Pick ups, preamps and amplification

[Wonky2]

Hey guys

Im still in process of my neck repair and wating on some parts such as adjustable bridge and strings (thanks keving)....

I Got to thinking about playing with the band in the near future and in turn, amplification .....
I read a whole load of posts on here and the net in general but im a bit stuck for a starting position as so many options seems to be specific to certain approaches in sound and tecnique....?

Id like a good pick up which will i guess mistly piz but id like to try the bow of course at some point.... Not suggesting i could dive straight in, but id sure like to "explore"....
I dont know whether to look for a bridge mounted single or double pad pick up , anynsuggestions are welcomed in the £50-£100 price bracket....

Next is amplification...... Im clueless here.... Ive heard people refer to a "doubler" before? Whats that then ? Is it a twin channel amp for using two pickups ?
I have a mark bass little mark 3 head with a 2x10 markbass traveller cab, is this suitable for double bass ? Is the output of the pickuos passive and ok to use straight into amp like my fender ?
Or will it do damage ?
The spec for the little mark 3 says it has :
"BALANCED INPUT (XLR)
impedance 22 Khom, max. voltage 25 vpp "

So any pick up,reccomendations compatable with this would be great ?

Is there a need for a preamp ? Or can my amp cope well enough with input gain....?

25 plus years of playing bass, now im like a fish out of water..... Hahaha clueless

Please excuse the daft questions, all help is warmly recieved with thanks

Wonky

Edited January 13, 2016 by Wonky2

[mybass]

[quote name='Wonky2' timestamp='1452646463' post='2952079']
Hey guys

Im still in process of my neck repair and wating on some parts such as adjustable bridge and strings (thanks keving)....

I Got to thinking about playing with the band in the near future and in turn, amplification .....
I read a whole load of posts on here and the net in general but im a bit stuck for a starting position as so many options seems to be specific to certain approaches in sound and tecnique....?

Id like a good pick up which will i guess mistly piz but id like to try the bow of course at some point.... Not suggesting i could dive straight in, but id sure like to "explore"....
I dont know whether to look for a bridge mounted single or double pad pick up , anynsuggestions are welcomed in the £50-£100 price bracket....

Next is amplification...... Im clueless here.... Ive heard people refer to a "doubler" before? Whats that then ? Is it a twin channel amp for using two pickups ?
I have a mark bass little mark 3 head with a 2x10 markbass traveller cab, is this suitable for double bass ? Is the output of the pickuos passive and ok to use straight into amp like my fender ?
Or will it do damage ?
The spec for the little mark 3 says it has :
"BALANCED INPUT (XLR)
impedance 22 Khom, max. voltage 25 vpp "

So any pick up,reccomendations compatable with this would be great ?

Is there a need for a preamp ? Or can my amp cope well enough with input gain....?

25 plus years of playing bass, now im like a fish out of water..... Hahaha clueless

Please excuse the daft questions, all help is warmly recieved with thanks

Wonky
[/quote]
I'm sure the MarkBass amp n speaker setup is plenty power! Keep speakers
away from direct line to the bass body of course to counter feedback.
Pickup wise I hope you get some good suggestions but I'm thinking of trying out
a technique my double bass tutor used to have on board his DB. A Shure 58 enclosed
In foam to hold it in the bridge feet with the mic head facing towards the fingerboard
direction. I'm not using the DB at present but I remember his live sound all those years ago
was very good.
I saw DB player Eddie Gomez at Ronnie Scott's using a Walter Woods amp ( precursor of MarkBass styling)
and two Bose cabinets that were at head height. He got his sound okay. Good luck.

[randythoades]

An unpopular opinion, but I use a Kent Armstrong magnetic pickup. I get complimented about my sound, no feedback (or very little anyway) and it is just plug and play. I do sometimes use a clean boost pedal to raise the output slightly if I am using a house amp, otherwise I use GK MB200 into single Ashdown 112 cab just for stage volume and then DI to PA. Simple and easy to set up.

[mybass]

[quote name='randythoades' timestamp='1452673110' post='2952170']
An unpopular opinion, but I use a Kent Armstrong magnetic pickup. I get complimented about my sound, no feedback (or very little anyway) and it is just plug and play. I do sometimes use a clean boost pedal to raise the output slightly if I am using a house amp, otherwise I use GK MB200 into single Ashdown 112 cab just for stage volume and then DI to PA. Simple and easy to set up.
[/quote]

This reminded me that I had one of Kents' pickups for DB many years ago, I had it velcro'd (?) to the underside of the fingerboard end, must have been a good sound but I moved on to yet another pup.

[randythoades]

I have mine No More Nailed to end of fingerboard and trail the output jack down to the tailpiece where it is No More Nailed to the underside. No preamps, no feedback, no rattles. Plug into my pedalboard with tuner and booster and straight into amp.

[Wonky2]

Seen a pup (cant recal name) that was pretty much like the sm58 approach mentioned above.... It was a condensor mic enclised in a cricket ball sized bit of mic head foam which slotted into under arch of bridge......

I suppose for begining with new sound a pup which serves minimal feed back would be helpful.....

When you say avoid straight line from cab to bass , do you just mean face cab off to say 45' angle or put it on oposite side of drummer ?!?

[mybass]

[quote name='Wonky2' timestamp='1452715967' post='2952875']
Seen a pup (cant recal name) that was pretty much like the sm58 approach mentioned above.... It was a condensor mic enclised in a cricket ball sized bit of mic head foam which slotted into under arch of bridge......

I suppose for begining with new sound a pup which serves minimal feed back would be helpful.....

When you say avoid straight line from cab to bass , do you just mean face cab off to say 45' angle or put it on oposite side of drummer ?!?
[/quote]
Basically keep the speakers directed more away from the bass body, Iwould guess that is why Eddie Gomez had his Bose speakers
sitting on a stool a couple of feet away from the DB.

[Wonky2]

Can i, or dare i ask what may be a filthy question....... Does any one put any referance marker on the side of their neck ? Fret markers if you like like a lined fretless ?
I would restrain from having anything on the finger board but wondered if any one has dot marked for ref points on side of fboard ?

Newbie question fua par ?

[Owen]

If you have an adjustable bridge you can slot a Fishman Full Circle in there. It will be fine and dandy. I have used one for the last 15 years and I have no complaints. Your amp and cab will be fine as well. I have messed with all sorts of preamps and have eventually settled on and Fdeck HPF which is a simple buffer to make the piezo "happy" with the impedance it is seeing. Proper impedance for piezo = good tone. Wrong impedance (too low) = scratchy and horrible. The Fdeck also has a high pass filter in it which really cleans things up nicely. I have given up using other preamps for DB. It is a freely available circuit which you could build yourself if you have soldering skills, otherwise any pedal fixer/maker can put one together for you. If I was getting one made I would have it in a floor box with a mute switch and a tuner out in it. I just go straight into whatever I have through the Fdeck and it seems to work nicely. I do not miss having loads of EQ etc.

Markers on the side of the neck? Go for it. You play for enjoyment, not to fit into anyone else's "vision" of how it should be. You will find that most of us have kinks in the grain which "inform" us now and again. Slap then on the fingerboard for a bit if it helps. The DB is very similar to Bass Guitar, but it is also very, very different so anything which makes the transition easier is all good. You will get to a stage where you will not be looking.

[Staggering on]

Lots of players use markers,at least when starting out.Gollihur Music sell stick on dots but I use the Liquid Paper Correction Pen and it makes marks that are easily removed and you can make any size or shape mark you want.Other similar products will also work but I find the pen easy to use and simple to control the flow.

Bob in Canada

Edited January 13, 2016 by Staggering on

[randythoades]

I started out putting black electrical tape across the fingerboard in the right places to give me an idea, as you can imagine at G A and B. After about a month I removed the tape but left a small nub on the side that I can just about see, makes it easier for me to start at the right pitch even though I don't use them once I am going, as I still find it hard to judge the correct pitch straight off.

Edited January 14, 2016 by randythoades

[bassace]

[quote name='owen' timestamp='1452720928' post='2952937']
If you have an adjustable bridge you can slot a Fishman Full Circle in there. It will be fine and dandy. I have used one for the last 15 years and I have no complaints. Your amp and cab will be fine as well. I have messed with all sorts of preamps and have eventually settled on and Fdeck HPF which is a simple buffer to make the piezo "happy" with the impedance it is seeing. Proper impedance for piezo = good tone. Wrong impedance (too low) = scratchy and horrible. The Fdeck also has a high pass filter in it which really cleans things up nicely. I have given up using other preamps for DB. It is a freely available circuit which you could build yourself if you have soldering skills, otherwise any pedal fixer/maker can put one together for you. If I was getting one made I would have it in a floor box with a mute switch and a tuner out in it. I just go straight into whatever I have through the Fdeck and it seems to work nicely. I do not miss having loads of EQ.
[/quote]

Yes, the HPF, high pass filter is the DB player's friend. After the initial euphoria of discovering those heavy bottom notes you'll soon find that once you get out there you won't want them so full on, especially when a member of the audience comes up in the break and tells you how boomy your bass is. The bottom notes tend to look after themselves and it's the mids you'll want to articulate. So as Owen says, you won't need much/any eq but the HPF is the piece of kit you'll use a lot.

[fatback]

All good advice above about preamps. Whatever pickup you use, your amp or preamp needs to have the right impedance, and that's where your preamp comes in. A good preamp (and some amps) will have a high pass filter and polarity controls too. Useful for dealing with boom and feedback.

A 'doubler' is just a two channel amp with the channels configured slightly differently so you can easily use both a mic and a piezzo, say, or have one for electric and the other for acoustic bass. Such amps tend to be expensive but yummy.

As for marks on the board, i found that a couple of stick-on paper dots on the side were life-savers on gigs where either i couldn't hear myself well or at all (common enough) or I had to hit the pitch on the first note without fail. For practice I use them to check my thumb placements stay consistent with large shifts and I'm not drifting around.

I'd say try a piezzo pickup and preamp first. If your gigs are really loud, add a mag pickup (if you have metal strings) as a backup (you can have both mounted). Mics are great for sound but hell for feedback in a loud gig.

Don't worry too much about any of this stuff. It all takes time and experimentation, so the trick is to be relaxed about it and not spend too much cash too soon.

Edited January 14, 2016 by fatback

[TheRev]

I've used a MarkBass LM2 for years with double bass and been very happy with it - so no problems for you on that score.

If you have £50-£100 to spend on a pickup then you should go straight to the for sale forum and buy the Underwood that's for sale.

http://basschat.co.uk/topic/273151-underwood-pickup-for-sale/

It's a piezo, so you will very likely need a preamp to match the output impedance of the pickup with the input impedance of the Markbass. The Fdeck HPF mentioned by Owen is an excellent choice. You can't buy them from the guy who makes them in the US, but you can commission a custom pedal builder to make one for less than £100. Otherwise, keep an eye on the for sale forum for a second hand Fishman Platinum Pro

[Wonky2]

Thanks guys, great info here....

Impedance isnt something ive ever had to worry about, with electric bass simplicity of plug and play ....

Ibdont really understand, the mark bass lil mark 3 has a balanced input xlr socket, but i dont know what the impeadance requirements are or how to match a pickup / hpf or preamp to suit it ?

Any pointers are welcome

Ajustable bridge has arrived plenty to do

[TheRev]

Yep - impedance is a tricky think to get your head around and I certainly don't understand exactly how it works, but there's what I do understand in terms of double bass pickups and preamps.

Piezo pickups (i.e, the majority of double bass pickups) are high output impedance devices - usually between 5-10MOhm. To give their best performance, they like to be plugged into an amp with a similar input impedance.

An amps input impedance - such as the LM2 is typically a few hundred KOhm - so it is designed to work best with a signal coming from a device with a matching impedance.

So, you plug your 10MOhm pickup directly into your 220KOhm amp input and you've got an impedance difference of 9.78MOhm. That's a lot of MOhms..... Your pickup will work, and you won't damage your amp, but neither pickup or amp amp are working with the impedance that they're designed to, so the sound can be a bit thin and scratchy. Now, if you're happy with that sound, then fine, but if you feel that there's something lacking then you probably need a preamp

What a preamp does is buffer the difference in impedance between the pickup and the amp, so that both 'see' what they expect to see and you get the full tonal range from your pickup. Think of it as a universal translator - it allows piezo pickups and amp inputs to understand each other.

There's no reason why you can't buy a pickup and just plug straight into the jack input of your Markbass without a preamp and see if that works for you - it's entirely a matter of personal taste. You might find that a bit of EQ twiddling will get the sound you want. You can always add a preamp at a later date if you want to.


Note: If you go down the magnetic pickup route then you very likely won't need a preamp, as the output impedance of mag pickups are much lower. Having said that, I use a magnetic pickup and still use a preamp because of useful things like low pass filters and a DI out.

Good luck....

Dave

Edited January 15, 2016 by TheRev

[MrCrane]

Check out the Gollihur website. they have some good general guides/FAQs

http://www.gollihurmusic.com/faq/11-PREAMPS_DO_YOU_NEED_A_PREAMP_WITH_YOUR_URB_PICKUP.html