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Double Bass Rockabilly bass amp advice
- Thread starter Gavin Ratcliffe
- Start date
Jimbo Wallace uses an SVT and 8x10 - and that's about the best clickyclicky rockabilly noise I've ever heard. My throat still hurts from screaming JIMBO the last time I saw them.
^^^^^THIS^^^^ Jack is awesome, super knowledgeable, and crazy nice... he spent at least 45 minutes on the the phone with me answering all my noob questions...
Have you tried a separate EQ (such as the Boss GEB-7 floor pedal) to control the click?
I know this completely different then what you asking, I did a gig in San Antone, there was a Rockabilly band there. They were up after us. His amp got hurt in the truck. So he ask to use my MarkBass Jeff berlin 151p with a 15. I told him I didn't care. He sounded awesome he played standup and a P bass, and that is the amp he is using now. He told me later know noise problems, and he loves it.
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Interesting about the guts... Something I will probably have to keep in mind when I go that direction.
Seems to me that as long as your preamp lets you set the eq differently for each pickup, that should be all you'd need to find the tone you are looking for. If it doesn't have separate eq for each pickup, then a different preamp would be where I would start. Sounds like your amp and string selection are right in there with standard practice for what you are playing.
Trying to get. Good solid click is hard to get but I suppose that comes with time and experience.
Sounds like I'm not having trouble after all. It's normal or should I say I'm in similar situations to most. Interesting about the gut sound from guts tho
Gaolee
Official leathers tester and crash dummy
I don't know if this helps or not, but K&K make a preamp with channels for the click and string pickups. I don't have one, but get a reasonable amount of clicky just using a Full Circle pickup that handles everything. My bass is a Chinese made Christopher 3/4 plywood bass, and the strings are Pirsatro Evah Pirazzi Slap strings. They are gut D & G and wound synthetic E & A. They were expensive from Gollihur, but have been holding up well. I think they were worth it. For what it's worth, I don't just play rockabilly. There are times I'll play slap, arco, and pizz during the same set. Not the same song yet, but that's probably going to happen someday. The amp is either a little Carvin combo or Acoustic 360. Once the amp is EQ'd for the room and to make the bass sound right through it, the slap just happens as it should. That's my take on it. Priced for value, of course.
I'm picky about the click though. If I remember right, mine was pretty bassey and didn't have that sort of drumsticks on the rim tone. I ended up cutting all the bass, a lot of the high and keeping the mids...middled
Guts have this really cool tone when they slap and I had to make sure it came through the amp. Probably nobody else in an audience would even notice but it would drive me nuts if I couldn't get that sound out of an amp. So the eq-ing was more of a me being picky thing than actual difficulty with the eq.
You run Silverslaps, right? They can be twangy when they are new
You run Silverslaps, right? They can be twangy when they are new
Gavin, like you, I'm currently using SilverSlaps , but just on E and A (and Jason is right, they are very growly when new, and hard to bow, but they get much better), and I'm using Superior BassWorks Deluxe "dirty gut" on D and G. So our click tone is probably pretty similar. My bass is an old Alcoa though, so your bass, pickup, pre-amp, amp and playing situation will always be unique, but just to give you some ideas, here are the pre-amp and amp settings that I start with at home and at any gigs...
Because I have to open my pre-amp up for EQ and gain changes, I EQ high but pretty flat for both channels out of my pre-amp but I keep the gain low (about ~20%). Then I control the majority of the EQ, gain and voicing at the amp level. For my bass I've found on my pre-amp that if I keep the slap volume at ~30%-~40% most of the time and my bridge volume at about 50%, I get the best mix going into my amp for the kind of music I do, and that leaves me with plenty of pre-amp headroom for any time that I want to kick it up.
On my amp, which is a portable but good sounding 4.5"x4 combo bass amp, for EQ, I keep bass lower than mid and treble so the bass doesn't get too boomy, and I adjust mid and treble as needed for the venue; a typical start EQ point for me at home is bass 50%, mid and treble 75%, but that changes radically depending on where I am. I generally start with the amp gain at about 25%, the volume at ~50% and I'll use compression if the volume is at or below 50%.
Again, these are all just starting points and they do get changed all the time.
My amp offers a number of amp voicings, I'll typically try to use the clear (MIC) voicing most of the time, but if I'm hearing too much left hand technique noise, I'll start with as flat of a voicing as possible and go from there. These are filters on my amp, so I loose noticeable volume headroom as I get into more aggressive voicing. EQ settings have the same effect on volume headroom, btw.
If I am at a venue where they want me to DI, I have a short, dual mono output cable plugged into my pre-amp so I can run a DI in addition to still using my amp as a monitor if I need to. My amp does have an output socket for DI'ing, but when it is used it switches off the volume from the amp, so I typically won't use that socket.
I try to keep my amp elevated to about chest level, pointed to the audience, and to my right side behind me at gigs so I can hear myself play the lowest notes. That way I can also just reach around and bump any of my amp settings as needed. My pre-amp is mounted on the back side of my bow quiver so I can simply reach down and adjust the volume knobs on the fly.
For the last gig my band did, which was in a modest size (<300 people) church, the venue had only a very limited PA with 4 mics and no DIs. So we actually amped both the bass and the rhythm guitar at reasonable volume, elevated and behind us, with amps aimed at the few mics that were available so the amps literally pumped sound into the PA. This worked out very nicely, the mix was good, everyone on stage could hear the bass and the guitar, the voices and other instruments, and people in the audience heard pretty much what we wanted them to hear.
As mentioned earlier, there will be a time in the future when I try out guts or a gut mix of some sort, when that happens I'll probably change every startup setting I've got.
Because I have to open my pre-amp up for EQ and gain changes, I EQ high but pretty flat for both channels out of my pre-amp but I keep the gain low (about ~20%). Then I control the majority of the EQ, gain and voicing at the amp level. For my bass I've found on my pre-amp that if I keep the slap volume at ~30%-~40% most of the time and my bridge volume at about 50%, I get the best mix going into my amp for the kind of music I do, and that leaves me with plenty of pre-amp headroom for any time that I want to kick it up.
On my amp, which is a portable but good sounding 4.5"x4 combo bass amp, for EQ, I keep bass lower than mid and treble so the bass doesn't get too boomy, and I adjust mid and treble as needed for the venue; a typical start EQ point for me at home is bass 50%, mid and treble 75%, but that changes radically depending on where I am. I generally start with the amp gain at about 25%, the volume at ~50% and I'll use compression if the volume is at or below 50%.
Again, these are all just starting points and they do get changed all the time.
My amp offers a number of amp voicings, I'll typically try to use the clear (MIC) voicing most of the time, but if I'm hearing too much left hand technique noise, I'll start with as flat of a voicing as possible and go from there. These are filters on my amp, so I loose noticeable volume headroom as I get into more aggressive voicing. EQ settings have the same effect on volume headroom, btw.
If I am at a venue where they want me to DI, I have a short, dual mono output cable plugged into my pre-amp so I can run a DI in addition to still using my amp as a monitor if I need to. My amp does have an output socket for DI'ing, but when it is used it switches off the volume from the amp, so I typically won't use that socket.
I try to keep my amp elevated to about chest level, pointed to the audience, and to my right side behind me at gigs so I can hear myself play the lowest notes. That way I can also just reach around and bump any of my amp settings as needed. My pre-amp is mounted on the back side of my bow quiver so I can simply reach down and adjust the volume knobs on the fly.
For the last gig my band did, which was in a modest size (<300 people) church, the venue had only a very limited PA with 4 mics and no DIs. So we actually amped both the bass and the rhythm guitar at reasonable volume, elevated and behind us, with amps aimed at the few mics that were available so the amps literally pumped sound into the PA. This worked out very nicely, the mix was good, everyone on stage could hear the bass and the guitar, the voices and other instruments, and people in the audience heard pretty much what we wanted them to hear.
As mentioned earlier, there will be a time in the future when I try out guts or a gut mix of some sort, when that happens I'll probably change every startup setting I've got.
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Sounds good.
Yes I think k rhe k&k and the shadow are similar. I wasnt aure about having a grunt combi anp or a amp and cab so as this one was going pretty cheap I bought it. I figure I'll be spending a lot of time eq ing till I get what I want if that happens
For what it’s worth, when trying to dial in your bass rig to sound like your bass here’s what I did;
1: have someone play your bass and stand roughly 20 ft away. At the time I had taught my then girlfriend to slap the open strings. This will give you an idea of your basses voice.
2: set all preamp and amp settings flat. Except your main amps gain and master. Roll the master all the way up and use your gain for volume this will increase headroom. So your master should be around 5 o’clock and your gain will between 7-9 o’clock to start.
3: use negative eq methods. Cut everything that doesn’t like your bass. Don’t treat your click tone as an entirely separate part of the sound. Make your bass sound like itself as a whole.
Negative eq on your preamp first and adjust your gains as needed to boost your signal if needed.
Move 20 feet out and check your tone.
Once your happy leave the pre-amp alone forever. Ha ha. Even when I changed strings I left my pre-settings alone.
4: your pre-Amp is like the cake. Your main rig is the frosting. Use negative eq methods, or if you need to boost a bit don’t over do it. In reality if your pre is dialed you should only need to adjust your main amps eq depending on the venue etc. My 1001rb was almost flat except for small boosts and cuts.
Most importantly your piezo pick ups must places optimally. I actually ran two clicks one on the bottom of the finger board that ran through my pre, and one super glued to a sweet spot at the top and it completely by-passed my pre. It sounded amazing and really opened up my click tone making it very natural sounding.
Feel free to ask questions.
1: have someone play your bass and stand roughly 20 ft away. At the time I had taught my then girlfriend to slap the open strings. This will give you an idea of your basses voice.
2: set all preamp and amp settings flat. Except your main amps gain and master. Roll the master all the way up and use your gain for volume this will increase headroom. So your master should be around 5 o’clock and your gain will between 7-9 o’clock to start.
3: use negative eq methods. Cut everything that doesn’t like your bass. Don’t treat your click tone as an entirely separate part of the sound. Make your bass sound like itself as a whole.
Negative eq on your preamp first and adjust your gains as needed to boost your signal if needed.
Move 20 feet out and check your tone.
Once your happy leave the pre-amp alone forever. Ha ha. Even when I changed strings I left my pre-settings alone.
4: your pre-Amp is like the cake. Your main rig is the frosting. Use negative eq methods, or if you need to boost a bit don’t over do it. In reality if your pre is dialed you should only need to adjust your main amps eq depending on the venue etc. My 1001rb was almost flat except for small boosts and cuts.
Most importantly your piezo pick ups must places optimally. I actually ran two clicks one on the bottom of the finger board that ran through my pre, and one super glued to a sweet spot at the top and it completely by-passed my pre. It sounded amazing and really opened up my click tone making it very natural sounding.
Feel free to ask questions.
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This is awesome info thank you.
You've clearly done a lot of trial and error and ground work.
My thanks for this.
I'll try this out tonight after work (New Zealand daytime now)
