.... I've been wondering if doublebassers use compressors, and if they don't, or atleast not to the extent eletric bassers do, why? My suspicion is that people playing doublebass has a lot more refined stroke so they don't need compressors. In fact compressors could ruin the dynamics... or what?? Could electric players learn something here or is it just the nature of an electric bass that it needs a little compression to sound good.

And, hey - don't be too flattered to answer honestly, coz' I'll believe anything!! ;-)

Lars

I actually DO use compression on my URB, although I don't really want to. The reason I do is for two reasons: 1) I am using the same combo for both electric and URB, and I switch back and forth alot, so I am kind of lazy and leery of switching around settings during gigs too much (if it sounds good it sounds good) and 2) We tend to play quite loud at times, and it evens out the sound and lets the URB, especially the highs actually be audible. However I do ALL my practicing and some group playing completely without the amp, so THAT'S where I keep my playing consistent etc. I think electric basses just tend to need it tho - although many of the greats didn't, I am sure, which fact I guess electric bassists could learn from.

I use a Zoom 506 between bass and amp on stage, mainly as a tuner/mute-device, but I have also set some compression on it. Last night I had big feedback problems on the soundcheck, and when I finally tried turning off the compression, the feedback almost disappeared. It obviously boosted the bad frequencies for that particular setting, I have never had that kind of problems before.

While we're at it; The DB side doesn't have an "Effects"-section - has anyone here tried any effects on DB?

Like for instance wah-wah on arco...:)

A few days ago I was to a small concert with Mads Vinding, and he had some kind of pedal. It looked like a volume or a wah-wah. I don't think he used it, at least there wasn't any noticable modifications in the sound. What a great player he is, by the way!

Vinding is superb and, sadly, overlooked

I've heard of some players using a volume pedal to controll feedback, but thats about it..db's are hard enough to amplify (with feedback and such) I would think that f\x would make the problem worse and there is really no place for f\x in the style of music that you would use a urb for...but thats not to say that it could'nt be done...who knows, you just might stumble on "the hot new sound" using f\x...imagine a heavily distorted urb sound with maybe a bassballs or a phaser ect. sounds freaky...maybe I'll try it.

Well, I can see a case for effects with an eurb: There are playing techniques that just aren't possible with a bg, even fretless, like arco, and the different playing technique makes different music possible. But for it to really work well, I think that you'd be best with a purely electromagnetic pickup system. I could be wrong.

There's a lot of processed electric cello on Tony Levin's last solo album, and I think that he's done some processed eurb (he uses the ns designs electric cello and bass) on some of the King Crimson/Projeckt stuff.

-dh

Where a compressor can come in handy is in recording the DB when the effect is used as a limiter. A lot of times, there will be one or two notes which "bottom out" on a recording, and a very liberal limiter setting can ease the pain on this phenomenon. I've never been able to get a compressor to sound worth a sh*t in a live situation, though.