Double bass player, sound engineer

[MarkOnTyne]

Hi all,

 New to the chat. Originally a classical cellist (since age 6). Gave it up at 14 and swore if I ever took up another instrument, it would be small enough to fit in your pocket. But somehow at age 16 I got obsessed with double bass. Then at 19 I took up electrics as well. That was over 40 years ago. Have played semi-pro in classical and pretty much every genre except country and Western (I just cannot make myself do it). These days I run a recording studio, play (mostly) electric double bass and sound engineer/produce for a number of bands.

 I also work a lot with electronic music, which includes knowing too much about bass pedals (especially multi-functional effects units) and tricks such as playing synth with your bass

 

[ezbass]

[MarkOnTyne]

I bought quite a few bass guitars in the 1970's and 1980's, then nothing until 2020. After eing away that long, the contrast was amazing - hugely good basses (things we only dreamed of back then) for peanuts money these days. it is really hard to buy a bad bass guitar.

[SimonK]

17 minutes ago, MarkOnTyne said:

 I also work a lot with electronic music, which includes knowing too much about bass pedals (especially multi-functional effects units) and tricks such as playing synth with your bass

 

 

ooh synth with bass - tell us more - which pedals do you recommend?

Edited March 25 by SimonK

[MarkOnTyne]

pedals and bass with synth are two different things. For bass to synth these days you need to turn your analogue bass output into a set of MIDI messages (which are digital instructions, not sound). There are a few (and hard to find a good one) MIDI converters that do this - take your analogue bass signal and turn it into digital messages which just contain the note and the volume. They can be used live, but they are hard to set up - you need to gate the bass (so the converter ignores lower volumes) and filter it (so the converter recognises the fundamental note you are playing). Not an easy set up, but great once it works.

 

If you are working from a recording with a DAW then there are plugins to do it for you. They basically gate and filter it. Much easier to make that work. It plays the audio track and generates a MIDI track.

 

It is also helpful if you can change you technique a bit so you go more staccato when using these tools. Then the converter can identify the note changes more easily.

 

In truth I can only make it work well (live) for short sections within a track when I want the 'natural' bass sound as well. If you just want your bass to sound like a synth they you can process it really hard to make it drive the synth better.

[MarkOnTyne]

On pedals. I have a background in computing and for me a multi-effect pedal is just a smal computer. I work closely with a 'cool  jazz' band where the bass player and sax player both use multi-effect pedals. I can program them to make and sound we want reallyl so a trio can sound like a full orchestra. We use Zoom pedals. They have 50 'patches' you can use, each of which is made of up to 5 'effects' (like delay or octaving) and each effect can have up to 20 parameters so there is 50x5x20 things you can set. That is lot, and this is just what oomes with the pedal. There are thousands of other setups online and you can write your own.

 

Just to be clear, I am not advocating that brand of pedal specifically. It just happens to be what that band uses. I think the days of pedals for one specific effect are over (though I work with bands where a simple one function pedal such as overdrive works). i also like the multi-function pedal because you can basically program a setting for each song.

 

Depending on genre, my experiece is that most bass players, most of the time go for distortion/overdrive, short reverb, or octaving. Use of other effects is much rarer.

[SpondonBassed]

Welcome Mark.

 

Zoom B3 owner here.  I am slightly overwhelmed (as a hobby bassist) by the seemingly infinite combinations that this relatively simple multi effect unit is capable of.  I have really only scratched the surface with what it can do.  I am encouraged to hear that the brand is used by working musicians as you describe above.

 

If you ever feel inclined, I'd love to see a post on how you would use it.

 

Good point regarding affordable, yet playable instruments.  Check out the Build Diaries.  There is a lot of interesting stuff, from workable bodges to complete builds of boutique standard.  Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 25 by SpondonBassed

[SimonK]

57 minutes ago, MarkOnTyne said:

Just to be clear, I am not advocating that brand of pedal specifically. It just happens to be what that band uses. I think the days of pedals for one specific effect are over (though I work with bands where a simple one function pedal such as overdrive works). i also like the multi-function pedal because you can basically program a setting for each song.

 

Not according to the following thread!

 

I like single use pedals as they often do one thing much better than the multi fx units (and have simpler controls). I'm just after a new synth pedal at the moment, and while leaning towards the EHX mono-synth, am always after new ideas!

 

 

[JPJ]

Welcome @MarkOnTyne to the forum, and it’s good to have another northern user join the fray. However, I must call you out on your username. Berwick-upon-Tweed is a good way north of my beloved river Tyne, surely MarkOnTweed would have been more geographically appropriate 😂