How To Get Same Sound From Amp as Through Headphones

[Bluemoon4655]

Hi all,

I wanted to know how I get my bass to sound very close to what it sounds like when I get it to sound how I like it through my headphones. I play disco kind of music and I like a jazzy fingerstyle/ bridge pickup bass sound with octaves that cut through with a dampened, but piercing sound. I can achieve the sound really well with headphones, but when I play out loud through my TC Electronic 250. I cant quite get it all the way there.

My question is if a sound compressor or some sort of pedal or equipment can help me achieve more control like I want? Or is it best to just adjust knobs according to when playing out loud through amp and through headphones

Any tips are appreciated, thanks!

 

[craig.p]

It gets complicated because you have to factor in three different acoustical/mechanical (not electrical) impedances:

1. The impedance of the driver(s)

2. The impedance of the air between the driver and your eardrum+canal

3. The impedance of your eardrum+canal

But yes, as you say, you must adjust an amp to fit the particular situation. Playing through phones closely coupled to your eardrums+canals and playing into open air are wildly different acoustical scenarios. As different as you could possibly imagine.

Even after getting the TC to sound the best it can, you'll have gotten only marginally closer to the headphone experience. If you want to get really close to it, get your wallet out and prepare to do some heavy lifting as well as explaining to the rest of the band how come all that lumber and volume need to be on stage. Or transfer the load to a nice big PA (if the band has a nice big PA). A middle-of-the-road solution would be to invest in a boutique cab, or cabs, that will output huge SPL numbers per unit size; they typically contain high-Xmax drivers. Except your stage volume will still be high, so it's really not a "globally ideal" solution. Or, since you prefer a sound with not much weight to it, a legacy-design folded horn would work well if you can handle the 140 pounds and have a covered truck or SUV it'll fit into. Those old suckers die out around 80-90 Hz, but you say you're not really interested in anything below that, and their impedance transformation between the driver and the surrounding air mass at least partially addresses items 1 and 2 above. There are also newer horn designs by boutique builders, but look extremely closely at the response charts before you commit to a build. Your best bet might be a C-V horn; they go extremely loud, they're reasonably small, they go reasonably deep, they hit you right in the chest in the frequency range you're running in, but they still run around 130-140 pounds. Final point: Bass horns usually don't do treble well. Low mids may make it out the horn throat relatively unscathed, if the driver can reproduce them (check the mfr specs!), but slap-range treble will be severely limited, or nonexistent. That's certainly the case with the C-V offerings, and it's by design, so the systems can run really well in a narrow range.

Sorry for the long answer.

 

[sratas]

@ graig...
wery wise answer.
in my young days as a bassist I attempted to do the same as the OP.

Lately, I succeded in gaining a good approximation of the headphone/studio tone when playing with cabs and big drivers, but only in an open air situation, example a field, without implying complex acoustic rooms. In fact, when playing in outdoors, I have a very good representation of my true unadulterated tone, but everytime I play indoors, there is no way to even achieve a similar result. at a certain point, I had simply to accept that I have to become used to big cabs tone, and the cardinal influence of room acoustics.

By the way, I now use a Markbass or Thunderfunk amp into a Barefaced big baby 2 cab, a super 12 cab with an incredible x-max capability and that almost reverts physics when considering the law: loud, low, small. This is the rig that gives me more in these terms...

 

[RoadRanger]

Yah, you'd have to go with one of them boutique hifi cabs like a greenboy, big e, or other cab that has a mid driver - not just a small horn like you''l find in off-the-shelf Guitard Center cabs.

 

[seamonkey]

Use IEM for yourself
And FOH for the audience. FOH is designed to reproduce the signal sent to it.
As far as bass cabinets Greenboy designs are great designs and measure as well as they are modeled. Not true of others no matter how much they hype it.

 

[sratas]

greenboy designs have a solid reputation of being as flat as they can be, but there are other brands that are able to deliver a good wide range response with little colouration.

I think that every cab has a certain fingerprint, tonewise, even those hi.fi ones. for example the fearfuls, with some mid drivers are known to have an accented upper midrange, that someone has found a bit aggressive.

I heard that audiokinesis cabs are a bit polite in the upper mid range.

The gen 3 barefaced cabs are fabulous but I heard that they achieved the super performance of the driver at a little expense of the deepest bass, even if I can't imagine to have a more extended useful deep bass. my bb2 has no audible limitations, whereas I have been disappointed with aguilar, bergantino and markbass. I'm a studio guy and I crave for a flat sounding cab...

I remember that one of the former brands to claim the absolute hi.fi tone has been Accugroove, bue they were known to have a polite high end, a plus for many players, and I suspect that the woofer wasn't in the same league of his contemporary counterparts.

at the end of the story, I think that we must get accustomed to the tone of a big driver, compared to headphones, but amongst the various proposal of the market, it's possible to achieve a good result by choosing the right cab and amp

 

[godley69]

Accugroove el whappo jr. and thunderfunk head are close!

 

[paulears]

I stopped worrying about my sound ages ago. In my IEMs I have the sound I like. I used to try to get that sound through the PA, and never could. I wasted so much time trying things. Then I realised that after it leaves me, my sound just needs to sit with the rest of the mix, and that's why we pay our sound man. So he fits me in - and I know he adds treble, and I hate that. I don't want to hear my fingers, but the rest like my sound after it's been fiddled with. So I get what I want in my ears, and probably it's just me that likes it that way!

 

[hookgrip]

Is it usually the case that we sound better through our headphones than through an amp?

I just started playing bass yesterday and I sound terrible, but I noticed I sound significantly less terrible through the 'phones.

 

[Rick Auricchio]

As craig.p said, the acoustics of the venue will change your tone wildly. You can adjust somewhat to limit bass boominess in a room, but often you can't do enough to make your tone sound like it does in the phones. The speaker is usually on the floor, so the top end beams straight into the room and not to your ears. Too many factors.

I regularly play a room where I can't use my TC RS210 cabinet. There's a room resonance that makes my low Bb much louder than the rest of the 4-string bass. An expensive parametric EQ might tame that single note, but not the EQ on any of my amplifiers. That resonance is caused by the spacing between floor and ceiling: it's almost a perfect half-wavelength distance for Bb. My pair of RS112s doesn't have the problem.

 

[craig.p]

Hey Rick, the places I'm playing now are even worse: Not only the resonances you mention, but also because they run split subs. Classic power-alley scenario. I've never heard it demonstrated so well. Wait, there's more! They run near-fills that to my knowledge are (unfortunately) not bandwidth-limited at the low end. BTW, they're silent stages (V-drums, no amps, no monitors, all IEM, guitars all Line 6-modeled), so there's zero phase interference from stage cabs. The wonk is all from modes and alleys.

Anyway... the point is, if I ever got even remotely concerned about how I sound out in that vast darkness... Well, as my poor old dad used to day, "I'd go right outa my flippin' mind." I figure if I hear the roar from the ambients in my IEMs after each song, then things are good.

(Perspective. Geh... Mus' be gettin' old.......)

 

[delta7fred]

Is it usually the case that we sound better through our headphones than through an amp?

I just started playing bass yesterday and I sound terrible, but I noticed I sound significantly less terrible through the 'phones.

Best of luck with the playing.

My daughter used to play drums, she thought it was very cool when she subbed for our drummer in my band, especially when she got paid!

It is probable that you are not hearing all the "clacking" of the frets when you have the phones on.

My wife would tell me to plug mine when I practised acoustically, In my head could hear what it would sound like through an amp, unfortunately all she could hear was the clacking.

 

[hookgrip]

Best of luck with the playing.
It is probable that you are not hearing all the "clacking" of the frets when you have the phones on.

The headphones definitely block out most of the clacking, so that right there is a big improvement. But I'm getting a sneaking suspicion that the reason my bass sounds so.... there's no word for it... through the amp is because it's the amp we bought with my son's electric guitar, and maybe they're not meant to be used for basses? Am I killing my son's amp by playing through it? Ughhh...

 

[thudfromafar]

At a low volume you probably won't kill it. But it is definitely affecting the sound.

 

[delta7fred]

At a low volume you probably won't kill it. But it is definitely affecting the sound.

+1

I played bass through a 100 watt lead head and 412 lead cabinet (4 X 12" drivers) for years. It was loud but lacked a bit of bottom end, well a lot actually.

As long as it is not distorting then you are probably not doing it any harm. A proper bass amp will sound better though.

 

[Remyd]

the amp is because it's the amp we bought with my son's electric guitar, and maybe they're not meant to be used for basses? Am I killing my son's amp by playing through it? Ughhh...

Yes, guitar amps are voiced for guitars, not basses. Guitars are (mostly) a couple octaves higher, so they're built to reproduce that. Bass sometimes sounds like a shovel of nightsoil through them. Headphones might no have the same issue, depending on how you're driving the headphones.

Maybe, if you're hearing breakup or "farting", it's a bad sign. A medium or big guitar amp can (unlikely at low volume, but it happened to me once at a highish volume) damage speakers when used with a bass. Get a purpose-built amp, BUT NOT A BRAND NEW ONE; pawnshops often have $25 practice amps with a headphone-out. You can get more gear later.

 

[hookgrip]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely check out the used equipment.
@Remy when you say a practice amp with a headphone-out, do you mean that it has no built-in speaker? I had no idea you could buy such a thing but it would certainly simplify things. I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the options.

 

[Remyd]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will definitely check out the used equipment.
@Remy when you say a practice amp with a headphone-out, do you mean that it has no built-in speaker? I had no idea you could buy such a thing but it would certainly simplify things. I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the options.

Sure, there are a bunch of brands. My next purchase is probably a Zoom B1on, has a headphone jack as well

 

[paulears]

I think I'm the anti-normal person here. I played my bass amp through a 2 x10" combo for years - and it was designed for electro-acoustics - I just liked the sound. I'm firmly of the anti-voicing brigade, and all I want is an amp that makes it louder, not one that messes with the sound. I like a low quite dull sound - neck pickup, but in my current band role, I've got the other pickup on and everyone says how good it sounds, but I hate it - always have. We often play distant gigs with PA supplied terms, and put up with changes to our stage sound, plus the foreign ones when back line is supplied too - it's always decent kit, but I just want the sound of the bass, so flat eq for me is good - and because the amp is rarely stressed, almost anything they provide can sound like I want with just a bit of guitar knob tweaking.

 

[okcrum]

Is it usually the case that we sound better through our headphones than through an amp?

I just started playing bass yesterday and I sound terrible, but I noticed I sound significantly less terrible through the 'phones.

You'll reach a point where you sound better live than through the phones. I practice through phones because I can hear every little thing I need to work on.

Live, I go for a tone that sounds good on stage and has some note definition, no mush. Beyond that, FOH has the ball.