Guitar player thinks my tone is thin - is it?

[Bass Jones]

What are the EQ settings for the bass channel on the board? Are lows being rolled off there too? Not that that's a bad thing, but could hinder attempts to boost the bass on the amp.

Just curious, does someone on stage run the board when you don't have a sound guy or is it just set it at sound check and forget it?

You guys sound good, makes me miss that energy playing live in a loud band (except for the loud part, lol).

 

[hieronymous]

I haven't read all the posts, but this was my immediate thought - he isn't hearing what the audience hears, and if you try and turn up your amp to satisfy him where he is, then that's not going to sound good out front. Maybe he has you in the monitors and he's just hearing high-end stuff?

 

[TTA]

Looking for some advice, I got some feedback from our new lead guitar player that my tone could use some more low end, which was a first for me.

His quote was something like this "Hey man, I feel like your tone could use a bit more low end, it's sounding a little bit thin"

I haven't gotten this feedback before from any other band members or sound guys, and I usually probably have too much to honest. Either way I told him lets mess around with it next show, He can stand out where the audience will be and I'll twist some knobs to see if we can get it sounding better and thicker. I'm open to whatever changes make us sound the best.

We happened to have someone there recording the gig he was referring to, so I have quite a few clips I can share. I want to see what you guys think, I like the way my tone is sounding but who knows, maybe it is thin. Some of the clips I'm attacking the strings hard with a pick, some I'm playing softer with fingers, so hopefully that gives an OK reference point. These were recorded on a professional camera, not a phone.

Clip 1


Clip 2


Clip 3


Clip 4


Clip 5


Clip 6



The next question is, how do I go about diagnosing this problem? To me there are sooo many factors to this, so I almost need the help of you guys to know what pieces of information to give you guys / get from him to get to the bottom of what I should do.

One thing I have gotten clearly from him is the "where". He has mentioned this when standing in front of the stage, usually around where the dance floor is at multiple different venues. So I agree with him that regardless of how it sounds to me on stage, it should sound nice and full to the audience on the dance floor.


My plan was just to simply mess around with the bass knob and HPF knob on my amp and see if it's as easy as that. I'm worried though, that I'm going to turn the bass up so much to where it sounds good out front, but not on stage. Now obviously this is where a sound guy comes in, but most gigs we don't have one, and we don't have a sub. BUT the particular gig he mentioned this, we had a sub and a sound guy.

Equipment: Mesa 800D head with an Ampeg Venture 212 cab, P bass with rounds that has SD Antiquity 2 pickups in it. FOH gets a post eq DI out of my amp. For pedals I'm just using a Cali76 compressor always on and a dirt pedal that gets kicked on maybe 20% of the time

Here are the amp settings I run. The bass / HPF knob move around a little bit depending on room / venue.

View attachment 7403658

View attachment 7403659

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

the solution to this one is pretty clear.

- reduce your low pass filter to 40hz or so.
- crank bass to 11
- turn down highs and mids to 1.
- buy 2x18 setup to drive home the point. add more cabs to taste.
- amp 2000w minimum
- box-clap bandmate in ears with your hands, tie him up, put him between speakers and crank volume and play all while screaming “IS THAT ENOUGH BASS FOR YOU?!?!”
- boost low mids slightly

edit: just try the first and last options. also verify what the audience is hearing as your bandmate may not be hearing reality.

 

[coyote1]

What recording gear was being used? Was it a board mix? A phone? A shotgun mic?

I had this over the summer. A guy (call him Mike) associated with a band I subbed for video’d some gigs with their regular drummer and with me. He showed them to a friend (call him Joe), who commented that the front crash cymbal sounded terrible. And you know what? On those recordings it did not sound good! The regular drummer’s front crash, and my front crash. So Mike came back to me and said that Joe told him the cymbal needed to be changed.

But what are the odds that two good drummers would each have crappy front crash cymbals?

The higher odds are that the mic built into phone used to record all those things is not a perfect live band recording mic. Modern phones do lots of things very well, but are not perfect. So the prominent position of the front crash cymbal makes it load the mic of the phone. Which therefore distorts the sound.

Moral: don’t count on the recordings to perfectly document the sound, unless a) you know that good recording gear is being used, and b) you know the sound person is highly competent.

Followup: I just watched and listened to a few seconds of a couple of the vids. The crash cymbal on your posted recordings sounds terrible! lol

More seriously: the first eleven seconds of the GreenDay vid have a bass sound that is clear and full and punchy, even through my iPad speakers. The issue is the phone being utilized for the recording, along with its position as it roams. If you can, sit down with your banjo player in front of a tv that’s connected to a good sound system and use Bluetooth to play the first eleven seconds of that video thru the TV and sound system. Edit: actually, go further. The bass sounds great, exactly as it should.

I think you’ll change his mind.

 

[dmt]

My take:

As far as can be told from the YouTube live sound clips in your opening post, it seems to me that your bass sound is fine. More specifically:

Clip 1 is fine but I could imagine how someone who wants a particularly full bass could say it is on the thin or low-in-the-mix side.
Clip 2 is ‘Not Available’ (it wouldn’t play so I couldn’t listen to it)
Clips 3 and 4 are quite full sounding
Clip 5 is fine (not full or thin)
Clip 6 is outright bass heavy/prominent

His reaction might be because of where he was standing in relation to the speakers and/or whatever mix is being fed to him. A possibility is he could have a hearing issue, though I believe that’s more likely with high frequencies. He could be a bassophile. He could be tone connoisseur, with a cultivated opinion to share on all things tonal.

Anyway, there’s worse things in life than having a bandmate that likes a prominent bass

 

[basslust]

The easiest solution is to have him to stand out in front of your rig and twiddle with the knobs between a few settings that you like. Get him to agree that he likes one of the sounds and then say, "Perfect, I agree -- let's use this sound going forward." And then if he ever says something again, just say, "Oh, this is the same tone as before -- maybe I should just turn up?"

The problem almost certainly has to do with where he is in relation to your rig and the fact that you don't have a proper monitoring solution. So, the better solution would be to feed everyone into monitors and get a good mix for everyone or else let people choose their own mix (like with IEMs). But for shows where you don't even have FOH support, the band usually has to accept that monitoring won't be great and trust that someone has soundchecked out front and that everyone sounds good.

 

[JonathanPDX]

If I read correctly, this is a "new member". They need to earn their opinions.. Why exactly are the so called "supporting instruments" subject to the whims of others?

Everyone just assumes the guitarist is some idiot who has no clue. So much arrogance in this thread. How do you guys even find gigs when you assume every other musician on earth is a fool and you're the only true expert? Or maybe a lot of these posts aren't coming from people with actual gigs.

 

[Heiwa]

Everyone just assumes the guitarist is some idiot who has no clue. So much arrogance in this thread. How do you guys even find gigs when you assume every other musician on earth is a fool and you're the only true expert? Or maybe a lot of these posts aren't coming from people with actual gigs.

I agree. The bass sounds really thin, I don’t understand why it so hard to hear

 

[fretno]

What recording gear was being used? Was it a board mix? A phone? A shotgun mic?

I had this over the summer. A guy (call him Mike) associated with a band I subbed for video’d some gigs with their regular drummer and with me. He showed them to a friend (call him Joe), who commented that the front crash cymbal sounded terrible. And you know what? On those recordings it did not sound good! The regular drummer’s front crash, and my front crash. So Mike came back to me and said that Joe told him the cymbal needed to be changed.

But what are the odds that two good drummers would each have crappy front crash cymbals?

The higher odds are that the mic built into phone used to record all those things is not a perfect live band recording mic. Modern phones do lots of things very well, but are not perfect. So the prominent position of the front crash cymbal makes it load the mic of the phone. Which therefore distorts the sound.

Moral: don’t count on the recordings to perfectly document the sound, unless a) you know that good recording gear is being used, and b) you know the sound person is highly competent.

And this is no guarantee either. For ex plenty of pro modern recordings of bands , especially of early rock bands that barely had enough food and gas to get to the studio still have a bass shy mix. Kill’em All comes to mind. It’s not the worst of the era but it’s a bass masterpiece that could have been mixed better. Also ok this part is serious… there are no captains on the toan boat. You can express your opinion but stick to your job and let others do their thing and don’t over think it. The audience doesn’t care about toan. They want to party. Cheers

 

[dougjwray]

We'll never be able to judge your actual tone from a phone microphone. The frequency response curve of a phone's mic, plus other baked-in filtration phones have going on behind the scenes will never be an accurate representation of what it actually sounds like. And that's not even getting into where they're standing in relation to your amp, the PA, the monitors, or combination of the 3, and the angle the mic is from all those sources.

In the first post, the OP states that "a professional camera, not a phone" was used.

 

[burgerdj]

I’ve run into this at rehearsal and gigs. What your guitar player hears on stage is not what the audience hears, with or without FOH. Bass frequencies are long and don’t develop fully on stage. Think of your amp as a monitor, not as a main. If your HPF is in the DI, be sure to adjust that down to around 40hz to start. You want to cut out sub frequencies not fundamental - and FOH will run their own HPF anyway. Other than that, your stage tone/volume will be determined by many factors - especially your speaker cab. There is no substitute for surface area if your band is loud.

 

[pepj]

Phone recordings are what they are...and I don't actually mind them as a reference.
In my case, the bass blooms more..but that should be expected off stage.
In these examples, the band is fine, sounds could do with a review, but hey your audience here is way way more picky because they play in bands and know these issues

Clip 1 is ok. I agree that one of the cymbals doesn't sound great.

Clip 2 not available.
Clip 3. Bass is great, drummers splashes not so much. Gtrs are both messy sounding.

Clip 4 ...recording front on and overall sounds thin or lacking. That's just outfront acoustics...not at your door imo.

Clip 5... after hearing those gtrs, I'd take comments about bass sound with a pinch of salt.

Clip 6.. recorder moving around. Bass is great...gtrs again.

Not saying I'd ignore new gtr but if we are having a discussion about improving band sound...its all in, right..?

But the vibe is good so the work ons are really gtr stuff, not so much bass, imv.

 

[FullumMusic]

In the first post, the OP states that "a professional camera, not a phone" was used.

Doh. Totally missed that. With the portrait mode video and the iffy audio quality i just assumed... and we know what that means.

 

[Elmstreet]

idk the girls in the front of the dance floor look like they like the bass eq just fine!

That’s what I’m sayin!

 

[Elmstreet]

It may be that the guitarist's previous band had a bass player who used a very bassy sound and that's what he's gotten used to.

Honestly I think it’s more this than anything. I know his previous bassist decently well and he has a very scooped almost sub only type of sound. Felt not heard kind of thing. It works for him but it’s just not really my preference.

 

[Elmstreet]

What recording gear was being used? Was it a board mix? A phone? A shotgun mic?

I had this over the summer. A guy (call him Mike) associated with a band I subbed for video’d some gigs with their regular drummer and with me. He showed them to a friend (call him Joe), who commented that the front crash cymbal sounded terrible. And you know what? On those recordings it did not sound good! The regular drummer’s front crash, and my front crash. So Mike came back to me and said that Joe told him the cymbal needed to be changed.

But what are the odds that two good drummers would each have crappy front crash cymbals?

The higher odds are that the mic built into phone used to record all those things is not a perfect live band recording mic. Modern phones do lots of things very well, but are not perfect. So the prominent position of the front crash cymbal makes it load the mic of the phone. Which therefore distorts the sound.

Moral: don’t count on the recordings to perfectly document the sound, unless a) you know that good recording gear is being used, and b) you know the sound person is highly competent.

So it wasn’t a phone, it was a nicer camera the videographer used, but still I think the point remains the same. Next gig I’ve talked the guys into just recording an out from our mixer that we can sync up with videos.

 

[Elmstreet]

I appreciate thst you posted this because I believe it is one of those questions that people are afraid to ask.

Thanks for saying that. I almost didn’t post because I was self conscious of my playing when I listed back to the videos, it’s not perfect.

But I got over it, we all start somewhere I suppose. I’m just a weekend warrior trying to learn/improve and trying to not suck at bass so I am glad nobody has roasted me too bad

 

[Elmstreet]

What are the EQ settings for the bass channel on the board? Are lows being rolled off there too? Not that that's a bad thing, but could hinder attempts to boost the bass on the amp.

Just curious, does someone on stage run the board when you don't have a sound guy or is it just set it at sound check and forget it?

You guys sound good, makes me miss that energy playing live in a loud band (except for the loud part, lol).

I haven’t talked to the sound guy about this yet so I’m not sure how he had it set on his end, guitar player brought this up a few days after the gig.

When we don’t have a sound guy then yeah it’s our singer doing the mixer and we’re just doing our best. We have a group of people that come to most of our shows and we kinda ask them how it sounds and go from there.

Thanks for the compliment, I appreciate that. Always a bit nerve racking having a bunch of experienced and pro players listen to me play

 

[Root 5]

If I were told that 1) I’d tell said guitarist to go ‘pound salt!’

2) Boost the bass, cut the mids & treble

 

[TheArchitect]

Everyone just assumes the guitarist is some idiot who has no clue. So much arrogance in this thread. How do you guys even find gigs when you assume every other musician on earth is a fool and you're the only true expert? Or maybe a lot of these posts aren't coming from people with actual gigs.

I have run enough sound and come across enough players to know its even money at best that any particular musician really understands what is going with acoustics