Performing acoustically

[HaVIC5]

Hey all, question here from an electric player who doubles on DB. I recently played an outdoor gig in a tent where it was raining pretty bad and there was no safe way to get electricity out to the bandstand, so I had to play the whole gig acoustically. Now, I'm an electric player, but I have a decent amount of upright chops, and don't really buy into the "touch-bass" method that I know a lot of BG players use when playing upright (I set my action at a decent height). Still, I could not be heard at all. I was digging the living hell into the bass strings, tearing up my fingers pretty bad, but it felt like a painful, losing battle the whole time. How in the world did those old cats used to do it?

Any of you guys have any tips for playing acoustically and getting yourself heard in a larger gig situation?

[Dave Speranza]

off the top of my head

-Play with people who are sensitive to the volume of their instrument in relation to everyone else's
-Make sure the bass in is tune
-Play in tune
-Realize that the bass is typically much louder out front than what you are hearing

[Aaron Cohn]

What Dave says, and a couple more things from my experience:

Make sure to keep your left hand solid and relaxed, and don't try too pull too hard with the right hand. The important thing is that you free up the weight of your right arm and pull the fingertip through the string--if you're letting the string collapse your finger you're losing tone. This takes some strength in your finger, but it shouldn't feel like you're trying to pull hard. Experiment in a quiet room and see what gets you the loudest tone. When you get to the gig try to repeat that technique whether or not you can hear yourself. It can be hard--I know that when I can't hear myself well my natural impulse is to yank the hell out of the strings.

Where you set up in the room can make a big difference in how well you can hear yourself and how well you project. Try to grab the best spot. Outdoors can be difficult. I can see why that gig might have been a problem.

In my experience I've found that my #1 enemy isn't the drums but crowd noise. I can deal with reasonably loud drums, but give me a live room full of drunk people chatting away and I'll have more trouble.

I think the drummer's time has something to do with it as well. If the drummer is playing somewhat loud but has good, clear time it's much easier to cut through than if the drummer is playing sloppily.

About setup etc--your action doesn't need to be super-high but there needs to be a little room for the strings to move.

I also think it helps to have some character to your tone. Some players seem to go for a round and dark tone that sounds very clean amplified. To me this kind of sound doesn't work as well without an amp. I don't mean that your tone needs to be brighter rather than darker, just that it helps if there's some character or even a little bit of ugly to it.

[David Kaczorowski]

Playing outdoors can be very difficult even when amplified and if you were set-up on concrete it's even worse.

[millbrook]

Would a battery-powered amp be helpful in the situations you are thinking of?

There are several available that should give your instrument a noticeable boost without the need to run electrical cords through wet grass.

[boylebass]

If I find myself in a situation where the bass isn't loud enough (either for me & my bandmates, and/or in the house, or 'the yard' in reference to your outdoor gig) the first thing you need to do is to realize that yankin' the strings is generally not going to solve the problem. If you're not loud enough, no amount of right/left hand pressure will solve the problem.

The only time that this is an issue for me is on the first song of the night in a new venue. What I do is just deal with it for the first song and then make the necessary adjustments. Can't hear me? Then you're playing too loud.

You can trash your right hand (fingers and forearm) in one song trying to get more volume out of your bass. In 5 minutes you can do damage that will take days, weeks, or maybe month to heal.

I should note that I rarely play w/o amplification on the gig. The last time I played w/o an amp was a banjo/bass duo, inside, on a riser. My bass was plenty loud, even up against a very loud picker.

Good technique, good setup, and realization of the limitations of the instrument are all key components to solving your problem, but I'll say it again, don't hurt yourself trying to do play louder than your drummer.

[Marc Piane]

Originally Posted by David Kaczorowski

Playing outdoors can be very difficult even when amplified and if you were set-up on concrete it's even worse.

+1.

We played at the Chicago White Sox game. The stage was concrete and it had a metal awning. Fun gig. Horrible sound.

On these gigs you just smile and do your best.

[David Kaczorowski]

I've never played under a metal awning. I'll bet that was cool.

[joel kelsey]

Originally Posted by fingers

+1.

We played at the Chicago White Sox game.

Did Ozzie Guillen cuss you out?

Hey Fingers, I have a good friend in Chicago named Scott Anderson that plays trumpet. People call him Herm. He says he knows you. He's a good player and a nice guy. Do you know him?

[Marc Piane]

Originally Posted by joel kelsey

Hey Fingers, I have a good friend in Chicago named Scott Anderson that plays trumpet. People call him Herm. He says he knows you. He's a good player and a nice guy. Do you know him?

He did that White Sox gig with me. I also play with him every Thursday with a rat pack singer dude. Small world.

[damonsmith]

I spent years busking outside at a train station with a very loud and very good tenor player.
It did wonders for my sound. I would recommend NOT waiting until the gig to get a good sound outdoors. Start now.
I have not done busking in years but I am going to do it again.
One thing I liked about it was earning money in a time period where there are generally no gigs (commute time).

Make sure all the power, to both hold the string down with the left hand and plucking comes from your shoulders. squeezing with the left hand is a good way to get physical troubles later.

[chop_1992]

Originally Posted by damonsmith

Make sure all the power, to both hold the string down with the left hand and plucking comes from your shoulders.

I agree with Damon that the sound comes from BOTH the left and right hands. Having the note accurately and firmly anchored with the l.h. really increases the volume and projection.

At the moment, I am doing a project with the WDR Big Band and I am not using an amp. The recording technicians are using fewer mics (2 per section) rather than miking every instrument. They are trying to get more of an ambient live sound rather than the close-miked sound.

Playing with no amp works fine when everyone is aware of the level of dynamic range that is available on the mf to ppp side of the volume spectrum.

[c-ba55]

I forgot the power cord to my amp last night, thrusting me into this situation for the first time (on a gig). My bass is set up with pretty low action, but it was actually fine for the most part. Setting is a piano/bass/drums trio at a bar. On a couple songs, I didn't feel like I was being heard much. For example, on energetic songs where everybody else played louder & more densely and I didn't have much more to give. Or on sambas where the drummer was using a lot of kick & toms. But other than that, I actually could hear me cutting through and I had to assume if I could hear me, other people could hear me. The band was reacting to what I was playing, so they could hear me. Musicians in the audience agreed that the bass was indeed audible although not ideal. All these years, I thought it would basically be a disaster, but it turned out alright. I think I will raise the action on my bass and try to do more of the work myself.

[AndreasH]

What strings do you use?

In the past i used Obligato with pretty high action. It was pointless. Even in a room with great acoustics it didn't matter. Then I switched to Velvet Garbo strings and they're really doing the job. Low tension and thick gauge (and high action) make it able to play really loud acoustically. I think gut strings will do this for you too but I haven't tried it... Yet

[Mark Perna]

Originally Posted by AndreasH

I think gut strings will do this for you too but I haven't tried it... Yet

Gut strings do tend to be relatively loud acoustically particularly the fundamental which kind of explodes out. I had gut on one of my basses for a while and it was the most fun I've ever had playing without an amp. I didn't keep them on because ultimately I felt I need steel to do what I do.

I did two gigs in the past two weeks unamplified. One was with drums, piano and tenor and the acoustics of the space we were playing in were perfect for unamped playing. It was on a small raised stage with a low overhang. The bass just bloomed inside the space. It was a private party and we were playing at a low volume so it just worked beautifully. The tenor player didn't even know I wasn't amped until I told him after the gig.

I did a piano/bass duet earlier today and while the space wasn't as conducive to unamped playing (really large room with high ceilings), I stayed low on the instrument did my best to project and it was fine. I'm playing on Spiro Mittels on the E, A and D and a Dominant G. The Dom G is much louder acoustically than the Mittel G on my bass.

The hard part of playing unamplified nowadays is most musicians play a whole lot louder than they used to in the old days. If you play with people who are sensitive to your maximum volume and play accordingly, it is a lot of fun to play without an amp. I don't even care if they overwhelm me at times. If you listen to those old records, the bass would get buried when the volume went up but the volume always went back down again and the bass would pop back out. It was like a natural ebb and flow to the music.

mark

[AndreasH]

The hard part of playing unamplified nowadays is most musicians play a whole lot louder than they used to in the old days. If you play with people who are sensitive to your maximum volume and play accordingly, it is a lot of fun to play without an amp. I don't even care if they overwhelm me at times. If you listen to those old records, the bass would get buried when the volume went up but the volume always went back down again and the bass would pop back out. It was like a natural ebb and flow to the music.

mark

The drummers nowadays need to think more about how they're using their low toms and bassdrum together with an URB and especially if the URB is unamplified.

The low toms and the bassdrums are often in the same frequencies as the first postion notes on the upright bass which buries the bass. If you listen to old jazz recordings the drummers don't use those low toms or the bassdrum a whole lot compared to drummers today.

Free jazz/Avant garde drum legend of the 60's, Sunny Murray played without bassdrum when he played with Albert Aylers group (Gary Peacock on bass) and I don't really miss the bassdrum at all, eventough Gary often plays in the upper registers on these records.

In my opinion, drummers should at least try to use these frequencies more sparingly when playing with an URB to not "occupied" this register.

[AZNBassist]

I don't know if you're already doing this, but its easier to get a bigger sound if you get the entire right arm involved. Rufus Reid talks about using the entire arm in a sort of "chicken wing" motion to pull more sound out of the bass without killing your hand muscles.

Also, when playing acoustically, I find what helps the best is if I stick to more traditional (simandl-like) fingerings and stay closer to the lower positions and using open strings and harmonics as much as possible since the bass resonates more with a longer string length. Hope this helps, good luck man! Playing acoustically is tricky, but with the right people and situation its fantastic!