Hi it's Geoff Chalmers here from discoverdoublebass.com and i'm joined by
one of our fantastic tutors the great Olivier Babaz so Olivier thanks for
joining me today thanks Geoff right now we filmed the course last year on jazz
bowing which I absolutely loved and it's been really popular with the audience
and we asked for a few questions because we knew that you were coming back into
the studio and we could put them to you and we actually had quite a few
questions about playing live and your setup and I using a mic I using a pickup
how are you handling adding in the bow, do you use a volume pedal in the chain
maybe you could talk a little bit on that topic please. Yeah it's really really
long topic but basically my own approach is that we will never have an optimal
sound amplified because we play an acoustic instrument and what will come
out of the amplifier will never be as good or even close to what's coming out
of the of the instrument so... basically I tried all kind of setup with
microphone multiple pickups multiple amps but basically it comes back to
having the best sound acoustically and having the amp the lowest possible so
when it comes and especially when you want to bow because when you are going
to bow at the difference between your acoustic sound and your amplified sound
will be so huge that you really want to hear more about, more your bass so it's
basically building your sound skills and your technique around having a great
sound in any situation with any gear so do you use anything like a volume pedal
or change the settings when you switch to the bow? No generally I
lower the amp to not hear too much of the of the of what's coming up from it
to be honest yeah I tried many many pickups and many amps and the conclusion
was ok it's not for me it's not the best I mean I'll have a little bit of amp to
get some bottom end, basically if I'm playing in a
concert hall I will not send the DI, I will just ask for a condenser microphone
in front of the bass and I will not give them the DI signal yeah
you'll hide it from the sound engineer yeah I'll just keep it for my own for my
own use but yeah. Okay so you're a jazz bass player, you're going out this weekend
to your local club gig, what amp do you take? I mean I'll take the easiest to carry
first I love small 12-inch so I basically GK MB150 yeah of course
very classic one Mark Bass CMD 121 what do I like
Acoustic Image I like the Ten2, especially but the Coda the Coda uh with
uh with one speaker is great as well but it's a 10-inch I really I really tend to
rely on twelve inches. Eden have a great have a great cabinet quite small so yeah
how about pickup or mic you're playing with like a you know regular jazz quartet
you know you need something you're gonna A regular jazz quartet club gig
Full Circle for an amp, just for me and condenser mic if needed if we could
maybe bring the camera in on the Full Circle here as well on this on this part
of the bridge here I noticed that you'd wrapped up for this recordings we've
just been recording acoustically we haven't been using the Full Circle but
you wrapped this cloth around the strings but could you tell us why that
is? Because this part resonates the bridge no no it's I think it's the strings
the after length, the strings the if you want I can put it out and it's just not
that sound will resonate. So is that something you only do for recording
or yes mainly for recording especially solo because when you're solo you you
don't really have control over the resonance of that of course of that part
so we recorded solo bass this week so yeah I don't end
it in order to cut that kind of resonance okay let's finish with some
quickfire questions I know people are gonna be thinking hang on what strings
all of this kind of stuff so I'll just go through them what strings I gather to
two strings I love Spirocore I love the red red but this one red and the
other strings I use a lot are D'Addario Zyex depending on the bass these are
the weich, the light gauge D'adarrios sorry, Thomastik Spirocore, that
happens to be on my instrument that Olivier's been been using so well red red
are a medium and you prefer the medium yeah slightly thicker what about the
string hight? low, medium? I mean it depends on the bass. I have multiple
have a few basses but basically the higher the bigger the sound is so I have
the tendency to like higher higher string height yeah and to sacrifice a
bit of comfort and maybe sustain as well but I prefer to have the edge than to
have the growl of the sustain and what you look for in an instrument what do
you like about you know different double basses what are you looking for because
I know you can't recommend one brand to somebody but what do you look for when
you low end and impact yeah yes yes yes you really want to have them that's kind
of the most useful sound you can get I mean for me on the gig because it's it's
doing the bubbly thing under everything and under the music and
it's doing the rhythmic thing that you want to get through all the other but I
mean it's great to have some some beautiful growling - growling sound like
like that but the first thing I look for in a bass if I have to choose our setup
one or is low end and impact fantastic well I think I think what we'll do is
we'll finish on a little performance clip if that's okay with you Olivier
that we filmed earlier of you playing this double bass because I enjoyed this
so much I just wanted to share it with everyone so we'll finish off with
little performance not sure what the pieces will put a note underneath the
video by the great Olivier Babaz so Olivier thanks so much for joining me
thanks for watching and we will see you next time