Getting gig sound just right.

[whoknows]

I play in a 3-piece punk/indie band. I usually use an Ashdown
amp but during recent support gigs I have been forced to use Trace Elliot's. Basically, despite the fact that the tone was turned down on my bass and the high was turned down on the amp my sound was still incredibly high pitched. I am just wondering does the problem here lie with my bass, the sound engineer or the amp itself.
Any advice would be much appreciated, I have only been playing a year and a half and often struggle to recreate my jamming sound when on stage.

[jive1]

Well, what you hear on stage isn't what the crowd is hearing. Bass frequencies travel further and slower, and the tone of your amp will sound different at 1 foot away than 20 feet away. To really get an idea of your sound, walk out into the audience or have a friend in the audience tell you about your tone. I've had times when I thought I sounded thin, but from the audience it sounded real fat.

[whoknows]

Yeah, I thought that may have been the case so I asked a couple of my friends who were in the audience, they agreed with me that I needed my sound to be a lot deeper than it was on the night.
Do you know if the sound engineer can change the pitch of the sound or do they just change the volumes? ( I'm pretty new to the whole gigging thing)

[DaftCat]

What I do is run a DI from the bass and mic the cab. I give the sound guy 2 inputs to work with so they can dial in the tone that suits the room.

Hope this helps,

DCat

[JimmyM]

Not to be nitpicky but I'm going to be nitpicky..."Pitch" refers to the tuning, not the tone.

And yes, a soundman can change your tone, but most good ones try to recreate the sound coming out of your amp because they figure that's what you want in the PA.

[whoknows]

Thanks to everyone for replying... I'm still quite unsure about what to do in order to achieve the deep sound Im looking for in a gig setting though.
Any further advice on my live setup would be much appreciated. It looks like I will be using the Trace Elliot for the next few gigs anyway. I play a Fender Squire p-bass and use a Big Muff pedal for the odd bit of distorsion.
Advice on how what settings I should use on the amp/ what I should tell the soundman would be cool, as I said I'm new to playing gigs and am having difficulty achieving the sound I want through other peoples' amps.

[nicoli]

Is there any reason you absolutely can't use your own amp? It's kind of bad etiquette to start tweaking the sound of a borrowed amp IMO, especially if they're playing right after you.

[link wray]

Originally Posted by jive1

Bass frequencies travel further and slower.

Slower?
I dont think so.

[Martybass]

I've played through a Trace a few times too, and I noticed the same thing as you on stage. That said though, I was told from the crowd that the bass frequencies were definitely there.