Subbing with "Loud" Band???
 

In a week, I’ll be sitting in with a traditional country band for the first time. The only practices I’ve had with them have been without their drummer but they profess to be a “fairly loud” band. It will be me on upright, a guy on Tele through a Twin, the singer plays an jumbo body acoustic through the PA and the drummer. I won’t get to see the venue ahead of time but they described it as a fairly large hall with minimal or no PA support and mentioned that their regular bassist uses a 4x10 when they usually play there.

I’m wondering, given my equipment options (to follow), what’s my best bet? What other tricks I can try to cut through better and avoid potential feedback issues.

- Amps; I have an Acoustic Image Clarus that is my main upright amp and I have a GB Shuttle 9.2 that I’ve used on upright before but it’s primarily my slab amp.

- Cabs; I have a GB NEOXT 112T and a GB Shuttle 2x10. I also recently got a LDS 2x8 but I suspect it won’t move enough air, even though it sounds fantastic.

Am I right to think that the option with the most power and that will move the most air is my best bet? IE the Shuttle 9.2 amp and the Shuttle 2x10 cab? I’d rather not run to, mismatched cabs I guess…

Open to any and all thoughts on this. Thanks in advance!

I would take both cabs anyway. You can set up with the 2-10 and see if it gets the job done. If not, even though mismatched drivers are not the optimum option, run it with the 1-12 if your amp can handle the ohms. You could even point them in different directions to help with the frequency mess. But if you aren't loud enough with the 2-10, the only thing that will make you louder is moving more air. That is going to take more speaker.

If the singer is playing the jumbo body acoustic through the PA, you should be able to use it too, to get a bit of spread to your sound. Use what you have, keep an extension speaker handy, and a D.I. to the P.A. with a HPF engaged.

Certainly won't hurt to have both cabs along with me. Not sure what they meant by "really no PA support" but I'm thinking if it's really a small PA, maybe they won't be as "loud" as they think they will. Good input. Thanks.

Any thoughts on feedback?

Keep your bass away from the twin reverb.

And my ears :)

Agedhorse from Genz Benz is adamant that their cabinets play well together despite "mismatched" cone diameters. I haven't used them or heard anyone contend otherwise, so I will believe him until I have trustworthy evidence to the contrary. In general, I would go along with what twofer has to say here.

As for feedback, stay out of the "beam" as much as possible -- this can be harder to judge with mismatched cones (unless agedhorse is correct) given the unpredictable peaks and troughs produced; use your phase switch and notch if you take the AI, or a suitably-equipped pre if you use the Shuttle. I'm sure that's all old hat to you ...

I've got a Fishman PROEQ that while I don't particularly love the sound, it sure does have a lot of control features. I can take it in place of the HPF-Pre I've been using for a while. That should let me dial out feedback cause freq ranges a bit.

Thanks all for the input.

My advice, which took me a few gigs to get used to is...

If they are to loud tell them ONCE. After that try not to get angry that they don't accommodate you or make any attempt to get more quit.

Just smile and play even if you can't hear yourself or if you think the crowd can't hear you.

I used to get so mad....it never helped. Do what you can and smile.

Clarus, LDS cabinet and go into the PA. If necessary, loosely put a towel behind the tailpiece to reduce sympathetic vibrations. FWIW, I occasionally run my Clarus with a 4 ohm B1 and 8 ohm Crazy 8 and it works great so don't worry as long as it doesn't go below 2 ohms.

Other than that, good advice :)

The towel behind the tailpiece is something I've seen, but never messed with. I'll take one along in my "just in case" bag. I'll ask to go into the PA, but figure I should be prepared to go it alone. As for telling them they're too loud, since they're paying me to sub for them AND have made it clear there may be some volume issues, I would't feel it was my place to tell them anything along those lines. It's not my band after all... with my own band, I make those guys do anything I want ;)

Also, could use a LoPHAT 12/6/1 I have in storage I just remembered. Never tried it with upright and although it has less speaker surface area than a 2x10, the cabinet is notably bigger...?

I'd definitely bring a lot of speaker with sufficient power...and if it were me, I'd experiment with different configurations at home just so there are no surprises. The preplanning experience may just uncover some options and settings you may not have considered.

Since it is described as a large hall, it might be wise to run two rigs. Set the 2x10 (with the 1x12, too, if necessary) out front powered by the GB, to let that be your personal PA support to throw deeper but full range tones at the hall. Throw input to it from your Clarus (preEQ so you can have separate EQs), and think about putting the 2x8 up off the floor, with stronger mids to be your stage monitor, which will then be less likely to feed back at the higher volumes that may be necessary. Rely on someone out front to help you keep your FOH amp volume at the right level for overall band balance.

IME the more power the better-- not to play at extreme volumes -- just so the system has the headroom for as real of a sound as possible. The closer you get to equipment's limits the more the sound goes to sh*t. Good luck!

If the drums aren't going through the PA, I would go for the AI through the 2x10. I use a similar rig for loud gigs and I've never had to turn it up more than half way. Once the drums are mic'd all bets are off.

I'd give that LoPhat cab a spin, personally :)

A towel, or some foam or even a tennis ball between the tailpiece and the body can help a lot in some cases...anything to get the top vibrating less on the loud stuff :)

A quick update as the gig was a week ago and my ears have stopped ringing... :0

I ended up going with the GB Shuttle 9.2 into the GB Shuttle 2x10. It was as loud as I've ever played and still the telecaster just slayed me. The "country just for tonight" punk rock drummer was unbelievably loud. Like Metallica loud. The towel under the tailpiece helped a lot and a few people in the audience later claimed that they could sort of hear me.

The PA turned out to be a small 12 channel Mackie board, a pair of QSC RMS850 power amps. The mains were a pair of 12" Yamaha Clubs and the monitors were 12" Yamaha Club monitors. A nice setup for a normal volume band but for this band, the vocals were completely lost as was mos to of my playing.

The headlining band that was a traveling Rock-a-bill band. I chatted with their bassist a bit about gear and learned a lot. He was using a GK 6x10 cabinet powered by a pretty hefty looking rack mount power amp. His upright was a sight to be seen. It was flat black with flames on it and didn't appear to have any F-holes. He later told me he'd glued some sort of plywood fillers into them, filled the cracks with bondo, then had a auto repair place paint the whole thing flat black and then he did the flames. He also mentioned having a second sound post glued in. In fact both sound posts were glued in.

He had a K&K pickup system with a BassMax on the bridge and then one of their "clicky" pickups under the fingerboard. The premap was duct taped to the rear of the tailpiece.

Unplugged of course it sounded like shite, but plugged in it was very loud and sounded... well more like an upright than a P-Bass :)

Hah! I've been a loud upright dude for a pretty long time. Finding the balance is key. I use a single soundpost and don't block the f-holes, but can still get pretty loud and still sound like an upright. They key things to me are;

Lots of clean headroom on your amp

TONS of eq for the tougher rooms

A cab that moves a lot of air. At one point I was touring with two 810's and a 1200 watt amp. These days I got the cab thing dialed in and still run pretty big watts to get clean headroom.

That's too bad that they totally played all over you. I'm sure the audience would have appreciated an even mix. Could you hear the vocals? An upright bass probably will never keep up with a Tele if they are not a team player.

I was close enough to a monitor on stage that I could hear when the singer was singing and when he wasn't, which was aided by actually watching him and his proximity to the mic. Between the Tele player (who was awesome btw, just really loud) and the drummer, I just didn't move enough air to compete. If I had gone with a P-Bass AND at least a 4x10, I probably would have been OK. But they were super nice guys, there were some beautiful rockabilly chicks at the show to look at and they had cash for me before I left. Learned a bit and had a pretty good time so I chalk it up as a win.