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Double Bass hearing self on stage (DB forum thread)
- Thread starter cpaterso
- Start date
- Dec 13, 1999
- 11,737
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- Disclosures
- Chuck Sher publishes my book, WALKING BASSICS:The Fundamentals of Jazz Bass Playing.
Wait, let me get this straight - you were playing with a pianist and a guitarist and you were using an AMP?
- Dec 13, 1999
- 11,737
- 8,953
- 70
- Disclosures
- Chuck Sher publishes my book, WALKING BASSICS:The Fundamentals of Jazz Bass Playing.
- May 6, 2003
- 5,272
- 160
- 64
- Disclosures
- Proprietor Fifth Avenue Fret Shop. Technical Editor Bass Gear Magazine
This is getting a little silly. There is no need for special stuff, in ear monitors, floor monitors, special cabinets, shroeder cabs? yikes.
Look, put the amp where you can hear it, not in front of you. Tilt it back if you need to, just put the head on the floor next to it. You could prop it up on the head if you need to .
That rig should be plenty. If it feeds back because you can't get loud enough your playing comrades are too damn loud. Ask them to turn down and play at a more customer friendly volume.
If you can't get a loud enough sound acoustically to do a moderate volume gig with your bass and a small amp then make sure your technique is allowing you maximum volume from your bass acoustically. If you don't have a solid pizz down no matter how loud your rig is it won't really help you before your bass starts howling through an amp.
Look, put the amp where you can hear it, not in front of you. Tilt it back if you need to, just put the head on the floor next to it. You could prop it up on the head if you need to .
That rig should be plenty. If it feeds back because you can't get loud enough your playing comrades are too damn loud. Ask them to turn down and play at a more customer friendly volume.
If you can't get a loud enough sound acoustically to do a moderate volume gig with your bass and a small amp then make sure your technique is allowing you maximum volume from your bass acoustically. If you don't have a solid pizz down no matter how loud your rig is it won't really help you before your bass starts howling through an amp.
This is the best point. Gear can only help you so much. If you don't have a solid approach, pulling a big sound out of the bass, spending a ton of money on gear isn't going to get you very far.
All the gear talk makes me feel like a caveman.
For years, playing jazz (and vocals) with a trio of guitar/bass/drums, I did fine with an MB150 on a stand, tilted back and aimed at the wall behind us.
Those were the good old days: one trip from the car, two wire maximum.
For years, playing jazz (and vocals) with a trio of guitar/bass/drums, I did fine with an MB150 on a stand, tilted back and aimed at the wall behind us.
Those were the good old days: one trip from the car, two wire maximum.
I believe this is the solution to more problems than many complainants are willing to believe.
Yeah I think we know what the problem is here. So much more music can be made when playing softly. 
I've found that no amp setting allows me to hear myself in the way I'd like. That includes accurately hearing intonation. If it is loud I just throw my hands up and not worry. I've got a big amp but even in those situations I don't think the amp really helps with intonation, I'll sometimes put my ear up to the side of the neck to see if I'm at least close.
I've gotten to the point where I've been leaving my amp at home with greater frequency and just running a mic (an SM58 through the afterlengths) through the house system if there is one. I've put quite a bit of work getting a big sound out of my bass. If I can't hear my bass acoustically then all bets are off. For jazz especially amps just seem to cause more problems then they solve. If I am using an amp I try to make it just support my acoustic sound.
So bottom line. Especially in a trio setting.
Turn down.
Get bigger acoustic sound.
Get the guys you are playing with to be more sensitive.
IMO, IME, YMMV, ROTFLOL
I've gotten to the point where I've been leaving my amp at home with greater frequency and just running a mic (an SM58 through the afterlengths) through the house system if there is one. I've put quite a bit of work getting a big sound out of my bass. If I can't hear my bass acoustically then all bets are off. For jazz especially amps just seem to cause more problems then they solve. If I am using an amp I try to make it just support my acoustic sound.
So bottom line. Especially in a trio setting.
Turn down.
Get bigger acoustic sound.
Get the guys you are playing with to be more sensitive.
IMO, IME, YMMV, ROTFLOL
Yeah I think we know what the problem is here. So much more music can be made when playing softly.
+100000!
Changing strings solved the hearing myself problem for me. I stopped having problems hearing myself when I ditched the Spiros and went gut. Until I started reading this thread, I had pretty much forgotten about all of those years of fighting to hear myself. Even unamplified I can hear myself in a maelstrom of drums and horns and pianos.
mark
When I met Ed years ago, he was playing in that very same type of trio, in a large NYC club, with no amp. I heard him clearly the whole time. That happens when everybody listens to everybody else.
to be fair, you can be playing with the most like-minded zen-god masters of quiet, but if the crowd feels like ignoring the music and just chatting it up and drinking, it can be a challenge, yes?
- Dec 13, 1999
- 11,737
- 8,953
- 70
- Disclosures
- Chuck Sher publishes my book, WALKING BASSICS:The Fundamentals of Jazz Bass Playing.
And the funny thing about that is that the louder you play, the louder they talk. It gets to a point that it's just this terrible wash of garbage.
So what do you do? I tend to go in the other direction - set up so everybody on stage can hear each other (at acoustic levels) and keep the sound low and focused on the stand and each other. LISTEN to each other, don't bail on the focus and dig in and play. In the worst case, they keep yakking but you guys can hear each other and you have fun playing for each other. But more often than not, my experience has been that, because you're listening to each other and playing TOGETHER and playing with INTENT, somebody stops yakking for a second and realizes that SOMETHING IS GOING ON UP THERE. And the person they're yakking to stops and checks in. Then a few more people notice that some folks are intent on something, so they stop and before you know it, the whole joint has gone quiet and you have brought them into your world. Not because you could out shout them, but because quietly and insistently were saying something compelling.
This is a good point. A pianist once told me: You can't defeat a room by playing louder. This goes for crowd noise, but also the effects of bad acoustics.
I've noticed something else as well. At one point I was lamenting to myself about the volume level of bands, and I wondered if I was the one who was driving up the volume.
So I started playing softer, and sure enough, bands came down. Not all of them, but enough to make it worth the attempt. I am experimenting with a tentative rule of thumb that it should be possible for the rest of the band to drown out the bass on louder passages. I have to assume that this was the case before amplification came into widespread use. When someone gets loud, they have to come back down in order to hear the bass again. And they will do so because it's easier to play when they can hear the bass. This encourages more dynamic playing, rather than a constant arms race to oblivion.
So far this is just my hypothesis, but I am willing to experiment in order to see what works better than my old rule that the bass should always "cut through" under all conditions. Some bands don't like it. I have been asked to turn up.
