Double Bass Improving Upright Sustain

[Matt Zory]

Greetings hive mind. I play a 1930’s ish Juzek bass with a Full Circle pickup. Sounds just the way I’d like thru my GK MBS 112. As a matter of fact…a bit better than without an amp. I also have a Aguilar TH500 and SL112. My conundrum is I think electric bass sounds head and shoulders better thru the Aguilar but the upright not so much at all. It has great front end and overall tone but it ‘hears’ no sustain. Boom, boom, boom. No ring between notes. What am I doing wrong? Any thoughts? Hope I’ve been clear (might be the first time for that if so…)
Thanks!
Matt

 

[Jefenator]

My first thought is a new set of Spirocores?
I used to find they'd deaden so gradually, it wouldn't grab my attention. I'd go for years without freshening the strings because, who wants to drop $200 or more on something like that? Then I'd finally do it and it would be a total OMG moment and I'd tell myself I should do it more often.
With bass guitar I find it helps to turn the amp up more & use a softer attack. (But with DB I usually find the less I turn up, the better the tone.)

 

[fdeck]

You have to forgive me for being a physicist. But I'm pretty sure that the signal from the pickup will have roughly the same dynamics as the bass itself.

What I've experienced with electric bass oriented amps is that a "voicing" that sounds good with an electric bass might not be the best starting point for upright. A lot of amps have what they call a "scooped" voicing, meaning that the low and high end are boosted, relative to the midrange. I find a similar issue between electric and upright on my GK amps.

The trick I use on my GK heads is to turn the low and high EQ knobs down, and the mid EQ knobs up. I actually checked this on an analyzer, but I don't think it's necessary -- your ears are good enough. On my GK amps it's like 10:00 and 2:00 for the knobs, so it's not super extreme. Something like this might not be the final resting place for your knobs, but it's free to try. Granted, the knob setup on the aggie is different, and I don't know what the "drive" knob does. Try turning it all the way down. The folks at Aguilar might be willing to advise you on this.

 

[koricancowboy]

What’s the input impedance on the Aggie?

 

[Ric Vice]

I checked all the specifications for Aguilar Amps,and Preamps. If it holds true for the Tone Hammer and AG Amplifiers both the Tone Hammer and AG Preamp pedals are set at I Meg Ohm. I was in my local luthier’s repair, used retail shop several years ago comparing a TecAmp 500, Tone Hammer 500, and Mesa Subway 500. The Subway sounded great, the TecAmp was very good, but IMHO the Tone Hammer came in third IME

 

[Wasnex]

One of the rigs may reverse the polarity of the signal.

The voicing of these rigs is considerably different, and I would expect the TH to have a lot more headroom. The feedback loop becomes stronger as gain is increased. The feedback loop may increase or decrease sustain, depending on polarity and gain.

The way you adjust the amps could have an impact on how much compression they add. More compression = more sustain.

I would expect the TH to be more of a bass guitar amp. Then again, I really disliked the way the little MBS combos sounded with both bass guitar and upright.