TimR Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) This is a topic that comes up a lot. You've been given the answer, but it wasn't the one you liked so you picked the ones you did. If you point out that you have a DI on the back of your amp, I can see no reason why the soundman wouldn't use it. If the amp goes down mid set then that's your problem, you'll have to stop and he'll have to come up and DI you directly and soundcheck the band again on the fly. Maybe they've had bad experiences of band's gear frying their desks? I've seen some really dodgy equipment, usually, but not limited to, originals bands. As has been pointed out, the sound you like may not actually work in the venue or even in the mix even if it sounds nice in your rehearsal studio. Do you ever practice at low volumes to see how the mix sounds? It's not unusual for a soundman to get the job because he is a mate of the venue owner rather than because he is a top notch soundman, especially if it is a night of unpaid original acts on a low budget. If you have several bands on the bill and you can plug all the bass guitars direct in it saves a lot of EQing and time between acts checking signal levels - do that every night and you're just doing a routine that you know works. Unfortunately it's only you and the other bass player in the room who will notice 'your sound' and he might not even notice you're using an SVT. I would point out that you've got a DI on the amp already. IME that is usually is enough to do the job. After all it saves him using another bit of kit. Edited January 25, 2011 by TimR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spike Vincent Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I've done a lot of sound engineering.Personally I prefer to DI the amp,because that's what I'd want as a bassist.However,just as there are crap engineers out there,there are crap bassists who have no idea how to set their amp up,there are crap bass amps,and sometimes DI'ing the bass is simply a more practical option.Also,if you could hear your sound from the PA,bear in mind you're behind it and what it sounds like 20 metres in front will be very different. Sound waves from low frequencies are long.Simply ask your next engineer if he/she can DI the amp.If they say no,ask them why.And NEVER piss the engineer of, even if they're an incompetent twat,some of them are cynical bitter twisted people who are likely better connected than you are and can do serious damage to your reputation.....The voice of experience! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartelby Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) I was offered a choice at my gig on Saturday night. DI from the amp or the Sansamp or a mic'd cab. Due to a small stage I opted for DI'ing from the head. I didn't want to be knocking over a mic or have an extra cable trailing across the stage. The sound guy was happy for any of the options. Edited January 25, 2011 by bartelby Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gareth Hughes Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I had a soundguy - someone I know well, who has done sound for me many time and has worked the same venue for years - fry my Aphex Bass Xciter by leaving Phantom Power on the XLR. My Aphex was already running off a 9V power supply so things didn't end nicely for me. In this instance I'm insisting he use his own DI box next time - glad I didn't connect the cable to my amp head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitalmetal Posted January 25, 2011 Author Share Posted January 25, 2011 Dont get me wrong im not expecting an exact replication of how i hear my sound to be out the front for the crowd , just somewhere near, What i heard from the PA that night was a night and day difference to my amp sound. What was coming from the PA was a clan twangy pop funk bass hifi sound (apologies for my crap description but im not so good at axplaining the sound). Where as my sound from my amp is driven distortion blended with a fat low end without any high twang at all. Otherwise i may as well not bother taking my amp rig at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
molan Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) I've run live sound many times for people and have to agree that it can be fraught with issues as far as getting a good bass sound is concerned. I always try to be sympathetic to to the players' requirements but sometimes you have to over-ride things simply because it sounds bloody awful out front. Obviously my view of 'awful' may be someone else's sonic nirvana so I'll always speak to them about changing things. Last time this happened I was working with a bass man with a fairly modern bass and amp set up who just sounded like mud out front. I had a go at tweaking the mix to cut out some of the low thud and horrible boomy tone and then had a chat with him about his sound during the break. Turned out that the sound he wanted people to hear was all low thud without much note definition etc so I ended up putting things back where they were. A couple of people in the audience moaned that the bass sounded horrible and was over-powering the mix but I tried to be faithful to what I'd been asked to reproduce This was one situation where I really wish more people had either really long leads or wireless set-ups to get out front & hear what they sound like to their audiences! A lot of people are really slow / unprofessional about setting up and only leave time for a short sound check (amazing how many people blame the sounds guy for this when they've just wasted loads of time arguing over how much space the drummer can have for his kit, whether the keys player sets up facing across stage to save space etc.!). Then, having got a decent balance on sound check, everyone turns up half way through the first song, lol. I usually try to take a DI feed pre-eq from the bass, had too many situations where a post eq feed has seen the bass player massively tweaking his eq to get a better on-stage sound and really screwing the front of house mix (instead of asking the sound enginer to turn him up in the monitors - obviously this only works if there is bass in the monitors!). When I'm playing I always spend time with the sound engineer - personally I've always found this helps in many different ways. Some sound guys really don't give a toss (and some of this may be because they've spent too many years having to deal with sh*tty band members who treat them terribly) but most seem to respond positively if you treat them well and get them a bit involved in what you're trying to achieve. Really helps if you have a friend in the audience who a) has good ears knows the sound you'r after and c) knows how to speak to the engineer the 'right way I guess what I'm trying to say is that sound man's lot is often thankless and a little bit of effort working with him can go a long way - as someone else has said, if you piss him off then he can simply pull your faders right down and make you dissappear or turn your sound to mud. . . Edited January 25, 2011 by molan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodster Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 [quote name='Lozz196' post='1101974' date='Jan 25 2011, 12:20 PM']Another thing to think of is how any sound will be through the house pa speakers. "Your sound" is your amp through your speakers. If you change your speakers, from a 4x10 to a 1x15, the dynamics of the sound will change quite a lot, so the sound coming out of pa speakers will be quite different to that out of dedicated bass speakers. The last gig I did through a house pa was also through an amp that was hired for the day long event, an Aguilar set-up. All throughout the day, the bass had sounded great with every band, each using different basses. Yet when I plugged into it I thought it sounded weedy and uninspiring, however, as I knew it sounded great out front, I was happy to go with it. The bass is probably one of the most difficult to get exactly right through a pa, and, unfortunate though it may be, is also probably the sound that most people in the audience don`t either know, or care about. Unless the bass has effects, or gain, in which case DI-ing the amp is necessary, usually a sound engineer will get a good sound that fits whatever way they do it.[/quote] Spot on... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitalmetal Posted January 25, 2011 Author Share Posted January 25, 2011 As i mentioned before my head has transformer balanced DI outs so its pretty isolated from PA mishaps, and if my amp goes down im gonna stop playing anyway so no difference there really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 My own personal opinion is that I'm just happy to be heard and to hear myself on stage, anything else is a bonus and Johnny Punter won't notice either way. I've offered a DI out of my amp to a sound engineer in the past to be turned down saying (paraphrasing) "The DI in that is crap". "That" is a Hartke 3500. Is it crap? I never use it at home, how could I argue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Foxen Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 What is this 'PA' of which you speak? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodster Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 [quote name='digitalmetal' post='1102079' date='Jan 25 2011, 01:27 PM']As i mentioned before my head has transformer balanced DI outs so its pretty isolated from PA mishaps, and if my amp goes down im gonna stop playing anyway so no difference there really.[/quote] So if you were mid-set and your amp went down but you were still coming through FOH, you'd stop? and do what...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitalmetal Posted January 25, 2011 Author Share Posted January 25, 2011 to be honest i doubt i need to go through the PA in some of the smaller venues as my rig is plenty powerful enough its just that if im in control of the only bass level the venue will hear, i cant be mixed properly with the rest of the band Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thumperbob 2002 Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 [quote name='digitalmetal' post='1102000' date='Jan 25 2011, 12:40 PM']if i did that, what would be the point of me lugging a huge great big ampeg (that i can get just the sound im after) around with me?[/quote] No real point- other than it looks good. Not kind on your back and believe it or not your sound can be replicated quite easily using good lightweight gear - just takes a bit of time and experience. Invest in a Zoom H2 recorder- give it to a pal to record your band live. Then think about your bass sound- and your opinion of the sound guy. We have all had bad ones and good ones- unfortunately the bad ones do outweigh the good ones in my experience. But do remember that the majority do this for little or no reward and do it because they enjoy it, by and large. They are your friends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gafbass02 Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Reminds me of the time my amp went down onstage, so I thought "hmm I wonder if they can still hear me?" so I leapt off the stage, (a pretty big stage, supporting sikth) I survived the drop, realised, 'nope, no sound out here either, ah well, the jumped looked cool.' Turned around and realised: 'bugger!! How the f**k am I gonna get back up there?!!?' Uncoolness from Gaf. ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 [quote name='woodster' post='1101873' date='Jan 25 2011, 11:14 AM']He's also covering his backside in case your amp fails....[/quote] Yes. And consequently covering [i]your[/i] backside too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gafbass02 Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 ..and ego Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimR Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 [quote name='digitalmetal' post='1102070' date='Jan 25 2011, 01:24 PM']Dont get me wrong im not expecting an exact replication of how i hear my sound to be out the front for the crowd , just somewhere near, What i heard from the PA that night was a night and day difference to my amp sound. What was coming from the PA was a clan twangy pop funk bass hifi sound (apologies for my crap description but im not so good at axplaining the sound). Where as my sound from my amp is [b]driven distortion[/b] blended with a fat low end without any high twang at all. Otherwise i may as well not bother taking my amp rig at all.[/quote] Essentially that was the problem in a nutshell. The amp is part of your effect. It actually looks like you have no option other than DI the amp. The problem is how do you convey this to the sound man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
risingson Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) Unfortunately (and this is going to sound harsh, but it is true), not as many people care about your carefully sculpted bass sound as you'd like to think, and depending on what the venue is like and how many people are in the room, it's not going to be replicated properly anyway. Unless you are carting your own sound tech round everywhere you go, or you are very successful and can afford to have your every need catered for in a live situation, then I think you might have to reassess the way you approach sound men. Most often they are very helpful people who are keen to get your monitoring needs and the front of house sound sorted as quickly as they are meant to, they aren't there to work on your bass sound for 40-50 minutes and then move on to the rest of your band, unless they are getting paid a small fortune to do so. [quote name='TimR' post='1102112' date='Jan 25 2011, 01:48 PM']Essentially that was the problem in a nutshell. The amp is part of your effect. It actually looks like you have no option other than DI the amp. The problem is how do you convey this to the sound man.[/quote] +1 billion Edited January 25, 2011 by risingson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) If you arent out front then you dont know what it sounds like out front. You cant even be 100% sure from the reverb tail you may hear. The engineer (if he is any good) should be willing - if he has time, and there is a decent reason to - to put a mic in front of a cab as well as a DI. If he doesnt have time, then tough luck. Time to blame the guitarist, drummer, vocalist, other band, traffic whatever, doesnt matter, you havent got time! As far as I'm concerned a DI off the bass (with said mic'ed cab) makes more sense than a DI'ed amp, since the amp may go 'pop'. That DI is going to be mainly used to extend the bottom end down (close micing a driver will be relatively mid heavy compared to the soulnd of your cab as a whole), and maybe the top end up a bit too (for those that like some tw***). The amp DI alone, if its got some drive, will sound crappy as, it wont sound decent unless its gone through a driver. If its clean as a whistle then why not cut out the amp? You will eq your amp to sound how you want it through your bass cabs. Guess what, the PA isnt using your bass cabs, so it will have a different frequency response, so your eq will be useless, probably damaging to, your perceived sound. If your amp allows you to go pre-eq then thats a help, but its still another thing to fail. A mic in front of a driver is the only way to capture some of the sound of your rig. An engineer may come over and have a listen to your bass rig, or not, dependant on the acoustics in the room he may not really need to to hear it any better than from the desk. Unless you use a lot of tubey overdrive or fx of some other kind you dont need to have the amp in the chain to the desk, if you do they need to be included in the signal chain, and the best bet is a DI before any overdrives if possible, and a mic on the cab. Do not p*** off the engineer, your mix will suffer. If someone got aggressive with me about how they thought things had to be set up, they wouldn't be playing that night, or any other night. Engineers get a lot of stick. Have you ever done any engineering? It is no where near as easy as you think. It isnt made any easier by people who dont really know what they are talking about trying to make unrealistic ill informed demands, and then making it impossible to achieve those demands by their own actions. For instance turning the bass up real loud just means everyone else is quieter in the PA, chaps, bass spill really is omnidirectional! I can promise you that if you try to make me engineer by 'taking your sound and making it louder' the end result will sound crap. Really. Unless your entire band understand frequency mixing, and have carved all their sounds to take this into account (you will need an electric kit to do this) then you will just put out a massive mush of noise with no clarity at all. The last thing you actually want is your sound but louder! Edited January 25, 2011 by 51m0n Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitalmetal Posted January 25, 2011 Author Share Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) Ok thanks everyone for the input but i think a lot of you are going a little far and taking my original question out of context or misinterpreting what im trying to say. 1) i have never tried (or succeeded to) to piss a soundman off or approached one in a confrontational manner i have ALWAYS gone with whatever they have wanted to do, even if i didnt agree with them i have never told them that, and just done what they said. 2)im not hoping that my sound is perfectly recreated through the PA i know they are different signal paths and will have different sounds. 3)All i want, is for me not to sound like an awful Mark King Tribute player full of pop and twang, i dont want any of that sound (thats not the sound coming from my amp and id like it to go somewhere near to resemble that sound to the crowd). il just have to be double extreme with my bass, onboard preamp. So i think from the sensible answers ive had here i will ask for a DI and Mic on the Cab, Thanks for all of your help ! Edited January 25, 2011 by digitalmetal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I think there have been loads of suggestions on how to get a good sound, and that's because there are loads of ways to do it. Discuss it with the soundman and i'm sure you'll sort it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Like I said, have a nice amicable chat (should take about 2 minutes) to said sound guy. Let him know you are more Motown/Jamerson thuddy than bright and clanky, and you want to stay that way, "all about the low mid punch and warm bass" may be a nice way to put it. You should not do anything different on your bass, or your amp. He can eq the top and upper mid out of your raw bass signal on the DI without any problem at all. If he has a mic on the amp to capture the driver and the amp break up he'll sympathetically mix that with the DI. I can do this in a couple of minutes. One other point, he may not have enough channels to give up two for bass..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanOwens Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) I play in a very busy band (Our synth player likes 5/6 channels and our vibraphone player has constant feedback issues) as such, I've grown to be not too fussy about things. I've taken my own engineer out with various projects and even then there are issues with time and the house PA. We've all got our own way of being happy. Mine is to just chillaximum and accept that if the sound guy's good he'll get a good sound using his own methods and if the sound guy is crap then it doesn't matter where he takes a DI feed from, it'll sound crap anyway. Dan Edited January 25, 2011 by DanOwens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charic Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Quick slight OT. My amp (RH450) has a good DI out and I don't want it to get Phantom Fried. Is there any kind of safety buffer I could put in between? Something to absorb the phantom power should it be active on the desk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bumnote Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 [quote name='charic' post='1102184' date='Jan 25 2011, 02:39 PM']Quick slight OT. My amp (RH450) has a good DI out and I don't want it to get Phantom Fried. Is there any kind of safety buffer I could put in between? Something to absorb the phantom power should it be active on the desk.[/quote] If its a decent amp it should be buit in, certainly my eden from 1998 has so your RH should have I think there is a resistor or a capacitor wired across the di out to protect it. Look in the manual Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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