"Church Bassist Discovers His Amp Has Been Unplugged For Past 20 Years"...

Sad, but an accurate statement in lots of cases. Last time I was asked to play with ours, they asked me to turn down to like 1. So, I did until show time arrived. I then rattled the stain glass windows. Of course, I politely didn't return.

 

I DI straight into the PA and the church sound guy mixes me waaaaaay louder than I would if I was using my own backline amp.

 

Being from olde England I can't imagine playing bass guitar in a church!
Over here we have elderly ladies playing a wheezy old organ mostly..

 

Ha! funny!
My bass at church goes into a DI and than into my amp. several weeks ago I realized that the DI needs a battery which apparently was never replaced. I told the guys in the band I was not gonna even bother with plugging into the DI anymore. sound guy, who btw are church volunteers have not noticed. Occasionally I'm asked to turn down.

 

Ever hear the story of the bassist for Spacemen 3 having something like a religious experience on the gig and then...

"I checked that the other musicians were finished and then reached down to switch off my amplifier.
I was quite surprised to find that it was impossible to switch it off.
It was impossible to switch it off because I had never switched it on in the first place. This was quite confusing and embarrassing until I realised that nobody, not even me, who had been sitting on my amplifier, had actually noticed that it wasn’t switched on. A monkey could have done what I had just done. A non-existent monkey could have done it.
The live recording of that performance continues to sell, 27 years later. To this day. I’m not sure if it was art or not."

Spacemen 3: 'A monkey could play one note. But could a stoned monkey?'

 

I compete with the “melodic” keyboard player and the kick. Makes a nice Burrrrrr sound with the subs....

 

.....and nobody noticed.

 

Funny in hindsight, but to some that must be a soul-crushing experience... especially that no one noticed. Ouch...

 

I've joked about this---and Babylon Bee has some funny Stuff that way.
We have it work differently with different bass players--I go to my amp (Fender Rumble 40)--then out the XLR jack to the board--so the amp acts as a DI basically, I guess--I hear my amp and monitors.
Only one of the drummers ever complains I am too loud, unless my amp got turned up when I wasn't looking.

i also enjoyed the one where the bass player was put in a closet...
(And also turned completely down)

 

Likewise, DI on large church gig going into auditorium speakers.This was 10 years ago. Had a local mix station so I could dial the other guys in/out in my headphones as required. I often " "unplugged" some of them.

 

Has been posted before

And I still love that story

Wise(b)ass

 

Not exactly the same, but on a related note...In the early '90's I played in an hard rock band in southern CA with two guitar players who were always engaged in volume wars, competing over who could be the loudest. At one gig in particular, the guitars were SO loud that I decided to just roll the volume of my bass off to zero, to see if anyone had noticed that the bass had just completely dropped out. At the end of the set, only the drummer noticed, and one of the guitar players said to me, 'Wow, that was one of the best sounding sets we've ever played!" I knew at that moment it was time to quit that band...

 

Dont take it personal. You were dealing with guitarists.

 

Every bass player Metallica ever had dealt with the same issue.

 

Even Robert Trujillo???

 

At my church, we just got a new soundboard, and it's got the ability to set every individual praise team member's levels and save them, and call them up with the push of a button. When the main soundguy got the levels he wanted, we were good for a couple weeks. Since then, every time I play the bass sounds waaaaay too loud. One singer complained of heart palpitations because she was standing near a monitor. I turn my volume knob down, only to hear the level increase back again. We recently started using a 20W practice amp as the bass monitor, so all I hear well is that, and I'm not out there to hear how it sounds in house, but sometimes my wife will tell me it was a little loud if I ask.

On a similar note, at our old location, one of the other bass players used to run sound now and again when he wasn't playing, and that guy would always come and turn up my amp and the XLR out of the back of it. Gotta love the fellow low end lovers!

 

I read an interview with Dave Grohl and the other two guitarists of Foo Fighters and Dave told a story about a gig a few nights earlier saying something like "i'm having the time of my life.... this gig is just going off and i'm in complete rock god mode when my guitar tech casually walks onto stage, reaches over and turns my guitar up.... what the f**k..i'd had it turn down all the way for the whole song and didn't even know it!!"

 

Yeah it’s a totally alien concept to me as well. Seems like a majority of players on here have a regular “church gig”. Church would be way more fun if I could play my bass.

We just have a few million-year-old ladies singing out of key soprano and one of those organs that grannies have in their “sitting room”.