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gigging with both upright and bass guitar


johnny dissident
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Do any of you chaps gig with both double bass and bass guitar ?
If so ,what rigs do you use or have used ?
At the moment I'm playing my stentor ,not the brightest sounding bull fiddle ,and my 79 stingray ,through a Laney RB4,which was ok for rehearsals ,but frankly sounds ..........um, in a live situation.
I recently saw a guy playing upright through a little Markbass combo, which sounded great.what are they like for bass guitar as well ?
Also, does anyone have any advice for switching between instruments mid gig, as I'm finding it a bit of a 'mare at the moment.

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there are quite a few cab and amp makers which are said to work well with both upright and electric basses. Euphonic Audio, Acoustic Image and Glockenklang are a few that spring to mind. and if you thought the Markbass stuff sounded good, then that too.

as for switching between the 2. an amp with 2 imput channels, or a small mixer before the amp will make changes quicker. and then stands for the 2 instruments not only to keep them safe, but to save space.

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When I've gigged with both I've used my Trace Elliot, I haven't gigged with both since I've had the Eden. And It's sounded fine. Generally I have my EQ set pretty flat using the onboard pre for tone shaping (on electric)

Most of the stuff is on electric and when I siwtch to Upright I use a cheap Behringer Graphic EQ pedal for tone shaping and to cut frequencies most likely to feedback, sounds absolutely fine. It's not the most sturdy pedal but I'm not stomping on it mid song, it's either on or off.

The best soloution I've seen for gigging both is a pedal called the Radial Bassbone, but they are pretty expensive. It bassically has two channels in, that IIRC have seperate EQ's it also acts as a DI box, really nice bit of kit, but I don't perform often enough with more than one instrument to warant it.

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[quote name='johnny dissident' post='137121' date='Feb 9 2008, 02:57 PM']Do any of you chaps gig with both double bass and bass guitar ?
If so ,what rigs do you use or have used ?[/quote]

I'm still in something of a state of flux, playing EUB and bass. I have been using a GK 200MB (predecessor to the MB150), getting the sound set up for the bass guitar which I use for most of the set and compromising on the EUB sound.

The intention is to use an Ashdown Superfly and switch EQ as I switch between EUB and bass.

[quote name='johnny dissident' post='137121' date='Feb 9 2008, 02:57 PM']Also, does anyone have any advice for switching between instruments mid gig, as I'm finding it a bit of a 'mare at the moment.[/quote]

Which bit of it is the problem? Physically, my EUB is on a stand and my bass has straplocks so I just swivel the bass round behind me to play EUB. I can see that being a bit less satisfactory with the bulk of a double bass body. Electronically, I just press the Behringer A-B switch (and will in the future also be doing a little tap-dance on the MIDI program control footswitch).

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[quote name='johnny dissident' post='137218' date='Feb 9 2008, 06:37 PM']Cheers guys,now I have an idea of what to research,that focus 2 looks very ineresting ,loads of power.I think if I had the funds right now......[/quote]

If I recall WoT used DB and electric with this very unit. Squeeze him for more details :)

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My experinces of this were to have two different amps - a GK combo for upright and a SWR Workingmans Twelve (with sansamp) for bass guitar, expensive but it worked very well. A better solution is a real two channel amp (Focus?) I now use an old Alembic F2B, but I prefer not to mix - its either Upright or BG and I try really hard not to bring both. I used to make a point of providing two DI outputs as they sound very different, but to be honest 90% of sound engineers couldn't be bothered!

To make it work with one amp you can combine a simple A/B footswitch followed by a switchable preamp like the Sansamp. That way you can change between a "flat" sound for Upright, and a more "coloured" tone for BG and change instruments in two clicks. Takes a while to balance the levels etc but it does work...honest.

BB

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