Acoustic Bass And Microphone

[Hairycary]

Hello
I would like to know if I could plug a mic into my bass amp and mic my acoustic bass guitar. It is a good acoustic but it has a crappy pick up. Any other suggestions are welcome

 

[Paulabass]

Yes, and no. For a quiet setup, a decent dynamic mike, set up VERY CLOSE, like 2" may work. You'll also need a transformer to get into the high-imp 1/4" input. A better idea would be a medium, or large diaphragm condenser mic, and a phantom power supply (a small mixer would work). Feedback is going to be the issue here, but it will sound better, and allow you to move it a little further away.
My thought- By the time you buy a decent mic, stand, power supply, cables etc. you could have put a really nice p/u in your bass.

 

[Wasnex]

Hello
I would like to know if I could plug a mic into my bass amp and mic my acoustic bass guitar. It is a good acoustic but it has a crappy pick up. Any other suggestions are welcome

Oops! Somehow I read the OP without seeing the word "guitar" . My following response is most relevant to upright bass.

Microphones tend to give a very natural sound, but are likely to pickup the sound of surrounding instruments and generally feedback easily.

IMHO, You would be far better served with a contact pickup. The best I have heard is the Ehrlund.

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Very natural sound and also good feedback resistance. The Ehrlund does required some experimentation to identify the best location for the pickup. They guy I know that has one had a friend listen to different points on the bass with a stethoscope.

Prior to the Ehrlund he had a mic that was purpose-built for bass. I believe it was a K&K. Sounded great when he played solo, but when playing with a drummer, the cymbal wash in his signal was almost as loud as the bass.

A cheaper option that tends to give a fairly natural sound is the Realist. David Gage Realist LifeLine Upright Bass Pickup at Gollihur Music - Double Bass, Upright Bass, String Bass Specialists

What pickup does your bass currently have on it? If it is a piezo, the sound can be drastically improved if you use a preamp to match the piezo's very high impedance. Piezos tend to sound very mid rangy, raspy, and nasally when plugged into most amps because the amp's input impedance is too low. Ideally a piezo needs a 10 meg ohm load.

There are a few suitable preamps on this page. Preamps and Processors, at Gollihur Music - Upright Basses, Pickups, Preamps, Amps, and More

 

[Paulabass]

The Ehrland is wonderful for upright bass. The poster is playing bass guitar, where you often have to touch the top. I'd audition it first.

 

[Wasnex]

The poster is playing bass guitar, where you often have to touch the top. I'd audition it first.

Oops! Somehow I read the post without seeing the word "guitar" .

In my experience the Ehrland is very faithful to the original sound of the instrument. Unless the ABG has really good tone, I doubt the Ehrland would be a good choice. Besides, I believe you can get an ABG with a decent pickup for less than the Ehrland. Obviously the Realist is also not a viable choice for ABG.

Impedance matching could still relevant if the OP's ABG has a piezo pickup, but lacks an onboard preamp,

 

[N. Kentucky Bass]

This explains how to use different mics with an acoustic bass guitar, and different ways to project sound via a piezo pickup.

 

[Wasnex]

Ukian Bass

Great video! I sampled each section and found every part to be an accurate representation of the type of sound you would get with various ABG recording options. Notice how distant and thin, but natural/authentic, the tone is when using a mic and how careful the player has to be to not make extraneous noise. This technique could be used for a recording session providing the bass player tracked separately or is acoustically isolated from the band. I can't imagine an externally mic'ed ABG would be very useful for many live situations or even a living room jam session.

My ABG is a Tacoma Thunderchief with the stock pickup and Fishman preamp. The instrument sounds really nice when plugged into an amp. Like most if not all ABGs, a balance between tone and volume must be struck because the instrument interacts significantly with the acoustic energy coming from the amp/monitors. IMHO, the Thunderchief is one of the better sounding amplified ABGs, but it won't tolerate as loud of stage volume as some because the body is very resonant and I don't have a cover for the wing shaped sound hole.

 

[N. Kentucky Bass]

Here's a new song where I recorded the Taylor AB-1 acoustic bass guitar with a tube-based Peluso 22 251 large diaphragm condenser mic. I used an expander plug in to create a fast attack and fast decay - similar to an upright bass with gut strings. The song includes ABG, dobro, lap steel slide guitar, acoustic guitar and vocals.

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And if you don't have Spotify:

Worry Be Gone (on ReverbNation)

 

[Wasnex]

Here's a new song where I recorded the Taylor AB-1 acoustic bass guitar

Nice. Before I bought my Thunderchief, I had the opportunity to play a Taylor AB-1 at a music store. By far the best acoustic tone of any ABG I have ever played. The instrument was also among the loudest across the G, D, A strings, but the volume dropped off when played lower.