LukeFRC Posted May 23, 2013 Share Posted May 23, 2013 Interesting thing happened last week.... I'll start several years back - supporting Glasvegas at a u18 night (yeah i know) and was borrowing thier lovely fender bassman silverface amp - with a P bass - got a lovely low thumpy sound that suited our band to the tee.... the sound guy came down and asked if I intentially wanted to sound like a Dub bassist and re-eqed my amp to sound like, well the liberines or that indie-play-with-a-pick high mids djang djang... which didn't fit with what the rest of the band were doing.... settled somewhere in the middle. Last week I played for the first time at the church I've been going to since moved down to Leeds. Took my warwick, and the tec amp set up - dialed in a nice mids based sound which to my ears sounded good, made the wick sound good and sat nicely in the mix. At the end the guy running the PA said it sounded "boxy" and too loud. The next week took the same set up, this time in an even more busy mix. Decided to let the PA fella play to see what he wanted.... well boxy apparently means middy - and i've a middy bass and cab, and too loud was... well any point where they didn't have "control" -which as i used to run PA desks I have some sympathy with. So volume wise... anytime my amp was on was too loud - gain and master volume right down, the channel volume trimmed on the rear of my amp right down.... Boxy-ness.... well the fella's idea of bass tone was to crank the low end on my amp and then scoop both the high and low mids..... now my amp is quite full in the bottom end... and even with the mid focus the streamer has quite a big bottom end.... so what happened? Well, as much out of interest as anything I let the fella do what he wanted... by scooping my amp I then couldn't hear it myself much to play... so natually start playing harder - look around to see my amp input peaking - ramp the gain right down... really can't hear myself.. so playing while not being able to hear much - not much idea of how the dynamics of playing is - not fun, focus on just playing smoothly and (hopefully) in time oh but the fella boosted the low end, and everytime I hit anything below an Bb the whole room just goes BOOM and even I can hear something doesn't sound good. not fun. So from my point of view- one week great tone fitting well to my ears - not happy PA guy, the next week me unhappy - PA guy gets his way (but still not happy) So my musing... my thought is that he had a fixed idea of how bass 'should' sound - (wooly ashdown, preshape in, mids scooped is what is normally used) whereas I have another.... but I can't hear the FOH to be so confident what I think is right, and also what's my amp for if it's (in not a big room) not wanting anthing to go to the FOH from it.... the complication here is my ACG preamp can dial in a load of tones - and that while what I had sounded good to me i'm still learning to use it- so not as confident as could be - I have a suspission that all this palaver wouldn't have happend with my P bass.... so who says what bass sounds like? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted May 23, 2013 Share Posted May 23, 2013 Good evening, Luke... On stage, the sound that you're playing to, from whatever source (your cab, headset, iem or fold-back; whatever...) should be [i]your [/i]call. End of. The FOH is the engi's job and responsibility. You should have a partnership, ideally, so that your intentions are clear to him, but it's up to him to get the best he can from his rig. Communicate with him (or her...) as best, but keep control of your stage sound, preferably with civility (although in extreme cases, that's optional...). Just my tuppence-worth; hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjones Posted May 23, 2013 Share Posted May 23, 2013 (edited) When I've been in the audience at decent size venues, most 'Bass' sounds subsonic. I don't think I can ever remember being knocked out by a decent bass sound at any medium to large venue where I've been in the audience. Usually it sounds like everything above whatever the frequency elephants fart at, has been eliminated from the mix. Edited May 23, 2013 by gjones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lozz196 Posted May 23, 2013 Share Posted May 23, 2013 Welcome to the world of not playing guitar or drums, so instead of your instruments sound simply being made louder, it is also changed to suit virtually everyone, aside from those in the band who want it the way you`ve already got it. I`ve seen this many times, a bassist has a certain sound, which has a real identity, but then see them on a larger stage going through FOH and the bass may as well be backing tapes or a session player, as suddenly the real bassist is no longer there. But the guitar/vocs/drums sound the same................... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lowender Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 Many soundmen and even many musicians do not understand a good bass sound. They just equate it with low end. Though I have to say, in some of the better venues and studios I've played, some of them got it. The problem with big arenas is they think they have to fill the sound with a massive bottom -- and that includes the kick drum. And it just sounds annoying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skol303 Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 I always defer to the wisdom of Greg Wallace on this matter... http://www.youtube.com/watch?nomobile=1&v=IfeyUGZt8nk He knows what bass is Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrenochrome Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 I send a pre-EQ signal to the desk, then roll off some of the bottom and top end for my onstage sound. Works well - could you do something similar? (obviously this is for a DI signal). I also agree that many soundmen will try turn your lovely growly sound into a dull thud... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 (edited) I'll give him a cleaner that usual signal if I think the room is a bit of a problem...and if we really have a hard job then we need to talk and sort it out amongst ourselves. What you don't really want to do if give him nothing to be able to clean up as that is not helpful, but I don't think Engrs should have a pre-conceived set-in-stone bass sound and what comes back on stage should be something to work with. I start with setting up my sound ..which is not bass heavy..so I can hear everything I want to play across the strings. Effects need to be thought thru very carefully.,.. so again, I'll be sending a lighter signal than usual and maybe take 2 channels if poss. It depends on the engr obviously, so if you find good ones, try and get them on your gigs.as much as possible. Finally, you need to be pretty adadptable with the way you can get a sound out of the instrument, IME...so you may have to modify yout technique a bit...i.e if you play with a lot of attack from the right hand.. this might not leave you with much room to change things.. A recent gig, the bass player turned up with a lovely looking Warwick, GK rig and FX.. and with the whole combination, he had nowhere to go with his sound..and eventually had to play blind with a bleed out of the monitors. The room was high and hard so it was boom-city and a lot of frustration for him. I just made a note not to increase the volume off the onboard bass control... which is a cheap trick for guys who play actives.. and it was fine all night as far as I was concerned. Usually, we get good comments for our sound as a band, so to get floored with a bad mix would cause a big post mortem Edited May 24, 2013 by JTUK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzneck Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 [quote name='Adrenochrome' timestamp='1369381900' post='2088487'] I send a pre-EQ signal to the desk, then roll off some of the bottom and top end for my onstage sound. Works well - could you do something similar? (obviously this is for a DI signal). I also agree that many soundmen will try turn your lovely growly sound into a dull thud... [/quote] This - and I try to talk nicely with the soundman (calling him Sir, not Pillock, seems to help) so all he has to do is amplify [u]my[/u] sound. Only had a problem once, so far - in a Suffolk theatre; the "engineer" was a metal drummer so I ended up with a sound that did not fit exactly with the Chicago blues band I was playing with at the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_5 Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 In the sound engineer's defence, churches (or any other big, cavernous space) are a nightmare to EQ, especially when it comes to bass. It's frustrating though when you can't hear what you're playing, not too bad if it's a reading gig (apart from fretless!), but if it's a 'follow the pianist/guitarist' affair then it's a recipe for disaster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_5 Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 [quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1369379887' post='2088457'] I always defer to the wisdom of Greg Wallace on this matter... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?nomobile=1&v=IfeyUGZt8nk"]http://www.youtube.c...1&v=IfeyUGZt8nk[/url] He knows what bass is [/quote] That sir, is brilliant. Take 10 points! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spongebob Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 One of my old band's vocalist's use to think he was a master of EQ and stage sound. Every gig he'd be on about the bass - always thought it was too much in volume or thump. I knew he was wrong! One gig I simply mimed during the soundcheck..... You guessed it - gave me a thumbs up, and announced, 'perfect'! [size=4] [/size] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMG456 Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 (edited) It's your sound Luke. The job of the sound guy is to reproduce that as accurately as possible and then blend it with the other instruments and voices so that everyone can hear *everything* that is going on. Go to 90% of gigs and you can see what the basic problem is with this thought! So, some sound guys can do that and many others can't. A lot of the "education" in music technology nowadays also suggests that the best way to get separation in a mix it to divide instruments up into frequency bands and separate them that way. So all the bass players end up with a wooly, ill defined boomy sound because that doesn't get in the way of the vocals and guitars/ keys. To beat this approach I find it's best to go in with a collaborative approach. Be nice. Ask him does he want a DI out pre or post eq. Explain to him the sort of bass sound you like to use. Quietly give him the confidence that you know exactly what you are doing and that you're somebody he will enjoy working with - that way he'll do the best he can for you. Sometimes of course it doesn't work out but if you're going to be back there on a regular basis it's worthwhile trying to sort something out. Overall stage volume can work against you as well - could the whole band be persuaded to play a little quieter on stage to help out with the sound? Lastly (thank goodness I hear you say) I'm interested in your comment about the ACG preamp. Any gear you're not completely familiar with can cause you to misjudge your settings. I did a gig recently supporting another band. The bassist let me use his rig for convenience - it was a nice rig, Acoustic Image Clarus head and two EA cabs. It wasn't quite bright enough for my liking but I didn't want to mess up his eq settings and I had brought along a Jazz Bass 24 that I have recently acquired so I just set up the tone using the on- board preamp in the bass. I did actually get three comments from people in the crowd that didn't know me saying that they loved the bass sound but when I got home and next plugged the bass into my little Phil Jones amp that I use in the house, I realised how extremely I had tweaked the sound - huge amounts of top end which I simply wasn't hearing from the rig on the night. Now, I have an ACG filter pre in one of my basses and whilst I love it, I am also aware that it is perfectly capable of providing any number of completely unusable, extreme sounds, capable of speaker destruction even at seemingly low levels. Couple that with some of it's controls being slightly counter- intuitive on occasion and it's possibly making life more difficult for you in a live situation? If in doubt. Simplify and build from there - if that means take a P-Bass the next time, then do that and see what it's like. Hope it works out. Ed Edited May 24, 2013 by EMG456 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danthevan Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 Sound engineers usually just make your EQ look like a smiley face and that's right to them! Your bass, your style, your band, do it your way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger2611 Posted May 24, 2013 Share Posted May 24, 2013 I have worked with some excellent sound guys over the years as a bass player and have worked with some excellent bass players as a sound guy, I have never and have never seen a sound guy go up to the bass player and start messing with his eq, I would assume that most players getting to work with a decent pa will know how they want to sound and from there it is surely down to the sound guy to get the overall mix right....sure I have gone up to bands and said FFS if you want to hear the vocals I suggest you turn your amps down and let the pa do the work but other than that eq wise a decent pa and sound guy should be able to cope Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gafbass02 Posted May 25, 2013 Share Posted May 25, 2013 (edited) [quote name='spongebob' timestamp='1369388174' post='2088577'] One of my old band's vocalist's use to think he was a master of EQ and stage sound. Every gig he'd be on about the bass - always thought it was too much in volume or thump. I knew he was wrong! One gig I simply mimed during the soundcheck..... You guessed it - gave me a thumbs up, and announced, 'perfect'! [size=4] [/size] [/quote] I had this for years, only it was never perfect and even 'too loud' when i mimed, I took to explaining to the engineer what would happen at sound check and just to ignore him. Edited May 25, 2013 by gafbass02 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeFRC Posted May 26, 2013 Author Share Posted May 26, 2013 [quote name='EMG456' timestamp='1369394419' post='2088664'] It's your sound Luke. The job of the sound guy is to reproduce that as accurately as possible and then blend it with the other instruments and voices so that everyone can hear *everything* that is going on. Go to 90% of gigs and you can see what the basic problem is with this thought! So, some sound guys can do that and many others can't. A lot of the "education" in music technology nowadays also suggests that the best way to get separation in a mix it to divide instruments up into frequency bands and separate them that way. So all the bass players end up with a wooly, ill defined boomy sound because that doesn't get in the way of the vocals and guitars/ keys. To beat this approach I find it's best to go in with a collaborative approach. Be nice. Ask him does he want a DI out pre or post eq. Explain to him the sort of bass sound you like to use. Quietly give him the confidence that you know exactly what you are doing and that you're somebody he will enjoy working with - that way he'll do the best he can for you. Sometimes of course it doesn't work out but if you're going to be back there on a regular basis it's worthwhile trying to sort something out. Overall stage volume can work against you as well - could the whole band be persuaded to play a little quieter on stage to help out with the sound? Lastly (thank goodness I hear you say) I'm interested in your comment about the ACG preamp. Any gear you're not completely familiar with can cause you to misjudge your settings. I did a gig recently supporting another band. The bassist let me use his rig for convenience - it was a nice rig, Acoustic Image Clarus head and two EA cabs. It wasn't quite bright enough for my liking but I didn't want to mess up his eq settings and I had brought along a Jazz Bass 24 that I have recently acquired so I just set up the tone using the on- board preamp in the bass. I did actually get three comments from people in the crowd that didn't know me saying that they loved the bass sound but when I got home and next plugged the bass into my little Phil Jones amp that I use in the house, I realised how extremely I had tweaked the sound - huge amounts of top end which I simply wasn't hearing from the rig on the night. Now, I have an ACG filter pre in one of my basses and whilst I love it, I am also aware that it is perfectly capable of providing any number of completely unusable, extreme sounds, capable of speaker destruction even at seemingly low levels. Couple that with some of it's controls being slightly counter- intuitive on occasion and it's possibly making life more difficult for you in a live situation? If in doubt. Simplify and build from there - if that means take a P-Bass the next time, then do that and see what it's like. Hope it works out. Ed [/quote] Lots of good thoughts there guys! Thanks... I've done a fair bit of PA stuff before so I can appreciate - it was partly in interest in where they were going that I let them dictate my tone - to see what would happen (I didn't think it could go as badly as it did TBH) so now I can have nice discussions about how what they think bass should sound like isn't nesserserally what I will sound like or where I will fit in the mix.... but I am very flexible. Ed/EMG465 thanks for the long one! I've had the ACG for ooh 6 months now so in terms of being able to dial in sounds I want and adjusting on the fly (if needed) I can work that out.... any thoguhts/advice based on how you set yours up? I tend to go for a good rock tone on the front pup, a more middy sound on the back one with a bit of boost and then use the blend to set my sound with treble added if needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceH Posted May 27, 2013 Share Posted May 27, 2013 I've done both ends as well - fairly common amongst bassists it seems, perhaps you could make the case that bassists naturally develop an ear for the whole band sound! I think it's interesting and useful to consider the sound of bass guitar on records. First, it's always, always very heavily compressed. Even bass that sounds open, natural and dynamic will have a lot of 'transparent' dynamic control happening. Second, it's unusual to have a lot of actual bass in the sound - all those discussions about the need for high-power, high-excursion woofers etc etc, well hifis don't have them, by and large, and radio stations won't broadcast stuff that's too bass-heavy without squashing it back anyway. Even dub bass, on commercial records, typically gets that dubby tone around the 100 to 300ish Hz region. Yes live sound is different from recording and I'd mix much more bass-heavy live, but to my ears a lot of live sound engineers are far too keen on the sound of their subs (crossed somewhere around 80-130Hz) and don't understand where the critical frequencies are for 'tone', ie the upper-bass through the midrange. This also afflicts the drum kit, especially at festivals - makes me wince hearing that 'rock' thump/click kick drum stamping all over a gentle acoustic ballad! Or hearing the snare through the subs... Btw I am coming to realise recently just how much, if you want an up-front, growly sound that still sits in the mix nicely and is 'SE friendly', then a well set-up fast compressor is a very useful tool indeed - even better if it's multiband, or perhaps two in series! You do need to know how to set them though - a live SE should but quite possibly doesn't, and unruly spikes from the stage sound can still mess up his mix. That applies to guitar too, especially when there's substantial overlap with the bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prime_BASS Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 I've had a mixture of experience with sound at venues. A lot of the time I trust the sound guy with the Di signal as thats his job he should know what he is doing, and I as the musician should know how my gear works. Usually involves turning the lies down and the mids up. Same goes at rehearsals. Only once has the guy tried to eq my amp for me, all while i wasnt playing, the mids went down and the bass boost button got pressed, I couldnt hear it so turned it back to how it was. The trouble I see is sound guys trying to fill the room against a kick drum that sounds like a canon. My band mates don't seem to care what's going on with the bass until they can't hear it or it definitely does sound crap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeFRC Posted May 28, 2013 Author Share Posted May 28, 2013 took the jazz to practice yesterday - sounded great straight into DI (different venue) might take that this week.... as my wife says - the other one sounds better but the tomato soup (my jazz) one has more low end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMG456 Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 [quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1369606063' post='2090885'] Ed/EMG465 thanks for the long one! I've had the ACG for ooh 6 months now so in terms of being able to dial in sounds I want and adjusting on the fly (if needed) I can work that out.... any thoguhts/advice based on how you set yours up? I tend to go for a good rock tone on the front pup, a more middy sound on the back one with a bit of boost and then use the blend to set my sound with treble added if needed. [/quote] No bother Luke. I suspect your ACG pre is a bit more sophisticated than mine - I only have one low pass filter stack so whatever blend of pickups is set goes through that one filter. I was always a big fan of the Wal circuit and the ACG really takes that to another level versatility- wise by offering continuously variable boost around the filter cutoff frequencies and a variable frequency and boost for the high- pass which in the Wal is the switchable "pick attack" at a fixed frequency but with the amount pre-set by an internal trim pot. With the flexibility comes added complexity of course, so if using that bass live, I tend to set up the pre carefully to suit the room/ stage and then not really vary it that much during the gig - that way I can just use the techniques I would use on any bass to vary the tone on a gig - pickup selection/ blend and right (picking) hand position. The trouble with going to town and fully using something like the ACG pre live is that it is so variable. For example, I may think I need just a little bit more bass, so I reach for the bass stack gain but depending on where I have left the frequency control set on that stack, it could be acting effectively as a treble control... or a high mid or a low mid or a subsonic bass! It's not always easy to hear these things in the middle of a gig so I go very canny on these adjustments. For live work the other possible difficulty with using eq at source - ie in the bass or in the amp if you're taking a DI post eq- is the potentially radically different frequency response curves of the amplification chains involved. My big rig cabs are Acme LowB2s which have a very similar response curve to good big PA rig -ie basically flat from 20Hz to 20KHz. So if I'm over egging the bottom end at source, I can hear that and fix it. On small gigs though, I often just take my little Phil Jones Bass Briefcase which has nothing like the low bottom end of the Acmes so it's quite possible for me to be setting up a nice, chunky sound on stage which is far too bass rich for the PA. The sound guy has to then try and compensate for that using eq which is almost certainly operating at different frequency centres from the ones I am using and well, you know what the results can be! So, for me using eq at source live with a feed to the PA - nothing too extreme and set it and forget it for the night! Cheers Ed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LukeFRC Posted May 28, 2013 Author Share Posted May 28, 2013 [quote name='EMG456' timestamp='1369735087' post='2092025'] No bother Luke. I suspect your ACG pre is a bit more sophisticated than mine - I only have one low pass filter stack so whatever blend of pickups is set goes through that one filter. I was always a big fan of the Wal circuit and the ACG really takes that to another level versatility- wise by offering continuously variable boost around the filter cutoff frequencies and a variable frequency and boost for the high- pass which in the Wal is the switchable "pick attack" at a fixed frequency but with the amount pre-set by an internal trim pot. With the flexibility comes added complexity of course, so if using that bass live, I tend to set up the pre carefully to suit the room/ stage and then not really vary it that much during the gig - that way I can just use the techniques I would use on any bass to vary the tone on a gig - pickup selection/ blend and right (picking) hand position. The trouble with going to town and fully using something like the ACG pre live is that it is so variable. For example, I may think I need just a little bit more bass, so I reach for the bass stack gain but depending on where I have left the frequency control set on that stack, it could be acting effectively as a treble control... or a high mid or a low mid or a subsonic bass! It's not always easy to hear these things in the middle of a gig so I go very canny on these adjustments. For live work the other possible difficulty with using eq at source - ie in the bass or in the amp if you're taking a DI post eq- is the potentially radically different frequency response curves of the amplification chains involved. My big rig cabs are Acme LowB2s which have a very similar response curve to good big PA rig -ie basically flat from 20Hz to 20KHz. So if I'm over egging the bottom end at source, I can hear that and fix it. On small gigs though, I often just take my little Phil Jones Bass Briefcase which has nothing like the low bottom end of the Acmes so it's quite possible for me to be setting up a nice, chunky sound on stage which is far too bass rich for the PA. The sound guy has to then try and compensate for that using eq which is almost certainly operating at different frequency centres from the ones I am using and well, you know what the results can be! So, for me using eq at source live with a feed to the PA - nothing too extreme and set it and forget it for the night! Cheers Ed [/quote] cheers Ed! good reading there Oh and after playing with my amp EQ, and the ACG preamp for hours, I could kinda hear what the PA folk were asking, and compared it to my jazz and I still couldn't dial in the kinda tone I wanted.... so back to basics.... i had changed the strings to ones with less tension.... lower the pickups slightly... and boom there's the top and bottom agian! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougal Posted May 28, 2013 Share Posted May 28, 2013 [quote name='Prime_BASS' timestamp='1369722213' post='2091873'] My band mates don't seem to care what's going on with the bass until they can't hear it or it definitely does sound crap. [/quote] I think this is probably the most common 'problem' with playing the bass. No-one really notices, until it's too late. At an extreme, I physically assaulted a guitarist when after playing a song with my volume rolled to 0, he [i]still[/i] claimed the bass was too loud. I'm still ashamed of my reaction to this day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lozz196 Posted May 29, 2013 Share Posted May 29, 2013 [quote name='dougal' timestamp='1369782981' post='2092805'] I think this is probably the most common 'problem' with playing the bass. No-one really notices, until it's too late. At an extreme, I physically assaulted a guitarist when after playing a song with my volume rolled to 0, he [i]still[/i] claimed the bass was too loud. I'm still ashamed of my reaction to this day. [/quote] I think I would have just screamed "f8ckwit" at him for 30 minutes, but I can see where you were coming from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truckstop Posted May 29, 2013 Share Posted May 29, 2013 [quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1369820418' post='2092996'] I think I would have just screamed "f8ckwit" at him for 30 minutes, but I can see where you were coming from. [/quote] What? Like "ffffffffuuuuuuuuuccccccccckkkkkkkkkwwwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiitttttttttt!"? Truckstop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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