instrument. And then the neck of the bass will be set in at 10 degrees, standard upton style, um, which the back of the bass will be just ever so slightly smaller than the front of the bass, um. So that's going to be the traditional opt-in ergonomics.
Speaker 1:And I learned this early on. I didn't do that with a few copies, in particular for one quite famous bass player that I'm not going to name. He wanted like everything to a millimeter, very famous player. And what I should have done is said no, let me do my thing. But you know, when you're in those like, really like I don't know really important situations, sometimes you question the things you know, and I was like I just want to make this guy happy.
Speaker 2:Right sure.
Speaker 1:And I made the base. I didn't even like it. I was disappointed before I even showed him and it ended up making the deal kind of funny. So, at the end of the day, for me this has to be your base for you, but it's married with what I know works right right and the good thing is sorry, go ahead no go ahead.
Speaker 2:You're good, I mean the great. There's like three great things in this situation. As far as what you're speaking of, which is I, I know your bases already because I played them for 20 years. Even even the beginning one was was still you could see that the beginnings of your preferences and style, even on the very first one. So I played your basis for forever. I know your work as it continues, so I trust you. And as far as my shape on on the hawks, I don't there's not a particular quadrant I like more than others, so any quadrant is fine, honestly great. So it's like we're super easy sweet.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I wanted to do this like overview with Matt, because we've done this many times for Blake Hinson with his Galliano bass. Blake Hinson with his Santa Juliana. We did this. For Max Zeugner with his Cassini bass. Nina Burnett, we did it with her Bassetto bass, debatably Guadagnini. Mark Ramirez, he had a Cavani bass. We did the same thing there and there have been others. I'm just Victor Wooten's bass, the ex-Stanley Clark bass Same thing, same process, and all of those, literally all of those. I can say I had the actual bass. So what's fun? Because I've got someone like matt that I have a relationship with for so long. Right, this is the first time I'm doing like a full, remote copy and I want to memorialize that for people like here we are before we do this and like you know, and I'm okay with leaving it, like let's see how it comes, I know how it's going to come out.
Speaker 1:I know how it's going to come out, not only is matt going to be happy, we're going to have a sweet new model that I think other people are going to want to. Yeah, you know. So that's, that's the silver lining for me, like gary, why are we doing all this work? Because it's worth it, man. Um, you know, I, I I'd like in the future to be able to get base shops, maybe to be able to say to guys like matt, like bring your base in. But you know what, if the end user like you can do it yourself the way you did it? Yeah, be sure to. I think I have that picture and we'll get pictures of, uh, the paper that shows up in the mail too, and we'll make a point of posting that so that people can kind of follow along the project.
Speaker 1:That's a great idea so like I guess, for now this is kind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me ask you a question, though and this is a, this is a spur, this is not a question I've asked you so far. We did talk about it. Is your thought to reduce the overall size at all while maintaining proportions? Are you keeping the size exactly the same? Either one is fine, it's up to you.
Speaker 1:It's up to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean? I mean, I like the idea of making you a stunt double. Mm hmm, I mean, let's do it, I'm game for both no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's 41 and 13 sixteenths.
Speaker 1:And would you like an exact copy?
Speaker 2:It. I am honestly, sincerely, I'm not getting happy either way. I truly am. So it's, in a sense, it's like what do you feel is going to serve you because you have the knowledge right, so what do you feel is going to be a successful thing or is maybe easier for you or requires this resources on your part? Um, because I trust you.
Speaker 1:I like the idea because people love these bases, like I just had one come up from. A player in Arizona came up. We did a setup on it, got him really humming and he was happier than he has been since he got his base in 1997. Nice, nice, yeah, people love these bases. I like the idea of making the real thing like like I.
Speaker 1:I don't really want to, and I think that that also will give me a context of what my copy of the real thing is yeah right and then, once we've got that substantiated, if for any reason you were to ever say to me, gary, I love it, but I want a small, we'll just make another base, so like yeah I think I'd let the next guy that loves the hawks but wants a smaller one be the be the test. Uh, you know, test dummy for that one yeah, that makes sense, and get and get you.
Speaker 2:Get you a flatback version of your base yeah, because, like it would be amazing to see what does a flatback do with the current proportions? Right, and also the curiosity about you know, when makers, uh, are creating what they're doing, they think very carefully about all these proportions and that, you know theoretically, or sometimes very, very scientifically, feeds exactly into how the base sounds. So, in other words, we want to try to replicate a good sound too, least you know, can it. Will those proportions help? Will they still follow through?
Speaker 1:you know, sort of this, this fun mystery path, you know, yeah, yeah, for that reason and how you're saying it, I think I get what you're saying and more I I like the idea of making the dead ringer copy um with minus, the minus, the asymmetries, um, and I imagine that there are a numerous, a number of numerous people that will also want the same thing. Yeah, um, I think that's the way to start. Um, I mean, I get, whenever I have a hawks that sells, I've never had one that doesn't get a lot of traction, right, you know? So, uh, you know, the flat back, round back thing's really fun. That was the project for max zeugner, his cassini's. It's a big fat round back um.
Speaker 1:And he, he didn't know when we started, like, like, you want a flat back and we know we, we know this base is going to do what it's going to do, um. But he was like, uh, I don't know, and so on and so forth and I forth, and I so I said to him, I'm like, let me make both Um and, and he, he thought that he knew which one he was going to pick, um, and last I checked with him, cause he still has both the bases, but I'll, I'll get one of them back soon, it's. It's been a very, very hard decision for him, which I love. I'm glad that he's right, like the fact that one of them's not great and one sucks is awesome, right? Um, someone's gonna get the base he didn't choose, which I hope they don't think they got his dregs right, like right, you know, but like do know, and I got him on video saying at the shop to prove it, like he can't make his mind up yeah but I I actually know he's.
Speaker 1:He's been leaning towards the flat back amazing yeah yeah, he says it, it's, it's got like some of the middle sound, like it's, it almost it's perceivably louder. Um, and that makes me think of a lot of these old english bases and italian bases like, like again going back to the list, like the galliano, the santa g, like a lot of the the nice early brescian instruments and the Panormos. A lot of them are big, deep ribs, arching broad grain tops with flat backs. They speak quickly, they don't get kind of lost on themselves.
Speaker 2:And that's so helpful in jazz. You know which is my main thing. You know like it's very important that the instrument speaks quickly.
Speaker 1:And I think, equally, most of the players that are playing in sections can hide their bottom end behind like a set of belcantos or something, and then when they do play up on the top strings, you know they want to make sure that they've got that cutting sound as they go into thumb position, and I think the flatbacks help them there too.
Speaker 1:Sure, absolutely too Sure, absolutely. There's a lot of bad information about flatback bases because so many German bases were made with wood that was way too thin, but I think flatbacks sound better like that. I'm still standing by it. So yeah, we'll see what you think. Obviously, it's going to be a new base versus an old base, right?
Speaker 1:But your new bases are different than new new bases because you use that good wood man that's, it's the wood, it's the process, it's the you know it's I was just telling the guy I was just telling a guy like how we, how I grade the tops and what I buy for the tops is hard to find because I don't. I don't buy this guitar wood that's like overly tight grain, like I like nice, broad, nice italian sounding wood and that's the one thing. Back on what you were saying earlier, our basses, they've always kind of sounded the same. Yeah, the varnish has gotten better, the ergonomics have gotten better. Right, the fit and finish is better. The models are cooler and better. They look a lot better. I think the sound is generally back to to like when we got awards for the for sound in 2009 and 2012, like right. I don't think that part's changed a lot right, totally I guess that's kind of it.
Speaker 1:Do you have any other questions or?
Speaker 2:not at all. I'm just really excited man I'm. I want to thank you for taking this on and and I'm really really looking forward to seeing what comes next. You know what I mean yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you ship me that um the outline this week, right?
Speaker 2:Tomorrow. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:All right, cool. So ship me that, I'll. I'll hang it on the wall? Um, I will. I will get it traced out on our stuff. I will then put it on a piece of wood. I will show you what it looks like. I'll lay the F holds out. You and I will show you what it looks like. I'll lay the F-holes out. You and I will do two thumbs up, you know, on both ends, to make sure we're ready to go. I want to lock in the proportions for the string length and then I'll make a rib form. I'll send you pictures of the rib form. I'll send you pictures of the ribs that are being done. I'll carve the top. I'll show you that, like I'll keep it all coming at you.
Speaker 2:Awesome, Sounds great. I really truly am sincerely excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man. Well, that's it. I'm going to uh, I'm going to sign off here, and so, matt, if you don't know who he is, follow him. I honored and appreciate Matt for all these years he's, he's put up with me and hung by my side.
Speaker 1:Same buddy and uh, yeah, that's it, guys. So stay tuned for this project. Um, I can't wait to talk to matt after he's got the bass. Um, and I'm sure you know whether it's six months, a year from now, you'll also see matt online playing this bass. I think that in itself will talk for itself. Yeah, um, but yeah that's that, guys, take care.