Hey. Coming from a guitar background, I know very little of bass. How do I get bass guitar to sound like an upright? Besides technique, strings and that foam thing. What should I look for in amp and bass guitar? And can I use my fractal fm9 for this?
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Getting upright sound on bass guitar
- Thread starter bassbass167
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Can’t but someone will tell you fretless flats and mute and goose mids or whatever. They’re 2 different instruments.
Is this the sound you’re after?
Yep, that's a nice sound! I read a lot of info about mutes and fretless for this sound. Not many seem to talk about amps. Are they not that important for sound? On guitar amp is the biggest factor of tone
Wow, that is an awesome tone! Added piezo only, and flatwounds (replying to one of the comments, the player says they're long-scale and have gold silks, which points to DR Legend FL-45 round-core flats).
I doubt it is, if the question is "how do I sound like Jim Hall or Pat Martino? I play a Strat with 10-46 D'Addario nickel-plated rounds." Roland Jazz Chorus and old Polytone amps would probably get mentioned, but advice would focus on technique, strings and guitars.
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We're bassists.
(although, I do have a fairly strong background in the guitar world)
(I don't see a mute: the sponge is to damp afterlength - bridge to tailpiece - sympathetic vibrations, and to hold the piezo wire still.
But) yeah, definitely.
Roll the tone knob off. That’ll get you about as close as you can get (which isn’t that close imo) other than technique, foam mute, flatwounds, and a hollow body. Not sure any amp would help but you could look into amps that upright players favor, like Clarus.
He does: it indeed looks one of those wristband-type mutes, but it appears to be past the nut. Of course, it would only mute open notes - which he does hit fairly often in the solo, but don't sound all that different from fretted ones.
Dang, it really sound gorgeous, doesn't it?
Be prepared for all the "Just get an upright because you'll never get a regular bass to sound like a stand-up bass" replies.
However, if you don't want to spend big money for a big bass that you'll have to lug around, and you don't want to sell your car and buy a van or pickup truck, you can get reasonably close with a P bass, Godin A4, Ibanez SRH 500 or a good acoustic bass.
Here's mine, Dean Exotica acoustic bass with D'Addario black tapewounds and a string mute.
However, if you don't want to spend big money for a big bass that you'll have to lug around, and you don't want to sell your car and buy a van or pickup truck, you can get reasonably close with a P bass, Godin A4, Ibanez SRH 500 or a good acoustic bass.
Here's mine, Dean Exotica acoustic bass with D'Addario black tapewounds and a string mute.
Whoa - that's a sound and a half!!
I'm glad to hear there was some piezo involved. I was going to chime in & say you can't just cop the full on DB with just any old FSO electric bass.
I was also going to say that piezo does help IME. My acoustic bass guitar would in fact be my first choice in a pinch. (Even though it sounds very different from the DB or that clip with its super raspy phosphor-bronze round strings.)
You can't. You MAY be able to emulate enough aspects of double bass tone to cause a listener to fill in the blanks for you.
I use a touch of very quick reverb and I pluck with my thumb while palm muting the initial attack of the note and then releasing.
Also roll off the tone significantly and I do this on a fretless jazz with only the neck pickup.
Is it a convincing acoustic tone that will fool the golden eared upright purists? No. Absolutely not.
Will it sound good in most contexts where an upright bass would commonly be played and be enjoyable to the masses? I think so.
Also roll off the tone significantly and I do this on a fretless jazz with only the neck pickup.
Is it a convincing acoustic tone that will fool the golden eared upright purists? No. Absolutely not.
Will it sound good in most contexts where an upright bass would commonly be played and be enjoyable to the masses? I think so.
The amp and cab does effect bass tone and feel. But they don't impact most of the factors that most people think differentiate a bass guitar from an upright. YMMV and I will provide an example:
On average, I think upright players tend to favor more accurate and transparent rigs. The goal is MBOL...my bass only louder. IMHO, to approach MBOL requires a transparent rig with extended frequency response.
There have been some rigs that were highly coveted in upright circles, that I consider heavily voiced. An example is the old GK MB150S.
About the only thing I liked about the MB150S was the portability. I personally thought they sounded awful. But some might say they made a bass guitar sound more like an upright. My problem is with the speaker. The speaker rolls of the highs too soon and is sort of soft and bloomy down low. The MB150S head into the right cab is actually pretty sweet sounding. Very similar to an 800RB. IMHO the MB150S head was sweeter and the 800RB had more clean headroom.
I like to hear the highs from upright and bass guitar. Given the choice, I played a GK MK200, which had a mid/tweeter in the same size package.
Didn't make my bass guitar sound like an upright though.
Any decent bass amp will work as well as any other. The absolute biggest variable is technique. The ADSR envelope is what makes a DB sound like a DB. That's entirely up to how the strings vibrate. EQ will obviously matter, but you can't get there with EQ alone. The attack of the note is the first piece of the puzzle, so how you pluck the string will be key. Controlling the decay and sustain are also critical and that's where the foam comes in, but you can achieve similar results with muting.
The other thing that is absolutely key is note selection. Upright bassists make note selection based on how you physically play the instrument. Mimicking that will get you much closer.
The other thing that is absolutely key is note selection. Upright bassists make note selection based on how you physically play the instrument. Mimicking that will get you much closer.
Was messing around the other day & put the bass In sorta upright position on my chair while i was standing up over it.. Really has you attack the stings in a way dif manner. Was cool cause i was rolling notes it seemed because of how the fret hand was wrapped around.
