Double Bass Need ideas on amplifying an Upright Guitarrón.

[Jack Clark]

I have an upright guitarrón tuned EADGCF (range: E1 to F4) with a custom-made low E1 string that the guitarrón was certainly not built to resonate. It does a pretty good job of it, though, but not as good as it resonates the A1 string.

I play this thing sitting down, like a cellist. (I've added an endpin.) Pizz only. (Although I am curious as to whether I could bow on the two outside strings or not. Haven't tried that yet.)

Anyway, I'm hoping that someone may have had experience trying to amplify a guitarrón. I don't know whether to try double-bass pickups (since the DB is in the same sounding range) or cello pickups (since the cello is closer to the same size. I think. I don't play cello.)

Any ideas, comments, or critiques would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[kmanley_29649]

I would imagine you would use a bass pickup. You should be able to bow it just fine. Are you using flatwound strings? Is the neck rounded like an upright or flat like a slab?

 

[Jack Clark]

Well, as far as bowing it is concerned: No, the strings are roundwound, but the fingerboard is very flat. So the strings are perfectly in line with each other (across the neck) from bridge to nut. No chance to bow anything but the two outside strings, and even they are dodgy since the C-bout is so shallow. I'm pretty certain that the bow's hair would have to contact the edge of the body while it was bowing either the E1 or the F3 string. Don't know if that would hurt the bow hair, but it would surely get rosin on the body. (Which I wouldn't mind wiping off each time, if it comes off easily.)

So you think a bass pickup rather than a cello pickup? Is the instrument sounding range a more important factor than the body size, then?

 

[kmanley_29649]

I don't think the roundwound strings are going to be conducive to bowing. They'll most likely be torture on the bow hair.

 

[Jake deVilliers]

I'd try something like the K & K Pure Western or Pure Western Mini. They are designed to glue to the bridge plate under the bridge and have a very natural sound and wide frequency range.

Shoot the folks at K & K an email and see what they suggest - I'm sure you're not the first person to do this...

 

[Jack Clark]

To Jake: Thanks for the tip regarding K & K. I went to their website and it looks like they have a (new?) Pure pickup especially for acoustic bass guitars. Two sensors for a 4-string, and three for a 5-string. I'm thinking that the 5-string model should work well arranged like the two on the 4-string, i.e., one sensor between each string pair. But I've sent them an email describing my axe and asking their advice.

To kmanley: Thanks for the warning about damage to the bow hair. I've never touched a bow and had no idea what strings they could be use with. I was going to ask one of my bassist friends to try bowing my instrument, but not if it might wreck their bow.

 

[Jack Clark]

To Jake:

I heard back from Dieter at K&K. He recommended the Pure Bass 5 string pickup I'd already been looking at. It's the one with three pickups, each set between two strings. He also recommended their small pre-amp.

Don't know much about such things.

 

[Jack Clark]

Well, I didn't know much about such things, but I eventually did install the K&K Pure Bass pickup for 5-string bass, positioning one transducer between each pair of my instrument's six strings. I also am using K&K's Pure XLR Pre-amp. This system seems still to work great after a year now.