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Getting big fat thud tones in big resonant rooms
- Thread starter JimmyM
- Start date
One of my fave players. His bass playing is a melody all its own sometimes. Little known cut , " Saturday Night " is a great example. The little bridge parts he plays are a song of its own, and the stingy use of popping notes in the verses are my way of thinking about slap and pop style. Perfect.
I totally agree with you, Spazz. If it works for what you're doing, then go for it. But since so many bassists are going for fatter and less trebly tones these days which are often very hard to get in some rooms without mud, I thought it would be an interesting discussion to share some ideas on getting it done, because Steve Boone is proof that it can be done.I still prefer bright n stringy like a piano and run from thud as far I possibly can unless I absolutely have to....I guess I'm just an old phart stuck in my ways....but, hey, once a guy has found the general zip code of their bass Nirvana, why leave?
I'll keep it brief (EDIT: I tried but failed)...I grew up in an era where bass players were exploring more and more what treble can do, and while I enjoyed a lot of bassists who had dark sounds, I wanted treble, dang nab it! Never tweeter frequencies, but good brightness that made it obvious I was using a pick. And I've gone through all the ups and downs of tone that different bass players used over the years and a lot of knob twisting and setting them at noon ll kinds of crap and nonsense.
But my first pro band was with an Elvis impersonator, and he absolutely insisted that I turn my bass up all the way and turn treble and mids all the way down unless we were in a large theater, at which point he gave into soundman complaints. So naturally I hated him for it
But if you're playing rooms that are really resonant with low mids and bass response and you want dark tones, it's really not a bad idea for you to send a relatively flat signal to the PA and discuss your objectives with the sound tech. They do need you to give them mids and treble because of possible mud buildup that causes you to have no tone at all. IMHO they don't need tweeter or big fat hip hop low end frequencies, so with me they never get them
Over the past few years I've had the privilege of working with and getting to know the great Steve Boone, from the 60's folk rock band The Lovin' Spoonful. The Spoonful pretty much wrote the book on that style of music, had a butt-ton of major hits, many of which Steve wrote or co-wrote, and to this day Steve brings the thud in any room I've ever heard him play and on any supplied backline he's ever used, including a pretty wide variety of my amps. He started out playing a Guild Starfire and a Precision with flats into a B-15 in their earliest days, but since I've known him and before, he's been using an Ibanez BTB active neck-thru 4 with rounds that usually somewhat used but sounded pretty lively to me while he's playing unplugged. But you can drop him into any room across the world no matter how big or small, and his sound always has a massive low end with just enough clarity so you can make out his notes. And he's done it on a handful of my basses that don't sound like his. Flats, rounds, passive or active, it comes across. And that's his entire tonal goal and always has been with the Spoonful...put out a big warm low end that doesn't sound clanky but always clear enough to tell what notes he's playing.
And here's his secret...Steve Boone. That's just how he plays. He doesn't micromanage his sound much at all. I suppose he has some pet settings that he likes, but he gives the house a direct full range sound and will literally plug into anything you give him, and just plays like he does and has since day one. And I've heard a goodly amount of treble and mids coming out of some of the systems he plugs into, and yet, no matter what bass, amp, or PA he uses, it's this big beautiful low end with tonal clarity like I've never heard from anyone else, and it's 100% consistent and easily duplicated. He just plays in a way that lends his sound to it and lets the amp and sound techs (they don't usually bring their own, at least not on the gigs I've done with them) do what they will.
And now I'm playing in a couple bands where my goal is to get the same basic thing happening, and I believe I get a terrific sound when I want a similar vibe happening. But it's never quite like Steve's. Nobody's is. I do my best, but I play like me and I'll never fully cop his sound because of that. And that's OK. Before anything else, tone is always from the musician. But if there's one thing I've learned from working with him (and there's plenty more besides that), the way you cop a great big fat wall of thud and still achieve clarity without clank in any really resonant room for bass is to play like you want it really bad, give the sound tech enough tools to deal with translating it in the house, and the rest falls into place. But playing like you want it really bad is key and it'll never happen otherwise.
A lot of good nuggets here, but you don't really come out and say what you think the key is. Maybe your trying to avoid the typical tribal argument, but I think your touching on the concept of "tone is in the fingers." To be clear, I don't believe this statement in absolute or literal terms, but the intended meaning carries a lot of truth that more players should learn.
I suspect what Steve Boone is most likely doing is just playing with super clean technique. So even though he is sending a relatively flat signal to the audio tech it still sounds like a bass should. There are probably other unique factors related to the types of strings he uses, as well as where and how he plucks and mutes the strings, but I think it really just comes down to playing the bass in a way that avoids injecting unintentional high frequency sounds in the tone.
All true. It's not like his sound and gear doesn't allow for the possibility of injecting them, but it's very much a product of his playing style.
I find that playing fewer notes (simpler) in a big resonant room really helps. The notes I do play resonate and since there are fewer of them they don't run into each other.
If you see tone as strictly a matter of EQ, I can understand the resistance to the idea that tone is in the fingers. But if you also see attack and decay as part of tone, then it's very much in the fingers. And for me, attack is one of the most prominent aspects of 'tone'. How and where you attack the string does more to tone than any 3 clicks of a knob.
My life got exponentially easier when I became a passive P w/flats guy, often w some foam muting, through a decent DI to the FOH. Like, as basic/old school as it gets. In those boomy rooms, the quicker decay can be exactly the ticket.
An excellent point. I find that to be the case as well. Do I think it's 100% necessary? Not after hearing Steve rock a BTB with rounds so many times. But a P with flats is my ticket for it, too, so I'm not arguing
I'll keep it brief (EDIT: I tried but failed)...I grew up in an era where bass players were exploring more and more what treble can do, and while I enjoyed a lot of bassists who had dark sounds, I wanted treble, dang nab it! Never tweeter frequencies, but good brightness that made it obvious I was using a pick. And I've gone through all the ups and downs of tone that different bass players used over the years and a lot of knob twisting and setting them at noon ll kinds of crap and nonsense.
But my first pro band was with an Elvis impersonator, and he absolutely insisted that I turn my bass up all the way and turn treble and mids all the way down unless we were in a large theater, at which point he gave into soundman complaints. So naturally I hated him for it
But if you're playing rooms that are really resonant with low mids and bass response and you want dark tones, it's really not a bad idea for you to send a relatively flat signal to the PA and discuss your objectives with the sound tech. They do need you to give them mids and treble because of possible mud buildup that causes you to have no tone at all. IMHO they don't need tweeter or big fat hip hop low end frequencies, so with me they never get them
Over the past few years I've had the privilege of working with and getting to know the great Steve Boone, from the 60's folk rock band The Lovin' Spoonful. The Spoonful pretty much wrote the book on that style of music, had a butt-ton of major hits, many of which Steve wrote or co-wrote, and to this day Steve brings the thud in any room I've ever heard him play and on any supplied backline he's ever used, including a pretty wide variety of my amps. He started out playing a Guild Starfire and a Precision with flats into a B-15 in their earliest days, but since I've known him and before, he's been using an Ibanez BTB active neck-thru 4 with rounds that usually somewhat used but sounded pretty lively to me while he's playing unplugged. But you can drop him into any room across the world no matter how big or small, and his sound always has a massive low end with just enough clarity so you can make out his notes. And he's done it on a handful of my basses that don't sound like his. Flats, rounds, passive or active, it comes across. And that's his entire tonal goal and always has been with the Spoonful...put out a big warm low end that doesn't sound clanky but always clear enough to tell what notes he's playing.
And here's his secret...Steve Boone. That's just how he plays. He doesn't micromanage his sound much at all. I suppose he has some pet settings that he likes, but he gives the house a direct full range sound and will literally plug into anything you give him, and just plays like he does and has since day one. And I've heard a goodly amount of treble and mids coming out of some of the systems he plugs into, and yet, no matter what bass, amp, or PA he uses, it's this big beautiful low end with tonal clarity like I've never heard from anyone else, and it's 100% consistent and easily duplicated. He just plays in a way that lends his sound to it and lets the amp and sound techs (they don't usually bring their own, at least not on the gigs I've done with them) do what they will.
And now I'm playing in a couple bands where my goal is to get the same basic thing happening, and I believe I get a terrific sound when I want a similar vibe happening. But it's never quite like Steve's. Nobody's is. I do my best, but I play like me and I'll never fully cop his sound because of that. And that's OK. Before anything else, tone is always from the musician. But if there's one thing I've learned from working with him (and there's plenty more besides that), the way you cop a great big fat wall of thud and still achieve clarity without clank in any really resonant room for bass is to play like you want it really bad, give the sound tech enough tools to deal with translating it in the house, and the rest falls into place. But playing like you want it really bad is key and it'll never happen otherwise.
Jimmy,
You touched on two things that are key when dealing with FOH. The first one is to communicate with the sound engineer. Be respectful of their time, be courteous, and succinct when describing your sound. They have a job to do to, and it’s a lot more complicated than just pushing faders.
Your second point, sending a flat signal to the board. As you said, this provides them with a full tonal palette to work with. Pardon a cheap analogy, you don’t send a painter all red paint, then wonder why the sea scape looks weird.
Good post!
I learned so about "tone is in the hands" during my first trip to NAMM. I can remember just being floored by the fact that every bassist, playing the same bass, through the same rig, would sound quite different. I remember the first few guys that came through the booth weren't very good players and the tone they were getting was so bad that I at first thought I had an issue with my speaker cabs. All clacky, lots of fret noise, no warmth in the lows and they seemed to be able to get the drivers to fart out fairly easily even though the volume wasn't very high. Spent a good hour taking apart a couple cabs just to check for issues.
I was pulling my hair out trying to figure what was wrong. And then the "players" started showing up. These guys would sit down, pick up the same bass that sounded like crap two minutes ago and manage to coax the most wonderful tones out of the bass without touching a knob. These guys played with no clack, no buzz and got these huge round, warm tones that transformed the rig into something spectacular. So, I really started paying attending to what they were doing. First thing I noticed right away was the right hand technique. Almost all these guys played in a way that was quite different than how I have always played. Where I tend to have an aggressive attack and hit the strings downward (bad habits from always trying to sound like Geddy and Squire as a kid), these guys almost always had a lighter touch where they brush their fingers over the strings, keeping the stroke parallel to the bass body. This really blew my mind because the guys who were getting the biggest, fattest tones, were the guys hitting the strings the softest. I also realized that these guys would crank up the amp to make up for the lack of volume coming from the bass. I was also floored by the fact that these guys could also get the amp much louder without the woofers farting out. It was quite an educational experience for me.
After I got home from NAMM, I really started listening to some of my favorite recordings and I started to realize that the tones I thought were the most supportive of the music, were the ones where there was not a lot of high end coming from the bass. Buy why is this? Well, because the engineers doing the mixes were coming at the music quite differently than most bassist come at "their tone". These mix engineers make sure that each instrument has its own defined space within the mix, which is quite different than us bassist who tend to focus on reproducing the entire range of our wildly dynamic instrument. So, I started thinking of my instrument from a mixing engineer's point of view, which meant stop focusing on recreating the entire frequency range of my instrument and instead start focusing on what I needed to do to provide the most supportive low end I could for the music. And like you Jimmy, I started to realize that this meant turning up the bass, cutting back on the top end and learning to boost somewhere in the 250Hz to 500Hz range for definition, which is an area I never really boosted before. Good tone is always a work in progress, but my tonal preferences have definitely moved more towards the old school.
I was pulling my hair out trying to figure what was wrong. And then the "players" started showing up. These guys would sit down, pick up the same bass that sounded like crap two minutes ago and manage to coax the most wonderful tones out of the bass without touching a knob. These guys played with no clack, no buzz and got these huge round, warm tones that transformed the rig into something spectacular. So, I really started paying attending to what they were doing. First thing I noticed right away was the right hand technique. Almost all these guys played in a way that was quite different than how I have always played. Where I tend to have an aggressive attack and hit the strings downward (bad habits from always trying to sound like Geddy and Squire as a kid), these guys almost always had a lighter touch where they brush their fingers over the strings, keeping the stroke parallel to the bass body. This really blew my mind because the guys who were getting the biggest, fattest tones, were the guys hitting the strings the softest. I also realized that these guys would crank up the amp to make up for the lack of volume coming from the bass. I was also floored by the fact that these guys could also get the amp much louder without the woofers farting out. It was quite an educational experience for me.
After I got home from NAMM, I really started listening to some of my favorite recordings and I started to realize that the tones I thought were the most supportive of the music, were the ones where there was not a lot of high end coming from the bass. Buy why is this? Well, because the engineers doing the mixes were coming at the music quite differently than most bassist come at "their tone". These mix engineers make sure that each instrument has its own defined space within the mix, which is quite different than us bassist who tend to focus on reproducing the entire range of our wildly dynamic instrument. So, I started thinking of my instrument from a mixing engineer's point of view, which meant stop focusing on recreating the entire frequency range of my instrument and instead start focusing on what I needed to do to provide the most supportive low end I could for the music. And like you Jimmy, I started to realize that this meant turning up the bass, cutting back on the top end and learning to boost somewhere in the 250Hz to 500Hz range for definition, which is an area I never really boosted before. Good tone is always a work in progress, but my tonal preferences have definitely moved more towards the old school.
as im pretty sure you know, most rooms have a 125hz and 250hz resonance (especially 250), no matter what their geometry,....the higher the ceiling, the worse it is....and if the stage has a high ceiling or is hollow, its a 250hz trap.......as much of a 'flat-as-possible' guy i am, i sometimes have to conservatively notch those to taste, compensate with master volume to taste, and make sure the house reflects that. Most of the time, just a 250 notch takes care of the 125... Im not sure if that will work for you or not, tho, cause youre an amp guy ("Post") where Im more a direct signal before amp guy ("Pre")
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That's right. That's why I think most of us started playing when we were teenagers, because whatever we wanted, we really wanted it badly. The key is not to lose that state of mind. This is probably the case with your friend.
You're correct about my first point but a little off on the second. I don't find it necessary to send a dead flat signal to the board with every single frequency from 20-20k available to the tech. And since I want my DI signal to sound like what I get out of an Ampeg 810e, I cut those highs and lows completely out to match it. They're never necessary for what I do, and since I work with a variety of techs, I can't always trust them to make those cuts. I will also sculpt the sound coming out of my amp to my liking, and if I'm not using the REDDI and/or VT Deluxe to the board, I'll boost bass a bit and cut treble a bit as well. And depending on how much the room lets me, I may do stuff like turning the tone knob on my bass down, even all the way down once in a while if the room lets me.
But I am a very experienced player whose likes and dislikes are set in stone, I've learned to read the room and use a wireless to check it when I can, and I know when I'm in a room that will go squirrely if I go too far. I also have zero interest in being super loud, and I'll often suggest that I don't need to be that loud. So for newbs or people who haven't figured it out yet, I would suggest sending your signal to the board with something that doesn't deviate from flat response too much and leaves plenty of room for the tech to work the room as needed. But for those of us who have it figured out by and large, it's perfectly OK to sculpt your tone as long as you don't make it impossible for the tech to deal with problems, since dead flat response doesn't sound all that good to me, and our basses vary so much in tone that it really doesn't exist anyway.
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Like anything, it depends. But there are times where a tech has done that to me and I asked him to not do it to me
I don't think you can get further from the truth.
Same here, Roger, very much so. I used to hate that "Bass should be felt, not heard" mantra that non-bassists would spew, and I'd say, "Why can't you have both? All my favorite bassists do." And I still feel the same to a certain extent. But over the years, my mantra has become, "I really love Marcus Miller and could listen to him play all day but I'm not Marcus Miller."
elevating the amp usually helps me too, especially on hollow theatre type stages (I just elevate combos as par for course).....if using my GK combo, it serves two functions: takes it directly off the hollow-stage floor and also puts it more at my ear-level, usually decreasing my stage volume compared to floorLike anything, it depends. But there are times where a tech has done that to me and I asked him to not do it to me
