Wasnex, I agree with the rule of just don't argue with the sound crew. You can volunteer gear, but you may find that they don't like to do that because when they did in the past, they found out the gear was faulty during the show. Ultimately it was the tech's fault for substituting unknown gear for known good gear. I would always mention your nice DI at setup, that way they have time to talk to others at the show and maybe they might use it. Usually what DI you use live only really matters when you need a high impedance pickup for say piezos, as not all DIs can handle that, or the signal is really hot so you need a passive DI. They usually just want the Bass DI out to send to the subs. A mic on the cab doesn't sound as good in the subs. The mic on a nice cab does sound best in the mains though. So you want them both at FOH. You will have a hard time telling differences between decent DIs once the signal is band passed at 30hz-80hz at the DSP. It is up to FOH to have enough EQ to make it sound right at the subs at that point.
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DI box live set-up question
- Thread starter Rolling Thunder
- Start date
The problem with sending your DI signal out post EQ is that your EQ settings are there to make your speakers sound good. Not a stack of double 18" subwoofers. Your EQ is irrevelant and actually makes it more difficult to get a good sound from the PA system. Your tone is not your EQ knob settings. Your speakers make more difference in the sound of your tone than anything else. Don't shoot yourself in the foot here by sending a messed up signal down the DI to FOH. They need a clean signal to work with to sound clean coming out the subs.
Wasnex, deception is the only way to deal with bands who start barking out orders to the sound crew. There isn't enough time to do it any other way. You will find at many clubs there are mics set up all over the place to make the band happy, but the guitarist is already too loud for the room so that mic doesn't go into the mains much at all, the drums already bleed through the vocal mics so all you need is kick drum from them.. then you just need the bass DI and kick mic to make the subs sound good and want as few mics on as possible to eliminate feedback. Less open mics means more gain before feedback. So less inputs literally means more volume out of a PA. You just bring up the monitors until the band is happy and then it is so loud that you only add to the PA what you need now to balance it all out.
Any sound tech who has ever deceived my bands in the past...
1. Sucked
2. Never worked with us again
1. Sucked
2. Never worked with us again
I do understand there are circumstance where musicians are difficult to work with...but I don't agree that you should be intentionally deceptive. It does serious damage to relationships when the deception is discovered. To make matters worse, musicians who discover the deception may be conditioned to be hostile towards all audio techs.
I totally understand the nature of the gigs you are describing is pretty much a run-and-gun type affair where there is little time for conversation or negotiation. If you absolutely feel that it's necessary to resort to deception to get the job done...here's a suggestion: STFU about it! In order for this distasteful strategy to work, the deception must remain hidden.
You are a new member here and you are going to find that a lot of Talkbass members have a very, very negative attitude towards audio techs. Part of this attitude is deserved because some techs insist on a my-way-or-the-high-way approach that totally disregards the artist's desires and goals. Musicians tend to perceive audio techs as arrogant and elitist, and your suggestion is supporting that impression. IMHO the audio tech should work collaboratively with the band to achieve their artistic goals, rather than being totally inflexible and imposing their own artistic vision.
On the flip side, there are also a fair amount of musicians who really don't care about the big picture. Instead they only care about what they hear in the little bubble that surrounds them on stage. So if they blow out the room, it doesn't really matter as long as it sounds perfect in there little sphere. These musicians have no curiosity in learning about acoustics or strategies they can use to help the band sound better overall. They assume that if their instrument sounds great where they are standing, that it is perfect and could not possibly cause any problems for the audio tech...so if the audio tech has a problem, he/she must be an idiot.
My position is the nature of acoustics and physics makes it impossible for everyone to get a perfect mix, so live sound generally takes compromise on everyone's part.. There is simply not enough distance between the players for the inverse square law to work in everyone's favor, unless the event is on a relatively large outdoor stage.
Ideally the musicians and audio tech will have enough trust so they can work out a decent compromise where each musician can still hear well enough to perform, and the audio tech has enough control over the mix to do an acceptable job without pushing the SPL to excessive levels. This means the musicians will not be able to turn up as much as they desire, but they will be louder than the audio tech prefers. Inferring all audio techs are manipulative douches is really not the best way to build the necessary trust.
IMHO, putting up a mic and then not using it because a player is blowing out the room is not deception. But it is deception when you plan to only run a Pre EQ DI, but tell the bassist you will use their Post EQ DI or mic their cab. If you tell someone you will do something, you should at least try to honor your word IMHO.
On the flip side, there are a fair amount of Talkbass members who try to engage in deception on the player's side as well. For example some members intentionally sandbag or trim down their gain during soundcheck. The idea is so they will be louder in all the mixes when they play at normal level during the show. There are also members who will covertly move the mic cable from the provided DI to the Post EQ DI on the back of their amp. I find this sort of deception equally distasteful, and ultimately I think it does more harm than good.
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There are also musicians that insist on their way, or the highway too. Often I'll go out on a limb and try what the musician wants, but if it's not working, I revert back to tried and true methods.
When I'm playing on stage, I give the sound man what he wants. He's in a better position to hear what's going on in the house.
When I'm playing on stage, I give the sound man what he wants. He's in a better position to hear what's going on in the house.
I want my effects in FOH and have had to insist that they are. On the other hand, it's incumbent on me to ensure they work in the venue, and with peaky synth bass sounds, for example, that's not trivial. And levels between patches in the context of the piece they are used need to be addressed too. It takes a while in dress rehearsal to dial that in for similarly sized venues. But it's necessary to be an honest partner if the sound engineer.
There seems to be a confusion in the way you ask. Let me try to clarify this.
Pure DI boxes do not colour the sound in any significant way. Therefore, there is no (significant) difference in tone between XLR output and 1/4 inch (bypassed) output with pure DI boxes. The difference is in impedance: XLR output has lower impedance than the 1/4 inch output. Low impedance helps to send the signal for longer cable lenghts into the mixing console without any signal loss. With pure DIs, one usually plugs the 1/4 output into the instrument input of your amp.
Preamps do colour the sound. Thererefore, there usually is a difference between its output and bypassed output (depending on the particular setting used). The use of preamp depends on players' preferences. IME, many players send "coloured" sound to the mixing console via XLR output and, at the same time, send (the same) "coloured" sound via the 1/4 output to the amp on stage. Some of them prefer to bypass the amp's preamp by plugging into the amp's effect return.
Only few players send bypassed signal to their amp, IME. There is one exemption to the above: cab simulation. Players who use cab simulation usually send cab simulation signal to FOH, but not to their onstage amp (unless they use FRFR cabs).
These are examples of "pure" DI boxes:
JDI - Passive Direct Box
– RNDI
These are examples of preamps:
Tone Hammer
Invalid Link Removed
It's not about the level/mix. It's about the sound: what sound do you want to hear onstage, and which sound works well in the mix.
If we speak about the level/mix: for monitoring purposes, one usually (almost always) needs to hear his own isntrument better than other instruments. Thus, guitar player needs to hear guitar better than bass, bass player needs to hear bass better than guitar, etc. That's why it's good to be able to achieve different level/mix for each musician.
I hope the above helps.
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What I find interesting is the argument "I din't buy all this expensive gear to be bypassed".
In my case, I bought all my gear in order to help the soundguy to make me sound good.
In case he tells me (in words or by his actions, like bypassing my gear) that it does not help him to make me sound good, I will not insist on the gear being used. Rather, I would consider getting rid of that particular gear…. (in case it is bypassed repeatedly)
In my case, I bought all my gear in order to help the soundguy to make me sound good.
In case he tells me (in words or by his actions, like bypassing my gear) that it does not help him to make me sound good, I will not insist on the gear being used. Rather, I would consider getting rid of that particular gear…. (in case it is bypassed repeatedly)
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I guess what I meant was that you send a mic level signal via XLR to the FOH and have a 1/4" going to your stage amp. Why would you want the two signals to be different?
I'm imagining a most likely non-existent scenario of getting a sick sound on-stage from your rig while your FOH/PA sound is thin and farty.
My philosophy is my amp is a tool that is supposed help me hear clearly and maybe feel excited to play, so I really don't understand the logic of getting rid of a great amp that you love. If your amp makes you happy, who cares where the audio tech gets his/her signal.
I actually prefer that the audio tech takes my signal from a DI that is placed between my bass and my amp. This allows me to adjust my amp freely without having to worry about how the adjustments will impact any mixes. The amp is for my needs. The DI gives the audio tech a clean unprocessed signal to work with.
If I used distortion, we would work out a different signal path. I think the best choice would be to keep the same signal path for the DI, but add a mic on my cab.
Because most mixing consoles are made to accept mic level signals...
Edit: why would anybody want the two being different?
- Because what the bass player wants to hear might not work well in the overall mix
- Becuse the sound which works well in the mix might not be good for monitoring purposes
- Because the stage amp/cab might have (and almost always has) different EQ response than the FOH system
- Because the auditorium might have (and often has) different acoustics than the stage
- Etc.
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I feel the same about amps, generally. The topic (I thought) was DI boxes and (pedal) preamps...
When I said I would consider getting rid of the particular piece of gear which is disliked by sound techs, I meant pedal preamps or other parts of my pedalboard...
Me too. I prefer that the sound tech gets primary (wet) feed from DI box placed between my pedalboard and my amp, and secondary/backup (clean) feed from the beginning of my signal chain...
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I try to avoid micing my cabinet because:
- I want to be free to change my onstage sound without affecting FOH
- I tend to stand close to my cab and the mic stand gets in the way
- I don't use (proper) cab for some of my gigs
- I use HPF/LPF at the end of my signal chain (Broughton RFE) which works as a cab simulation
- I feel that additional/unneccessary live mic on the stage is a source of bleed and, therefore, a source of potential problems
No. 1 above being the most important reason...
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Jimmy, there literally is not enough time to explain to musicians who think studio approaches apply to live sound why they are wrong during sound check. You have to just get them to shut up and go away as fast as possible. If they insist on doing something wrong, the best approach is to just make them think you did that. They have no idea what channels end up getting used as FOH anyway.
If you have a junk cab, cab simulation is the best you can do at that point. To not mic a nice 8x10 cabinet to compliment the DI signal would be just wrong though.
Wasnex, a bassist showing up and telling the sound company how to run the PA is like someone coming into KFC and telling them how to cook the chicken. They can either laugh at you or tell you okay we did that. Either way, you have no idea what they are doing out at FOH during the gig or in the kitchen anyway. And you shouldn't anger people who are cooking your food or mixing you. Or you might find 150ms of delay in your monitor mix
I would say the general rule for live is if you want more channels, feel free to ask. If they exist, you can plug in there in probably a minute. Telling FOH to not use a channel already on their mix sheet is not going to happen though.
Yes, sometimes I forget you sound guys are the real geniuses and the reason why the crowds come out while the bands are just idiotic do-nothing morons who have no clue what they're doing. I guess that's why the sound company always gets top billing on the marquees.
Just for the record, I, along with my 20year pro sound career and now playing with several of the musicians I used to mix for, will try to ignore being lumped into the category of sound guys like this Chip Dixon guy.
Unless you want to.
That's why I hate to even see this topic come up.
But go for it, if it make you feel better. I think most everyone here knows where I stand on this subject.
Yeah, I'm kinda pissed. But these conversations always go down the same path, so I'm not surprised.
Unless you want to.
That's why I hate to even see this topic come up.
But go for it, if it make you feel better. I think most everyone here knows where I stand on this subject.
Yeah, I'm kinda pissed. But these conversations always go down the same path, so I'm not surprised.
