Live sound advice wanted please!

[Truckstop]

Need some advice please, BCers!

Basically, I'm thinking of my live set-up.
My Gem Saturn/Ampeg combination sounds the wick and I'd like to be able to replicate that sound as faithfully as possible live. What are the best ways of acheiving this? Any toys I need to buy?
The Gem has no DI, by the way!

Also, I like delays, they sound the best. Anyone got any recommendations for passive basses?

Cheers

Alex

Edited June 2, 2011 by Truckstop

[Monckyman]

To get the sound of your cab in the FOH you need a decent mic.
There`s a Shure beta52 for sale on here for £110 that would be perfect.
Any decent venue with a P.A will have a stock of active D.I boxes for getting you to the mixer but if you must buy your own get a decent make like BSS that won`t unduly colour your direct from bass/pedalboard sound.
I have a soundmans dislike of inbuilt D.Is on amps, as if the amp goes down the D.I goes with it,whereas a seperate D.I maintains the bass in the FOH and monitors,without being dependant on the amp.
Payoff is bassists usually insist their special amp EQ should be heard at the D.I(another mistake as the EQ that suits your amp/cab setup almost certainly wont suit a 10k rig in a venue covered in shiny surfaces.
Mixing the two signals together should give a good representation of what`s actually coming out of your speaker cabinet AND bass.
Also, if the engineer hasn`t already tried, ask him to reverse the phase on the D.I and/or the mic while you play and see if it cleans the sound up.
Often the two signals mixed together can cause phase cancellation, and having your bass in the monitor directly facing the amp can emphasise this, but a minute spent comparing the various combinations ought to find the best solution for stage and FOH.
Good luck.
MM

Edited June 3, 2011 by Monckyman

[EskimoBassist]

A big plus one to all of Monckyman's advice ^^

[cheddatom]

For delays, it depends what you're after. Vintage, modern, analogue, digital, looping, reverse, tap tempo etc etc

A good cheap starter is the Marshall Echohead and it sounds great.

[ficelles]

As an occasional soundman I often dislike the sound that engineers give my bass through a pa so I prefer to shape it to some extent with an active DI box - that way you define the basic tone but they can adjust it to the venue's acoustics. Of course if you like the sound of your bass straight into a desk then that's all you need.

Anyway I got myself a Seymour Duncan Paranormal Active Bass DI which has 3-band EQ, and a "slap" contour which is not unlike the Yamaha NE-1's tone shaping. A really useful box, only trouble is for ROHS compliancy reasons you have to get it from the US. It is particularly good with my NS WAV.

The other useful thing I have is my DB mic mount which can attach directly to my combo or cab, and I keep a condenser mic in with my leads.

ficelles

[ironside1966]

If you do what I call gorilla type gigs where it just a quick sound check then off there is one simple answer, just let the sound man do their job. I know quite a few professional sound engineers who are involved with live sound day after day and all the pros all say the same thing just let the sound man do their job.
If you are working with a regular sound man there is nothing wrong with developing the band’s sound over time that a different matter

[0175westwood29]

i normally use the di on my aggie, or mic the cab.

for me mic'ing the cab sounds by far the best.

and although not live sound as such i kinda had a go at copying fleas setup in the studio a while ago a di straight after my bass then into pedal board to amp with another di from my head and my cabinet mic'd, in the end i only used the first di and mic sounds huge tho! its a really cheap dual rig if u use a pa all the time.

i love delay! ive got the ehx memory boy and the mxr carbon coby! if you need tap tempo then neither are for you, but there well worth checking out as they are very cool pedals! also the line 6 DL4 is wicked!

andy

[Bankai]

Use a DI from your bass, rather than your amp.
Then use a microphone in front of your cab.

A combination of these two will give an amazing sound!

Sansamp is the definite recommendation for DI, and for the microphone either; Shure Beta 52, AKG D112 or Sennheiser e602 (My personal preference is e602).

[jensenmann]

All above mentioned mikes do alter the sound. They are all made for bassdrums and have built in presence or treble boosts. If you want to hear exactly what comes out of your cab get an RE20.

The mike sound sometims gives good results, sometims is crap. With the same amp/cab/bass/player. Unfortunately we´re depending on the room we play in because room modes delete or boost lowend depending on where your ears, your cap and your mike is positioned in a room. You´re only free of the problem when you use a DI exclusively. But then your PA doesn´t get the sound of your rig. The only solution is to use the mike sound for frequencies >300Hz and let the lowend be done by the DI. Now you only need to find a PA guy who believes what you say. Usually they all know everything better. I know that, too, I´m one of them ;-)

[Monckyman]

Hi Jensen I think maybe we met once on a NMA gig.
RE20s are not cheap.
I can`t see anyone wanting to spend £400+on a mic for their bass rigs.
Beta52s AKG D12s are perfectly acceptable.
MM

[jensenmann]

You´re right, RE20s are expensive. But the best is always the enemy of anything good. What the soundguy really needs at the end of the days might be totally different from what comes out of the cab, anyway. Hence other mikes may work well - or not so well. It´s a matter of all the other sounds delivered.
For all gigs I played and thought it´s important to hear the sound of my rig through the PA I always refused to use a DI and carried my Sennheiser MD441 with me. Another great mike, but even more expensive these days. Most engineers hated me for that, but who cares.
If NMA means New Model Army and you´re theis FoH techy then we probably met at the M´era Luna Festival some years ago.

Edited July 1, 2011 by jensenmann

[cheddatom]

I always use a DI for the low end and whatever mics they have on the cab. I wouldn't want a kick drum mic. As I don't need the low end, any old 57 or 58 or if they have some nice mics for the guitars cabs... Some soundmen would complain, others were brilliant.

[Monckyman]

It was Mera Luna yes.

[51m0n]

Dont whatever you do use a kick drum mic on a bass cab.

They are heavily scooped with large presence peaks, because that sounds good for a kick drum.

It happens to sound completely rubbish for bass, and is effectively putting a smiley face eq on your sound before it gets to the desk.

Remember, whatever you take away cant be added back again.

So what mic should you use?

In the ideal world you would get either a Heil PR40 or an RE20. The Heil is particularly superb, goes deeper and higher than the RE20, and sounds incredible.

But these are expensive mis (worth every penny mind you, they are both incredible vocal mics too). What to do then?

Well if you are trying to get the mid-grindy goodness of your amp, or the sound of your effects I would suggest a DI off the bass (clean) for the low end, and a decent mic for the mids, even an sm57 is perfectly capable of doing this fine, it can take the SPL without a problem, and will certainly handle the mids. A step up would be a Heil PR30, or even PR20.

The trick is in the blend through the PA, and you have no say in that at all.

If you dont use amp grind, or loads of grindy fx then the mic is superflous, if you only use fx other than overdrives then DI after your fx, but let the soundguy know so that he can gain stage your signal on the desk with the hottest signal from your fx possible.

Edited July 1, 2011 by 51m0n

[Truckstop]

Excellent! Thank you all very much for your advice!
Mic and D.I. it is then. There'll probably be a thread in a few weeks asking whether I've bought the right mic/D.I.!

Truckstop

[Monckyman]

I must remember to tell all the Soundguys in Europe not to use a Kick drum mic on a bass, because they all do... Every last one of them.
From scuzzy clubs in Dresden to massive Festivals like Glastonbury.
And so do I. At least for the past 20 years.
But now I know better hey?



I

[jensenmann]

Did you ever try the Radial Phazer or Little Labs IBP? Both are adjustable allpassfilters. You can exactly dial in the phaseshift you want instead of using the 180deg button of the desk in the hope that it helps. I have a bunch of these IBPs in our studio and I love them. They work great for snare and the above mentioned bass DI + mic adjustment.

[51m0n]

[quote name='Monckyman' post='1288792' date='Jul 1 2011, 11:11 AM']I must remember to tell all the Soundguys in Europe not to use a Kick drum mic on a bass, because they all do... Every last one of them.
From scuzzy clubs in Dresden to massive Festivals like Glastonbury.
And so do I. At least for the past 20 years.
But now I know better hey?



I[/quote]

Just because you see it a lot doesn't make it the best solution by a long way.

How many gigs have you been to where you've thought, hmmmm the bass is an indistinct fuzzy noise, and the kick is totally detstroying my chest cavity?

If you had to have rules for mixing (which you dont, they are guidelines) then rule one is dont fight for the same frequqncies with multiple sources, something always loses out.

If you mic the kick and the bass amp with the same mics, with the same built in eq you are on the way to doing that. It does NOT help.

Try it sometime, I dare you, get a 57 and a DI vs a D112 (horrendously over eq'ed mic that it is) and a DI, alongside the kick drum with the ubiquitous D112 in it. The 57/DI rig will win out in the final mix, everytime.

The D112 can take immense SPLs, is built like a truck and will take touring opunishment. It is targetted at kick drums and eq'ed for a perceived type of kick drum sound.

None of which makes it the best mic for bass.

In fact it doesnt make it the best mic for a kick drum either.

Current favourite in the studio is a Heil PR40, precisely because it has a wider and far flatter frequency response than a D112, which means you get the sound of the kick drum, not the sound of the kick drum as filtered by a specific mic. Yes you have to eq it more, but you get a result far more representative of the actual drum in the room in our experience.


Again I point out that the sm57 is there for the mid growl information, which is precisely where the D112 loses out.

Dont believe me?

Download [url="http://www.akg.com/mediendatenbank2/psfile/datei/38/D1124055c25c068d6.pdf"]the D112 datasheet[/url] [b]it shows it to be scooped by 20dB at 500 Hz[/b]

That is shocking for a bassist!

Compare that with the [url="http://www.heilsound.com/pro/products/pr40/productsheet.pdf"]PR-40 datasheet[/url] Its virtually flat in the mids with a presence boost between 2KHz and 10KHz.

For completion here is the [url="http://www.shure.com/idc/groups/public/documents/webcontent/us_pro_sm57_specsheet.pdf"]SM57 dataheet[/url]. Note again how flat it is in the mids, with a presence boost.

I guarantee you the Heil is a better mic for bass live, in the studio, anywhere you like.

Edited July 1, 2011 by 51m0n

[51m0n]

I should add that in the above 57/DI test you would want to put the 80Hz cut on the 57, and also slope the eq off above about 4KHz gently

The DI can be cut fairly hard in the 200Hz to 1KHz area if you have a desk with a wide Q.


Blend the two sources to taste - clearly the above is a rough guide....

Whatever you do the D112 is going to not have the mid information to compete with guitars in a mix IME. And it always loses to the kick in FOH.

[ironside1966]

Don’t get obsessed with the 40 Hz the most important part to get right is the mid range.
Tony Visconti stated that to get a good bass sound in a mix it is important to understand the harmonic series of the instrument as well as the fundamental of the note. To put that in English concentrate on the midrange of the instrument not just the bass. Microphones like the D112 have a lot of the mid range scooped out so they might sound good in isolation but in a mix no real detail.
I am not a big fan of you need to do this or that with the EQ or you need to use this or that microphone sound is all down to having good educated ears not a list of rules, don’t EQ anything unless it needs it but high pass filters are an engineer’s friend.
In moderate to small venues the bass sound coming of stage often is ample and all that is needed is a little bit of clarity put back into the sound.

[Bankai]

In a studio you'll want a microphone that is as neutral sounding as possible.

For live, I'd say it's not always the case. Hence using bass drum microphones. They'll get the bass more than a normal vocal mic will. Your DI is going to be getting the neutral signal, the cab microphone is there specifically to colour the sound with the tone of the rig and cab, and a scooped mic will pick up those extremities more.

I've worked with enginerds that have been so picky with their microphones, using KSM9s for their vocals and shunning the SM58 completely. Yet they were still using a D112 or e602 for bass guitar.

Edited July 4, 2011 by Bankai