Quality arco amplification

[endorka]

Over the last year or so much of my work has involved playing in a band where I was initially using mostly bass guitar, but rather quickly the double bass took its place, especially once the greater sonic possibilities became apparent. The lineup of the band is vocals/guitar, guitar/vocals, keys/vocals, double bass/bass guitar, and drum kit. The music is very varied and quite tricky to define, but on the myspace is described as "Pop / Rock / Acoustic", which is close enough :-)

The band are all excellent musicians, and while the volume can get pretty rocky, it is by no means overly loud onstage. We usually play halls varying in capacity from 200-500 people, and there is always good front of house and monitors. We have a soundman who really knows his stuff and the music, and room permitting, it is usually possible to get a good band sound both onstage and off. Despite this, I have been experiencing real difficulty getting a good double bass sound for the purpose of monitoring myself onstage.

I think I've been able to get a good pizzicato sound, and indeed a recent live recording confirmed this. However, The arco always sounds terrible from my point of view. It's apparently ok from the front of house speakers, but what I hear is really offputting, and I have to employ huge psychological tricks to "hear through it" and keep on playing as best I can. It just never sounds like the instrument does acoustically; there is too much scratchiness, but if I remove too much top, it is too bassy, especially for lines played on the G string. I never seem able to get the balance correct!

It's beginning to really frustrate me because the bow works well in this music, but I never think I am doing the music or myself justice with the current setup, which is;

Reasonable-ish Zeller double bass
Fishman BP-100 pickup
Bass Pod XT Live

I use the Pod to add a bit of valve amp simulation, which seems to help quite a bit. The output from the Pod is then split two ways, one goes to the PA, the other two my amp, and Eden cxc110 with additional d112xlt speaker. I place this stack on table facing my ears to avoid feedback and give me direct sound. There is usally very little of the bass going through the other musician's monitors. I usually do without a monitor because I get sufficient foldback from everyone else's.

The setup seems fairly elaborate, but I'm just not getting good results for arco. The tiniest intonation errors scream out in a way they just don't when I'm playing the instrument acoustically. The horrible sound makes me cringe. It's just not the sound I hear in my head, or when I play the instrument acoustically. And as I turn up the volume, the sound just gets worse. I find that I'm either hearing myself too much, or too little, in which case I only hear myself when I go out of tune - not good! And the sound is just wrong; it's as if I'm hearing the bad overtones, or something akin to that.

To help avoid feedback I literally put a sock in the f-holes.

I've tried using a clip on microphone (golden bullet) and various larger mics mounted on an H-clamp, which works for some situations such as playing in a pit band or orchestra, but just isn't really suitable for higher volume situations such as this one. In any case, the mic can never really work as foldback for myself due to feedback issues, I have to rely on the pickup for that.

When I've had the opportunity to use other amps, I've found better results with Ashdowns, Aguilar, and Trace Elliots. Ampeg 8x10 speakers sound ok, but the Ampeg amps don't. I've tried using a Hartke 2000 amp with my Eden speakers; great with bass guitar, not so good with double bass, although it may be worth another try...

I have a K&K golden trinity preamp, which is necessary for the golden bullet mic, but I wasn't entirely convinced it made a huge difference to the pickup - the Eden preamp has a 1 megohm input in any case.

I took my NS Design WAV4 EUB out on the road with the band for a bit, which solved a lot of the sound problems, but it is not the ideal instrument for arco playing as it is a "stick" type instrument and I can't get the same stability as I do with the DB. The lack of a neck heel is also a problem.

Something I may try at next rehearsal is placing a small active monitor at head level point right at me; but I still suspect the arco will sound horrid. Others have suggested getting in ear monitors.

Woe oh woe! It is frustrating to have the opportunity to use the double bass in this creative way thwarted by bad onstage sound. I know of a few double bassists who have played successfully in similar situations, such as Danny Thompson and Shannon Birchall from the John Butler Trio, so presumably it can be done.

I'd really welcome any advice and suggestions as to how a good amplified arco sound could be achieved. I don't have a huge budget, but if necessary I could stretch to a little bit of gear to help the cause.

Any help much appreciated!

Jennifer

[damonsmith]

Most pick up besides the old fishman can get a decent arco sound. I love the old polytone bar for arco, but realists sound good, even an underwood can work.
One key thing is to practice arco amplified, it is a different instrument when amplified and to certain extent you have to treat it as such.

I can like the arco sound from a fishman in a '70s and '80s free jazz way. Fred Hopkins always sounded great.

[Eric Hochberg]

The realist should solve the arco problem if you are looking for a fairly natural sound. It is a "body" PU as opposed to a bridge wing PU. I don't like it for pizz, but many do. As Damon said, most of the PUs will work, but they will probably need EQ adjustments from Pizz to arco to get them to sound the way you want. You may want to get a parametric EQ device to fine tune.

[hensonbass]

Check out this link:

Toby Timber's Vektor pick up review

I use the Vektor p/u on my 7/8 Prescott and it is the best arco pickup I've ever heard, probably because it essentially is a microphone. I have played church orchestra gigs where they took my signal from the Vektor pickup into a DI box into the soundboard and it performed wonderfully. Much easier and better isolation than a typical microphone.

If you want to stick to a piezo pickup the Realist, Upton Revelution or the Full-Circle will have better arco response than a BP-100 or Underwood.

For pizz I blend the Vektor with a Underwood pickup just to give the sound a bit more intial attack and punch/volume. I'm sure your Fishman BP-100 would blend ok as well.

To blend the signals I would recommend the Headway EDB1 preamp. I've used K&K, Radial, Fishman, Acoustic Image preamps in the past. This preamp smokes them all:

Headway EDB1 preamp

[longfinger]

hey there,

Just to let you know, your review of the CXC110 helped me decide on buying an Eden combo. (DCX112XLT, and the two-wheeler to cart it.)

I used to have the Fishman BP-100, now I have the Fishman Full Circle. The BP-100 was problematic for me with arco playing even acoustically, as those clamps choked the bridge. Amplified, well the contacts were so close to the strings, they picked up all sorts of weird stuff.
(Perhaps the air is filtering out this weird stuff, so the the FOH speakers sound fine?)

The Full Circle does not seem to have any negative acoustic problems, and the arco sound seems quite decent. (I guess the wood of the bridge filters out some weird stuff before the vibrations reach the piezo contact.)

Some friends have the Gage Realist, and they have decent arco amplified sound too.

[endorka]

Thanks so much for all the responses, it is really appreciated. It would appear that my current pickup is probably the worst possible choice for what I am trying to achieve, which is actually quite good news since it is an affordable fix.

I'm going to get a shortlist of all the suggested pickups and see if I can audition them before buying anything... there are likely some players around here who are using at least some of them. Certainly I think the Realist is quite popular.

Switching EQ settings between pizz and arco would be no problem as I can easily do this using the Bass Pod XT Live. I'm also not averse to combing the sound from two different pickups if one is better for pizz and the other for arco.

The Vektor sounds really interesting as I am a huge fan of using microphones on the double bass. Could you tell me what tolerance it has for feedback versus a piezo pickup and perhaps also a regular microphone?

Jennifer

[hensonbass]

Originally Posted by endorka

The Vektor sounds really interesting as I am a huge fan of using microphones on the double bass. Could you tell me what tolerance it has for feedback versus a piezo pickup and perhaps also a regular microphone?

Jennifer

The Vektor will feedback sooner than a piezo pickup, but not as fast as a typical microphone because you will have no bleed from other sound sources (drums, amps, ect.) with the Vektor's design.

I experiment a lot with the placement of the Vektor. There is a big variance in sound compared to where it it sits on the soundboard. To start I plug the Vektor into a headphone amp with no eq and listen through headphones to hear what placement has the most natural tone. Does the bass project evenly in all registers? When you find the "sweet spot" that is tonally balanced I then plug into my amp.

You will find the Vektor can gain up pretty high providing your amp system is of good quality and has a somewhat flat frequency response. I also find that smaller cabs with smaller drivers work better when amplifying DB. A flexible eq on your stand alone preamp or amp system can help fight feedback as it occurs due to a wolf tone or other loud tone.

[endorka]

...I phoned a friend and it turns out he has a Realist he isn't currently using, so has given me a loan of it to try out. VERY interesting:

1) It has a better pizz sound than the BP100
2) It has a better arco sound than the BP100
3) It doesn't do the funny wobbly low frequency jelly thing the BP100 sometimes does.
4) It is more resistant to feedback than the BP100

A big improvement all round then.

Jennifer

[BassicJerry]

Being in the bass business, I notice that manufacturers fail to promote the two most basic properties of the pickups they sell.

First: geometry. Close to the strings means (you guessed it) more string sound and less feedback. Pickups closer to, or touching, the body are modified by the resonances of the acoustic instrument. For arco, you need more of the latter. There's more to this topic, but this is a short answer.

Second: input impedance reqirements. Most acoustic instrument pickups are piezo electric, and therefore electrically capacitive. When a piezo electric pickup is connected to an input with too low an impedance, a filter is formed which drains bass off to ground - not usually good for bass players. This is why small preamps can be so effective: the input impedance is changed to 1-10 megohms instead of 10-100 kilohms for mixers and instrument amps. Some pickups are more sensitive to this effect than others.

JB

[Jake Reber]

I'm having similar problems, and revived an old topic of mine concerning them before I saw this post. Are you using a preamp with the realist?

[endorka]

Since my last post on this thread I've been able to test the Realist in the exact situation I described as problematic in the first place, i.e. moderately loud rock type band. And I am happy to report that using the Realist in conjunction with some of the advice from Uncle Toad in the following post has solved all the problems;

Stopping Feedback in LOUD Settings

I'm getting a great fat double bass sound for pizz and arco, and I can hear myself just fine onstage using only my Eden cxc110 as a monitor - no need for additional speakers. Playing arco in this situation is now a joy rather than an experience to be endured, so thanks to everyone for their help sorting this out!

Jake, I'm not using a preamp with the Realist, but the cxc110 I use has a preamp designed for acoustic pickups, with a 1 megohm input impedence rating, which I believe is standard for most of the preamps anyway. Maybe an amp with a lower impedence would not be so good?

Jennifer