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Double Bass Rockabilly bass amp advice

#41
DonaldFraser said:
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.
Click to expand...
Fantastic stuff thank you.
How were you able to connect 2 click pick ups. ?
Also my bridge pick up I have now noticed they is fitter in the wing slot can actually move. I noticed this when I was slapping pretty hard and I kept hearing a crackly sound. This was when the bridge was actually flexing and making the shadow pock up moved.
Should I glue it in
 
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#44
Gavin Ratcliffe said:
On the main amp is a compressor dial.
I haven't a clue what it does
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with your model of amp, but many single-knob compressors just allow you to adjust threshold. IMO, those are not very useful. For critical bass tone, there is a need for a compressor with attack, release, ratio, and gain controls.

Describing what a compressor does is a bit difficult. I would suggest doing a Google search to get details on their specifics. In general, I will say that compressors help 'even-out' signals. They do this by systematically reducing the output of loud sounds by a certain number of decibels.
 
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#45
I actually soldered the second click to the out jack on my bass. So it didn’t run to the pre at all. It was basically live all the time. But you could achieve the dual click by soldering the two clicks together then running them both to the pre.

Don’t glue your bridge wing. Shim it with cork. Or wind instrument reeds.
Gavin Ratcliffe said:
Fantastic stuff thank you.
How were you able to connect 2 click pick ups. ?
Also my bridge pick up I have now noticed they is fitter in the wing slot can actually move. I noticed this when I was slapping pretty hard and I kept hearing a crackly sound. This was when the bridge was actually flexing and making the shadow pock up moved.
Should I glue it in
Click to expand...
 
#46
DonaldFraser said:
I actually soldered the second click to the out jack on my bass. So it didn’t run to the pre at all. It was basically live all the time. But you could achieve the dual click by soldering the two clicks together then running them both to the pre.

Don’t glue your bridge wing. Shim it with cork. Or wind instrument reeds.
Click to expand...
Will 2 connected together not make a difference with the resistance ?
Also should the bridge pick up be tight
 
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#47
The resistance would be minimal, and if you run it into a pre you can boost the gain if needed.

Your bridge pick up should be snug but not too tight. If it’s too tight it’ll choke your sound. Too loose you get rattles and feed back. I had thumb screws on my bridges so I could dial the pressure in just right.

Gavin Ratcliffe said:
Will 2 connected together not make a difference with the resistance ?
Also should the bridge pick up be tight
Click to expand...
 
#48
DonaldFraser said:
The resistance would be minimal, and if you run it into a pre you can boost the gain if needed.

Your bridge pick up should be snug but not too tight. If it’s too tight it’ll choke your sound. Too loose you get rattles and feed back. I had thumb screws on my bridges so I could dial the pressure in just right.
Click to expand...
Mine definately is not right by the sounds of it too loose
I can add a thumb screw to it
 
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#55
My experience is that if my amp volume is any greater than 50%, compression just makes causes distortion, so in that case I turn it off. I've heard from my son the bass guitar player that most amp accessory compression features don't do much. The real compressors are separate devices dedicated to compression.
 
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