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]

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

Priorities as indicated in quote:
1) Microphones and processing
2) Quality of player
3) Quality of instrument
A distant 4) Actual details about microphone positioning

Priorities as they really are:
1) Quality of player
Tied for 2) Quality of instrument
Tied for 2) Actual details about microphone positioning
3) Microphones and processing

[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.

[mjau]

Mic in the tailpiece is a classic, and rightly so. Something in a hypercardioid mic is even better.

In general you want to point across the body, not directly at it. And avoid the f-holes.

I went this route two nights ago - Beyer m69, in my case. Worked like a charm.

[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.

[kcswingmaster]

The best sound I have ever gotten out of my upright is by shoving one of those DIY mini-omni mics into the actual wooden bridge hole pointing at the bass.

Here is a link to make the mic.

http://tinyurl.com/6upelak

It gets a great blend of string attack, boom, and it's pretty easy to tape it in place and forget about it.

Someone smart like Avenson should make a line of these things and market them to bass players, I have already had several requests to make them for bassists I have used them on at my place.

As an upright bass player - and for live purpose - I'll second this...bettter yet, Radio Shack sells one "pre-made" in a tie clip version. Here is my bass with this $30 radio shack mic.... no mic on stick hassle - no boxy pickup sound- very little feedback -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cCSOQNrWeY

[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]

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

Priorities as indicated in quote:
1) Microphones and processing
2) Quality of player
3) Quality of instrument
A distant 4) Actual details about microphone positioning

Priorities as they really are:
1) Quality of player
Tied for 2) Quality of instrument
Tied for 2) Actual details about microphone positioning
3) Microphones and processing

Amen.

Also: Spaced mics like this can definitely work well, especially if they're close enough to the bass and far enough from eachother. Personally, I'm a big fan of the mic-in-the-bridge-with-rubberbands trick, with an additional mic further back around the bridge/soundboard for body.

I've also found acoustic basses to be very sensitive to room modes and nodes. A good room does wonders, and just shifting the instrument around in a subpar room can sometimes help correct for odd peaks and nulls in the tone.

[AndersonSoundRecording]

The best sound I have ever gotten out of my upright is by shoving one of those DIY mini-omni mics into the actual wooden bridge hole pointing at the bass.

Here is a link to make the mic.

http://tinyurl.com/6upelak

It gets a great blend of string attack, boom, and it's pretty easy to tape it in place and forget about it.

Someone smart like Avenson should make a line of these things and market them to bass players, I have already had several requests to make them for bassists I have used them on at my place.

As an upright bass player - and for live purpose - I'll second this...bettter yet, Radio Shack sells one "pre-made" in a tie clip version. Here is my bass with this $30 radio shack mic.... no mic on stick hassle - no boxy pickup sound- very little feedback -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cCSOQNrWeY

Cool group! It's hard to tell from the video, but is that mic clipped in the f-hole? I've got a friend who does something similar with a Shure beta 98.

I should give that a shot with one of my 4060's...

[kcswingmaster]

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

[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.

[Snarl 12/8]

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.

You must have been amazing and/or all the musicians were grownups.

Edit: BTW - I was gonna suggest a 57, but I wasn't wearing my asbestos suspenders. Half the life of an average live sound person is getting things to sound good with 57's. The other half is having a dozen or so tricks up your sleeve when you can't.

[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.