Pre or Post for DI out?

[stingrayPete1977]

[quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1365356860' post='2038486']
Post. I am really happy with my sound and that's what I want the sound tech to have, and they can tidy it up if it doesn't translate as well through the PA. In my experience, often if you give a mediocre sound to the desk, you will get all the 'good' frequencies EQ'd out completely and the whole band will sound weaker as a result.
[/quote]
I've usually found the opposite where the sound guy is constantly trying to fight all the clever sounds that sounded great in the practice room that now sound awful, jtuk will be here to tell us he has an hour on his own to perfect all his patches or he won't play I'm sure but in my experience the band before spend an hour looking for the leads to a keyboard they use on one song if they remember and we get five minutes tops to set up! Next band goes on, P bass and a ten foot lead, sounds ace!

Edited April 7, 2013 by stingrayPete1977

[Chrismanbass]

playing devils advocate here as an engineer i far prefer a pre eq signal purely because that gives me a blank slate to work with in terms of a mix of course i will be sympathetic to what the player wants to sound like but i find that theres is sometimes a huge difference between what sounds good to the player stood next to an amp (bear in mind that your cab is not an accurate reflection of the entire pa in the same way that your monitor mix is not the same as the entire front of house mix) and what sounds good out front in the mix speaking to a few of my engineer friends who are not bass players they've told me that if they have a post eq signal that won't sit properly then they will just eq back in what needs to be there which imo sounds far worse

my conclusion: communication is essential good preparation on both sides helps (i regularly google the bands i'm engineering if i don't know them or their material just for reference) and if you give that engineer a good idea of the sound you want then generally he will do his upmost to accommodate that were not all bad guys i promise

Edited April 7, 2013 by Chrismanbass

[chrismuzz]

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1365358034' post='2038512']
playing devils advocate here as an engineer i far prefer a pre eq signal purely because that gives me a blank slate to work with in terms of a mix of course i will be sympathetic to what the player wants to sound like but i find that theres is sometimes a huge difference between what sounds good to the player stood next to an amp (bear in mind that your cab is not an accurate reflection of the entire pa in the same way that your monitor mix is not the same as the entire front of house mix) and what sounds good out front in the mix speaking to a few of my engineer friends who are not bass players they've told me that if they have a post eq signal that won't sit properly then they will just eq back in what needs to be there which imo sounds far worse

my conclusion: communication is essential good preparation on both sides helps (i regularly google the bands i'm engineering if i don't know them or their material just for reference) and if you give that engineer a good idea of the sound you want then generally he will do his upmost to accommodate that were not all bad guys i promise
[/quote]

This is perfectly understandable in a lot of cases! I admit it's only in recent years that I've discovered the magic of getting a good bass sound that still sounds great in the mix. Nowadays though, whenever I gig I end up having such a good sound I get told to just turn my amp up and that I won't be through the PA

[Chrismanbass]

[quote name='chrismuzz' timestamp='1365359880' post='2038544']
This is perfectly understandable in a lot of cases! I admit it's only in recent years that I've discovered the magic of getting a good bass sound that still sounds great in the mix. Nowadays though, whenever I gig I end up having such a good sound I get told to just turn my amp up and that I won't be through the PA
[/quote]

ime this is an all too rare occurrence but always welcome when it happens

[Dr.Dave]

The sound engineers job is to reproduce the sound I choose to make. Team work is essential and I have the greatest respect for those I employ but they are lower down the food chain than me - so it's post for me.

Just about every problem I've ever had when using hired-in P A has occured when I've allowed myself to be dicated to.

[Guest markinthegreen]

If your going to do it right, Pre, Post and Mic.

[discreet]

[quote name='markinthegreen' timestamp='1365364093' post='2038649']
If your going to do it right, Pre, Post and Mic.
[/quote]

Sounds like a proverb!

[Ziphoblat]

Post, every time. The sound engineer has a job to do. That job is to capture the sound of the band and present it to the audience. If (as is often the case) he's never heard the band before, he's never heard me play before, how is he supposed to know how I want to sound? Let's say hypothetically that the fat bottom-heavy sound he had for the previous band who played reggae and had a bass player using a P-bass strung up with flats might have worked great, but my aggressive clangy lightly driven roundwound J-bass tone is going to sound pretty awful if he treats it the same way. And more often than not, I find that engineers do. There's an irritating tendency among sound engineers (namely the bad ones) towards butchering the sound of the bass into a horrible indistinct rumble underneath the rest of the band, which aside from being sonically disturbing detracts largely from the musical performance because I may as well just be playing root notes for all anybody in the audience can actually hear. If it's a sound engineer that I know to be good, and I know to be aware of my band and the sound we go for, then I have no quarrels about giving them the choice (though having worked with us before they nearly always opt for the post-EQ signal anyway). But if it's one that I don't know, I'll listen to the other bands before I go on to see if any attention has been paid to tailoring a sound that is coherent with the playing style of the bassist (usually not), and if not I approach them and request that they take a post-EQ signal and try and keep the sound nice and lively, explain the sort of sound I'm going for etc. Making adjustments to suit the room by cutting or boosting certain frequencies on a 32-band graphic is fine, but there's absolutely nothing that prevents them from doing that just because I'm made some tweaks on the 3-band EQ on my amp.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Ziphoblat' timestamp='1365366763' post='2038702']
Post, every time. The sound engineer has a job to do. That job is to capture the sound of the band and present it to the audience. If (as is often the case) he's never heard the band before, he's never heard me play before, how is he supposed to know how I want to sound? Let's say hypothetically that the fat bottom-heavy sound he had for the previous band who played reggae and had a bass player using a P-bass strung up with flats might have worked great, but my aggressive clangy lightly driven roundwound J-bass tone is going to sound pretty awful if he treats it the same way. And more often than not, I find that engineers do. There's an irritating tendency among sound engineers (namely the bad ones) towards butchering the sound of the bass into a horrible indistinct rumble underneath the rest of the band, which aside from being sonically disturbing detracts largely from the musical performance because I may as well just be playing root notes for all anybody in the audience can actually hear. If it's a sound engineer that I know to be good, and I know to be aware of my band and the sound we go for, then I have no quarrels about giving them the choice (though having worked with us before they nearly always opt for the post-EQ signal anyway). But if it's one that I don't know, I'll listen to the other bands before I go on to see if any attention has been paid to tailoring a sound that is coherent with the playing style of the bassist (usually not), and if not I approach them and request that they take a post-EQ signal and try and keep the sound nice and lively, explain the sort of sound I'm going for etc. Making adjustments to suit the room by cutting or boosting certain frequencies on a 32-band graphic is fine, but there's absolutely nothing that prevents them from doing that just because I'm made some tweaks on the 3-band EQ on my amp.
[/quote]

This sums it up for me.

[lefrash]

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1365358034' post='2038512']
playing devils advocate here as an engineer i far prefer a pre eq signal purely because that gives me a blank slate to work with in terms of a mix of course i will be sympathetic to what the player wants to sound like but i find that theres is sometimes a huge difference between what sounds good to the player stood next to an amp (bear in mind that your cab is not an accurate reflection of the entire pa in the same way that your monitor mix is not the same as the entire front of house mix) and what sounds good out front in the mix speaking to a few of my engineer friends who are not bass players they've told me that if they have a post eq signal that won't sit properly then they will just eq back in what needs to be there which imo sounds far worse

my conclusion: communication is essential good preparation on both sides helps (i regularly google the bands i'm engineering if i don't know them or their material just for reference) and if you give that engineer a good idea of the sound you want then generally he will do his upmost to accommodate that were not all bad guys i promise
[/quote]


+1000000


I dont think people are fully getting the fact that an amp EQ'd for your cab is not necessarily going to sound like 'your sound' when hitting the FOH board. The Sound man will have to fix the feed no matter what we send them. Its not about the bass, its about the band as a whole! If the soundman is sh*te, then you'll be sounding sh*te no matter what!

[Chrismanbass]

i think sound engineers get a bad rep from a few unsympathetic unprofessional individuals i've found that most sound engineers are pretty competent musicians in their own right (i'd like to think myself included) and thus are very aware of the issues performers face

the issue i have is why would you deliberately make your band sound worse? if a sound man asks for a pre eq di then i don't see how that is any different to telling a guitarist who turns up with a 100w full stack to turn down? they're doing it to make the whole band sound better?

as an engineer i don't ask unless the signal i'm receiving is completely unusable (which is very rare) but i'm always bemused by the attitude that post eq is "your sound" and that nothing i can do could possibly come close to replicating that like i said before were not all bad guy's and some of us do really care about how the band sounds

[lefrash]

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1365367946' post='2038728']
i think sound engineers get a bad rep from a few unsympathetic unprofessional individuals i've found that most sound engineers are pretty competent musicians in their own right (i'd like to think myself included) and thus are very aware of the issues performers face

the issue i have is why would you deliberately make your band sound worse? if a sound man asks for a pre eq di then i don't see how that is any different to telling a guitarist who turns up with a 100w full stack to turn down? they're doing it to make the whole band sound better?

as an engineer i don't ask unless the signal i'm receiving is completely unusable (which is very rare) but i'm always bemused by the attitude that post eq is "your sound" and that nothing i can do could possibly come close to replicating that like i said before were not all bad guy's and some of us do really care about how the band sounds
[/quote]

Again, +10000000

I'm not a soundman by the way! haha

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1365367946' post='2038728']
i think sound engineers get a bad rep from a few unsympathetic unprofessional individuals i've found that most sound engineers are pretty competent musicians in their own right (i'd like to think myself included) and thus are very aware of the issues performers face

the issue i have is why would you deliberately make your band sound worse? if a sound man asks for a pre eq di then i don't see how that is any different to telling a guitarist who turns up with a 100w full stack to turn down? they're doing it to make the whole band sound better?

as an engineer i don't ask unless the signal i'm receiving is completely unusable (which is very rare) but i'm always bemused by the attitude that post eq is "your sound" and that nothing i can do could possibly come close to replicating that like i said before were not all bad guy's and some of us do really care about how the band sounds
[/quote]

There seems to be a trend amongst many (not by any means all) sound engineers to build the mix up from the drums - which MUST knock holes through walls - sprinkled liberally by dollops of bass guitar EQ'd to rearrange one's internal organs whilst managing to lack any definable note. Regardless of the genre.

My bass doesn't sound like that. Really - it doesn't. WHY THE FRIG DOES IT SOUND LIKE THAT OUT FRONT?

Great sound engineers should be wrapped in cotton wool.

[Ziphoblat]

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][quote]i think sound engineers get a bad rep from a few unsympathetic unprofessional individuals i've found that most sound engineers are pretty competent musicians in their own right (i'd like to think myself included) and thus are very aware of the issues performers face[/quote][/font][/color]

On the flip-side, there are plenty of musicians who are also knowledgeable and competent when it comes to signal processing and getting the most out of their equipment. Patronising sound engineers trying to explain why it's better to use their Behringer DI box than the studio-quality DI on a Genz Benz amp (or "genz what mate?" in their words) as if I don't know what a DI is equates pretty much to the same sort of thing.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1365368504' post='2038739']
There seems to be a trend amongst many (not by any means all) sound engineers to build the mix up from the drums - which MUST knock holes through walls - sprinkled liberally by dollops of bass guitar EQ'd to rearrange one's internal organs whilst managing to lack any definable note. Regardless of the genre.

My bass doesn't sound like that. Really - it doesn't. WHY THE FRIG DOES IT SOUND LIKE THAT OUT FRONT?

Great sound engineers should be wrapped in cotton wool.
[/quote]

This is the reality. I don't think anybody is here to criticize a great sound engineer, it's something I've dabbled in a lot myself and I have respect and understanding of what it takes to pull the job off. Unfortunately most amateurs simply can't cut it. What's the point in being overly generous as to the sound engineers abilities if you've never worked with him before and it's an amateur venue? I don't want my night ruined by not being able to hear a damn thing I was playing because I gave the sound engineer the benefit of the doubt. If the sound engineer knows what he's doing, and the band are competent, everything will sound great and everybody will be happy at the end of the day regardless of whether or not the bassist sent a pre-EQ signal on his DI. Unfortunately, many of the sound engineers an unsigned band will encounter (in my experience) will need a little bit of coaxing to find the right sound.

Edited April 7, 2013 by Ziphoblat

[Chrismanbass]

i'd put that down to inexperience not knowing your frequencies is a cardinal sin for sound engineers thinking that a bass needs less bass is counter intuitive but works a lot of the time when working on mixes both in the studio and live also rolling off everything below 80hz is sometimes a good trick as thats where all the mud comes from

i'd put that down to a crap/inexperienced sound engineer tbh

and indeed good engineers should be coveted and fuelled with coffee and beer

i've found a lot of the guys who work the amateur band scene don't get paid much and thus don't really give a crap (imo the wrong attitude completely) but giving him a harder signal to work with isn't really making either of your jobs easier

[discreet]

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1365369566' post='2038763']
...thinking that a bass needs less bass is counter intuitive but works a lot of the time when working on mixes both in the studio and live also rolling off everything below 80 Hz is sometimes a good trick as that's where all the mud comes from...
[/quote]

I'd say it works pretty much all the time, unless you're playing arse-shattering dub reggae or some other genre that needs colon-churning heft. Generally most of the perceived power of electric bass is at around 80Hz - 150Hz... in my humble opinion, of course.

[4 Strings]

Pre. Amp is normally pretty flat anyway so it makes no odds. The desk eq is way more sophisticated than my amp and I can't dee the point in a string of eq upon eq and trying to make sense of it.

Keep it simple, give the best and most natural signal to the desk. Recording, best sound is bass jack into the interface, found this to be the case on every occasion, the amp cuts depth pre or post.

[chrismuzz]

[quote name='Chrismanbass' timestamp='1365367946' post='2038728']
i think sound engineers get a bad rep from a few unsympathetic unprofessional individuals i've found that most sound engineers are pretty competent musicians in their own right (i'd like to think myself included) and thus are very aware of the issues performers face
[/quote]

Definitely. I've only had one instance I can think of where I was genuinely unhappy with the result of the band's sound! There seems to be an abundance of really skilled professional guys up here though, we've been through some terribly cheap and nasty equipment on some nights, and managed to get an amazing sound somehow. i don't know how some of them do it!

[BILL POSTERS]

Post every time for me.

The switch is broken on my Hatke.

[peteb]

Post for me where possible! I want the engineer to have a reference for how I want the bass to sound out front. If you have a decent amp with a good DI and know how to use your EQ then a decent engineer should be able to reproduce that sound.

If a soundman insists on using a pre signal I won't throw any toys out of the pram, but it is generally a bad sign. Usually it means that they are lazy (will give you a generic sound like they did the last guy), arrogant (want to let you know that they can get a better sound than you) or just a bit rubbish!

IME there are a lot of cr@p sound engineers out there, even in decent venues or using good PAs. Good ones definitely do need looking after...

[JTUK]

hmmmm..

Many many stories..

but the band can help themselves..if only in terms of the time they need to soundcheck... by sorting their own sounds out and you only have to hear a lot of local bands to know
that that is going to be a lottery. Add that to a half-arsed engr and they will have no chance.

We are quite willing to use the first number as a 'sound check' ( not a line check ) but by the thrid number you should have the kick thru the monitors if you have asked for it a couple of times.
You should also actually have a drum monitor IF the drummer sings... and the engr should take note of his stage plans when he moved it for another band....plus he should have learnt to be conversant with a digital desk BEFORE taking the gig..

In the past year or so, there are some we would not invite back...so now we strongly recommend a P.A/engr to the hirer.

Edited April 8, 2013 by JTUK

[BigRedX]

There's a lot of very out-dated attitudes floating around here. I guess pre is good if all you use your amp's EQ for is so you can hear yourself more easily in a band context and it's not actually the sound that you want the audience to hear.

However:

1. Anyone with a modern amp and speaker system for their bass probably has something that rivals the majority of PAs as far as accuracy of sound reproduction goes. If it has got a hump somewhere to make the bass sound more impressive and you are actually making use of it, then it can easily be replicated by the engineer on his desk using his ears.

2. IMO EQ on the PA desk isn't there to sculpt the sound. It's there to compensate for the room and the characteristics of the PA speakers themselves, and finally a little tweaking to help with clarity of non-amplified instruments like vocals.

3. Long gone are the days where every bassist had a P or a J and an Ampeg rig (and played in a band with guitars, organ and drums). Now there's lots of different bass sounds and lots of different instrumental line-ups which those bass sounds fit in to. No more are the days of one size fits all as far a the bass guitar goes.

And from a personal PoV:

1. Unless you have at least 4 bands of individually sweepable EQ on the desk, the EQ in my rig is more versatile and powerful than yours.

2. I have spent a long time carefully sorting out how my bass sounds in each song to compliment what all the other instruments are doing. Are you going to be able to match that on the desk and instinctively know when to make the changes?


You know, no one what subject the most incompetent "guitard" to this kind of sh*t (even if they would benefit from it) so why is it OK to do it to bass players? We care about how we sound too and many of us have spent years and thousands of pounds going after the sound we want. My sound through the PA should be the same as my sound on stage but louder. How hard can that be?

Edited April 8, 2013 by BigRedX

[charic]

My various basses can all sound similar to each other or wildly different, I tailor my EQ to suit how I want each to sound with each song.

I've now got BASS EQ - > Amp (Gain, Overdrive, Compressions, 4 band EQ & Graphic EQ + Deep / Bright settings) -> Effects(With Parametric EQ) -> Post DI

The day where I have a sound engineer who gives enough of a crap to try and recreate everything in the middle is the day when he realises he's better off with the Post DI anyway

[pendingrequests]

Varies, but I like to keep POST.

What I want out front, is what my bass sounds like on stage.

Most engineers don't seem to have a problem with it, or in fact even bother asking me which setting it is on.

If it's gigs where I have to do the sound, it will also be Post, but roll off the bass on the mixing desk EQ, as it can get a bit rumbly!

[JTUK]

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1365357484' post='2038501']
I've usually found the opposite where the sound guy is constantly trying to fight all the clever sounds that sounded great in the practice room that now sound awful, jtuk will be here to tell us he has an hour on his own to perfect all his patches or he won't play I'm sure but in my experience the band before spend an hour looking for the leads to a keyboard they use on one song if they remember and we get five minutes tops to set up! Next band goes on, P bass and a ten foot lead, sounds ace!
[/quote]


I don't actually... I don't use effects and I normally plug both basses in..get the sound up pretty much straight away..and then wait my turn for the bass check.
We are then done in a few minutes ...
IMHO, my sound is good and easy... I want to hear everything I do from my stage monitors..and I'll set a level for the stage through the band soundcheck..and then I expect that to be it.
All he has to do really is deal with level and the room...I have sorted the signal, pretty much.
I will fine tune stuff at home with my gigging amps and now all that hard work is pretty much done.

Since we have all worked on the sounds and they are what we want... we can easily get away with a 15 min-ish turnaround ( inc load-in ) but that means the engr has to be right on the ball..some are, some aren't but unless we have booked them, that isn't our fault or within our control..