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Double Bass Fethead preamp with built in high pass filter.

Fran Diaz

Fran Diaz

Mar 28, 2002
3,912
1,058
Santander, Spain
Disclosures
Bassist
#1
I use the Troll microphone and I'm about to order Triton Audio's Fethead so that I don't have to worry about phantom killing my mic.

They have a version with a built-in HPF. Standard freq. is 220HZ but it's posible to custom order it with a different freq.

Good or bad idea? Should I leave the full spectrum for the sound guy to work? I often find sound guys who want my DB to sound like a dance club dub bass and I hate it. Would you order it with the HPF and if so, set to which freq.?... 30Hz? 40Hz? 80Hz?...any comments and advice are welcomed.
 
#2
I recommend something with a sweepable frequency, because no two stages are the same. I've also found it a rare occurrence that a sound guy knows what to do with my bass. If I don't take care the high pass filtering, I often end up enveloped in certain notes on stage that wash everything else out. Because of this, I never send them an unprocessed signal anymore. However I use a pickup and not a mic.

My pick for HPF's is the Broughton Audio band pass pedal.

There is also the fdeck which many people here use and report great results with.
 
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#3
Jay Corwin said:
I recommend something with a sweepable frequency, because no two stages are the same. I've also found it a rare occurrence that a sound guy knows what to do with my bass. If I don't take care the high pass filtering, I often end up enveloped in certain notes on stage that wash everything else out. Because of this, I never send them an unprocessed signal anymore. However I use a pickup and not a mic.

My pick for HPF's is the Broughton Audio band pass pedal.

There is also the fdeck which many people here use and report great results with.
Click to expand...

Yes. I have contacted Azure Skies about a custom pedal and I'm still thinking about the possible specs. The good thing about the Fethead is its size which makes it ideal when I don't want to carry extra weight or gear. I think that a HPF at 40HZ would clean the low end nicely and won't cause any harm if I use an additional preamp like the Broughton or my AI head.
 
#4
I have to agree with Sevenyearsdown on this one. The most important tool in my experience has been a sweepable HPF. I prefer the Acoustic Image stuff most of the time, but there are other options. The fDeck would have to be used in an effects loop, as it is designed for piezoelectric pickups, and not microphones. I thought about specing a preamp for the Troll specifically, but price and features would be so close to the AI Flex that I deceided not to. At $600 it is not cheap, but all the issues are solved in advance! I normally run a Clarus with a small speaker (wizzy 10 or similar) on stage, and keep the bass out of the monitors. When I do go direct to the house, I use a Fethead, and ask the sound guy to start with zero gain, and use the console's HPF on the bass channel (usually 80hz or 100hz.).

All this being said, if I were shooting for a plug and play solution, I would go with a higher frequency roll off. When I corresponded with Erwin, he said the standard HPF fethead is a very gentle roll off, designed to neutralize proximity effect. This makes me think it would be a good choice, and put you on slightly better footing at the start of a soundcheck. Since the price tag is so reasonable, it hardly seems like a bad idea. Ribbon microphones have very low inherent distortion, so using eq, even rather extreme settings, doesn't sound bad. Any possible "loss" of low end could be replaced very easily with active eq.
 
#5
BrandonEssex said:
I have to agree with Sevenyearsdown on this one. The most important tool in my experience has been a sweepable HPF. I prefer the Acoustic Image stuff most of the time, but there are other options. The fDeck would have to be used in an effects loop, as it is designed for piezoelectric pickups, and not microphones. I thought about specing a preamp for the Troll specifically, but price and features would be so close to the AI Flex that I deceided not to. At $600 it is not cheap, but all the issues are solved in advance! I normally run a Clarus with a small speaker (wizzy 10 or similar) on stage, and keep the bass out of the monitors. When I do go direct to the house, I use a Fethead, and ask the sound guy to start with zero gain, and use the console's HPF on the bass channel (usually 80hz or 100hz.).

All this being said, if I were shooting for a plug and play solution, I would go with a higher frequency roll off. When I corresponded with Erwin, he said the standard HPF fethead is a very gentle roll off, designed to neutralize proximity effect. This makes me think it would be a good choice, and put you on slightly better footing at the start of a soundcheck. Since the price tag is so reasonable, it hardly seems like a bad idea. Ribbon microphones have very low inherent distortion, so using eq, even rather extreme settings, doesn't sound bad. Any possible "loss" of low end could be replaced very easily with active eq.
Click to expand...

I also like my AI Clarus head a lot (Rev Solo and Troll mixed to taste) but sometimes I want to be able to go to a gig with minimum gear and use only the mic; that's when the Fethead will come handy. Would 80Hz be a better choice for the built in HPF?
 
#6
I once recorded a few test mics and pickups with a small digital mixer.
The small diaphragm Oktava MC-012 that I used sounded best when I cut the bass frequencies half at 80 to 100 Hz. I think the final setting was 100 Hz.
So 80 Hz would be good, I think, but 100 Hz would be OK too.

Of course that depends how steep the filter is, but with a less steep filter 80 to 100 Hz should be fine.

It also depends how loud the FOH gets to the listeners. Louder (getting over noise like talking or a loud kind of music) works better with a bit less bass. Otherwise it can get muddy.
 
#7
DoubleMIDI said:
I once recorded a few test mics and pickups with a small digital mixer.
The small diaphragm Oktava MC-012 that I used sounded best when I cut the bass frequencies half at 80 to 100 Hz. I think the final setting was 100 Hz.
So 80 Hz would be good, I think, but 100 Hz would be OK too.

Of course that depends how steep the filter is, but with a less steep filter 80 to 100 Hz should be fine.

It also depends how loud the FOH gets to the listeners. Louder (getting over noise like talking or a loud kind of music) works better with a bit less bass. Otherwise it can get muddy.
Click to expand...
Standard is a built-in 6dB/octave high pass filter with a corner frequency of 220Hz...the freq can be custom ordered.
 
#9
With the Troll and FetHead, a fixed HP setting at 40Hz would work well for eliminating stage vibration. You can also tame low end through the proximity of the mic in relation to the top of your bass.

If you need to further tweak the sound, a dedicated preamp would be the next step. If you're sending the mic directly to FOH, 40Hz is a very conservative but helpful starting place.
 
#10
Agreeing with others who have already posted, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to use a fixed filter point when the bass response of performance spaces is so markedly different. I like the Fdeck HPF in the effects loop. It normally stays at around 80, but it's nice to be able to just turn the knob until the sound is optimal. I think I would be annoyed if I ordered a custom unit and the sound was too thin even a time or two. The Broughton Audio pedal looks nice, too. I wouldn't need the LPF with the Phil Jones amps, but with some of the backline that we encounter when traveling, that could be a pretty useful feature.
 
#16
Every piece of gear I'm considering offers something that the others don't. I might go the custom route and order a box from Broughton where I can plug my Troll and have gain, HPF and LPF and two outputs: one for the FOH and the other for my AI head. Oh! And pre/post filter switches for both channels. Any suggestions for this box?
 
#20
Remyd said:
Low B on a 5er is pretty well subsonic - would FOH even be able to play anything that low clearly? I know my stuff falls WAY off down there. Don't people only hear the first harmonic anyhow?
Click to expand...
From the right speaker, a low B string can sound amazing. My old Acme 2x10 could do it. I also played at Studio 7 in Seattle a while back where they had a bunch of 18" subs built in under the stage. When I hit the low D and C I felt like Thor. It was exhilarating, actually.

But the low B is at around 31 CPS so I really don't need anything below that. I have a 50 CPS high pass on my crown amp, but I'm conserned that I may be losing some of the low stuff with that. I did find out I can use an inline FMOD 12 db per octave passive so I may give it a whirl. But it's RCA cable compatible. Need adaptors.
 

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