Mic for bass cab on stage

[JakeBrownBass]

DPA 4055

 

You won't look back.

[jimmyb625]

9 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Ideally a sound engineer's main concern should not be control/safety but representing the music in the best possible way, and as close as possible to how the artist in question envisions it.

 

Though I do realize that a lot of sound engineers sadly aren't really qualified for their job.

 

A one size fits all standard solution, which is exactly what many people who call themself sound "engineers" operate with, just won't cut it when we are talking music or art in general, or really in all that many other situations in life for that matter, I guess maybe with the exception of working at an assembly line where such utterly incompetent attitude might actually in fact even be desired.

 

With today's technology a properly constructed AI might in fact quite likely be able to do a much better job at serving the individual band's sound than one of those hacks.

 

 

Interesting viewpoint.

 

I take it from this, you have your own sound engineer, who you pay to attend rehearsals/mixing sessions etc?

[Baloney Balderdash]

7 hours ago, jimmyb625 said:

Interesting viewpoint.

 

I take it from this, you have your own sound engineer, who you pay to attend rehearsals/mixing sessions etc?

I don't see how that could possibly be the logical conclusion of my point, perhaps in fact rather the contrary.

 

Though to answer you question, I have personally always mostly been unfortunately whenever PA support was needed at gigs with happening to have a competent sound guy behind the mixing console, and in terms of recording it has always either been a case of one of my bandmates who happened to also be a competent sound engineer (and yes, some of this was on a real record label, with the same guy engineering/producing for other artists on the same label as well. And yes, he would usually mic up the bass cabs, and with several different mics too), or in later years myself.  

 

What I wrote in my initial reply though is based on reading countless, hundreds, if you need numbers, reports throughout the years from different musicians on various musician forums being unhappy with the treatment they have received from sound engineers at gigs as well as in studio recording situations (and most of these musicians also pointing this out as being a general recurrent experience with different sound guys), and, compared to above described personal experience, what I wrote seems to be what all those reports really come down to: incompetent people who call themself sound engineers who are not working with the musicians, but rather insisting on cramping their one size fit all solutions down over musician's heads (be it out of lazy selfish convenience or genuine incompetence), or said in another way, insisting on getting their one "magic" square block down through just about any shape of hole they meet, and following this analogy, and I guess this is where the genuine imcompetence comes in, perhaps not even recognizing the hole actually being a different shape.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[Downunderwonder]

The Barefaced 210 throws you a curveball by low passing one of the woofers. Close mic on either isn't going to be very representative and you won't get anywhere trying to mic it from 2ft back on a loud stage.

 

Your mythical blending will become.essential as the only one worth the mic is the full range one. I wouldn't want to be the one insisting on a 2 channel blend.

[Jack]

3 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

The Barefaced 210 throws you a curveball by low passing one of the woofers. Close mic on either isn't going to be very representative and you won't get anywhere trying to mic it from 2ft back on a loud stage.

 

Your mythical blending will become.essential as the only one worth the mic is the full range one. I wouldn't want to be the one insisting on a 2 channel blend.

Things like this aren't insurmountable though. You close mic the full range half and then boost the bass on the channel sightly until it sounds vaguely similar. Or just use a mic with some proximity effect to have a bass boosted start. A lot of people seem to think that the point of micing the cab is to perfectly convey some ideal cab sound into the room but I mean, the cab sounds different in every room anyway. To me at least the point of micing the cab is more about chopping some of the harsh edges off of a DI signal and having a slightly more old school starting sound in the PA, but any engineer is still going to modify that sound however they see fit to match the mix, the pa system and the room.

[Downunderwonder]

15 minutes ago, Jack said:

the pa system and the room

This is where it all falls down. PA doesn't get tuned for the room so the bass cab can sound like it should through the PA.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Downunderwonder

[Jack]

2 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

This is where it all falls down. PA doesn't get tuned for the room so the bass cab sounds like it should through the PA.

What makes you think the PA doesn't get tuned for the room? 

 

What makes you think there's a way a bass cab should sound? Do you just want 100% accurate reproduction? What if that doesn't work?

[Chienmortbb]

3 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

The Barefaced 210 throws you a curveball by low passing one of the woofers. Close mic on either isn't going to be very representative and you won't get anywhere trying to mic it from 2ft back on a loud stage.

 

Your mythical blending will become.essential as the only one worth the mic is the full range one. I wouldn't want to be the one insisting on a 2 channel blend.

However, one of the drivers is "full range", so as long as you choose the correct one to mic up there should be no problem. No one should be under the illusion that the sound in the crowd is the sound in their head.

[Downunderwonder]

Just now, Chienmortbb said:

However, one of the drivers is "full range", so as long as you choose the correct one to mic up there should be no problem. No one should be under the illusion that the sound in the crowd is the sound in their head.

It's 'full range' but it only has half of the low pass to go with all of the high pass.

 

[jimmyb625]

9 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

I don't see how that could possibly be the logical conclusion of my point, perhaps in fact rather the contrary.

 

Though to answer you question, I have personally always mostly been unfortunately whenever PA support was needed at gigs with happening to have a competent sound guy behind the mixing console, and in terms of recording it has always either been a case of one of my bandmates who happened to also be a competent sound engineer (and yes, some of this was on a real record label, with the same guy engineering/producing for other artists on the same label as well. And yes, he would usually mic up the bass cabs, and with several different mics too), or in later years myself.  

 

What I wrote in my initial reply though is based on reading countless, hundreds, if you need numbers, reports throughout the years from different musicians on various musician forums being unhappy with the treatment they have received from sound engineers at gigs as well as in studio recording situations (and most of these musicians also pointing this out as being a general recurrent experience with different sound guys), and, compared to above described personal experience, what I wrote seems to be what all those reports really come down to: incompetent people who call themself sound engineers who are not working with the musicians, but rather insisting on cramping their one size fit all solutions down over musician's heads (be it out of lazy selfish convenience or genuine incompetence), or said in another way, insisting on getting their one "magic" square block down through just about any shape of hole they meet, and following this analogy, and I guess this is where the genuine imcompetence comes in, perhaps not even recognizing the hole actually being a different shape.

This is talking about mic'ing a cabinet on stage, not in a studio, so it's a completely different situation.

 

There are different levels of engineers, just as there are different levels of people who call themselves musicians. The point being, if you turn up at a venue, where the person driving the PA has never heard of you or your band, expecting them to know what "your sound" is, is unrealistic at best.

 

It'll be even worse at a festival, where you're lucky to get anything more than a cursory line-check.

 

If you want someone who knows every detail of "your sound" and the complexities of every work of art you've produced, then it seems logical to get someone involved who you can take to the performances to help you achieve that.

 

If people are having similar issues in a studio, they're likely using the wrong studio for them.

[Baloney Balderdash]

3 hours ago, jimmyb625 said:

This is talking about mic'ing a cabinet on stage, not in a studio, so it's a completely different situation.

 

There are different levels of engineers, just as there are different levels of people who call themselves musicians. The point being, if you turn up at a venue, where the person driving the PA has never heard of you or your band, expecting them to know what "your sound" is, is unrealistic at best.

 

It'll be even worse at a festival, where you're lucky to get anything more than a cursory line-check.

 

If you want someone who knows every detail of "your sound" and the complexities of every work of art you've produced, then it seems logical to get someone involved who you can take to the performances to help you achieve that.

 

If people are having similar issues in a studio, they're likely using the wrong studio for them.

I don't know where you are getting all this from, not anything I wrote at least.

 

I just want someone with ears who knows how to adjust properly accordingly to what they actually hear and what they otherwise have been told is your tonal goals, with at least a minimum of knowledge and understanding about/of different genres of music/types of musical expressions, is that really too much to ask from someone who is supposed to be responsible for the sound of the bands playing?

 

One would think that actually being a pretty essential and vital "detail" of a live performance.

 

As said I have always been fortunate, also when playing at open air festivals, so is actually totally possible, just not my general impression from what I've read that this is as common as one (or well, obviously not you) would perhaps otherwise expect.

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[velvetkevorkian]

2 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

is that really too much to ask from someone who is supposed to be responsible for the sound of the bands playing?

IME, yes...

[SubsonicSimpleton]

In the studio you can spend time eliminating LF phase issues between the DI and mic'd signals, it isn't really realistic to expect a house engineer to do this in any situation where soundcheck time is limited, or to expect them to reconfigure the desk channel layout to accomodate you.

 

Getting a better sounding DI source is a much better bet - if you want your band to sound good, making the engineers job more complicated is an approach that will be self defeating most of the time.

[Downunderwonder]

10 hours ago, Jack said:

What makes you think the PA doesn't get tuned for the room?

All the PA's that get 'tuned' for maximum rumble.

[Jack]

20 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

All the PA's that get 'tuned' for maximum rumble.

I'd imagine that the user error would be roughly the same whether it was a DI or a mic.