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Double Bass hearing self on stage (DB forum thread)

#43
fdeck said:
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.
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Good point Francis! I try to put myself in the middle of the mix; and, if it gets loud, I try to put myself at the bottom of the mix. I too, think this gives the rest of the band more dynamic range and keeps down complaints about the band being too loud (complaints which are often addressed by simply turning down the bass).

Also, having your little HPF-pre really helps cut out the mud at the bottom (i.e., sound with little/no information) and generally clean things up.

Back to on topic: A piano player and I have played for a business that holds parties for their clients and employees. The room is square with tile on the floors, no wall coverings, hard ceilings and wall - your basic acoustic nightmare. The people come to talk and I've done the gig enough to know that, at some point in the night, I'll have to put in the ear plugs. The piano player and I keep about the same volume throughout the night. The point? Sometimes people need to talk and you don't get to hear those lines in your head out moving air. Oh, and we get lots of compliments every time we play. Go figure...
 
#46
joehaven said:
Does anyone else find that they hear themselves better when wearing earplugs? I know for a lot of gigs, especially when there is a lot of chitter chatter going on in the background, i hear myself better that way. Maybe it's just me...
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+1.....

When I can't "hear" myself in the mix, be it either vocal monitor or my bass, I use earplugs and actually turn my amp down. My musician earplugs cut all of the upper mids to treble to a tolerable din and I can feel my voice when I sing. I leave it to the sound guy to do the volume math up front.

Incidentally, I always put my GK 700RB/112 in front of me next to my vocal monitor and typically hear myself better that way than to put my amp behind me.....and we are mostly pretty quiet on stage. My guitar player runs stereo direct to the board and just sets his volume on his 4X12 to comfy stage volume.
 
#49
I think Don is referring to the juxtaposition of "4x12" and "comfy stage volume". It's like that story about the guest conductor at the rehearsal - as the musicians ready their instruments to play he says "already too loud".

Basically, the guitar players we work with pretty much only use one 12....


ummm, are you lost? Just visited the rockfist website, didn't see an upright...
 
#52
joehaven said:
Does anyone else find that they hear themselves better when wearing earplugs? I know for a lot of gigs, especially when there is a lot of chitter chatter going on in the background, i hear myself better that way. Maybe it's just me...
Click to expand...

I have noticed this too. On an amusing note, I once brought an SPL meter to a gig. It was a cocktail hour in a tiny little restaurant, for some big event going on. And it was just packed. The crowd noise was 95 dB SPL before the band even started.

On occasions when I have worn plugs, I notice it has helped me pick myself out of massive crowd noise. I get the best results when I put the plugs in at least 15 minutes before starting to play, so I can acclimate myself to them. Otherwise I am always wondering if what I am hearing is really what the crowd is hearing.
 
#55
Ed Fuqua said:
I think Don is referring to the juxtaposition of "4x12" and "comfy stage volume". It's like that story about the guest conductor at the rehearsal - as the musicians ready their instruments to play he says "already too loud".

Basically, the guitar players we work with pretty much only use one 12....


ummm, are you lost? Just visited the rockfist website, didn't see an upright...
Click to expand...

....my apologies....I didn't look at the "forum" when I posted. I've been popped for this before. Thanks for looking "laughing" at the site... :)
 
#59
fdeck said:
The point for me is that I occasionally find myself in far-from-ideal situations, where "the show must go on," and correcting the audience isn't an option.
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Get Smart had the right idea, of course you would only be able to play to an audience of one! Unless, Hmm, we could see how many people from the bar we stuff into the cone of silence or just have all the noisy talkers get under it, so we didn't have to bring any amps at all.

Ric

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/06/25/getsmartcone1.jpg
 
#60
Ed Fuqua said:
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.
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I'm bumping this because it's really the truth. You cannot out shout a crowd and win. It just gets to loud and then they leave.

Invite them in. They will come. If they don't you'll still sound good and it's their loss.
 

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