la bam Posted March 20, 2018 Author Share Posted March 20, 2018 (edited) Dannybuoy and Iojo are spot on. Thats what ive been getting at. Even now, theres a thread on here regarding sansamps and how good they are and where putting it in line or in the send return loop is seen as absolutely fine and normal practice. However, putting an amp in either of those positions causes quite a confusion. I asked the question to Tech 21 as initially i was looking to get a vt bass di pedal, but then discovered that the vt500 amp had exactly the same circuitry. Tech 21 were fantastic in their responses (big thanks to Lloyd) so much so i will be buying either the pedal or the amp to put in my rack alongside the evo. They confirmed both ways are fine (with a few things to watch) and really explained the best way to do things and what effects both ways would be like sound wise. Edited March 20, 2018 by la bam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrtcat Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 You'll probably turn up and find that the engineer gives you a DI box and says something like "just plug your guitar in there and adjust the amp on stage to suit yourself". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 45 minutes ago, mrtcat said: You'll probably turn up and find that the engineer gives you a DI box and says something like "just plug your guitar in there and adjust the amp on stage to suit yourself". That's the point where you say "thanks, but keep your Behringer DI box and use the one on my head please"! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 7 minutes ago, dannybuoy said: That's the point where you say "thanks, but keep your Behringer DI box and use the one on my head please"! So if the amp head goes bang, so does the front of house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrtcat Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 1 hour ago, dannybuoy said: That's the point where you say "thanks, but keep your Behringer DI box and use the one on my head please"! And the engineer says "you wanna play or not?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 3 minutes ago, mrtcat said: And the engineer says "you wanna play or not?" Must admit, that would rile me too if I was doing sound!:p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrtcat Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 17 minutes ago, EBS_freak said: Must admit, that would rile me too if I was doing sound!:p Been there and done it. In fairness tho I'd usually reluctantly agree and let the guy give me his amp di but it's rare that you can get away without doing a fair bit of work to get that sound to sit as well as a clean unaffected sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 To be honest, if I'm doing sound and you get somebody insistent on using "their" way, I'll take a DI and mic up the cab and blend. I've been caught out once with a distortion with no bottom end to it.. at least with a blended DI and mic, you have some hope of keeping the bass sounding like a bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Of course it depends on the band, the sound coming out of the DI on the head, and if the bassist using it knows how to use their equipment. In my last band, we did most of our jams and rehearsals into a mixing desk and headphones. The dry bass DI sounded bland no matter how I tweaked it, yet the DI out of my Darkglass amp with the B3K distortion applied made it sit perfectly - a bit of a mid scoop to carve space for the guitar, and a mild clanky high-mid distortion to make it audible in the mix without being obnoxious. I only did a couple of gigs with them but had no issues with the soundman using the DI out on the head and got great results each time. The above situation would have been no different if I had a B3K on my pedalboard and used the stage DI. Or would you as a soundman prefer to take a feed before the pedalboard and ignore all the tone shaping and effects they may have spent countless hours honing? Of course for some bassists that might just use a Boss ODB-3 with the treble whacked up, that might be the best option! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 11 minutes ago, dannybuoy said: Of course it depends on the band, the sound coming out of the DI on the head, and if the bassist using it knows how to use their equipment. In my last band, we did most of our jams and rehearsals into a mixing desk and headphones. The dry bass DI sounded bland no matter how I tweaked it, yet the DI out of my Darkglass amp with the B3K distortion applied made it sit perfectly - a bit of a mid scoop to carve space for the guitar, and a mild clanky high-mid distortion to make it audible in the mix without being obnoxious. I only did a couple of gigs with them but had no issues with the soundman using the DI out on the head and got great results each time. The above situation would have been no different if I had a B3K on my pedalboard and used the stage DI. Or would you as a soundman prefer to take a feed before the pedalboard and ignore all the tone shaping and effects they may have spent countless hours honing? Of course for some bassists that might just use a Boss ODB-3 with the treble whacked up, that might be the best option! As above, I would take a clean and mic from the cab, or secondary DI from the amp or whatever feed is being thrown at me. This means, that if any bass player has removed their lows because their cab can't cope (unlike the big subwoofers at foh), or done something like scoop the mids so they don't cut through etc, etc... with the blend of the two all bases are covered at all times. I'm running Waves Multirack - I think I have infinitely more tools at my disposal to make things sound right in the mix than the bass player on stage who can't hear what's happening out front! Of course, this is just the way I work, other people may work differently - or may not even care what the band on stage sounds like! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Indeed, you may never know what is going to be thrown at you, so two channels would be best if the soundman can be ar$ed to deal with multiple channels that is! I'm not familiar with Multirack (although have used Waves plugins in the distant past) but I suspect I would be met with a blank face if I asked the soundman to recreate me the sound of my preamp on the spot using plugins! The problem with a clean pre-pedalboard DI though is the number of pedals that invert phase. On a recording session onca I had a clean signal mixed with the pedalboard signal coming into my headphones... stepped on a SFT pedal and my sound disappeared! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying- I'm not going to be trying to recreate anybody's sound... just fixing any problems that may not work out front. If the processed feed that I'm sent is great, then great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
la bam Posted March 22, 2018 Author Share Posted March 22, 2018 Yeh ive previously had tbe 'just plug your bass straight in here (di box)'. Thats lazy sound engineering. Try doing that with a guitarist and theyll start stropping!! All i was trying to work out is if i could send my amps sound to their di. Its not a special sound, its not a world changer, but its a nice sound, nice and even and nice and compressed. This was to make life easier for them. In usual sound checks where we bring the backline i havent had to spend more than 30 seconds on the sound check. Sound guys love it and cant believe how easy ive made it for them. Its like (plays 2 notes across all 4 strings) "oh, er yeh, thats perfect - next!" Interesting that the way im going to have to do this is a sansamp, flyrig or vtbass pedal, when my amp head is capable of doing the same thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Still not sure why you're looking to get a pedal? Except for GAS reasons of course, which I understand perfectly! I would just take the head, plug into their cab, and use the amp's DI. If your on-stage rig is a combo, use the amp send into the combo's return, or main input. Depending on the fx loop level that is, some run close to instrument level, others like my Terror Bass generate 1.21GW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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