# Woodo 10-string Bass



## Necris (Sep 4, 2017)

I searched to see if there was a thread on these and didn't find one.
Why are they mixing Kalium and D'addario strings? No idea.
Gaze in wonder:






http://www.woodoguitars.se/products/Woodo B10 Ebony SC/Product.html

12,950 swedish krona ($1,626 usd).

Specs:

Type : 10-String Neck Thru
Body : Ebony and Alder
Neck : Hard Maple, Ash and Palisander
Fretboard : Ebonized Hardwood
Frets : 24 F Medium Jumbo
Scale : 34″
Strings : D’Addario and Kalium
Pickups : G&B Tonemaster
Controls : Vol, Bal, 3 Way EQ
Switch : Act/Passive in Vol pot
Tuners : Wilkinson
Tuning : F#/B/E/A/D/G/C/F/A#/D#
String Gauges : 145/130/105/85/65/45/30/20/11/8
Bridge/Tail : Wilkinson Mono Rails
HW Colour : Graphite
Finish : Natural Satin
String Spacing by Bridge : 16,5 mm
Weight : 5,8 kg


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## Hollowway (Sep 5, 2017)

Huh. Are these any good? Pros: 10 strings! Cons: 34" and pup placement is no bueno (for me). I get skeptical about these super wide bass necks and action, etc. I'm a huge fan of SK builds, but for some reason, I feel like these crazy ones are well beyond what the average SK factory could churn out and have on par with a true bass luthier. But I've never tried one, so who knows....


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## vansinn (Sep 5, 2017)

Don't know the brand. This particular instrument looks rather well-build, though.
I agree with Holloway on the very wide/trapezoid neck layout; this isn't comfy playing when moving up'n'down the neck. Getting in-over the board closer to the body easily becomes an unpleasant reach.
Oh, and yes, 34" is simply too short. For a 10 stringer, multiscaling simply is a must.

My Wolf 7-string bass likewise has a somewhat widening layout, and while it isn't uncomfy per se, even on this one I would've preferred a bit less widening.


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## Necris (Sep 5, 2017)

Woodo Basses are made by KHL Corp., the same company which produces Wolf Basses as well as HK, Raven West, and likely Acepro basses (I just found another version of this under that name), so there's a bit of a range of quality and it likely comes down to the quality control of the people behind the brands (RavenWest were outed as having basically no QC to speak of on here years ago). From what I've read Woodo are quality instruments. Wolf claim to inspect and hand pick their basses from the factory.


I think the massive trapezoid layout may just be the nature of the beast. I feel the pickup placement or even the layout could be changed, but it's probably functional. A more traditional dual humbucker setup would be cool, but it would likely drive the price up. I'd question whether 34" is truly "simply too short" (although I know players here would likely demand 37"+ for the low strings) and whether multi-scaling is necessary or merely preferable from a functionality standpoint with regard to the lower strings. Conklin's 11-string ERB's I've seen have a 32"-35" scale and the 10-strings are all 34" or 35" straight scale and this is actually in line with what I've seen in the realm of 8+ string ERBs. Straight scales appear to be far more common than multiscales.

At the end of the day, this is a niche bass, and Woodo (and Acepro - for slightly lower cost) are essentially the only game in town if you can't afford the exorbitant cost that a fully custom 10 string bass would entail and you exclude the absolutely horrid looking chinese made "Starshine" 10 string basses or the abomination that is the Tennessee 15-string ERB.


As an aside, I had a Galveston UB8000 8 string bass maybe 5 or 6 years ago. While it was playable KHL instruments are almost certainly better than that thing was (their bridges aren't made primarily of plastic!) but I got the Galveston from a guy I knew for $200 - so I didn't really have many complaints aside from the fact that the thing was a boat anchor and, as I recall, weighed over 15lbs. I've looked in to buying a Wolf 7 string bass, but I've found Wolf's basses have absolutely abysmal resale value and I don't care for neck through or set neck instruments, so the wait for a Conklin GT7 continues.


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## ixlramp (Sep 5, 2017)

Amazing and good to see a lower price monster.

They're probably using D'Addarios for the roundwounds (those are D'Addario gauges) and Kalium for the plain steel strings because only a very few places sell bass length plain steels in a variety of gauges.

34" is not too short, the lowest string is a F#0 for which 34" is enough, some players use C#0 or B00 on 34".
Multiscaling is not essential for a 10 string ERB, it is more a guitar obsession (due to wanting to keep the top E). Very many ERBassists use non-fanned 10 string ERBs.


vansinn said:


> I agree with Holloway on the very wide/trapezoid neck layout; this isn't comfy playing when moving up'n'down the neck. Getting in-over the board closer to the body easily becomes an unpleasant reach.


The bridge spacing is only 16.5mm and is dictated by the width of the individual bridges, which you can see are placed very close together, using multiple single bridges enables using existing lower priced components. The nut width is necessarily smaller to make the lowest string more reachable with normal technique, so these inevitably result in a very tapered neck. The lower strings do not need to be played on the high frets, the tone and intonation suffers there anyway, so reaching them is no issue.


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## A-Branger (Sep 7, 2017)

yeah 34" is fine for a B standard 5 string bass with a .130 so in here they added the low F#, prob more as a "add-on" rather than a "main" string, so not sure if a .145 is enough for an ideal tension, but this bass and the nature of the music to played on it, the low F# prob wont be used as much so it can be overlooked for a more scale friendly 34" . If your main focus is low stuff to keep with 8 string guitars and such, then a 37" scale bass either multi or normal, would be better for you.

Also this has a lot of high range, they cant put a longer scale without having the high strings to suffer too, or make the spacing too wide for chord playing


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## AlexThorpe (Sep 7, 2017)

Id wager money on that my RMI Titan 10 is made in the same factory as these, same hardware, same general shape and same crescent on the bottom the of the fretboard. Mine had the same pickups in it stock when I got it and they are lukewarm garbage. 

My other main complaint is the fretboard radius. I don't have any of my measuring tools at home but it's probably somewhere in the 15"-16" range I suspect, and is quite round over that large or a neck. I use a .174 for my low F# and I am perfectly happy with the tension and how it sounds. The 34" is actually more of an issue on the higher end of things, .008 gauge strings are slightly floppy and sound too twangy and weak at Eb, and I had problems with .010s breaking. .009 is a happy medium but if I would love to be able to run a bit thicker of a gauge. 

If you're heart is set on 10 strings though this is definitely the cheapest way to get into it and have a halfway playable and decent bass right from the get go


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## Necris (Sep 7, 2017)

I'd imagine you're right, a few of RMI's basses also have the Kent Armstrong pickups which show up in Woodo basses. It looks like RMI may be providing their own more "boutique" looking designs, and then adding better hardware and/or pickups (or neither) depending on the bass. Some of them have Hipshot or ETS hardware, and I see Delano, Nordstrand, Haussel and Aguilar pickups on a number of them.
There is currently a 36 fret 7 string Aurora model on eBay right now which has a Delano humbucker in it.


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## ixlramp (Sep 7, 2017)

Yeah the .145 as an F# is fairly compromised, D'Addario have larger gauges but they didn't use them.
I assume they wanted to keep it non-fanned for simplicity, and kept it 34" to make the top Eb4 possible, i'm still suspicious of 34" Eb4 strings as this is equivalent to tuning a guitar to Ab4, most standard strings are at breakng point.

The RMI Aurora 36 fret is one of the most stunning bass designs i have seen, good lower horn design for seated playing.


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## bostjan (Sep 8, 2017)

Geezuz! That string spacing at the nut looks ridiculously tight. It looks like half as much at the nut as it is at the bridge...

I'd love to give it a spin, but no way I would buy that without easing all of the concerns I have. I've seen too many ERB's just add strings to get a higher string count, compromising playability too much, and I have yet to see an affordable fully functional 8 string bass, so I am extremely skeptical about anything with a higher string count than that that doesn't have some costly mitigating factors in the design.

Also, and this is probably just me, but with the neck shape basically being an isoscales triangle, and the laminations running parallel, the back of the bass looks very odd to me.


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