Electric bass players will give you a dozen answers to this question, but if you want an accurate answer, ask double bass players.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Electric bass that sounds like a double
- Thread starter themickster
- Start date
Electric bass players will give you a dozen answers to this question, but if you want an accurate answer, ask double bass players.
I've seen several videos of the Marcústico and definitely believe it is the bass guitar with the greatest potential to cop the sound of a double bass. However, I've grown to think it would benefit from wearing actual double-bass strings (1/8 size, or whatever fits), with a damping silk inlay and of decent tension, rather than black nylon tapewounds, and that there is no substitute for a double-bass type attack (side of index finger). Just my humble opinion/impressions.
Me too, love my Mouse. Those Marcustico basses sound pretty convincing, but seem to be unobtanium, I search with some regularity, but never see any and the website in Spain never seems to work.
The Mouse will have to be good enough for me, can’t deal with the super-short scale of Ubass and to old to drag out my hard-to-play upright any more.
D'Addario black tapewounds aren't floppy.
Neither are GHS black tapewounds.
(Not sure if you've ever tried either.)
As someone who plays both and does a lot of acoustic jazz on upright I'd say the hardest part is getting that bouncy attack the you get from the upright. Electric basses can work but especially for swing feels kind of club you over the head with the hammer like attack. There's things you can do to mitigate this - play near the neck heel, roll off the highs, but that bounce will still be missing.
That being said I can really enjoy electric bass in an acoustic setting. I'm a big Steve Swallow fan. There's a recent trio album by Kurt Rosenwinkel with Dario Deidda tearing it up on a Marcustico. Cuong Vu has and album with Pat Metheny and Stomu Takeishi on ABG.
That being said I can really enjoy electric bass in an acoustic setting. I'm a big Steve Swallow fan. There's a recent trio album by Kurt Rosenwinkel with Dario Deidda tearing it up on a Marcustico. Cuong Vu has and album with Pat Metheny and Stomu Takeishi on ABG.
Last edited:
This has been something all of us who play, listen, and like myself, work on both electric basses, and upright basses, have pondered, and discussed for as long as there have been electric basses. The WAY a bass violin makes sound, is quite different from how an electric bass does. Even a hollow body electric bass with piezos and dead flats and muting, does not truly capture the sound of a double bass. I've heard great bassists using hollow body basses, that try to approximate the sound of a string bass in their bands. It always amounts to some nice playing- but it is an approximation.
Only the Toby Chennell Arco Acoustic Bassguitar on this excellent Bart Soeters video-
gets it to a point where with setup- and strings in the right player's hands- it would be a true substitute for a 3/4 sized upright bass. That's because it essentially IS a string bass.
I've heard some other hollow body basses with piezo pickups fall just short of getting a string bass timbre, while sounding great on their own.
We're really talking about trying to get something that is possible to simulate, but not equal, in my opinion.
Only the Toby Chennell Arco Acoustic Bassguitar on this excellent Bart Soeters video-
gets it to a point where with setup- and strings in the right player's hands- it would be a true substitute for a 3/4 sized upright bass. That's because it essentially IS a string bass.
I've heard some other hollow body basses with piezo pickups fall just short of getting a string bass timbre, while sounding great on their own.
We're really talking about trying to get something that is possible to simulate, but not equal, in my opinion.
a felt mute has been pretty reliable for me in terms of making that nice *plum* attack. It won’t ever fool anyone but it definitely makes it work with the music way better. Nothing makes me wince quite like an unbridled electric bass trying to swing hard.. be it the “3” band at a local college or some guy playing dinner jazz
Another point about getting an upright tone out of electric bass that @jamro217 pretty well covered and that is the variety of ways an upright can be heard. I play upright acoustically most of the time. I have a Realist Lifeline pickup on my upright that does a good job of amplifying the bass, but even a pickup made for upright doesn’t really capture the acoustic sound of the bass. About the only way to capture the acoustic sound of an upright is with a good condenser mic somewhere in front of the bass.
So, you might get an electric bass to sound exactly like some upright tone, but not all upright tones.
So, you might get an electric bass to sound exactly like some upright tone, but not all upright tones.
I have a Washburn Ab32 acoustic bass. It's got a large body very similar to the Martin acoustic. I played Ernie Ball flats on it for years and it had a tone very similar to an upright IMO. Mainly noticeable in the upper register.
This. A DB is a totally different instrument than an electric bass - different technique, different vocabulary, different family of instruments. The only things the two have in common are range and strings.
Honestly, surprised there aren't more "Why doesn't my electric bass sound like a tuba" threads.
As one who searched for that double bass sound for many years, here's my experience.
Some things that have not been mentioned; DB produces some overtones that I have never been able to duplicate on a bass guitar. I can come close with a hollow body fretless electric, but the strength of any overtones is still too weak. Playing with fingers and copying DB technique including using open strings also helps, but there's still a difference when the sounds gets to my ear.
I have tried several electric basses with varying results. The closest sound came from a bass uke with piezo pickup, but that look is not for me. One disappointment was the sound from a Dean Playmate acoustic bass. I thought that Dean had the right idea; big hollow body with piezo pickup, but the pickup output was so weak that it didn't even come close. My fretless Epiphone EBO comes close, and can be played in an upright position when using its screw in leg pole. But overtones are still missing.
There's also the intangible; nothing looks like a DB, or gets those looks of approval from the audience. I finally gave up my quest for that DB sound, understanding that I can come close but not duplicate.
Thump on,
One_Dude
Some things that have not been mentioned; DB produces some overtones that I have never been able to duplicate on a bass guitar. I can come close with a hollow body fretless electric, but the strength of any overtones is still too weak. Playing with fingers and copying DB technique including using open strings also helps, but there's still a difference when the sounds gets to my ear.
I have tried several electric basses with varying results. The closest sound came from a bass uke with piezo pickup, but that look is not for me. One disappointment was the sound from a Dean Playmate acoustic bass. I thought that Dean had the right idea; big hollow body with piezo pickup, but the pickup output was so weak that it didn't even come close. My fretless Epiphone EBO comes close, and can be played in an upright position when using its screw in leg pole. But overtones are still missing.
There's also the intangible; nothing looks like a DB, or gets those looks of approval from the audience. I finally gave up my quest for that DB sound, understanding that I can come close but not duplicate.
Thump on,
One_Dude
A muted Jerry Jones short scale with flats comes pretty close. Bass Player magazine did almost an entire issue on the development of the Fender Precision. They took a '51 with flats, pickup and bridge cover with the foam mute in place, utilized the finger rest and plucked with the thumb between the neck and pickup cover, and plugged it in to the accompanying Fender bass amp issued at the same time. Their comment, paraphrased, was "It was the loudest double bass sound we've ever heard." YMMV.
Ha ha, is this topic set on auto-repeat for every two weeks? 
Fool a discerning listener in a blindfold test? I dunno - Will Lee supposedly had some technique worked up for that. (Dense mix would help, too.)
IME a good acoustic bass guitar (ABG) can have a similar "unplugged" kind of presence, without trying to pass for something it's not.
Fool a discerning listener in a blindfold test? I dunno - Will Lee supposedly had some technique worked up for that. (Dense mix would help, too.)
IME a good acoustic bass guitar (ABG) can have a similar "unplugged" kind of presence, without trying to pass for something it's not.
It's been a while since I jumped in on one of these threads.
The reason I play/switched to upright is because I had the same question at one time. I was playing in a jazz/swing/rockabilly group, and every recording the guitar player sent me to learn had a double bass player. So I chased that tone and playing on a slab with flats, foam, tone control off, etc. I tried all of the tricks suggested. None of it accomplished what I was hearing, so I started looking for a used upright bass.
First point - piezos don't make an instrument sound "acoustic". This is one of the biggest misconceptions I've ever heard around these parts. Piezos don't reproduce anything close to the acoustic properties of a double bass without a boatload of processing, unless you are playing at barely noticeable volume. They are pickups, not microphones. Just because they aren't magnetic does not mean they have some magic smoke inside of them that makes an instrument sound like it's acoustic properties.
Second point - a lot of the examples I hear people post here do a decent job of approximating a poorly amplified upright bass. If that's the tone your chasing, then there are options. I'm talking about that nasally, mid range stuff that a lot of guys get on fretless as well. That is however not what a double sounds like acoustically.
Last point - I had one of the original Kala U-basses. You can swing on those things. To my ear they get much closer than any of the traditional slab options mentioned here ad nauseum. The synthetic strings on them give it much more gut-like vibe. Super fun to play if you can handle the short scale.
The reason I play/switched to upright is because I had the same question at one time. I was playing in a jazz/swing/rockabilly group, and every recording the guitar player sent me to learn had a double bass player. So I chased that tone and playing on a slab with flats, foam, tone control off, etc. I tried all of the tricks suggested. None of it accomplished what I was hearing, so I started looking for a used upright bass.
First point - piezos don't make an instrument sound "acoustic". This is one of the biggest misconceptions I've ever heard around these parts. Piezos don't reproduce anything close to the acoustic properties of a double bass without a boatload of processing, unless you are playing at barely noticeable volume. They are pickups, not microphones. Just because they aren't magnetic does not mean they have some magic smoke inside of them that makes an instrument sound like it's acoustic properties.
Second point - a lot of the examples I hear people post here do a decent job of approximating a poorly amplified upright bass. If that's the tone your chasing, then there are options. I'm talking about that nasally, mid range stuff that a lot of guys get on fretless as well. That is however not what a double sounds like acoustically.
Last point - I had one of the original Kala U-basses. You can swing on those things. To my ear they get much closer than any of the traditional slab options mentioned here ad nauseum. The synthetic strings on them give it much more gut-like vibe. Super fun to play if you can handle the short scale.
My '66 ampeg played with the right technique (bottom in pic)gets really close. My Ubass was not a close 2nd so I got rid of it.
Attachments
Last edited:
