• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join freeLog in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Help please with my signal chain

I personally felt the sansamps weakest point was it's cab sim and I ultimately sold it and got a different preamp. To me analog cab sims have always felt too choked. I almost always have preferred using a properly dialed in di without a cab sim unless I have the option of moving up to a cabinet impulse response.

I agree with this, particularly speaking to Sansamp. The cab sims didn't seem to evolve too much beyond the first '90s offerings. 'Choked' is really appropriate...

Well developed analog cab emulation designs tend to be catered for guitar and sound similar to a good transparent DI. Over the past 10 years I have the opportunity to be included in a great deal of beta testing of them. For bass, some modified guitar cab version labeled 'bass' as an after thought seems about the extent, I have not been too impressed. For guitar, some very good choices and integrations. In the late 90's the Morely JD10 was my cab sim crush. I had met Jerry many times and was a big fan. I used that pedal on everything. IRs are a different convo. I have created my own IRs for fun, but they aren't any better than what I had. I currently use the UAOX, Fractal and Two Notes, mostly for guitar. Still in storage I have BlueBox, CabDryVR, and Chameleon Cab and probably a couple other pretty door stops.

But for bass, DI out is still king by a mile for me. And they vary as much as the colors in a crayon box.

Ya, the Beatles thing was a one off celebrating their 50th anniversary recording at Twickenham Studios (Get Back Sessions), we also combined the Show with the Stones as it was their Anniversary playing Eel Pie Island down the road.
We're mostly doing theatres and larger clubs now (with the occasional wedding etc,), hence the need to nail the tone a bit more as the theatres are a bit more unforgiving than a pub.
Funny thing is for the Beatles/Stones gig is I used a modded Ali Express "Walnut" Ric for some songs and it sounded great (granted I did have a real Ric neck pick up and harness in it). It was just damn heavy and the neck was a baseball bat.
I ran my Sansamp through a Rumble 500 for stage monitoring and then DI'd out to FOH.
View attachment 4535013

The heavy Chickenbacker sounded great! Yeah, pub/bar gigs are easy and fun. Here in Texas we have dancehalls. Big dancehalls made of corrugated metal, rust and old wood floors. Unless the dancefloor is packed, sound is brutal. You work it out. Weddings are all over the map as far as venues but there is always a great sound company, they manage alot of the bumps. Keep posting the vids and thanks for sharing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: StudioGC
I think the suggestion of an HPF is probably a good. I would put it first in the chain, not last. Why have your compressor going crazy over low end that isn't going to be there later on? Why try to take out tubbiness with EQ when the HPF should be doing most of that? Etc...

To set up, while playing, gradually increase the cutoff frequency until the bass thins out too much. Then back it off a bit until it sounds full enough.

Granted, the X32 has an adjustable high pass on every channel, so you could just use that, at least as a start. Somewhere between 35-100 Hz is probably a good place to start.

You could also probably benefit from a nice parametric or semi-parametric EQ, 1-3+ bands. The X32 also has this, but you might find it beneficial to have a nice analog one at your feet that you can adjust quickly and easily. I have a Carl Martin 3 band that is really nice. I think it's BBE that makes an Ampeg style tone stack pedal, that may do the trick too. I would probably start by trying a modest but ideally narrow cut somewhere in the 50-120 Hz range. There's also a strong possibility the band PA may have certain frequencies that are more boomy than others, especially in certain rooms. The key is to take out enough of the offending frequency to avoid that tubbiness, but not so much that you lose the power of the low end. It's a balancing act, but if you find the right frequency, width, and amount of cut, it shouldn't feel like you're missing anything, just cleaning up the sound. You can also push the overall bass level to compensate.

And then a good compressor probably makes sense. I really like my MarkBass Compressore. Studio style tube compressor pedal. it's got all the normal "studio" compressor controls, so you can do anything from super subtle to squash city.

Now, for practicality, you probably want to have the SansAmp last in your chain to use as a DI, but from a signal chain and processing standpoint, I would do bass, HPF, SansAmp, EQ, compressor (and then just any generic DI should be fine as long as it's not noisy). I would start with what you have now, just plugged into the SansAmp into the mixer, and then try some of the suggested processing at the mixer level, and also explore the possibility that the PA subs need to be EQ'd a bit. if you run a sine wave generator through the subs, you should be able to step through notes from 30 to 100 Hz or so without any particular note or notes overtaking the room. If they do, those frequencies need to be tamed and that should be happening at the system level, since it will also affect kick, any lower end keyboard sounds, potentially the low end of guitars, etc... This is also likely to change depending on where you are in the room, so walk around with the ipad and try to find a happy medium everywhere (but with the main focus being center mass of the audience area).

The HX Stomp would not be a bad choice, and that way you could have presets to simply recall. BUT, it will take a fair amount of programming and that does not come naturally to everyone. And there's a certain vibe to just using nice analog processing vs modeling. The advantage of the modeling is preset recall and flexibility. One thing to keep in mind, is that air is what makes sound sound good. You are kind of bypassing that with either the HX or especially the SansAmp (where the cab simulation is more of a "also included" component than the main focus). With the HX at least you can try a zillion different impulse responses to find something that sounds good with your setup. if you are dedicated to the ampless lifestyle ("not that there's anything wrong with that!" says Jerry), you may want to consider a proper dedicated cab simulator, especially if you're playing more "vintage" style music where a bass direct into a full range PA is not really the vibe. As an example signal chain, an dedicated cab HPF, SansAmp, nice analog EQ, analog compressor, dedicsim, would be fairly simple but also pretty flexible and yield about the best results you could probably get going ampless. Which of course by that point you've spent like $1k maybe and probably could have just gotten a PF-20 and a nice single 12 or 15 cab, and just sounded like a bass into a tube amp into a full range cab instead trying to recreate that with... other stuff.
Thanks! Exactly the suggestions I was looking for.

The other convenient thing about going ampless is I can easily go to gigs on public transport (which is VERY convenient in London), But I was thinking just get a decent amp head and cab and go that route, but I think those days are done for me.

I think I may start with a decent analog EQ and go the route of :HPF, SansAmp, nice analog EQ, analog comp. and cab sim.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Omega Monkey