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Double Bass Gear you wished worked out... (DB forum thread)

#61
never really bonded with GK. i had an MBS 12" combo and couldn't dial it in. played through a few other GKs that a BG player had and couldn't get it. he loves GK - has the 1001 RB and the MB 15" combo. GK had more of an electric feel to it for me. might have been the strings - Innovation Super Silvers. wish i could try the MB 210 combo. surprisingly, my Genz Benz Shuttle that i play for my electric setup, sounds great (in my basement) when i plug my DB into it.

i bought an AKG C411 contact mic here on TB. i bought it for recording as a second bass track - worked great. never had much luck live with it. our mandolin player used it for a couple years until he had a pickup installed. sounded great with no feedback issues. our band also had a schertler to A/B it with and the AKG worked better with our sound gear.
 
#62
Hey Ric,
I had one of Fishman Bass Blenders in the late 90’s. I even sent it into Fishman to have them do a mod to work better with the Underwood I was using at the time. That Crown mic was not very fun to use. Those were the days buddy.
 
#63
bigshiny said:
Hey Ric,
I had one of Fishman Bass Blenders in the late 90’s. I even sent it into Fishman to have them do a mod to work better with the Underwood I was using at the time. That Crown mic was not very fun to use. Those were the days buddy.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the if you placed the Crown so it sat on top of the brigdge in the middle of the bass it sounded better, but not much. Just like you, I just had a local tech connect the Crown to the Underwood via a stereo jack. It improved the sound
a good bit. But then the first Realists hit and I just didn't need it.
 
#65
No kidding? I gave up playing a Double Bass on gigs in the late 1970's pickups were so terrible. Until the Underwood hit the market, it just wasn't worth the hassle. Amplifiers, by
comparison have always been pretty decent, for Double Bass. Examples being Ampeg B-15N Walter Woods MI-100-8, Gallien Krueger 200MB. Eventually, everything caught up.
 
#66
I can’t even imagine going through that time period of upright bass amplification. There were very few options and not very good ones. Nowadays the selections are seemingly endless. It’s also very easy to pull the trigger on a new product these days only to find out it won’t work for the band/volume you’ll have to work with. Even after reading many reviews. I mean let’s face , we all have a different opinion on how what “loud” is.
 
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#67
bigshiny said:
I can’t even imagine going through that time period of upright bass amplification. There were very few options and not very good ones. Nowadays the selections are seemingly endless. It’s also very easy to pull the trigger on a new product these days only to find out it won’t work for the band/volume you’ll have to work with. Even after reading many reviews. I mean let’s face , we all have a different opinion on how what “loud” is.
Click to expand...

Yeah,
Actually, from about 1969 to 1980 pickups were just terrible. Nothing worked very well. It was easier to just pull out my Fender Jazz Bass and run it through the B-15N. Most professional jazz players didn't use amps that often and

they usually just had a microphone (or none at all) While I played un amplified DB in jazz bands and combo all through high school and I don't recall not being able to hear myself.Once I started gigging I played Fender until around 1980 when I got my first Underwood.
 
#68
When I was at a violin shop in Massachusetts, I saw the original “Amp-peg” Ampeg. The mic on the inside of the bass attached to the top of the end pin. I can’t even imagine the nightmare it must have been to try to play a gig with that setup.
 
#70
neddyrow said:
When I was at a violin shop in Massachusetts, I saw the original “Amp-peg” Ampeg. The mic on the inside of the bass attached to the top of the end pin. I can’t even imagine the nightmare it must have been to try to play a gig with that setup.
Click to expand...

I only heard someone play at Ball State once, using a B-15N and the Ampeg pickup. I believe he was playing a Kay plywood bass and it actually sounded pretty good. Most players I knew, had either a Barcus Berry “Silver Sliver Silly Putty” Pickup or the Polytone “Ceramic in a Brass Can Bridge Buster. A few older guys had the DeArmond “Chrome and Rubber Contact Orthopedic Shoe”. :)
 
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#71
Ric Vice said:
Yeah,
Actually, from about 1969 to 1980 pickups were just terrible. Nothing worked very well.
Click to expand...

I got my first DB, a Kay, in 1975. It was fitted with a Barcus-Berry bridge. You wouldn't know it was also a pickup if you didn't see the wire coming out of it. Later that year that bass was smashed in a bus crash. I took a saw, cut the chunk containing the transducer out of the bridge, and glued that chunk to the bridge on my replacement bass. Sounded pretty bad either way, but I have to admit that we knew nothing about piezo then... it probably would have benefited from an impedance-matching device.

Nevertheless, it was what I had, so I used it, and I'm glad I did. Otherwise, I wouldn't have played double bass!

In Colorado 01.jpg


Note the taped-over f-holes. Feedback was an issue.
 
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#73
Yep, one of the students at Ball State where I got my undergraduate degree in 1975, had a Barcus Berry Bridge, semingly because Ron Carter was endorsing it back then. It
sounded pretty awful. There was also the F.R.A.P. (flat response audio pickup) it was very expensive but apparently worked well. I forgot that I had purchased a Trace Elliot TAB-100 with a single 12" speaker to replace my GK 2OOMB. It had really cool features mic input, notch filter, curved cabinet top. Unfortunately the speaker had issues and had to be sent back.

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#74
Ric Vice said:
There was also the F.R.A.P. (flat response audio pickup) it was very expensive but apparently worked well.
Click to expand...
Fascinating. Apparently build to be used for a variety of instruments...

But actually, first for double bass:
Arnie Lazarus
And this is the probable heir to the FRAP: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
But I guess that is a whole different thread...
 
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