I've had something new happen that perplexed me enough that I had to speak up where I would normally just stay in my lane. I'm not going to dwell into that aspect of it as a conversation took place and it's being discussed beyond my pay grade, but here's what happened...
I was listening to the playback of a recent gig and I noticed something very odd about what I was hearing with my bass vs what was actually being played - both visually and audibly in comparison to what I hear in my in-ears and send to the FOH. And then it clicked...our FOH engineer had applied a sub octave effect to everything I was playing on every song completely without my knowledge. It's literally like I had an octave pedal engaged over everything I was playing. If I played C on the third fret of the A string it sounded in the PA and recording as if I was playing a C on the first fret of the B string, and so on. Whole set, entirely like that. I had some melodic parts on a song that were being played above the 12th fret and it turned it all into garbled mud. All of my playing dynamics moving between octaves - gone.
I'm not going to pretend to know what our FOH has to deal with sonically in that room as I'm aware enough to hear with my own ears that it could be a handful. Our stage is silent except for drums (which are shielded), and the PA has flown mains with a couple stacks of dual 15 or 18" subs on each side. Amplifying bass in, in my mind, should not be a problem.
My setup to get a signal to them is with a Darkglass Anagram. At their request they get two channels from it - one that has an amp and cab sim applied, and one that does not. Either will get my effects when I apply them, and with the routing options of the Anagram it makes it super easy to do. I do my best to not over-EQ anything on the wet channel and it is essentially just a fattened tone, and I'm mostly flat on the electronics on my basses with usually a cut in treble depending on which bass I use. The dry channel is obviously everything without the amp and cab sim and it's as straight from my bass to the console as it can get. Effects are used very, very sparingly.
Talkbass - What the heck is going on that they felt they needed to run a sub octave effect? I've tried to read up on this and there seems to be no straight answer. I could understand maybe needing to fill some sonic space, but it was done completely at the expense of destroying my playing dynamics and note choice. I use a 5 string bass and I have no problem treading into the lower range especially since we've had to pitch songs down to accommodate vocal range. I feel like I've given them enough choices to work with that finding what works shouldn't be a tall task. With every mix I've ever heard the simple solution that I could think of to have more bass would be to turn up its volume and find a good eq curve that works. It shouldn't be complicated!
Help educate me if I've missed something new in the 27 years I've been playing bass.
I was listening to the playback of a recent gig and I noticed something very odd about what I was hearing with my bass vs what was actually being played - both visually and audibly in comparison to what I hear in my in-ears and send to the FOH. And then it clicked...our FOH engineer had applied a sub octave effect to everything I was playing on every song completely without my knowledge. It's literally like I had an octave pedal engaged over everything I was playing. If I played C on the third fret of the A string it sounded in the PA and recording as if I was playing a C on the first fret of the B string, and so on. Whole set, entirely like that. I had some melodic parts on a song that were being played above the 12th fret and it turned it all into garbled mud. All of my playing dynamics moving between octaves - gone.
I'm not going to pretend to know what our FOH has to deal with sonically in that room as I'm aware enough to hear with my own ears that it could be a handful. Our stage is silent except for drums (which are shielded), and the PA has flown mains with a couple stacks of dual 15 or 18" subs on each side. Amplifying bass in, in my mind, should not be a problem.
My setup to get a signal to them is with a Darkglass Anagram. At their request they get two channels from it - one that has an amp and cab sim applied, and one that does not. Either will get my effects when I apply them, and with the routing options of the Anagram it makes it super easy to do. I do my best to not over-EQ anything on the wet channel and it is essentially just a fattened tone, and I'm mostly flat on the electronics on my basses with usually a cut in treble depending on which bass I use. The dry channel is obviously everything without the amp and cab sim and it's as straight from my bass to the console as it can get. Effects are used very, very sparingly.
Talkbass - What the heck is going on that they felt they needed to run a sub octave effect? I've tried to read up on this and there seems to be no straight answer. I could understand maybe needing to fill some sonic space, but it was done completely at the expense of destroying my playing dynamics and note choice. I use a 5 string bass and I have no problem treading into the lower range especially since we've had to pitch songs down to accommodate vocal range. I feel like I've given them enough choices to work with that finding what works shouldn't be a tall task. With every mix I've ever heard the simple solution that I could think of to have more bass would be to turn up its volume and find a good eq curve that works. It shouldn't be complicated!
Help educate me if I've missed something new in the 27 years I've been playing bass.
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when I discovered it in the recording and I did my very best to not be livid. Once I heard it come through the house during soundcheck I had to break ranks and hit it head on as delicately as I could.
