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Double Bass Idea for doubling gear

wilsonn

wilsonn

Sep 26, 2005
483
93
New York
#1
I play in a loud-ish band that covers a lot of different styles, and I play both electric and upright. I like the upright through a Fullcircle/DTAR Solstice pre, and sometimes add an Audix D4. I can go straight to a Crown power amp or to the board from DTAR and it sounds great.

I amplify the electric basses traditionally, sometimes using a GK800RB or sometimes through a rack mount pre into the Crown power amp.

I am interested in this Eden WTDI pedal as an option for the electrics.

I am wondering if I used the DTAR side of the rig for upright, and the WTDI for electric, and a Radial Bassbone to switch between the two signals, routed to a power amp and speakers. Or is the Bassbone overkill and I can get away with some kind of switch?

Any thoughts or people doing something like this?
 
#2
If you already have two preamps to dial your EB and DB tones independently, you might want to look into the Bigshot I/O instead of the bassbone: Radial BigShot i/o true bypass instrument selector . I am using it myself and I am really happy with it. The db-pad option is really useful to balance the volume of your two inputs. My setup is a bit different than yours (my two preamps and bigshot on my pedal board) but you can get it working just the same if you use both preamp out before running through the power amp.

If you want a new preamp for your EB then WTDI + Bigshot would work, or just the Bassbone. You might also want to check out Radial's PZ-Pre as well since it's more or less the same box as the Bassbone, plus acoustic instrument features!

Hope this helps!
 
#3
I used to use a bassbone and a fishman ppeq for doubling, since have switched to a reddi for electric and u5 for upright into a custom XLR switch box very similar to the bigshot and it works much better than the bassbone setup. The bassbone was really nice that it had the switchable effects loop which you could use as a tuner mute for both channels and has an always on tuner buffer. The signal flow control was better with the bassbone/ppeq setup but I find the setup with less bells and whistles and higher quality pre's is a significant improvement in simplicity and consitent quality of tone.
 
#5
I have great success using a Carvin MB-12 for both EB and DB, especially with all its features including on board comp, line out, two bands of parametric in addition to the standard shelving controls, etc. When I need the 1/2 octave lower extension, it pairs great with another 8-ohm cab; I use a 1X15 that also has a Carvin driver. I buffer the front end with an fdeck so I can adjust the gain differences with one knob instead of grabbing for knobs in the dark.

For price versus performance, it can't be beat. It's my standard gigging amp, and I can fill up to a medium size hall with it - 250wRMS w/ the ext cab. Because the fdeck is so clean, I can even use the 1X15 with the DB to get more presence when necessary. The eq is so versatile I don't need a separate eq box like the Fishman.
 
#6
I am looking at setting up a doubling pedal board to tour with right now. I already have a tech 21 paradriver that I like for electric as well as the fishman pro plat bass eq. What I need is an a/b box that will let me use a single tuner for both instruments, allow me to use a single amp for both instruments and also offer a DI out. I am not planning on using the same D/I send for both instruments normally, but we have hit situations in the past where it is unavoidable. I really don't need to extra EQ the Radial Bassbone offers. Is anyone aware of another option that would hit these criteria?
 
#8
Hey Kael,
The pedalboard I was describing earlier does exactly was you're looking for. My setup includes a Headway edb-1(DB) and a fishman platinum (EB) preamps running through the Bigshot, then tuner and volume pedal, then on the power amp & cabs. I have to mention that my amp have a balanced XLR output, so when I need a single output for all of my instruments, it's coming from there. I could also have individual DI from the preamps of my pedal board, but then I can't mute when tuning or include the effect loop in the signal and I also have to mute the output manually when switching instruments. But with the amp DI, everything is perfectly fine. Perhaps you can have the same kind of setup even if your amp doesn't have the balanced output, simply by adding a DI at the end of your signal chain?
 

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