Good tone from FRFRs?

[agedhorse]

In clubs, yes, there are a lot of people that are handed the keys to a very powerful rig that have no idea what they're doing. Tours have a better hit rate in terms of the knowledge of the people operating them, but they often have the worst acoustics to deal with - the bigger the venue, the more issues you have if the place isn't treated well to start with.

If you're in a band, and want to know if your sound person is decent, just watch him or her for a while. If they go through sound check and a tune or two without ever leaving the booth, you have your answer. Good sound people will walk the audience area to make sure that it sounds good in the seats where people will actually be. Seeing them walk the place isn't an absolute guarantee that they're good, but theres a pretty high correlation.

If the FOH guy is very familiar with the venue and has plenty of experience with the coverage of the PA, not much walking is generally necessary.

It depends.

 

[Pings Bass]

Sure you can get a usable sound without preamps, strictly with just the FOH mixing desk… but to me it is not fun at all to play a gig with absolutely no distortion or compression at all… a little bit of distortion goes a long way even if it isnt noticable when the other instruments kick in. Listen to the isolated bass tracks of almost any studio record and they usually sound a lot more dirty alone than is noticable in the context of the final mix. Playing perfectly clean is a great way to get lost in the mix, and it just doesn’t *feel* satisfying to my fingers and ears.

I understand that a lot of rock bass has some amount of distortion and compression. If you need that, you can add it before the DI, along with anything else you want

But I don't play any kind of music where "getting lost in the mix" is a even a thing.

(So much discussion here assumes we're all playing with guitars saturating everything, but that's really not the majority of even pop music anymore.)

 

[Schpeaker]

Any setup that is close to FRFR is conceptually like plugging direct into a PA or a recording rig - the point is that it puts out what you put into it. If you don't llike the sound that's coming out of it, you need to change what's going into it. All the gigs I do nowadays are ampless - the trick to those (and probably what you need as well) is you need to make sure that what comes out of your pedalboard sounds good. You don't necessarily have to have an official dsp based amp and cab sim, but you will likely need to incorporate a lot of what they do into your signal chain.

Basses put out a lot of mids. They actually put out more than you really want, so most bass amps remove some (or a lot) - most amps have a tone stack that cuts out lower mids. It's actually very difficult on a Fender amp, for example, to get actual flat response. When people on here talk about "pushing mids", what they mean (if you understand what their rig is actually doing ) is not cutting them as much as what happens when the knobs are all at noon. So, you (before the signal hits the FRFR amp), need to manage what is happening in the lower mids. If you've got two pickups on in your bass, you will get a pronounced dip in that range (that isn't present on a single pickup bass), so the eq you will need for a P and for a J will be quite different.

Most cabinets roll off a lot of high end - a lowpass (aka hi cut) filter can do enough of the same thing to work in place of a fancy digital emulator. This is especially important if you have any dirt (overdrive, distortion or fuzz) in your signal chain - without something to roll off high end, you will probably get the "box of bees" sound.

Most cabinets also cut a lot of your lowest frequencies. A high pass may be useful, depending on what your signal ultimately ends up going through. If it's a FRFR amp/speaker on stage, you will almost certainly want to cut some low end, as that cab won't handle a lot of power down low - it'll sound muddy if you push it hard with too much bass, because it can't handle that cleanly (the mud is harmonics, not too much fundamentals, but I digress). If the thing that is making your sound for the audience is a very capable PA, then things can be very different - you can (and this is really cool) actually have support for the fundamentals of your lowest notes, which can be awesome*. I do have a high pass filter on my pedalboard, but it's set at 17.5 Hz - just there to remove sub audible stuff. That way, the PA is fed a signal that is flat down to a low B (I play 5's).

*Major tours travel with subs nowadays, specifically because the impact that this has is worth the considerable added expense and burden of carrying subs (and the amps to drive them).

This is very insightful, thank you very much.

Could you call out some specific frequency bands that either the amp or cab would attenuate? I'm asking because your post says that the amp cuts "low mids" while the cab cuts "lows" and "highs", so that doesn't leave much else on the table! But I suspect what you meant was specific bands within those ranges.

 

[Wasnex]

This is very insightful, thank you very much.

Could you call out some specific frequency bands that either the amp or cab would attenuate? I'm asking because your post says that the amp cuts "low mids" while the cab cuts "lows" and "highs", so that doesn't leave much else on the table! But I suspect what you meant was specific bands within those ranges.

Different amps and cabs tend to have their own unique baked in quality. So it depends on the gear you use.

Lower end PA gear is not always super accurate or transparent. Some have baked in qualities you may not like. For example the mids and highs on some PA cabs tend to be hyped and uneven

 

[Azari]

A truly FRFR speaker should be able to harness zero point energy and reproduce the exact existential frequency range of any desired place and time, harnessing quantum nonlocality to open portals to far off interstellar lands.

Any recommendations?

 

[J Wilson]

A genuine bass guitar amp and the accompanying speaker cabinet(s) optimized to make a bass guitar sound great are a totally different device than a FRFR amp and cabinet(s) or self-powered cabinet designed to reproduce everything from vocals to most any instrument and percussion. By design they are very uncolored tone-wise.

IF I were going to attempt to make a bass sound like a bass rig through what are essentially PA bins, I'd have a distinctively guitar/bass amp-like preamp between me and the cab, something based on a Fender amp front end like an Alembic F2B, or something similar with tube warmth and less-than FRFR frequency response. In other words, I'd want to muddy it up a bit.

Once it's gone out to the house, it's up to FOH and out of your hands.

 

[Passinwind]

A truly FRFR speaker should be able to harness zero point energy and reproduce the exact existential frequency range of any desired place and time, harnessing quantum nonlocality to open portals to far off interstellar lands.

Any recommendations?

Whoever includes a crack pipe with their cab?

 

[4Mal]

What I find hilarious in the FRFR discussions is... nobody talks about frequency slotting... nobody acknowledges HPF/LPF filters. Personlly I like a cab that is very smooth down to 40, with no wierd anomoloes in the sub 100hz range. I need nothing above 5 to 6k. Nothing. Many of thr cans mentioned in the FRFRdiscussion are Pro-Sumer PA cabs. The QSC K12 would be an example. The K12 is lumpy as hell below 100 and is pretty far down at 60. Of course it soars to 20 k... so much for FRFR... now I have deep experience with K12's owned 5 plaus 2 K10's, 2 153's and 4 181's at one point. As PA, they did yeoman's service. As a bass amp? ick... just ick. Calling a K12 FRFR is lidicrous. Compading a K12 to anything Alto makes the K12 look like whoa, amazing...miracle speaker cabs do not exist in the Commecial Off The Shelf arena sub 2k per unit or so...

IMO a better approach is a reasonable neutral cab with a reasonably flat response. Said cab is likely to be a 2 way with a 12 or 15 a cossover and a 5 or 6" cone mid. My first experience with that was the venerable fEarful 12/6. Like Greenboy or not, that was one heck of a good piece of work. My current cabs are a MAS 15/5 and ah Russ, aka 5StringGekko 15/5. Both use faital pro drivers and both are a atep up from the fEarful- which is truly remarkable to me.

FRFR is a joke for the most part...

 

[agedhorse]

I wouldn’t call the concept of FRFR a joke though. There are degrees of FRFR that are entirely appropriate and significantly less voiced than a typical run of the mill bass cabinet IME.

It depends on the definition of FRFR. For example, the Subway 115 is very mildly voiced and compares more with a higher end PA cabinet than a typical bass cabinet, it also happens to use pro audio drivers.

 

[4Mal]

@agedhorse I agree. What I consider bonkers is thinking something like a K12 or other pa cabs in that range or downward is actually FRFR. That, and for bass guitar, is there a need for strong output over say 6k ? or is that just gonna get lpf'd out... it is in my rig for sure.

I haven't had the pleasure of test diving a Subway cab. I have no doubt it would leave me impressed. I did own a GB neox212 for a bit. Very nice and I recall .. your design. A close friend - kinda my mentor in the sound biz bought it for his backline and loves it. He was topping it with a GK but recently snagged a Shuttle 6 for it. Says he gets no complaints from any bass players except the deaf that only spec an SVT and fridge.

 

[BuglerBass]

Yeah you can hear the sub booming out a muffled mmmm mmmm and you can hear a horrid rubbery high-mid tone coming out of the mains but there is no thumpy FAT low-mid chest-punch that a bass amp gives you.

Could be a lot thing contributing to it.
The overwhelming hum or mmm mmm from mains subs is a common reaction.
Most dont hear so much Attack fundamental from a string instrument.
As a soundman or good one will often remove those sub frequencies.
Very common complaint.

With bass the often" mid range" warmth is combination of amplifier and speaker distortion.
Not clipping distortion. Its simply different coming out than in. Additional harmonics.
Plenty of exceptions but were primarily use too a single speaker type or wideband.
Bandwidth might be limited, but often preferred to not hear the actual wider range of direct signals.
Sound bright or " fake." The string really sounds like that. We just aren't use to it.
Much like a Acoustic Guitar with piezo pickups. Sound " Fake" with strange clang to the notes.
The strings really do sound that way. Just the usual acoustic body doesn't replicate it.
It actually warms it up, adds its own distortion.

With a PA or monitor type. Your easily getting mid tones and upper mid tones.
In the mid horn or drivers. No speaker is linear phase perfect.
So yes the instrument covers enough harmonics or cover wide bandwidth with a single note.
To where some sounds are actually being produced faster or later than the original signal.
So they sound like you said. Highs are earlier and bass is later or appears to be.
So I guess rubbery makes sense and distant as well. They are arriving at slightly different times.

Big argument with linear phase and time alignment for playback, most people dont know.
That is the way they think they sound. Recordings full or reverb and delay add more to the argument.
Really doesnt matter as much.
We as musicians creating the tone in real time, also aware of slight EQ changes.
But Actually more sensitive or likely aware of later or quicker sound from non linear phase effecting a single note.
Its not a delay or reverb. Its even quicker. But the timbre or tone can change. A single note has high and low tones
arriving at different times. On top of the basic signal chain
being different anyways. Such as basic EQ or added harmonics from normal speaker distortion.

 

[ga_edwards]

What I find hilarious in the FRFR discussions is... nobody talks about frequency slotting... nobody acknowledges HPF/LPF filters. Personlly I like a cab that is very smooth down to 40, with no wierd anomoloes in the sub 100hz range. I need nothing above 5 to 6k. Nothing. Many of thr cans mentioned in the FRFRdiscussion are Pro-Sumer PA cabs. The QSC K12 would be an example. The K12 is lumpy as hell below 100 and is pretty far down at 60. Of course it soars to 20 k... so much for FRFR... now I have deep experience with K12's owned 5 plaus 2 K10's, 2 153's and 4 181's at one point. As PA, they did yeoman's service. As a bass amp? ick... just ick. Calling a K12 FRFR is lidicrous. Compading a K12 to anything Alto makes the K12 look like whoa, amazing...miracle speaker cabs do not exist in the Commecial Off The Shelf arena sub 2k per unit or so...

IMO a better approach is a reasonable neutral cab with a reasonably flat response. Said cab is likely to be a 2 way with a 12 or 15 a cossover and a 5 or 6" cone mid. My first experience with that was the venerable fEarful 12/6. Like Greenboy or not, that was one heck of a good piece of work. My current cabs are a MAS 15/5 and ah Russ, aka 5StringGekko 15/5. Both use faital pro drivers and both are a atep up from the fEarful- which is truly remarkable to me.

FRFR is a joke for the most part...

OTOH, if the audience hears your bass primarily through the PA, then a PA speaker type FRFR monitor such as the K12 gives you a good representation of what's happening out front. Is it perfectly accurate? Probably not. But that might work to your benefit in such a situation.

 

[ga_edwards]

Who's running the mixing board when you're getting poor sound at FOH? Like many have said, "FRFR" (in practice) is more a close approximation rather than a concrete standard. As you're also seeing, that's not always the best tool for the job.

That having been said, I'm wondering what the crossover frequency for subs and mains are, and if that's really what's going on here. We also hear certain frequencies more clearly than others, even at the same volume level. I'll venture this is why there's so much tuning involved in amps and cabs to get "good sound" and not just "flat sound". A "balanced" sound might not be a flat line, but I could be wrong.

Not to mention subs and tops need to be calibrated properly for the room.

With subs and a substantial rig also comes the need to understand how to use it constructively, otherwise it can easily become destructive to the entire mix AND AUDIENCE EXPERIENCE.

I've come to understand that, subs have two jobs in a PA system. To alleviate pressure on the tops so they don't have to work so hard, and to put back the low-end that gets lost by putting the tops up in the air. But they get abused all too often. IMHO, they shouldn't be there to "add more bass". If you need more bass, turn up the bass channel on the mixer.

 

[Element Zero]

… a FOH engineer with even basic skills and ability should be able to get a very acceptable bass sound right off the bass without any difficulty.

You’d be surprised.

 

[Passinwind]

@agedhorse I agree. What I consider bonkers is thinking something like a K12 or other pa cabs in that range or downward is actually FRFR. That, and for bass guitar, is there a need for strong output over say 6k ? or is that just gonna get lpf'd out... it is in my rig for sure.

I actually love going straight through K12s or K10s for bass at open mics, but there are often no drummers, which suits me fine.

But to me the point of a so called FRFR cab is the ability to also use acoustic guitar, guitar synth, processed vocals, etc., without having to own a full blown PA. For me at a certain tipping point six inch mid drivers as tweeters are useless without a good quality compression driver on top, as I'm sure you remember. My ears are done at 12k by now, but 8-10k sometimes still matters a great deal to me for those non-bass applications, and bass is no longer even my primary squeeze, so...

 

[agedhorse]

@agedhorse I agree. What I consider bonkers is thinking something like a K12 or other pa cabs in that range or downward is actually FRFR. That, and for bass guitar, is there a need for strong output over say 6k ? or is that just gonna get lpf'd out... it is in my rig for sure.

I haven't had the pleasure of test diving a Subway cab. I have no doubt it would leave me impressed. I did own a GB neox212 for a bit. Very nice and I recall .. your design. A close friend - kinda my mentor in the sound biz bought it for his backline and loves it. He was topping it with a GK but recently snagged a Shuttle 6 for it. Says he gets no complaints from any bass players except the deaf that only spec an SVT and fridge.

Yes, in the models the high frequencies are rolled of quite substantially.

You’d be surprised.

Fortunately, I didn’t see much of that at the level I worked at. Most of the guys were really pretty good.

 

[4Mal]

@Passinwind Well of course if you're pumping all that stuff through it you'll want the high end. Oddly enough, I may be in that position with the Stevenson community jam night. I may end up taking my EUB and Yamaha Silent 6 string. Probably not the Moog Minitaur setup though.

 

[Passinwind]

@Passinwind Well of course if you're pumping all that stuff through it you'll want the high end. Oddly enough, I may be in that position with the Stevenson community jam night. I may end up taking my EUB and Yamaha Silent 6 string. Probably not the Moog Minitaur setup though.

I'll contact you offline about that, I miss hanging with some of those guys. It used to be right on my way home from work.

And yeah, for casual bass outings the simple 110 you set me up with has actually been working quite well. I rarely use it at home, but sometimes grab-and-go trumps cork sniffing!

 

[Wasnex]

I've come to understand that, subs have two jobs in a PA system.

I would say a third job is to extend to low frequency response of the system to a lower range. I would could this the primary job.

 

[Element Zero]

Yes, in the models the high frequencies are rolled of quite substantially.


Fortunately, I didn’t see much of that at the level I worked at. Most of the guys were really pretty good.

Lemme tell Andy… I’ve heard some $H/7 from PRO companies let alone the amateur hour clubs around my neck of the woods.