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I don't get the "not cutting through" thing...

bobalu

bobalu

Oct 1, 2004
1,376
1,107
above the 49th
#1
I'm a not so experienced bass player, and could likely use some educatin' here, but......I don't understand the many comments I read here complaining that "my
bass/amp/cab/strings (etc.) are not cutting through or lost in the mix". :confused:

I mean, either your rig is extremely underpowered for the venue/band type, or you simply aren't EQ'ing properly, no? It seems that people often say things along the lines of "I switched to x brand strings and cut through much better at reherasal last night.." or whatever piece of equipment they changed. Sitting well in the mix or "cutting through" is simply a matter of proper EQ'ing, isn't it? Why do some people blame their gear, as if it's a defect or something? It has been my (limited) experience that if I can't be heard well, then I fiddle with my eq and the problem is solved. Now, I did say "limited" experience. Am I missing something or being too newbie/simplistic? (This is not a rant or anything, I really am interested in what the real nature of these kinds of comments are).
 
#3
yes...too simplistic. What you are saying is fine in a band rehearsal context, but not applicable in a live situation where you are dealing with a soundman and a PA that isn't yours. Also, some equipment naturally cuts through a mix than others, meaning you don't have to crank your amp or spend lots of time on the EQ to get yourself heard. Cutting through is also dependant on the musicians you are playing with. For example, in a metal band, you might have downtuned guitars with their EQs emphasizing the low end to contend with, which could make the bass harder to hear. Certain basses that have a midrange presence and growl to them fair better in this circumstance than a bass that is smoother and cleaner sounding by nature. Other situations, you might have to watch yourself to make sure the bass isn't dominating the mix, but giving the other instruments room to be heard.

I have been at shows where I heard the bass during soundcheck and it sounded great, but once the show started...bass is GONE! This is a situation where the bass does not cut through enough.
 
#4
Double Agent said:
yes...too simplistic. What you are saying is fine in a band rehearsal context, but not applicable in a live situation where you are dealing with a soundman and a PA that isn't yours. Also, some equipment naturally cuts through a mix than others, meaning you don't have to crank your amp or spend lots of time on the EQ to get yourself heard. Cutting through is also dependant on the musicians you are playing with. For example, in a metal band, you might have downtuned guitars with their EQs emphasizing the low end to contend with, which could make the bass harder to hear. Certain basses that have a midrange presence and growl to them fair better in this circumstance than a bass that is smoother and cleaner sounding by nature. Other situations, you might have to watch yourself to make sure the bass isn't dominating the mix, but giving the other instruments room to be heard.

I have been at shows where I heard the bass during soundcheck and it sounded great, but once the show started...bass is GONE! This is a situation where the bass does not cut through enough.
Click to expand...


+1

A lot also depends on the venue you're playing and it's inherent acoustics. You've got all these soundwaves bouncing around from the instruments and the crowd, then you have some of the waves being absorbed by the room and crowd. It can be very difficult to eq in a decent sound but with the right equipment, it can really stand out.
 
#5
My thick, meaty fingers just don't produce much upper harmonics, but I get tons of fundamental. My note attacks are felt more than heard. I prefer an active bass with a little blended tube/solid state preamp grit dialed in to counteract my natural deep sound.

My sound used to bug the life out of me. Now I just make the best of it and shake the rafters. My signal gets EQ'd, sent to my 1400 watt power amp, and then on to my cabinets I've designed for excellent low frequency response (1x10 & 1x15, both 2-way). FOH gets a DI (either pre or post EQ), and a Shure Beta 52 close miking a cab. If I really want to cut through, I'll occasionally do pickstyle.

Just thought I'd share my method in case anyone else is sick of trying to cut through. Play to your strengths I say.
 
#6
Ditto on what the other guys said.

When you're playing live with a hard hitting drummer, and guitars that also share a handful of the frequencies the bass is pumping out - your gear needs to be able to cut through in a way that's not going to blow everyone out of the venue. Sure you can pump the volume enough until you're heard - but it's gonna sound like crap and then dominate the mix. Some basses it seems simply don't put out the right frequencies to mix well in certain situations also. It's hard to explain - even ef I knew what I was taling about. :) Experience has taught me it's absolutely true though, that some basses cut through a mix better than others. With all my MMs you can hear every single nuance of my playing, and I don't have to be overpowering. Not the case with a lot of other basses I've owned and played.
 
#8
Typically "not cutting through" means there are no mids. Its like when the guitarists scoop their mids by turning down the midrange knob. While that sounds great solo, it is typically AWFUL in a band setting. Ask any mixing or live engineer. ;)
 
#9
Ditto! When I got my wireless, I stood out front and realized I was muddier than I thought. My Eq now is in a frown and I am no longer muddy out front. Mud is the opposite of cut....... I must also mention this is with Chromes(flats) as rounds eq completely different.
 
#11
Also if you just crank the volume to cut through, the guitar will crank the volume and the drummer will hit harder. It's a contest you can't win :rollno:

In the one band I usually just bring a 1x12 combo. But for new venues I bring my 1x12 extension just in case. Even if I don't plug it in, it gets the combo off the floor.

Well, I played a legion that had a small stage that had to have been 3 feet off the floor. I had my amp wide open and I still wasn't projecting. Everything was going into our feet. I've played outdoor gigs and not had to crank it that high.

Now, I only ended up playing 6-8 songs. Wasn't even worth my while showing up. But if I had played more, I would have moved the bass rig onto the floor in front of the stage.
 
#12
ehque said:
You may be right, but its hard to EQ in what isn't there.
Click to expand...

This is a very wise statement. If you bass does not cut through when run flat, it won't cut through with EQ either. EQ generally just adds spices or flavors to the sound. The core sound of the bass has to have certain qualities to it in order to not get lost in frequencies that other instruments cover, like the bass drum or a distorted guitar with a Marshall stack.

IMO, a lot of the problem is guitarists. They are just too dang loud and won't turn down to let the bass be heard. By the laws of physics, bass amps have to be about 3x as powerful as the guitar amps to match the guitar's volume, because amplifying bass frequencies requires more power (bigger speakers and bigger soundwave-forms) but the technologies cost the same, thus bass players will need much more expensive amps and cabinets then guitarists to match the volume evenly. This isn't a problem for professionals, but for amateurs and garage-band players, this means a much larger investment, or one that they simply can't afford.

I saw a band play once where the bassist had a Peavey 2x10 combo that couldn't have been more then 100 watts and the guitarist had a full Mesa stack (8x12" speakers...), at full blast. The bass may as well have been in outer space, even with the house sound system trying to give it some power. If the bass had a Mesa Bass stack and the guitarist had a 2x12 Peavey combo, they would have been about the same perceived volume. :P
 
#15
I hate to be loud on stage relative to the other instruments; I like to hear myself "in the mix" so to speak. That means having a bass that can be heard in terms of frequencies rather than volume, and as the man said, you can't eq what isn't there.
 
#17
Play with a keyboard player who has a heavy and busy left hand. You won't be able to hear yourself while standing right next to your amp. So you turn up; then it becomes a volume contest to which guitarists are only too happy to respond.
 
#18
Ditto on all the comments about EQ.

I'd like to suggest that "Timbre" is often what we are talking about though. Timbre is that quality of the musical sound that, for example, separates one instrument from another. If a violin and flute both play an "A", they still sound much different. This is because each instrument has a different timbre.

But you can also distinguish timbre between similar instruments. A P-Bass won't get certain Warwick sounds no matter how you EQ it. You can add Mids, but you still won't get that Warwick "sound". Same holds for all kinds of models of basses.

Take this one step further, and we see that strings have a huge impact in timbre as well. Flats just can't be EQd to sound like Rounds, etc.

The reason for this is harmonic overtones. When an instrument plays a 440hz "A", it is also generating lots of harmonics - at 880, 1320, 1760, 2200, 2640, etc. Each harmonic has a different relative amplitude to the fundamental. Different instruments have different relative amplitudes for the harmonics. And this basically is timbre - it's why a violin doesn't sound like a flute. A violin sounds so rich because it has a very complex harmonic spectrum, with (generally speaking) high relative amplitude.

I know what you're thinking: "Hey, I'll get a 31-band (or 63, or N) EQ and I'll fix fiddle with those pesky harmonics, and I'll turn my flute into a violin! Cool!! Ahhh... Not so fast! It turns out that the harmonic spectra is pretty complex. There's a lot of stuff going on "in-between" the whole number harmonics as well, due to the mathematical nature of how those frequencies interact. I'm a former signals engineer, so I'll try to keep that hat OFF, but the point is that the harmonic spectral content of various instruments is very complex.

So, little changes like strings, pickups, finger vs. pick, etc, all do have a very real impact on "cutting through". EQ is a necessary thing for balancing out the large scale sound issues (boomy room, high end treble for slap, etc). It can help you cut - especially the mids as stated - but only so much. As an exercise, play an E on the 7th fret of the A string, and then play the same octave E but on the 2nd fret of the D string. Sounds different, no? Playing higher up the neck chokes off some harmonic content, changing the timbre. And that's on the same exact bass!

Here's a neat mathematical example: Take a fundamental freq, then add only the odd harmonics. Furthermore, make the amplitude for each harmonic equal to 1/N (where N = the # of the harmonic). So that the 3rd harmonic is 1/3 the amplitude of the fundamental, the 5th harmonic is 1/5 the amplitude of the original, etc. What do you get? If we do this out for several harmonics, we get a nice square-wave! And most of you know how buzzy and harsh a square wave sounds - nothing at all like the adding some nice even order harmonics at varying amplitudes.

Sorry for the long ramble - hope somebody finds the geekier aspects of the hobby as interesting as I do!

The bottom line: You can't turn a flute into a violin.

-M

p.s: Yes, you're correct: most people actually mean "timbre" when they say "tone".
 
#19
MikeyB said:
As an exercise, play an E on the 7th fret of the A string, and then play the same octave E but on the 2nd fret of the D string. Sounds different, no? Playing higher up the neck chokes off some harmonic content, changing the timbre.
Click to expand...

Interesting - I often play in the "upper positions," i.e. 5th to 10th frets, as it allows lots of movement up and down the range of the bass - playing notes between E and A are a simple matter of changing position, and one I can do without looking, whereas moving from the 3rd fret up to the 7th or 9th fret is a little more challenging without looking. I also find that playing low-ish notes higher up on the neck gives a fatter sound, like playing C on the 8th fret E string rather than the 3rd fret A string, I guess because I'm using thicker strings than I would be if I were playing lower on the neck (towards the nut). Based on your experience, would you say the lower positions (frets 1-4) provide the best "cut through?" Maybe if I change my playing style a bit, I can dispense with some of my onstage EQ'ing?
 
#20
IME, yes, the lower fretted notes do cut through more. But I think there's definitely a place in the music for playing higher up! I love that "muted" sound of trilling up on the 14th fret or so before doing a run down the fretboard back to the groove of the song.

There's one song we do that hangs on E for a bit, and I alternate the rhythm between the 7th fret A string and the 2nd fret D string - it mixes up the quality of sound a bit, add a feel of the bass "moving", but I'm really playing the same scale note through that passage (with some finger muting, etc.).

Personally, I love to move around on the fret board while I'm playing - I get bored easily!

-M
 

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