the contrabass sound

diamond_geezer · #1 04-01-2010, 07:53 AM

Hey,
I've got an electric upright bass and was wondering if anyone knew of a bass guitar pedal that well "simulates" the acoustic, stand-up sound. Adding some digital assistance might assist the tone even further than the fretless, 35" model is already doing.

Swimming Bird · #2 04-01-2010, 08:31 AM

Short answer: no, such a pedal doesn't exist. There are some multi fx that have upright simulators built in that don't work well.

Long answer: there are options and some pedals that sort of work, but it's been covered a whole bunch of times. Please do a search.

kugelspot · #3 04-01-2010, 09:45 PM

I asked this question on the EUB forum a while back. The answer is no. There are a number of pickups that will probably sound more uprighty than the stock ones in your bass, but no pedals.

There are a some pedals that can make an acoustic electic guitar sound more like an acoustic, but the EUB people said they only really work on the higher notes.

To me this sounds lke a range issue, and correcting it may be as simple as switching out a few caps. So if anyone would be willing to get one of these pedals (such as the ElectroniX Stronghold) and mod it for EUB, I'd love to hear the results

kugelspot · #4 04-06-2010, 08:14 PM

OK guys, bumping with good news. I sent Os an email asking about modding a Stronghold. Here's his reply:

Quote:

Matt,

I wish I had known that Stronghold is being discussed over there. Because yes, it will only work at upper registers. However, Stronghold is the modified version of Submarine and both Submarines would work equally good with an upright. The input impedance is high enough and they are capable of giving that "open" sound.

The basic difference between Submarine and Submarine Designer is versatility. Please feel free to ask more questions would you have any.

Cheers,
Os

Anyone with a Submarine and an EUB want to see how well this works?

Taylor Livingston · #5 04-06-2010, 08:52 PM

A good preamp with the proper input impedance and some tone-shaping will make an EUB sound better, but it will not make it sound much like an acoustic upright. It's unfortunately not that simple. An acoustic-electric guitar is actually an acoustic resonating body with a soundboard, so making it sound less electric is largely a matter of impedance and EQ. But making a solid hunk of wood sound like an acoustic instrument is one of the holy grails of audio processing. Even getting an actual doublebass, once amplified, to sound like an unamplified doublebass is very difficult.

I had an EUB for a while and it was a great instrument if you think of it as its own thing, but I ultimately decided that I could never get what I wanted (which was to sound like a real DB). I tried some much more complex processing techniques, by using digital convolution reverb to convolve my EUB with sampled impulse responses from a DB. Even that couldn't get me there. EUBs can do their own thing, which is cool, and I think as long as you don't try to make them something they're not, you make some great music with them.

RCCollins · #6 04-06-2010, 08:57 PM

your choice of strings might get you closer than any processor i can think of

kugelspot · #7 04-07-2010, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by conical johnson

A good preamp with the proper input impedance and some tone-shaping will make an EUB sound better, but it will not make it sound much like an acoustic upright. It's unfortunately not that simple. An acoustic-electric guitar is actually an acoustic resonating body with a soundboard, so making it sound less electric is largely a matter of impedance and EQ. But making a solid hunk of wood sound like an acoustic instrument is one of the holy grails of audio processing. Even getting an actual doublebass, once amplified, to sound like an unamplified doublebass is very difficult.

I had an EUB for a while and it was a great instrument if you think of it as its own thing, but I ultimately decided that I could never get what I wanted (which was to sound like a real DB). I tried some much more complex processing techniques, by using digital convolution reverb to convolve my EUB with sampled impulse responses from a DB. Even that couldn't get me there. EUBs can do their own thing, which is cool, and I think as long as you don't try to make them something they're not, you make some great music with them.

Normally you'd be right, but the reason I'm saying this is because the Stronghold is supposed to make an acoustic electric sound more woody and open, like an acoustic, and the Submarine is just a Stronghold tuned for bass (or vice versa?), so it should do the same thing on bass. It won't make it sound exactly like an acoustic, but it should help a bit.

So does anyone want to try this or do I have to take the plunge?

etoncrow · #8 04-07-2010, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kugelspot

OK guys, bumping with good news. I sent Os an email asking about modding a Stronghold. Here's his reply:

Anyone with a Submarine and an EUB want to see how well this works?

I have an Azola Bug Bass II EUB and I also have a Submarine DE on order. I'll let you know the results.

Taylor Livingston · #9 04-07-2010, 10:59 AM

Yes, but it's a simple matter of the limitations of technology. I haven't looked at a schematic of any of these pedals, but I'm confident in guessing that they are preamps, no more and no less. As I said, a preamp designed for piezos is essential to a good EUB sound, but it just cannot make an EUB sound like a DB. I have designed my own piezo preamps, so it's not like I don't know what I'm talking about.

But I'll be happy if it works out for you. As I said before, I delved deep into a variety of technologies to make EUB sound like DB, designing elaborate preamps, digital processors, etc. and none of those solutions got me close. So if you find a solution, I'll be very interested to hear about it (and hear it).

Woodpecker · #10 04-11-2010, 12:17 PM

I would answer the question with a "maybe"...
I bought a Boss AC-3 (Acoustic Simulator) just for the heck of it and tried it out on all my basses. On my Fender jazz, 2 oft my 4-strings and some other 5-strings... well, how should I put this... No. Useless. But on my 6-string the result was... well... fair I would say. I don't know/understand why though.
But no effect pedal can ever come close to the real thing or something like the HotWire Double Bass; http://www.hotwire-bass.de/index_en.htm