Rehearsal room rig took the wind out of my sails

[Guest MoJo]

I recently picked up an SBMM SUB5 for an absolute steal of a price. A no risk venture as I should be able to sell it for almost double what I paid for it. I restrung it and took it to rehearsal on Wednesday evening. Through my Rumble 500v3 combo, it sounded great, sitting very nicely in the mix, it suited the overall sound of the band. 
Feeling inflated, I took it to an informal ‘knock about’ with some friends, the following evening at a local rehearsal studio. Backline was provided and in the room we were in, I was supplied with a Hartley HA2000 going into a Peavey TVX115. I set everything flat on the Hartke and the EQ flat on the SUB. It sounded dreadful. Honky was the best word to describe it. I spent the next 20 minutes tweaking the EQ on the amp and the bass, trying to get something decent sounding. I even, at one point, sent a text to my wife, asking her to bring down my P-bass (which she didn’t read until the session had ended). 
I can’t believe that my elation on the Wednesday evening, with thoughts of ‘this is a keeper, I’m going to gig this’ could be turned around into ‘I want my P-Bass’, so quickly. 
The SUB will be getting another run out at Fridays gig when I’ll be A/B’ing it with my BB425. I’ll reserve judgment on the SUB until then

[BrunoBass]

Is the amp the issue rather than the bass? 
 

The room has a big influence on tone too, as you’ll know. I can use my bass / amp in one room in our rehearsal space and it sounds great, the next week in a different room, same studio, and it sounds totally different / inferior. 

[T-Bay]

Do you play in those rooms often? We use one where the sound is terrible, I have got used to it now and we only use it when our normal one is busy.

Edited October 26, 2019 by T-Bay

[dmccombe7]

Sounds more like the amp is the issue rather than the bass.

 

[Guest MoJo]

38 minutes ago, BrunoBass said:

Is the amp the issue rather than the bass? 
 

The room has a big influence on tone too, as you’ll know. I can use my bass / amp in one room in our rehearsal space and it sounds great, the next week in a different room, same studio, and it sounds totally different / inferior. 

 

26 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Sounds more like the amp is the issue rather than the bass.

 

I’ve no doubt that it is the amp/room that is more to blame than the bass but I’m glad that I got the chance to run it through my own rig first or it’d be up for sale right now

[dmccombe7]

Of course you now need to ask yourself how your P  bass would have sounded in the 2nd rig / room. ?

Would your P bass sound good thru any amp cause its a P bass. 

Dave

[Crawford13]

I’m going to say that’s a problem with the rig, more than the bass.

[Cat Burrito]

I find the quality of gear in many rehearsal studios highly questionable. Even stuff that I know to be good has simply been ragged to death. I've come in and everything has been on 10 (or perhaps 11?!). It's a balance between dragging down my own kit and sounding how I want or compromising. Often now I bring my head down to plug into their cabs in case it's sounding flat.

[Guest MoJo]

1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

Of course you now need to ask yourself how your P  bass would have sounded in the 2nd rig / room. ?

Would your P bass sound good thru any amp cause its a P bass. 

Dave

Yes, yes it would

[chris_b]

I've never been in a rehearsal room that did justice to the sound of the band, let alone my sound.

[dmccombe7]

21 minutes ago, chris_b said:

I've never been in a rehearsal room that did justice to the sound of the band, let alone my sound.

The rooms we use generally a decent sized room all air-con with all the gear supplied pretty good quality. Usual bass amps are EBS HD360 or Aguilar AG500 thru Ampeg 810 cabs. Marshall guitar amps and i think it Pearl drum kits (see pic attached) £35 / 3hrs

As much as the bass rigs are pretty good gear i'm never really happy with my sound no matter what bass i use. If i listen back to recording bass sounds pretty good in the mix.

Then i decided to take my own Mesa rig in to get used to it before gigging with it and couldn't believe the difference it made to our sound. The full band commented on it. Full, warm and altho not overly loud you could just feel the bass as well as hear it.

My point being that sometimes using your own rig can make the difference on how you hear the band in full. Listening to the recordings of it there was a different bass sound but not as much as i thought it would be based on the difference i heard in the studio.

Dave

[Dood]

I’d blame the cabinet. I was offered backline for a gig with one of those once and there wasn’t anything we could do with a totr Spector and a decent amp that could make the sound good. 

[BrunoBass]

2 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

The rooms we use generally a decent sized room all air-con with all the gear supplied pretty good quality. Usual bass amps are EBS HD360 or Aguilar AG500 thru Ampeg 810 cabs. Marshall guitar amps and i think it Pearl drum kits (see pic attached) £35 / 3hrs

As much as the bass rigs are pretty good gear i'm never really happy with my sound no matter what bass i use. If i listen back to recording bass sounds pretty good in the mix.

Then i decided to take my own Mesa rig in to get used to it before gigging with it and couldn't believe the difference it made to our sound. The full band commented on it. Full, warm and altho not overly loud you could just feel the bass as well as hear it.

My point being that sometimes using your own rig can make the difference on how you hear the band in full. Listening to the recordings of it there was a different bass sound but not as much as i thought it would be based on the difference i heard in the studio.

Dave

One can only dream of rehearsing in such a space. The studio we use resembles a student house on a building site. 

[AndyTravis]

5 hours ago, T-Bay said:

Do you play in those rooms often? We use one where the sound is terrible, I have got used to it now and we only use it when our normal one is busy.

We did this the other week. How a Godlyke Disciple into a 500w Ashdown Sounded bad I’ll have no idea. The week before (at the regular rehearsal space) I was nearly in tears that I’d found “my sound”. Weird. It was a terrible rehearsal too.

[dmccombe7]

I've tried other studios much the same description as you mention but still £30 / 3 hrs so its worthwhile using this one.

Many famous artists use it sometimes pre gig rehearsal for SSEC OR Hydra.

Steely Dan were in few mths back. Beyonce, Chris Glenn who had Michael Schenker on guitar just to name a few that i recognised. Chill room with large comfy seats and TV, coffee machine and snack machines too.

All major towns and cities should have this kind of quality instead of paying for a dump in a dark and damp basement. I guess we are just lucky in Glasgow area. There are a few other studios that compete and try to emulate Berkeley Studios but this is my favoured one.

Dave

[T-Bay]

Just now, AndyTravis said:

We did this the other week. How a Godlyke Disciple into a 500w Ashdown Sounded bad I’ll have no idea. The week before (at the regular rehearsal space) I was nearly in tears that I’d found “my sound”. Weird. It was a terrible rehearsal too.

Yup, been there and done that. My orange amp and barefaced cabs just sound like mush at the bad one, it’s like I have fitted the worst strings possible ten years ago and am playing through blancmange. It’s frustrating how you can dial in a perfect sound then you get to a gig and it’s totally different.

 

[AndyTravis]

Just now, T-Bay said:

Yup, been there and done that. My orange amp and barefaced cabs just sound like mush at the bad one, it’s like I have fitted the worst strings possible ten years ago and am playing through blancmange. It’s frustrating how you can dial in a perfect sound then you get to a gig and it’s totally different.

 

Went back to regular place the week after, they’re a bit intermittent at the moment as they’re building 2 new rooms and a new live room. So they’re down a couple of spaces, if we don’t pre book a few weeks in advance we’re goosed.

[Bassman Sam]

6 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

The rooms we use generally a decent sized room all air-con with all the gear supplied pretty good quality. Usual bass amps are EBS HD360 or Aguilar AG500 thru Ampeg 810 cabs. Marshall guitar amps and i think it Pearl drum kits (see pic attached) £35 / 3hrs

As much as the bass rigs are pretty good gear i'm never really happy with my sound no matter what bass i use. If i listen back to recording bass sounds pretty good in the mix.

Then i decided to take my own Mesa rig in to get used to it before gigging with it and couldn't believe the difference it made to our sound. The full band commented on it. Full, warm and altho not overly loud you could just feel the bass as well as hear it.

My point being that sometimes using your own rig can make the difference on how you hear the band in full. Listening to the recordings of it there was a different bass sound but not as much as i thought it would be based on the difference i heard in the studio.

Dave

I've used that studio too. Just brilliant.