Ramirez

I think you're confusing 'professional' and 'elite'. Most professional players play off the shelf basses, and I'm sure plenty of them own and play Squiers. My DPD delivery guy doesn't get to drive Max Verstappen's F1 car, but they're both professional drivers.

Quite- I was using them as examples that ‘unbalanced’ isn’t inherently ‘lower quality’ - it’s just a different system. ‘Line level’ and ‘headphone level’ can be quite close though. And they can all vary a lot!

Certainly! It’s always a good idea to balance them as soon as possible with a DI box, whether that be a guitar signal or an unbalanced out from an amp. Speaker and headphone feeds are usually unbalanced though, without problems. And there’s the added bonus that you send a stereo unbalanced signal down one XLR if you’re willing to take the risk with noise! I’ve done that a few with robust line-level signals from keyboards on occasion- worked fine and cut down on stage clutter.

Fair enough, but I still think accuracy is important even when simplifying things - an XLR cable is not just a ‘mic cable’, and stating so could cause confusion in other situations. And unbalanced connections really don’t mean a lower quality sound, generally or otherwise.

Balanced connections are very often carried on TRS jacks too, not just XLRs. They’re not “noise cancelling”, just more immune to interference etc, which is useful in some scenarios. They’re usually line-level signals, apart from DI boxes and microphones. Also, unbalanced does not mean “lower quality sound”. it’s just a different electrical system. Many extremely high-end audio equipment of all descriptions use unbalanced connections - it doesn’t sacrifice any ‘quality’ as long as everything works as intended.

Ha! You're welcome to borrow one (or two...) if you want to try. I have 2x Camden 500 modules in a small chassis that's not seeing too much use at the moment (another four are in the main studio rack, and the EC1 goes wherever I go to solve all the unpredictable of mic pre/DI/reamping/monitoring problems I face from day to day!). A few days ago it was 'reamping' a real Steinway grand piano through a rotary speaker pedal in an opera recording on location... you can't do with that with all those other great bass preamps !

Great! Hard to know what could be lost from the EC1 though - I've certainly found all the headphone mixer options and inputs useful in various in-ear monitoring scenarios. The CAST is probably a bit redundant for performing bassists so could be dropped... but having said that, I've used that on stage with an N22 too!

Quite. That holds true for any acoustic instrument. But sometimes a pickup is the practical solution if a mic causes other issues. And if I had an upright pickup that gave me that sound I posted, I'd be very happy!

Does this cut your mustard? It's a cheap Harley Benton Beatbass fretless 😁! I fitted a very cheap piezo pickup (not a bass specific one) that I found in the shed, and ran it through an upright IR in Helix. Annoyingly, it sounds more convincing than a pickup on my real upright...

Well, it isn't a double bass at all - it's a cheap Harley Benton Beatbass fretless and a cheap old piezo pickup I found in the shed, though an upright bass IR on a Line 6 Helix. If I'm being honest, I'm unable to get a sound that's nearly as convincing from a pickup with my real upright! - my Krivo pickup sounds more 'electric', and the piezo doesn't work as well either. Ho-hum...

Thanks both. I'll admit, there's a twist in this tale, which is why I'm not yet being specific - I'll wait for a few more opinions on the sound! Aled

Right, I've been messing around with pickups and mic for live use, and I think I've found something decent. Would you be happy sending this sound to FOH? (Mind my intonation 🫢!)

Worth a try, but the 'Cream' setting on the Camden beats most amps for drive for my taste! The 'Thump' is very good on clean bass though - it does something very nice. And try it in conjunction with the HPF - if you use a lot of Thump, the HPF can tame it in a nice way without stealing all your bottom end. It's also a great IEM mixer. I doubt we're a sizeable market for Cranborne, but a bass-specific version would be absolutely brilliant (and would be very appealing to any number of live acoustic instruments too) *Two blendable inputs, with at least one of them switchable between mic and Hi-Z for double bassists (though I think you could do this with an EC2), *Independent Thump and Cream controls (I often use two Camden 500 in series on bass in the studio, one on Thump and one on Cream) *Slightly more gig friendly form factor *9v outputs for tuner/other pedals *Perhaps some extra magic sauce derived from the new Carnaby units (I'm really tempted with the stereo rack version of this for the studio!) The 500 ADAT racks almost tick all the boxes for me too, brilliantly thought out, but a couple of drawbacks makes it unsuitable for my need (mainly that you can't select ADAT as source for the headphone amps, and that there's no independent access to the A/D and D/A stages - everything is tied to the 500 slots.) Aled

Fantastic box - I have an EC1 and 4x Camden 500 preamps. It’s an absolutely wonderful bass preamp ond top of being a top quality mic pre, studio processor, headphone amp, etc etc etc… If I ever start gigging double bass again it will definitely be my rig, be it with a mic or a pickup (though you can’t blend between the two to send to FOH)

Good to hear!