jazz gigs back in the day/mic-ing the bass

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

my grandpa was telling me back in his big band in the early 40s they would ALWAYS mic the bass and most of the time, the piano, to speakers, and i thought: really!?!? i did not know that, at like birdland in the 50s n stuff, when u would go, would the bass be mic-ed, or like the bib band was playing huge dacnes and parties and birdland is small, right so what i wanna know is HOW OFTEN BACK IN THE DAY WAS THE BASS (and piano) MIC-ED? i guess is what im aiming after

[Shrdlu]

When I first started playing, we often had a mike on the bass, and it wasn't always easy to do. The bass was a bass fiddle (we never had an electric bass back then), and he would park the mike next to the bridge. It often sounded rather trebly. The problem, of course, was that the drums usually drowned out the bass, not to mention other instruments, such as a clarinet.

[Guest Bill Barton]

Next to the bridge? That's weird... I've never miked a double bass for live performance but I have many times for an in-studio performance or recording (a radio station studio, not a pro studio with multi-tracking and all those toys.) I never used a mike near the bridge, always near the sound-holes, and not very near at that, needed plenty of air for a nice, woody, resonant sound. Best results were with two mikes in a stereo X-Y set-up. Admittedly, this may be an apples and oranges comparison, but the idea of miking near the bridge just seemed odd to me.

Edited April 13, 2010 by Bill Barton

[Shrdlu]

Well, as I said, it sounded very trebly with the mike there.

I think they put it there because it was easy to park it in that position. It wasn't a well considered thing.