Double Bass Upright bass mics

[Jim Henderson]

Really pleased with the Shure KSM44 through the Acoustic Image. This set up seems to give a lot of choices in terms of sound and I also use it occaisionally through the Fishman Platinum and AI when the room shape dictates. Only drawbacks are that I don't spin or slap the bass coz' it requires too much energy and I'm too old . Just another option to consider though.
Jim

 

[bas20hz]

Ok so I'm about a month behind on this post and after Christmas but I actually know something about this topic. I have run sound for bluegrass festivals and I am a bluegrass bass player. I've used the Pro 35 and think it's a bit susceptible to feed back but provides a much more acoustical representation than some of the kick drum mics I had to use (requested by the bass player on stage). However what you want depends greatly on your style. The condenser mics tend to be too hot for slap players while the kick drum mics don't have enough definition for the really critical tone of "newgrass" type players. I played at a festival a few months ago and the sound engineer used a "bass clamp" to position an audio technica tom mic about two inches from the f-hole of my '44 kay. I use helicore strings and have high action for volume but I use a lot of sustain and frequently walk. This worked beautifully for my style. I later heard a different group play and the bass player was slapping a lot and the sound wasn't too "clicky" and had a reasonable amount of resonance. It may be good to mention that these mics have a small pickup pattern and so are less likely to feed back in the P.A. I am a mic biased person but I also understand that there is a pickup by Schertler that is really natural sounding if you have a budget the likes of which I will probably never be able to justify. (Something like $650.00)
Well I hope that helped.