PA gear as Bass amp/cab (one of the most amazing bass tone's i've heard....)

[LukeFRC]

So i've quite a nice and lightweight rig, with a good tone to boot. More than happy with it.

Now I'm in a band at church, and we practice at another church's building (big inner city church, big sound system etc) we get to use their backline and stuff - first time we practiced I pulled out their old trace elliot amp out the cupboard... and it sounded like a underpowered trace elliot (not a tone I like much, though I don't hate it) but it was all a bit odd.

So next time I took my P bass, and wondering how the churches' bass players played with the cab in the cupboard plugged into the the behringer DI box in front of me, and lo and behold when the PA was fired up I got a lovely P bass tone coming from the powered wedge in front of me - and it sounded great! And i could control the tone with my hand and the tone knob
The next time I took my Jazz bass.... and it was brilliant - again an amazing jazz tone - spot on.
The next time I took my Warwick with the ACG preamp - and again my tone sounded spot on and amazing - the thing just sounded like my bass guitar and I had so much control of the tone with the preamp.


So I have a very nice and lightweight rig - why on earth does this powered wedge sound better than pretty much any bass amp I've tried?

Edited October 19, 2013 by LukeFRC

[lefrash]

Good question! I have asked myself this many a time! Occasionally you will do a gig where everything you touch sounds amazing, but then other times its all abit flat. I think possibly stage set up and the room are the key. Sometimes everything works together.... other times things are fighting. Would love to hear some other opinions on this!

[hamfist]

So you're just DI'ing straight into the desk right ? With a decent soundman, I'd really hope for a decent sound out of a decent wedge . I guess the church has all that in place (and any church players here will know how unusual it is for a church to have a decent soundman !). I suspect there was compression and possibly EQ already set up on that channel for bass guitar.
Just trying to explain it really. Were you also isolated fairly well from the other instruments (drums especially) ?, as that could enhance your perception of your own sound I guess.

It sounds like you should find out what their signal chain is and try and replicate it for your own rig, if that is the "sound in your head" you have been looking for all along.

[stingrayPete1977]

This is why I give a clean di to the sound guy/girl at gigs with a proper pa, lots of people on here obcess about their £500 amp must be heard out front rather than the £25'000+ pa

[LukeFRC]

Bass.... di.... desk... wedge.... maybe they have got compression and eq set on the FOH but i know that the foldback mix is all taken out pre EQ, and I doubt compression as we just turn on enough to run the fold back to practice through.
This isn't us playing with a sound guy sorting us out, this is us turning up, turning on, playing for 2 min and then getting something that sounds good enough to practice with.... it's just the tone... and the fact that it's also giving me a bit of most the other musicians . I'm right there in the middle of them all, next to the drummer and.... it sounds great. Well the bass tone is good, the general sound is pretty bad cos we don't spend much time sorting it out beyond being good enough to practice with.
You know it's kinda making me think I should sell my rig and buy one of those wedges and a di box!

[LawrenceH]

It's all about the midrange! A decent monitor is designed with the focus on delivering good, clean, evenly-dispersed midrange in the nearfield. Very few bass cabs have the same quality of components in this area. Mind you, a really decent monitor is more expensive than most bass cabs for a given volume level.

[LukeFRC]

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1371766584' post='2118025']
It's all about the midrange! A decent monitor is designed with the focus on delivering good, clean, evenly-dispersed midrange in the nearfield. Very few bass cabs have the same quality of components in this area. Mind you, a really decent monitor is more expensive than most bass cabs for a given volume level.
[/quote] yeah, it was the mid and top end that sounded sweet. Might have to look see what it was next time I'm there.

Smallish thing, the inputs on the back, one for instrument and one for line too..

Edited June 20, 2013 by LukeFRC

[yorks5stringer]

The Lord always smiles on Bass players....?

[LukeFRC]

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1371770788' post='2118070']
The Lord always smiles on Bass players....?
[/quote] well he had the right idea when he invented bass frequencies and Leo Fender

[hamfist]

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1371770788' post='2118070']
The Lord always smiles on Bass players....?
[/quote]

I'm sure that's in Hebrews somewhere !

[Happy Jack]

Could part of it be simply that the monitor is pointing at you, rather than at the audience/congregation?

When you play a gig through your own backline, you will usually be standing too close to your cab to hear it properly. What you hear is probably not what your crowd hears.

[Phil Starr]

there's nothing wrong with a decent PA amp for bass, You usually have decent drivers that go low enough for keys which are more demanding than bass then you have a proper crossover and the upper frequencies dealt with by a lightweight hon driver which is going to track the movement of your strings a lot more accurately than a huge paper cone. Not true of cheap poorly designed stuff necessarily but hey-ho.

the other factor of course is the room, churches are traditionally designed for the sound of a big pipe organ with 16 or 32' pipes for bass and more bass energy than you'll ever get out of piddling 15" speakers. Church organs literally pump air. Old churches copy designs that really worked for sound and modern ones are calculated to sound good. even church halls are big spaces with no nasty reflecting surfaces within critical distances and long low resonances off usually very substantial walls and fittings. I'm not a religeous person but the chance to hear music in a great setting, lovely.

[lonestar]

[quote name='hamfist' timestamp='1371799250' post='2118166']


I'm sure that's in Hebrews somewhere !
[/quote]
הלורד תמיד מחייך על נגני בס

[chris_b]

Which PA system was it?

Edited June 21, 2013 by chris_b

[Adrenochrome]

All kinds of good reasons, including the angle of the wedge, the fact there probably won't be muddy/boominess due to the mid focus of the monitor and also the fact that you'll have been hearing some lovely bottom end from the FOH.

[discreet]

[quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1371799711' post='2118172']
Could part of it be simply that the monitor is pointing at you, rather than at the audience/congregation?[/quote]

This.

[LukeFRC]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1371819533' post='2118490']
Which PA system was it?
[/quote] what- in the church? as in what make were the amps/board etc?
[quote name='Adrenochrome' timestamp='1371823798' post='2118550']
All kinds of good reasons, including the angle of the wedge, the fact there probably won't be muddy/boominess due to the mid focus of the monitor and also the fact that you'll have been hearing some lovely bottom end from the FOH.
[/quote] FOH was off though - this was us turning up to practice in an empty church building - using the monitors to give us enough to hear each other. Maybe it was the room - big building and less reflections possibly it was cos It was pointing at me - I dunno - it just sounded good. I'll have to look again when I'm there next and see what make/type it was- it was just I plugged in and the jazz and the P and the wick was the bass tone I have in my head. In a way my rig doesn't give as well.

[krispn]

Luke
Next time you rehearse in a practice room try putting your amp against the opposite wall or just stand facing it from the other side of the room if space permits. Those few feet away might give you a chance to hear yourself more clearly as might being able to angle the bass cab a little. We often used to have all the amps set up like monitors in our old practice space as if they were the crowd pointing towards us. Certainly sounded better for us at the time but that was maybe as much to do with the room (which we rented and had all our own kit permanently set up in)

[chris_b]

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1371831562' post='2118672']
....what- in the church? as in what make were the amps/board etc?....
[/quote]

Yes!!

If I heard great sounding gear I'd want to know what gear it was.

[Prime_BASS]

Play with a decent set of headphone and a headphone amp. I actually use a small recording desk that records at silly amount of bytes for better than cd audio.

Amazing sound through it, amazingly clean and clear. The sound though headphones is little odd at first. I also EQ and do all my sound through it, the amp and cab are there for on stage monitoring tats it, rest is a dry DI from my board.

Never really understand people craving amp tone, but I guess there are lots of pub players that don't have the luxury of a huge PA.

[Toddy]

Experienced this last night, My cab has started farting at normal volume a little and probably is close to retirement after a very hard life., We are very lucky and get to use professional engineers and pa, and instead of pushing the ashdown, we just put bass thru the monitors on stage, (ok they are NEXO), wow,,great sound and experienced it as" in" the mix, not only this but it was consistent across the stage, and the whole band felt this was a great improvement..there will always be times when I need a bass rig, but after last nights discussion with the engineer, for all the big shows, just planning on taking a DI box...

[LukeFRC]

It was an HK Audio D.A.R.T monitor.
http://hkaudio.com/products.php?id=11

[LawrenceH]

Heheh I'm not surprised it was a nice sound - fully active with multiband limiting, 24db/oct crossover as low as 2k to a nice compression driver, and about £1000 rrp if I remember right. You won't find a 2-way bass cab which can match that in a similar footprint!

[discreet]

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1372070425' post='2121140']
Heheh I'm not surprised it was a nice sound - fully active with multiband limiting, 24db/oct crossover as low as 2k to a nice compression driver, and about £1000 rrp if I remember right. You won't find a 2-way bass cab which can match that in a similar footprint![/quote]

Quite! [url="http://www.images2.co.uk/HK_AUDIO_DART_D_A_R_T_ACTIVE_MONITOR_SV373600.html"]http://www.images2.co.uk/HK_AUDIO_DART_D_A_R_T_ACTIVE_MONITOR_SV373600.html[/url]

[fingerz]

Hi Luke,

This will be to do with the monitor being 'flatter' in it's speaker/cabinet tuning than your bass cab. You are hearing a very flat/uncolored sound due to the nature of the PA set up you are using. Because of this you are getting a really transparent sound (ie, you hear the bass, not the amp so much) which is why all your basses sound so different and like themselves.

Lots of bass amps have their own inherent sound, which can make it seem pointless plugging different basses into them. I imagine the PA also suits the room well, as I've had ok and awful experiences when it comes to getting good low end monitoring through PA's.. But because monitors are designed generally for mid range and clarity your tone can be eye opening.