Acoustic Upright Bass - Live tone, onstage and FOH

[Cathode_Follower]

So after being at a bunch of festivals this summer and seeing countless bassists struggle with their tone, frantically turning the controls on whatever backline was provided and/or just having a plain muddy sound coming out of the PA, I thought I would share what I've learned over the past few years in the hope that it might help some people out.

1. Have tone-shaping for FOH

Seems obvious but too many people seem to send a DI straight off of the pickup. Are you sure the FOH engineer is going to know how to EQ a double bass? Do you trust them to mould your tone to be subjectively, let alone objectively 'good'?

2. Have that tone-shaping independent of your own

The last thing anyone wants is for the bass sound out-front to randomly change half-way through the set because you suddenly realised you don't have enough 250Hz for yourself on-stage.
Dial-in your FOH sound in a controlled, neutral environment, say in a studio, and then use whatever means you like to stop those settings ever getting accidentally changed. I fitted a piece of perspex over my FOH graphic which you have to unscrew and remove to access the faders. Keep a record of the settings as backup.

3. Bring your own rig

I use a small 1x15 combo, an HH Bass-Baby cab with a 100W Laney power-amp shoehorned in the back. I'm accustomed to the voicing and know exactly what to do to get it to sound how I want, quickly.
Of course the trade-off of having a small amp is having very little low-end, so for most stages I'll bi-amp with the house bass rig, and generally roll-off everything except the lows. Any compression, 'uber-mega low', or pre-shaping etc is turned off. This essentially completely solves the 'small amp' problem that plagues us all.
In 50% of cases the FOH rig will provide adequate lows but it's always good to have extra there if you need it. If you need it and you DON'T have it, my god, you're not going to have a good time! This happened to me once and now I bi-amp EVERY time.
Put your amp at shoulder height - put it on a stool or on top of the house rig if you're bi-amping. You'll hear yourself a lot better and reduce feedback. Some people find this strange at first but you'll quickly get to love it!

4. Use a graphic EQ

Simple and intuitive, for me it just naturally makes sense for double-bass. You can kill frequencies that are trying to feedback and shape your tone onstage to compensate for what you might already be hearing from FOH or other peoples wedges.
If you're precious about phasing, distortion and things you can use whatever EQ you like for the FOH feed. Obviously for your own monitoring this isn't so important.

5. Ask for no bass in your own monitor

You've got your own monitor right behind you which you have personal control over, why would you now leave that job to someone else!

6. Don't let them mic-up the bass amp!

Let me repeat that - DON'T LET THEM MIC THE BASS AMP. Either of them, if you're bi-amping. There are so many reasons for this.
You're naturally going to be tweaking the onstage sound throughout the set as you inch closer to tone-nirvana. What you're hearing isn't necessarily the optimal tone. What you're hearing at your ears isn't the same as what's coming out of the amp. That's why we're sending them a separate, unchanging EQ. If your FOH engineer is putting compression on the bass and you suddenly pull all the lows, this can send everything into uncontrollable feedback at the next preferential frequency. Then you've got amplifier distortion, hiss, whatever else..
Did I mention not to let them mic the bass amp? I have a note in the tech-spec instructing as such with a disclaimer that failure to observe this policy will result in the mic being unplugged seconds before the downbeat. Take no prisoners. And don't let them mic the bass amp.

See the attached block-diagram for a visual aid. The preamp I use is a simple no-controls buffer for the piezo pickup. It vastly improves the sound of the Realist, however I've also previously tried it with a Shadow SH591 and I preferred the sound without it, so it's quite subjective and pickup-dependant. It's DIY, technical information can be found here - https://cafewalter.com/pzp-1/technical-info/

Of course everyone's needs are different and this doesn't cover the wonderful world of effects pedals and how to route these effectively. But hopefully this will get some people thinking. Hope it helps!

Edited August 10, 2019 by Cathode_Follower