Devil's Amp-vocate (sorry...)

[BassAdder60]

2 hours ago, fretmeister said:

The amp didn't do the work. The PA did.

So you were not using the amp to hear but as a DI method to the PA and used PA monitors to be heard ?

 

Ive just purchased a £40 passive DI box for this very method as an amp failure backup 

[fretmeister]

19 minutes ago, BassAdder27 said:

So you were not using the amp to hear but as a DI method to the PA and used PA monitors to be heard ?

 

Ive just purchased a £40 passive DI box for this very method as an amp failure backup 

 

 

Yes. I could hear a little bit from it, but most of what I heard was the PA / monitors

 

It wasn't my rig. It was set up at the venue and it was easier to use that rather than use mine. I had a moan in another thread about wishing they had told me about it before I had carried all my kit down a bunch of country lanes!

[molan]

2 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

In my classic rock band I struggle with an 810.  @Downunderwonders quote of caffeine fuelled chimp comes to mind.

Classic 810’s tend to be dreadful for on-stage sound - unless your stage area is at least 10 metres deep so you can stand well away from the cab. 
 

We used to test big 810s and 610s in the store and measure approximately how long the throw was. 
 

A Mesa 610 was about the worst (or best depending on what you’re after). It sounded thin and without volume until you walked all the way back into the next building - then a bloody great low bass sound wave would hit you slap bang in the chest and make your ribcage vibrate 😂

[Lozz196]

This is only in the rehearsal studio. It’s also using their Ampeg SVT 350H which is not a particularly great amp imo. 

[fretmeister]

3 hours ago, BassAdder27 said:

So you were not using the amp to hear but as a DI method to the PA and used PA monitors to be heard ?

 

Ive just purchased a £40 passive DI box for this very method as an amp failure backup 

 

What will you get your tone from if it's just a passive di?

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, molan said:

A Mesa 610 was about the worst (or best depending on what you’re after). It sounded thin and without volume until you walked all the way back into the next building - then a bloody great low bass sound wave would hit you slap bang in the chest and make your ribcage vibrate 😂

 

That's best Barry, I don't need the visceral clout of the bass, that's what i want the punters to experience 👍

 

God bless Mesa cabs

[thodrik]

3 hours ago, molan said:

Classic 810’s tend to be dreadful for on-stage sound - unless your stage area is at least 10 metres deep so you can stand well away from the cab. 
 

We used to test big 810s and 610s in the store and measure approximately how long the throw was. 
 

A Mesa 610 was about the worst (or best depending on what you’re after). It sounded thin and without volume until you walked all the way back into the next building - then a bloody great low bass sound wave would hit you slap bang in the chest and make your ribcage vibrate 😂

A think that ‘thin and without volume’ would be the exact opposite description of my experience with a Mesa 6x10! Definitely an upper mid hump aggressive voicing but loads of low end extension, but that is with the ported Powerhouse cabs. Not tried the more vintage sealed cabs.

 

Pretty much the most obnoxiously loud cab I have used. And bloody hell the weight…Completely over the top for any gig I can imagine. 
 

But a guy was selling one for £400 so I bought one about four years ago.

 

I still gig with a 1x15 combo.

[SamPlaysBass]

On 27/06/2022 at 11:17, ezbass said:

 

Glad to see Cardinal Black doing so well @SamPlaysBass.

My cover’s blown! Thank you very much, greatly appreciated. Genuinely intrigued what other bassists would do in the above situation.
 

On the Myles Kennedy tour, I used an Ashdown ABM500 Evo 3 and an ABM 4x10. Front of house was fed with a mic to the cab (if we had time) and the SansAmp. The set up worked well. It was nice to have some control over monitoring by way of the amp rather than leave it to someone else (granted, every sound engineer we came across was outstanding and a true professional in every way, but sometimes it’s nice to control your own volume rather than asking mid set). The SansAmp did the heavy lifting for the PA, and the Ashdown helped out with everything. Good results. 

[BigRedX]

9 hours ago, SamPlaysBass said:

My cover’s blown! Thank you very much, greatly appreciated. Genuinely intrigued what other bassists would do in the above situation.
 

On the Myles Kennedy tour, I used an Ashdown ABM500 Evo 3 and an ABM 4x10. Front of house was fed with a mic to the cab (if we had time) and the SansAmp. The set up worked well. It was nice to have some control over monitoring by way of the amp rather than leave it to someone else (granted, every sound engineer we came across was outstanding and a true professional in every way, but sometimes it’s nice to control your own volume rather than asking mid set). The SansAmp did the heavy lifting for the PA, and the Ashdown helped out with everything. Good results. 

 

Thanks for updating us.

 

When the cab was mic'd, did anyone take the time to listen to each driver in turn to find out which one was closest to delivering the "sound of the cab", and if so did you ensure that this was the driver that was mic'd each time?

Edited July 3, 2022 by BigRedX

[SamPlaysBass]

On 03/07/2022 at 17:39, BigRedX said:

 

Thanks for updating us.

 

When the cab was mic'd, did anyone take the time to listen to each driver in turn to find out which one was closest to delivering the "sound of the cab", and if so did you ensure that this was the driver that was mic'd each time?

The short answer is no, and the long answer is no, there wasn’t time. 
 

As much as that would be ideal and especially useful for future reference and recording, timings are still generally tight for the load in. Despite them being very decent venues, we were ‘only’ the support band and so had the slops when it came to timings. I wasn’t even aware of what mic was being used (though one night it was definitely a trusty SM57), and it was only on 3 nights out of 9 my cab was actually mic’d. If / when we’re in the headliner’s position, I’d like to spend some time doing just what you’ve described and getting it down to a fine art. That said, how much the audience would notice is another debate. The SansAmp settings I use are not traditionally SansAmp-y (i.e. heavy mid-scoop and a bit dirty) either. It’s more an facsimile of a valve amp well within its limits - fairly clean. It did the majority of the work whilst a cab feed added other possibilities if needed. Plenty of compliments, though. 
 

Looking at Tim’s (Myles’ bass player) rig, he had a lovely Mesa set up but there was a feed from a Fender Downtown DI doing a lot of the DI work. He probably had his cabs mic’d up but again what was actually coming out of the FOH was down the sound guy on the night. 

[Muzz]

Outdoor festival on Sunday (7000 or so in attendance), I turned up without backline, to find there was no backline. A slight surprise, but no drama; Bass -> Helix -> DI. Huge sound out of the monitors. At no point did I miss a big stack...especially as roadies were as rare as rainbow unicorns around the place...OK, my trousers weren't flapping behind me, but my eyebrows were hoisted a treat by the monitor mix, which was much, much better...

 

TL:DR - how much room was there for groupies again?

[SamPlaysBass]

Muzz - a good monitor mix is the dream. If only every gig had a great monitor sound 😂 

 

I played a festival a few weeks back with a huge 8x10 and an SVT on top of it. It was barely audible otherwise it would interfere with the mics on stage. SansAmp did the heavy lifting again through the PA. Looked great on stage though 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

[Lozz196]

Yep, although I don’t like bass in the monitors that much if it could be guaranteed that it would be there at sufficient levels for the whole band I’d happily gig with just my bass and a Sansamp or my Ampeg SCR-DI. I still prefer the sound of the bass from the amp behind me with just vocals (and a bit of guitar) in the monitors but it makes things a lot easier for all, providing the monitor mix is good enough of course. 

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, SamPlaysBass said:

Muzz - a good monitor mix is the dream. If only every gig had a great monitor sound 😂 

 

I played a festival a few weeks back with a huge 8x10 and an SVT on top of it. It was barely audible otherwise it would interfere with the mics on stage. SansAmp did the heavy lifting again through the PA. Looked great on stage though 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

 

This situation is exactly why I ended up ditching my amp and cabs. 

 

With one of the bands I play with most of our gigs are supports for reasonably well-known bands who still use a traditional backline and therefore I just set up in front of the bass rig and no-one in the audience is any the wiser. 

 

With my other band the line up is vocals, synths and myself playing Bass VI with programmed drums and additional sequenced synths supplied by the computer. In this case the empty stage really suits the overall band image.