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Double Bass Sustain

#23
Joe Smithberger said:
Paul,

Thanks, I have been wondering about that as well. However, I am not "feelin' the love" when I bring this up at my local shop. Would you think that I could move the post myself or am I just asking for all kinds of grief? Any suggestions on which way to start? Closer to the bridge or further? I bought Traeger's book but haven't sat down with it much.
Click to expand...

Joe, unless you have some experience with SP tweaking, i'd leave it to your luthier. It can be tedious...and you can do some damage to a carved top.
Give Rays advice a shot....take a drive!
 
#24
Just thought I would check in on this thread and give a status.

The string height I am playing is now quite a bit lower and this has given me quite a bit more sustain acoustically. I have also been lightening up my touch. However, on my bass with the current setup and my outboard gear, the Full Circle alone isn't cutting it.

Just for grins I put on the old Bassmax I have and the sustain was much better, but the sound was nowhere close to being as natural as the Full Circle. I have been playing with blending the two into my Clarus with the Bass max thru the Fishman Platinum with bass and treble rolled off, depth all the way down, and a good bit of compression added. I think this may work well enough to take into a rehearsal this week. The Bassmax signal alone has all of the nasty, present, sustainy stuff in it and a touch of this makes up for the politeness of the Full Circle. For my infrequent arco attempts, I could pull out the Bassmax signal. This has also got me thinking about using the Fishman in this way in an effects loop with just the Full Circle - hype up the stuff I need and blend it into the uneffected signal. Unfortunately the effects loop in the Clarus doesn't allow this type of blending. I'll need to get to my other rig to try that.

I know it's in another thread, but how does the Upton Solo compare to the Full Circle in the sustain department?
 
#25
Sustain, in the way that you describe it, is a function of compression. The Underwood, BassMax and other less natural-sounding pickups are going to give you sustain, where the less compressed signals of the FC, Realist and SOLO (by what I've read here) are going to give you less.
 

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