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No treble!


largo
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Our guitarist doubles as our Sound Guy and keeps complaining my DI to the PA isn’t giving him enough treble.  I’m no audio engineer but would appreciate any help.

Bass is a passive PJ 5 with Aguilar pickups, mostly played on the P pickup with a tad of the J rolled in. Strings are the La Bella White Nylons. 

Amp is Mesa D800 with DI set to pre.

Bass is full 3/4 rolled towards treble.

My IEM clank away with plenty bite to them (more than I actually like) but our desk (Soundcraft UI) does show the signal shelves at around 7KHz but certainly not to nothing.

Feel like telling him to work with what he’s getting as I don’t want to compromise my IEM tone for FOH if I can help it.

Any thoughts or ideas?

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There's nothing in the bass above 7k that anyone should be very interested in unless your band have a very odd set up. How much does your guy know about sound? It's often left to a band member who is the only one who knows how to wire the PA up and becomes the one eyed man in the kingdom of the blind. He may be complaining because he is panicking about the lack of 7k+ without truly knowing what that means, or it may be a taste issue,  he wants to hear a traditional P-bass with Rotosounds and you are using tapewounds. He's never going to get that from your current set up.

The first thing I'd do to resolve this is to spend some time at rehearsal sorting the sound with him, you need to get out into the FOH area and listen to your bass tone with the band going, a couple of long leads with a jack-jack joiner will sort that. Are you getting your tone? Are you cutting through? If you are happy with your tone then he is going to have to trust you, I don't suppose he'd be happy with you adjusting his guitar tones so put it to him that this is the tone you are aiming for and he is doing a good job, not to worry. If you have a way of doing it you could also record a performance I do this for a lot of gigs and it helps you be objective about what you are doing as a band. It can be a painful experience though, there's no hiding place :)

Maybe there is room to compromise though? It's slightly worrying that you don't want to compromise your monitors for FOH though, that kind of says the audience experience is less important than yours. I'm sure you didn't mean it like that but it's worth a couple of minutes thought.

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Hi Phil, thanks for your reply & advice. Certainly didn’t mean I don’t want the FOH to be the best it can be but going PRE on the DI means I’m being asked to play with treble full on my bass as I’m being asked/told that’s the only way to push enough treble to the FOH.  I roll a fair bit off on the amp in as I prefer a honky midrange tone to a trebly clank. I find the White Nylons brighter than your usual tapewounds too.

My problem with going to listen to FOH is I’m still in the hands of the Sound Guy to EQ properly & like you see, he seems to say he’s getting no definition on my tone. In my limited knowledge my amp DI is giving a flat(ish) signal for him to use.

One guess is our Sound Guy likes a bass heavy tone, so lots of time spent on kick drum & high in the mix. My bass is then getting lost in this area of EQ but might be miles off the mark.

Thanks again & any advice on how to EQ a PA FOH for my bass would be appreciated too. Can I go with a DI box that would let me EQ a signal to the PA but send flat to my amp? Although can’t help feel our PA should be able to EQ this in.

 

 

 

 

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32 minutes ago, largo said:

Yes, couple of One10s so no tweeter on these. 

I would stand your sound guy in front of your cabs and tell him that's what you want to hear coming out of the FOH.

Tell him to stop trying to be creative and just emulate the stage sound.

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31 minutes ago, chris_b said:

I would stand your sound guy in front of your cabs and tell him that's what you want to hear coming out of the FOH.

Tell him to stop trying to be creative and just emulate the stage sound.

+1 This.

Sounds like he's trying to recreate what he thinks a bass should sound like rather than what the bass player wants to sound like. Used to be pretty common when your sound guy was into YES back in the day. :biggrin:

Lot of guitarists have that problem when they mix a bass tone on their own. Its all smiley faced to extreme. Ramp up the bottom and top ends and forget the mids.

Does he understand what frequencies affect bass tone. He should be listening to the sound you have on stage and simply recreating that sound FOH

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1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

+1 This.

Sounds like he's trying to recreate what he thinks a bass should sound like rather than what the bass player wants to sound like. Used to be pretty common when your sound guy was into YES back in the day. :biggrin:

Lot of guitarists have that problem when they mix a bass tone on their own. Its all smiley faced to extreme. Ramp up the bottom and top ends and forget the mids.

Does he understand what frequencies affect bass tone. He should be listening to the sound you have on stage and simply recreating that sound FOH

Did mean to say, if you’re gigging and it’s local (ish), if you need someone to help with sound and I’m free, then I’ll help. 👍

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56 minutes ago, Angelus said:

Did mean to say, if you’re gigging and it’s local (ish), if you need someone to help with sound and I’m free, then I’ll help. 👍

Cheers Lee, The new band won't be giiging until start 2019 due to booking commitments with other bands. Not sure what the PA arrangements will be at this point but will give you a shout when i find out. I believe most gigs will have a house PA but our drummer is buying a full QSC rig for this and his other band so will wait and see how it all pans out. 

Really appreciate your offer.

Dave

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4 hours ago, largo said:

.

Thanks again & any advice on how to EQ a PA FOH for my bass would be appreciated too. Can I go with a DI box that would let me EQ a signal to the PA but send flat to my amp? Although can’t help feel our PA should be able to EQ this in.

 

 

 

 

Problem is, soundchecking before a gig and mixing live sound are two different things. Does he go out front while you guys are playing? Is there anyone else who could remark or advise on your sound during the gig? The guitarist might be way off, or maybe he’s correct, you only have his word for what he perceives. Maybe a rough recording of the live sound might be enough to help make a conclusion?

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Our singer (also guitarists wife) does go out & check mix when we’re playing. It’s quite funny though as he won’t give his wife the IPad mixer and she has tell him what adjustments to make. Never get any reports that people can’t hear the bass but I will try & get a decent recording next time we gig. It still depends on the mix our guitarist is giving us I guess.

out of curiosity why do sound engineers always do the drums first & mix from there or is it just line levels their getting?

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12 hours ago, largo said:

Our guitarist doubles as our Sound Guy and keeps complaining my DI to the PA isn’t giving him enough treble.  I’m no audio engineer but would appreciate any help.

Bass is a passive PJ 5 with Aguilar pickups, mostly played on the P pickup with a tad of the J rolled in. Strings are the La Bella White Nylons. 

Amp is Mesa D800 with DI set to pre.

Bass is full 3/4 rolled towards treble.

My IEM clank away with plenty bite to them (more than I actually like) but our desk (Soundcraft UI) does show the signal shelves at around 7KHz but certainly not to nothing.

Feel like telling him to work with what he’s getting as I don’t want to compromise my IEM tone for FOH if I can help it.

Any thoughts or ideas?

 

Shelving at 7KHz does not sound too bad at all.

Is he expecting a different tone than you? Has he heard your IEMs? I think I'd respond like you have. The white nylons don't have the extremely bright zing that a fresh set of roundwounds would have, but they are certainly not dull, as you're hearing.

 

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10 hours ago, gjones said:

Hmmmm.....from my experience using them, tapewounds don't do treble. 

Sounds like he's looking for hi end that just isn't there.

 

White nylons do have more treble than other tapewounds I've tried... but certainly not like new rounds would. I also think that the sound person is looking for a different tone than what is provided. It seems to me that his view of the bass sound in the band is different from what Largo sees as suitable, and nothing else.

Shelving at 7 KHz is nothing to worry about (in my opinion) for most bands' basslines. My favourite speakers "only" reach 6 KHz... and there's plenty of treble there if I want it.

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9 hours ago, largo said:

Hi Phil, thanks for your reply & advice. Certainly didn’t mean I don’t want the FOH to be the best it can be but going PRE on the DI means I’m being asked to play with treble full on my bass as I’m being asked/told that’s the only way to push enough treble to the FOH.  I roll a fair bit off on the amp in as I prefer a honky midrange tone to a trebly clank. I find the White Nylons brighter than your usual tapewounds too.

My problem with going to listen to FOH is I’m still in the hands of the Sound Guy to EQ properly & like you see, he seems to say he’s getting no definition on my tone. In my limited knowledge my amp DI is giving a flat(ish) signal for him to use.

One guess is our Sound Guy likes a bass heavy tone, so lots of time spent on kick drum & high in the mix. My bass is then getting lost in this area of EQ but might be miles off the mark.

Thanks again & any advice on how to EQ a PA FOH for my bass would be appreciated too. Can I go with a DI box that would let me EQ a signal to the PA but send flat to my amp? Although can’t help feel our PA should be able to EQ this in.

 

 

 

 

 

Is he getting a good FOH sound?

You could use a separate EQ for your IEMs, but to me it sounds like he's trying to squeeze in inordinate amounts of treble...

I find the white nylons very rich in the low mids, and I'd have imagined that they would be easy to EQ so that the bass has nice definition: I'd look for it in the mids, low mids especially, not above 7 KHz!

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9 hours ago, chris_b said:

I would stand your sound guy in front of your cabs and tell him that's what you want to hear coming out of the FOH.

Tell him to stop trying to be creative and just emulate the stage sound.

 

This.

I had just mentioned my favourite cabs have nothing above 6 KHz and (to my ears) they sound great with plenty treble. I was talking about the Two10. Largo uses a pair of One10. Same speakers, and nothing much  above 6 KHz either.

 

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3 hours ago, largo said:

Our singer (also guitarists wife) does go out & check mix when we’re playing. It’s quite funny though as he won’t give his wife the IPad mixer and she has tell him what adjustments to make. Never get any reports that people can’t hear the bass but I will try & get a decent recording next time we gig. It still depends on the mix our guitarist is giving us I guess.

out of curiosity why do sound engineers always do the drums first & mix from there or is it just line levels their getting?

 

Borrow a wireless system ;)

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