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How does this happen?

Deaky

Deaky

Oct 24, 2006
359
72
#1
Hi all

I'm a newbie to all the technicalities of live sound but Im hoping someone can explain what i encountered last night.

I was playing bass with my band in a small church using my Precision bass and TecAmp 112 combo. The band consists of a singer, drums and lead guitarist. The singer uses some kind of Boss effects pedal designed to give him various voice effects. However when he turned an effect on the same effect was coming through my bass amp.

We were also using a Mackie PA system and because I was fairly close behind the singer and because the stage was so small it was thought that my bass was being picked up by the singers mic and therefore picking up this sound effect!

Is that a fairly common occurrence or would there be perhaps something wrong my bass or amp?

Sorry or the long post but I'm interested to know how this happens and how to avoid it on later gigs.

Many Thanks

Deaky
 
#2
Deaky said:
...because I was fairly close behind the singer and because the stage was so small it was thought that my bass was being picked up by the singers mic and therefore picking up this sound effect!

Is that a fairly common occurrence
Click to expand...

Yes, very common. The effect wasn't coming from your amp though. It was just your bass notes from your amp were going into his mic, and through the effects from there, through the PA.

To avoid it, make sure your speaker is pointed away from the mic.
 
#3
Are you SURE it was coming through your bass amp or was is through the monitor?

There is no way the effect would come through you bass amp if the mic is not plugged into it.

It could come through the monitor because of the open mic. Mics pick up everything in the pick up pattern. The only way to eliminate it is go in-ear with no amps on stage. You can reduce it by making sure the bass amp is not pointed at the mic and set outside the mics pick up pattern.
 
#5
Another thing that will help is make sure the hi-pass filter on all vocal mics are turned on. These filter out the low freqs. usually below 85hz or so. If your board doesn't have one, check the low eq knob, which is usually in the same range, and turn it down effectively doing the same thing.

This will not effect the vocal sound because it's below the normal human voice. If you happen to have a really good bass singer you obviously can't do this to his mic.
 
#7
Would the pickups from the bass have anything to do with it?

Plus I should say it didn't sound specifically like the effect the singer was using. It was more of a chorus like effect that sounded like was coming from my amp! Once the pedal was turned off then it went away!!
 

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