Had to play without an amp...

[Lozz196]

On Friday, the provided cab wasn’t working so just went straight to FOH/monitors from my trusty Para Driver. In all honesty if I could rely on monitoring I’d do this all the time, made pretty much no difference to me. 

[la bam]

I've considered doing this with either a vt bass pedal or my helix stomp. In theory its be fine, especially using a frfr pa style monitor.

But there are 5 of us in the band, and the amount of time we get provided with just 2 or 3 monitors is too risky not to take my amp and cab.

[hooky_lowdown]

I used to do this alot with a DI pedal to FOH. Sometimes though a small combo is useful as a monitor.

[Heathy]

I've done this a few times. Always prefer the tone to be honest, but I do miss having air move behind me.

[Maude]

We use our own pa on most gigs and have good monitors and our own easily adjusted monitor mixes using the xAir app, I never use an amp when gigging like this and much prefer it, just bass into my Line6 X3 Live then into FOH. But when having to use an in house PA with a sound engineer I always end up taking my amp. I've lost count of the amount of times I've been told, "Oh yeah, you can put your bass through the monitor", and then find their monitors will only handle a bit of bass before the engineer gets tetchy, and I'm happy to cut the bass and boost the mids in the monitor just to be clearly audible and not fussed about having it pounding. It's just quicker and easier to take an amp and look after my self. 

[cheddatom]

I played in a heavy band for a bit and did this. Thankfully the venues were all big enough to have big monitors. Two big 12 or 15" monitors blasting up at you is way better than an amp at the back at the stage

[casapete]

1 hour ago, cheddatom said:

I played in a heavy band for a bit and did this. Thankfully the venues were all big enough to have big monitors. Two big 12 or 15" monitors blasting up at you is way better than an amp at the back at the stage

I’ve done quite a few gigs with monitors as my main sound source, some okay and some dreadful. Whilst I agree on the proximity of them to you, the change to your usual sound is hard to accommodate. Unless you’re fortunate enough to be playing somewhere with separate eq for each item, I found the global eq in the monitor wasn’t always great for my bass sound. Give me my own amp/ sound behind me every time. ( Disclosure - I am quite old....)

[Low End Bee]

17 hours ago, hooky_lowdown said:

I used to do this alot with a DI pedal to FOH. Sometimes though a small combo is useful as a monitor.

This is always my preferred way as well. I'm sure the happy smiling face (maybe an exaggeration in some cases) of a sound person when you inform them your DI'ing from a Sansamp has got me from a muddy afterthought to actually sounding like an actual bass in the mix a few times too.

[stingrayPete1977]

Sounds like there's a few more people here ready to come over to the dark side and ditch the amps, maybe even go in ears!? 

[thebassist]

I've had to do this myself and have previously used two Aguilar Tone Hammer pedals into the PA (I play in stereo) and it worked great.

Pardon me, what is FOH?

[Low End Bee]

12 minutes ago, thebassist said:

I've had to do this myself and have previously used two Aguilar Tone Hammer pedals into the PA (I play in stereo) and it worked great.

Pardon me, what is FOH?

Front Of House

[Monkey Steve]

I got into this when playing round London on multi band bills - easier to pack a VT Pedal than try and get my amp on the tube.

It taught me not to worry about on stage sound as long as it sounds OK out front, and now I much prefer it: quick, easy, the soundperson is going to DI you anyway, and it saves a lot of space on small stages.  If there's a small combo, or even a stack knocking about then I'll happily use that as a monitor rather than the PA monitors, but all the amp sound comes from the VT

[hooky_lowdown]

54 minutes ago, Monkey Steve said:

I got into this when playing round London on multi band bills - easier to pack a VT Pedal than try and get my amp on the tube.

It taught me not to worry about on stage sound as long as it sounds OK out front, and now I much prefer it: quick, easy, the soundperson is going to DI you anyway, and it saves a lot of space on small stages.  If there's a small combo, or even a stack knocking about then I'll happily use that as a monitor rather than the PA monitors, but all the amp sound comes from the VT

This was my experience. 👍

[ribbetingfrog]

My band play exclusively straight to pa, no amps.

we only play gigs with our own pa though as the we’ve had bad experiences using other people’s pa.

[borntohang]

I'm VTDI to FOH nearly all the time but I haven't been brave enough to drop the amp for monitoring yet. If you've got your own engineer then I wouldn't hesitate but I do like having the gut rumble there if needed - I'll happily use any old garbage the venue has onstage as an amp though.

[casapete]

1 hour ago, Monkey Steve said:

I got into this when playing round London on multi band bills - easier to pack a VT Pedal than try and get my amp on the tube.

It taught me not to worry about on stage sound as long as it sounds OK out front, and now I much prefer it: quick, easy, the soundperson is going to DI you anyway, and it saves a lot of space on small stages.  If there's a small combo, or even a stack knocking about then I'll happily use that as a monitor rather than the PA monitors, but all the amp sound comes from the VT

Fair play, although not worrying about the stage sound often leads to not the best performance IMHO. It's that compromise between space/transportation/set up easiness and getting things bang on for the gig for you. In a perfect world monitors and engineers would be spot on or you'd have a road crew carrying in your SVT rig. My world unfortunately isn't anywhere near perfect, so I'll stick with a portable/loud (if needs be) and reliable amp & cab. Transport for me isn't a massive issue, though I fully appreciate if I was based in London then I would probably need to have a rethink. 

[Monkey Steve]

20 minutes ago, casapete said:

Fair play, although not worrying about the stage sound often leads to not the best performance IMHO. It's that compromise between space/transportation/set up easiness and getting things bang on for the gig for you. In a perfect world monitors and engineers would be spot on or you'd have a road crew carrying in your SVT rig. My world unfortunately isn't anywhere near perfect, so I'll stick with a portable/loud (if needs be) and reliable amp & cab. Transport for me isn't a massive issue, though I fully appreciate if I was based in London then I would probably need to have a rethink. 

YMMV but I completely disagree about the on stage sound being linked to the performance - I've played gigs where i can hear myself perfectly and I've played gigs where I can barely hear myself beyond being able to tell whether I'm in tune or not, and I'm not aware of there being any difference in the performance

It is definitely a mindset though, and I've trained myself to not care about what I sound like, and to only be bothered about hearing enough of the other instruments to get my cues, timing and tuning.  The attitude is that the gig isn't for my benefit, it's for the audience, and as long as they can hear everything perfectly well my needs are a very distant second

[casapete]

25 minutes ago, Monkey Steve said:

YMMV but I completely disagree about the on stage sound being linked to the performance - I've played gigs where i can hear myself perfectly and I've played gigs where I can barely hear myself beyond being able to tell whether I'm in tune or not, and I'm not aware of there being any difference in the performance

It is definitely a mindset though, and I've trained myself to not care about what I sound like, and to only be bothered about hearing enough of the other instruments to get my cues, timing and tuning.  The attitude is that the gig isn't for my benefit, it's for the audience, and as long as they can hear everything perfectly well my needs are a very distant second

Absolutely agree with you about the audience being the primary priority, but that is surely linked to you being able to your job well, with being able to hear yourself and sounding good a big help? The two aren't mutually exclusive, it being possible for both you and the audience to have a good time. I've done countless gigs where I've used other rigs and had to make the best of it when they've been a bit naff in order to ensure the gig goes well, so am not overly precious when needs must - just prefer things to be right as much as possible.

[EliasMooseblaster]

16 minutes ago, casapete said:

Absolutely agree with you about the audience being the primary priority, but that is surely linked to you being able to your job well, with being able to hear yourself...

I agree with both of you, but particularly the bit I've highlighted - believe me, it's no fun having to play fretless on muscle memory alone!

[skidder652003]

I'll often play DI to PA if the venues space is small, It's loads less hassle and usually sounds ok with decent monitoring, BTW I use a Dave Hall Tube DI

[davegriffiths91]

The last two ship contracts I have done have been ampless with in-ears. In fact the last couple of dep gigs have been in ear monitoring jobs too, I might scrap the amp altogether...

[Sibob]

So as long as you could rely on a monitor (an amp/cab), you’d gig without an amp and cab?

I jest, do you mean in-ears?

Si

Edited August 28, 2019 by Sibob

[soulboy]

On 27/08/2019 at 20:37, Maude said:

We use our own pa on most gigs and have good monitors and our own easily adjusted monitor mixes using the xAir app, I never use an amp when gigging like this and much prefer it, just bass into my Line6 X3 Live then into FOH. But when having to use an in house PA with a sound engineer I always end up taking my amp. I've lost count of the amount of times I've been told, "Oh yeah, you can put your bass through the monitor", and then find their monitors will only handle a bit of bass before the engineer gets tetchy, and I'm happy to cut the bass and boost the mids in the monitor just to be clearly audible and not fussed about having it pounding. It's just quicker and easier to take an amp and look after my self. 

I had a experience playing an LP launch gig in a venue in Central London. Only took my Eden DI pedal as I was travelling by tube. Soundcheck went ok, then second song in of an hour set the in-house engineer decided to take my bass out of all the stage monitors. At the end of the gig he approached me and told me I needed new pickups as my tone was all bottom end and no mids. I have been gigging for 20 years professionally and often get complements on my sound and playing. That night I had to play the gig using the FOH as my monitor. So thats the risk you take.  

[Monkey Steve]

On 28/08/2019 at 15:51, casapete said:

Absolutely agree with you about the audience being the primary priority, but that is surely linked to you being able to your job well, with being able to hear yourself and sounding good a big help? The two aren't mutually exclusive, it being possible for both you and the audience to have a good time. I've done countless gigs where I've used other rigs and had to make the best of it when they've been a bit naff in order to ensure the gig goes well, so am not overly precious when needs must - just prefer things to be right as much as possible.

And I fundamentally disagree with the point you made that the performance will suffer if you can't hear yourself with your ideal sound on stage.  You are somewhat misquoting me by suggesting that I said at any point that a good on stage sound will prevent there being a good FOH sound - I never said that.  What I thought I was very clear about was that I personally don't see that having a bad on stage sound affects my performance

On 28/08/2019 at 16:09, EliasMooseblaster said:

I agree with both of you, but particularly the bit I've highlighted - believe me, it's no fun having to play fretless on muscle memory alone!

Again, never suggested that you shouldn't be able to hear yourself at all, simply that as long as you can hear enough to be able to stay in tune and play with the rest of the band, the actual quality of the on stage sound doesn't matter

[Low End Bee]

It's not just us bass players though. The drummer in the Jetsonics was far more concerned about hearing me loud and clear on stage than I ever was.