Double Bass Set up Azola Lightning Bug for Afro-Cuban?

[rcole7273]

Novice EUB player here, trying for something like the Ampeg baby bass sound from my Azola Lightning bug. Any tips for strings, EQ, muting, etc.? I don't have the Azola mambo mute, and would love any ideas how to get one, or maybe fabricate something similar? Although, tinkering with EQ and amp, I am getting pretty good tone and attack without any muting.

I am pretty sure others have been down this road, so I would really appreciate some pointers. Sorry, if I missed something obvious in my review of previous posts...

 

[dylanjohnson]

Novice EUB player here, trying for something like the Ampeg baby bass sound from my Azola Lightning bug. Any tips for strings, EQ, muting, etc.? I don't have the Azola mambo mute, and would love any ideas how to get one, or maybe fabricate something similar? Although, tinkering with EQ and amp, I am getting pretty good tone and attack without any muting.

I am pretty sure others have been down this road, so I would really appreciate some pointers. Sorry, if I missed something obvious in my review of previous posts...

Pull back the treble knob all the way. I have good luck putting the leather string mute above the bridge for faster decay. Nothing replaces the real thing, though. PM me if you ever decide to sell it! I'm looking for one.

 

[Francois Blais]

Dark orchestral strings with a fast decay would help too.
Jargar, Kaplan and Flexocor come to mind.

 

[shwashwa]

could maybe help to squash the signal with a compressor too. works for me with my messenger bass for salsa thump

 

[rcole7273]

Pull back the treble knob all the way. I have good luck putting the leather string mute above the bridge for faster decay. Nothing replaces the real thing, though. PM me if you ever decide to sell it! I'm looking for one.

Thanks for the tip! I tried it and it sounds good. Nice bump without totally killing the sustain. And easy.

 

[rcole7273]

could maybe help to squash the signal with a compressor too. works for me with my messenger bass for salsa thump

Thanks. Might give this a try.

 

[rcole7273]

Dark orchestral strings with a fast decay would help too.
Jargar, Kaplan and Flexocor come to mind.

Thanks!

 

[redwookie]

This link might be useful for you especially if you do a lot of Latin Jazz

Baby Bass megathread

(FWWI: I’ve got some nice compressors and an eq stomp. And I do play some Caribbean music and some Latin jazz occasionally. But fussing with all that on a gig is a bit too much for the little I play this material outside. So when the songs are called, I just roll off the treble, compress a little (or not) and both my baby bass and lightning bug sound just fine.)

per dylanjohnson:
Pulled from a latin jazz email list ages ago....
Jon Fausty engineered the majority of the major New York latin music recordings of the the 70's and 80's. Here is his secret sauce for baby bass eq.

"Not all baby basses sound fat to begin with. Make sure the bridge is adjusted
evenly to give an even volume [amplitude] from the four strings. Apply a
shelf EQ of +3db @ 80Hz. Attenuate -4db @ 1.3Khz with a Q of1.0. Compress
mildly no more than 1.5 to 2.0db at a ratio of 2 to 1 with an attack time
50ms and a release time of 100ms. This rudimentary formula should get you in
the ball park."

 

[rcole7273]

Thanks. Very helpful!

 

[dylanjohnson]

Thanks for the tip! I tried it and it sounds good. Nice bump without totally killing the sustain. And easy.

You tried the leather mute trick? I learned it from an LA bass player named Brian Wright who plays a lot of latin gigs down there. I've never seen anyone else do it, but it works for me, too.

 

[rcole7273]

Actually the bass comes with a velcro "dampening" band that is normally in place below the bridge. I just moved it up above the bridge. Sounds pretty good. Better than anything else I have tried so far.

 

[dylanjohnson]

Yes, that is what I was speaking of. It takes some tweaking to not over mute the strings but once you set it right, it works pretty well.

 

[rcole7273]

Worked on the first try for me. Should have thought of it myself.

 

[rcole7273]

Novice EUB player here, trying for something like the Ampeg baby bass sound from my Azola Lightning bug. Any tips for strings, EQ, muting, etc.? I don't have the Azola mambo mute, and would love any ideas how to get one, or maybe fabricate something similar? Although, tinkering with EQ and amp, I am getting pretty good tone and attack without any muting.

I am pretty sure others have been down this road, so I would really appreciate some pointers. Sorry, if I missed something obvious in my review of previous posts...

 

[rcole7273]

Just to summarize where I landed on this, for the record. Thanks to all of you who posted for your advice.

The compression box works brilliantly for me. Lots of punch, but still some sustain with no degradation of sound quality. Also nice to switch on and off at will. Got the sound I was looking for to blend with the percussion.

The trick of moving the velcro dampener from behind the bridge to a little ahead of the bridge also sounds really good. Nice to have this as Plan B in case the compressor fails.

Have combined muting (using the round weather stripping foam) and the compression box to get much better "Latin" sound out of a Godin acoustic-electric (that normally has sustain for light years) and a couple different electric basses, also.

My conclusion: compressing and/or muting can go a long way toward producing that boss tumbao sound.

Thanks again!

 

[redwookie]

trick of moving the velcro dampener from behind the bridge to a little ahead of the bridge

Can anyone post a pic of this?

 

[dylanjohnson]

Can anyone post a pic of this?

I got the idea from this guy.