On stage sound vs FoH

[molan]

So I tried a totally new set up this evening & spent maybe 2 hours tuning my sound to get exactly what I wanted to hear from both new bass, amp & cabs.

I always knew sound would be different in a much bigger hall but thought my 'core' sound would just need some tweaking.

Set everything up at the gig & all I could hear was mush! Boomy lower frequencies, no definition, no subtlety of tone, blah, blah, blah.

After all my tweaking I discovered that my pre-set of 'everything tuned flat' sounded best to me on stage

Really pissed off that things weren't working properly but soldiered on & didn't really enjoy the gig that much (and I LOVE playing live usually!).

After the gig I spoke to someone who's seen me a few times before & he said it was the best bass sound I'd ever had. . .

[charic]

You're probably too close too your speakers.

[gary mac]

Yes, I've had the same and found it very confidence sapping.

[Rayman]

I'm always guilty of getting it the other way round. I stand too close to the cab and get the sound I like there, but when you walk out to the front during the sound check it sounds crap. I really should have learnt that lesson by now.

[Adrenochrome]

It's ALL about the FOH sound.
We play a few pubs where the band set up in the pool room which is often tiled floor, and echoey - ususally sounds fine in the rest of the pub with bodies and soft furninshings and carpets to take the egde off the sound. Plus we have a huge PA which helps.

[chris_b]

That's life. How you sound on stage isn't the point. It's what's going on out front that counts. I always ask if the balance and sound is good out front. If it is then I'm happy.

[essexbasscat]

[quote name='molan' post='884514' date='Jul 3 2010, 02:11 AM']So I tried a totally new set up this evening & spent maybe 2 hours tuning my sound to get exactly what I wanted to hear from both new bass, amp & cabs.

I always knew sound would be different in a much bigger hall but thought my 'core' sound would just need some tweaking.

Set everything up at the gig & all I could hear was mush! Boomy lower frequencies, no definition, no subtlety of tone, blah, blah, blah.

After all my tweaking I discovered that my pre-set of 'everything tuned flat' sounded best to me on stage

Really pissed off that things weren't working properly but soldiered on & didn't really enjoy the gig that much (and I LOVE playing live usually!).

After the gig I spoke to someone who's seen me a few times before & he said it was the best bass sound I'd ever had. . .[/quote]



That is Soooooo frustrating !! Anyone that's seen your kit will know how much you've put into getting the sounds B. Drives me up the wall sometimes too.

What rig were you using B ??

T

[EntropicLqd]

I've got to the point where as long as I can hear myself, the dummer, and the vocalist I'm not bothered about the "sound" as I hear it. I take on faith that the gear I've got and the PA is producing the sound/tone that I've got set up.

If the FOH sounds great then the punters will have a good time. Which is the important bit.

I've played gigs where I've not been able to hear myself at all (they are never fun) but have had people tell me that I sounded great afterwards.

[Stag]

I had this very recently, got my sound sorted on stage to what I like and what the drummer likes to then have it changed by the sound man and the volume totally removed. Apparently FOH sounded great but id rather be able to hear me playing a sound I like to hear... I know we are all there for the audience but at the end of the day if you dont like / cant hear your own sound then you wont enjoy the gig anywhere near as much (I didnt). It was like my Ampeg had been neutered, and that makes me a saaaaaaaaad panda.

[4000]

[quote name='Stag' post='884603' date='Jul 3 2010, 10:04 AM']I had this very recently, got my sound sorted on stage to what I like and what the drummer likes to then have it changed by the sound man and the volume totally removed. Apparently FOH sounded great but id rather be able to hear me playing a sound I like to hear... I know we are all there for the audience but at the end of the day if you dont like / cant hear your own sound then you wont enjoy the gig anywhere near as much (I didnt).[/quote]

I tend to feel the same. I thought it was just me!

[Stag]

[quote name='4000' post='884620' date='Jul 3 2010, 10:16 AM']I tend to feel the same. I thought it was just me![/quote]

For me, if you've spent loads of cash on backline / sexy Rickenbackers etc you should really be allowed to use the sound you've invested in IMO...?

Drummer didnt like it being changed either (the tone AND the volume) so he wasnt as happy as he normally would be.

[molan]

Morning everyone - apologies for the late reply but I've only just got up

Totally agree that the FoH sound is the most important but I do find it frustrating when I haven't got a good on-stage sound. I'm sure my playing suffers a little and my enjoyment is definitely less

Tom - I had the same rig I took to the Bass Bash & I used the new Sadowsky. The Sad was great, the slight neck dive I thought it had just disappeared when actually playing live & it was effortless to play.

Other things that annoyed me though were:

Sound engineer - not our regular guy & we had a different set of monitors. They were quite long throw and I was being smacked in the face with very loud vocals all night (there was plenty of room to move them to a better position but our vocalists didn't really understand that they could stand further back and hear better. For a few songs the keys were way too loud in the monitor mix, drowning everything else out completely so I had to get them turned down. My signals to the sound engineer weren't getting through so I had to walk over and get them adjusted. Which brings me to. . .

Drummer - as I'm talking to the sound engineer and explaining to the keys man why he can't have total domination of the monitor mix my drummer decides to start the next song without checking that I was ready. Needless to say it was a song which starts with just drum & bass - I missed my intro & then completely fluffed the next line. It was bad enough that we had to start the song again which is just so unprofessional. And then when it finished the singer made a sarky comment something like "special thanks to our bass player on that one". He did the same thing to the sax player later on at a point when he has to swap his tenor for a baritone & he also missed his opening parts.

Singer - one of the singers was having problems hearing herself (back to those monitors again) and subsequently was over-singing off and on all night. She got very screechy a few times and I could see people visibly wincing! To compound matters she doesn't have great mic technique and this just exacerbated things. She also started one song in entirely the wrong key - she was taking her cue from me & she gave me a glare which made me think the fault was mine, I was just about to move down a step to match her voice when the rest of the band came in and it turned out I was right all along, grrr.

Venue - Ok, so we're a dance band, people always get up & dance when we play. However the venue management decided to arrange the room so that the only possible dance area was a long strip down the side of the room where people came in and out. There was plenty of space but they'd filled it with tables which they really didn't need. Oh, and we were playing in a sort of arched alcove which meant people were having to watch us through a set of arches which meant everything was a bit disconnected.

Right that's it rant over, lol.

Despite all these niggles it was actually an Ok gig, guitarist was on top form & I always get a buzz playing with him when he's really hitting everything right and our new male singer was good too. We also got a surprising number of people dancing in the limited space and, in a very competitive music & bar environment we were bringing punters in to watch us (the one clever thing the sound engineer did was to leave a few windows open so our music was drifting out on to the street).

[pietruszka]

This is something I seem to explain to you our singer over and over again. We (as a band) will never ever hear what we sound like, simply because we're on stage playing it. We sound totally different out front to how we hear ourselves on stage.

Standing away a little further (stage size permitting) from your rig helps to let the frequencies 'breath' a bit getting a more true representation of your sound in the space provided. When my rig isn't DI'd I boost the bass just that tiny bit more as the low end does dissipate a bit. When DI'd, I get my on stage sound right and the sound man does the rest.

A lot of people have said here that if the sound man/crowd is happy then thats cool. I agree. When you're playing to a paying crowd all that matters is that they're happy.

If I cant hear my self, Im not too fussed as I know my parts inside out. I have an approach that is 'Im a professional', so Ill make the best out of any gear the band gets given. If we sound bad, thats not us, its the gear. Its not because we cant play because we can.

It is frustrating when you think you sound bad, but trust us all on here, you wont sound cack. It will always sound different out front.

Dan

[Lozz196]

[quote name='pietruszka' post='884723' date='Jul 3 2010, 12:27 PM']This is something I seem to explain to you our singer over and over again. We (as a band) will never ever hear what we sound like, simply because we're on stage playing it. We sound totally different out front to how we hear ourselves on stage.

Standing away a little further (stage size permitting) from your rig helps to let the frequencies 'breath' a bit getting a more true representation of your sound in the space provided. When my rig isn't DI'd I boost the bass just that tiny bit more as the low end does dissipate a bit. When DI'd, I get my on stage sound right and the sound man does the rest.

A lot of people have said here that if the sound man/crowd is happy then thats cool. I agree. When you're playing to a paying crowd all that matters is that they're happy.

If I cant hear my self, Im not too fussed as I know my parts inside out. I have an approach that is 'Im a professional', so Ill make the best out of any gear the band gets given. If we sound bad, thats not us, its the gear. Its not because we cant play because we can.

It is frustrating when you think you sound bad, but trust us all on here, you wont sound cack. It will always sound different out front.

Dan[/quote]
Agree, FOH is most important, IMV also.

Quite often I`ve set up what sounds a great sound on stage, with big fat lows and low mids, coupled with nice crisp highs, walked out to FOH, and all I hear is a big booming mush. So now, its usually set everything flat, check FOH on soundcheck, and if still too boomy cut the bass a bit, and maybe up the mids a bit. Usually sounds real "clanky" on stage, with no guts, but in the mix, where the audience are, it fits with the rest of the band.

And face it, the audience are there for the whole band.

[OldGit]

could be an on stage tone clash with the other instruments ...
We've spoken about this before but if you and the guitar and the keys are all competing for the same tonal space it will mush up.

[essexbasscat]

Well done on producing a good sound FOH and coming through what sounds like a difficult gig. Congrats on the Sadowski by the way, surprising about the neck dive ?

As you say, lots of niggles, but we bassists do seem to make the best of a bad situation don't we

Hope the next one's a winner B

T

[molan]

[quote name='essexbasscat' post='884741' date='Jul 3 2010, 12:46 PM']Congrats on the Sadowsky by the way, surprising about the neck dive ?[/quote]

I wonder if I was maybe just being over critical of it when I first got it, lol.

There is a bit of neck bias but it's not terrible and using a comfort strap rather than leather held it in place much better. I also lowered the strap a little from where I normally play, I think the smaller body than a standard J felt a bit 'odd' but just seemed to work better when played lower (I'm talking of not much more than an inch or two on the strap though - I didn't have it down around my knees!).

[bennifer]

Fairly simple. You want to give your FOH engineer a Pre-EQ DI out that they can fiddle with for main PA duty. They make a good judgement on what you should sound like, with your input as well if you sort it during soundcheck. Then fiddle with your amp to your hearts content, to get an onstage monitoring sound that you prefer. Don't have bass in your foldback/wedge at all so you're just getting the bass sound onstage that you want.

[molan]

[quote name='bennifer' post='884784' date='Jul 3 2010, 01:42 PM']Fairly simple. You want to give your FOH engineer a Pre-EQ DI out that they can fiddle with for main PA duty. They make a good judgement on what you should sound like, with your input as well if you sort it during soundcheck. Then fiddle with your amp to your hearts content, to get an onstage monitoring sound that you prefer. Don't have bass in your foldback/wedge at all so you're just getting the bass sound onstage that you want.[/quote]

Sound engineer wouldn't put bass into the FoH. . .

We usually have our own engineer and he puts everything into the FoH. This one would only put vox, keys & sax plus a little kick drum in.

[matski]

Virtually every gig I've ever played....

I used to find it handy to have a wireless receiver thingy - then I could jump off the stage and listen to the sound of the band from the middle of the room, just to reassure myself that the FOH sound was ok.

[molan]

Just got this message from a bass player who was the gig last night:

[i]"out front the bass sound was great with plenty of clarity & excellent projection from your bass rig (could hear every note you played and the slap, nuances and runs cut through beautifully), volume was perfectly balanced with the drums and guitar"[/i]

So that's cheered me up a bit

[northstreet]

Rule of thumb for me is that if it sounds good on stage it probably sounds cr@p out front and vice versa.

[Tengu]

My band played at the Drakefest event in Portsmouth yesterday. They provided FOH and monitors and we just brought our backline.

I normally run everything through FOH and use backline for just on stage sound but this time we got to crank our amps up and really rumble the floor. Everyone commented on how good it sounded.

We do also get comments about our regular set-up and how good the sound balance is. In most of those cases, however, I can hardly hear what I m playing on stage.

Oh well, as long as the punters are happy.

[cytania]

Part of this is how big the venue is. Could you really fill it with just your rig? Once the answer is no then you have to set your levels for what sounds good in the PA mix.

Luckily my outfit just do small places. Particularly lucky as last gig the PA was missing alot of the important leads. I spent most of the afternoon setup just getting a working arrangement and zero time to obsess on my bass stuff. Particularly as the support were to use it first. No chance to DI or mike it. Just the natural push. Oh and I didn't get a wedge either.

Anyway up on stage I couldn't hear the drums as per usual, then I moved forward to a 'rock'n'roll teetering near the stage edge' position and Lo! I could feel the kick and hear myself. Was it my secret sonic weapon perhaps? An old orange box painted black under the Barefaced cab...

And the audience said we sounded great :-)

[Lfalex v1.1]

No matter where I've played, I never get a look-in in the monitor mix. I generally size my rig according to the size of the stage, and keep the on-stage volume as low as possible without the drummer dominating everything (sometimes he'll play a bit softer to keep it all in check).
I've got a really long lead and often hop off the stage while the whole band play to have a listen to what FOH is doing, and remember to allow for the fact that there'll be an audience along later.
At least that way the band have some reassurance that we sound okay out front, whatever the stage sound is like.
As a rule of thumb, the lower the overall on-stage volume, the better. Not very Rock 'n' Roll. Sorry.