Hearing (and Feeling) bass notes...

Sundogue · #1 08-21-2006, 12:10 PM

I'm curious...with so many people playing through such tiny little combos/rigs, how many of you bass players like to feel the notes you play as well as hear them?

Part of what I love about playing bass is the feeling of the notes when played. When each note is played, you can feel it in the floor and your body. There have been many times in the past where I could hear what I was playing, but not feel it and I felt like I might as well have been playing through a tiny AM radio.

I'm not talking about being so irritatingly loud that you blow everyone away and drown them out in order to feel it. And every single note doesn't have to be earthshakingly felt. I normally prefer to keep my stage volume down as much as I can, and rely on my cab being on the floor to give each note some real bottom I can feel. With the right rig and settings, I can get that feeling without being overly loud. Of course I play in a rock cover band, but still we aren't terribly loud, neither onstage or out front.

My drummer and I were discussing that our band always seems to be the tightest and we groove better when the PA volume is up enough to feel the kick drum and bass onstage. Not necessarily very loud out front, but enough to "feel" it. It seems that more people dance when they can feel it too. Whenever the PA volume is down to where we can't feel it onstage, we never seem to have that mojo like we do when we can feel it. It also seems to be the case with people dancing and just getting into it in general.

So, I changed my rig (added a small sub) to give that feeling onstage for those times when we can't turn up the PA to give us that (as obviously, some places you just have to keep the overall volume down). I've been able to get the feeling and still keep my volume relatively low, so I wondered what other bass players think about it, and how did you accomplish it without resorting to just cranking it? Or does it even matter to you?

Any thoughts or opinions?

**WillPlay4Food** · #2 08-21-2006, 12:18 PM

I love to feel the notes too. Definitely defines the rhythm in sometimes a not so subtle manner.

Unfortunately, my floor is my downstairs neighbor's ceiling so I try not to irritate him too much with it.

Sundogue · #3 08-21-2006, 12:25 PM

Of course you should consider your neighbors in that scenario. But, in a live situation, I know some players use no rig at all. Just a DI and in-ear monitors. That would be most unappealling to me.

Even when I'm driving in the car, I want to feel the bass a bit (not like kids with huge subs in the trunk...though that, at times is fine too.

). Sometimes my wife will want me to turn it down some (though thankfully not very often as she loves bass too), and I'd just as soon turn it off. The last thing I want to hear when a song is on is just guitar and vocals, so I'd rather not listen at all.

And that's what bass ends up being to me when I can't feel it...like a tinny, obnoxious guitar.

tplyons · #4 08-21-2006, 04:05 PM

IMO, there are a lot of high efficiency cabs that are very decieving.

I pair two GK Neo 112's (tiny little boxes) with a 700RB-II, and get laughed at until they're heard in a band setting, blowing people away with the volume on 3. My cabs are decieving. It's like a station wagon with a big block V8.

The Golden Boy · #5 08-21-2006, 06:12 PM

I like to feel my nads shake as well.

tplyons- I don't know what to think- but my first thought is that "high efficiency" doesn't counteract physics.

Sundogue · #6 08-21-2006, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tplyons

IMO, there are a lot of high efficiency cabs that are very decieving.

I pair two GK Neo 112's (tiny little boxes) with a 700RB-II, and get laughed at until they're heard in a band setting, blowing people away with the volume on 3. My cabs are decieving. It's like a station wagon with a big block V8.

I agree that there are many ways to obtain some low end that is felt as well as heard, without having to haul around 18" folded horns.

I just picked up a 15" cab to go along with a 210 combo and the two together give me some earth shaking feel, even at low volumes. Granted, I could have found something smaller that might do just as well, but this rig cost me nothing.

I really want to build billfitzmaurice's Tuba 24 sub and his Omni10 to go on top. Really awesome specs, cheap and easy to build and each use only 10" speakers. I fully intend to build those (probably a winter project), so I had to have an alternative in the meantime.

Who else likes to FEEL the low end as well as hear it, and how do you get it?

**baba** · #7 08-22-2006, 09:48 AM

I feel it fine with an Eden 600 and a Goliath III 410. Unless it's a floppy stage with rattling potential, I'll usually pop off the casters so the cab sits on the ground. This helps with coupling and everyone seems to feel it enough. This is for club and bar gigs....small to medium stages.

Kenny Allyn · #8 08-22-2006, 10:00 AM

Sooo ... Ya want to hear it AND feel it?

... Use "8s" lots of eights .... ripping note to note articulation and rolling thunder lows!

Sundogue · #9 08-22-2006, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by baba

I feel it fine with an Eden 600 and a Goliath III 410. Unless it's a floppy stage with rattling potential, I'll usually pop off the casters so the cab sits on the ground. This helps with coupling and everyone seems to feel it enough. This is for club and bar gigs....small to medium stages.

I am a huge fan of coupling a cab to the stage floor. But, it doesn't work for me if there isn't another cab on top of that one. Which is why I went the route of using two cabs (115 and 210). With my 410, if it was on the floor I got that low end, but couldn't hear the mids and highs as well. When it was up on a case, I could hear the mids and highs better, but lost the low end.

Almost every gig we play, we start out with the PA's volume quite low and it's usually not until the last set that the volume is up high enough where the drummer and I can start feeling it. Coincidentally, it's not until the last set that we get into a groove and really lock into each other. I'm so pumped up after our last set, I want to keep playing. We're never going to start out our gigs with the PA volume up where "we" would like it (when there aren't many people there). But anytime I've had my cab coupled to the floor, we've locked in and grooved right off the bat. But without a cab on top, I still missed the mids and highs.

So...when it comes right down to it, given a choice I'd rather feel the low end than hear the subtleties in my playing. But then again, I'm playing rock'n'roll, so there's not much subtlety to most of what I play. I don't want to be loud to feel it, so I now have the ideal, using two cabs stacked. The 15" is coupled and the 210's are on top.

Who else uses "coupling" to obtain more low end without resorting to more volume?