OK so this may be a little off the main topic... but this thread seems to be about getting a loud upright sounmd, so here goes...
It is completely different than getting a good sound at low volumes, in smaller rooms.
I've been doing a bunch of upright stuff in blazing volume situations... I just did three weeks of giant summer rock and jazz festivals (most of the jazz fests are at least half rock music anyway these days).
Which direction you take depends whether you still want to get a natural bass sound (I do).
We've been lucky enough to have a FOH house guy that travels with us, and we have been doing it like this:
We use a mic (AMT or RE-20) and the realist pickup in combo. during louder sections he uses more pickup, and during the exposed sections more mic.
Remember, what you hear on stage in front of the bass amp has almost nothing to do with what the audience (and often the other musicians) will hear when you are in a large venue.
The most imortant trick to getting a loud and good upright sound is EQing out the resonaces and feedback from the amp. Also the sound ppl gotta EQ the house well, and the monitors.
Have a detailed EQ and a phase switch on your stage amp /preamp and keep the amp at a resonable and lowish volume... let the FOH crank the volume. Put the speaker cab (I like 4x10 for big or outside vunues and 2x10 for medium rooms) up on a case (3 ft or so) both to hear it better and to keep it away from the body of the bass.
EQ and phase the bass sound as soon as possible during sound check so that you get the least amount of resonance/feedback esp in the low end.
Remember: what you hear will completely different once the mains are turned on so go easy on the low end. There are usually two or three frequencies that are going to be trouble, so find those and notch them, flip the phase around to see which side you need. Turn it up too loud and see what happens... then turn it back down to where it will be.
It is more important to have control of the EQ and phase then to have a certain brand of amp (although after trying pretty much all of your standard backline fare I would go with the SWR SM 900 mostly for the eq - although I would not want to use it on a low volume gig) I have found that the "rock" amps work better that the usual "jazz" amps for loud volumes.
The big thing here is... and this was hard for me to accept... you cannot try to get the greatest bass sound right in front of the amp (that is the job for the FOH)
What you need on stage is mostly definition... the low end will be filled in by the house rig.
EQ out as much low end as you can, esp in the 100hz area, while still being somewhat comfortable... .
Believe me, when your bass is blasting through 40,000 watts of a massive house PA rig you will have enough low end to explode cows at 200 feet.
If you are lucky and the monitor situation is working well (yeah, right...) then you can get some of the bass mic in your wedge to add to your comfort. Again... have the monitor engineer notch some 100 to 200 hz out of your bass sound before he spreads it around the stage. those frequencies are great, but there are already too much of them in almost every large house rig (at least on the deck) you will run into. They will just cloud the bass sound, ironically making the bass sound wimpier, thus making you sound more like a clueless tool.
As far as what you send the monitor desk D.I. wise... you can send them post (eq, phase, yada) but send the FOH pre (you must trust). The post will sound better coming through the monitor wedges... plus perfecting your bass sound is usually low on the monitor engineer's list of priorities.
ALSO!!! and this is super important!... put your monitor wedge behind you to the side, facing your ear, yet facing away from the bass as much as possible. Do not have the wedge in front of you pointing at the table (front) of the bass!! Think of the upright bass as a giant microphone... and you will start to see what is really happening when you start trying to get these volumes.
The U5 idea someone mentioned is a great one... i'm thinking about getting one to use as a DI. Not really something you would want to fly with... but cool for bus tours where you have your own stuff.
Having decently high string action helps too... The other thing is to relax... just play, don't try to beat the thing to death... you've just gotta believe that it sounds great out in the house.
After so much shedding and knowing how great a bass can really sound, you may feel the bass sounds like sh!te on the stage, but chances are it sounds great to everyone else, so just chill out and play. Nobody wants to see a cat adjusting his knobs every 37 seconds.
This is the way I have been doing it...I hope more ppl respond to this post. I've been dealing with these issues for months now... I'm really interested in how other folks get it done.
-Rene
