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Double Bass Is the bass "frapping"?

I think maybe the bass is maybe a tad overdriven, but I don’t know what “frapping” is? I used an underwood for 20 years and I was always able to get a better sound out of it going into a board with a preamp; although I would always prefer to record with mics only. My favorite recorded bass tone I ever got was in an isolation room with me and a D-112 near the F-hole and a Shure SM-57 aimed at the fingerboard — and we recorded to two inch tape back then in the 90s (which was perfect for rockabilly).

I love y’all’s creole sound BTW — the slap sounds great in that genre of music.
Thanks. I may bring my Fishman preamp for our next recording evening.
 
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Sounds fine to me.

Yeah, the lowest notes are a bit clippy or something. If you were playing a Fender bass it'd be just one of the normal sounds. If the bandleader wants a smoother sound, he can say so. It's probably an artifact of the recording, not of your acoustic sound. Of, since you're going straight from a piezo into the board, maybe it's that. But in real life you'd either be playing through an amp, where you adjust the sound and also have acoustic sound, or acoustically in which case the electrons wouldn't matter at all.

I think bandleader guy has assigned you the role of scapegoat for whatever he thinks is wrong.
 
My Cajun band made a rough and dirty recording a couple of weeks ago with a little four channel board. There are two fiddles, a lap steel, accordion, rhythm guitar, washboard/triangle and me.

We put a mic on the singer/steel player one over the fiddles and one in the middle. Using my Underwood pickup on the upright we plugged that into the board

Anyway, on this song, the bandleader (whom you my have read other posts about this week) said the recording is unusable as a demo to put out on the band's FB page because the bass is "frapping " whatever that means. Overloading at input? Me the bassist playing too hard again?

We intend to do a better recording with lots of mics and a 16-channel board in 10 days, but I am curious to get a feeling of what you might think of the overall sound and the bass. Thanks.
Since you are direct into the board why not cut the bass and re-record the bass track with a mic? Btw I can’t access the track for some reason but I’ll trust the other ears here and assume it’s usable at a lower volume but not ideal…
 
Since you are direct into the board why not cut the bass and re-record the bass track with a mic? Btw I can’t access the track for some reason but I’ll trust the other ears here and assume it’s usable at a lower volume but not ideal…
Those sound clips have never worked for me either. Several people here have said it’s a Mac/Safari issue, but I’m no expert.
P.S. I used to use a contact pickup with pre called a F.R.A.P.
Coincidence? Hmmmm.
 
Since you are direct into the board why not cut the bass and re-record the bass track with a mic? Btw I can’t access the track for some reason but I’ll trust the other ears here and assume it’s usable at a lower volume but not ideal…

Depending on whether the other band members can convince him that the track is good enough to use as a demo to attract gigs or not, we may re-record the song when my friend brings his 16-track mobile unit on the 13th.
 
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So let me get this straight:

It's a Cajun dance band, so I'm assuming the intention is to play for dancers.
No gigs in a year even though everyone is experienced.
The deaf bandleader uses sh!**y equipment to record a demo that sounds pretty much OK, then complains because the bass could sound better.
But he's not managed to get any gigs.
And now some poor sucker (oh, excuse me, a friend of a band member) is going to bring a 16 track unit to record a demo. How much is he gonna get paid? Whose pocket is it going to come out of? Yours in part?
A demo for a bar band, that'll probably bring $100 a man.
That has been rehearsing together for a year and still hasn't played gig one, not even a pool party for free beer.

Does a picture emerge?

If you stay with this dumpster-fire, three years from now it'll look exactly the same.

And that's kind of a shame, because the recordings you posted sounded damn good to me. I'd sure dance to that. But deaf bandleader guy needs to get off his heinie and start going after bookings with what he has, not wait till he's made Pet Sounds before he'll try to get a beer-soaked $100-a-man gig down at the VFW.
 
So let me get this straight:

It's a Cajun dance band, so I'm assuming the intention is to play for dancers.
No gigs in a year even though everyone is experienced.
The deaf bandleader uses sh!**y equipment to record a demo that sounds pretty much OK, then complains because the bass could sound better.
But he's not managed to get any gigs.
And now some poor sucker (oh, excuse me, a friend of a band member) is going to bring a 16 track unit to record a demo. How much is he gonna get paid? Whose pocket is it going to come out of? Yours in part?
A demo for a bar band, that'll probably bring $100 a man.
That has been rehearsing together for a year and still hasn't played gig one, not even a pool party for free beer.

Does a picture emerge?

If you stay with this dumpster-fire, three years from now it'll look exactly the same.

And that's kind of a shame, because the recordings you posted sounded damn good to me. I'd sure dance to that. But deaf bandleader guy needs to get off his heinie and start going after bookings with what he has, not wait till he's made Pet Sounds before he'll try to get a beer-soaked $100-a-man gig down at the VFW.

Nobody pays $100 per member in bars in this town.

That would be private party/corporate gig territory.
 
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Listening with quality headphone that deliver bass through a DAC and amp. It needs to be redone. It is frapping (new word). However I enjoyed the tune, you did great. You can not record direct with Piezo pickups, you need to match impedance. Your Fishman preamp is more than capable and would have solved the problem. I have a Fishman for my gig bag and a smaller one for home (less need for the other features at home) Most amps cannot handle Piezo pickups and their impedance is way too low, although some of the higher amp upright amps do handle it.

I noticed it even with speakers through the same DAC but different amp with sub woofer.

I can't speak to the bandleader issues that others seem to know about, that might not be helping either.

How noticeable depends on payback speaker and device.
 
Nobody pays $100 per member in bars in this town.

That would be private party/corporate gig territory.
Oh, even better. So deaf bandleader guy's having you all jump through hoops for a $30/man bar gig band.

Can't you see he's just using you to get his jollies?

It's one thing when you're just some mates hanging out, drinking beer and jamming for nada. But when he starts getting all Tommy Dorsey or Brian Wilson on you about the perfection needed for this "band" to go play dance music for a bunch of drunks and come away without even enough money to pay for gas, that's when there's a clear disconnect between his fantasies and reality.
 
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So let me get this straight:

It's a Cajun dance band, so I'm assuming the intention is to play for dancers.
No gigs in a year even though everyone is experienced.
The deaf bandleader uses sh!**y equipment to record a demo that sounds pretty much OK, then complains because the bass could sound better.
But he's not managed to get any gigs.
And now some poor sucker (oh, excuse me, a friend of a band member) is going to bring a 16 track unit to record a demo. How much is he gonna get paid? Whose pocket is it going to come out of? Yours in part?
A demo for a bar band, that'll probably bring $100 a man.
That has been rehearsing together for a year and still hasn't played gig one, not even a pool party for free beer.

Does a picture emerge?

If you stay with this dumpster-fire, three years from now it'll look exactly the same.

And that's kind of a shame, because the recordings you posted sounded damn good to me. I'd sure dance to that. But deaf bandleader guy needs to get off his heinie and start going after bookings with what he has, not wait till he's made Pet Sounds before he'll try to get a beer-soaked $100-a-man gig down at the VFW.
People sometimes spend so much time on the details that they lose the big picture. They could have done it with one mic. If the club doesn’t get it, it’s their problem.
 
Why do you stay with this BL as much grief as he causes you (and the band overall)? Don't fire the drummer get rid of this self absorbed idiot. He is non productive!

Well I'm taking off for most of the month of March, going to Berlin to see my daughter and her husband and kids. Her husband is a professional sound guy owning one of Berlin's biggest concert audio companies, a great drummer and guitarist, collector of Les Paul guitars and Marshall amps, owns several basses and says its time I came over and jammed.

Who knows what'll happen meantime. I'll be absent for four Cajun band rehearsals. BL is gonna have a hemorrhage. Might get fired.

I know I was away for one rehearsal in October and they bought in a sub.