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Double Bass Is it a sin to use effects on upright?

#41
If you want to play with effects on your bass, do it. It's your bass, **** what everyone else thinks. Remember, if you're an experimental musician, well you're an experimental musician. Nobody stopped Herbie from playing with synths. Nobody stopped Scofield from using distortion, delay, chorus. Find your own sound, if it means going to effects. The worst that can happen is that you end up not liking it and blowing a wad of cash and having to sell the boxes.

Don't go to any online forum to find validation. Now if you expect to use the effects on your next jazz gig, well that might be another story because the audience and your bandmates may be expecting a traditional sound.
 
#42
Bruce Lindfield said:
But you still have the issues like feedback, transporting the thing - how awkward that is and how fragile a DB can be if you take it on the road...?

There are many difficulties - which wouldn't apply to a solid bodied EUB for example - and by playing through effects, you are throwing any chance of an acoustic sound out the window!! :eyebrow:

Most effects are designed for guitars and have most effect on the higher end of the audio spectrum - I just don't see this as compatible with bass, as such!?
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To each his own. I'm not rushing out to buy an EUB, that's for sure, but I don't question the logic in your decision to play one. I think that my analogy to the difference between an old archtop guitar (with a magnetic pickup) and a solid body strat or les paul holds in this situation. Some people just like the sound and feel of hollow-body instruments, and even with effects and amps, the core of the sound has differences.

I have good control over my feedback and like to use it to my advantage. Basses are fragile, and I've learned that the hard way. But I do think I'd have a lot of dissapointed people at my shows if I gave up the upright.

You don't throw your chances of acoustic sound thru the window by having effects. They do come with on/off buttons for a reason :rollno:. A person can even have 2 pickups and an ABY box - then they can have an "acousic" sound and and "electric" sound.

I have no idea where you're coming from about effects being made for guitars. Try visiting the effects fourm on the BG side of talkbass.

I don't mean to sound like I'm picking a fight here or anything. We all can just play how we want. I just want to try to show that it's not completely absurd to put a distortion pedal on an acoustic upright bass. As a matter of fact, I plan on demonstrating that fact for the many-hundreth time tonight at a show.
 
#45
Bruce Lindfield said:
BGs are guitars!!! :p

As you say - we can all play what we want - I just don't see any logical reason that's all - it just seems like an exercise in futility...:eyebrow:

As soon as you put a magnetic pickup on a DB you have lost any chance of a decent sound...?
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Bruce: I agree.
However....let these fella's play with effects all they want.
Maybe its because I am approaching geezerhood but I sure as heck would not want to hear whatever noise comes out of their basses. The most beautiful sound that can come out of a double bass to me, is a clear bottom end note in the right place at the right time no matter what kind of music is around it. :hyper:
 
#53
Got to love snobbery.....

Me being better at playing upright than BG is not a good enought reason to play it (if I want to play rock and use effects). If I am more comfortable on upright, I better just get an EUB - do I have this right?? Any variation on the acoustic tone is silly, if I want a variety of sounds, I must play bass guitar.

Right after I buy my EUB I'll be sure to pass along the word to the guys in my swing band that they should really either ditch the archtops or put a transducer on them. Those magnetic pickups on them make them indistinguishable from a Fender Strat. But at least I can keep playing upright in that band - I use a mic and transducer with them!

Stage Dressing? It really is too bad that people in an audience respond to visual cues.

Orig.Poster - I guess it is a sin. If you want some help with getting your sound together with your vile effects, you better P.M me and we can just keep it a secret.
 
#56
mattfong said:
but, you don't need a magnetic pickup to use effects?
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Not at all. I have never owned a magnetic pickup for my DB and I've used lots of effects before. It's a much more direct sound and perhaps better suited for many pedal effects designed with magnetic pickups in mind but it is not a requisite.

Think about this: the saxophonist Dana Colley (of Morphine) has used a microphone as his pedal effects source for many years. You can make non-magnetic sources work with guitar/bass pedals. In addition to my under-foot piezo, I have also been blending a Schertler DYN-B into the sound. Like I said before, I don't use effects on DB right now but in the past I have ran all three (piezo/dyn-b/mic) through the same effects without problems. It just depends on what you want to do and how far you're willing to go to make it happen (impedance/level/connector matching).
 
#58
For a little while I was really into Trevor Dunn's Trio Convulsant. He uses effects on the DB. I tried it, with a Realist, and it was fine. The key is a HPF and phase switch. I was able to tame any feedback problems that way.

Also, sending DB to the subs in a big venue is often the problem. In rock clubs the subs are often under the stage and the vibrations can travel up you endpin and create a feedback loop no matter what pickup you are using.

Now I've gone completely the other way and will only let a sound guy mic my bass if I have a say. No 'evil direct'. 9 times out of ten, at least in rock venues, they treat direct exactly the same way they treat porkchop. A mic only gives them less stuff to !@#% up and makes them deal with what the mic gives them. More limitations.
 
#59
VintageBT6Lover said:
Not at all. I have never owned a magnetic pickup for my DB and I've used lots of effects before. It's a much more direct sound and perhaps better suited for many pedal effects designed with magnetic pickups in mind but it is not a requisite.
Click to expand...

Sorry, you misunderstand. I know you don't need one, I was questioning Bruce on his statement that seemed a little off. Which he has now clarified.

I've never had a magnetic pickup either, and I've used effects once or twice. Works fine.
 

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