upright bass micing

[mn412]

Al Schmitt just answered this question over at gearslutz his answer:

"I use two Neumann M 149s on the bass, one on the f hole and one up by the fingers. I put both mics into a Summit TLA and compress about one DB.Thats about it, it helps to have a good bass player with a good sounding bass."

Of course would be different live, and most people i know don't have 2 M 149s around. He does get a pretty phenomenal upright sound though

[Scodiddly]

[Scodiddly]

[standup]

For live sound, "the usual" is to use DI off of the bass player's pickup (hopefully with a battery-powered preamp after the bass player's piezo pickup.)

If this is a bass player who has played out a lot, the player probably has worked out something. If it's an inexperienced bass player expecting you to mic the bass, it's a different story.

I've played upright bass in lots of venues, and I usually just give the sound guy a DI from my amp.

A lot of sound guys don't appear to know what an upright bass sounds like, and a lot of the time they low-pass it at some frequency that makes it sort of a fluffy adjunct to the kick drum. Or the subwoofers are in contact with the stage and low end feedback is a nightmare.

Hopefully you'll have an experienced player who can give you a useable signal from his or her rig.

[Scodiddly]

For piezo pickups you definitely want something in a DI or preamp with a very high input impedance. A Baggs or Fishman thing would work, or a Countryman 85 DI. There's a little ART mic preamp with a tube that some people swear by.

And don't let the player plug a tuner or something in between the pickup and the preamp, it'll drag the impedance down before the preamp can do anything useful.

[Scodiddly]

For piezo pickups you definitely want something in a DI or preamp with a very high input impedance. A Baggs or Fishman thing would work, or a Countryman 85 DI. There's a little ART mic preamp with a tube that some people swear by.

And don't let the player plug a tuner or something in between the pickup and the preamp, it'll drag the impedance down before the preamp can do anything useful.

[mjau]

[mjau]

[AndersonSoundRecording]

For me, the biggest problem with upright bass on a stage is leakage. The direct is always good to take for safety, but it usually sounds like a$$. The best pickups I have heard were called "Realist" I think...

In any case, whatever mic you put on the bass invariably ends up becoming another drum mic. That said, make sure you like the sound of the drum leakage in your bass mic, because it will end up being part of your drum sound whether you like it or not.

Here are three techniques that have worked for me to a greater or lesser extent:

1 - KM140 or 184 suspended in the bridge by rubber bands
2 - 414-B in figure-8 not too far from the f-hole with the null aimed right at the drums.
3 - last ditch: mic the amp if he's using one.

Of those, #1 is my go-to. I've always meant to try the 57-in-the-tailpiece thing, but have never had the chance.

I think I sometimes have more mic's on the upright bass than on the drums. In the studio it's not so bad, but on stage, it's such a hard instrument to deal with.
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[kcswingmaster]

[Gregg Juke]

Re: Feedback and "stage leakage," this is the main reason that Jean Luc Ponty went to electric solid body violin, as opposed to miking or using a pick-up on a traditional instrument. He said that when the volume came up on-stage using a regular hollow-body violin, that "more than half the volume" was other instruments and not his own!

GJ

[fossiltooth]

[AndersonSoundRecording]

[kcswingmaster]

Thanks.... The mic is wedged in the fhole (about 1/2") with a highly engineered piece of random foam or kleenex...
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cowboy by night

[goose134]

Well, I ended up using a 57 on the bass. It sounded pretty good. The player was a little surprised I even had a mic for him, but knew exactly where to point it. Dude was actually a really great player. I would have tried something more involved, but around set up time, another musician would bring in a different rig every 5 minutes or so.

I had intended to record the thing through my buddy's laptop, but that plan was thwarted when Cuemix decided it couldn't see the output busses. So we kind of threw the tape out of the PA into a USB device he brought and did a two track recording of that.

Thanks again for the help. First live sound experience and I feel like I passed since none of the musicians said anything nasty to me and all thanked me in turn.
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I make a living as an electrician, not recording in the basement.

[Snarl 12/8]

[Gregg Juke]

"...I was gonna suggest a 57, but I wasn't wearing my asbestos suspenders."

Another awesome quote-able, CK. I may add this to my sig file, if I ever get around to making one...

GJ

[goose134]

As it turned out the bass player was Kent Kessler. He played with Jane Baxter-Miller. There was another dude who was the pianist for the Joffrey Ballet and a couple of other seasoned musicians. I was grateful for their patience and humbled by their talent.
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I make a living as an electrician, not recording in the basement.