What would you do if ......

[brewster]

Hi

I'm new to the forum and seek advice. I've just purchased a couple of double basses, a Stentor Student II and a Thomann Rockabilly (only £285). I've purchased a set of Ultra Blacks for the Stentor and will soon snaffle up a set of silver slaps for the Thomann. My query relates to amplification.

I play electric through a Hartke 3500 rig with 4x10 and 1 x 15 cabs. I've looked through a number of posts and the consensus seems to be that the head and 4 x 10 might be okay with a pre amp. Alternatively I could purchase a smaller combo but only really have about £150 left to spend. I'm perfectly happy to buy s/h but would really appreciate any comments/advice. I will hopefully progress to a reasonable standard over the next 6 months and hope to get out gigging ASAP. Would imagine mainly small gigs with no PA.

I understand the strings won't be suitable for piezo pickups. James, my teacher and contributor to the forum, recommends a realist pickup, will this be transferable between the two basses and is is suitable for both jazz and rockabilly styles ? All advice would be appreciated.

Cheers

[PaulKing]

[quote name='brewster' post='1348559' date='Aug 22 2011, 11:14 PM']Hi

I'm new to the forum and seek advice. I've just purchased a couple of double basses, a Stentor Student II and a Thomann Rockabilly (only £285). I've purchased a set of Ultra Blacks for the Stentor and will soon snaffle up a set of silver slaps for the Thomann. My query relates to amplification.

I play electric through a Hartke 3500 rig with 4x10 and 1 x 15 cabs. I've looked through a number of posts and the consensus seems to be that the head and 4 x 10 might be okay with a pre amp. Alternatively I could purchase a smaller combo but only really have about £150 left to spend. I'm perfectly happy to buy s/h but would really appreciate any comments/advice. I will hopefully progress to a reasonable standard over the next 6 months and hope to get out gigging ASAP. Would imagine mainly small gigs with no PA.

I understand the strings won't be suitable for piezo pickups. James, my teacher and contributor to the forum, recommends a realist pickup, will this be transferable between the two basses and is is suitable for both jazz and rockabilly styles ? All advice would be appreciated.

Cheers [/quote]

2 basses at once? I celebrate your leaping in big-style! Is the Stentor carved? I expect the Thoman will sound a bit cardboardy in comparison - do appreciate you'll get what you paid for in tone from that bass - great for messing around amplified rockabilly, but there are other ply basses that sound leagues better.

Don't forget to look at your string set up before you start worrying about pick ups. You need to find a good string height that is comfortable to play - but remember that when you start you'll probably be playing very gently. As you progress you will almost certainly get much more vigorous. That is GOOD, you want to get digging in to those strings. But what seemed a good string height at first may become too low for more vogorous playing. Its a peronal thing - for jazz it's often bewteen 6-9mm, for more rootsy thumpy stuff and rockabilly more like 9-15mm, even higher for very low tension strings.

Anyway, I'm sure that amp set up will work for you to begin with, so long as you have decent EQ. You may begin to find that it becomes difficult to get a transparent sound without colouring it with theamp and speakers - I dunno, do Hartke have characteristic sound? Bright? Metallic? Don't buy anything else yet.
A preamp will help with most passive pickups, but it's not essential if the input on your head is high enough impedance. If needed, it will help keep transparent sound, and fight fedback though. Depends on the pick up/amp combination.

A piezo pickup will work with any strings, including the ones you mention. A MAGNETIC pickup (like on electric bass) will only work wth metallic strings, or ones with metal core.

Gage Realist (piezo) is the most common jazz/classical pick up, so often recommended by luthiers. It seems best for low volume gigs, where a little boom is required to help boost the natural sound of the bass. It is a bit limited in tone, nice big soft low end but not much mid and top.
For most people playing louder styles with other amplified instruments it is NOT the best option. Wing pickups like Underwood, Schatten, Shadow, K+K, Planet are all very good, flexible, simple piezos, relatively low cost, but suitable for all styles inc rockabilly. They all have much fuller range, and better feedback resistance at higher volume compared to the Realist.

They are all easily transferrable too... just pull them out of the bridge wing. Realist is slightly harder to transfer, you need to slacken off strings, take out bridge, remove pickup, refit bridge and tighten strings. And I think the jack socket fits around the G string, so you have to take that off too.


Worry about technique before worrying about amplification ... it's a different beast from ebass in so many ways.
I'm still fiddling with pickups and strings, trying to get the sound right, and I've been playing over 20 years. I enjoy fiddling ...

Also remember one thing: Every bass is different. What works for one, sounds awful on another. That goes for strings, pickups, set-up, sometimes even technique.

Have fun, keep posting.

Edited August 23, 2011 by PaulKing

[bassace]

Well, Paul's post says it all really and there's nothing to disagree with there. He mentioned a preamp - this would be an outboard piece of kit that goes a long way to buffering the mismatch of the pickup (high impedance) and the amp (lower impedance). Typically this would be a Fishman Platinum Pro eq and you should look out for one of these on the secondhand forum; they come up from time to time. Your £150 will be well spent there and whatever kit you upgrade to in the future you will always find it useful.

The K&K Bassmax is a good wing pickup to start with, not only is it easily removable from the bridge wing, the jack socket can be refitted in seconds.

Welcome aboard and good luck.

[endorka]

Nice posts, and I echo the advice about getting a preamp.

In my experience, one of these gadgets seems to improve the sound no matter what amp it is going into. The one I have seems to deliver a sound that is pretty much right, so no need to faff around with amp settings. On some amps, especially the bass guitar ones, without an external preamp no amount of faffing will get the right sound anyway, but the external preamp goes a long way to getting the signal right before it goes into the amp.

I found that even a simple powered DI box with a reasonably high input impedance can make a difference!

Jennifer

[fatback]

All the above is great advice.

I wouldn't worry too much about the amp side just yet, as it may take you a little while to get the pickup / preamp thing sorted out. It seems that everything DB takes longer than you think.

I know some people have found they don't need a pre at all, depending on the amp, so maybe get your pickup first and try it?

If you need a preamp and can't stretch to a Fishman (or can't find one s/h), why not try a Dave Hall Amps (DHA) DI/EQ? under £70 and works well. I think he gives a discount to BCers.

Have fun

[thisnameistaken]

I've used a piezo (K&K Bass Max) pickup into my Hartke (LH500) head and I did need a preamp to bring the impedance down to sensible levels before going into the Hartke - otherwise I just got a lot of high mids and very little volume. I ended up buying the Fishman Platinum Pro.

You will struggle to get both a pickup and a preamp for £150 though. £200 would do it, if you look at used gear, but they don't come up all that often. You don't necessarily need an expensive pickup (Realist, Full Circle, etc.), cheaper bridge wing piezos often do a fine job.

[brewster]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='1348998' date='Aug 23 2011, 01:57 PM']I've used a piezo (K&K Bass Max) pickup into my Hartke (LH500) head and I did need a preamp to bring the impedance down to sensible levels before going into the Hartke - otherwise I just got a lot of high mids and very little volume. I ended up buying the Fishman Platinum Pro.

You will struggle to get both a pickup and a preamp for £150 though. £200 would do it, if you look at used gear, but they don't come up all that often. You don't necessarily need an expensive pickup (Realist, Full Circle, etc.), cheaper bridge wing piezos often do a fine job.[/quote]

Thanks for all the great advice people. I've snapped up a Dave Hall pre amp for £70 and am hunting down a pickup. Can't wait to get out playing.

Cheers