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Electric bass that sounds like a double

#21
You know that scene in Chasing Amy with Sant Claus and the Easter Bunny ... ?

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Electric bass that sounds like a double bass

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#22
jamro217 said:
< Avatar pic is a 1978 Rickenbacker 4001 fretless. Believe it or not, this is the bass that gets closest to the typical DB sound in my collection (which includes a humbucking Telecaster, 2 fretless Js, a fretless P, a fretless Hohner P/J and a Prestige violin shaped Hofner copy). You'd never in a million years put a Ric on this list unless you heard one in action. It has Rickenbacker round wound strings on it, too. The trick is to turn the volume down (this reduces the click of the attack) and use a blend of the two pickups favoring the bridge and turn the tone almost all the way off. Using a compressor smooths out wave even more. Palm muting to taste and, voila!
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If you've ever heard Chris Brubeck play bass, you've heard a fretless Ric. One could be forgiven for thinking it was an upright, but that's as much the player as it is the instrument. Probably a lot more the player.

A fretless Ric is one exception I'd grant to the "EB can't sound like DB" rule - especially when comping.
 
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#26
Turnaround said:
A a player of both electric and double basses (with a decided preference of playing electric) I have to say that NOTHING has the sound and feel of a Double bass. And I've played just about every variety of ABG, EUB, U-Bass etc that this planet has to offer. And those that are reported as being close, IMO, are not really very close. You need the strong fundamental that a 40+ inch scale can deliver along with the bloom that results from a large body's resonant response coupled with the filtration effects of the wood resonance and the controlled extended damping factor of that large body/air mass. Couple that with the phase coherence of the front and back plates through the effects of the bass bar and the soundpost and you have a complex system that is not well reproduced by other instruments.

I guess that all I am saying is that however close an alternative is, it's not nearly close enough for me. There's magic in the double.
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Magnetic pickups simply can’t get close enough. Ever hear a double bass with one played through an amp? It sounds like a bass guitar.

I think a lot of people aim for a dull, thumpy tone (i.e. flats and muting) to get close to a double bass, but that isn’t the vibe at all. A double bass is darker than a bass guitar because of the more present fundamental and second overtone and the resonance, but there’s still plenty of mids and highs in the sound of a plucked double bass string. A double bass is thumpier than a bass guitar because of the amount of force needed to pluck the strings and make a sound that projects acoustically, which produces a sharp attack and fast decay (whereas most bass guitarists pluck lightly and creates a softer attack and decay), but there’s still a long tail to the sustain after that initial decay.
 
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#28
pbass2 said:
If you mean Allen Woody was largely a pick player, then no surprise that idea went into it. Not sure what that really means though--maybe the pickup placement was thought to be more pick-friendly? In any event, I had a Rumblekat for a while. Pretty cool bass.
Interestingly, one of the EB players who actually gets the DB vibe right is Steve Swallow, and he does it with a pick on a roundwound-strung bass with piezo pickups. Not saying his tone is like an upright--he doesn't chase that--he was a well-known DB player before going electric. But (unless he's soloing) he can nail the way a DB feels in an ensemble.
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I don't know what he did make it a picker.
 
#32
I have a EUB what is not so much the sound but also the feel of how it's played, and how that comes out somewhat like an acoustic 2xbass.

That said, I can get in the area, also, with a fretless U-bass with rubber strings, or onna Dano Longhorn with flats and foam. After that, a A/E bass with tapes or flats can sorta work, especially if fretless.

the_Ryan said:
I think a lot of people aim for a dull, thumpy tone (i.e. flats and muting) to get close to a double bass, but that isn’t the vibe at all.
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And he's correct, of course, but it's mebbe as close as you can get without a actual 2xbass.
 
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#33
One of the thumpy-less-sustain hollows/semi-hollow like the Ibanez Artcore basses, with flat wounds, experiment and find the perfect mute (I use rolled and stitched felt I have my wife make). Then playing it with a more upright right hand stroke..

it won’t fool anyone into thinking it’s an upright, but it will a) sound good and b) will actually fit the role of the music appropriately.

I have not heard a very convincing alternative to this, and a lot of the other approaches to ‘replacing’ upright not only sound less like a double bass, but also just don’t sound good or fit the musical role well at all.

just as a drive-by shot, I’ll go ahead and throw out there that I have never heard a tapewound approach to this that sounds good.. they do give you a chance at the thwap-clicks of an upright, but the tension and envelope are all wrong, and generally they are too floppy and will never sound right. If someone has some secret tape wound that don’t play like weedwacker strings, let me know.



check out Gustav Broman. He has a fantastic approach that lines up with my stated ideal of fitting the role and sonic space in a convincing way. One of the very few guys with a non-cringe electric jazz sound. https://instagram.com/gustav.broman?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==


Edit: here’s a random video of gustav.. not sure if this is the best representation or anything, it’s kind of just the first YouTube video I found

 
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#35
mcrawfordmusic said:
An electric bass can't get the same feel and swing as an acoustic upright in my opinion. The tone can be in the same ballpark if both are being amplified with a magnetic pickup, but there is more to upright bass than tone.
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That's why I mention Steve Swallow (granted he was a highly regarded DB player before he switched to electric). With a pick, roundwounds, and fretted bass, he still can make it feel like upright jazz bass in the way he plays, regardless of the fact the tone is obviously quite different. Even with a pick he does the raking and other things in a way that evokes a DB. Monk Montgomery used to play like that too after coming from DB, on a regular 'ol Fender Jazz, with his thumb and sometimes a pick.
 
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