Sansamp BDDI newbie needs help with live sound!

[Joe164]

Hi guys. This is my first post on this board as im a newbie with D.Iing.

My usual ampeg SVT 3 Pro+410 rig is as you'd expect horrible to lug around so i opted to D.I'ing into the mixing board at gigs when i couldnt be bothered to bring the full rig.

When i first tried this the end product was great, my tone sounded good but there was one problem - apparently the sound guy couldn't give me any bass through the monitors? Is this how it works? The bass was coming through the P.A only so it was hard to hear onstage during the show, is there any way to get the Sansamp signal through the monitors?

Forgive me, i am a newbie at this D.I lark...

Cheers

[Joe164]

Bump for help

[stflbn]

The soundman 'can'... or 'should' be able to.

Question is... would he, or will the monitors handle it. In all likelyhood the monitors wouldn't handle it and would crap out.

[spaz21387]

Certain venues have bad moniters on stage for the bands. I have played at 2 clubs where we couldnt hear eachother at all. So whenever we play those venues we bring full stacks.

[pgolliher]

yes, the soundman should be able to put anything in the monitor the band requests, although some of them are weird about putting bass into the monitors. Introduce yourself to the sound guy, tell him you are only using a DI and need some bass in the monitors and then offer to buy him a beer... Problem should be solved.

[TinIndian]

We run our own sound (pain in the butt) but we can put anything we want through our monitors. Other than capacity/power handling issues, I don't see why he couldn't.

[Joe164]

Ok guys, interesting. So it seems it's possible to do but some sound guys don't like to do it?

Well as long as it can be done i am happy, i wasn't convinced when the soundguy said he "cant" do it.

Thankyou guys! Any more input appreciated

[steve_rolfeca]

Originally Posted by stflbn

The soundman 'can'... or 'should' be able to.

Question is... would he, or will the monitors handle it. In all likelyhood the monitors wouldn't handle it and would crap out.

Assuming it's a reasonably pro setup, he has the ability to put you through the mixer to the monitors. It should sound decent through good floor wedges (ie; just about anything name-brand with 15" drivers, or some of the better 12" bins).

If they're using Hot Spots or smaller wedges, then he's probably trying to save you from bad sound, and/or blown drivers.

I play a lot at a place that uses QSC HPR12i active PA speakers as monitors. They play as loud, and sound a little better, than a lot of affordable bass amps.

[GreggBummer]

The problem isn't with your Sansamp. The issue is on the soundman's end. You should be able to get bass in your mix. There may be a seperate issue of the mix being at a useful volume. Again, this is the soundmans responsibility.

I try to contact sound guys I haven't worked with before prior to the gig. Just to introduce myself and ask what I need to bring to make his life easier.

Sometimes, you have bring an amp. There is no way around it if the PA system you are working with stinks.

This is what a combo is useful for. In certain situations, you can DI out the PA and use the combo for onstage sound.

Bass players, like drummers, are expected to lug heavy equipment. It's in the job description.

[pgolliher]

to OP: I had the exact same rig you are describing and I sold it and got a GK MB210 combo. It is around 35 lbs and sounds awesome. I will never lug around a heavy cab again. I still bring my sansamp as a back though.

[Kael]

I do a LOT of ampless gigs. If a soundman tells you bass can't go in the wedges, he is lying to you. There won't usually be much in the way of low end out of most floor monitors and it won't be overly loud. That's kinda the point though. Keep the stage volume down. You get enough response to hear yourself in the mids and that's it. The audience gets the low end wall.

The only thing I can see the soundman having a point on is if you are boosting the low end excessively. That would make it problematic to put you in the monitors at a loud enough volume to monitor yourself. Since you are pre-EQ'd, if he turns the bass volume up in the wedges, and you've got the bass EQ knob turned up, he could conceivably damage the wedges. What are your settings on the SABDDI?

[Joe164]

I think purchasing a combo soon may be a good idea.

To Kael, my settings are as follows:

Level:11 o clock
Blend: Full (From using it with the ampeg - will this affect the sound when using the sansamp alone?)
Treble: 2 o clock
Bass: 1 o clock
Drive: 3 o clock
Presence: 3 o clock

I'm going for a bright, growly precision+ampeg esque tone. What i'd really like to do is stand in front of the PA and hear it for myself so i can shape my tone that way.

[uhdinator]

Get a good monitor with a 15" that can take some power. Use it as your bass cab and send DI from head to mixer.

Or if PA monitor amp can handle you monitor just use your own. A powered monitor is even better. Can be fed from parallel out on monitor amp or separate balanced feed from mixer aux/mon send.
Depends on if mixer and snake has enough sends.

[stingraysvt]

I own a sound company, the only way he is unable to send you bass is if he has a separate monitor split (with fewer channels than his main board) and bass isn't plugged into that console, in that case I'd level with him and find a channel that you could discard and replace with bass, i.e. Drum over heads, tom mic etc...

or B) He is scared that you will blow up his wedges running bass through them (I've had that happen) . Many an engineer feels as if Bass is not a friendly monitor instrument, especially if you have bass and kick running through the wedge, level with him and get the bass pumped in about where it is comfortable and then both of you look at the power amp(s) running your mix and see if you have a "safe" level not peaking the red light every low note... etc...

Because you both have needs, you need bass in your mix and, the sound guy needs his rig to work tomorrow, when he has the next band.


PS Coming from a Bass playing, soundguy, send the sound man as flat of a signal as you can, he'll fit it into the mix and make it sound fat... but he can't get any tone from you if you run all +18 db @ 80Hz boost from your bass/bass preamp.

[jaywa]

Originally Posted by pgolliher

to OP: I had the exact same rig you are describing and I sold it and got a GK MB210 combo. It is around 35 lbs and sounds awesome. I will never lug around a heavy cab again. I still bring my sansamp as a back though.

This is exactly how I roll. A small combo DI'd to the board for even the biggest gigs, with a SansAmp in my case at all times in case backup is needed or at extremely small venues where stage footprint is too small to even support a combo.

But back to the OP... going with only a SansAmp and no amp works best in one of two situations:

1) You have in-ear monitors, or

2) You are positioned such that you are very close to, or even in front of, the P.A. cabinets... in which case the entire P.A. essentially becomes your monitor which can be a whole lot of fun assuming you have kick-ass cabinets and there is plenty of bass dialed in to the house mix.

That being said, agreed with others here that any decent wedge monitoring system should be able to accommodate at least a functional level of bass guitar. If a soundman has the gear to accommodate your request and refuses he is simply being a tool, not to mention cutting his own throat because nothing cleans up the FOH sound faster than getting a big loud bass rig off the stage. Any soundman who knows what they're doing should be jumping for joy when you show up "amp-less", and should be able and more than willing to give you the monitoring you need.

[tech21nyc]

Unless you are using the same sound company all the time and have a good relationship with the soundman you will be better off using a small bass rig as your onstage "monitor" and sending a separate signal to the board. Even through a big system where there is bass in the monitors the sound can sometimes change during a gig and it's nice to be able adjust your own amp and not be trying to get the FOH guy's attention.

[Kael]

Originally Posted by Joe164

I think purchasing a combo soon may be a good idea.

To Kael, my settings are as follows:

Level:11 o clock
Blend: Full (From using it with the ampeg - will this affect the sound when using the sansamp alone?)
Treble: 2 o clock
Bass: 1 o clock
Drive: 3 o clock
Presence: 3 o clock

I'm going for a bright, growly precision+ampeg esque tone. What i'd really like to do is stand in front of the PA and hear it for myself so i can shape my tone that way.

The blend affects everything but the tuner out. With the blend on full you are scooping out the mids and leaving mainly lows and highs. Sounds great solo but it takes a LOT more speaker area to get that sort of tone heard in a mix. I'd strongly recommend backing the blend down to noon. I know all the recommended settings have the blend on full. IME, in the real world, having the blend on full blast is always a bad idea.

Here's the settings I've been working with lately.

Level - 3:00
Blend - noon
Treble - 11:00
Bass - noon
Presence - between 9:00 and 11:00, varies with cab
Drive - 12:00 to 12:30

This is for sound I use of course which isn't as bright as what you are going for.

I've found that the EQ on the SABDDI to be a LOT more useful when cutting rather than boosting. Well other than the presence which is boost only. Note that I have my level markedly higher. That won't mean my volume is that much greater. I just have more headroom to up the level since I am not boosting frequencies. Boosting bass especially will eat your headroom up rapidly. If you really want that bright tone, perhaps try cutting the bass to 11:00 and leaving the treble flat and presence backed off from where you have it now. If the bass sounds a little thin with the bass cut at first, boost the level some. Sounds counterintuitive but it works. I'd give the presence a try around noon first and go from there if I was in your shoes. These settings won't be as pretty solo, but they should be more audible in the mix while still getting across the ampeg + precision tone you are talking about. The freq's being produced will be in a more monitor friendly range also.



The point of all this is that a scooped tone isn't the easiest to get across amp wise. If you are going to rely on monitors, you will probably need to futz to get a little more mids in there.

PS: If you are cranking the Drive knob up to get that tone, for chrissake make sure you tell the soundman. I am consistenly dismayed at the number of sound techs who hear overdrive on a bass and immediately think something is clipping. Always a good idea to let the soundman know that the grind he is hearing in the wedges is not the dang thing being driven too hard.

[Chopshonky]

yeah many cheap small shyte monitors don't reproduce the bass frequencies AT ALL, many of course DO. I'm sure it wasn't a routing problem, and it certainly isn't a Sansamp problem. If you want to be assured of a nice stage monitor for bass.. bring one with you, call it a bass amp, or bring a monitor you like that can power and produce bass and everything else, that should do it. Actually I might consider that, good thinking, thanks...

Bass player with no amp can't really blame sound guy if he doesn't have enough bass on stage.

[jaywa]

+1 to all Kael said re settings and especially backing off the Blend setting.

My first few years using a BDDI I was running Blend wide open, Bass and Treble both well past high noon and getting awesome sound through my amp but soundguys (and fans) consistently saying my FOH sound was muddy and indistinct. Did some research here on TB, saw multiple people recommend cutting vs. boosting and backing off the Blend, and voila, MUCH MUCH better sound at FOH.

Where my settings differ significantly from Kael's is with Level. 3 o'clock is mighty hot. My personal preference is to set the Level so that the signal with the BDDI engaged is just ever so slightly louder than when it's not. In my set-up that usually translates to about 10 o'clock cause 3:00 would probably blow our board up. Also, Presence seems to behave very differently depending on the instrument that's plugged in, and it's a knob you'll want to spend time with. Kael runs his Presence at 9 to 11 o'clock, I'm more like noon to 12:30 but that's with a late 70s boat-anchor P-Bass wearing flatwounds. You'll know when you've overdone it on Presence cause the ultra high-end "clicky-clack" will be too much to take.

Also, not to get even further afield, but be aware that the BDDI does support phantom power, which means you can "steal" power from the board to run your BDDI without draining your battery or using the AC converter. Not all boards can send phantom power but where you have that option it is very, very handy -- though I would recommend always keeping your BDDI stocked with a fresh 9v battery, just in case.

[Duke21]

I also agree with Kael and jaywa, good base settings.