I'm looking for a solution for upright/electric/synth bass

[b3panda]

Hi, I've recently started reconfiguring my bass amp setup, and I'm kind of unsure about how to proceed. I play upright, bass guitar, and synth bass pretty regularly. I haven't ever had to play all three during a single performance, but upright/electric and electric/synth comes up often.

I currently use a two channel Acoustic Image Clarus series 4 as a bass head. I also have a Demeter VTBP-201S that I will typically run the electric through and then into the Clarus. The Clarus is a nice amplifier. I don't really like it as a bass guitar amp however. That's why I bring the Demeter along, but that kind of cancels out the benefit of having a small amp like the Clarus. I had thought to have a power amp installed in the Demeter, but I don't like playing upright or synth bass through the Demeter. I also have found that I need separate DI outputs, especially when playing upright. On the Clarus, when I shut off channel 2 (upright) it shuts off in my bass cab, but not through the DI. This has been a problem that I either have to solve by turning the volume down on the channel or using a volume pedal. It's a bit annoying.

Anyway, what I was thinking was that I already have the Demeter preamp which I like, and maybe I could just get a rackmount power amp (since I'd be stuck with the rack format at that point anyways). If I then got an upright bass preamp/DI of whatever sort, could I just plug that and the Demeter into the power amp to combine the signals? I also would need some sort of preamp for the synth, but maybe there is a something that would work well for synth or upright? If anyone has tackled this sort of problem before, I would love to know how it might be dealt with. Thanks so much!

 

[ashtray]

A stereo power amp would have 2 channels. Now if you want, most will let you combine both input channels to a single output channel. So your upright preamp would run parallel to your Demeter. Now your synth... I'd probably try that through your Demeter preamp. Not sure you can run 3 separate preamps into a single stereo power amp without a mixer otherwise.

 

[b3panda]

Thanks! I used to have a QSC PLX series, but I couldn't remember if you could send both inputs to one output. I should try the synth through the Demeter again to see how I feel about it. It rarely needs any EQ, and I don't really like being tied down to the same tone controls for bass guitar and synth. They seem to put out a pretty different spectrum of sound. The synth might actually put out a hot enough signal to drive a power amp, but I'd rather not be stuck with the synth volume all the way up on a gig. I don't think I would need all three instruments connected at once, so the two inputs would work. Or I guess I could get some sort of simple rack mixer. Things would be getting complicated though. I was so hopeful to not get back into using rack gear! Oh well. Thanks for the help!