Double Bass Amping a Cello

[GregL]

Would appreciate any info on amping a cello. Do I need a bass amp that picks up more mid and upper-range?

Thankee

 

[AMJBASS]

I think the same "rules" apply to cello as a bass. An Acoustic Image set up would I am sure be perfect.

 

[paganjack]

I play the cello in my band often enough, and I find that when my amp is set flat, it sounds really honky. So I generally scoop the mids a bit, to smooth it out and make it sound a lot warmer. Since there is no bass for me to compete with when I'm on the cello, it doesn't matter that I am sucking up all that low-end frequency space. IF you were playing cello in a band where there was another bassist, then yes, you may want to leave your amp flat, or possibly even boost that 400Hz-1Khz range, where the cello really lives (in a band mix anyway).

I have used several bass amps for my cello and am currently running it's realist pickup into a Mesa Buster combo. Any bass amp should work well enough, but I love the sound of tubes. Cello sounds way more organic with an all-tube amp. I have also used guitar amps to decent enough effect; there isn't all that much sub-100Hz content for the cello. That said, I prefer bass amps for the instrument.

 

[GregL]

or possibly even boost that 400Hz-1Khz range, where the cello really lives (in a band mix anyway).

I have also used guitar amps to decent enough effect; there isn't all that much sub-100Hz content for the cello. That said, I prefer bass amps for the instrument.

Thanks Jack, but did you mean sub- 100Hz or sub 1Khz on the guitar amp?

 

[paganjack]

I'm no expert on guitar amps, but I think that they roll off around 100Hz pretty hard? Maybe I'm way off target...It might be higher than that, probably depends a lot of the speaker cab design, etc.

Cello is all about mids, as you are aware, and I'm sure that some people would be happy using a guitar amp for the cello. It really depends on the sound you're shooting for. I want mine to sound really full, getting even into bass range, so that's why I EQ the way I do.

 

[nic salsus]

if the thing sounds good acoustically i would first put a David Gage pickup on it. then i'd get a preamp like a D-TAR that also acts as a DI and a buffer for the pickup. with these two things you can plug into any PA and use that as your amp. this may be all you ever need. if you do need a personal amp you can add a power amp (i've been happy with the tiny and inexpensive stewart PA 50B and 100B's for years) and a speaker cab. modular is not as easy to deal with but it's waaaaaaaay more flexible and that's always made it worthwhile for me.