Di or mic'd?

[Bloc Riff Nut]

Hi lads,

I read this in the pinned 'Solid state versus Valve' thread,



'Spend as much as you can, then a bit more. High end bass gear seems to be mosfet these days, Epifani, Markbass, EA, Eden etc. High end hi-fi got rid of valves years ago, until you get to the stupidly expensive stuff. Even if you get a wonderful valve amp [u]you will always Di through a valveless PA system[/u]. No one expects to use valves in a PA system do they?
'

Does this mean that by Di'ing a valve amp your bass signal gets sent to mixing before the tubes can fully colour the sound? Making mic'ing your valve amp more or less essential if you want t o retain its character.

I'll be changing from my Markbass to Trace valve jobbie shortly and was just wondering.

Phil.

[paul_5]

The valves will colour the sound in a valve pre. With the exception of a 'tuner out' all of the outputs will be 'valve coloured'. What you won't get with valve pre's (DI outs etc...) is the output transformer working its mojo on your sound - you'll need to mic up for this.

[Bloc Riff Nut]

[quote name='paul_5' post='1176851' date='Mar 26 2011, 08:30 AM']The valves will colour the sound in a valve pre. With the exception of a 'tuner out' all of the outputs will be 'valve coloured'. What you won't get with valve pre's (DI outs etc...) is the output transformer working its mojo on your sound - you'll need to mic up for this.[/quote]
So it's either - don't DI, and just use the amp
or - DI and mic.

We have sure sm ?? (the one with the blue ring around it) not sure of the number 57 or 58 I think. These are all-rounders and should be up to mic'ing my cab, or so I think.

[paul_5]

Sorry, I didn't really answer your question. I'd personally do both.

[Blademan_98]

If you do both you get a good clean sound from the DI you can play with in the mix and the 'true' sound from the mic.

When playing live, the PA will be solid state but will amplify without changing the signal (much lol).

Do both for the full picture (especially if recording).

Blademan

[Roland Rock]

My DI is a pedal so it will totally miss out all of the valve amp loveliness (although there's also a valve in the pedal) so I like to to mike up wherever possible to get the sound of my rig.

[stingrayPete1977]

I will be the first to say more often than not the sound guy will create a better mix from a clean DI most of them saying even pre amp valve colour can mess things up (seen it many times from the resident sound crew members on here). My money says even if you ask to be mic'd up aswell as DI (just mic for bass doesn't have any fans afaik) the majority of the blend would be in favour of the DI maybe to the point that the difference the mic makes would be lost in the band mix, Any sound experts want to back that up?

[Adrenochrome]

[quote name='paul_5' post='1176851' date='Mar 26 2011, 07:30 AM']The valves will colour the sound in a valve pre. With the exception of a 'tuner out' all of the outputs will be 'valve coloured'. What you won't get with valve pre's (DI outs etc...) is the output transformer working its mojo on your sound - you'll need to mic up for this.[/quote]

Not true, you can DI from the amp's main output with the correct kit. Some DI boxes can do this, others need something else in the circuit, a big resistor I think.

[Bloc Riff Nut]

Are there any who favour just playing through the amp unmic'ed. The quality of my amp/cab is better than most PA's we come across.

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='Bloc Riff Nut' post='1176926' date='Mar 26 2011, 09:11 AM']Are there any who favour just playing through the amp unmic'ed. The quality of my amp/cab is better than most PA's we come across.[/quote]
Many people will do this and many bands will only be using a small vocal PA but if we are clear here that this thread relates to a decent size venue with a house PA or you are a band with your own setting up in venues of that size then most people and the engineer will want you in the PA mix so as he/she can control all the levels. Most the sound guys on here have said the best sound they have got for bands is with a clean DI only including any pedals rather than any valve 'colour' at all.

[stingrayPete1977]

Usually within the first page on this someone says "I'm not paying all this money for no one else to hear my amp out front". Have a look at big festival setups, If you can't see a mic on the bass amp do you think the people 40'000 deep can still hear the actual Ampeg on stage?

[Bloc Riff Nut]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1176936' date='Mar 26 2011, 10:19 AM']Many people will do this and many bands will only be using a small vocal PA but if we are clear here that this thread relates to a decent size venue with a house PA or you are a band with your own setting up in venues of that size then most people and the engineer will want you in the PA mix so as he/she can control all the levels. Most the sound guys on here have said the best sound they have got for bands is with a clean DI only including any pedals rather than any valve 'colour' at all.[/quote]
Our gigs fluctuate somewhere between 200 people pub with pretty poor PA (would rather let amp do the work)
and 400/500 club with good PA (would really like to mic the valvyness, but you've convinced me that the sound guy doesn't really want to do this).

[dan670844]

[quote name='Bloc Riff Nut' post='1176848' date='Mar 26 2011, 07:21 AM']Hi lads,

I read this in the pinned 'Solid state versus Valve' thread,



'Spend as much as you can, then a bit more. High end bass gear seems to be mosfet these days, Epifani, Markbass, EA, Eden etc. High end hi-fi got rid of valves years ago, until you get to the stupidly expensive stuff. Even if you get a wonderful valve amp [u]you will always Di through a valveless PA system[/u]. No one expects to use valves in a PA system do they?
'

Does this mean that by Di'ing a valve amp your bass signal gets sent to mixing before the tubes can fully colour the sound? Making mic'ing your valve amp more or less essential if you want t o retain its character.

I'll be changing from my Markbass to Trace valve jobbie shortly and was just wondering.

Phil.[/quote]

A lot of high end hifi is valve ha ha ha I have a 300B stereo amp in my hifi now (its the fashion)

[dan670844]

[quote name='dan670844' post='1176978' date='Mar 26 2011, 10:11 AM']A lot of high end hifi is valve ha ha ha I have a 300B stereo amp in my hifi now (its the fashion)[/quote]


But to answer your question both, ideally the sound man would like a dry DI from you and if you want colour then a micced cab would be best, then out front the sound man can have you micced coloured sound then use the dry di to bring up any deficiences in the sound out front, due to the effect of the room and wonky eq etc

[icastle]

[quote name='Adrenochrome' post='1176922' date='Mar 26 2011, 09:06 AM']Some DI boxes can do this, others need something else in the circuit, a big resistor I think.[/quote]

It's based around a little transformer.

[ThomBassmonkey]

I mostly use the DI out on the back of my head, I use the OD channel so a DI before my pre wouldn't work for me. I'd rather be mic'd (I didn't spend all that money on a rig for it to be DI'd!! ) but I'm not fussd, it's quicker for fast band change overs if I'm DI'd so I'm happy to compromise. Even before I was using a 2 channel head, I preferred to have my amp DI'd so that it sounded like MY amp and not a generic sound. It has lead to issues with sound men (most notably in recording "just plug into the Sansamp"..."Then I'll sound like everyone else instead of having my own sound"..."Yeah but it's tried and tested" Yawn, it's just lazyness, I was especially annoyed after our last recording session where I specifically said that I wanted to use the distorted sound for some sections and I got completely ignored, but that's another story).

If I was using a valve amp that didn't have a post pre DI out, I'd probably want to put the DI box in the FX loop so that it benefitted from the valves. Most amps do have a decent DI now though so it's not so much of an issue.

[LawrenceH]

Problem with using a distorted sound on a DI is that you need either a dedicated speaker emulator or a very versatile EQ section and much fiddling on your desk to tame back the high end that naturally gets filtered out by a lot of (tweeterless) bass cabs. What sounds thick and lush through a bass rig can sound bloody brutal coming out of a decent PA, which is why a lot of sound guys especially when pressed for time will really prefer a clean DI, and conversely why we hardly ever DI an electric guitar cab.

Clean DI plus mic, or even mic only, are probably preferable if you like a very 'coloured' sound. Even then, with distortion at high volume through a good system, less is more in my experience at the desk/audience end of things! This really applies to guitarists too, so many people seem to set their tones at low volume and when you crank it to proper gig volume, it sounds awful out front but they don't notice it since it's masked by the drums/general sonic mess on stage.