Direct Out - pre or post eq?

[TheNightLife]

alot of times the sound guys goes out of the back of my svt cl out of the trans. balanced out. and sometimes i use my countryman di.

 

[Lowest End]

I'm with Jimmy on this one. What the pre-post gives is the starting point sound for the sound engineer to use. If you've got a decent bass, your pre-eq tone will sound "decent" as a starting point. If you use your post-eq, that's their starting point sound, they can just as easily undo whatever precious tweaking you've done to sound good to you a few feet in front of your rig. Point is, what you sound like to everybody but yourself is still up to them.

Post-eq can bring up some issues that can make you sound worse though. If you've got too much bass dialed into your amp and the soundguy isn't paying attention to the bass then you've got mud, etc. Post can also bring more of your own "sound" to start with though.

I say, post is ok if---

A. You have your s*** together and know a little bit about what happens when your signal goes to the front.

B. You don't use extreme eq boost or cuts to get "your sound".

C. Probably the most important, you don't make any adjustments to your amp throughout the show and/or you have your pedals dialed in so there aren't any radical changes in output.

A big change in eq or output is going to play hell with FOH and the answer is going to be to pull you down and figure it out later.

A sound engineer's main priorities to start are vocals, kick, snare. Then other lead instruments, then bass, rhythm, etc. Supposed he's got you in an ok spot in the mix and you give him something radical to deal with, his only option at that point is to get you out of the way so he can sweeten up the lead parts that people are paying more attention to, then go back and figure out what the hell you did, because he doesn't know, you didn't tell him or he'd have told you "leave it alone" and try to get it back to 'ok' again. If you'd have left well enough alone, you would have been part of that sweetening process and your whole band could've sounded badass instead of sounding like a singer, a drummer, a guitar player, and some other guy.


That's all in a perfect world of course. Some people attain the title "sound engineer" because they're the only ones who figured out where to plug things in to make some sound come out.

Fantastic post. Your points about a sound man's priorities are spot on and I think a lot of us bassists forget this. For me, I've mixed mostly metal bands. If I have time for proper sound check (so, like never), you better believe I'm making sure the bass sounds perfect (I'm a bassist too, dammit). But if it's a 15-minute changeover situation, as long as the bass is audible and doesn't sound like farts I'm going to work on other things first and come to tweaking the bass later.

What's kind of funny for me is that I've been the sound man for so long, when I play, I usually end up getting there early, meeting the sound man and talking about our setup, gear and needs. As such, I accomplish two things: making a rapport with the guy (or girl) which simply pays infinite dividends later (having the guy actually make sure we sound good, not getting dicked out of set time, etc) and second that there are no surprises when we go onstage. This way I never hear "wait, you have a keyboard player?" or anything.

 

[JimmyM]

i totally don't get the bass being #10 on the priority list. that whole bass drum/bass thing is what makes or breaks a mix.

 

[will33]

Thanks, I think this point of view is lost on some players as well. If taken in a general, broad, big picture sense, the same rules apply whether you're mixing black metal or bluegrass.

 

[Phry]

I've always run Post and I've never had any complaints from the Soundguy, only compliments.

 

[will33]

i totally don't get the bass being #10 on the priority list. that whole bass drum/bass thing is what makes or breaks a mix.

The whole bass/drum thing is what gets people moving their hips, good soundguys know this too but man, look at what most music consumers, many of which are not musicians get...the hook, the melody, what they sing in the shower to, or what they think is worth spending a jukebox dollar on or what's on their ipod in their cubicle or whatever. It's catchy stuff and the rhythm section is a big part of that but that's not realized by the end comsumer. If your rhythm section sucked, the song would have never caught on, if the rhythm is great it's going to make people like it but most of them will never know that it's the rhythm section that made them feel either way.

The soundman's (or woman's, there are some good ones out there) job is to first get the general song/feel recognizable and sounding good to the general public and that means, vocals, kick, snare. Then some other stuff and then the rest. It's just the way it is.

 

[JimmyM]

i understand vocals being the high priority. i will never understand anything else being a low priority. to me, that's a soundman saying, "i suck." heard a lot of soundmen ruin the sound because they think that way.

 

[rickdog]

Like a lot of people have said... go with what the person running the board wants.

But with that said... I love the really retro slightly distorted tone I get from the preamp on my SVT-3PRO, so I go with post whenever I can. I have a light hand on the EQ - hit the Bright switch, plus slight low-mid boost - but I'm happy to leave it flat if I they'll let me put my signal through that preamp!

 

[IronMaiden]

If your rhythm section sucked, the song would have never caught on, if the rhythm is great it's going to make people like it but most of them will never know that it's the rhythm section that made them feel either way.

The soundman's (or woman's, there are some good ones out there) job is to first get the general song/feel recognizable and sounding good to the general public and that means, vocals, kick, snare. Then some other stuff and then the rest. It's just the way it is.

So it's okay to loose what they like even though they don't know it? Maybe they would notice that something is missing?

Plus drums are going to cut through in most cases anyway.

 

[JimmyM]

Like a lot of people have said... go with what the person running the board wants.

NEVER!!!

 

[IronMaiden]

Like a lot of people have said... go with what the person running the board wants.

Maybe this is the kind if attitude that allows them to treat bassists in such a manner?

 

[will33]

In short, keep the big picture in mind. The overall is greater than the sum of the parts, etc. If ya got a decent gig, you're going to sound good, don't worry about it. If your tone isn't the cat's pajama's on the first 2 songs, it will be by the last dozen or so.

It's like making sure your songs have good endings, that's the last thing they'll remember.

Just keep in mind when you have bands in rooms they've never been in before and soundguy's trying to mix bands they've never heard before you got to roll with it and give each other the room needed to do their best. If it turns out that isn't good enough, you should have solutions instead of critisisms.


P.S. "critisisms looks like it has too many "s"'s in it, almost looks like Christmas.

 

[johnk_10]

everytime i go thru an FOH system, i go direct (pre), and have a mic on my cab.

 

[longfinger]

I'm giving the sound guy a Pre-EQ signal in one repeating gig I'm doing. The reason for me, is that my combo in this case, is my stage monitor and I want the freedom to EQ it any way I want so I can hear it well on stage without worrying about ruining the FOH sound.

For me, on stage I often reduce the bass EQ, and keep the mids. The sound can be thin, ugly and plinky, but that is what helps me hear myself, play in tune and avoid feedback on the double bass. On the fretted electric BG though, I don't worry about feedback or tuning, so the cab can be mic'd, or DI Post EQ.

So it depends.

This week, I'm going to experiment with leaving the 62 lbs combo at home and using only the DI with monitors...

Try different things...

 

[Lowest End]

i understand vocals being the high priority. i will never understand anything else being a low priority. to me, that's a soundman saying, "i suck." heard a lot of soundmen ruin the sound because they think that way.

Well, we can only work on one thing at a time. In no-sound-check situations, the first 5-10 seconds is getting a rough mix. Then making sure the vocals are clear, then the kick/snare/guitar (again, I mostly do metal), then dialing in the bass. After that it's fine-tuning time. Also, a good sound man will have this all done halfway into the first song; it's not like we're talking 3/4 of the set.

 

[JerBo]

I have some sound engineering experience, and I used to run Pre almost exclusively. But since I started listening back to recordings of various shows or videos of ours...
I was realizing that my bass sounded different every time and I usually didn't like what the soundguy(s) did to it.
So I've been running Post from my preamp for a while now and immediately started getting compliments from both engineers and audience members.
I used to avoid Post only because I tend to do some tweaking throughout the gig, but it's usually very minimal and I don't do crazy stuff with the EQ or gain... I just try to get a smooth tone and rely on my fingers to do most of the work- as someone else was saying.
Everybody plays differently though... I could DEFINITELY see how running Post could be a problem for some players/engineers.

Hell, you can always try it... Just ask if there were any problems afterward (usually if there's a problem he'll let you know right off the bat)

oh.... and I'm speaking of BG. I personally would never send a Post eq for upright, no matter how good you think you can get it to sound.

 

[Jim Carr]

My tone needs are pretty simple. Not heavy on bottom or top. Clean, meaty, loud, with maybe more lows or mids for a few songs, depending. I like to send pre-EQ signal via my DI. My amp stays pretty flat, if it is my big rig.

IME, I can then expect that any small changes in tone I create by my touch or small onboard EQ changes will be incorporated or at least ignored by most of the sound techs I work with. I have dealt with some real gas bags, but they tend to be very lazy, which means at some point they stop paying any attention to the bass.

 

[Jim Carr]

...I personally would never send a Post eq for upright, no matter how good you think you can get it to sound.

Yes, but...

I have done a large number of live radio/TV shows on upright for which I could hear the sound guys work from the video recordings afterward. There are worse things than bad EQ.

IMHO, a good pre-amp to ward off piezo-honk from my Gage Realist was always worth it. However, I didn't do anything other than try to get the flat tone. When I asked, the sound guy "forbade" me from using a pre-amp, but often he didn't actually notice.

When he did notice, I sent the Realist piezo straight to my countryman type 85, which worked OK, but I liked the SansAmp ParaDI better for piezo-equipped upright--again based on the taped result. It's not about the EQ, it was about having something other than a hollow honk or muddy thud from that sound guy's ideology.

 

[bassmanjla]

I agree, but some guys just annoy me with their attitude. When their not even willing to try anything but their way, I'll do my best to avoid them in the future. The last guy we had (who subbed for one of our regular guys) insisted on a separate DI box, and he asked me to cut "as much as possible" at around 150-200hz. Note, this was as I was setting up, I hadn't even plugged in yet, and this was the first time he did sound for us.

I will not do another gig with him running FOH.

did you ever pause to wonder if he might have had a reason??

 

[silky smoove]

I run a Radial JDI in front of my amp... But I have all of my effects in front of the JDI. Basically the sound guy gets my pre-EQ signal, but he has to deal with my effects. I use them pretty sparingly, but they're required elements of portions of my primary bands' songs, so he has to deal with them. I don't set up any of them with radical EQ shifts and as such I've never received a complaint going this route.

If I get my way, the soundguy takes a signal from my Radial JDI and puts a mic on my cab.... AND he listens to my suggestions about mic placement (LDS nEarful 15/6/1, so pointing right at the woofer is a huge no-no).