Active bass too hot for PA line input?

[Gasman]

Played a mini festival yesterday, PA provided with a 24 channel digital desk. First time playing my MM Bongo 4H using the line output from my Aguilar AG700 into the desk, with a PA fold back cab and my Darkglass 212 behind me. 

 

Ok, the Bongo runs 18v, but the engineer could not compress the output enough to get a clean PA signal, kept asking me to turn amp volume down, to the point where I couldn’t hear what I was playing onstage! On reflection it seems ridiculous, being like Schrodinger’s bass player, too loud and too quiet at the same time...

 

So was it my gear or my ears or the engineer’s incompetence? Our supporters in the audience said afterwards that the sound quality of the band in general varied considerably according to where they happened to be standing at any given time...

 

[cocco]

What a bizarre situation, having been at both sides of this there is usually a way around it. Does your head have a DI out boost which was accidentally enabled or a DI out pad that could have been enabled? 

 

Desks usually have these features too. 

[Doctor J]

The input gain on your amp would control the output of the bass and bring it to a normalised level. It's not as if high output active basses are a new thing, hence the ability to control the input level. Line output is line level. The desk also has an input level control which starts at 0 and goes up from there, so I'm struggling to see where the issue is. Unless you were cranking the bejesus out of the gain and EQ it sounds like the engineer getting it wrong. Even then, though, your amp has a balanced output which can be pre or post. I take it the engineer using the balanced output?

[NancyJohnson]

On your amp, you have the option of pre/post DI - this is selected by an in/out button on the fascia; ideally you want to send a post DI signal to the desk, this should be a flat line level signal and will tonally reflect what's going through your amp.  This output signal should be unaffected by how loud you ramp things up when playing, so no necessity to turn your amp down.

 

Just as far the Bongo goes, I owned a 5-string HH model a few years ago and while it played like a dream, tonally it was a fine line between tonal bliss and mush; there was always this thing where you just kept tweaking things up and up.

[tom.android]

Definitely an incompetent sound engineer. Even the cheap Behringer DI boxes do up to -40db of pad. Totally avoidable and probably not your fault. 
 

Maybe get yourself a DI box that you know works and get your setup in order to avoid situation in future.

[jrixn1]

4 hours ago, Gasman said:

the engineer could not compress the output enough to get a clean PA signal, kept asking me to turn amp volume down

 

Perhaps the line out signal was too hot - but did the engineer also have a separate issue of the stage volume being too loud?  It depends how you interpret "kept asking me to turn amp volume down" - did he mean "turn the line out level down" or did he mean "turn the stage volume down".

 

For the line out signal being too hot -
How were your gain and master set?  You probably know this, but just to clarify: adjusting the master volume doesn't affect the level of the line out going to the desk.  To reduce the line out level but maintain the same stage volume, you'd need to reduce the gain (either by turning down the gain knob, or by pressing in the input pad) and then re-establish your stage volume by turning the master volume up; that might affect your tone though - but perhaps a compromise would have to be made there.

 

Separately, if there was an issue that the bass was too loud on stage, to the point where the volume of bass coming through the PA was set to zero but it's still too loud for FOH, then you would need to reduce the stage volume, by turning down the master on your amp.  When I've been in this situation, I 100% trust our sound engineer and so have to deal with being quieter on stage.  Sometimes though I can tweak the EQ - perhaps lower my overall volume but boost some upper mids - so I am quieter but attempt can find a frequency which cuts through (to my ears) better.

[Gasman]

Hi again BC-ers - thank you for your helpful comments!

 

I didn't really give enough info up front (I was still a bit knackered and pi**ed off after the weekend when I posted) so here's some of the missing detail: my gain was set to nil - as always with this band, this bass, so no boost or distortion there.  I started with the Ag700 master volume set at about 11 o'clock, but by the end of the third number it was down to about eight o'clock. The line out is on the front of the amp and is an XLR out-only.

 

There is a -10db pad toggle on the amp which I'd never needed to engage when playing my previous go-to bass (a Jazz plus 9v active) even when going through PAs like this one, so I didn't even think of engaging it this time, but as @tom.android says, surely the stage box and/or the desk could have more than dealt with the Ag Line + Bongo's output. My on-stage volume was by now very quiet - I was told by some of our fans in the audience that the bass was inaudible either thru PA or stack, so I might as well not have been there! 

 

Maybe I'll have to ditch the Bongo for this kind of PA-driven gig and revert to the Fender, but I'd really rather not!

 

BTW, the engineer is a lovely bloke, owns the PA set up but it's basically tailored to the needs of his own large ska band.

[diskwave]

Had a similiar but not identical situation a while back. Trouble with these mini festivals is there run by semi-pros who aren't good under pressure...How many bands?...Fast turnaround?  I played a P bass with dead flats into my ole Ampeg rig...so, lovely gnarly mid focused punchy tone in stage. However the play back recorded live in the ground with pro mics, I sounded like an Alembic with fresh rounds, clangy and tinny as heck .... and, it was a substantial setup...kinda like the smaller Glasto size stage and big pa. In other words the sound guy under pressure had not a clue.

 

[Gasman]

Yes, very fast turnaround between bands, 10-15 mins and so a lot of pressure on the engineer, I guess..

[Bolo]

Could consider the pad option but that's affecting the input to the gain stage and the amp's preamp. If you're getting an unwanted overdriven sound from the cab then that's what you need to do. 

 

If the sound from the cab is just fine, switch the DI to pre instead of post. It'll bypass any colouration from the preamp and send the output from your bass straight to the desk. This gives the sound technician a clean signal to get right in the mix.

 

Any problems thereafter are either the cables or at the desk, provided the DI in your amp isn't faulty.

[tom.android]

The master output level of your amp should not have any effect on the output given by the balanced output. The output of your bongo goes through the gain, then the EQ. There’s even a clipping indicator that will light up if the signal is really super hot. The master volume on the amp simply dictates how much signal gets fed to the power amp. Balanced output goes before that. 
 

You just had a useless sound guy. Or maybe he just didn’t have the right tools at his disposal. Your gear is fine 

[crazycloud]

On 29/05/2023 at 14:30, Gasman said:

So was it my gear or my ears or the engineer’s incompetence?

IF the level was actually too high, and I doubt it, a competent engineer would have had a pad to insert.

[Gasman]

Thanks again guys, you’re confirming my take on this unfortunate situation...

[Baloney Balderdash]

Was it Lars Ulrich at the desk by any chance?

[gafbass02]

Just had something similar. Mini festival, I give a quality, compressed, well balanced signal, and the crowd said afterwards they could barely hear me. 
ffs. 
 

[Gasman]

Lars bigging up the drummer at the expense of the bass, you mean @Baloney Balderdash? Not really, the Tech on the desk was a musician more in the Rudy Wiedtoeft mould...

 

@gafbass02, I share the pain of your bad onstage sound experience, but what can we do at these mini-fests with minimal soundcheck time and semi-pro techs trying to tame a big PA?

[Baloney Balderdash]

4 hours ago, Gasman said:

Lars bigging up the drummer at the expense of the bass, you mean @Baloney Balderdash? Not really, the Tech on the desk was a musician more in the Rudy Wiedtoeft mould...

 

@gafbass02, I share the pain of your bad onstage sound experience, but what can we do at these mini-fests with minimal soundcheck time and semi-pro techs trying to tame a big PA?

It was of course a joke, but what I was referring to was Lars being responsible for there practically being no bass left in the mix on "...and justice for all" (if one is to believe the guy who mixed the album at least. Though does sound a lot like Lars, and fits perfectly into proving a point to the new guy who had the insensitive indecency not to be Cliff).

 

Edited May 31, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash