Uprighteousness

I'm so obsessed with orchestral music, and of course, my ears pick out the low end. So naturally, I've started thinking a lot about an upright bass. I have a lot to learn about them before I buy one.

My buddy who plays for a folk band has a 3/4, and I read that most folks play a 3/4, even in orchestras. So the 4/4 I thought I needed is not a necessity. They're apparently not very common anyway.

Good upright basses are costly. I don't know if there is an upright for a decent price that sounds full and rich.

I won't buy anything until I can afford something sounding rich and full.

I'm old school. Don't want a steel pole with a pickup on it. I want real wood.

Yoiks! A quick check at Sweetwater and Guitar Center suggests these instruments aren't cheap!

I can't imagine what a high quality "orchestral-grade" instrument goes for when even the cheapos aren't cheap

Orchestral- grade, even non-prime orchestras, are several thousand to well over $100k
That said, you can find inexpensive ones here and there on Craigslist and such for under a thousand.
There's a place not far from me that used to have a bunch of them stacked up - more like swing / rockabilly-grade ones - all plywood and such, for a few hundred.
A girl I dated a ways back, before I met my now-wife, played in a local orchestra, and she mentioned that when she put the bass in her car, the value doubled. (it wasn;t a new car or anything but still...)
Most big orchestra players use the 4/4s, unless the player is very small, and usually with the extended fingerboard to boot.
There's just a tone and fullness to the big ones that the smaller ones just don't have.
Not saying the smaller ones can't sound good.
But all this is predisposed to what you actually want to do with it. Are you thinking about joining or playing wymphonic music? There's a long learning curve to that.

I'm wanting to learn enough to record. I do realize how the learning curve is, that it takes years and years to perfect. I'm getting pretty accurate with my fretless bass and that'll help. I've been wanting a 4/4 because I want the biggest bass sound possible with one. I'm starting to compose music in addition to writing songs, and I'm going in the direction of orchestral music with them. I can get them pretty convincingly with my Korg Kross 88 and an expression pedal, but I want to pull a bow across the strings and let the rumble cause people to shit their pants.

Another thing I realized--they do make left handed ones, and I'll eventually try to get one, but it won't really matter. I started off just flipping over a righty, and I can still deal with that spatially and with muscle memory.

So you see, now I'm back on the 4/4. I'd like eventually to write a concerto for double bass.

It's odd to be 60 years old and to have an epiphany so powerful that it's brought all my musical knowledge to me in ways I never understood before. it was like a flash of lightening. Now I have to produce a track instead of merely talking about it.