Gnarly Backline Experience (in the bad way)

ishouldbeking · #1 09-21-2010, 04:31 PM

Oy. Played a festival gig this past sunday... overall fun show, made some money, decent crowd, got fed w/ a lobster dinner (!), and got to play right on the edge of the Pacific. The downside was the backline and stage sound. A lot of times I'll bring along my rig when backline is provided, but in the past I've done fine with festival backline. Not so this time.

On paper it SHOULD have been fine. The fest rider said "GK bass rig", and I've owned GK in the past... sure, it wasn't for me, but I know how to use the EQ for my gear, yadda yadda. This particular rig was a crusty warhorse of an 800RB thru a newer neo 4x10. Unfortunately there was no sound check, just a quick line check 15 minutes before our set... so with the 3 or so minutes I was able to tone tweak I immediately realized 2 things: (1) holy god is this rig brighter than my normal (admittedly dark) Ashdown into Orange 1x15 and (2) something was going horribly wrong at the input stage and distorting like mad. Distorting in the bad way, yes.

I play a Ric thru a VT Bass pedal, so warming up the tone / taming the treble only took a few knob twists, but that input distortion was miserable... I double checked to make sure the VT bass was set at unity gain, and then i experimented with the active pad (which you'd think a Ric wouldn't require): without the pad it was horrible grinding solid state preamp distortion, with the pad it was thin, weak uber quiet Ric. I knew I had to have a decent amount of stage volume (since the monitor situation was even less pleasant, much to my singer's chagrin) so I opted for aural suicide and left the pad disengaged.

It was one of those experiences where I knew my stage sound was awful, but I had to pray it sounded alright in the stands. Apparently it sounded quite good, as the DI they were using was one of those gigantic tube DI's labeled "THE BRICK", and its girth was such that you knew it would sound like heaven. I didn't get a chance to mess with "the brick" at all, but now I'm wondering if that thing could have been sending out some seriously juiced up output into the 800RB...

Anyone ever have a problem like that? It's done now (thankfully), but it was a pretty miserable experience, and one I'd rather avoid in the future.

lowphatbass · #2 09-21-2010, 05:22 PM

That's rough.
Opened for a band one time, do to logistics I had to play through the headliner's rig, I was told it was Ampeg and it's a pretty well known/hip band so I figured it would be alright. When it came down to it I was not allowed to touch ANY of the knobs because the headliners had already sound-checked. It was set to absolute MUDDDDDD, no mids, no treble, just bass, and lot's of it. It was rough.

bassplayer8953 · #3 09-21-2010, 05:38 PM

Nice to bring an active bass, at least as a backup, when backline is provided. I've played though a house-provided backline on several occasions, and my standard Fender P/J came through just fine. I didn't reset the original settings at all.

But I bring my EMG equipped Spector as a backup. In case the amp settings are not something I'm used to, some boost/cut in the treble/bass frequencies will usually help the overall tone.

ishouldbeking · #4 09-21-2010, 05:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowphatbass

That's rough.
Opened for a band one time, do to logistics I had to play through the headliner's rig, I was told it was Ampeg and it's a pretty well known/hip band so I figured it would be alright. When it came down to it I was not allowed to touch ANY of the knobs because the headliners had already sound-checked. It was set to absolute MUDDDDDD, no mids, no treble, just bass, and lot's of it. It was rough.

Ugh, sounds mighty unfun.

I'm often surprised by the bizarre settings I encounter on other players rigs whenever I share amps or have a backline situation. I once used a local band's Ampeg SVT-450 into an ampeg 1x15 rig and as soon as I plugged in I was boggled at the sounds coming out. He had the mids rolled to zero, bass boosted quite a bit, and the treble flat. Given the bassist and I were coming from very different starting points, me with my Rick and a pick, him with an Epiphone Jack Casady played fingerstyle... we needed very different EQ. Admittedly he sounded great through his rig... for me I think I ran it almost flat with my usual SVT settings... boost the mids a little, cut the highs a touch.

ishouldbeking · #5 09-21-2010, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bassplayer8953

Nice to bring an active bass, at least as a backup, when backline is provided. I've played though a house-provided backline on several occasions, and my standard Fender P/J came through just fine. I didn't reset the original settings at all.

But I bring my EMG equipped Spector as a backup. In case the amp settings are not something I'm used to, some boost/cut in the treble/bass frequencies will usually help the overall tone.

That's my thinking with the VT Bass pedal, which is just an ampeg-emulating preamp at the end of the day. I keep it dialed in for my rig, but I can make adjustments on the fly when dealing with oddball rigs (which I tried to do as much as I could) If I really had enough time I bet I could have sorted the situation, but it was the combination of something funky going on and having no time to sound check.

lowphatbass · #6 09-21-2010, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ishouldbeking

Ugh, sounds mighty unfun.

I'm often surprised by the bizarre settings I encounter on other players rigs whenever I share amps or have a backline situation. I once used a local band's Ampeg SVT-450 into an ampeg 1x15 rig and as soon as I plugged in I was boggled at the sounds coming out. He had the mids rolled to zero, bass boosted quite a bit, and the treble flat. Given the bassist and I were coming from very different starting points, me with my Rick and a pick, him with an Epiphone Jack Casady played fingerstyle... we needed very different EQ. Admittedly he sounded great through his rig... for me I think I ran it almost flat with my usual SVT settings... boost the mids a little, cut the highs a touch.

Yea, it's surprising. The band I was opening for was a MexiBluesRock band, they were doing some traditional numbers that night, but normally a Jazz bass was used. Not too far from the Dingwall I was playing, I like a lot of bottom-end too and know how to use my really flexible EQ, but an 4-Pro on top of an SWR 4x10 set to MUD is hard to overcome I found out. I ended-up turning the volume down to a point that I could hear both the amp on stage and the house, luckily it was a big stage and I wasn't sitting on top of the drummer or anything.

anderbass · #7 09-21-2010, 06:24 PM

Hey I've got a couple of those "The Brick" DI's. The 1/4" Through Output jack (that should of been connected to the GK amp input) have no additional gain no mater how the Bricks Gain knob is set. The Bricks Gain knob only affects The XLR Balanced Output jack.

So I was thinking it could of been a problem with the GK preamp section and you could of tried inputting the GK Effects return jack using you VT pedal as a front end for its poweramp.

ishouldbeking · #8 09-21-2010, 07:03 PM

interesting. yeah, if i'd had more time I would have really tried to root out the cause, but in this case it was better to suck it up and play. stage tone can throw me off a bit and alter my playing style when i try to accommodate and "make it sound better" via technique, but in this case i just chugged my beer and unleashed the thunder anyway. what DID throw me off was the mid-day sun... talk about a sweat-fest.