Double Bass Need help getting the right sound!

[bstringrandy]

Here's the facts: I've played EB for 26 years, so this is a little out of my league. My daughter has an Englehart EM-1 with a David Gage Realist. The bass sounds really good acoustically, but needs help getting over the 20+ players in her Jr. High jazz band. I'm running her into my Fender bassman 150 combo. It has a adjustable preamp in, 2 sweepable mids, contour and compression. I set the bass on about 9, low mid about 8, upper mid about 6 and treble about 5. This gets a great sound. The preamp seems able to handle the lower output from the realist. I turn it up until the preamp signal light starts flashing around 7 or 8 or so.

I'm having a feedback problem in that I can't get any real volume out before I get a low frequency feedback. I read the sticky on feedback, but nothing jumped out at me to help here.

At first, the amp was behind her so I tried putting it in front, but that didn't help much. I also tried getting at least 10' between her and the amp but it still did it. I have some foam to try and dampen the strings under the tailpiece if that would help. Is this something that a preamp such as K-K would help, or do I just need to experiment more with tone and distance settings?

thanks,
Randy

 

[bdparmet]

Randy,

I'm having similar troubles - wondered if you'd share with me anything you learned. I'm brand new to the list and haven't quite figured out how to access the threads - I hope I'm not irritating a lot of people with questions that have been beat to death.

I have an Englehart M1, K&K peizo (sp) pickups, and an LR Baggs Paracoustic pre-amp.

kThanks for any help,

Brian P

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

There is plenty more information about this issue in the links thread, but for starters, the first two things I would try are muting the afterlength of the strings (you can test this in the actual playing situation by having a second person grab and immobilize them with their hand while the first person is playing), and investing in a high-pass filter (if this isn't possible, then a notch filter would be second best). The Realist is notorious for putting out a disproportionate amount of lows when the volume creeps up.

 

[reedo35]

Here's the facts: I've played EB for 26 years, so this is a little out of my league. My daughter has an Englehart EM-1 with a David Gage Realist. The bass sounds really good acoustically, but needs help getting over the 20+ players in her Jr. High jazz band. I'm running her into my Fender bassman 150 combo. It has a adjustable preamp in, 2 sweepable mids, contour and compression. I set the bass on about 9, low mid about 8, upper mid about 6 and treble about 5. This gets a great sound. The preamp seems able to handle the lower output from the realist. I turn it up until the preamp signal light starts flashing around 7 or 8 or so.

I'm having a feedback problem in that I can't get any real volume out before I get a low frequency feedback. I read the sticky on feedback, but nothing jumped out at me to help here.

Randy

Ah, the old fender bassman,that was my first Amp. OK, here's the deal- the settings you are using right now are fine for a piano/Bass duo, but in a high volume situation it simply will not cut it. The second part of the equation is- Realist/Darker sound + Fender/ Bassy sound= Bass in the Bat-cave sound.
Very woofy with no definition,and very prone to feedback.
The least expensive remedy I can think of is to either use a K&K or fishman preamp or get a small effects unit like the Korg Pandora, and tweak out the sound you want. And remember, the sound you hear while standing by the amp is not the sound you hear from 15 feet away, so use your ears and sound judgement.
Oh ,and by the way she should tell those guys that p means pianissimo, not plenty loud !!

 

[arseniotall]

Ok i got an answer for this one.
I've been touring with the loudest drummer in jazz for the last three years. I play a different bass every show, but I always carry my realist. I have the bass on 10 and get no feedback. I have several ways of achieving this, but the simplest effective way is to stuff a towel behind the tail piece immobilizing it. For extreme situations (which i always seem to find myself in on this gig) pack it all the way up to the afterlengths. Doing this I get almost no feedback at the dumbest of levels......jazz is dead.