Double Bass Drummer Induced Vibration

[kwd]

I've experienced a phenomenon when playing with drummers who play too loud. Succinctly put, I sound like crap when I'm near an over exuberant drummer. Of course, to many of you I would probably sound like crap with or without a drummer. I using a relative assessment here.

I played thru the changes in a rare moment when the drummer wasn't creating a racket and it sounded fine. Is it possible that the top of my bass is picking up waves and vibrating sympathetically? I use a Realist. Would a wing mounted pick up be less succeptable to that sort of thing?

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Is it possible that the top of my bass is picking up waves and vibrating sympathetically?

Absolutely - it happens all the time, especially with bass drum and low toms. One thing you can do to help is to experiment with damping the afterlength of the strings, which is where a lot of amplified boominess comes from. Another is to try to move out of the direct line of fire of the bass drum.

 

[Wil Davis]

It is know as DDS†, and is one of the reasons why in a loud environment bassists often use an electric bass guitar or an electric upright-bass. The simplest solution is to get the drummer to play less loud…

- Wil

† Deaf Drummer Syndrome

 

[Jaromir]

I have the same experience. The Realist is maybe the most "acoustic" pick-up because of it's location between the bridge leg and the top desk. The top desk, however, acts as a giant membrane which picks up the loud sounds coming from the drums, especially the bass drum, as Chris mentioned.
Recently, I had a very good luck with dampening the F holes of my bass - I put a piece of mollitane (not sure if this is a correct English, I mean the material which sponge is made of) into each F hole. The result was suprisingly good - I could play at very high volume level (with Realist) without any resonancies or feedback.

 

[drurb]

It's better to put the dampening materials inside the drums.

 

[ToR-Tu-Ra]

Drummers!

This afternoon I played a couple tunes in a trio (bass, acoustic guitar and flute), really relaxing and enjoyable playing. No amps, mic's or anything like that... really liked it!

Sorry, got nothing relevant to say here...

 

[fdeck]

Band gets to the end of the set. Club owner approaches the drummer: "Could you please play with some dynamics?" Drummer responds: "What do you mean, I am already playing as loud as I can."

 

[fish slapper]

I've even had drummer (and drum kit) induced feedback due to sympathetic vibration. My gripe is playing Jazz with drummers with huge kits ment for rock. I've even threatened to take up a collection for our current drummer to get him a Jazz kit.

 

[kwd]

Thanks to all of you for your posts, informative and otherwise .

Q: What do you call people who like to hang out with musicians?
A: DRUMMERS


sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[billyfalconer]

in a loud environment bassists often use an electric bass guitar or an electric upright-bass.

Or a magnetic pickup on the upright, which can get just as loud as anything else.

 

[Wil Davis]

Or a magnetic pickup on the upright, which can get just as loud as anything else.

…but a magnetic pickup still won't stop a double-bass acting as a huge microphone, and feeding back as soon as the volume starts coming up.

- Wil

 

[fdeck]

Actually, the magnetic pickup greatly reduces the microphone effect. The reason is that a piezo picks up any frequency that the body of the bass is capable of picking up. But the resonant nature of the strings (nearly ideal bandpass filters) means the mag pup only receives whatever arrives at the frequencies of the open or fingered strings. If the incoming source is broadband, like a drum, then the filtering effect greatly reduces what is received by the pickup.

So it's not the pickup that's magical, but the strings. Granted, stuff coming in at the exact tuning frequencies will excite a mag pup, including your own amplified sound, but in practice, the threshold of feedback is much higher.

I make pretty extensive use of a mag pup, and I can get up into some crazy volume levels if I want. The typical situations are casuals in big rooms with no PA support for the bass, really cramped sets where I am right on top of my amp, and wedding gigs where the guests ask for some rock'n'roll.

 

[Wil Davis]

Interesting - you make some good points.

I've never used a mag. pickup on my double-bass. I have a Full-Circle which I use with either a GK150 or AI Clarus/Raezer's Edge; but if it's a larger gig where there is a sound sytem, then I'll use a microphone on the bass going to the main-board, and use the GK150 as a monitor.

What mag. pickup do you use??

- Wil

 

[fdeck]

Mine is homemade. The excuse I give is that I got it all built up before learning that I could have bought a commercial one.

 

[Sheraton]

For years i'm struggling through out playing with drummer and big band on a small stage. I tried fishman, bassmax, revolution and i realise how much actually i spent on pickup.
The problem with piezo pickup is it gets drowned easily if i set the amp sounds as natural as possible. It sounds so good at low volume but when the intensity of the band goes up the bass basically doesn't exist. No matter how hard i pluck.

Recently i tried out Pierre Joseph String charger together with Revolution pickup. Bang! That's it. It settled all my problems. It doens't sounds natural as a double bass but when volume goes up it really doesn't matter. Everyone included the band just want to hear the bass. The magnectic pickup response evently across the high and low register. And it's more responsive for the dig-in situation.

Off course these statement only applies when u really have to play loud and to be heard. I still kept my another bass with bassmax only for lower volume gig.

Just my opinion.

Vincent