BigRedX

And it's not always the sound engineer's fault if you don't sound like you think you should. At multi-band gigs they may well be presented with a completely different musical style for each band which ideally requires EQ adjustments for all the instruments, so it's hardly surprising if they try to save time by trying to use some common sounds for some. As I said previously most of the time they will be hearing your band for the first time when you do the sound check. If you're sound is different from the norm, either bring your own engineer or give the FoH a pre-mixed and EQ's output. Bands with backing tracks can be a nightmare for FoH because it's not always obvious what's on the backing and what is being played live. And many bands don't help themselves by trying to replicate their recorded sound exactly on stage and have far too much on the backing to the detriment of the overall live sound. I'm in charge of the backing for both bands I play with, and have started turning down instruments that I don't think are making a significant contribution to the overall live sound, to the point where either someone else complains that something is missing from the mix in which case I turn them up very slightly, or until they are entirely silent. However, even then there it is still possible for the FoH to muck things up. With one band the set up is simple. Vocals, synth player with two keyboards, Bass VI and backing that has drums and some very minimal additional keyboards. Ideally once the sound balance is right FoH there should be little reason the change it because we have already got all our relative volumes programmed into the synths and bass VI effects (we've spent a good deal of time in rehearsal fine tuning this), but we've done several gigs where we can hear the balance changing as we play for no apparent reason.

Thanks for the recommendation. I bought a slightly cheaper (£16) version and while it works most of the time, eventually if I try and pass a lot of MIDI data through it will lock up and needs unplugging to reset (as well as power cycling the MIDI device it's attached to). If I decide to try running my Linn Adrenalinn again I'll try this instead.

In fact the sorts of gigs my bands do, sound engineers will love this, because there's less for them to do (we play gigs with several bands who already do this). We even supply DI boxes and XLR leads (usually better quality than the ones at the venue) so all they need to do is supply the correct number of inputs at the stage box. EQ'ing the backing track is no different to EQ'ing whatever music is being played between bands at a gig. There'll be no balance problems because we'll have spent several rehearsals working on the mix through a PA. IME bands with traditional backline only have balance problems from one gig to the next because they fiddle with the settings of their amps etc. Whether that is down to the fact that you can rarely set up in exactly the same relative locations in every venue, or some in-built desire to fiddle even when there is no need to do so. I do know one guitarist who used to zero all the controls on his amp at the end of a gig or rehearsal and spend ages getting them to the right place next time. In the days when I was still using a conventional rig I never found the need to muck about with the controls. I'd plug in and there was my sound.

My interest in Rush lasted all of 4 days from seeing the gear-porn cover of "All The World's A Stage" in the new releases section of my local record shop on the Saturday to hearing the first few minutes of the copy of "2112" I borrowed from a friend at school on the Tuesday. I couldn't get past the voice. I tried a couple of other tracks at random just in case it had been done as an effect on the first song, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. By the time I had become more used to that style of singing via bands such as Placebo, I was no longer interested in the prog-rock noodling music.

Why are there two drummers?

I've never understood the logic behind using your amp but someone else's cabs. Firstly if you are still using a traditional amp and cabs rig, using different cabs will change your sound. You've probably spend good time and money working out the best amp and cab(s) combination, so why change it? If it's for convenience you're better of not using any amp or cabs. In the days when I was still using a conventional backline the idea of putting my amp through some unknown cab(s) used to fill me with dread. I did it once at a festival where we were told that we would have to use the cabs supplied. I had to buy some additional speakon to jack leads in case the cabs only had jacks and it was just as well that I did. The cabs supplied were terrible, I had to turn my amp up considerably to compensate for low sensitivity compared with what I normally used, and spent a good part of the gig hoping that neither the cabs or my amp would fail as a result. I vowed never again to use someone else's cabs, and IMO anyone still doing this is a braver bassist than me.

Yes. We may run the vocals out of a separate output so they can be balanced up separately, but everything else (drum machine, Bass VI and synths) will be run in a very narrow stereo field.

IME the problem with getting the live sound you want is not the gear but the fact that you are being mixed by someone who probably has no idea about how you should sound, and at best might have checked out a couple of your songs on Spotify in the afternoon before the gig. The biggest improvement I have ever made to any of my bands' live sound was for us to have our own sound engineer. He was essentially a 5th member of the band, came to all the rehearsals and often to the programming and writing sessions so he had a complete understanding of what all the instruments were doing in every song. So when the mix wasn't quite right he could tell instantly which instrument was missing or causing the problem and immediately adjust it accordingly. One of my current bands has ditched using backline and everything goes straight into the PA. However we have discovered that the moment you give someone who doesn't know how the band should sound control over EQ and levels you also give them the ability the completely mess it up. Even if we were using backline, for most of the gigs we do this would be for on-stage monitoring only and would have little impact on what is heard FoH. Our next move will be either to look for our own sound engineer or to invest in a digital mixer and give the PA a complete mix that they can't mess up.

The important thing is can anyone tell the difference between a real cab properly mic'd, an IR and a decent EQ when the bass is placed in the context of an overall band mix either live or in the recording studio?

Close mic'ing a single driver in a cab is not the same as the sound of all the drivers in your cab(s) from a couple of feet away (which is the sound most of us are used to hearing).

I think everything you need to know is here.

My take has always been that the "sound" of the amp and speaker get in the way of your overall sound. We only think we like it because it is a sound that we think we are used to from our favourite recordings where we conveniently ignore that fact that even if there was an amp and cab in the signal chain the sound has been massively manipulated to fit into the overall mix. I now use a Line6 Helix but a lot of the time I don't bother with amp or cab models, and simply pick an EQ and drive instead. When I do use an amp it has been specifically chosen for its distortion sound, and EQ will be adjusted elsewhere. When I do use a cab model it is part of a guitar combo, and again has been picked because I like the final sound from the output and not because of how accurate (or not) a representation of the actual amp it might be. So for me the answer is "yes" but only because I'm not trying to replicate a particular speaker cab, but because I am making a suitable bass guitar sound for my band.

Both have strong and weak points. Bridge 1 looks as though the sides would prevent lateral movement of the saddles, and while the solts might make it easier to change strings they also make it easier for the string to pop out in the middle in the middle of an emergency re-string mid-gig. Also the asymmetry of the slots plays havoc with my OCD. Bridge 2 is more straight forward and doesn't have the jarring asymmetry of the previous one. The matt black colour is very pleasing too. However apart from the high density string block (which IME makes very little overall sonic difference) it's a primitive design that has been improved upon since the early 80s.

Standard jack normalised patch bay? How are the connections made at the back? Hardwired or jack sockets? Personally I wouldn't risk it. There's always the chance that you'll plug in something inappropriate, or you'll create a short with half-inserted plugs. If you want the connections in an accessible place use a single row blank patch panel and populate it with Speakon connectors and label them clearly. Then use appropriate cables to make up all the connections.

At one point I had just under 50 guitars and basses plus a load of synthesisers and samplers. These days I'm down to 4 basses: Gus G3 5-string bass active in CAR. This is my main gigging bass with In Isolation Gus G3 5-string bass passive in black. This is my back-up bass for In Isolation, and for recording when I need a "normal" bass guitar. Eastwood Hooky 6-string bass. This is my main gigging and recording bass for Hurtsfall. Burns Barracuda 6-string bass. This is my backup bass for Hurtsfall. Hopefully soon to be replaced with a second Eastwood Hooky. And 2 Guitars: Gus G1 Guitar with Twin Humbuckers and Vibrato FretKing Esprit V Custom And whatever plug-in synths come free with Logic.

Strangely enough In Isolation did an acoustic warm-up gig at The Pit (ours was practice for supporting Mark Burgess of the Chameleons in Glasgow). We got around the PA problems by doing a bit of lateral thinking with the wiring and my FRFR cab for as a monitor for the whole band.

See you at a gig soon?

The * appears to mean that the artists in question are playing on the Thursday night, which strangely isn't one of the festival days.

I've found the only fool-proof way to avoid latency is not use software monitoring, but to monitor via a mixer.

There is a limit. Also IIRC there was limit put on the file size of individual photos as they were taking too much space on the Basschat server. Most of the time you are better off using an external image host.

Thanks! I see we nearly did a gig in Wakefield with you, but had to cancel as I was on holiday.

I intend to get one of these later in the year for one of my bands. The plan will be to run everything through this but split it out 3-4 ways for FoH mixer at the venue (Vocals on their own feed and other instruments either in stereo or split for drums and synths/bass) so they can fine-tune the mix for the room, although ideally they can just push all the faders up to the same level and they should be 95% there. We'll use a scene for each song so the effects and relative levels for the instruments are set automatically. Since the backing is run from a laptop, we can use MIDI commands to select the correct scene for each song, and also to mute the vocal effects between songs so that the audience can understand what our singer saying. There ought to be enough buses left over for each of us to have our own IEM mix too.

I've encountered this a few times. AFAICS it stems from general insecurity about either their playing or their equipment. It's generally worse at rehearsals compared with gigs but not always. TBH when I have come across it the practice is so ingrained and automatic that the musician in question is barely aware that they are doing it. A lot of bands I have played over the years have used some sort of backing which I am usually in control of. For one particularly bad example, I go so fed up with this at rehearsals that would deliberately not start the backing track for the next song until there had been a couple of seconds silence from all the band. When I was eventually asked why I was taking so long to start each song, I told them that if they were playing stuff then they obviously weren't ready, and it was only fair that I should wait until they were. After couple of rehearsals like this they finally got the message. For The Terrortones we got around this problem ever arising by simply not giving anyone any time between the songs. IMO for the majority of bands the space between songs should be taken up with: Applause, "Thank you, the next song is...." count in. That's it. If the intro is being performed by the problem musician, either give it to someone else or drop the song for one where everyone comes in together. With a bit of luck they will eventually get the message.

I've just been updating Hurtsfall gigs on the Goth Calendar, and it looks as though The InSect have a lot of gigs coming up, so if you get the place you are going to be pretty busy. @2elliot which band are you in?

"Festival" covers a wide variety of situations from playing on the back of a covered trailer to 50 people to Glastonbury and bigger. Therefore there is no "one size fits all solution". However for all but the very smallest festivals I would expect the bass to be delivered by the PA and my rig to be at best for on-stage monitoring only. From personal experience, even the smaller festivals I have played unless my rig was being mic'd up (and that mic being used as the main feed for the bass guitar to the PA) my rig was little more than a big, heavy and expensive stage prop. On any reasonable sized stage it stopped being even a personal monitor to moment I was no longer standing directly in front of it. So unless you can guarantee that your rig will be mic'd up and that mic feed actually used, or your are the kind of bass player who stands in front of their rig for the whole gig, there is little point agonising over what to take. Bring a decent pre-amp and go straight into the PA. There will probably be something on stage for the visuals anyway and I guarantee that none of the audience will have even the slightest idea that you're not using it.