Double Bass Amplifying my baby

[The Soloist]

Hello, once again, good people of TalkBass.com! With every one of my inquiries, you always seem to have an answer! So please don't fail me now!
As I'm becoming a better bassist, I've been getting more use of my instrument in scenarios that I need amplification. Last night I played my first jazz gig with a big band (on very short notice, too). However, I had to play electric bass, because of how poor my upright set-up is. What I'm looking for you guys to help me get a new set-up, so I can perform more and grow as a musician.
A while ago I had a Fishman-brand pickup installed onto my bass, but it doesn't deliver what I thought it would. All I run it through is a small 15W or so practice amp, an amp that came with my entry-level electric bass. I don't like the sound of it at all. The tone is rather chalky, and it makes too much noise when I position switch (from running the fingers down the fretboard: it's oversensitive in that sense.) I don't know, however, if this is the fault of my pickup or my amp, for I know there exist amps built solely for the string bass. I would be much obliged if you great, helpful people would give me advice, such as what amp goes great with the Fishman pickup or whether I need to just scrap that and get a new pickup. Also, I know it is somewhat of a pipe-dream, but I'd like to know if there is any tasteful way to amplify a BOWED bass, as from what I know, it is much easier said than done. What I'm more concerned with, though, is the jazz set-up. Thank you all for your time!

~TheSoloist

 

[Steve Freides]

The better you learn to bow, the better your bass will sound amplified when you bow - the amplification just exaggerates any flaws in your (and my - ugh) technique.

I use an inexpensive pickup and like it a lot. Go here, click Products - the one I use is the Original.

http://www.sixrounds.com

IMHO, the more expensive pickups will magnify any bowing problems you have more, not less, than the cheap pickup.

For what it costs, it's kind of hard to go wrong here - if you don't like it, you're only out $50.

In the interest of completeness, my bass is an Eberle carved 3/4 size, and my amp/speaker is Acoustic Image.

-S-
http://www.kbnj.com

 

[Ric Vice]

Soloist,
Since there are two different types of Fishman Pickups, The BP-100 or the Full Circle. It's hard to give you advice. So if you fill out your profile we can do a much better job of helping you.
That said, we also need to know what kind of investment you want to make because, frankly, everyone usually has some kind of budget in mind when they decide to do this.
As to the bowing issue, nothing beats a microphone IME, IMHO, so there are several types and brands of microphones we could reccommend. Unfortunately, that probably won't be as useful for pizzicato playing. The Realist is a nice pickup that will do both, as long as you aren't going to play above a medium volume levels. But if you already have a Fishman Full Circle, it will work well for that too, it can get significantly louder and is not as dark as the Realist. That little 15 watt practice amp will fold when you try to play through it, so, you should try your bass and pickup out through someone's amp that you like to see how it sounds. Then, if you like the pickup we are half the way there.

Ric

 

[maveriten]

Fishman Full Circle or Gage Realist (depending on the tonal characteristics of your bass) > Any high quality instrument cable > Euphonic Audio or Acoustic Image amps cabinets or combos in whatever configuration best suites your output needs.

Having summed up about 100,000 posts, and saved you a solid year of reading, feel free to make payment directly to me.