Positioning your speakers where they shouldn't be to improve clarity..

[jonnythenotes]

I have never been a big fan of going through a PA, unless the room size dictates I have to, or it's a pretty good PA, with a chap who knows what he is doing,( particularly with the low end frequencies.) Recently I have tried placing one speaker at the edge of the performance area....(sort of where the PA speaker stands are,) facing into the audience, and then a second cab on top of this.... if the space allows, but facing back onto the stage area, so in effect, I have a two speaker stack, but each speaker 180 degrees opposed to each other. This has the effect of taking all of the volume you are creating as a bass player from behind you, putting 50% of it straight into the audience, and the other 50% back at you, but coming at you head on, which makes it much easier to hear yourself, instead of the muffled rumble normally present when the whole rig is immediately behind you. Also, as the whole of your sound has not got to travel past you and across the stage area before the audience hear it, e.g, a distance of 10 feet, there is far more clarity on stage, as you as the bass player can now hear yourself with your 'monitor' positioned cab. The rest of the band also benefit as a large amount of the volume has now been transferred from the performance area, straight to the audience, so the cycle of turning up as no one can hear themselves vanishes. Does this have any adverse effects that any of you much wiser chaps are aware of, as I feel that if it's a reasonable thing to do, so why am I unaware of it being done by other players. In my opinion it seems ok, but I have zero knowledge of the 'tech' side of bass world, so I will eagerly await a few responses.... As ever, cheers guys...

[Monkey Steve]

I haven't done this, but I did once do a gig where the set up was odd (a really strangely sized stage area at one end of a much bigger room, like we were crammed into a nook at one end) and because the guitars were mic'd through the PA we set the guitar cabs up facing the players, angled so that they could hear them - more like monitors than backline. It was a multi band show and i was in one lot playing bass and one playing guitar and it was one of the best on stage sounds I've ever experienced.

What you say makes a lot of sense - I think a lot of how we set up is tradition rather than practical, plus not a lot of people use two cabs for gigs where the backline is also the FOH sound.

Edited July 21, 2017 by Monkey Steve

[jonnythenotes]

Cheers Monkey..... One thing I did forget to add, was as you are feeding 50% of your volume into the audience, it removes the need for PA support..(upto a point of course, as at some stage this idea would prove unworkable due to venue size.) Also, it's only viable with a two cab set up, or combo and extension cab.. My main worry is having two speakers facing in opposite directions, does it affect the sound waves, oscillations DB's, and all that stuff that is way beyond my mental grasp...

[Adrenochrome]

You are basically running your own PA sub at the front of the stage. Why not use a single cab pointed at the band, at a reasonable volume level, and let the sound man do the front of house.

[charic]

One potential flaw here is the amount of noise you're firing directly onto the stage where there are mics. Particularly in the drum area

[jonnythenotes]

Hi Andrenochrome.... The PA we use is a real bargain basement set up, with a total value of abour £400, with the bass bins being the weakest link of the whole thing. They are ok for giving the bass drum a bit of thump, but not much else, so to DI my gear through this may reduce on stage volume, but the out front sound is then really substandard. Also, the guitar player has to do the sound with his self confessed limited ability as an engineer, and making on stage adjustments to an out front sound while you are playing is impossible... We are a four piece pub band, and as such have to make do with what we have got, and run the band on limited resources.

[jonnythenotes]

Hey Charic....I was very much aware of the mics picking up sound being fired at them on stage, but my misguided logic thought that 50% less of my bass sound hitting the back of the nearest mics was better than all of my sound hitting the front of the mics, as the only cab facing the stage now is pointing towards the XLR end of the mic, and not the mouthpiece... Would I be correct in assuming this?

[bassjim]

I think I've seen somewhere or other that placing your bass cabs in the middle of a room or not against/near a back wall can have negative results rather than good. Something to do with soundwaves, omnidirectional bass transithingys ect. on /off axis? Whatever the reason is , its obviously advised against....on paper.

Eden amplification once came out with a 2 cab solution where by one cab was traditional square shape and the other like a wedge. The idea being you stood between the two. One fires front and one fires back at you pointed upwards. You could also stack the two cabs for a trad set up.

One has to ask why this never caught on and we settled back into backline at the back with its proven up and downs? And of course IEM, stacking cabs high ect all play their part.

I would wonder if by moving the bottom cab to the edge of where the stage area stops and the audience begins, in a pub without a stage, are you just firing the sound straight at their ankles and therefore they now don't get the clarity unless standing well back.

If moving the cabs as you have is really working for you and where ever you play it works, resulting in no sound issues whatsoever, then regardless of what any law of physics says,... it works. Have you tried this in more than just one venue with good results?

Personally I would worry that the audience see my cabs as a good place to lean up against, put drinks on, bump into,kick ect.

[TimR]

You'll get weird phasing effects as the sound bounces off the back wall and then couples either constructively or destructively with the waves going straight out to the audience.

[Adrenochrome]

Ah, fair enough. I actually did a similar thing once when playing a sleepy sunday afternoon wmc gig with small vocal PA. I used one cab as backline/monitoring (in the normal front-facing position), and the other cab right at the front of the stage. Even with the 'quieter' cab at the front of the stage and a sensible level from my amp, it was still too much bass guitar for the blue rinsers ;-)

[jonnythenotes]

Hey chaps..... I really do appreciate your comments and shared experiences...... Nice one Centurions..... I am playing at a decent sized venue tonight....Woodies Bar in Hednesford... This has got a proper solid stage of great proportions, and it's about 3 feet off the dance floor, which means if you are NOT going through a PA, you need to be pretty loud on stage to fill both the stage, and the room.. Again tonight, I will place one cab on the dance floor, with the second cab on top of this, but facing back at me. The theory, as mentioned in my first post, is to reduce stage volume, avoid going in to the PA, feed what I believe to be a good sound direct to the audience, and allow more clarity on stage, avoiding the musical 'bun fight' that more often than not happens when people can't hear themselves, turn up, and you know the rest... Thanks again guys...

[Dad3353]

It'll work just about as fine as normal FOH, where the cabs are facing the audience, and the monitoring directed back to the musicians. There are no more (nor less...) counter-indications than if you were playing 'amp-less' through DI, straight into a traditional PA. Ideally, one should adjust the front-facing ('FOH'...) cab to a level which may be different from the 'monitor' cab facing you, but that's all I can think of, and would not be catastrophic if you're sensible, I'd say. Sounds good to me as a workable method.

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='jonnythenotes' timestamp='1500645361' post='3339355']
Hey Charic....I was very much aware of the mics picking up sound being fired at them on stage, but my misguided logic thought that 50% less of my bass sound hitting the back of the nearest mics was better than all of my sound hitting the front of the mics, as the only cab facing the stage now is pointing towards the XLR end of the mic, and not the mouthpiece... Would I be correct in assuming this?
[/quote]

You should be able to get a diagram online that represents the field of gain around the mic. Usually there are dead spots behind the mic and, in studios, engineers place everything carefully using these dead spots to reduce bleed through.

This might help;
[url="https://ehomerecordingstudio.com/microphone-polar-patterns/"]https://ehomerecordi...polar-patterns/[/url]

[arthurhenry]

[quote name='jonnythenotes' timestamp='1500636962' post='3339253']
I have never been a big fan of going through a PA, unless the room size dictates I have to, or it's a pretty good PA, with a chap who knows what he is doing
[/quote]

Or a woman who knows what she's doing.

[leftybassman392]

I've been out of the loop for a few years now, but a couple of thoughts occur to me:

1. If you're running both cabs from a single amp you may encounter situations where balancing the FOH sound with the onstage 'monitor' sound proves tricky;

2. Having the cab on one side of the stage means the audience on the other side won't get the full benefit. Sound is only omnidirectional at extremely low frequencies, and loses projection at higher frequencies (which is where the tonal character of your instrument resides). On a big stage/large venue you may also get some phasing issues that you wouldn't get if you went through the PA.

3. If you get gigs where you have a sound tech, they will have no way of balancing you against the rest of the band. This would also impact on point 1 above.

4. If you ever decide to record gigs, how will you do it?

In the short term none of this needs to be a problem of course, but perhaps some things to think about going forward.

ETA: If your desk has enough monitor outs, what's wrong with going through the PA and giving yourself your own dedicated bass-only monitor channel? Simple to do and solves pretty much all of the above. With your current setup, it looks a bit like everyone else in the band is working around your requirements. (They may well be happy with it, but all the same...)

Edited July 23, 2017 by leftybassman392

[blue]

There's no tight or wrong approach.

Sometime stuff works and sometimes it doesn't.

There's way too many vaiables.

Blue