Bass for acoustic rock?

[vacuumchild]

I have had an Alvarez Artist ABG with a piezo bridge pickup for over 30 years, and it does find its place in acoustic versions of songs that I otherwise play on my fretless 5 with half-rounds.

• I bought it to have something that sounded really different from my other bass, so it has phosphor bronze strings, and I often play with a pick.
• Yes, it sounds pretty weak/thin unamplified. Not a problem at a private party/living room setting. Needs an amp elsewhere.
• When amplified, it has a really great attack.
• I almost never turn the treble knob up past halfway.
• I usually write new basslines to work with the sound (and the missing string). The guitarist (who usually plays a Strat or SG) is adapting the songs too.
• Violent Femmes are acoustic rock too.

 

[Wesley R]

Way back in ancient history, I used an Ampeg Baby Bass for what you are doing.

Be cool with what you have.

 

[The Veg]

Thanks y'all, very interesting ideas! I'll answer the questions some of y'all had in a bit, maybe tomorrow; I'm about to be offline for a bit.

 

[jthisdell]

I play with a jot of different acoustic groups and musicians. A P bass always works. An acoustic bass guitar does not IME, too much sustain. I also use an NS electric upright, doesn’t sound like an unamplified upright but sounds good enough and the 42 inch scale and upright strings give the same attack, sustain and decay of an upright, plus it is much more transportable and storable.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

I'd say it depends if you can justify/afford buying some sort bass to suit this kind of thing.

Acoustic Bass Guitars are indeed a pain, often sound like a bad guitar. IF I had to have one, I'd get one that would accept one of those soundhole plugs to combat feedback and a dedicated acoustic preamp (BOSS makes two very good ones) to suit the typical bass amp, which can be driven crazy by piezo pickups in some cases. But we're talking some real money here.

Something like the Godins or the ESP thinline hollow body basses would probably be my better choice.

View attachment 7564349
ESP TL4

On the other hand, lots of guys play every kind of solid body bass in acoustic settings, so it's really down to you how big a deal this and what you want to spend.

The bad guitar sound can be fixed by ditching those phosphor bronze strings and using regular bass guitar strings. They won't be as loud acoustically but realistically you'll be plugging in anyway.

My preference would be for a bass with a regular sound hole. You can adapt a regular bass pickup as a soundhole pickup to pair with the standard bass guitar pickup, a magnetic DB pickup, reach in for the glue in piezos rather than the under saddle one or add a mic or all of the above. But note a guitar Fishman Neo doesn't tend to work.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

godin a5 would probably work well.
it is generally agreed upon that ABG's are cool but "don't actually work well."

I have a fretless and I struggle with the preamp, but if I bypass it and use an external one, it sounds very good. I'm using TI Jazz Flats on it. I'm not a fan of the 32" scale.

I had a fretted one, not expensive but I can't remember the brand. It was perfectly decent with TIs on. I wish I'd kept it.

Neither were much use unamplified, though. It was about the look. Earlier acoustic band - fretless J or fretted P as that's all I had apart from a 1980s pointy thing.

 

[Hurricane Jimmie]

Nobody notices the bass player

So Anyway, only if there are no divorce lawyers or bill collectors in the audience.

I had an Epiphone Viola that I used for 'acoustic' gigs. I put a guitar stand on a stool and played it like an upright. I used a small PJB Bass Cub combo or went through the PA.
Playing it like an upright completely changed my note selection. It was fun.

 

[Lammchop93]

What kind of rock? Soft rock, or more alternative?

Days of the New was one of my favorite acoustic hard rock bands back in the day. He used a Spector bass and it just sounded so good with the acoustic guitars.

 

[MD]

I already own two Acoustics so it's a no-brainer for me - ABG all the way.
If I didn't have the acoustics and a new bass wasn't in the cards, I'd grab my old P bass.

>> "it is generally agreed upon that ABG's are cool but "don't actually work well.""
Baloney -

 

[dannylectro]

I use one of these, depending… usually with a GK MB150S

 

[pklima]

If you don't care about going for the archetypal 90s MTV unplugged look and don't like ABGs, you don't need an ABG. I say play what you got, but to make the gig "acoustic", play it while sitting down. That's an observation I made as a joke, but there's some truth to it - playing sitting down is a very common part of the "we are an electric rock band but right now we're being acoustic" thing. If you do want to use these gigs as an excuse to get another bass, then the Godin is a very reasonable option. Or a hollowbody electric. Possibly also a U-bass, though I have no experience with those and don't know how well they rock.

I've done an acoustic gig with a metal band this year, and I played DB and played all except two songs with the bow, but that's very much not what most people would expect from "acoustic rock". In church I'll play a hollowbody - either the fully hollow Atelier Z (feedback prone, but we use headphone monitoring so it's fine) or chambered ESP (which really just sounds like a solidbody, but looks cooler).

ABGs do have a very different slap sound, and this can come in handy if you're doing these gigs without drums, but then you're also getting pretty far outside the acoustic rock tradition. Works for Psycho-Acoustic Goat and in lots of corridos, though.

 

[ClassicJazz]

Someone already posted about the ESP LTD TL-4, and I agree! Great basses. I put on tape wound strings for a more woody tone, but works great with any other type of string. The thing I like besides the tone is they are thin and not bulky to play.

 

[The Veg]

OP I'd be interested to hear what basses you have and what you think of them in the context of the group. Do some feel like they would be more appropriate for the gig?

See my sig, they're all listed there. In this band I play the 5-strings and I do use the sub-E notes. The Tobias is the one I like the most.

 

[The Veg]

Thanks again y'all, great stuff! I'm totally OK with just sticking with my electrics but since the curiosity about doing sump'n different came up, I figured the discussion would be great and y'all delivered on that!

I looked up every bass you guys mentioned that I'd never heard of and a lot of them are pretty cool! You also reminded me of some that I'd forgotten about.

Since several of you mentioned MTV Unplugged, I do remember it- I was in my 20s when it was on. I actually don't remember much about the basses but I do remember being tickled by The Cure's episode in which they made such great creative use of a toy piano and a bunch of kazoos.

I did try an ABG back in the '90s too, though just for the sake of curiosity and not in any actual band-setting. I was still a pretty new player and of very limited ability, and it was a big monster with a 36" scale and a huge body that felt like playing a beer-keg, made by a guy in the town where I was living who made his living building harpsichords and the occasional mandolin or bouzouki. He was an Nth-degree craftsman and made the thing so huge in an attempt to overcome the physics of low-frequencies and did a better job of it than you'd expect but even as big, tall and strapping as I am, I still found it difficult to play and sold it after only few months. Oh and I recall that it had a water-based finish that was always sticky against my skin! I can recall too kinda diggin' the Washburn ABGs that had just come out, the ones with the slots instead of a sound-hole.

But yeah, for now I'm gonna stick with my electrics- they do the job and they're paid-for, and maybe later if this does develop into something then I may experiment a little.

 

[jd56hawk]

-In my experience, acoustic bass guitars usually sound like cardboard and need to be amplified to be heard over anything else anyway.
-And if you have to amplify anyway, is using an ABG worth it?

P basses, Jazz basses, Stingrays, Rics, etc, don't sound too good unplugged, either.
Hey, it's all about tone, and people have been arguing about the tone of the four I listed above for years, and the thing is, an acoustic bass sounds much different than any of them.

I've been playing acoustic bass for 14 years...I never play without an amp, even when I put on new strings.
The thing is, just like with regular basses, some acoustic basses are better than others.


Slightly warmer tone here.

So many battery-powered bass amps available these days, playing without one doesn't make any sense. Hell, I’ve even seen someone playing a street-corner gig with one hanging on his back!
Right now I'm using this...160 watts and only $100 at Walmart! Surprisingly good bass tone.

 

[bassistkll]

I've had great acoustic gigs using my U-Bass.

 

[Hot Rats]

I read through the whole thread, and my opinion is I would use my P-bass with my Fender TV 12. Does anybody know how cool that would be?

 

[-Asdfgh-]

The last time I used by fretless ABG live (it's the only ABG I currently have) was in a folk club with a seating capacity of circa 60 along with one voice and guitar. I still took an 'amplifier' in the sense I took one of my powered monitor speakers of circa 20W into a 6" speaker or whatever it is. It's not much of a boost, but it was absolutely required and was the most discreet set up that was also 'hi-fi'. It may have boosted the sound to 70dB at 1m rather than the 40dB or whatever it puts out naturally strung with TI Jazz Flats (it's not loud). (OK, 40dB is a joke).