Doubling on BG/UB in Musical --- Help, Please!

[Crissy Martinez]

Hi all!

I am playing Avenue Q: The Musical this season and as some of you may know, the book calls for upright and electric bass. I am used to doubling for shows, so that's not the issue.

I DO need help (YOUR input) with building the right setup that will (ideally) allow me to switch between both basses without having to unplug anything. Something like an A/B switch pedal or BOSS TU-3 should work right? I used a BOSS TU-3 for A Chorus Line a while back, but I think I still had to swap cables (just one end) and turn my amp's master volume down to switch...can't remember. I would like to know how to eliminate that!

Here's what I'm working with so far:

-GK MB-2X12 Combo Amp with passive/active input and D.I. (no mute button )
-2006 MIA FSR "Hot Rod" Fender Jazz Bass Deluxe (my baby!) w/ matching headstock. Passive.
-Carved upright bass with an Underwood p/u & K&K Bass Max p/u (deciding between the two at the moment but I have them both...K&K sounds great bowed through my D.I box so far
-L.R. Baggs Para Acoustic D.I. Box

So, I think I am on the right track, haha. I feel like I could make it better though.

Last night for rehearsal I just turned down the Master Volume on my bass amp, then pulled the cable going from the D.I. to the amp and plugged it into my electric. That's okay for slower rehearsals but some of those vamps are pretty quick and I would like to change basses silently and quickly!

**an idea just I had was to plug the D.I. box with my upright going through it into the ACTIVE input on my bass amp, and just leave my electric plugged into the passive input. Perhaps I could just use a BOSS TU-3 to mute the upright while I'm playing electric??? Good or bad?

Lay it on me!

Thanks in advance!

 

[MIMike]

When I was gigging with both, I used an ABC switch by Morley. It's Designed for three inputs or three outputs depending on needs. I plugged my upright into input A, my electric into input C, and used B as an OFF setting.
It worked great for switching between instruments and having that OFF option as well.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

The Radial Tonebone PZ Series preamps are well worth a look.

 

[vin*tone]

I would grab a Boss LS2 or similar. They're cheap and bulletproof.

http://www.bossus.com/gear/productdetails.php?ProductId=150

One of the drawbacks of the Baggs is that it doesn't have a mute.

 

[jg919]

Run a small mixing desk if you like (2 - 4 channels) and run the basses into it. Set your eq and faders to unify your Bass signals/tones and run a single DI out. Now mute the channel for the Bass you aren't using and unmute for the Bass in use some small desks are the size of 2 pedals, cost WAAAAYYYY less than any bass-specific preamp and can have more eq options too - parametric MIDS are a BIG bonus too All the best!

 

[jthisdell]

I use a Behringer AB switch between my Fender P and my NS NXT4 EUB. The NS has a pretty low output so I run both through an Eden DI Preamp. I can switch between them pretty quickly but it is far from perfect as there is a big difference between the two volumes and I have to adjust it pretty quickly. So when I switch between them I have to hit the pad button on the input of my Fender Rumble 150 and turn the volume down. I haven't tried running the NS through the preamp but not the Fender. That may help by putting the AB switch after the preamp on the NS but running the Fender into the AB direct. The Behringer AB switch works well for switching (very quiet and very inexpensive) but could work better for me as it has two output levels but those only both work if you are using it for AB output (as opposed to AB input). I also have a Korg Pitchblack tuner in line which works as a mute.

 

[zkatz]

I like to keep the acoustic and electric basses completely separate when I'm doubling. I use 2 Preamp/DIs (and 2 tuners) and send two separate lines to the house/monitors.

I recommend the Radial Bassbone for it's sound and flexibility. An advantage of the Bassbone is that for the acoustic, you can use Channel 2 which gives you a very useful 3-band EQ. I really like the sound of the DI, too. The tuners connect to a tuner out jack on the BBone.

So the setup looks like this:

E Bass > Bassbone > XLR out to house
> tuner out to tuner

Ac Bass > Bassbone > XLR out to house
> tuner out to tuner

Do you have to have an amp in the pit?

If you want to, and you want to run both instruments through it, add an A/B box after the BBones, using the 1/4 in. unbalanced out on each pedal to connect to the A/B box. The single out from the A/B goes to the amp, and you switch between A and B when you switch instruments.

The trick is to balance the levels of the two discreet lines, i.e. - acoustic and electric, which you can do with the level controls on the pedals and the help of the monitor and house engineers.

Best of luck.

 

[Munjibunga]

Yes, the BassBone works well for this. The EBS MicroBass II is another version of that. It's also very good.

 

[Crissy Martinez]

Thanks to all who chimed in with suggestions!

 

[Stick_Player]

I use the Invalid Link Removed. TWO 10" speakers plus tweeter. One of the 10s is down firing. TWO channels - electric bass and amplified DB (mic and p/u). A Hi-Fi amp, for sure. Sometimes I use it to run BOTH an acoustic violin (with DPA 4099) and an NS CR Electric Violin. DI for FOH. AWESOME amp! You get what you pay for.

 

[eholland]

i use to use a boss A/B switch. I ran upright thru a fishman preamp to the A/B then a sadowsky preamp on the electric bass to the A/B switch. I now use 2 channels direct to the board.. I use the A/B switch to turn the upright off when not playing it. I use the mute on the Sadowsky to mute the electric bass.

 

[mrpackerguy]

I had been looking into that but then bought an EA Doubler amp which is 2 channel head with one channel specific for URB. But I also saw this http://www.tonebone.com/pzpre.php and, it has a mute footswitch too. Seems tailor made for doublers running an acoustic instrument and an electric instrument. 2 channel customizeability. Not cheap though.

Alternatively, I've got a Looper the guy at Zooboo custom made for me which is stompbox with 2 footswitchable inputs and a mute switch. The nice thing about the radial box, though, is that you can set it up with your vol levels and tone settings of choice on each channel and then just footswitch between them.