Awful FOH bass tone

[bassmatt4792]

Hello all,
First off, my I play in a bar band which plays in small (20x40' rooms) to larger (100x100') rooms. We run our entire sound system which consists of:
(2) Sunn 2x15 cabs
(2) Peavey 118 cabs loaded with Black Widows
(1) Crown XLS1000 for highs and mids through the Sunns
(1) Crown XLS1500 for lows through the 18s
Allen and Heath PA-20 CP board

The board is run onstage unless we have the drummer's brother (an experienced sound guy and bassist ) run sound in front.

and a separate Mackie 406M PA with (4) Cerwin Vega monitors

Everything is run through the PA- guitar and bass amps, all 4 of us sing, and the drums are all mic'd.

I have a Fender Jazz Bass Special > DigiTech BP200 > GK 700RBii > GK RBH 410.

Here's my problem. My tone is EXACTLY what I want- through my cab. I use the DI in the head to go to the board. I'm not too familiar with live sound, so our singer sets everything up and mixes. During our soundcheck, I go out off the stage to listen to everything- like the drum mix, my bass mixing in, and the guitar. My bass sounds horrible through the mix and by itself. I like a punchy, full, mid-boost type sound. From the FOH, it sounds like I put an SM58 on my pickups and played acoustically.
I'm really not too accustomed to our board, but it looks like there's no EQ settings on it. I have my head set to 'EQ Pre' which I think means it takes my head settings and cancels out the board settings-but I don't think out board has any. I had to completely reverse my EQ- usually I'm treble and mid heavy to make my bass cut through, but I had to basically set my low-mid and bass to about 3:00 and my treble and high-mid to 9:00. I'm still missing that new-string sparkle I should have through my amp, which I die for.

Also- our singer is very nasally and has a wicked headvoice- so at times in certain songs (AC/DC, Bang Your Head) his powerful, screaming high notes clip the Sunn cabs.

I have some questions-
Is this fixable at all with what we have now, or is it our gear?

Should I invest in a decent mic and try micing my cab? My only worry with this is that in a small bar, I can't crank the head too far to put enough power to the cab, or I'll void the whole mix.

Thanks for your help.

 

[MikeBass]

I gotta ask......did you mis-type when you posted the Sunn 2115 cabs?
Do you have any horns/tweeters in this rig?

Two 15's and a 18 PER side is insane for the size rooms you listed.
You can and should be able to blow down the walls in those size rooms with your rig alone.

 

[bassmatt4792]

Whoops, yep. I meant that each Sunn has (2) 15" speakers and a horn on top. We have one of these on a side. For smaller gigs, we use the Sunns only and run an amp 100hz and down, and the other 100hz and up, and biamp the cabs. We actually always run the amps that way, even with the 18s.

 

[Big_Daws]

in my experience the GK head amps have and extremely high DI output. have you checked to see if your bass signal isn't clipping??

you have a fairly decent set of amps and board, so i doubt that the issue is there. have you also tried plugging in your bass directly into the PA to see if there is a difference?

 

[bassmatt4792]

in my experience the GK head amps have and extremely high DI output. have you checked to see if your bass signal isn't clipping??

you have a fairly decent set of amps and board, so i doubt that the issue is there. have you also tried plugging in your bass directly into the PA to see if there is a difference?

I know my bass doesn't clip unless I'm playing wicked harsh. The volume knob next to the DI is only set at about 11:00.
I haven't plugged my bass directly into the board yet, it hasn't been as bad recently as it was this past Saturday night. I love my GK tone, so I've been assuming I could get it from the DI on my amp.

What if I used a speaker out from my head to the board?

 

[BrickBatMansion]

I have my head set to 'EQ Pre' which I think means it takes my head settings and cancels out the board settings-

Im not real familiar with this model but this might mean"PRE EQ"............which would make your signal to the board totally raw.......no eq'ing at all. Like a direct box.

EDIT

I just looked the head up...........it has pre AND post eq. Put it on POST EQ and you should be good to go.

 

[NWB]

What if I used a speaker out from my head to the board?

Do not do that!!

It will unleash the magic smoke from the board.

Send your amp's DI signal post-EQ and see how that works out.

 

[gearhead1972]

That board has eq settings for every channel with the high-mid having sweepable frequency. As said try post eq on your amps DI, then ask the guy running the board to show you the eq knobs for your bass channel, they will be the five knobs under the top red gain knob. Tweak them to your liking. As for your singers voice clipping the mains, you should probably put a compressor/limiter on his channel, you can get them for under $200.

 

[Big_Daws]

the only way for your signal to sound crappy on a A&H console is if the bass on the eq on the board is taken right out...

if you are playing to harshly and clipping i would suggest to use the drop the level on the direct output. you should only at max on each channel have your levels at "unity" or at 0db. a couple db over is ok, but to prevent any clipping of any sort you should keep your levels at around there if possible.

as NWB said. definitely do not use the speaker out. that is for what it says..a speaker...

the post/pre eq function has nothing to do with the console aside from sending your signal with your eq settings verses a flat eq settings. the best thing i could suggest is that to send it pre-eq to the console so that the board gets an even eq setting then you can get your eq right/correct the way you want it on the console. what you may find is that the eq setting your amp has is not going to be reflected into the PA. its different speakers and the signal is going to be translated differently.

people always have different ways of wanting to capture their sound, but i think personally that its more super important to make sure that you can capture your sound and be capable of having that sound sent. things like a sansamp or a reddi or whatever will help considerably in this....gives you full control of your signal, you can run your head flat, have a great sound, and have that same sound going to your board...

 

[Big_Daws]

also i missed the part about your singer..as gearhead said, try a compressor. get one from DBX and you won't go wrong. do not touch behringer....

also just thinking about your amps may not be enough power for your speakers, however in saying that they could be for the room (in respects to volume). not sure what your speakers are rated for, but i have a funny feeling....lol (i could be completely wrong in this statement and willing to cop whatever crap i have to...lol)

 

[prd004]

The hardest thing I've had to learn over the years is when someone else is running the board, to just let them run the board and concentrate on my playing.

Everyone has different tastes if what's good, and how to achieve that sound. When I'm getting what I consider bad house sound, I either attempt to tactically approach the sound man or forget about it all together and just play.

The tactful approach can be tricky, imagine you were playing a gig and the sound guy tried to tell you how to play the bass lines? In the same sort of way the sound engineer doesn't want to be told how to do his job either. I know this because aside from being a bassist I'm also a sound man, and sure enough at every single gig, some shleprock will approach me and tell me what I'm doing wrong! Lol but it really burns me!

 

[JimmyM]

I love micing. But you need a good mic, or you need two channels, one DI and one mic (a 57 or 58 is excellent in these situations). Use the DI for the lows below 100hz and the mic for everything else. You can try the DI post-EQ as well. But most SS DI's sound way too clean and banjo-ey to me. I feel your pain because until I got a REDDI, I hated DI's (highly recommended, BTW), but using a mic isn't as hard to deal with as you think it is.

 

[oerk]

Whoops, yep. I meant that each Sunn has (2) 15" speakers and a horn on top. We have one of these on a side. For smaller gigs, we use the Sunns only and run an amp 100hz and down, and the other 100hz and up, and biamp the cabs. We actually always run the amps that way, even with the 18s.

You mean, you biamp the Sunn cabs to run the bass speaker 100hz and down, and the horn 100hz and up?

Don't do that! The horn probably can do only 3k and up, so you end up with no mids at all, and risk damaging the horn.

Just run them full range if you don't bring your subs. These are not the best sounding tops, but they're quite capable of doing bass in absence of a subwoofer.

Also, echoing what others said: Try the post EQ setting on your amp, and tweak the boards EQ to your liking. Don't go overboard with the bass.

Running the DI post EQ is frowned upon by sound men, so if you're doing a show with a provided sound man, check if he's ok with it first.

 

[modulusman]

You mean, you biamp the Sunn cabs to run the bass speaker 100hz and down, and the horn 100hz and up?

Don't do that! The horn probably can do only 3k and up, so you end up with no mids at all, and risk damaging the horn.

Just run them full range if you don't bring your subs. These are not the best sounding tops, but they're quite capable of doing bass in absence of a subwoofer.

Also, echoing what others said: Try the post EQ setting on your amp, and tweak the boards EQ to your liking. Don't go overboard with the bass.

Running the DI post EQ is frowned upon by sound men, so if you're doing a show with a provided sound man, check if he's ok with it first.

If the OP is running this PA like you say then the horns are probably already toast.

 

[bassmatt4792]

With the 18s, we run the system as follows:

Mind you, this is all what I'm understanding from our vocalist.

Crown 1000: sent to the 15s. Top 15- higher stuff (highest freq goes to the horn obviously.
Bottom 15-mids.

Crown 1500 drives the lows in the 18s.



Without 18s, we use the 1000 to run the top 15s and horn, and the 1500 to run the bottom 15. There's high/low inputs on the cabs.


Or something like that. Like I said, this is the singer explaining it to me. We've also had our former rented sound guy around to make sure it's all correct. Or correct as it can be.

 

[Big_Daws]

if it were me i would set your cross over point maybe a little higher, say at 120hz on the sub. give that a go. i wouldn't go any higher than that. see how that goes.

how i generally find out that sweet spot is play an extremely well produced track that you are familiar with and you KNOW how it sounds, and adjust your bottom end crossover point to sound better. i would start at 120hz (or as close as you can get, i think its 118hz on the crown amps), 120hz is fairly high point, then work your way down, i prefer a 90hz personally, but each speaker is different...

now if you aren't using your 18's i honestly would run your amps in FULL RANGE to get the best sound possible. you will probably find that your bass won't sound anywhere near what you would like....

 

[sb69coupe]

If recorded music played back through the PA sounds good and has sufficient bottom end, then the PA is working well enough and all the talk of your PA being misconfigured is just a red herring.

Here's what I would suggest. Starting with your current settings on the DI as pre-EQ, turn the master volume on your amp all the way down, so all you hear is the FOH sound of the PA. Then make sure the signal isn't clipping on the board.

If you've got a clean signal at the board, then make sure that there's no high pass filter enabled on your PA channel. Set all the EQ flat on the channel strip, then start adjusting the EQ to tailor your FOH sound.

If you cannot get an acceptable FOH sound using this method, you could try setting the DI to post-EQ and repeating the above steps.

Personally, I use a Sansamp BDDI to tailor my FOH tone, and send the parallel output to my stage rig. That way, any tone shaping from the Sansamp will only affect FOH, and I can have my stage rig set independently.

 

[NWB]

Another thing that will help clean up the bottom-end would be to put your subs together between the mains if you're not doing that already.

 

[jaywa]

There could also be phase cancellation going on at one or both of the following points:

1) between the subs (i.e., +1 to the suggestion to "cluster" the subs in the middle vs. each side of the stage).

2) between the P.A. and the bass cabinet onstage. How you would find this out is, get a wireless unit, go out to the FOH and start playing with your amp turned relatively low, and then keep turning the amp up and if the volume / quality of the bass in FOH gets less as you turn up your stage amp, there's a good chance cancellation is going on. I would almost bet money this is at least part of the problem, especially in the smaller rooms.

 

[BWB]

Here's my problem. My tone is EXACTLY what I want- through my cab. I use the DI in the head to go to the board.

Should I invest in a decent mic and try micing my cab?

You answered your own question. DI sucks. I disable the direct out on my amps so they can't use it. When they ask me to plug into a direct box right off the bass I refuse. You can't get your tone out of anything but the cabinet being mic'd.

As copied from another thread in this forum posted by a sound-man:

-I prefer micing, for expediency. a 57 or 58 (I said 58, I blew yer mind) or a d112 (I prefer).
I'll DI out of an amp if; you demand, or it's a good amp. I'll always use your sansamp.

-don't like taking DI direct from the bass unless...you have no amp. It's so small, it counts as no amp
(I've actually mic'd some practice combos...it's hilarious). You request it.
I like to think that you brought that amp for more than decoration.