69 DUDE!!!!!

Yes, yes I do have a serious problem. I just got a second upright bass last weekend. An all solid romanian flatback. Spruce top and maple back and sides. I am Loving it!

In the pictures: top one the romanian one is near and the bottom one, the romanian one is on the right.


So, how does it sound compared to the plywood one I had… I will post a sample later on tonight :mrgreen:


EDIT: Here is a little song I started today The new spirocores haven’t broken in yet, but are beginning to get “better”. Canned drums on this for now till I roll in the orchestral bass drum :slight_smile: Pardon my intonation

Just added a little clip :mrgreen:

lol…

Very cool! :sunglasses:

Do you consider it an upgrade and did you plan on replacing the first one?

Yeah, it is a total upgrade from the plywood I was playing. Action, board and tone is soooo much better. It isn’t a high-end one, but it will serve me well for now for a while. They get really expensive and I would have needed another grand or 2 to get into the next level.

As far as the first one goes, I don’t own it (yet). Its on loan from someone that hadn’t played it for 8 years. Who knows, if it is offered to me cheap enough, I will have it set up and have the board planed to get out the high spots to even out the playing and have it set up for arco or reverse the two and have the solid romanian set up for arco if I can get a good pizz out of the plywood.

Do you play?

Nice!
I know the problem :sunglasses:

Looks a lot like one that’s sitting in my house… also Romanian, flat backed, gamba shaped… my son used to use it before he got a much more expensive one, but it’s not too bad. enjoy it!

Thanks :slight_smile:

I am enjoying it a lot. I compared this to another flatback that was 4x the cost and the difference wasn’t 4x. I did however play a bunch of round backs that were a bit more money and the bass extension was a bit more. Bodies were larger than this flat back. The only thing I miss with this one in relation to the others is the complexity of the sound. This one sounds really clean if that makes sense adn I think one the strings break in, some of this complexity will come out of it. Reminded me of a Shen sb150 but sounded a lot better than the Shen. I am hoping this opens up a little more though it is 15 years old and for the age, it is in immaculate condition and doesn’t look like it was played much at all for its age. I may have the top taken off and have it graduated to get some more resonation and tone depending on the costs, or just upgrade… Time will tell, but in the meantime, I’ll be thumping away.

High end or not, it sounds great! I don’t play bass, however, my musical journey precedes the time before music was made on computers, sequencers and VSTi’s. LIVE, I prefer an acoustic piano to the electronic stuff that I’ve accrued and even though I’ll write stuff using Spectrasonics Trilian, (which, as a plug-in, is pretty good) there’s nothing that compares to the rich sound of a real world upright acoustic bass.

Congratulations on your upgrade!

cool… nice playing, nice DB and a really cool track.
I play DB myself and I know exactly how it is when a “new” instrument is around… you just cant get your hands off it…
enjoy :slight_smile:

I like the way it sounded. How did you mike it? What’s the setup?

Oktava mc012 → Sytek mpx4aii (non-burr brown) near the f-hole pointing up in 8-10" away. Phase inverted. For inner and lows.

3 Zigma GK67 → Jlm audio tmp 8 positioned about a foot away, 8 or so inches horizontal offset from the bridge, but pointing at the bridge for a “F n Bridge blend”

AT4049 → Sytek mpx4aii (non-burr brown) back 8’ and 8’ in the air for the room sound.


This was a lazy day setup. Was a rigging from a prior recording session. I have been using the gk67 a lot lately on strings though.

Thanks. I’m just learning how to mic up acoustic instruments, so I’ll have to give it a try with the mics I have. Wondering why the phase inversion… is that a standard, or it just sounded better?

In a nut shell, it sounded better.

To go into it a little further, I have recorded DB before and know those two places are good spots to place microphones. So, I start there and place them. I will solo the mics when I place them to see what the instrument offers as far as sound goes then open them up together. When you place solo mics that will be joined, even if you plan to pan them hard left and right, phase is important. You have sound arriving at 2 microphones at different times when you multi-mic something so you have to check phase if the placements are spaced and not coincident or near-coincident. One technique of placing is phase invert one then place them while they are both on and once the sound collapses, remove the invert, or alternatively, place while they are still in phase, find the collapse point then phase invert one of the channels.

In my way, after this is done, I look at the sample level to make sure the pairing’s phase is dominantly positive with low frequencies. If you don’t, the low end can get really screwey with other instruments that join in that frequency range. For instance, if the kick drum is opposite phase of the bass guitar, or upright bass in this example, you will have serious power going negative while another force going positive. They will fight each other during summing and inside the amplifier that is playing back the song as well. That’s not good.

Thanks for the explanation!

here’s mine Tom:


She’s an 1850 German flat back 3/4. I’ve been playing this one for over 25 years now,probably my best memory with her is playing with Emmy lou Harris,Steve Earl and Daniel Lanios…that won’t mean anything to the youngsters :smiley:…was a fine time for me :smiley:



MC

Beautiful looking things!

That song you’ve posted is great! A cross between Ronnie Jordan and Flight of the Conchords. A little bit scary, but very enjoyable.

Have a lot of fun with your new bass.

Steve.

mmmmm beautiful… Just got done practicing arco. Took a lesson yesterday and this guy talked a mile a minute. LOL I don’t think he needed to be drinking the coffee he brought to the lesson. :laughing:

Thanks a lot Steve. Just moments ago I was thinking about storyboarding for a music video. Have a bunch of scenes in my head! :slight_smile: