JPJ

@Linus27 just to back up what JimmyN2 says, the secret to a double bass tone lies in the way you pluck. If you are playing ‘across’ the strings with your plucking fingers at 90 degrees to the strings like on a bass guitar you get a totally different sound to if you play with your plucking fingers parallel to the string using the side of your plucking finger rather than the tip. When I first got my NS EUB I found it to be too fretless bass sounding, but a NinoMute from bass direct added a lot more thump and a shorter decay, and then because I double between the NS and fretless bass, I added an EBS Stanley Clarke preamp to my meagre pedal board and found that the secret source is in the filter knob. Had I not been doubling, I would have probably gone for the Artec Parametric EQ instead as I have heard a few EUB players who swear by this pedal. Occasionally I will add a little touch of reverb to the NS too as this lets the notes breath like on an acoustic DB.

There's a great 1x15 500W Ashdown combo for sale on here at the minute for an absolute bargain price (I have no affiliation to the seller)

I’ve got four of those Behringer DI boxes for general stuff like acoustic guitar, fiddle and gob iron, and I have a very nice Radial J48 for my bass in case I run into one of those ‘engineers’ who doesnt want to use the DI out from my EBS Stanley Clarke preamp. In truth, there is no noticeable difference between the Behringer and Radial boxes in a live sound environment. The Behringers can run on either a 9V battery or 48v phantom power. I must confess I’ve never stuck the Behringer between amp and cab as all my tone shaping is done with EBS, and the amp/cab are merely there so that I and my fellow band mates can hear what I am playing.

Oof 😍 what a beauty! Looking forward to hearing some sound clips

The biggest improvement to our sound came from drastically dropping the onstage volume. The guitarists went from 100w Marshall's with 4x12 cabs to 45w combos running on half power, and I'm down from a 1500W amp head and twin 4x10's to a 400w 1x15 combo. My back loves me again, the band love the fact we can hear after a gig, and the punters seem to notice no difference.

As I have a significant birthday this year, and as I have a couple of ‘festival’ type gigs coming up, I’m thinking about upgrading my Line6 G30 to the Shure GLXD16+. Nothing wrong with the Line6 other than the transmitter feels very flimsy (battery door already showing signs of failure). Quick question to the GLXD user community, does the transmitter have a belt clip or similar? I have two custom straps with loops to take a belt clip hence the question.

The only issue I have with the Glynn Johns method is that he was predominantly a studio engineer, and in your average pub band live environment, your guitar and bass amps are going to be behind the drum mics, so even well focused overheads will pick up some bleed. This is why I prefer close mic’ing of the kit, and then a gate to slam the mic shut as soon as the hit has dissipated.

I really like the way Warwick solved this on their Alien basses, tucked away in the sound hole.

From my experience with my NS NXT, strings maketh the bass. I changed from the stock NS Contemporary to NS Traditional strings and it made a noticeable difference to the acoustic double bassiness. Also, I find a tickle of reverb helps my NXT sound fuller, and more acoustic DB like, especially in the upper registers.

I was thinking 8” rather than 10’s myself, given the performance of modern drivers.

Our drummer is a recent convert to wired IEMs. His comment after his first gig using them “that’s the first time I’ve heard my bass drum in years” 😎

Wow! Beautiful work sir! I’m a fan of the ABG currently owning two. I’ve tried lots of different strings but settled on La Bella low tension flats for the best compromise of acoustic volume vs finger noise.

Recording, I’ll mic both sides of the bass drum, one for thwack (suitably gated) and one for boom. Live, it’s one in the hole (ooh er missus). Whether I mic the whole kit live depends on the drummer, the venue, and how well attended. Lots of bodies in a long narrow venue and a light to moderate hitting drummer and I’ll close mic the lot to try to get them to project. I’d rather have control than not.

What I meant to say was Ooh I like the look of that SLA Pro PA top from Bill 😍

Ooh I like the look of that SLA Pro PA top 😍

So today (yesterday) I played two gigs with two different bands. First gig was a local bar with in-house PA & engineer. You play on a small corner stage and the acoustics arn’t brilliant with the drums dominating the on stage sound. Result was we made a lot of mistakes and we were well off our best. Anyway, dashed off from that gig to my second gig 30 mins later. Threw our PA and lights into an already packed pub, quick sound check, and on we went. Great gig, great on stage sound, and the punters seemed happy with my FOH mix. Thank god for the Behringer XR18 as the ability to recall saved scenes make setting up on gigs like this a breeze. Oh and we must have done something right as the landlady gave us a little extra in the pay packet 😎