Kmamac

Just to let the readers of this thread I had the pleasure of meeting Simon (the OP of the thread) and to see the many double basses he has. It’s quite an eclectic collection with something for everyone. I pleased to say I purchased a loverly double bass (to replace my dead , beyond economic repair laminated DB!!) and we agreed a great price. So if London is not too far for you and you need a double bass I would suggest you contact him soon before they’ve all gone!

Hi, I’ve sent you a message. best regards Keith MM

Thank you to every one who contributed to my question. After your contributions I purchased a prodipe BL21 microphone and tried the ART preamp I found second hand. Fortunately I know a composer (not clued up on DB presamps though!) and after fiddling at his studio decided the ART was not so good with the mic. I then bit the bullet and purchased the Fishman platinum pro EQ . We recorded with his fancy thousand pound mic and compared it with the Prodipe. He was very impressed with how the prodipe picked up the double bass and felt it was not far off his stupidly expensive studio mic (clearly the Prodipe is only designed to work at the low end though) . I did need phantom power for the mic (which the Fishman does not provide) so purchased a cheap (Ish) Makie M48 phantom power supply (battery and separate plug in power supply). We needed a little bit of low cut with the HP filter and knocked off a little bit off the treble. Some compression was also used. Bottom line is I now have a great set up up to the pre amp stage. I'm holding off purchasing amplification for a couple of months but have found a place that stocks quite a few active speakers and is happy for me to plug in my setup and see which one does the best job. Thanks again for all your input.

Thanks - that makes perfect sense.

Thanks Joe, I must admit I like the idea of a microphone as opposed to a peizo pickup. Which ART tube MP preamp do you use/suggest as there seems to be a few (clearly suited to different applications). (just spotted a SH Art Tube MP Studio V3 Preamp at a good price. Also whats the advantages of having an active PA speaker over say a bass combo amp.

Duly noted wrt the Platinum pro. Are you politely saying the Jtone pick up is maybe a bit too cheap and I should consider something a bit more 'quality' for this critical first step.

Thanks for your help here. Are you saying this little beauty will cope with an very high impedance piezo pickup? ie plug straight in and get a decent double bass sound?

I have searched the forum for answers to the pre amp /amp options and to be honest I'm more confused than before! I'm hoping your collective wisdom can guide me towards a good solution for me now in my double bass playing journey. I'm a new double bass player wanting to play jazz with fellow amateur musicians. What are my options for amplification for rehearsals and small gigs in say a pub. I have a j tone piezo electric pick up fitted and understand this has a very high impedance (mega ohm) and will need amplifying before a bass amp can do anything useful with its signal. Looking at previous posts the Fishman platinum pro (£250+) seems a popular option but does it have more than I need? I also read of the Fishman platinum stage EQ which seems to have less features but is about £160. The K&K pure pre amp is also spoken well of and costs about £100+ Should I spend £100 or £250? Am I right in saying that with any of the above I can now plug into any s/h bass amp and get something approaching an accurate sound? All in (pre and amp) I don't really want to go over £400. Are there any bass combos that have a mega ohm input which negates the need for a pre amp that could be got for about £400. (or is this only high end stuff out of my price range) As you can read I'm really confused. Bottom line is I want to be heard and only have about £400 to do it! Is this possible? Many thanks in advance for your wisdom Keith MM