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Double Bass Afterlength muting, the H clamp, and further proof that Einstein wasn't born in KY

#61
Chris Fitzgerald said:
Here are a couple of pics of the placement I used on the two gigs this week. The sound on the gig last night was really solid.
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That mic placement is rather unique isn't it Chris? It certainly isn't a location where I'd start off pointing a mic at on the instrument. Just shows us that "whatever works" is kind of the rule of thumb. My guess is that every instrument is gonna be different. Nice lookin' axe. Real clean.

Ric
 
#62
Ric Vice said:
That mic placement is rather unique isn't it Chris? It certainly isn't a location where I'd start off pointing a mic at on the instrument. Just shows us that "whatever works" is kind of the rule of thumb.
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I thought is was a little odd, too, but there it is. Basically, what I heard as i moved the mic around was that the fattest sound was to be found in the middle of the table far from anything that would keep the table from vibrating. The sound would start to thin out a bit as the mic moved toward the sides or the bridge feet/soundpost area. I actually found this place by starting under the fingerboard and then moving out when the original sound prooved too "wooley". Weird, I know..
 
#64
Jake deVilliers said:
That's almost exactly where Todd Phillips mikes his bass. In the studio he has one up there pretty close and one out front of the bridge for fatness. I bet it sounds great. :)
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Pretty common mic placement combo in my humble experience. Edgar Meyer discussed that technique in one of those old Bass Player Mag interviews. Chris's mic placement is a very sweet spot indeed!
 
#66
Chris Fitzgerald said:
I've been playing sessions for the past 9 months or so at the very mansionlike abode of Link Removed a great KY expatriate pianist who recently retired back to the homeland after a few decades out west. His music room has a 20 foot ceiling, stone and glass walls, and a tile floor, and houses a great 7' Schimmel grand and a nice drum kit. The playing and the players are great, but he insists that the bass be unamplified for all of the sessions.

For the whole time I've been playing there, I've just unpacked my bass with the afterlength still muted with foam and with the mic crammed up against the bridge. While I could always get a good sound, it was always a bit too quiet compared to the piano and drums, and sounded kind of tight. Today, since we were recording, I thought I'd try removing all of the muting stuff and the mic and see if it helped at all.

Whoah, Nellie...did it ever. The sound fattened up a ton, especially on the G string, and the bass vibrated about twice as much. Very liberating. Very nice. And also, you'd think, very obvious. If you weren't a dumb hillbilly from KY, that is.:hiding:

Anyway, I think I'll be trying the H clamp real soon. If - in between telling me what a chump I've been all this time for not figuring this out sooner - some of you could reassure me that the H clamp will hold up my Beta 57 nicely without restricting the vibration of the bass too much, that would be lovely. :)

Hoo-ahh!
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Gee Chris, I can think of a hillbilly right here in Your home town who has always said to take all that stuff off to play unamplified. I think he spells his name D A N G E R . Your bass still sounds better than mine though. looking forward to checking out the new stuff.
 
#67
chris i have tried the sm57 a little bit but have not had great results. i have not tried using a preamp, i just plugged staight into my contra seriesII combo with a low z to high z adaptor the sound was not very audable and sounded way off in the distance. it seems like folks are having good success with these mic's, would a preamp help get a usable sound. i have tried your rubber band method as well as many different mic placement with out much success, would love to get a good mic'ed sound, just having trouble finding it. please help, anybody with advise welcome, just directed this at chris because he sounds really happy with his sm57 and it is the only mic i have.
 
#68
Seems like what you're describing should work and not sound "far away" like you said, especially with the mic in close to the top of the bass.

I am using a Focus, no external preamp, no EQ, no filters. Seems like your 57 should work. Chris's 57 is a Beta. That spot he depicted has a lot of sound (i.e. signal) on my bass w/ the mic in close.
 
#69
Damm, Durrl, I'm gone have to try'er there. I did the "up betwen the bridge feet" last night and that worked like it alwasy does (and I was pretty happy with it). You end up having to dial out a lot of low end response, but that's OK. By most reports, it still sounded nice and woody out front.
 
#72
DURRL - christ andronis was kind enough to send me the H to check out, so I took it to the session last night - I generally use my teacher's studio bass which is an early 20th century Bohemian or Czech that is not as loud as my bass and generally thinner sounding. So I do play the sessions without an amp, but I'm never really happy doing so, this bass really tends to choke as you dig into it.
Anyway, since I have the H with me, I go ahead an put it on th e bass and use (get this) some kind of Beyer mic that has a molded quarter inch plug on one end of the cord and is permanently fixed to the mic at the other end. This goes into a mid 70s Univox combo amp with a 15" speaker. I had the mic arranged as you recommend and, lo and behold, it actually sounds pretty nice. The guys couldn't believe I even had it turned on, until I tunred it off for comparison's sake.

Definitely gonna have to try that out with my "real" mic....
 
#73
Ed Fuqua said:
Anyway, since I have the H with me, I go ahead an put it on th e bass and use (get this) some kind of Beyer mic that has a molded quarter inch plug on one end of the cord and is permanently fixed to the mic at the other end. This goes into a mid 70s Univox combo amp with a 15" speaker. I had the mic arranged as you recommend and, lo and behold, it actually sounds pretty nice. The guys couldn't believe I even had it turned on, until I tunred it off for comparison's sake.

Definitely gonna have to try that out with my "real" mic....
Click to expand...
Nice rig.

Now you guys have me thinking about my damn mic again.
 
#80
I tried and liked that placement as well. Especially since it puts the mic and clamp out of the way of the bow.

But again, my carved bass is to round to accommodate the clamp in that spot, it slipped off with only a slight nudge. My carved bass is one of the few that the H-clamp won't work on.

Played a dance gig the other night and noticed the Sennheiser E 604's on the drum kit, in the places that 57's were used in the past. Very impressive sounding there. With the attached mic clip and small, lightweight size. They sure look like they'd work well with the H-Clamp. And inexpensive as well.

Maybe a lighter weight mic would eliminate the slippage problems I had with the H-Clamp on my bass!
 
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