Hi, it's Geoff Chalmers here from discoverdoublebass.com,
which is the home of online learning for double
bass player. So if you want to take your playing
further, whether you're new to the instrument
or if you're a more experienced bass player,
we've got something for you over at the website
with our courses, lessons, and interviews.
We're continuing now with our series of questions
for the greatest bass players in the world.
And we're back with the jazz bass legends
talking about basses, strings, everything
to do with equipment. So here's the question.
What double bass gear are you currently using?
Gear? I've had my same bass since I was 16.
We've done a bunch of research and we think
we may actually know who the maker of my instrument
is now, after all these years. And it looks
like this bass was made by Busan and his apprentice
Mateo. And the label inside says Mateo Busan,
but it's actually Mateo Busan, is what we
think.
So this bass was made in the 17... You know,
it's 300 years old, it's made in the 1700s
and it's been my baby and it kicks my ass
every time I play it. Sorry, if I'm using
a bad word. And then I have, the bass in the
background is actually a replica of this bass.
So for me, I can't really travel with this
bass anymore because it's just too old and
fragile. So I've got another bass that I can
go on the road with, and it is pretty much
a similar copy, not identical, but close enough.
And the string length and everything is the
same so I can play it, which is cool.
Like I said, working on this new BSX bridge
system, this pickup. It's a little fatter,
so it's a little bit different, but it's got
positive pickups built into it and it roars.
It's amazing and we're kind of fine-tuning
it, but it's, I play his electric uprights
and I think they sound fantastic.
And I'm just like Dino, man, you got to put
this on my bass. So we put it on my travel
bass just to see before I get it on this bass.
And it's like, it's amazing. So we're working
on that for the pickup.
I just started getting to know the Mark bass
guys, working with them. We might be developing
an amp together, which will be very cool because
I double, I play electric bass and acoustic
bass. So we're going to work on possibly a
real serious doubling amp. So I'm excited
about that.
On the acoustic bass, I've been playing Spirocore
Weichs my entire life. I've been with La Bella
for many years on electric bass strings and
we've talked about developing an acoustic
bass set. But we haven't done that yet. I'm
very open to that, but I've been playing Spirocore
Weichs for ever.
And you know, you find what works for you.
I've tried a few different things. These work
for me, I'm used to them. This is, I think
it'd be, I wish I had a bunch of basses. I
only have two basses. In fact, I only had
one for years. I just got that one. But I
think it'd be cool to have other basses with
different strings and different setups, some
old schools, some new school. But for right
now, for me, I love the sustain and the clarity
and the growl of these. And I've been playing
them forever. But find what works for you.
There are no rules, make yourself happy. Because
that's why you play. You don't play to please
anybody else, you don't play for anyone else,
you play for yourself. So you use what you
want to use, how you want to use it and just
make the best music you can on your instrument.
Because that's truly what it's about. I don't
care what anybody plays. I don't care what
anybody endorses. I don't care. You know,
rock on, God bless you. I want to play what
works for me. And you should do exactly the
same with what works for you. Find your voice
and there you go. So anyway, been a pleasure.
Thank you for putting up with me. You know,
it's quarantine, I haven't gotten out of the
house much so it's kind of like walking around,
hitting your head against the walls and just
sitting there at a computer for 10 hours a
day.
Thank you for having me be a part and keep
up the low end and be safe. Take this seriously.
Be safe out there. Thank you all.
What kind of gear do I use? I use the David
Gage LifeLine with the David Gage docking
station. I have used La Bella strings for
the past 35 or 40 years. Number 7710 nylon,
black nylon. I use Wiedoeft Bass Rosin, W
I E D O E F T bass rosin. Wonderful, I'm glad
they're back. I use the Nick Epifani Piccolo
amp, bass amp head. A Nick Epifani 12 inch
bass cabinet that's made especially for me.
The bass I played since 1959, the [inaudible
00:04:36] made it around 1910. Thanks, I'm
enjoying this guy playing behind me, Jack,
Kenny Barron, and Chet Baker. Thanks, bye.
This is my upright bass. It's a Pfretzschner,
it's three quarters and it currently has Pirastro
olive strings for the G and D. D'Addario helicore
for the A and D'Addario Zyex for the E. I've
also had D'Addario Zyexs for the bottom two
strings too. There's not a lot of logic why
have the helicore and the Zyex for the A and
the E, but I kind of dig the way it is. As
far as the pickup goes, it's a LifeLine, David
Gage LifeLine Realist Pickup. I have a pretty
generic carbon fiber bow, which does well.
It's sturdy and I'm not allowed to get myself
a more fancier bow because the last time I
had a more fancier bow, I left it on a plane
in Brazil. So, that's what I have for the
moment.
In terms of amplification, I use mainly Aguilar
and Acoustic Image. I have the Aguilar AG700
head. I have an Aguilar 12 inch speaker and
a four by 10 speaker cabinet. I have the Acoustic
Image Clarus head with the two channels and
the Contra combo amp, which works well. I
also really liked to use the Grace Felix preamp.
It works really well when I'm playing both
electric and upright. It allows me to just
kind of AB switch from one to the other, but
also sounds fantastic on both electric and
upright. But I could also blend in my DPA
40 99 microphone on the upright with the pickup
on the upright as well in that one preamp,
if I wasn't using the electric, I could do
that. So yeah, it's a fantastic sounding preamp
and I'm really happy with that.
I also have a bunch of other pedals. And then
here are my electric basses. I have a Fodera
NYC Empire bass. And then a [inaudible 00:06:48]
bass. And then this Fender is actually my
father-in-law's Raphael Elmer Zahn, who's
also a bass player. And it's P based with
a combination of the P base and back J base
pickup. So that's most of my gear.
In terms of mics for recording, I mentioned
I use said AKG 414, combination sometimes
with the MKH 8040, the Sennheiser, but that's
about it.
Yeah. I'm not too much of a gear head as far
as electronic stuff. I have a great amp from
Euphonic Audio, that's great. Also endorse
Gallien-Krueger and I have a great amp from
them. But I basically use whatever's in the
club because I'm kind of lazy when that stuff
comes.
As far as strings, I use Eva Pirazzi by Pirastro,
German company, great strings, they call it
synthetic gut. Has a kind of, it's not a gut
core, but it's like a synthetic gut core with
metal wrappings. And so it makes it a lot
more friendly with the bow and than gut strings.
And was that it?
Pick up?
Pickups. For pickups I use a David Gage Realist,
I think it's the closest to the woods sound
of the bass and it doesn't feed back. It's
a great, great pickup. Great sound. But practice.
So the equipment that I'm using, I have two
basses now that I dearly love. This one is
a French bass, it's from the late 1800s. It
belonged to a great bass player that played
in the Tito Puente orchestra and Machita orchestra.
His name is Bobby Rodriguez and this bass
recorded many, many legendary sonic albums
with Machita and Tito. It recorded the Afro
Cuban suite, it recorded Manteca. It did all
of the Dance Mania recordings that we know
of Tito Puente. So it's dear to me, it has
a sound that I truly love and I travel with
this as much as I can.
I also have a real, real beautiful Italian
bass that I been using too. It's from 1833.
It's maker, his name is Giuseppe Micucini,
he's from the northern part of Italy and it's
another unbelievable instrument.
For strings I use Pirastros. So the ones I
have on is the Eva Perazzis and this is the
Weichs sets, which is a little less tension
than the actual orchestral tension. And for
pickup, I use the LifeLine, the David Gage
LifeLine. So occasionally with the Jazz Lincoln
Center Orchestra, if we find ourselves in
a position where we can't sound good enough
acoustically, or if there's any technical
challenges, I'll use the LifeLine pickup to
enhance the baseline.
And I also, for those who know me, I've also
played gut strings for quite a long time,
and I've been switching on and off. So Pirastro
also made some really good gut strings for
me to use. They're under my name, they're
they're called quarters, and they're a little
smaller than the original quarters that Pirastro
was making years ago. And it's something that
also sounds great on instruments. And that's
basically the equipment I use.
I have bows, I play French bow and I have
four bowls that I use. They're in order. So
I have a [Renuro 00:10:48], which is a very
spectacular bow. Louis Bazin bow, a [Schleep's
00:10:55] bow that I acquired from my teacher
and a Marco Raposo, French bow. And that's
basically it. Those are my equipment. And
I strive to try to do my best acoustically
with the instrument and just try to prevail
with these beautiful bass notes.
So I play, I have two basses. One is... They're
both German basses and they both don't have
makers' names labels in them. So we know the
region of Germany they came from. We know
more or less that they're both about somewhere
in the neighborhood of 200 years old. One
bass, my other bass has a much darker, kind
of much brighter kind of a sound. This has
the darker sound. You probably have heard
this bass on Ray Brown recordings. This is
the one that used to belong to him. So I'm
very lucky. I love both of my bases. This
bass is a bit more work for me to bow. Just
the string length is so long and to stretch
my fingers a little bit wider to cover my
intervals, but it's worth it.
I also use Pirastro Eva strings, the Eva Pirazzi.
I like these, I spend a lot of time playing
different strings, experimenting, like all
of us do. It's kind of an expensive experiment,
but I was trying to find the right string
for what I do. If I played in an orchestra,
I would probably use strings that were suited
to playing that repertoire. But I love playing
with the bow as well as pizzicato. So I'm
looking for a jazz string that has a warm
sound. I also like the warmth of gut strings,
but I didn't especially want to play gut strings.
So the Evas are kind of the hybrid for me,
they bow great for what I do, the kind of
melodies and solos I like to play, great for
that. And also I can get the warm jazz sound
that I'm looking for with them, with a little
crisp attack.
The amplification I use, I really don't have
an amplifier. What? Because I either play
completely without amplification, or I use
the microphone and I use the Electro Voice
RE20. This is the RE20 microphone. They're
not crazy expensive, which is great. You can
find them used. They're pretty popular. And
they're warhorses, they really are durable,
lasts a long time. So I've had this for a
lot of years. And if I go to a concert and
I had to play, I don't especially take this
with me, but I may ask for one, if it's a
big kind of venue that has a bunch of microphone
choices. But, you know, if the engineer has
a microphone collection that they really love,
then I say, "Hey, go for it." You know, you
want to use something that you like better
than this, please. And I usually have a monitor
wedge next to me, and I use that, like I would
an amplifier. So I can use the microphone
in front of the bass, I make sure I position
it in a way that I don't get any feedback
in the monitor.
And nowadays, if you get an engineer that
knows what he or she is doing, they can usually
dial out the frequencies in the monitor so
you don't get any feedback. Anyway, I use
a monitor wedge and that's my amplifier. Or
if it's a small place and nobody's using the
microphone or amplifiers, then I don't. So
I just allow my ears and playing to adjust
to the totally acoustic situation. And yeah,
that's kind of what I do.
One more thing. I have an old Pfretzschner
bow that I really like. It's got a really
interesting frog to it and kind of a nice
long Stem here that I like a lot. So it's
hard to find these, but, I got one. I like
it. And that's what I use Pfretzschner bow.
Bass players love talking about strings and
pickups and amps and I really enjoy the process
of experimenting with different equipment
all the time, different strings. And there's
so many options available. It's a little overwhelming
and expensive to experiment. But it's really
so important to our sounds to try to get close
to the idea of what's in our head and translate
it through the instrument.
I have three basses at home. One is a travel
bass that I take on the road, which is an
Eastman, a Chinese hybrid base with a detachable
neck. It's got two Genssler gut strings on
the top two, and the bottom are Thomastik
Weichs. I have an old German bass that I've
had since 1994, that has a key olive string
and the other three are D'Addario helacore,
light gauge. And then I have a beautiful newer
instrument made by Ben Puglisi of Australia
that I really mostly use as a classical instrument
and it's strung with original flexocore strings.
For pickups I enjoy Schertler's new version
of his pickup, Davy Gage's LifeLine. And then
I also use a microphone a lot, which is a
Shoep's, that's clamped to the side of the
bass that goes through my a mic preamp, Grace
Design Felix preamp. That signal goes into
a powered monitor of some sort.
So as far as amplification of the base, it's
always somewhat of a compromise to me, but
most importantly is on my mind is, is the
instrument being heard by those I'm playing
with and is it translating to the front of
the house. So, I kind of adapt to the situation
to those musicians I'm playing with, to the
room I'm playing in. I've done quite a bit
of solo gigs in the last year where I've used
no amplification. And then sometimes I might
be playing with a band that's quite loud where
I need much more. So I try to adapt to each
situation, but maintain a certain integrity
of sound no matter which way I do end up amplifying
the instrument. Kind of paramount to all of
that is working on our acoustic sound so that
when we do amplify it is the best that we
can possibly make it.
This is my lovely 1894 Glaesel bass, originally
owned, well, originally, previously owned
by Don Snow, a retired bass player from the
Seattle Symphony. It was found by a student
of mine who ended up not being able to afford
it and called me up and said, if you want
to buy it, it's yours. So I had already advised
him to buy it. So I did. It suffered an unfortunate
accident, for which I was responsible, in
which this scroll got knocked off here and
the front got cracked. Put your basses down
on the floor, do not lean them on chairs.
And Sarah Bonforth in Seattle did a beautiful
restoration job and a new neck graft with
a nice big modern over stand that keeps these
sloped shoulders well away from your hands
when you're playing in high positions. I'm
quite fond of the instrument. It has nice
depth and clarity.
I use a Schertler pickup, a condenser mic
kind that's inside a cork covering. It's the
least pickupy sounding pickup that I have
tried. I don't particularly like the dynamic
mic kinds that sit on the, on the top of the
bass. I also use this Ear Trumpet Labs Nadine
mic that they've lent me. I took it to Washington
for a Tiny Desk Concert, schlepped it across
the country only to find when I got there,
that they already had one. So I could have
saved myself some trouble. Obviously, people
find this to be a successful mic for recording.
It requires 48 volts, phantom power. And it's
not ideal for live situations where you're
in a club or... It's feedback prone as are
all microphones in that kind of circumstance.
But if you're not using it with an amp right
on stage, it's quite successful.
It's good for in a concert hall or for front
of house micing and very good for recording.
And my friend, Peter Axleson in Gothenburg
has made a mic that is a little better in
terms of rejecting feedback and has my name
on it. So I guess I should be advertising
that too. It does not have nearly as convenient
a way of attaching to the bass. So this is
a pretty attractive solution.
I also have a lovely bass that Seth Kimmel
made for me that you can find on his website.
It's at this point lent to a student from
New York who's escaping the intensity of the
pandemic there by visiting her sister here
in Portland, and she needed a bass and I just
said, "Here use this one." So I can't show
that to you. And I'm doing my best to avoid
thinking about the basses I've sold that I
shouldn't have, or other basses that I admire
that I wish I could afford. This one, this
and the Kimmel bass, they're both working
out pretty well.
And the amp that I use is an Acoustic Image
combo. That's worked out very well. I've used
other amps, sometimes you go somewhere and
there's an amp there. If you have a decent
pickup and you can manage to fiddle with the
controls and you have enough time to get things
adjusted, it's not as critical. One of the
critical things for me with an amp is to be
able to carry it and the Acoustic Images is
less than 30 pounds. And I can still manage
that.
Everybody's always been asking me about what
equipment do I use? What kind of bass do you
have? Which kind of strings do you use? What's
your amplifier, et cetera, et cetera. And
everybody's really different. And I think
I've, we as bass players are trying to find
something that actually helps us satisfy the
sound that you hear in your head.
The strings that I'm playing on today, because,
like I said, I've been working on my bowing
a lot and I'm using these strings that I have
here. The G and D are Pirastro olive. And
they're less tension than the steel string.
And the A and the E is from Innovation, which
is a British string, I think, from the UK.
It too has less tension. It's a little larger.
It's not... I think is called the Innovation
Honey jazz string, whatever that means. But
they only had a couple of jazz, quote unquote,
kind of strings. And a friend of mine had
these and I kind of liked the sound of it.
So I thought I'd check these out.
One of the reason I was checking out because
I've been playing for the last 20 plus years
using the Velvet Anima strings, which are
a gut-like, but not, from Switzerland. And
just this past year, they have ceased to make
them anymore, which is not been good for me
because I actually was so happy. But you can
bow them but they make several different ones.
But I use the model that says Anima, and it's
a little smaller than the larger one, the
gut string called the Garbo and the Anima,
and then the Velvet Blue. And then they have
a compass 180, which is kind of a steel string,
but it's... Everything in the tension is so
much less. That was one of the reasons that
I liked. But the Animas were more gut-like,
but with a covering, a metal covering and
gave them much more life and point. And it
was a big fat sound, particularly up in this
area. I became... I loved them and I have
a couple sets left because they're hard to
find now. But here so far, this is what I'm
using in the time being, because of the particular
projects that I'm working on.
This base is a Joseph Reger, 1805 with the
busetto corners, and it's been substantiated
and it's got a large seven, eight lower bout
and a three quarter upper bout. And even the
note I really didn't want to play, they sound
good. You know, this bass is amazing.
The pickups that I use, the bridge that I
have here is Rich Barbera transducers, which
is transducers built inside the bridge. And
there are eight transducers and he's got them
phased so four of them make it so the arco
sounds good and the four for the pitch to
sound good and he's like merged them together
and phased them together. And I've been very,
very happy with those, but the Schertler dyn-b
pick up, it's a little button that fits on
the belly of the bass. And it's very mic like,
it's very high end audiophile quality. And
I've been using it for years. And I mixed
the two together when I played live through
an amplifier. And it's been glorious.
What you're hearing here is just one microphone,
the DPA 4099, it's a tiny microphone that
fits right into the bass. Let me see if I
can show it to you. You should be able to
see that. And it's a glorious sound. Let me
see. And so the preamp, I think all pickups,
period, it is my opinion that all pickups
needs some kind of preamp to help you. So
when you are playing on an amplifier, that
is not yours or somewhere else, because nowadays
when I travel, I don't carry amplifiers. I
asked for amplifiers, and then I take my preamp
and then I'm able to balance the sound up
and get a little more control. If you don't
have the control of using electronics, you're
in trouble. You're asking the sound man to
actually get your sound for you, which is
not good. So the preamp I use is called a
Dtar Solstice. But there are several different
ones on the market.
And you can buy them. They're small. But every
pickup really should have one. If you don't
want to use a pickup, fine. It depends on
the kind of music that you're playing. But
I love this microphone. And then when I mixed
the microphone with pickup, I get the best
of both worlds, for me. This is a DPA 4099.
And I just discovered a relatively new, last
couple of years, a new microphone which I
don't have to show you, but it's called Nadine,
N A D I N E. And I think if you go to Google
and Nadine microphone, the website will come
up. Same thing with the DPA.
People ask me what amplifiers I prefer. If
I go somewhere and I would suggest that they
could give me an SWR speaker and amplifier,
or an Eden E D E N speaker amplifier or Gallien-Kreuger.
And these are the... and of course, there's
an Acoustic Image, which is a relatively,
in the last 10 years or so, that are smaller
but very powerful amplifiers that people use
that they carry with. And then they can put
that with any speaker anywhere, as long as
you get a quality speaker. The thing with
the bass because it's a such a slow and try
to get it cleared harmonics to pop out, you
need more wattage. So you get an amplifier
that actually has a minimum of 300 Watts,
and it's not for volume. It's for clarity
of this whole frequency response. So I hope
it's been helpful to you and have a good day.
Be safe.
I've been using for years now, on the double
bass, Pirastro strings. And these are Eva
Pirazzi orchestrals on the E and A, I believe,
or E and then the A string and the D string
are Eva Perazzi Weichs, it's a little lighter
gauge. And I got these new perpetual strings
from Perastro. And this is a perpetual G.
So these are kind of threading the needle
between... It's that gray area between the
steel and the gut string where you have synthetic
cores and different wraps. And I've also used
olive strings too over the years, many times.
An olive G, sometimes I used to use olive
G and D, and that's a gut core, with steel
wrap over it, or like a silver wrap.
This is an old Galliano bass from the 1800s.
And it's a beautiful instrument. I also still
play my Pollman German bass when I go on the
road. And I have a Trevor Davis copy of this
bass, a recent bass that was made only, probably,
who knows? Like five years ago or something.
Great sounding instrument.
Electric basses, all Yamaha's. The semi-hollow
basses. Recently, I have a big one and a little
smaller one that I play a lot. So I have some
older Yamaha, like a five string with active
stuff, with jazz bass pickups that has like
round one strings. I mean, flat one strings.
Then there's another one that's passive with
a jazz bass pickups with round one strings.
So, in terms of pickup, I use the Dave Gage
LifeLine. I also use Aguilar amps, all of
them, all different kinds, from the smallest
Aguilar tone hammer 350 to the 500 to the
700, depending on the gig.
And I use Grace preamps because I also mic
the bass most of the time. And I used the
DPA 4021, and it goes through the Grace. Where
you get the phantom power and it has separate,
two channels, one for the mic and one for
the pickup, if you want to blend.
So, that's it in a nutshell from here at my
house. And just, God bless you guys and enjoy
the bass and hope that you and your family
are safe during this crazy time. Okay. Take
care. Bye.
Well, I'm really hope that you've enjoyed
this. If you have, you can let us know just
by clicking that like button. You can subscribe
for more videos and let's keep the conversation
going in the comments. I'd love to hear about
what equipment has been working for you. Big,
thank you to everybody who took part in this.
Thanks for watching at home and we'll see
you next time.
