Amp setting up

[NAS Bass]

Always try cutting some bass frequencies if you are being asked to turn down by FOH. Chances are that your usual (rehearsal room) settings are too bass heavy for that room/stage and you will run the risk of being asked to turn down to the point that you haven't got enough on-stage amp volume to monitor with - bass down and then vol can go up. The tone on stage shouldn't be too much of an issue as you should be sending a good, clean, pre-EQ signal to FOH anyway - and you can always get the FOH mix in the stage monitors. 

[Boodang]

10 hours ago, la bam said:

Usually I just run Amps flat with a little mid boost. 

 

If that ever doesn't work Laney have the best one dial trick there is. It's called a tilt dial. It takes whatever your favoured eq settings are (ie what you like in a good room) and tilts them either basswards or treblewwards. It keeps your eq across the spectrum and just subtly tilts it if it's too bass or not bass enough for that room. This is much better than adding or cutting a specific bass eq etc. If not, the usually dials are there if needed, but the tilt does a great job. 

The Aguilar octamizer has a great tilt eq. Even if I'm not using the octave function, the tilt gets used. 

[Downunderwonder]

12 hours ago, la bam said:

Usually I just run Amps flat with a little mid boost. 

 

If that ever doesn't work Laney have the best one dial trick there is. It's called a tilt dial. It takes whatever your favoured eq settings are (ie what you like in a good room) and tilts them either basswards or treblewwards. It keeps your eq across the spectrum and just subtly tilts it if it's too bass or not bass enough for that room. This is much better than adding or cutting a specific bass eq etc. If not, the usually dials are there if needed, but the tilt does a great job. 

That was Trace Elliot's ace in the hole for donkey's years.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Downunderwonder

[BigRedX]

I can say I've ever needed to fiddle with the EQ when using my of rig to get the right sound. maybe I've just been lucky with the venues I have played. I have played two places where the sound was appalling, but that was down to the the acoustics of the room and no amount of adjusting the EQ would have made any difference, so I left every as it was. Remember that poor room acoustics are a combination of both frequency domain and time domain problems and a frequency domain solution while making it sound better in one place is having zero effect (or even making it worse) elsewhere in the venue. If you could fix room acoustics with just EQ there would be no need for expensive acoustic treatment in recording studios, you could simply slap a 31-band graphic across the monitor outputs and you'd be sorted.

[Boodang]

56 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I can say I've ever needed to fiddle with the EQ when using my of rig to get the right sound. maybe I've just been lucky with the venues I have played. I have played two places where the sound was appalling, but that was down to the the acoustics of the room and no amount of adjusting the EQ would have made any difference, so I left every as it was. Remember that poor room acoustics are a combination of both frequency domain and time domain problems and a frequency domain solution while making it sound better in one place is having zero effect (or even making it worse) elsewhere in the venue. If you could fix room acoustics with just EQ there would be no need for expensive acoustic treatment in recording studios, you could simply slap a 31-band graphic across the monitor outputs and you'd be sorted.

Expensive acoustic treatments are about making a studio perfect, 31 band graphic eq's are about making a room workable in a live situation, and hopefully less awful than it would be otherwise. As well as playing bass I also engineer for some local bands that include venues with some very interesting acoustics and eq'ing for the room is most definitely a thing. The sound would be far worse if we weren't using the tools at our disposal on the digital desk... 5 band master comp on the FoH, notch filters on troubling frequencies and taking care of broad eq needs like making sure the bass has definition (some mids), eq'ing the bass drum/snare/cymbals to give space for other instruments etc. You can't cure bad acoustics in a venue but you can do a lot to mitigate.

Interestingly, two cover bands I do the sound for, one uses an expensive Spector bass, the other one of the new, cheap, Steinberg headless basses. The Steinberg has a nasty nasal sound on it's own, but sounds perfect when in the context of the band and requires no eq, the Spector has a great solo sound, very full, and gets lost in the mix until we add some upper mids. 

[TimR]

I used to spend a long time messing with EQ before the gig and the fiddling during the gig.

 

Until I realised that unless the stage is suspended and there's loads of boom due to the space under the floor being coupled to the bass cab, there was no real point. Let the gear sound as 'transparent' as possible.

 

Maybe it's just a confidence/experience thing. 

 

It goes along with your bedroom tone won't sound like your band rehearsal tone which won't sound like your live sound. 

 

Listen to any well known band live and they won't have the same sound as they have on their recordings. Close maybe but it will be a live sound.