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Double Bass Need a good amp for my upright

D

desotoslo

Mar 18, 2010
39
11
Tucson, AZ
#1
Hi folks, this is my first post. Been playing upright for 20 years, mostly bowing, classical stuff.

Right now I'm using a GK Backline 112, have been for years, as I don't amplify often. It's been alright.

I'm looking to upgrade to something better that will give my bow sound a nice realism. My pickup is a realist. I also have lots of good dynamic microphones I could use. Thinking of even picking up a DPA 4061 sometime.

I would like to go the route of tubes, not necessarily for the distortion, but because I feel tubes just give a niceness to the sound (and the transformers). An undeniably good solid state may be the ticket as well.

I just started playing with a "yalt" country / rock band, where I pluck sometimes, and bow other times. My problem w/ the GK 112 was that my pizzicato was significantly higher in volume than my arco.

I'd like to get something more powerful, where I could use a volume pedal (if necessary), for when I switch between arco and pizz. We play with drums, and the guitarist and banjo'ist both have good Fender tube amps. We play in small venues, maybe medium occasionally.

My price range for a head is a good bit less than $1000, and I think I'd be happy with just a 15 inch cab. I noticed a Genz Benz in my local classifieds with a 350w celestion. I wonder if that would suit me well.

A combo would probably be okay, as well.

I really appreciate any advice you may offer! :)

Thanks a lot,
David

ps: I'm in the USA.
 
#2
A couple of things. A 15" isn't generally the best choice for double bass. Not to say there aren't exceptions, but I think you will find 15's to be a bit boomy sounding and not as "quick" as 10's or 12's. Regarding tubes, unless you want a very colored sound they aren't always great for double bass either. Hybrid(tube preamp/SS power) can be good. I would recommend that you check out the Markbass Mini CMD121P combo. It is small, lightweight, powerful and has a very clear and warm sound to it. You can add an extension cabinet to it if need be and boost the power to 500 watts. Acoustic Image makes great sounding small combos and heads as well. Ideally you will just need to play through quite a few and see what works best for you and your set up.
 
#4
If you are playing in a rock band I would stay away from the GK MB150, just my experience, but I have one and it sounds nice for stuff where you only need a little bit of amp and most of the sound is coming from the bass, but as soon as you need to push it I think there are better options for higher volume stuff. I also agree that a 15" may not be the best option, I would start looking at first at 10's and 12's.
The genz benz stuff is cool, super light weight and very easy to use, I think there are better sounding amps out there for sure, but for convenience like that there is always a trade off.
 
#5
I own an

SVT (300w tube)

V4b (100w tube)

Guild Thunderbass (60w tube)

B15n (25w tube)

but I use the EA doubler for amplifying my upright, for the convenience of use as well as for the sound. I've been playing for about 16 years and have spent much time and money futzing around with amps. This has been the best solution for me by far.

I'm also a fan of smaller speakers for upright bass.

I do LOVE 15s and tubes for electric, and wanted to make those work for upright but the solid state route with smaller speakers has sounded undeniably better and easier to work with.


As far as volume goes, bow vs fingers, the bow will almost always be louder. The volume pedal is a good idea, although I've never tried it. I just bow quietly when going through the amp.

Good luck!
 
#6
adbass said:
I own an

SVT (300w tube)

V4b (100w tube)

Guild Thunderbass (60w tube)

B15n (25w tube)

but I use the EA doubler for amplifying my upright, for the convenience of use as well as for the sound. I've been playing for about 16 years and have spent much time and money futzing around with amps. This has been the best solution for me by far.

I'm also a fan of smaller speakers for upright bass.

I do LOVE 15s and tubes for electric, and wanted to make those work for upright but the solid state route with smaller speakers has sounded undeniably better and easier to work with.


As far as volume goes, bow vs fingers, the bow will almost always be louder. The volume pedal is a good idea, although I've never tried it. I just bow quietly when going through the amp.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

What cab are you using?
 
#7
Since you are primarily a double bassist, I would recommend the Acoustic Image Coda+. It's very accurate in reproduction unlike bass guitar amps and cabinets that are optimized to scoop out certain mid range frequencies that are undesirable for that instrument. The Ten2 puts out much higher volumes, but as some slight loss in flat response, but is still a lot more accurate than any bass guitar amp out there. My setup is the AI Coda+ with the Ten2ex extension speaker. It's more than loud enough even at very loud stage volumes. Stage volumes should never be that loud unless there is no PA, which is stupid, but I digress.

I can understand your liking of tubes, I love having them in my stereo, but they are big, heavy and fragile.

As far as the arco vs pizz volume difference, a lot of times it's in the pickups. I had the same problem with the Realist.
 
#9
uprightbass.com said:
Since you are primarily a double bassist, I would recommend the Acoustic Image Coda+. It's very accurate in reproduction unlike bass guitar amps and cabinets that are optimized to scoop out certain mid range frequencies that are undesirable for that instrument. The Ten2 puts out much higher volumes, but as some slight loss in flat response, but is still a lot more accurate than any bass guitar amp out there.
Click to expand...

This is interesting to me. I hear this often and my ear tends to disagree. I find that piezo pickups have an unnatural mid-range bump that is contrary to the acoustic sound of my bass. That's why I didn't like the flat frequency response of the Acoustic Image (I also found them to be boomy without engaging the LF shelf). I found that the AI amps amplified this rather undesirable characteristic of the pick up. I actually prefer the "scooped" sound of the GK and Markbass amps, provided you have a decent pre-amp for impedance matching (Fdeck/Fishman). I get way closer to the acoustic sound of my bass this way than I did with AI or the Phil Jones stuff.

Am I alone?
 
#10
Badong said:
This is interesting to me. I hear this often and my ear tends to disagree. I find that piezo pickups have an unnatural mid-range bump that is contrary to the acoustic sound of my bass. That's why I didn't like the flat frequency response of the Acoustic Image (I also found them to be boomy without engaging the LF shelf). I found that the AI amps amplified this rather undesirable characteristic of the pick up. I actually prefer the "scooped" sound of the GK and Markbass amps, provided you have a decent pre-amp for impedance matching (Fdeck/Fishman). I get way closer to the acoustic sound of my bass this way than I did with AI or the Phil Jones stuff.

Am I alone?
Click to expand...

Certain may boost certain frequencies depending on design. Piezos crystals themselves are just a material. How the piezo element is designed, where is is placed, and how it is oriented will affect its accuracy. A piezo pickup needs to be engineered properly to both be flat and accurately pick up timbre, just as microphones need to be engineered. It's understandable not to want a flat frequency response out of inaccurate piezo pickups. Take an extreme example: the K&K pickups. They're cheap and they'd probably take a 10 band parametric to get it near flat. Even then the rubber and adhesive sticky tape on them throws off the timbre of the sound where you may want to drop off those frequencies because the pickup makes them sound bad.

A lot of us have found that decent pickups such as the Realist and Full-Circle sound good through the AI because they provide a good sounding output signal. I'm partial to the BassBalsereit pickups with active electronics, btw.
 
#11
uprightbass.com said:
A lot of us have found that decent pickups such as the Realist and Full-Circle sound good through the AI because they provide a good sounding output signal. I'm partial to the BassBalsereit pickups with active electronics, btw.
Click to expand...

When I auditioned the PJB and the AI, I was concurrently A/B-ing the Full Circle and the Realist. I felt that both amps amplify the midrange frequencies of both transducers. I ended up just buying another GK MB150 and a Realist (same setup I've had for a decade).

It's been my experience, and I've tried a lot of different transducers, that all piezos, to one degree or another, have this singular characteristic of emphasizing the midrange frequencies of whichever instrument to which they are connected.
 
#12
I have so much to learn!

I did some more research after my post last night, and I am a total newbie when it comes to good double bass amplification. Yes, smaller speaker. And here I was looking at electric bass amplifiers.

Thank you all for the extremely helpful responses. And I apologize for my laziness of posting a ubiquitous thread.

But I'm glad I did!

I'll keep my eyes open. One visit to Bob G.'s online site seemed like an education in itself. The choices actually seem pretty straightforward now... I'll look into the EA, AI, Markbass, and GK (recommended) stuff.

FWIW, I've actually gotten quite good at recording my upright bass. Solution I've been using most lately is a Schoeps MK4 about 2 feet away, pointed at mid-neck. Yea, that's it! What a great sound.

I hope I can contribute my knowledge re: upright playing to this site, as that is extensive :)

Cheers,
David
 
#14
Badong said:
When I auditioned the PJB and the AI, I was concurrently A/B-ing the Full Circle and the Realist. I felt that both amps amplify the midrange frequencies of both transducers. I ended up just buying another GK MB150 and a Realist (same setup I've had for a decade).

It's been my experience, and I've tried a lot of different transducers, that all piezos, to one degree or another, have this singular characteristic of emphasizing the midrange frequencies of whichever instrument to which they are connected.
Click to expand...

If you're happy with your setup, then you're golden. I'd be doing a disservice trying to convince anyone otherwise. I've used many different bass guitar amps/combo/cabinets for 20 years because that was what was available and the day that I paired my current pickup with my current amp I was ecstatic.

Out of curiosity, for larger settings and venues, what signal do you feed to the house to get the same sound that you are hearing on stage? That was one of the bigger problems that I had with using scooped speaker cabinets.
 
#15
uprightbass.com said:
If you're happy with your setup, then you're golden. I'd be doing a disservice trying to convince anyone otherwise. I've used many different bass guitar amps/combo/cabinets for 20 years because that was what was available and the day that I paired my current pickup with my current amp I was ecstatic.

Out of curiosity, for larger settings and venues, what signal do you feed to the house to get the same sound that you are hearing on stage? That was one of the bigger problems that I had with using scooped speaker cabinets.
Click to expand...

No worries. I guess I'm just wondering if I am the only one who feels this way. I haven't read anyone that didn't flip over the AI stuff.

I'm still working on getting a good sound to the house. I've been using the XLR out from the GK :crying:. When I can spare the money, I think I'm going to do like Patitucci and send the AMT mic to the house and keep it low in the monitors.
 
#16
So I'm looking at a Clarus Series II in the classifieds right now. I wonder if that paired with a good cab would be just the ticket for me? Enough power for loud bars, maybe outdoor venues? PA systems probably would be fairly common, but not always.

Would the Clarus do as well with pizz as bowing?

I'm considering scooping that up and just running it w/ my 112 GK cab for now. My wallet is on the meager side at the moment.

:)
 
#17
Badong said:
No worries. I guess I'm just wondering if I am the only one who feels this way. I haven't read anyone that didn't flip over the AI stuff.

I'm still working on getting a good sound to the house. I've been using the XLR out from the GK :crying:. When I can spare the money, I think I'm going to do like Patitucci and send the AMT mic to the house and keep it low in the monitors.
Click to expand...

Dave Holland does the same thing with an AKG mic just up from the bridge. A Rolls XLR splitter works great to split the mic to the house and amp. If you have the AMT at the F-hole like it's designed to do, the house likely will not get a good sound, more likely a sound that's lacks definition and is boomy and muddy.
 
#18
desotoslo said:
So I'm looking at a Clarus Series II in the classifieds right now. I wonder if that paired with a good cab would be just the ticket for me? Enough power for loud bars, maybe outdoor venues? PA systems probably would be fairly common, but not always.

Would the Clarus do as well with pizz as bowing?

I'm considering scooping that up and just running it w/ my 112 GK cab for now. My wallet is on the meager side at the moment.

:)
Click to expand...

The Clarus model should do fine for anything that you do on the upright. I've only ran across amps that don't do well with a piezo pickup, but never one that can only exclusively do either arco or pizz well, but not the other.
 
#20
uprightbass.com said:
The Clarus model should do fine for anything that you do on the upright. I've only ran across amps that don't do well with a piezo pickup, but never one that can only exclusively do either arco or pizz well, but not the other.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Lawrence. I've been searching for opinions re: Clarus Series II vs. Series III but didn't find much.

Am I making a significant compromise to pick up a Series II, as the series II has less wattage...

Thanks!
David
 

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