I run a pre-DI signal

[JimmyM]

I'm no sound tech, but why can't the house boost the lows of the tone I send them?

If you cut out those low freqs completely, they can't boost anything because they're not there to boost. If you merely turn them down, they can boost them if needed but they're limited to how much they can do by how far you turned them down.

Stingraysvt, sounds like you're a big fan of the SVT-DI. Will Lee is, too. What does it sound like? Wouldn't happen to have any clips of it, do you?

 

[stingraysvt]

I'm no sound tech, but why can't the house boost the lows of the tone I send them?

They can, it is easier on them to be able to make critical Eq decisions regarding the house mix, it is hard if you don't give them anything to work with though, for me, I'd like to get strong lows, thick mids, and smooth highs from my players, don't make their life hell and give them too much or too little of any one thing.

 

[stingraysvt]

Stingraysvt, sounds like you're a big fan of the SVT-DI. Will Lee is, too. What does it sound like? Wouldn't happen to have any clips of it, do you?

I like them, I'll see if I can work up a few clips for you, I have a small collection going at the moment I have 2 SVT DI's and 1 SVT Microphone Pre with a gain knob the tube Button warms up the signal slightly, it's nice, my AMP and my DI tube switches are always engaged.

They are nice to be had for under 2-300 if you can find them at that price. Not sure I would go much over that.

 

[anonymous122511]

I'm no sound tech, but why can't the house boost the lows of the tone I send them?

Maybe your EQ will do cut at a point he doesn't have specific access to with is EQ and he can't restore it without boosting other frequencies you haven't cut.

Maybe he can but he has more important problems to deal with first and your sound sucks out front the first half of the set.

Maybe the soundman just sucks and doesn't know how to fix your carved up signal.

When a guy like Jimmy Miller tells a sound man to "deal with it" he has a really good concept of how he wants to sound on stage, how that will translate out in the house and he's giving the soundman a great signal that will need very little (if any) EQ. The goal is to have your $hit so together that the soundman doesn't touch your strip all night. It's not his job to make a $hitty sound work in the mix. His job is to take a bunch of great sounds and create a great mix...fast. If you make him waste time fixing your butchered signal he's that much further away from a great mix and may not be able to get there very quickly if at all.

 

[JimmyM]

When a guy like Jimmy Miller tells a sound man to "deal with it" he has a really good concept of how he wants to sound on stage, how that will translate out in the house and he's giving the soundman a great signal that will need very little (if any) EQ. The goal is to have your $hit so together that the soundman doesn't touch your strip all night. It's not his job to make a $hitty sound work in the mix. His job is to take a bunch of great sounds and create a great mix...fast. If you make him waste time fixing your butchered signal he's that much further away from a great mix and may not be able to get there very quickly if at all.

Ya, if you set your amp a certain way like Gearhead's doing, or if you're inexperienced at live performance with PA, you're best to let the soundman do what he does and give him a pre feed. And if you use effects, do your best to make them match your clean sound without requiring massive re-EQing.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

I have been playing in covers bands since 1987 and I adjust my sound depending on which song we are playing. If I go back to my amp and add high end for a song or low end none of this is heard in FOH. I want this to be heard as it makes the song sound better (just my opinion but I've never had a complaint).

When Jaco was recording with Joni he was in the studio and could sit with the engineer for a while and direct him on his sound. It may have been Jaco turning the knobs. Any bass player plugging straight into the board can tone shape all he likes with the engineer if he has the interest. So the personality will come through just as it would if it had been his amp miked up.

Maybe I'm just too old and cynical

 

[Tnavis]

Maybe your EQ will do cut at a point he doesn't have specific access to with is EQ and he can't restore it without boosting other frequencies you haven't cut.

Maybe he can but he has more important problems to deal with first and your sound sucks out front the first half of the set.

Maybe the soundman just sucks and doesn't know how to fix your carved up signal.

These are all problems that can be solved with 1. a better technician and 2. knowing how your tone fits with your ensemble.

I totally agree that sending the sound tech a pre-EQ signal certainly makes their job easier; and for Gearhead's setup that seems to be the way to go. His tone isn't coming from his amp, he's adjusted its output for stage monitoring.

In my case, the tone sculpting is from the amp itself, and THAT'S the sound I want FOH. It is set very flat, no drastic changes, and my stage volume is moderate.

 

[pbass62]

+1 on having to have a competant sound man. Im breaking my old habits of sending the post for my amp sound to the house. I play in a gymnasium type sanctuary that is an acoustics nightmare. We have 2 very good FOH that 1st thing they wanted to do was get me and my drummer dialed in to fit the room. Vote here for the pre DI.IMO

 

[stingraysvt]

I have been playing in covers bands since 1987 and I adjust my sound depending on which song we are playing. If I go back to my amp and add high end for a song or low end none of this is heard in FOH. I want this to be heard as it makes the song sound better (just my opinion but I've never had a complaint).

When Jaco was recording with Joni he was in the studio and could sit with the engineer for a while and direct him on his sound. It may have been Jaco turning the knobs. Any bass player plugging straight into the board can tone shape all he likes with the engineer if he has the interest. So the personality will come through just as it would if it had been his amp miked up.

Maybe I'm just too old and cynical

I do too, but as a sound guy I'd jump up and slap you in the mouth! lol! j/k

I have found that getting a good tone and sticking to it is often a better approach live than trying to jump from this sound to that one, if you insert effects make sure it is consistent with your tone in terms of general EQ.

the most tone change I'll do is bring the highs up to 0db on my bass for slap or accented parts otherwise I run -3 to -6db. Or if I'm on my Stingray5 I'll flip the switch to the 3rd position which is scooped and sounds good for slapping.

I have to ask myself constantly what would the sound man in me think about my eq change I'm about to do? So my tone changes never gets very drastic.

 

[anonymous122511]

Maybe your EQ will do cut at a point he doesn't have specific access to with is EQ and he can't restore it without boosting other frequencies you haven't cut.

Maybe he can but he has more important problems to deal with first and your sound sucks out front the first half of the set.

Maybe the soundman just sucks and doesn't know how to fix your carved up signal.

These are all problems that can be solved with 1. a better technician and 2. knowing how your tone fits with your ensemble.

Don't be so quick to hack on the quality of the soundman. I only threw that out as a possible scenario. I've been doing paying gigs with soundmen for 32 years and been a tech myself for 28 years. As much bitching as musicians do about soundmen my observation is that on average in any given situation from a bar to a sports arena they're every bit as experienced and good at their jobs as the musicians. Don't take this too personally. I'm talking to more people than just you here.

 

[fokof]

..... If I go back to my amp and add high end for a song or low end none of this is heard in FOH. I want this to be heard as it makes the song sound better .

One very good reason to hire your own soundman then.
If you get a guy that doesn't know that your gonna play all night with your EQ , how will he react in real life situation ? If he hears that the bass player has too much low end , he's gonna cut it then when you'll bring it back and he's probably gonna leave it like that or it's gonna take a while for him to realize it. If you always play with your settings , first song , you're gonna sound good and at the end of the night , guess how ?
If you boost the low-end of your bass sound does your drummer (or keys) compensate by lowering that frequency in his kick or in their sound ?
If you always change sounds/tone and don't hire your own guy , don't expect miracles because what sound good in a practice room doesn't necessarily translate perfectly in a show.

Big acts are doing pre-productions for weeks, mostly for the monitoring part with digital boards , sometimes with multiple presets in a single songs , so no problems with Tone changing in these conditions but playing in a bar, one hour setup-soundcheck with a board wich doesn't even have a single band of full parametric EQ ?
It's pretty much looking for trouble if you don't have your own soundman.
Of course you can change stuff , but changing a Bass EQ like you described in between songs is a very bad idea in those conditions.

I used the 'Jaco in studio' example as an extreme one.
There a thousand (millions?) of bass players who sound really good DI'd.

IMHO What the OP is doin' is a very conscious thing of the Whole picture.

 

[Gearhead17]

I generally adjust my stage tone during the first set to find something that is not too loud and cuts through nicely. For all other tone changes, I adjust my plucking hand towards the bridge or the neck as needed for each song. I will employ a pick on the songs that need it too. I leave my pickup balance knob a little towards the bridge pickup so both pickups have an influence on the tone.

If you want more low end, go towards the neck, more growl - goes towards the bridge. Much easier than adjusting knobs every other song.

A few times now, I have had sound guys who actually work with my bass tone and people in the audience could actually tell I used a pick or the sound of my bass changed on several songs. I always thought a sound guy should give you a decent representation of your playing style. I have been to places where several bands have the exact same bass tone whether he used a pick or not. Plucking positions resulting in way too boomy or less boomy tones. In those situations, it's either a dumb sound guy or the bass players on stage are giving him a screwed up signal.

I have honestly never been asked what my bass tone is or what I strive for. Sound guys sometimes ask about my effect pedals, but that is only 10% of the time.

 

[Gearhead17]

IMHO What the OP is doin' is a very conscious thing of the Whole picture.

Thanks! I am trying to be less of a pain on stage. I am easy to work with - that means more time spent on getting my bass tone to work with the mix. Also means more time to work with the rest of the band and make us all sound good.

 

[rockstarbassist]

you mean pre-EQ or pre-preamp?

how can you get a signal to the board with pre-DI... :freak:

 

[Gearhead17]

I mean I hook up my bass through a few Radial switching pedals then straight to the DI. It was a little misleading I admit, but I was just trying to say I do not like giving the sound man a heavily EQed signal to work with.

 

[rockstarbassist]

I go post out b/c I like the sound of my preamp.
I would just buy a different amp if I had to heavily EQ my Mesa or any other amp for that matter.
I also use the Graphic EQ and Voicing features so not using them is kinda silly if I have the option.

 

[Gearhead17]

Going to hi-jack my own thread - why not?

I am glad I used a PRE-EQ signal again last night. The replacement drummer we had wanted to hear my bass in his monitor. The monitor was pointing at me but at least was 8 feet or so away. The extra boom from that, the subs blasting away and my rig going - it made for one heck of a muddy bass tone. I could not dial in my tone at all. I had everything below 150hz on the EQ slider cut as far as I could. Tried to boost the mids at 600hz (helped a little), a little boost at 2khz and that was about it. I tried to cut around 400hz, but I lost so much oomph on my tone, I just kept that area flat It was still a muddy bass tone, but at least I heard something. Miking my rig would have resulted is other chaos.

 

[silky smoove]

I send a signal to the FOH via a Radial JDI that is after my effects, but before my amp. That's all I really need. During soundcheck, I run through my effects with the soundguy so he knows what to expect, and if he needs something changed (i.e. octave effect is causing too much sub-content out front, envelope filter is pushing his compressors too hard, etc.) we can deal with it on my board beforehand. That said, I've never had a soundguy ask me to make changes as I set all of my gear in what I consider an intelligent way.

It's tricky if they want to mic me since I play through an LDS-built nEarful 15/6/1. I have to explain to them the crossover workings of a 3-way cab, which they should understand as a soundguy, but often don't. The always want to center, or edge mic on the woofer, which would get them nothing but low end since they're missing the midrange/tweeter section entirely.

 

[Gearhead17]

It's tricky if they want to mic me since I play through an LDS-built nEarful 15/6/1. I have to explain to them the crossover workings of a 3-way cab, which they should understand as a soundguy, but often don't. The always want to center, or edge mic on the woofer, which would get them nothing but low end since they're missing the midrange/tweeter section entirely.

I had a sound man the other night tell me a portion of the FOH speakers died. And the first thing to my mind was "Did they put a HPF on those speakers? Did the low end destroy them?" Turns out there was no filter on them and they got a full range signal. By time this guy caught it, the speakers were already destroyed. Luckily the smarter guy is my usual sound man.

It's really sad when PA guys have no clue about crossover networks.

 

[georgestrings]

Going to hi-jack my own thread - why not?

I am glad I used a PRE-EQ signal again last night. The replacement drummer we had wanted to hear my bass in his monitor. The monitor was pointing at me but at least was 8 feet or so away. The extra boom from that, the subs blasting away and my rig going - it made for one heck of a muddy bass tone. I could not dial in my tone at all. I had everything below 150hz on the EQ slider cut as far as I could. Tried to boost the mids at 600hz (helped a little), a little boost at 2khz and that was about it. I tried to cut around 400hz, but I lost so much oomph on my tone, I just kept that area flat It was still a muddy bass tone, but at least I heard something. Miking my rig would have resulted is other chaos.

I've been in that situation before, and got the drum box turned a bit so that it wasn't pointing right at me... As an example, my drummer likes ALOT of kick in his drum monitor - and I don't want or need to hear that as much as he does, so I wouldn't want it aimed right at me, since that *can* make it difficult for me to hear my bass well... Same thing with the half stack right next to me - I make sure it's aimed at HIS mic position, and not mine - works better for both of us that way...

Sometimes just asking for a little adjustment can make a long night a whole lot more pleasant...


- georgestrings