So basically, I use the amp because many times I have to, or I just don't have the right equipment (i.e, EUB, AMT) to make the philosophy work. As for the practical.....we can't always do what we want unfortunately. I can't show up at a wedding gig playing unamped and being unheard because I'm tripping on my Ben Wolfe vibe - uh-uh.
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Double Bass philosophy of sound
- Thread starter Marc Piane
- Start date
Every few years or so I get sucked back into this whole thing and it drives me nuts. I'll spend all kinds of money to get a great (living room) sound then on the bandstand it sounds mushy or it feeds back or whatever. Truth is if the frequencies of the bass could be heard by the bassist like a sax player hears himself (herself) we would have no problem.
The solution for me (as I hear wth a bunch of you) is mic to the house pup for the monitor. I play with a bunch of different cats all the time in different rooms and what it is really coming down to for me is this: I have spent a lot of time trying to hone a technique and sound and feel and intonation that goes to %@$# if I can't hear it well and fast. If the notes that I monitor take too long to establish themselves in my ear as I am playing, I cant play effectively. This is what happens when I feed a mic into my rig(boominess, lack of clarity). Then I start futsing and I hate that (so does the band and audience... it makes it look like something is wrong)
Sometimes it comes down to rhythm. If you are playing more complex rhythms I think it really helps to hear clear and fast.
I just switched to a full circle (thru a solstice and then to a powered PA) and that sounds pretty good. With a mic into the house it sounds
swell. I'm done for a while. There are to many musical aspects that demand and deserve more attention....(of course there will be something new next week that promises "your bass only louder" and we'll all be off into the "yea except for the feedback or piezo twang, IT DOES sound like my bass only louder"
Truth is it will never sound like your bass louder ...to you the bassist. It takes 12 feet for some of those notes to even reach their frequency cycle so unless your amp is in the kitchen behind the bandstand the best you'll hear is a lot less then your audience. And that I think is the crux of the problem. We just can't hear what we want, and we have to compromise either by playing to accomodate a better sound or by sacrificing sound for playability.
The solution for me (as I hear wth a bunch of you) is mic to the house pup for the monitor. I play with a bunch of different cats all the time in different rooms and what it is really coming down to for me is this: I have spent a lot of time trying to hone a technique and sound and feel and intonation that goes to %@$# if I can't hear it well and fast. If the notes that I monitor take too long to establish themselves in my ear as I am playing, I cant play effectively. This is what happens when I feed a mic into my rig(boominess, lack of clarity). Then I start futsing and I hate that (so does the band and audience... it makes it look like something is wrong)
Sometimes it comes down to rhythm. If you are playing more complex rhythms I think it really helps to hear clear and fast.
I just switched to a full circle (thru a solstice and then to a powered PA) and that sounds pretty good. With a mic into the house it sounds
swell. I'm done for a while. There are to many musical aspects that demand and deserve more attention....(of course there will be something new next week that promises "your bass only louder" and we'll all be off into the "yea except for the feedback or piezo twang, IT DOES sound like my bass only louder"
Truth is it will never sound like your bass louder ...to you the bassist. It takes 12 feet for some of those notes to even reach their frequency cycle so unless your amp is in the kitchen behind the bandstand the best you'll hear is a lot less then your audience. And that I think is the crux of the problem. We just can't hear what we want, and we have to compromise either by playing to accomodate a better sound or by sacrificing sound for playability.
Flatback kinda touched on a couple of topics there that are interesting.
First: your amplified sound is always going to suck when compared to your bass acoustically in a good room. The best bet is to do the best that you can, sacrificing a bit of the Holy Grail for pragmatism so that you can just get to the business of making music.
Second: He talks about sound and what I might call 'move-ability'. Having grown up with a tenor player for a father, I first learned of this as it concerns saxophones. The basic principle there (and here) is that the richer and more complex the sound, the more slowly it moves. This is both in how it fills the room as it is how the instrument is able to switch from one note (or timbre) to another quickly. I've always loved the 'Martin' sounding saxes, and these would be demonstrated well with the sound that Dexter Gordon gets; a huge, complex sound. Most horn players get frusted with this sound as it is slow as hell (which makes one play more musically rather than running lots-o-notes, which is another topic). The other type of sound could be characterized as the Selmer MK VI sound, which a good example of would be Joe Henderson. This is a narrower, midrange-y sound that is very nimble. To that extreme would be Warne Marsh, whose sound could turn on a dime.
On bass you have as examples of one extreme -- Ray Brown or PC -- who get a huge sound, but the sound was a very slow one. At the other end would be Scotty/Eddie/NHOP, where the sound is narrower in scope, but allow(ed) these players to get smaller, faster things out of the bass and into the room. It also allows them to play a more contrapuntal role without sounding like they're doing it with a sledgehammer
First: your amplified sound is always going to suck when compared to your bass acoustically in a good room. The best bet is to do the best that you can, sacrificing a bit of the Holy Grail for pragmatism so that you can just get to the business of making music.
Second: He talks about sound and what I might call 'move-ability'. Having grown up with a tenor player for a father, I first learned of this as it concerns saxophones. The basic principle there (and here) is that the richer and more complex the sound, the more slowly it moves. This is both in how it fills the room as it is how the instrument is able to switch from one note (or timbre) to another quickly. I've always loved the 'Martin' sounding saxes, and these would be demonstrated well with the sound that Dexter Gordon gets; a huge, complex sound. Most horn players get frusted with this sound as it is slow as hell (which makes one play more musically rather than running lots-o-notes, which is another topic). The other type of sound could be characterized as the Selmer MK VI sound, which a good example of would be Joe Henderson. This is a narrower, midrange-y sound that is very nimble. To that extreme would be Warne Marsh, whose sound could turn on a dime.
On bass you have as examples of one extreme -- Ray Brown or PC -- who get a huge sound, but the sound was a very slow one. At the other end would be Scotty/Eddie/NHOP, where the sound is narrower in scope, but allow(ed) these players to get smaller, faster things out of the bass and into the room. It also allows them to play a more contrapuntal role without sounding like they're doing it with a sledgehammer
S
SteveS
Guest
...Second: He talks about sound and what I might call 'move-ability'. Having grown up with a tenor player for a father, I first learned of this as it concerns saxophones. The basic principle there (and here) is that the richer and more complex the sound, the more slowly it moves. This is both in how it fills the room as it is how the instrument is able to switch from one note (or timbre) to another quickly. I've always loved the 'Martin' sounding saxes, and these would be demonstrated well with the sound that Dexter Gordon gets; a huge, complex sound. Most horn players get frusted with this sound as it is slow as hell (which makes one play more musically rather than running lots-o-notes, which is another topic). The other type of sound could be characterized as the Selmer MK VI sound, which a good example of would be Joe Henderson. This is a narrower, midrange-y sound that is very nimble. To that extreme would be Warne Marsh, whose sound could turn on a dime....
Interesting connections between bass tone and sax tone. And probably more parallels than I had considered.
Tone is of course the Holy Grail for sax players as for bassists. I've been a professional musician playing sax for forty odd (very odd) years. In my early years I would buy and try mouthpieces to try to get the sound I thought I heard in my head. However, after a couple of months, I would just sound like me again. I came to realize that whatever mouthpiece (probably the most extreme variable in tone production for saxes) I used, eventually I would produce "my" tone. This tone has changed over the years, but it would reform if I changed mouthpieces again, morphing eventually into "my " sound. I swore off buying mouthpieces.
From my point of view, the Selmer Mark VI is the most ergonomic, best sounding, most in tune (each horn is different, tho' they come from the same factory) potentially openest sound producer that has been built. sadly better than anything Selmer or anyone else has made in thirty years. As to my bass, I am drawn to the horn just to hear its sound.
Like a bass, a sax opens up over time, the brass adjusting the way the wood of a bass does.
Whenever I play someone elses horn, I love my own '50s Mark VI horn more. The Martin/ Conn/ Beuscher sound, I associate with a certain stuffiness.
Dexter would have sounded gorgeous on a crappy student horn. Why he sometimes played on a Martin may have been more due to hockshop availability, in a way similar to some of Bird's utter crap horns. He, of course, still sounded magnificent on a "Bundy" with a chipped reed and a borrowed student mouthpiece. But he would have sounded better with...
As important as the horn is to tone, the volume it is played affects the quickness more. Play it loudly, it slows down, chokes on itself, and often goes out of tune with its own harmonics. The upper (and out of tune) harmonics become more present in the sound. If one can play with sensitive players in a good accoustic space, where one doesn't have to belt it out, becoming essentially clumsy, Jack can be nimble, Jack can be quick.
Just a knee jerk reaction (or just jerk reaction) to the Selmer criticism. Dexter was magnificent. Your dad, I'm sure, was correct in his observations, for himself.
Steve Schuster
Interesting connections between bass tone and sax tone. And probably more parallels than I had considered.
Tone is of course the Holy Grail for sax players as for bassists. I've been a professional musician playing sax for forty odd (very odd) years. In my early years I would buy and try mouthpieces to try to get the sound I thought I heard in my head. However, after a couple of months, I would just sound like me again. I came to realize that whatever mouthpiece (probably the most extreme variable in tone production for saxes) I used, eventually I would produce "my" tone. This tone has changed over the years, but it would reform if I changed mouthpieces again, morphing eventually into "my " sound. I swore off buying mouthpieces.
From my point of view, the Selmer Mark VI is the most ergonomic, best sounding, most in tune (each horn is different, tho' they come from the same factory) potentially openest sound producer that has been built. sadly better than anything Selmer or anyone else has made in thirty years. As to my bass, I am drawn to the horn just to hear its sound.
Like a bass, a sax opens up over time, the brass adjusting the way the wood of a bass does.
Whenever I play someone elses horn, I love my own '50s Mark VI horn more. The Martin/ Conn/ Beuscher sound, I associate with a certain stuffiness.
Dexter would have sounded gorgeous on a crappy student horn. Why he sometimes played on a Martin may have been more due to hockshop availability, in a way similar to some of Bird's utter crap horns. He, of course, still sounded magnificent on a "Bundy" with a chipped reed and a borrowed student mouthpiece. But he would have sounded better with...
As important as the horn is to tone, the volume it is played affects the quickness more. Play it loudly, it slows down, chokes on itself, and often goes out of tune with its own harmonics. The upper (and out of tune) harmonics become more present in the sound. If one can play with sensitive players in a good accoustic space, where one doesn't have to belt it out, becoming essentially clumsy, Jack can be nimble, Jack can be quick.
Just a knee jerk reaction (or just jerk reaction) to the Selmer criticism. Dexter was magnificent. Your dad, I'm sure, was correct in his observations, for himself.
Steve Schuster
Ray Parker said:It also allows them to play a more contrapuntal role without sounding like they're doing it with a sledgehammer
Ha! Contrapuntal Sledgehammer. Perhaps the solution to Mannheim Steamroller?
Unmentioned so far is that in many cases, you're also hearing the room, no matter what you do. It gets even nuttier: I played the same club 4 days later, same set-up (AMT, A-I) and the sound was different again, because of the difference in the number of people in the place. Do the best you can, but don't make yourself crazy. Spoken like an old man.
SteveS said:
This wan't meant as a criticism. Just an observation. Ultimately I like the 'Selmer' sounds better, Stan being my fave.
