question, but first i tried the search function which always makes me feel less intelligent whenever i try to use it...has anyone found a good amp/pickup configuration for a cello playing in loud rock band? this is for a live application. i thought a powered 15" JBL P.A. speaker may be better suited than a 4x12 cab or bass 4x10 that the person is currently using with crappy results. feel free to direct me to the 897 threads i most likely overlooked.

i've recently started a rock configuration with a cello (and a trombone) and for practices we use a Crate BX300 bass amp mainly cause it has a decent 7 band graphic EQ.

our cellist got a cheap-ish acoustic guitar pickup that has three little contacts, which she bumps on the bridge...

it doesn't sound great, but it gets the job done. i bet with a cello pickup she'd sound a lot better.

I've been looking at Schertler pickups for guitar, and they have a cello pickup in their lineup. It probably sounds pretty good, but it's pretty pricey.

I know a guy that uses either a Reverb O Rocket, or a Silvertone Meteor (which is cabinet version of the first guitar case amplifer), depending on how loud he wants to get. In a bigger place the Ampeg does pretty well...

A local band (pittsburgh) is comprised of Guitar/vocals/drums/cello
the cello player also plays bass on some songs and plays an electrical cello through a bass amp. It sounds awful. It's like a tuba or something. They're a decent band, but the cello just doesn't sound good. I don't really have any real advice, but please do it well, because listening to a crappy sounding cello in a rock band is no fun. I would maybe suggest not to just play through a bass amp set to sound like a bass, because the high end is important to the cello's sound. Maybe even finding some sort of acoustic preamp and running it DI.

played with a few people with cellist's in the line up recently, one used a cello pickup that comes with an external preamp that she was sending to a mini mixer which was then going to the PA, and that sounded great, the other was in a a three piece with drums and guitar (and occasionally bass), it looked like the cello was going into a preamp again but that was going into the bass amp (which was a really small ampeg ultralight thing) but the bass was going straight into the amp. that sounded nice too. Both bands were pretty quiet though so perhaps not ideal. I agree with the sentiment that a bass amp isn't going to be much cop though, there's alot of high end on the cello? Maybe loud acoustic guitar amp would be the answer?

put the cellist in a soundproof glass box and mic it with an RE20

no, seriously.

i wish more stages had soundproof glass boxes for this sort of thing.