MartyBRebelMC

I use Markbass 121p with 121NY cab - plenty loud enough for pubs, medium sized venues. We are a loud covers band (with sound issues we have now hopefully solved - guitarist eh? gotta love 'em) but the Bass sound was never an issue. The markbass stuff kicks out a shed load of mid range so theres never an issue with being heard - not sure how effective it is at making the earth shake compared to a larger rig but it's very light and has a small footprint. Also the vertical stacking arrangement of 2 12" is a plus for hearing yourself. Martin

Just a quick update and thanks for all the coments. Having now done a gig and a get together in a rehearsal studio we have, i think, cracked it! By going through the sound check process sequentially it immediately revealed the culprit as too much mid dialled in on the Marshall - this and a change to 2X12 from 4X12 has vastly improved matters and we have a happy guitarist as well who can now hear himself in the mix. I think the problem is often just not having time to sort these things out as well as not always knowing there's a problem until it is pointed out - as the sound on stage often bares no relation to that out front. Thanks again for all the useful advice. Martin

[quote name='Tengu' post='1171147' date='Mar 21 2011, 07:26 PM']Whereabouts in Hampshire are you, Marty? If you are close enough to me I would be happy to come along to a gig and take a listen for you. I have always run the sound in the bands I have been in and get compliments about the quality from all and sundry.[/quote] I'm near Basingstoke but the band are based in Reading and we tend to play around the Reading area which would be a bit of a trek, but many thanks for the offer and if we get any gigs your way I'll give you a shout if I may. I'm going to try a few of the tips and methods mentioned in the posts and will report back after the next gig - a week Saturday. Cheers Martin

[quote name='51m0n' post='1170832' date='Mar 21 2011, 04:22 PM']Guitarists generally and genuinely believe that guitar sounds best when everything is dimed. Whilst a noble thought it is utter tosh. Fletcher Munsen curves dicatate that as the volume gets greater the sound that was super in the doudouir is way too bassy and trebly at the gig. A half stack is total overkill for a pub gig, even a 212 is a lot more than really required, and will suffer from beaming and phase cancellation. First thing is to see if you cant tune the drums better. Really, if you tune them really well they will be immensely loud in a small space, but thats fine, I've never heard a band in a pub with unmiced drums that really were too loud. Honestly. The rest of the band do need to work as a team to not degenerate into a volume war though. You will be causing the same issues with your eq too. Flatten your eq completely. Get the drums going and turn up the bass to war volume to match. Check you can actually hear the kick drum against you out in the room - now go and turn down until you can. Thats right, you were almost certainly too loud for the kick. Now tweak the eq (tweak is the operative word) to go in the direction of 'your' sound. Bring up the rhythm guitar rig (flat eq!), dont let them touch their eq, you do it, you want lower mids not treble and bass, a hint of treble presence will do, and some low mid (for guitar) for body. Remember you need a whole for the lead guitar, carve it out of the rhythm guitar. It need not sound like anything but awful on its own, it isnt going to be heard on its own after all. Bring up the lead guitar, this needs to be treated carefully to slot into the space you cut out of the rhythm guitar, and again not get into your area, a bit more treble, and a bit of bass can be a good thing, but not enough bass to hurt your sound. The lead gutarist also needs to understand that if they are working as a second rhythm guitar under the vocals they need to lose some presence AND some volume. Check you can really hear the snare, the rhythm and the lead and the bass as seperate entities, if the guitars both chug a rhythm on an E chord you should clearly hear the snare and the kick, if you join in then you should still hear the kick and snare. People always bang on about how loud they need to be because of the drummer, but in my experience, even a loud rock drummer doesnt compete with a modern bass rig without being mic'ed too. They never really competed with a half stack at all. In other words you arent competing with him, you are probably drowning him out. This isn't obvious at all in a small rehearsal room, but put the kit in a bigger pub venue and its easy to completely swamp the kick with bass or guitar. Now properly eq'ed a vocal should slide right over the top of all of this, and with a decent graphic on a feed t oa decent monitor you should be able to avoid any feedback.[/quote] Many thanks for this - as always basschat comes up trumps when you need some help!!

This is very useful stuff, many thanks for all the comments. I'm going to print this off and make some notes for the next gig. Hopefully I can get us sounding better - it's such a shame when good musicianship (myself excepted) is ruined by poor sound so i will persevere with this! Just to mention about my own sound - I use the amp with a flat EQ and use the bass's preamp to shape the sound after that. I use a wireless system so i can go out front and hear what's going on. I find I generally only tweak the settings a bit according to the venue (usually pushing the mids)

thanks for the advice guys, Firstly - yes we are too loud mainly due to the drums The vocals and drums are usually the only things that are defined, I feel the bass and guitars are the real problem, but not sure how to resolve this, I agree logic suggests an ascending hierarchy of frequency from bass to lead and will push to try this out at the next gig. I should mention our rhythm guitarist uses a Marshall half stack (when I rule the world all Marshall 4X12s will be burnt!!!!) so controlling the amount of bass from that is difficult, but will again try hard to get him to roll off the bass.

Does anyone have a good idea of how to get a good balance of sound in a pub? we have 2 guitars, female vocals, drums and bass. It's the old problem everything sounds fine on its own but when it comes together it's a cluttered noise. My guess is the guitars are kicking out too much mid low and clagging up the sound but before i annoy the guitarists by telling them how to eq their amps does anyone have any tips for getting a good mix? Martin

we do 9 - 12 with a 20 min break, never really thought about it before just seemed to work out that way

I agree with the idea of booking a gig, I also like to record rehearsals (on a digital recorder) then email the resultant mp3's to the other members - I find it very helpful for sorting out what's not right about a song and quickly highlights any weaknesses (usually me!). A word of caution however, in a previous band this had the effect of causing it to instantly implode.... as there had been a massive reality gap between what some band members thought we were sounding like and what we actually sounded like - the reality was so dispiriting to the worst offenders they couldn't continue - but it did save the public the pain of ever having to listen to us play!

[quote name='rmshaw37' post='1144667' date='Feb 28 2011, 05:16 PM']the spector legends are awesome - and around that money second hand! in fact i have the 5 string custom in blue that will be coming up for sale soon - pm me if interested![/quote] Totally agree, I used to have one and it was superb! If you prefer a tighter string spacing these are a great choice. Martin

Perfect colour, perfect neck... perfect everything - If I had the money I'd have this in a flash. Damn, Damn and double Damn Good luck with the sale Martin

Back in the saddle..good man! Good luck! Martin

This may have been covered before - if you have trouble with goods ordered under £100 hence not specifically covered by section 75 you can invoke a chargeback claim. I've done this where a trader failed to provide the goods within 28 days hence breach of contract and it worked no problem. The link below explains all. [url="http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/sale-of-goods/your-rights-when-paying-by-credit-card/chargeback-on-credit-and-debit-cards/"]http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/sal...nd-debit-cards/[/url]

I was in a music store the other day and just out of interest I always like to do a quick QC on the stock - especially Fender basses. I wasn't particularly looking for alignment problems but I did notice issues with neck pockets. What is it with Fender and neck pockets! Out of 5 USA basses two were absolutely perfect and three (all the same model and colour) had unacceptable gaps (by which I mean you could slide a business card in there). I'm sorry but if china can cut a perfect neck pocket for £200 quid why cant the USA consistently do the same fo £1100! And dont even get me started on Gibson and glue joints! I have seen a telecaster (guitar) that was unplayable due to the neck/bridge being so far out of alignment the bottom E was off the fret board, when i pointed this out there was little interest shown...Is some of the problem that music shops allow these instruments to hang on the walls when they should be rejected the minute they are unpacked?

[quote name='chrisba' post='1128412' date='Feb 15 2011, 02:56 PM']U2 - With or Without You. 4 notes repeated over and over with no variation. I sometimes try and change the fingering half way through to relieve the boredom, but always end up fluffing it. Fortunately seems to have quietly disappeared from the set.[/quote] +1 I hate that bass line so much!

Just had to share my enthusiasm for headless bass design and double ball end strings. Just changed all 6 strings last night on a recently aquired Status S2 headless 6 and tuned the new set to pitch in 12 mins (I timed myself as I knew it would be quick - sad I know). Bloody clever stuff though this headless thingy. Be kind - the wife was out and there was nothing on telly (and my strings had arrived in the post) so what's a man to do...no don't answer that! Martin