Cafe Bass/Vocalists Unite

[taowin]

I do bass/vocals with jazz/funk trios at restaurants three nights a week and therefore have special live sound issues. Don't want to bring loads of stuff. I play mostly six or seven string, sometimes upright, and run both bass and vocals through a QSC K10. These days I use a TC Electronics voicelive play as my vocal effect, an Aguilar tone hammer footpedal pre for bass. I've been playing with pedal boards to incorporate them and other effects. I'm about to try the TC Electronic Voicelive Play Electric to see if I can consolidate all my sound conditioning into one box.

There are tons of cafe guitar/vocalists, not that many of us bass/vocalists who want to pack light but get glorious tone. If any of you are cafe bass/vocalists, lets talk.

 

[tonybassman]

I am in a duo that plays in restaurant settings. I play bass and sing, my partner plays guitar and drum machine with foot pedals.

We are trying a no monitor setup this week in a small beach club.

All instruments will go through a powered mixer; Carvin XP800L into a pair of Peavey PR15’s. We will angle the speakers on poles so the audience can hear them ok and so can we. Inputs are 1 vocal, bass through a Radial active DI, acoustic guitar with built in DI, Yamaha Portagrand as the drum machine. My guitar player wired into the drum section and can control the drums with a foot pedal.

We are trying this setup for the first time. We usually have an additional monitor. The problem is that in this type of quiet setting it is real hard to hear what the audience hears at low volumes. We hope this setup helps us hear/feel/manage the volume better.

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[taowin]

Fancy stuff. We don't use a PA and I love to travel light. I'm into bass looping too and effects. Have a bunch of source audio, have brought loopy on an ipad. Have the Beat Buddy Pedal but think I'll end up consolidating: QSC, Voicelive Play electric (which arrived yesterday sounds great on both bass and vocals, and a digitech Solo xt looper with drum wavs in it. Guitar brings his own stuff. Great to hear from you and I hope we're joined by more bassist/vocalists.

 

[4Mal]

I'm one of 3 singers in my band. We do a sort of pop retrospective thing from 60's to current. Maybe we're a variety band... Tough to pigeon hole us.. Anyway, most of our work indoors is pretty low volume. Our guitarist plays a Martin or Taylor acoustic 80%, an electric through a Rivera 25 watt 1x12 mic'ed or not the rest of the time. His acoustic is in the pa via a Baggs Para DI.

I use a custom built 1x10 combo and extension cab stacked. The extension cab is as much to lift the combo cab as anything... GK mb2-500 head is built in. Love that little rig and give it a ton of work. I am in the PA using the DI in my BassBone, Zoom B3 in the effects loop, Pitch Black in the tuner out. I generally carry 2 basses and gain balance with the BB...

A Nord Stage piano II, 73 key direct in completes us electronically. Drums are acoustic and only mic'd if necessary..

PA wise we use the small Mackie DL 806 digital board and JBL PrX612's behind us pretty often. A single K10 as keyboard and center monitor.

We've been using that same basic setup for 3 years. We have changed boards, changed speakers but the configuration has remained the same. It flat out works for us.

When we go outside I often put another PRX 612 as the center/kbd monitor and we put the K10's on sticks, behind and along side the JBL's as side fill for the guitarist/singer and for me. I love having the K10 in my face. It's like wearing headphones... Really freakin nice headphones... I can go bigger. All the way up the 2 18's and top boxes per side, stereo triamped... If the dough is there...in which case there are stage hands along for the ride...

We do a cooperative carry, everybody has their tasks to complete. We are up in 20 to 30 minutes, down in about the same. Our basic setup is more gear that you're carrying but we have a sound and this is about as efficient as I have been able to make it.

For me the key is less about the amount of stuff and more about the sound quality and being efficient. Having willing band members that know how to work and what to do makes the biggest difference... I'm spoiled

 

[taowin]

An update on a new experiment. I bought a TC Electronics Voicelive Electric, their footpedal that conditions vocals and electric guitar sounds. I simply Y jack out of the bass, sending one signal to a bass amp clean or into my QSC K10 PA speaker. I send the other into the voicelive and out to the QSC's other channel. The Y is necessary because guitar conditioning loses the basses low end. I recover the bass by sending a direct signal to the bass amp. So far I'm impressed as all getout. The vocal and guitar conditioning is exquisite. I was delighted to discover that a y jack, at least on an active bass is all you need. No need for a splitter apparently. And the sounds are rich and splendid.

Jeremy