AndrewJordan

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1467148162' post='3081557'] For all those advocating going pre-eq, I can kindof see why, but I`d ask, click on the link below, listen to our song Fingers To The Bone (about a third of the way down), and tell me if a pre-eq`d flat Precision sound to FOH is going to accurately represent the sound my band wants the audience to hear. [url="http://knockoff.wix.com/mysite"]http://knockoff.wix.com/mysite[/url] [/quote] [quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1467148162' post='3081557'] For all those advocating going pre-eq, I can kindof see why, but I`d ask, click on the link below, listen to our song Fingers To The Bone (about a third of the way down), and tell me if a pre-eq`d flat Precision sound to FOH is going to accurately represent the sound my band wants the audience to hear. [url="http://knockoff.wix.com/mysite"]http://knockoff.wix.com/mysite[/url] [/quote] Absolutely not! It's a worry to me also. I hate being at the mercy of unknown engineers. An engineer once told me "I am not interested in what a bass player thinks is a good tone". I understand why they want clean sub to put under the guitars but in cases where a band has a distinct bass sound then the cab should be miced and mixed in as well. Not all engineers are as bad as the one I mentioned by the way.

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1467109574' post='3081199'] sorry been at work so basically there are a few different ways of creating feedback which all kind of overlap a little bit the first kind is the room resonance kind where there is something bouncing madly around the room due to the surfaces/shape of the room. we've all at some point or another encountered a really boomy room which kicks off when you play a particular note. This kind of feedback you can most definitely fight with a graphic as I count this as making the PA flat in the room. the second kind of feedback comes from what i call overgaining for this i have to explain the difference between volume and gain volume in essence is how loud the signal coming out of the PA hence the use of faders for a good visual reference of your mix gain on the other hand is how sensitive the mic is (in reality its actually how much the signal from the mic is amplified but it results in the same thing) so if you imagine a vocal mic sitting on the stand there is an invisible ball around the mic which is what the mic picks up as you turn the gain up the ball gets larger and the mic becomes more sensitive. if you gain the mic up too much because you need the extra volume you end up with it picking up a nearby speaker and it feeding back at a few frequencies this means you then have to chop some frequencies out of the graphic to stop it feeding back which means that the whole PA mix will suffer because of it and again you end up chasing your tail adding more eq to other stuff than you need to the third way is pointing a mic at a speaker be that from bad PA positioning or just someone being dumb but this is pretty obvious to me it sounds like you're overgaining a little bit to compensate for a quieter FOH rig than you actually need (or gaining up too much and then pulling it back on either the faders or the master) [/quote] Cheers Chris! That's a good explanation and it makes me fairly confident that it is actually room resonance that I am usually dealing with. I think I have a fairly decent grasp of mic pick up patterns and speaker dispersion patterns and so I always try to get the best positioning that the room will allow. My example of 100hz was maybe a bad/misleading one as in fact the offending feqs are always in the region of 1k and upwards. I always pfl the input gains to never higher than a good healthy level and if anything is being overpowered in the mix I will pull everything else down on the faders rather than crank the input gain. Our PA is pretty good and more than adequate for the venues we play in.

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1467023633' post='3080479'] sometimes it gets used for feedback fighting but that rarely makes for good results and is only worth doing if you have no other option (including turning down) if you cut 3dB from say 100hz on the graphic EQ of the system that takes that out of the entire mix [/quote] Hi Chris, I run PA for our band. We often play in quite small venues at fairly high volumes which means we often get feedback from foh which I fight with a graphic. In fact thats all I use the foh graphic for as I have no measuring quipment for setting a flat sound. I could be wrong here but, I was of the impression that if I am getting feedback at say 100hz then something about the room is exciting that freq and making it louder in the mix. Therefore if I cut it enough to kill the feedback then it should be pulling the frequency down to a more even level with the others. Feel free to tell me if I am wrong. I am here to be educated.

[quote name='visog' timestamp='1460581848' post='3027091'] Surprised nobody's raised another of JP's influences, and yet another STH 'inspiration' in Davy Gragan - 20s in: [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWeejHJxGjs"]https://www.youtube....h?v=tWeejHJxGjs[/url] [/quote] Much as I loved Zep, they were all over other peoples song like a rash. One of Davy Graham's contemporaries, Bert Jansch was royally riped off with the track Black Mountain side. I was aware of it at the time because one of my mates was a big Jansch fan. Some good examples here [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiiY4ciKFQA"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiiY4ciKFQA [/url] Of course they could be described as covers. But it would have helped if they had given credits.

Cool stuff. Get it mixed and put it out there!

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1465929601' post='3072242'] it depends massively on how it's said i've been on the opposite side of that conversation and my responses vary from "F**k of"f to "actually yeah i think you're probably right" this depends upon a number of factors, chief among which is how right think you are a very close second is how nice you are about it sound engineers are fickle creatures who respond kindly to gentle treatment and encouragement with beer with regards to festival sound those bands will have sound engineers that mix every single gig they do so i have no doubt that the gig sounded amazing in the sound tower. however a few things to bear in mind is that you have no time to soundcheck on a PA system that you're not familiar with most of you're mix is based on the feedback you're getting from a couple of nearfield monitors at the mix position and what you can hear where you are you're entirely at the mercy of the people who provide the PA and how well they have set it up mixes at the start of festival slots are basically educated guesswork on previous experience [/quote] Oh, I agree with you entirely! I also work the desk for bands on occasions as well as being our bands PA guy. I usually try to be as diplomatic as possible but to be honest I have been shocked on many occasions by how arrogant some engineers can be. I know from experience behind the desk how some people can be a real pain in the arse coming and complaining that they can't hear this or that as much as they would like to so I really only comment when something is very wrong. It also bugs me how some engineers treat the bass. I have been told on more than one occasion that they only want the DI signal "I don't want any of that distortion in my PA" they then take all of the tone out of the signal leaving an indistinct sub to put under the guitars.

I often tell the sound guy if I think a mix needs something. Doesn't often get a good responce though. The last thing I went to the sound guy spent most of the gig at the back of the room talking, away from the desk. I went and told him the lead guitar needed to go up(it was almost inaudible) he looked at me and said "I don't know which is the lead guitarist". It was quite obvious if he had been paying attention so I pointed him in the right direction. To his credit he did go and turn him up.

I am not sure what an "arbitor" of tone is and can't be arsed to google it. But, for me TC is well up there amongst the best when it comes to tasteful lines that complement the tune with the perfect tones to match. Note I said toneS there, he has many! I also recognise JE as a great player but his tones and perhaps more than anything else, the tunes he was playing to, never really did it for me.....................but of course, thats just my personal taste.

[quote name='skychaserhigh' timestamp='1464899494' post='3063706'] I'm a bit confused by how if you close mic a speaker , you are getting the whole cab sound ? [/quote] You wont get the whole cab sound! The hall of mirrors analogy is a bit misleading but this bit "The sound of a speaker and the sound of a cab are inextricably intertwined - the cab determines how the speaker sounds and vice versa." is spot on. The response of the speaker is determined by(amongst other things) the volume of air contained in the surrounding cabinet. So, the same speaker will sound differently when close miked in cabinets of differing volumes. Sorry, if I am teaching grannie to suck eggs with that.

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1464871295' post='3063313'] But do all these lots of different cabs have the same 10" speaker? [/quote] And with that question you have kind of reinforced Alex's point!

Well explained Phil! My personal suspicions on this are that the GK head is a very well engineered bit of kit that has been designed to deliver 300W cleanly at the freqs that matter. I've been inside it a few years ago and remember seeing a lot of very beefy caps in there and I think I remember a fairly HEFTy (see what I did there) tranny inside as well. So, to my untrained eye it looks to be capable of delivering a lot of juice. I suspect that the Ampeg figures may have been influenced by the marketing department. I haven't been inside it but if you ignore the big wooden(fake svt look) box then the actual amp casing doesn't look big enough to have huge caps or a proper tranny in it. Don't get me wrong, I am not slagging the Ampeg. It's a great sounding and performing amp. Just doesn't have the same balls as the GK. I gigged with the Ampeg on sat night and really enjoyed it. We shared a stage with another band and the bass player who also plays in a very loud metal band used my rig and was blown away by it, commenting on how nice it was to play through a really meaty amp. The GK is actually a bi-amp head so there is another 100W power section in there also and a tuneable crossover(it can be switched out so that either or both amps can be used full range). For a laugh once in the practice room I set up a stack of two 18" PA subs with 15" + comp PA top all driven by the GK with the crosover set to around 100Hz. WOW............that rig could knock you on your back. In drop C the whole concrete building was shaking not to mention my bowels.........Oh, and a lady who was in the room had a very interesting smile on her face!

Not last night but sat night. Back at the Turks Head in Darlington a really good venue that we play maybe twice a year. Good up for it crowd. We finished around 12.30 then landlord Ronnie and his partner Hayley dragged us all out to a rock night in a local club. Rolled out of there around 4.30 and back to the Turks. Finally hit our sleeping bags on the pub floor around 5 a.m. for about four hours sleep then packing all the gear and going home. Only just recovering now! Think I am getting too old for this

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1464369981' post='3058987'] I suppose you've just found that watts have little to do with volume. Just like 200bhp can vary from vehicle to vehicle on how fast it goes. [/quote] Well, I have known for quite some time that watts are only part of the equation when it comes to volume. If you are saying that watts in themselves are not a measurement or indication of volume then I agree entirely. In other ways watts can have quite a lot to do with volume. I would say that any given signal passed through a circuit with enough gain applied to generate a 200W output into a speaker will be louder than the same signal passed through the same circuit into the same speaker with the gain lowered so that only 100W output is generated. Nowhere near twice as loud, but still louder........................he said, setting himself up to be shot down again

Well in our case it's a pair of 18 Inch subs with Logic Systems 15 plus comp tops over them. I usually have the cab as loud as I need it on stage which usually means it is fairly audible out front and just put enough through the PA to fill it out a bit and add a bit of low end that I don't want mudying up the stage sound.

err..do you mean "what is a PA?" ?

Yes, I realise that my methods are very unscientific. I don't have an osciloscope to tell where the genuine clipping point is. With the Ampegs I adjust the input level until my playing just tickles the clip LEDs. The GK has no such LED but some time ago when I had it with a tech I got him to test it with my bass to find the highest level I could turn the input to before clipping the pre amp. I always set the input to this same level. Again, all very unscientific I know but the best I can do. Regarding perceived loudness, all amps were EQd to give roughly the same tone and this testing was done during band practice so it was quite easy for everyone to hear a considerable difference in volume between the three. Regarding valve amps, I believe it could well be the extra harmonics that make them sound louder especially when driven. I know that if I put a distortion pedal through min ss head while it is DI into the desk there is no increase in level on the desk meters but it certainly sounds louder. Those extra harmonics definately "fill the ears". Does it matter if in the end the amp does what you need? Not a bit in my opinion. But it would be nice to have that Utopian world where you can shop for an amp without being able to test it and know that it will be loud enough from the wattage ratings.

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1464365325' post='3058917'] You could do worse than start [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/3730-gain-power-and-volume-a-confusing-menage-a-trois/"]here[/url]. [/quote] Yeh, I do understand the science(well mostly) I understand the relavence of cab sensitivity and I am not trying to get more volume from any of these specific heads. That was just a direct comparison of three heads into the same cab with the same bass with all the inputs set to just before clipping. The results say to me that either the GK is very conservatively rated or the Ampegs are a bit optimistic with their figures. If old school valve amps are genuinely louder for a given wattage could it be down to the way the manufacturers arrive at the figures. e.g. old school rating is an honest rating of say 100W @ 40Hz as opposed to moderns inflating the figures by saying 300W but is that 300W @ 1Khz?

With watts that is! Or more precisely, how amp manufacturers rate their heads? I have three heads now and compared through the same cab (Ampeg 610 4Ohm) they go up in volume in this order. Ampeg Micro VR 250W @ 4Ohm - Quite loud but not loud enough for my band. Ampeg SVT 450 450W @ 4Ohm - Plenty loud enough but not tons of headroom left. GK 800RB 300W @ 4Ohm - Plenty loud enough but can go a hell of a lot louder. (note the very scientific descriptions of perceived volume there). So the 300W GK beats the 450W Ampeg hands down in the loudness wars. For quite a while I have had GAS for a vintage valve amp but with a lot of the vintage amps only rated at 100 or so Watts where do they sit in terms of loudness. You regularly see sellers saying that these amps are loud enough for any gig. But are they really?

Saw that a couple of weeks ago when I was there. It did make me wonder...............

Nice one! Money isn't everything, creativity is good for the soul!

Well you know what it's like........bin there, done that....................it's all bin done before!

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread.

Will do mate! He has plenty of kit and a car. Hmm, his ex is a singer from Kingston around that age. Coincidence........................