Ok....Here's what I need...Does it exist?

[TVD]

I posted this on the Rockabillybass forum too, figured I'd post it here as well. I need all the help I can get..lol



Ok, so last night I made my playing upright bass in public debut. It went alright overall, cept for getting the sound set right. The show I played last night was like 40 songs, I played 5 or 6 of them on upright. I use a Samson Airline wireless on my electric bass, but when I just plugged that in my upright, It's a 1960's German made Knilling btw w/ Barefoot Larry's HBSS strings and a RSII pu, it sounded like pure ****. My amp there is a SWR basic 350 watt head, and a Peavey 1810 cab. I need to be able to make a switch pretty quick between electric bass and upright there, like maybe 20-30 seconds between songs as the emcee is talking tops. I told my teacher was I was going to do, so he let me borrow a 3 channel Raven Lars mixer/direct box/buffer, it has individual volume controls on it, but no tone controls. The sound man had an eq he doesn't use, so we tried to hook that up thru that mixer, then I plugged the bass line direct into the mixer instead of the direct box I usually use. After some trail and error there, the EB sounded fine, but we couldn't get much gain out of the upright for some reason. The fiddle player then said he had a preamp I could borrow, a Fishman with some basic tone controls on it, and using that in combo with that mixer worked, had plenty of gain on the upright now, and with that mixer I was able to just mute one channel, unmute the other, and switch between upright and eb quick. I used my wireless on my EB, just plugged a cable from the mixer to the URB. The first half of the show though, I still didn't like at all how the upright sounded, so I played with it a bunch during intermission. What I found was certain notes, esp the G were just super hot and on the edge of feedback when played. To dial that out, I had to turn the bass level on the Fishman preamp to a very low level, not off, but low, below a quarter, I kept the mids and treble about flat. That dailed that annoying overnote sound out, but, it brought the output level way down, so then I had to turn the volume on the mixer for the URB up high, by high I mean not quite all the way up, but close to all the way up. In contrast, the volume on the mixer for the EB channel was between a quarter and half way up, and I was playing a passive MIM Fender P last night.
But, those adjustments I made worked pretty well, the upright sounded MUCH better the 2nd half, the band commented on it right away, said I about had it dialed in right. I wouldn't say it sounded perfect, but it was pretty good. Now if I only knew how to play the upright bass....heh
But anyhow, Is there such a product that acts as a direct box, a mixer with a few channels, that also has an eq on it? I guess that's what I need unless someone else can point me in another direction. Basically I need something that can make both my upright and electic bass sound good thru my amp, and something that makes it fast and easy for me to switch between the two. After the show last night the keyboard player gave me a compresser to play around with he used to use on an acoustic guitar with a piezo pu, so he said maybe you could use this to get rid of that hot note too, cuz I told him exactly how I did get it dailed out last night. I'm open to suggestions. Sorry for being long winded.

[oliebrice]

The D-Tar solstice sounds like it'd do the job. Theres been a lot of discussion about them on this site, if you do a search.
Basically its a 2 channel pre-amp, with eq on each channel.

[drurb]

Originally Posted by TVD

...I use a Samson Airline wireless on my electric bass, but when I just plugged that in my upright, It's a 1960's German made Knilling btw w/ Barefoot Larry's HBSS strings and a RSII pu, it sounded like pure ****...

That's no surprise! Samson lists the input impedance of the transmitter at 2 kohms. The RS II, and just about every other piezo pickup, works best into a load of 1 Mohm or higher. The RS II is even more forgiving than many piezos in this regard-- but 2 kohms is WAY too low.

Whatever you end up doing, make sure the RS II is loaded properly. If it is not, then you will be trying to use other equipment to, as they say, make ice-cream out of ****!

[stockbass]

Don't know how the rs2 is compared to the rs1 - but the rs1 is IMO not a very good pu. Although there are some that like them. After a lot of time refitting and trying to find the sweet spot I got a sound that was IMO not useful. And I tried it on two of my basses. (I compare to other pu:s that I use, such as the realist, underwood and wilson.)

Several pu:s need or like a buffer pre-amp. You can try the behringer adi-21. It's super cheap and can be used as a direct box. If you like what that box do - then you have a very nice upgrade path with f.i. the d-tar products.

td

[Jason Hollar]

An 1820 cab?! Sheesh! I owned two of those years ago.

In addition to adding a blender/preamp...try a "tighter" cabinet like something with 10s or 12s for better control.

[TVD]

Ok, I've done some searching around. What would be the better choice for me between the D-Tar solstice and the Tonebone Bassbone? I don't think the Behringer ADI-21 will work for me cuz it's not a 2 channel unit. I had my RSII professionally installed by a Luthier. Not sure about the exact "sweet spot", but it's plenty hot I know that much.
I got that 1820 cab in a trade, it looks like it's been thru the wringer, but it sounds good. That's really my back up rig though, I just leave it sit up there at that house gig, then use my other rig, a GK 400RBIV w/ a SWR Goliath 4x10 for the rest of my gigs.

[Jason Hollar]

The Dtar will have inputs better suited for your piezo pickup.

The Tone Bone looks like a really cool device...but mainly for electric basses.

[drurb]

Originally Posted by stockbass

Don't know how the rs2 is compared to the rs1 -...

Much better!