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Make my piezo fretless sound like a doghouse?

C

Chistopher

Feb 11, 2025
4
0
#1
I've bought an Ibby SRH505F 5 string fretless Piezo bass because we don't have room for an double bass. On it's own with the flat wounds that comes with it, it sounds a lot closer to an upright than you would think.

Only real thing I can modify on it is the strings. What sort of strings would get me closer to an upright sound, but would work on my instrument?
 
#2
Pick close to or over the neck heel, for starters.

I've seen recommendations to mute the strings -- stuff some sponge or cloth under the strings at the bridge. Experiment with how much to use and where to put the mute. This is because bass guitar tends to have more sustain than double bass. There are mutes commercially available, some of them require a close match with your string spacing. You can also control sustain with your fretting hand and the palm of your picking hand. It's trickier to do evenly and consistently but can sound more organic.

iirc the SRH505F ships with D'Addario Chromes, which are relatively bright compared to old-fashioned flats. Good strings to start with, unless you find them uncomfortable or the strings have gone dead.

Double basses (and playing techniques) produce a wide variety of sounds, and they don't all sound like each other. To avoid circular arguments over whether a guitar can sound like an upright, it's better to focus on which characteristics of a particular bass's sound you want to have. Depending on what you're playing and where, you can probably achieve something good-enough to pass -- it won't fool anyone who's paying attention and cares, but it won't disrupt the music's vibe.
 
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#3
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#4
Chistopher said:
I've bought an Ibby SRH505F 5 string fretless Piezo bass because we don't have room for an double bass. On it's own with the flat wounds that comes with it, it sounds a lot closer to an upright than you would think.

Only real thing I can modify on it is the strings. What sort of strings would get me closer to an upright sound, but would work on my instrument?
Click to expand...
Once you sort out the strings you can also also look at preamps, amps, and cabs that skew to the particular flavor of URB sound you want. A friend of mine owned the four string version of your bass and the custom preamp I built for her URB was pretty much in the ballpark, but I would have done a few mods if building specifically for her Ibanez and trying to make it work for mostly bluegrass stuff.

To be clear, I have nothing to sell and my designs are open source and primarily meant for advanced DIYers. ;)

Have fun, I dig those basses!
 
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#9
The bridge is where the sound is channeled and focused in an upright. The body of the bass amplifies and adds resonances. In general a bridge-mounted pickup will give you a more uprighty type of sound. AFAIK this is because using a pickup that senses the string between the bridge and where it is stopped will always result in comb filtering.

While a bridge-mounted pickup will capture more uprighty string vibrations, there is no way to accurately capture the decay characteristics and resonances of the upright's body. An ABG or hallow body bass will have resonances that sound nice, but they will tend to be at a higher frequency, which can give the sound sort of a toy-like or artifical quality.

Marcustico ABG:




Success really depends on what aspect of double bass tone you are trying to capture. To get a more authentic dynamic note envelope, you could try some sort of material under the strings to function as mutes. Mutes will shorten decay and dampen harmonics. However, IME, mutes may make one range better in some way and another range worse to unusable. For example, adjusting the mute for the right decay near the nut and it may cause notes higher on the fingerboard to sound pinched.

Tapes are probably the way to go.
 
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#12
Chistopher said:
I've bought an Ibby SRH505F 5 string fretless Piezo bass because we don't have room for an double bass. On it's own with the flat wounds that comes with it, it sounds a lot closer to an upright than you would think.

Only real thing I can modify on it is the strings. What sort of strings would get me closer to an upright sound, but would work on my instrument?
Click to expand...
As for gear... buy La Bellas flatwounds, TI Jazz Flats, or your flatwound of choice (or continue using the flats you've got). Use a foam/sponge mute or some pre-made muting solution (NordyMute, etc). Set your tone-shaping controls to fairly flat, or else to accentuate the non-sub bass/low mids, because an amp-like tone color is somewhat antithetical to acoustic upright tone.

Aside from that, technique. Study the plucking technique and note choice of upright players. This will take you farther than you might think.

After that, also accept that "close" may have to be close enough.
 
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#13
jdjk7 said:
Aside from that, technique. Study the plucking technique and note choice of upright players. This will take you farther than you might think.
Click to expand...

This. For me plucking near the neck with a technique that borrows more from upright style than anyone would normally use on an electric bass, with a bit of extra height on the action to allow it, probably makes the biggest difference for me than the strings, where I would just use pretty much any worn-in flats.
 
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#14
You're going to need different strings. Here are my suggestions:
A) La Bella Black Tapes (50-105 or 60-115 gauge)
B) D'Addario Tapes (50-105 gauge)
C) La Bella Copper White Tapes (50-105 or 60-115 gauge) - if you want something a little bit brighter

Wasnex said:
The bridge is where the sound is channeled and focused in an upright. The body of the bass amplifies and adds resonances. In general a bridge-mounted pickup will give you a more uprighty type of sound. AFAIK this is because using a pickup that senses the string between the bridge and where it is stopped will always result in comb filtering.

While a bridge-mounted pickup will capture more uprighty string vibrations, there is no way to accurately capture the decay characteristics and resonances of the upright's body. An ABG or hallow body bass will have resonances that sound nice, but they will tend to be at a higher frequency, which can give the sound sort of a toy-like or artifical quality.

Marcustico ABG:




Success really depends on what aspect of double bass tone you are trying to capture. To get a more authentic dynamic note envelope, you could try some sort of material under the strings to function as mutes. Mutes will shorten decay and dampen harmonics. However, IME, mutes may make one range better in some way and another range worse to unusable. For example, adjusting the mute for the right decay near the nut and it may cause notes higher on the fingerboard to sound pinched.

Tapes are probably the way to go.
Click to expand...

The bassist and drummer in that second video are COOKIN'! And then they continue to cook as the saxophone comes in towards the end. This trio sounds incredible and the bass sounds a lot like a double bass.
 
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#15
Tape wound string were my thought as well. You might also try some light reverb with really short time, or even really tight slapback delay, especially if the tone is close as-is.
 
#16
I have an SRH505F and love it. It has the stock chromes and I am very happy with them. This is just my opinion but I feel that while a good set of flats will help, EQ and Technique are more important than what strings you use as long as they are flats. I use the floating thumb technique to mute the B and E strings and I get a good thumpy sound when playing at the neck. Another technique that works very well for slow tunes is to pluck with the thumb. Believe me, it is very effective when playing slow tunes. ;)
 

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