Upright Bass Gear: Acoustic or Bass Gear?

Acoustic Preamp (Hi-Z > 3 MOhm) with HPF and Notch mostly, maybe a little reverb, slight compression is possible. Everything else is a waste of money with a double bass.

 

If you’re using just pickup is notch necessary? I’d put a phase reverse higher up the list.

 

i can get a decent sound out of most bass amps if i have a high pass filter using a piezo.

 

Dive into Youtube and check out Chris Wood and Victor Krauss, they both use pedals quite a bit.

 

I'm in the "keep-it-simple" camp. For recording, I just put a mic in front of the bass. For live - when I NEED to use the pickup - I plug my KNA DB-1 pickup straight into my amp (Traynor SB112, which has proper input impedance and useful tone controls). It's plenty good enough for me.

 

I have a full pedalboard that I use with my Eminence EUB, but I don't find much of it useful for my full-bodied DB. The board has a tube-based Tube Injection preamp, Boss Bass Chorus, TC Spectracomp compressor, tuner, and an fDeck HPF. the only really useful pedals with the full-size DB are the tuner and the HPF (sometimes useful in a boomy room).

 

My pedal board use is not limited by the fact that I choose to play a double bass.

It is limited by the narrow mindedness of the bandleaders who hire me. More open minded people ask me to use it all of the time.....

 

Good call Roger, but with the Phase Reverse on the Walter Woods Amplifiers I find it's either going to work or not, so it's a 50/50 shot.

 

I would take a look to Miles Mosley, if you want pedals to create an "own, individual" sound..


Looking for a most-natural realistic amplification of your I would look for "acoustic" or better "studio-like" gear...
not for nothing is for example Grace Design Felix is a popular preamp for doublebass....and it's a
"very studio-like" piece of gear concerning his specs..
Using a piezo with "normal bass gear" can create problems because impedance missmatch...

 

Bass (which means bass guitar) oriented pedals and amps almost always have a sound baked in that attenuates frequencies to let the BG sound „better“. On the other hand EQ frequencies are more oriented to lower sounding instruments. Effets might be more oriented to the electric sound with more drastic sound changes.

Acoustic pedals and amps are made primarily for acoustic guitar (!), so the EQ frequencies are different from what you might expect for the DB/EUB. The good thing is that they are more neutral in the frequency range and effects might be more oriented to acoustic sounds.

In the end you need to try for yourself if one of them fits your needs.

For DB I would hardly use anything beyond reverb, delay and maybe a little bit of delay feedback modulation. But modulation rather on an EUB or a cheap ply DB and just a bit. BTW, this is also what Eberhard Weber used for his EUB (but with two often more strongly modulated delays and sometimes a chorus).

For the reverb you need to be able to EQ the lower frequencies down going into the reverb, but keep them in the direct sound. You won’t like to let the fundamental stay long when you already changed to a different one. So you need good control over a lot of the the reverb parameters, often not possible with a foot stomp multi-effect unit.

But all these effects all have a rather low input impedance (maybe except the acoustic ones, but acoustic guitars with pickups often have a preamp built-in) with a maximum of 1 MegOhms. So you might want a high impedance buffer/preamp of about 5 MegOhms or higher in front.

With DB I often feel that a more processed sound (starts with modulation, chorus, flanger) interferes with the acoustic one if not played with a really loud amplification. So rehearsing at home with lower volume sounds often strange. The EUB works better in such a situation.

 

For DB amplification, good to stay "clean" to let the acoustic character of the instrument shine through. Aside from the pedal issue, your Ampeg BA115HP has a definite tonal character that I would not find attractive with DB. (I don't care for the "Ampeg tone" for EB either, but that's another story.)

 

I would probably avoid most acoustic guitar amps & speakers. Pedals, perhaps, but the fDeck buffer/HPF is the only outboard unit I ever use. (Would love to phase even that out but haven't yet had an amp that works better for me without it.)
There is PA gear that can hold up to the more punishing bass requirements, as well as bass gear that is designed to have less coloration. I have been gravitating toward the latter: a Glockenklang Soul head with a Bergantino 2x10. A bit unwieldy perhaps for cocktail Jazz, but I am hooked on the way that pairing lets me hear and feel everything I play. (I've also tried my powered PA speakers, which are getting flatter and more powerful all the time, but for now I still prefer a bona fide bass amp.)
I may take a turn back toward electric bass coloration this spring if I can re-incorporate an all-tube head; swap some neutrality for a more musical overall response. (I have enjoyed this approach in the past, but had to retreat when my last 50 watt tube head became unreliable.)
IME when I get the initial capture right (i.e. good buffer/HPF) subsequent stages are much more flexible & forgiving.