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| ed_zeppelin
Junior Username: ed_zeppelin Post Number: 24 Registered: 2-2010 |
The topic comes from the best compliment I ever received. Nokie Edwards of the Ventures told me; "you count to four really well." (And I do.) Here's my rig, circa 2005 or so (the Fostex 8channel reel to real is a dead giveaway): '75 Alembic Series 1 ("the kid said; 'I think it's called an Olympic." Snag.) 1920s Hellmer 5/8 (station wagon sized) string bass, "Brunhilde." G&L El Toro. Gift from a rich groupie. Enough said. As close a copy of Jaco's Jazz bass as I could make. Old Fender Jazz body (don't know the year, or care), EMG pickups with midrange expander, Chandler fretless neck with a 1962 penny from the San Francisco mint inlaid as a back-plate for the micro-tilt. (TMI?) Brunhilde is the best "slappin'" bass I've ever heard. Solid wood, too. I used my old 1950s King plywood 3/4 upright with Roomful of Blues and Chris Duarte, and though it had tight definition (especially with Thomastik Spirocore strings) there was this mud around 250k that no amount of EQ could tame. The tightness of the laminated top versus the massive volume of air it had to move. Brunhilde was love at first thump. Sensitive top (unbelievably even grain, it must have off a billet from a massive tree) and the smaller size makes it bark like dog or purr like a fat Maltese cat, with the slightest touch. Larry Fishman calibrated the pickup system to this bass (guess what brand, go ahead). BP-100 transducer: and condenser soundhole mic: into a Fishman Bass Blender: ...mounted on a mic stand, which gives complete control over each element and myriad routing options. (I don't have to turn around or bend down to twiddle knobs, either.)  I couldn't afford a DS5 power supply for my Alembic, so I had to make one from a step-down transformer from a Rock-ola jukebox (actually, an electronics tech at work whipped it up, from schematics kindly provided by Mica. Full disclosure: I'm lousy with electronics. Great with wood and shiny metal things, though.) I mounted it in a Star Trek lunch box, but the metal was too flimsy, so I put it in a Radio Shack hobby box, and beat the crap out of the bottom plate of a stomp box and used it to isolate the transformer from the inputs: My upright and Alembic are related by marriage. They have almost exactly the same scale and they each have split personalities, with their own needs. Garrison Keillor said that *string basses are like having elderly parents; it's hard to keep them happy, and it's difficult to get them in and out of cars." I look at the Series 1 not as stereo, but as two separate systems running concurrently. Low frequencies are omnidirectional, so I send the neck pickup to my Carvin stack. The bridge pickup goes to a Carvin Stagemate, (one amazing little full range powerhouse) with an extension cabinet. (That isn't me, by the way, it's just the only pic I could find of that setup.) For highs, it's perfect. 100 watts per side (high frequencies are very directional and require much less power) and it has built-in Alesis footswitchable effects. That makes a nice stereo array for the audience and gives the band a bass monitor on each side of the stage. When I switch on the chorus, for instance, it's only affecting the sound from the bridge pickup, like icing on a cake. Flanging is even more dramatic, because it sweeps back and forth across the whole room. Remember, my neck pickup is completely separate. I stick the condenser mic IN Brunhilde's f-hole (hey, don't go there)and rout that to the Stagemate. I know, it seems like the mic'd interior of an upright bass would sound best all beefy, boomy bass, but it actually sounds way mo better to run it treble, since high frequencies define the sonic characteristics of the instrument itself. In fact, for years I just aimed an SM57 mic at the bass f-hole, and that worked pretty well. But the condenser gives you a really crisp "snapshot" of Brunhilde's ample bottom anyway, and the transducers clipped to the bridge gives me such clear, muscular punch, the bass is covered just dandy. The weird thing is that I used to want to be a virtuoso bassist (that explains the Jaco bass I made), but Homey ain't played that way for many years. I like for the bass to be precisely the same volume as the bass drum. I like to lock it down, play in the pocket. Spare. I rarely solo, except for Jazz. I realized a long time ago that because I started with orchestral music, where the FUNCTION of bass was clearly defined, I like to stick with arrangements. Whether that's playing exactly the same bass part as the original or reading from charts or scores, the main thing is to lock down the rhythm section and concentrate on dynamics. Well, there you go. My wife, the Foghorn, was watching "her shows" and I was bored, so I thought I'd start a discussion about the intricacies of setups, styles, techniques, instruments etc. Holy cow, I didn't realize what a wall of words I'd graffiti'd onto this thread. I gotta go to bed. Goodnight! *actually, he was talking about concert harps, but the principle is the same. | ||
| davehouck
Moderator Username: davehouck Post Number: 11909 Registered: 5-2002 |
Forest; can you repost the pictures? It looks like the picture gremlin has eaten them. |
