DI to desk

[David Cook]

Hi all, just about to show my ignorance. I’m not at all technical which you will see. I can no longer carry my Orange AD200 long story ,and neither can my wife so that is confined to the bedroom. I still play in church and have bought a Rumble 100 for both rehearsal and use in the services. I don’t always play bass as we have another bassist but when I’m not bassing I play my electro acoustic. I have read that a box is needed in front of the rumble as it’s not great with an acoustic straight in. I have bought a Caline CP 60 (wine cellar) just to try. It hasn’t arrived yet. This is a long winded way of saying Do I take a line out of the Wine Cellar to the desk or do I take it from the Rumble to the desk? I only really need the Rumble for my own monitor.

[Downunderwonder]

What is wrong with the Rumble taking an acoustic straight in?

[David Cook]

Hi Downunderwonder. Thanks for taking the time to reply. I don't know the answer to your question but I have read somewhere that although you can run acoustics to bass amps which I have done with my Orange and it sounds good, in the case of a Rumble, which some people say already gives a 'wooly' 'empty box' sound the EQ can't get a very good acoustic sound.

You will have guessed that I haven't actually tried it yet as the Rumble is brand new and was delivered to my sons house, so not got it home yet.

[pete.young]

If you have an acoustic bass with a piezo pickup and no built-in pre-amp, that is likely to require an input resistance of more than 1 MOhm. I'm not sure what the specs are for that particular Rumble, so that might be an issue. If your acoustic bass has a pre-amp, it should be fine. What electro-acoustic bass do you have?

 

I've not used the Caline but it looks like a decent SansAmp clone for not much money. It will probably improve the sound of your bass, or at least give you more control over it. I can't find a spec for the input resistance though - this won't matter if you already have a preamp. 

[SimonK]

I just had a look at the Rumble 100 manual and it seem that the DI out on the back is post pre-amp with no option to make it pre - probably hence the comment of not being great with an acoustic guitar. If this is the case I would definitely run a DI in front of the amp to give a less-coloured feed to the desk for both bass and acoustic. The Caline CP 60 will do the job, but I would go simpler than that and use a passive DI box without EQ - a radial stage-bug is my goto, but if playing in church the DI box is seldom the weakest link in the system so most any DI box will do.

[Dan Dare]

1 hour ago, SimonK said:

The Caline CP 60 will do the job, but I would go simpler than that and use a passive DI box without EQ - a radial stage-bug is my goto, but if playing in church the DI box is seldom the weakest link in the system so most any DI box will do.

 

Sensible, but your CP60 doubles as a DI box, so not really worth duplicating it. The CP60 will give you more control over eq than using a DI box would, too. Use the XLR/balanced out from the CP60 direct to the mixing desk and the unbalanced out to your Rumble for monitoring.

[BassmanPaul]

David, why go looking for problems where none may exist. One player's wooly tone could well be another's delight. Try all the configurations that you'd like to use and see if they work for you. Best of luck.

 

[Downunderwonder]

If the tone is acceptable from the amp the DI out should be absolutely fine for FOH to use.

 

Piezo pickups can give what I would call a fully emaciated tone when the preamp doesn't have the input impedance, as mentioned earlier. Not at all useful without another preamp in between.

 

The sound people that insist on a pre DI are the same ones that want to make it all boom and clank out front in my experience.

[David Cook]

Thanks all for your valued inputs. Just to clarify pete.young it is not an acoustic bass I have but a Gibson SJ 200 acoustic with an aftermarket Fishman Matrix Blend fitted with an under saddle pickup and a goose neck mic. I have tried running this to to our desk from a wedge monitor. The sound man says he has no control over my signal which through his headphones sound loud and boomy. Hence my purchase of the Rumble to double up for bass duties and for when I play acoustic.

After ordering the 'Wine Cellar' I remembered that I had a Samson MDA 1 passive di box lurking in the back of a cupboard, obviously not used for some time. I always ask my wife 'Could you hear me today?" She invariably says no. I am competing with a lead guitar with the cab miked, a drummer, a keyboard and always two but sometimes three singers . Our service always gets transmitted out on Facebook. When I listen back I can never hear myself. Lots to tinker with.

[SimonK]

I'm playing both bass and acoustic guitar (on different songs) on Easter Sunday. I run two channels to the desk - one is my acoustic guitar that normally goes compressor into a DI then to the desk, and then my bass rig which is a pedal board (lots of stuff but also a compressor) into a Trace Amp and then pre-EQ DI out from the amp to the desk. But everything is DI to the desk with as little EQ as possible - leaving it to the sound guys to EQ the FOH mix.

 

Mind you one FOH EQing tip with an acoustic guitar is to set it up in such a way that on its own you think it sounds a bit trebly - once the rest of the band starts it will then sit in the mix fine - certainly in church type music the acoustic guitar is as much there for rhythm as chords, especially so if you have keys as well.

Edited March 30 by SimonK

[Downunderwonder]

It would have to be a raucous church band in a very big church before the Rumble 100 couldn't blow everything up mixwise if you give it some.

 

Dunno what is going wrong between your current monitor and the soundguy. Sounds like he doesn't have the nouse to put it into a line input on his desk.

 

Have a play with the Rumble at home. I expect it can rumble your living room. You'll want to turn down the lows. Probably best to leave them turned down for what you send to FOH. Churches are naturally boomy spaces.

 

Phone vid to FB is unreliable but your wife should be able to hear you.

[SimonK]

10 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

It would have to be a raucous church band in a very big church before the Rumble 100 couldn't blow everything up mixwise if you give it some.

 

Dunno what is going wrong between your current monitor and the soundguy. Sounds like he doesn't have the nouse to put it into a line input on his desk.

 

Have a play with the Rumble at home. I expect it can rumble your living room. You'll want to turn down the lows. Probably best to leave them turned down for what you send to FOH. Churches are naturally boomy spaces.

 

Phone vid to FB is unreliable but your wife should be able to hear you.

 

It's almost alway a combination of sound engineers not knowing what they are doing, and then trying to find a reasonable mix by keeping the stage volume as low as possible in odd shaped buildings, that causes problems in churches. You can take a half step there as a musician by making sure a reasonable signal is being sent to the desk while ensuring that any amp on stage is very definitely being used/thought of as a low-volume personal monitor - hence my comment to the OP.

 

It's also not beyond the realms of possibility for there only to be one channel available for a multi-instrumentalist, and the person on desk not realising that a bass has been swapped for an acoustic guitar or vice versa - I imagine if this is the situation for the OP they can help by using their Caline preamp and turning the bass knob to the minimum when they use the acoustic guitar. But if two channels are available I would use a clean DI (and a smidge of compression if you have some) before the amp for both instruments.

Edited March 30 by SimonK

[Dan Dare]

2 hours ago, SimonK said:

It's almost always a combination of sound engineers not knowing what they are doing...

 

Hard to get around this. Compounded by odd shaped and usually reverberant church buildings and you're going to struggle whatever you do.

[pete.young]

17 hours ago, David Cook said:

Thanks all for your valued inputs. Just to clarify pete.young it is not an acoustic bass I have but a Gibson SJ 200 acoustic with an aftermarket Fishman Matrix Blend fitted with an under saddle pickup and a goose neck mic. I have tried running this to to our desk from a wedge monitor. The sound man says he has no control over my signal which through his headphones sound loud and boomy. Hence my purchase of the Rumble to double up for bass duties and for when I play acoustic.

 

The Fishman Matrix system is an expensive and very high quality system for acoustic guitar, so it's quite hard to see how running it through a budget bass guitar amp is going to make it sound any better. Rather than run it through a wedge monitor, you will get the best results by sending the signal straight to the desk , and then sending a signal back to the monitor from one of the Aux Sends on the desk.

[Jack]

Yeah man, it sounds like the problem here is the soundman of his gear, not you or yours. Oh well, enjoy the new bass amp! Where abouts in the country are you?