Double Bass Compressors?

[DDDan]

All good comments here, but one thing I miss a bit... The way a compressor alters your sound totally depends on the settings. Because a lot of pedal compressors don't have a lot of controls (the very cool API being and exception), and usually have a short attack time of around 10ms which kills part of the attack, a lot of musicians see a compressor as a sustainer, for a more mellow sound. But that doesn't have to be true.
Wasnex who mentioned the NS EUB which had 'almost no thumb' could try to add a compressor with settings as I described earlier: you let the attack pass through by setting the compressor to only kick in after the attack (so with a slow attack time, around 50ms) and then your bass will have slightly more attack, because the cmp will pass the first part of the sound unaltered, and will only turn the volume down after the initial attack part, thus emphasising the attack. Release would depend on the content.
I taught audio engineering for some years, and when explaining compressors I always used to say: a compressor is nothing more more than an automated volume control. You decide at what level the volume should start going down (the threshold), how much it should go down compared to the input (the ratio), how fast it should turn the volume down after the sound exceeds the threshold (the attack time) and how fast it should go back to the original level once the signal starts falling back to the threshold level. (the release time)
Because a normal compressor (as opposed to an expander) always turns the volume down, the average output of a working compressor is always lower than the input. And this is where the makeup gain is for.
Last but least more and more compressor have a dry/wet control, which gives you the option to mix the uncompressed with the compressed sound.
And then some have fancy stuff like side chain filters, knee, etc.
No matter the instrument, wether it is a kick drum or a bass, the rules are in a nutshell more or less the same:
With short attack times you get less attack, and combined with longer release times more sustain, with longer attack times you emphasise the attack. So if your kick misses attack, you'll compress it's release with a longer attack, etc. With very long release times you can emphasise the groove of a track.
It is a tool to reshape the envelope of your sound. However, if the player doesn't play very consistent in volume, the reshaping will never be the same, and only present on notes that actually exceed the threshold.
And this is the important difference between live and studio use; in the studio you can set the threshold exactly, on a song per song base, and even change it within a track using automation, and choose the settings based on the tempo of the song (set the release time for instance to an eight note length) and the style of playing.
Live this is not really possible, unless you play in a big budget band, like Tony Levin. (who also uses a pitch shifter in Sledgehammer)

One of the most common pitfalls of compressor lie in the makeup gain. (which some compressors do automatically, the lower the threshold, the higher the make up gain)
Because we are very sensitive to volume, we tend to say something sounds better if it is louder. When using too much make up gain the output of the compressor will be higher than in bypass, causing people to say that with a compressor it sounds better, while it is only louder. If you carefully calibrate the track with and the one without compression to play at the same volume then often the opposite is true: the track with compression is actually duller and less defined than the one without compression, especially true with short attack times. Our ears identify and spot an instruments character mainly based on the first transients, and those are the ones which suffer from compressors with short attack times, making the instrument sound more dull.

Using a compressor not as an envelope reshaping tool, but a volume control to even out unwanted volume differences is possible with relative longer attack and release times. I tend to say that for live playing that is the job of the player and almost impossible to replace by a compressor (unless you can change all settings per song) , and in the studio fader automation is then often a better choice, unless your style of music asks for a 'compressed sound'.

Daniel

 

[Wasnex]

All good comments here, but one thing I miss a bit... The way a compressor alters your sound totally depends on the settings. Because a lot of pedal compressors don't have a lot of controls (the very cool API being and exception), and usually have a short attack time of around 10ms which kills part of the attack, a lot of musicians see a compressor as a sustainer, for a more mellow sound. But that doesn't have to be true.
Wasnex who mentioned the NS EUB which had 'almost no thumb' could try to add a compressor with settings as I described earlier: you let the attack pass through by setting the compressor to only kick in after the attack (so with a slow attack time, around 50ms) and then your bass will have slightly more attack, because the cmp will pass the first part of the sound unaltered, and will only turn the volume down after the initial attack part, thus emphasising the attack. Release would depend on the content.
I taught audio engineering for some years, and when explaining compressors I always used to say: a compressor is nothing more more than an automated volume control. You decide at what level the volume should start going down (the threshold), how much it should go down compared to the input (the ratio), how fast it should turn the volume down after the sound exceeds the threshold (the attack time) and how fast it should go back to the original level once the signal starts falling back to the threshold level. (the release time)
Because a normal compressor (as opposed to an expander) always turns the volume down, the average output of a working compressor is always lower than the input. And this is where the makeup gain is for.
Last but least more and more compressor have a dry/wet control, which gives you the option to mix the uncompressed with the compressed sound.
And then some have fancy stuff like side chain filters, knee, etc.
No matter the instrument, wether it is a kick drum or a bass, the rules are in a nutshell more or less the same:
With short attack times you get less attack, and combined with longer release times more sustain, with longer attack times you emphasise the attack. So if your kick misses attack, you'll compress it's release with a longer attack, etc. With very long release times you can emphasise the groove of a track.
It is a tool to reshape the envelope of your sound. However, if the player doesn't play very consistent in volume, the reshaping will never be the same, and only present on notes that actually exceed the threshold.
And this is the important difference between live and studio use; in the studio you can set the threshold exactly, on a song per song base, and even change it within a track using automation, and choose the settings based on the tempo of the song (set the release time for instance to an eight note length) and the style of playing.
Live this is not really possible, unless you play in a big budget band, like Tony Levin. (who also uses a pitch shifter in Sledgehammer)

One of the most common pitfalls of compressor lie in the makeup gain. (which some compressors do automatically, the lower the threshold, the higher the make up gain)
Because we are very sensitive to volume, we tend to say something sounds better if it is louder. When using too much make up gain the output of the compressor will be higher than in bypass, causing people to say that with a compressor it sounds better, while it is only louder. If you carefully calibrate the track with and the one without compression to play at the same volume then often the opposite is true: the track with compression is actually duller and less defined than the one without compression, especially true with short attack times. Our ears identify and spot an instruments character mainly based on the first transients, and those are the ones which suffer from compressors with short attack times, making the instrument sound more dull.

Using a compressor not as an envelope reshaping tool, but a volume control to even out unwanted volume differences is possible with relative longer attack and release times. I tend to say that for live playing that is the job of the player and almost impossible to replace by a compressor (unless you can change all settings per song) , and in the studio fader automation is then often a better choice, unless your style of music asks for a 'compressed sound'.

Daniel

This is some good info .

I am familiar with slowing down the attack to emphasis the front end of notes. In my experience this tends to emphasize the high frequency transient of the attack rather than the thump, which I believe is more low frequency in nature. Also it's not just about letting the thump through. There needs to be a certain envelope or shape to the way the thumb transient develops and decays in the first place. So it's not just about the front edge of the notes. Lastly a compressor will tend to increase sustain, and short sustain is generally considered a defining characteristic of upright bass.

The NS Design has two factors going against it: 1. The front end of the notes do not possess a transient with the right profile, 2. The notes sustain way too long. A compressor may be helpful in some instances with 1., but I think it will tend to have very limited utility unless the player uses extremely limited dynamic range. In other words, it may be helpful if the player is playing everything mF, but as soon as the player hits FF or P the effect will be compromised because the threshold is no longer in the right place to properly shape the note envelope. Pretty sure the compressor is always going increase sustain (factor 2.).

Providing you are willing to appropriately limit your dynamic range, I think you may be able to make the sound more authentic within a certain note range on the instrument, but it will not be possible to track nuances of how upright bass's tone and note envelope changes as you play up and down the neck. The changes on upright are way more extreme than bass guitar.

The sucess of using a mute on an EUB to force the note envelope to be more like an acoustic UB also has limited success. If you get one range of the instrument sounding fairly authentic, the other ranges usually do not.

That being said, I am by no means opposed to you are anyone else experimenting, so give it try and post some recordings of your success. Even if you can't make an EUB sound like an acoustic UB with a compressor, I am sure you can do some other cool things with it.

I suspect some sort of dynamic eq, a (downward) expander gate, and some gated reverberation/early reflections would be more effective than a compressor. But to be effective the settings would need to change as you play up and down the neck. Also the threshold would need to automatically adjust to whatever level the instrument is producing for a given note. Whether in existing devices could be adjusted in the manner necessary to do what we are talking about is another matter...but I do think such devices could be made.

You might have better success with some sort of IP response modelling, which I believe is what the Yamaha SLB300 does. I wonder if a Audio Sprockets ToneDexter would be tricked into doing what you want. I.E. Set up the modeling using an acoustic upright and then play on an EUB.

Here is a post that links to other threads you may find interesting:
Upright bass modelling...

 

[DDDan]

Hi again, well to clarify, this slow attack compressor settings I've used when mixing an EUB, and then it can help, because you're in control, especially when you first level the track. As explained earlier, I am not a fan of using compression live on EUB (well, actually on almost any live instrument) because of the lack of control over the levels and threshold in a live situation.
And I forgot to mention the volume control on the EUB. As soon as you adjust that volume, the compressor responds different when playing live.
I've been on that holy grail queeste of turning my EUB into an AUB (I have both, but hate to take the AUB to gigs and rehearsals for many reasons), and tried almost anything you can imagine. It was during the Covid days, when I had time to kill. ToneDexter was one of them, but also different pickups, other IR software, DSP, modifying my bass, etc. I posted some stuff about the ToneDexter in that forum.
Main differences are the 'bloom' and the way too long sustain of most EUBs. After experimenting I realised that one the most basic recording rules also applies to this subject: a good source is the start of a good recording.
Instead of trying to alter/improve my sound afterwards, I should look for an EUB that mimics the physics of an AUB as close as possible. You'll never get the acoustic complexity of an AUB on an EUB because there is no large resonating body, but mimicking the bloom and sustain should be more possible than most EUB do. (I had an NS and a Yamaha SLB200)
After looking at the design of many EUBs I ordered an Alter Ego Carbon EUB, which has some unique design principles that most other EUBs don't have, most important a large 'floating' soundboard.
And this soundboard mimics the impedance of an acoustic body much better than the more or less solid body of NS or Yamaha. And because of that the bloom is quite close to an acoustic, and the sustain as well.
(because the energy loss of the soundboard is much higher than a solid piece of wood, the string looses it's energy much sooner)
I just had my first rehearsals with it, and wow! I don't even use a dB of EQ anymore, and the need for other fx is almost zero.(I do not play typical jazz, so I do use a pitch shifter, tremolo or saturation from time to time)
The Alter Ego does not sound like an acoustic bass, for that you need the large body, but attack/envelope/bloom is very close, and for the first time I feel like as if I am playing my acoustic upright.
The sound is very consistent and the band members were amazed how well the Alter Ego sits in the band sound.
I posted about this bass in the Alter Ego forum.

And maybe that is the most important message: just like in studio/mixing world, if the source with which you start is good, then you do not need to 'fix stuff in the mix' and the need for compressors, reverbs, IR's, what have you is gone. You'll only use effects for the effect, not to fix something that wasn't good in the first place.
I wish I had spent that money years ago ;-)

Daniel

 

[Wasnex]

@DDDan Here is a video link from the demo video on the Alter Ego website: Double bass - Alter Ego (alter-ego.it)



Although the tone and response is not 100% authentic, I do agree it is much closer to an AUB than most EUBs . I also agree that using a more authentic sounding instrument is likely to be a way better solution than anything you can do with standard processing. From what I have read, the modeling in the Yamaha SL300 is very good though.

For comparison here is a video with the same player on an AUB:


As I mentioned I played an NS Design US series 6 string for several years. Early on, I made some halfhearted attempts to use foam and other materials for muting, and was not happy with the results. IMHO this bass was not intended to sound anything like an AUB, but it has a wonderful voice that I found useful. So I embraced it rather than trying to force it to be something it was never intended to be.

I frequently toured with the NS Design, a traditional upright, and a fretted Yamaha TRB6P. I played whichever instrument I felt was best suited to the arrangement. The upright was used for classical and more traditional jazz, the NS Design was used for more modern compositions and some ballads, and the BG was used for more popish material

I remember doing a big band concert where the space on stage was very limited. I chose to do the entire concert on the NS Design, even though I did not think it was well suited to the more traditional jazz tunes in our repertoire. After the show we had a reception with the audience and I had flock of people coming up to ask about the crazy looking instrument I played. They all indicated it sounded great and entirely appropriate, although they were not certain it was actually a bass . So the only one with concern was apparently me.

 

[DDDan]

Ha, yes, I guess most concern about the different character of an EUB lies in the player... Most (non musician) listeners don't even notice the bass until it is gone.. ;-) And the NS basses sound really nice. So I can imagine everybody loved it.
It is a personal thing, but therefor not less important. If I feel happy with my instrument, I'll play better. I am very well aware that a lot of listeners wouldn't even notice if I'd play all the bass lines on a keyboard ;-)
But I wouldn't be happy... and now playing my Alter Ego, I am super happy..
Oh, BTW, the video you included of the Alter Ego bass is the predecessor. It is a hollow body, while the carbon version is quite different, a wooden soundboard 'floating' on an aluminum frame.
I added a link to a video in the first thread below, where I also explain a bit more about the design.

Alter Ego Techno & Carbon Upright basses - amazing design
AlterEGO EUB megathread

 

[Zbysek]

Who is using a compressor with their EUB?

I don't. It just doesn't sound "right" to me.

I am using compressor with my bass guitar though.

 

[Hummergeist]

No compressor for my NS Designs. But I might put a limiter on there (or a comp acting as a limiter) depending on the rest of my signal chain. OTOH I do like comps on bass guitars.

 

[PaulCannon]

I use it sometimes. Only for pizzicato when I want a more "electric bass" sound. I use the Cali76 from Origin Effects, which includes a wet/dry mixing option.

 

[DrayMiles]

I'm really not even sure what to say to this. How would a filter affect dynamics? That's so wonky. It's also super weird that you're admitting to never even trying your comp on your DB while saying it's bad. Huh? Guess you're unfamiliar with the folk wisdom of "don't knock it till you try it" It's so odd to me to see someone being so confident in their ignorance. The difference between theory and practice is, that in theory there is no difference.

Chill out man. Totally inappropriate response and OTT IMO… it’s not that serious They’re just words and advice. I mean you just joined and you haven’t even been tenderized yet! Ha!