Double Bass Opinions: Mic and/or Pickup for Club Dates?

[BassiklyAC]

Hey folks,

Want to get some insight regarding the following:

Is using a mic (such as DPA, AMT, or Nadine) for your average small to medium venue jazz gig a worthwhile pursuit? I'm posing this question with the idea that it would be in lieu of (or perhaps blended with) a pickup straight into the amp and not the pickup into amp/mic into house PA scenario.

Not curious so much about what you're using as much as your experiences with using a mic for everyday gigging, and whether the results have been worth it versus the simplicity and ease of just using a pickup.

Thanks and hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

 

[lurk]

In my experience and opinion a mic is not worth it. You're going to spend a lot of money and you're going to spend a lot of time futzing with extra wires and probably preamps and get distracted from music making. I understand the limits of the sound you get from a pickup. I own a Audio Sprockets ToneDexter and if it's a particularly nice gig I use it. Occasionally I play a venue where they have intelligent sound people and good mics and they'll mic the bass and that's nice, but basically I, and most others around here, get a good pickup - I use a Lifeline with a RedEye preamp - and learn to like and use that sound. Red Mitchell once told me that he had accepted that he played an acoustic/electric instrument like a jazz guitarist with a hollow body guitar. I think that's the way to go.

 

[Fat bob]

After spending the $$$ on a nice pre and Good stage mic and using it live many times; I agree w Lurk. Turns out it doesn't change the 2 biggest factors in my live sound: the drummers volume and the audience volume. Maybe if I played more listening rooms this would be more of a factor. Tho, I have gotten some great sounds with the additional mic blending, and I haven't sold them off yet; but for 9/10 working gigs it's to much to fuss with

 

[TroyK]

People do it and it's worth it to them.

In my opinion, for bars and clubs, the tax that comes with managing a mic in an uncontrolled environment is not worth whatever sonic benefits might come with it.

People who play in good listening environments with spacious stages are a different situation.

I only record with a mic, though. If I don't know the engineer, I'll take my pickup off before I go, because I don't want them to end up using any part of a pickup signal.

 

[AGCurry]

I don't like what a pickup does to the sound of my bass, but I'll certainly use one if conditions dictate. I always carry a mic and cable, AND a pickup and preamp, to a gig. They're small.

 

[LaFaro01]

In this "question field" I agree with Antti Lötjönen....

and I try to use a mic... but as said before... all depends from circumstances..
If I play with "only" acoustic" instruments without drums or with a really good drummer in acoustically good environments I use a mic with a good or better preamp... As said by ACCurry if conditions are worse, I combine it with my Ehrlund and in worst case I only use the Ehrlund....

Red Mitchell once told me that he had accepted that he played an acoustic/electric instrument like a jazz guitarist with a hollow body guitar.

This time I don't agree to Red Mitchell, who was a great player for sure...but I'm interested preserve the acoustic character of the instrument even more...that's not so easy and in some conditions not really possible...but for me it should be the aim..

 

[Ric Vice]

It's really more about the expectations of the gig. If it's a casual then it's a pickup. If it's a concert or club then it's a microphone.

 

[Bruce Calin]

After trying many different combinations of the two over years, I came to the conclusion that I needed reliability and simplicity along with decent sound. I haven't used a mike on a gig in many years. I just don't want the possible complications. One piece of gear that has lately been a big help soundwise is the RedEye. It has really made piezos sound much better. Using a mike in the studio is fine, otherwise no. I want to set up, plug in, and play.

 

[Don Hergert]

Slinking out from behind the curtains... I don't have decades of experience, but I might have some thoughts worth sharing.

I'd say it's smart to have options, but keep it simple: don't expect too much of either a mic or a piezo in the wrong situations. It's just the nature of the beasts.

Expect that a mic is going to have feedback at medium+ to high volume.

Expect that a piezo is going to sound at least somewhat electronic.

If these don't happen, that's just great.

From my relatively short (less jazz than roots, but some jazz) experience, having both a separate mic installed and a separate piezo/preamp installed means I can choose which system I want, or if I really want to be adventurous, I can use both...

For playing with an acoustic band at sensitive volumes, the mic is my first choice.

For playing with a loud and/or amp'ed band, the piezo/preamp is my first choice.

If a FOH is present and they really want both signals, I let them have it, but I still retain preamp volume control over the piezo/preamp signal (mostly for occasional arco). The mic signal is clear and is completely up to the FOH to control.

Two more thoughts...

A Krivo or similar magnetic pickup system may be an excellent answer for both volume situations for those using ferrous strings. I read that the Krivo makes an effort to reduce electronic tone.

Going wireless makes playing a double bass plugged in on stage noticeably easier.

... Hiding behind the curtains again.

 

[sean_on_bass]

i use a mic on a case by case basis. if i know it will be a loud band, and perhaps not much isolation for the mic, i will skip it. if the opposite, i strive to use a mic or even no amplifcation at all if the room is small enough. i dont really mess with blending my pickup with a miced sound, it's either one or the other. i absolutely prefer to play unamplified or with a mic when it's not going to be a total pain in the butt. i enjoy the experience much more when i dig the tone i am hearing.

 

[statsc]

In my experience and opinion a mic is not worth it. You're going to spend a lot of money and you're going to spend a lot of time futzing with extra wires and probably preamps and get distracted from music making. I understand the limits of the sound you get from a pickup. I own an Audio Sprockets ToneDexter and if it's a particularly nice gig I use it. Occasionally I play a venue where they have intelligent sound people and good mics and they'll mic the bass and that's nice, but basically I, and most others around here, get a good pickup - I use a Lifeline with a RedEye preamp - and learn to like and use that sound. Red Mitchell once told me that he had accepted that he played an acoustic/electric instrument like a jazz guitarist with a hollow body guitar. I think that's the way to go.

+1 for the Tonedexter! I don't know why anyone would put up with the hassles of feedback and bleed with a mic or mixing it with a pickup in a less-than-pristine listening environment (like on most gigs). When I first got it I used an 80/20 mic sound to pickup blend, then moved to 98/2. Now I use 100% mic sound. I use the Tonedexter on all gigs, except in the studio.

 

[bassmanbrent]

Like some others above, I got a good mic (DPA) in hopes of blending it with a pickup through my amp. The results weren't great so I only use the mic for FOH when playing concert venues.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I experimented with mics in live situations for years. I finally got tired of the uncertainty and constant futzing and decided it was distracting me from music making. I use the Full Circle exclusively now through a Noble and RedEye. It's a compromise, but one that I understand, and the rest is all music making with minimal futzing.

 

[Wasnex]

Hey folks,

Want to get some insight regarding the following:

Is using a mic (such as DPA, AMT, or Nadine) for your average small to medium venue jazz gig a worthwhile pursuit? I'm posing this question with the idea that it would be in lieu of (or perhaps blended with) a pickup straight into the amp and not the pickup into amp/mic into house PA scenario.

Not curious so much about what you're using as much as your experiences with using a mic for everyday gigging, and whether the results have been worth it versus the simplicity and ease of just using a pickup.

Thanks and hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

IMHO, trying to use a mic live with an amp is generally a waste of time. There can be some potential benefit with sending a mic to the PA, but generally not an amp.

There is no guarantee that using a mic for the PA will be beneficial...a mic can be used successfully for the PA in controlled situations with the right people and support. In my experience, if you are playing with a drummer, the cymbals will typically be louder in the mic than the bass. You could try using something like a sE Electronic RF Space Reflexion filter to provide some degree of isolation from other sound sources.

I suggest reading this thread and paying particular attention to @John Goldsby 's posts.
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/micing-an-upright-pickup-not-in-yet.1562047/

 

[PBandJazzBass]

Love them or hate them, I've come to accept using a pickup as necessary for gigging bassists. You may not always need one, but it's better to have the option than to risk damaging a relationship with a bandleader who may not call you back for more gigs.

If you're in a situation where you can use a mic, more power to you! There are some high profile bassists who never use a pickup, only mics. Then again, they're famous and have every sound engineer in the world going out of their way to make them happy. I don't have that kind of clout. But I do have a pickup.

 

[james condino]

Who said you only can have one?

This year I played 100 gigs in 100 different rooms requiring 100 different approaches to my live sound.

 

[John Goldsby]

I suggest reading this thread and paying particular attention to @John Goldsby 's posts.
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/micing-an-upright-pickup-not-in-yet.1562047/

Thanks for the shout-out, @Wasnex!

I agree—Using a mic through a bass amp is very tricky, although Lynn Seaton seems to make that his main setup and he has great success.

If I'm going to a gig in a small club (not the WDR Big Band or a big festival setup), I will generally just use the Fishman p/u and a Galien Kruger. I also take a Nadine with me, and little mixer (Headway EDB-2), and I see what the situation is in the club. The Headway EDB-2 can mix mic and pickup ... but that honestly doesn't always sound better than just the pickup through the amp. You can get a warm (acoustic-like) bass sound when you mix mic and p/u through a bass amp, but then when other instruments start playing, it can sound messy—less definition on the bass, hard to hear the center of pitch, etc.

So, with the WDR Big Band, I've got my system—and a lot of that depends on the great engineers and top-shelf equipment. When I'm in a small club, and there's a less-experienced sound person ... then all bets are off, and I hope for a warm bass sound with clarity— on and off stage. I can get a warm sound with the pickup and amp ... and also with the microphone. The rest depends on so many factors—size of the room, sound person (or no sound person), how far away the audience is, how loud the other musicians play, how high the ceiling is, amp on a chair or not, all kinds of things. A lot of posters here (like @james condino) have pointed these things out...

Good luck with the never-ending search!

 

[Ed Fuqua]

I've been using a mic exclusively for the last year or so- jazz gigs in clubs primarily- with no real issues. The Sennheiser 409 into the new AI S4+. I've got a pickup in the bag , but haven't pulled it out during this time; any gig that's loud enough to worry about feedback with a mic will still have that issue using a piezo.
It sounds a little like, reading the responses here, that the pickup comes out when the majority of responders have, for all intents and purposes, abandoned their expectation of getting a good acoustic sound…

 

[Wasnex]

It sounds a little like, reading the responses here, that the pickup comes out when the majority of responders have, for all intents and purposes, abandoned their expectation of getting a good acoustic sound

I think you are drawing a false conclusion here. I still tried for an authentic sound, and IMHO I was able to get closer using a pickup than a mic. The bleed from a mic tends to pick up a lot of sound from the room. If you send the mic through an amp, a feedback loop is formed and the sound is amplified over and over...and it no longer sounds like the bass.

Having a feedback loop does not necessarily mean you have squeals and squawks of feedback. At lower volume levels the feedback just makes the sound more diffuse and less coherent. By the time the sound travels electrically to your amp and speaker, and then acoustically back to your bass and mic, there is quite a bit of delay. This means the amplified sound arrives back out at the mic delayed and out of phase, so the impulse and frequency response is distorted. Keep in mind the feedback loop is continuously in action, so it can hold remnants of sound you played a second or too early...this has the effect of smearing out detail.

Bleed from other instruments was also a significant factor. In our experiments the cymbals were significantly louder in the mic signal than the bass. The person who bought the mic (AMT S25) tried turning down the treble on the mic to compensate...but IMHO this degraded the sound of the bass so much that it made using the mic pointless. He also tried blending the mic with a pickup. If he turned up the mic to the point where it could be heard, it tended to make the sound worse, rather than better. There was only a very small window in the volume levels between when the mic could be heard and when the feedback loop became so strong that it rang continuously.

The main advantage of a pickup is it focuses more on the bass and less on the room and other sound sources. This gives you more gain before feedback. It does not eliminate the feedback loop, but it's pushed down significantly further in the signal, unless you are playing very loud. As you turn up the volume, the feedback loop grows stronger and stronger...so you get sonic degradation with a pickup as well, but this degradation comes on much slower, so you have a wide range of usable volume you can play at.

To some degree you can correct for some elements of the degradation produced by the feedback loop by using mirror image equalization. Consider the bass, pickup, amp, speaker, and room to be a system. This system will have resonances that become more active as the gain is turned up. In other words they will produce peaks in the frequency response that distort your tone. As you turn up, these resonant peaks tend to grow bigger. With mirror image EQ, the idea is to try and add dips to the system response that is exactly the opposite of the peaks produce by the resonances. So as you turn up, you need to increase the depth of the dips to compensate.

In a controlled environment where their is no feedback loop and the room has good acoustics, obviously a mic will sound way more natural with way less effort. As soon as you introduce a feedback loop, the sound is rapidly degraded with a mic and no longer sounds natural. A pickup is way less sensitive to degradation caused by the feedback loop.

 

[LaFaro01]

IMHO, trying to use a mic live with an amp is generally a waste of time.

IMHO, it's not... it depends on music and situation(s) as said before...