Bass gets Louder as I climb the Next

musicman7722 · #1 05-31-2011, 07:48 PM

Hey..my FOH man and I were talking during a break this weekend and I was asking him about my volume etc. He said stage is fine (I use IEM anyway so he has my ok to come up and change my amp at his discression) he said that sometimes when I climb the neck my volume gets louder. I mentioned that I favor my neck Pickup. He said it wasn't a big deal but why not try centering both. I use EMG Hz Pups with a BTS preamp so that was easy. I didn't have the thought to ask him if that helped.

So I'm curious if anybody has any thoughts. I recall a sig of a member up here that read "there is no money above the 5th fret" maybe he is right

musicman7722 · #2 06-02-2011, 05:30 PM

oh well

uhdinator · #3 06-02-2011, 10:54 PM

How experienced is the FOH sound man?
Sounds like Fletcher-Munson curve to me.
peak sensitivity for most is in the 1-5kz range. As freq gets lower volume seems to be lower. It's more drastic at lower volumes.

So as you walk up the neck you are going up in freq too where your hearing is more sensitive. Add also that you are not as much masked by the LF of the kick when going up the neck so that also makes you come up out of the mix more then if you are on an open low E.

walterw · #4 06-02-2011, 11:58 PM

the rig itself may indeed be getting louder; it's easier to reproduce highs than it is lows, so 300 watts of 80Hz is not nearly as loud as 300 watts of 800Hz.

check your EQ, that you're not boosting too much mids and making them bark on higher notes.

musicman7722 · #5 06-03-2011, 05:14 AM

Thanks...The FOH to me is very exp. with very good gear and he is a bass player. I like the masked idea of the sound etc. Makes sense to me. I'll check my eq. It is probably fairly flat, and my amp is usually very quiet onstage so it is the mains.