Too loud - it's becoming a problem

[Jenny_Innie]

I have a bit of a problem with volume. I play in three different bands and I keep being told that I'm too loud.

I generally play either an RH750 or an RH450 through a Barefaced cab or two.

Trouble is, I have to play so low down the volume dial, I don't any guts out of the amps.

I'm thinking of using a lower powered amp that I can whack up more - run it at 7 or 8 or so.

Does that make sense? What about a MiBass 220 or a BH250, Mag 220 etc

I'm generally talking small to medium pubs. Would one of the above cut it?

[Muppet]

Who's telling you, your bandmates or your audience?

steve

[Jenny_Innie]

[quote name='Muppet' timestamp='1434405329' post='2799352']
Who's telling you, your bandmates or your audience?

steve
[/quote]

I play wireless. And I always get out in front during the sound check and I can understand - even though I like a bass-heavy sound - that it's a bit tooooo heavy.

I think I'd be better running a smaller amp harder. There seems to be an area in my amps, below three on the dial, where the sound looses its guts.

[gjones]

You need to get a long lead and head where the audience will be sitting. Then get the band to play a tune, which will allow you to set your bass to the correct volume, in relation to the rest of the instruments. Then if your amp is sitting right next to another band member's head and they complain you're too loud, you don't need to turn down, they just need to move their head out of the way of your amp.

Edit: Aha, I've just read your last post. And it's all your fault

Edited June 15, 2015 by gjones

[Muppet]

Doesn't necessarily mean it's the amps, it could be the cabs. I have both those amps too and don't find them a problem at any volume. What's it like using just one cab?

steve

[Lozz196]

It may not necessarily be volume, but frequency. I have two different sounds, one for the regular band, and one for the covers that we occaisonally do. Both are set to the volume of the drums. Last week I forgot to change from the cover-eq to regular-eq when we started doing our own material, and it just sounded far too loud and bassy. Yet when we do the covers, it doesn`t and they`re not as full-on as our own material. And the only real difference is more gain and more mids for our own stuff - the amount of bass and treble stays the same.

I also had a practice with a rock-type band last week and to get a really good in the mix sound I had to drag the bass back to 1 on the amp I was using, mids at 6, treble at 7, so this may be a case of too much on the low frequencies swamping the sound, rather than actually being too loud.

[Musicman20]

Could be low mids (which personally I love) pushing through.

[LukeFRC]

I've had this as well...
your TC Rebel heads are loud sounding amps but they aren't pushing much more RMS power than the MiBass/Mag etc.... so I cannae see a point in looking at other amps.
Turn any compression off.
Don't boost the low end on either your amp or bass.
Make sure the EQ point on your low mid isn't too low either.
Maybe you only need one cab?

Try that. It will sound middy and a bit rubbish on its own but in the mix it should work well.

It all depends of course if you have PA support for the bass or if you are providing the bass sound for the FOH. If you are taking a DI to the desk you can let the sound guy set the FOH sound and your amp is just a monitor for you.



on the plus side if you only need one cab it solves your cab dilemma in your other thread

[stevebasshead]

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1434408114' post='2799374']
I've had this as well...
your TC Rebel heads are loud sounding amps but they aren't pushing much more RMS power than the MiBass/Mag etc.... so I cannae see a point in looking at other amps.
Turn any compression off.
Don't boost the low end on either your amp or bass.
Make sure the EQ point on your low mid isn't too low either.
Maybe you only need one cab?

Try that. It will sound middy and a bit rubbish on its own but in the mix it should work well.

It all depends of course if you have PA support for the bass or if you are providing the bass sound for the FOH. If you are taking a DI to the desk you can let the sound guy set the FOH sound and your amp is just a monitor for you.



on the plus side if you only need one cab it solves your cab dilemma in your other thread
[/quote]
If she is through the PA and your amp is just a monitor for you you're even less likely to be able to push the amp hard enough to find that sweet spot. Another option to consider would be to sell the Barefaced cabs and buy something much *less* efficient so that you have to make your amp work harder.

Edited June 15, 2015 by stevebasshead

[Phil Starr]

Hi Jenny, there could be a number of problems.

Getting your volume right should be fairly simple. You have volume controls on your bass and on the amp. The trick is to match the drummer in volume, if you are louder than him then obviously the band can never sound in balance as he/she doesn't have a volume control. The second thing is that you may be having trouble picking yourself out of the mix when playing live and turning up or just pulling harder on the strings when you can't hear yourself well. I have a problem of increasing volume by simply picking harder as the adrenaline kicks in, so I set my levels well back in the soundcheck. I think you haven't been playing long and it takes a while to get used to hearing yourself in a live situation.

EQ is always problematic for bass, the acoustics are different in every venue and some venues accentuate bass a lot. You need to eq at every venue I find,

The 'gutless' thing may also be down to eq. Our ears are more sensitive to the frequency extremes at high sound levels, so you need a bit more bass added as you turn the volume down. This is a function of how our ears work and nothing to do with particular amps or speakers [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves."]https://en.wikipedia...3Munson_curves.[/url] Reset the eq when you turn down.

I don't know where you are in Dorset but we play a lot of small pubs. I'm 200m from the Dorset border. I use a small combo for those venues. You can use the full rig but why bother carrying in all that gear if you don't need it and stage area is often tight so a smaller amp is useful.

You have great gear and I'll bet it sounds good at home when you have the time to set it up properly. I don't think you need to change it but to spend a little time to set it up to get the best out of it.

Hope this helps.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Phil Starr

[6v6]

[quote name='Muppet' timestamp='1434406734' post='2799364']
Doesn't necessarily mean it's the amps, it could be the cabs. I have both those amps too and don't find them a problem at any volume. What's it like using just one cab?
[/quote]

+1 - IME solid state amps don't really have a "sweet spot", so you should be able to dial in your required amount of preamp gain (e.g a bit of grit/colour if you want it), then set your level with the master volume.

Valve amps are a different matter, because part of the sound is pushing the power amp into mild clipping, whereas this sounds awful with most solid state amps.

As others have mentioned, try one cab - you're running two really loud and efficient cabs so they may just be projecting too much for the venues (e.g I always use one 1x12 for most pub gigs and it's ample, particularly with a little PA support in larger venues).

Also try turning down or off your feed to the PA (unless it's large venues, for pub gigs it may just not be needed, particularly if the rest of the band inc drums aren't DI'd).

Then as others have mentioned, cut the low bass, and if you can't hear yourself boost the mids slightly instead of turning up - this sound often sits better in the mix anyway and will be much less boomy out front.

Good luck!

[lemmywinks]

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1434411504' post='2799390']
The 'gutless' thing may also be down to eq. Our ears are more sensitive to the frequency extremes at high sound levels, so you need a bit more bass added as you turn the volume down. This is a function of how our ears work and nothing to do with particular amps or speakers [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves."]https://en.wikipedia...3Munson_curves.[/url] Reset the eq when you turn down.
[/quote]

This would be the first thing I would do. Dial the "missing" frequencies back in, it will sound a lot less gutless!

[alexclaber]

It's almost certainly the response of your ears changing at lower vs higher volumes - unless you're talking about the sound getting dirtier and more compressed when you get to crank it. Best way to test it is to play a gig with one cab where you'd normally use two - that'll push both the amp and cab harder. If that sorts the problem then I was wrong!

[Jenny_Innie]

For example, I had a problem the other day when the bar manager came and asked us to turn down 1/3 of the way into our set. Oh how I hate that. I've seen this referred to on here before.

She was happy with the plentiful sound check and gave us the thumbs up for that. But then comes out four songs in and asks us to turn down.

I went from kickass bad girl growl to dull beardy geography teacher in corduroys mush. Not very punk.

I guess I'm going to do some homework and have a play with the rigs I have and note the growl like a ninja EQ settings for each volume level - and when I'm asked to turn down in future it'll have to be more than just a turn of the volume knob ....... and that's not taking into account the variations in environment from gig to gig. Haha. Welcome to the craft of bass playing I guess.

[size=3][i]PS: I'm a dozen gigs in to playing in pubs etc. I've only used PA support and bass through the monitors once and didn't like it. To be fair, the places are never really big enough to require PA support - and I like the punchy feel of backline with just vocals and kick via the PA.[/i][/size]

[brensabre79]

It may just be the difference between GAIN and VOLUME you're experiencing here.

Push the gain up but turn the volume down and you should get your growl and punch but at a lower volume. Also, if its the low end that's getting out of hand, try just turning down the low mid & bass eq rather than volume.

[mrtcat]

I'm not sure I understand why you lose growl when turning down? Neither of your amps are valve amps so you're not going to get that kind of break up by driving them harder. I had a RH750 and one of it's good points was that it could do all it's tricks at all of its volume levels. I'd imagine it's more the perception you have of the sound at a different volume.

If it were me I'd think about a nice pedal like a sansamp or darkglass microtubes to give the gritty / growly sound and use the TC heads as a power amp.

[Truckstop]

Yep, turn the bass control right down. Or off. Most amps have the bass frequency control set around 60-100hz and you just don't need it. All it does is muddy everything up, drown out the bass drum and make it harder for everyone to hear what they're doing.

It'll take a few goes to get used to it but you'll love it once you realise that you can hear absolutely everything and when people stop asking you to turn down!

[Jenny_Innie]

[quote name='Truckstop' timestamp='1434453282' post='2799655']
Yep, turn the bass control right down. Or off. Most amps have the bass frequency control set around 60-100hz and you just don't need it. All it does is muddy everything up, drown out the bass drum and make it harder for everyone to hear what they're doing.

It'll take a few goes to get used to it but you'll love it once you realise that you can hear absolutely everything and when people stop asking you to turn down!
[/quote]

This sounds good and might be a winning reply - but I won't know until I've gone home tonight and tested it.

[Muppet]

It's a balancing act with volume. The RH750 is very linear in terms of tone across the volume range I find (the TC BG250 is designed to vary however). The growl from the tube tone seems not to change either.

I still reckon the sound you love is coming from a pair of well driven Barefaced cabs and when you're playing at low volume you're not driving them very hard.

I would use the RH450 (not the 750) and one cab only and see what that sounds like?

[Muppet]

Oh and I also turn the bass down quite a lot and use the Low Mid to control a lot more. You can also play around with the frequency settings too I guess. I have a chart of those (for each control) if you wanted it

Edited June 16, 2015 by Muppet

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

[quote name='Jenny_Innie' timestamp='1434450680' post='2799621']
I went from kickass bad girl growl to dull beardy geography teacher in corduroys mush. Not very punk.
[/quote]Growl can come from two sources. One is pushing the amp into clipping, the other is pushing the speaker into clipping. If the amp and/or the speaker has a lot of available headroom then you might not be able to get growl without being too loud for a given room. You might be able to get what you want by turning down the amp master, or by running only one cab, or by using a pedal or rack device. You also may find that Barefaced isn't the best cab for you, as they tend to have a lot of headroom.
If you do decide to downsize a small valve amp, 35 to 50 watts, may give you what you're after.

[chris_b]

It seems you sound check at a different volume level to the gig.

[Jenny_Innie]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1434457137' post='2799734']
It seems you sound check at a different volume level to the gig.
[/quote]

How do you work that one out Sherlock?

[ubit]

I find when we play, I hear everything clear as hell. As the night goes on, even though nothing is changed, I find everything becomes a wall of noise and I struggle to hear myself or the other instruments clearly. I realise our ears start to filter out certain frequencies and it's probably down to us being too loud at the back line. I've heard some bands play so quiet that they can talk onstage and let the PA do the work, but it's not always so easy when playing smaller venues where you need to hear yourself over the drummist.
It's usually our guitarist who is too loud. I agree the best sound is a bass heavy sound, but then again we are biased, ain't we?

[6v6]

[quote name='Jenny_Innie' timestamp='1434459236' post='2799768']
How do you work that one out Sherlock?
[/quote]

Undue snark IMO, everybody in the band starts the gig slightly reserved and nervous, then a few songs in it's starting to flow, everyone gets into it and starts digging in and/or turning up to keep up with the increasingly excitable and invariably gurning drummer. Happened in every band I've ever been in to varying degrees, been regularly gigging for over 20 years.