bam, 'nuff said
(of course this puts it back on you to give him a non-suck bass tone that he can use without a bunch of struggle)
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Is this a good live setup? Would this make a soundman happy?
- Thread starter Bimlen
- Start date
(of course this puts it back on you to give him a non-suck bass tone that he can use without a bunch of struggle)
I did FOH for blues powerhouse Anthony Gomes a few times. His tone was multi amps, multi mics. So far, so good. He never once walked out into the house to see if he liked my mix of the multiple inputs, so I was guessing. Kinda defeated the purpose.
I use one channel, and I do my soundcheck from the mixing board, or 30' back where the paying folks are listening.
If you use the same FOH person every night, go ahead and work out an unconventional rig. If you are at the mercy of the the house person KEEP IT SIMPLE.
I use one channel, and I do my soundcheck from the mixing board, or 30' back where the paying folks are listening.
If you use the same FOH person every night, go ahead and work out an unconventional rig. If you are at the mercy of the the house person KEEP IT SIMPLE.
In a complicated signal chain, grabbing the signal early on with a good DI box known to the soundman is only smart. I've seen situations where the guy has a forest of pedals and something goes wrong, a pedal, patch cable, buzz, whatever; Then the frantic troubleshooting witch hunt takes place. In this case, at least FOH still has a usable signal to work with in the middle of the show, and if not, it the problem can be quickly narrowed down to a problematic bass or the 1/4" cable.
DI before the signal chain, as in before the tuner, wouldn't everyone hear my bass FOH whenever I'm tuning?
I totally understand the logic of your post, and I agree. But this thought process would hold more water if it applied to every instrument. You're never going to see a sound guy grab a DI from a guitar player before it hits his signal chain "just in case there's an issue", despite the 11 miles of cables involved with most guitar rigs. Guitar players also get their cabs mic'd, and if you request the same for your bass cab, most sound guys look at you like you just asked them to sleep with their wives. I'm not trying to argue, just making the point that guitars and bass get treated differently by most sound guys.
Redundancy makes sense, and I'm all for it, but few seem to do it. They either take a DI at the beginning of the signal, a DI at the end of the signal, or mic a cab. But rarely have I ever seen two options employed simultaneously.
There are legit live sound engineers who understand a signal chain has been put together because that's the sound you want, who will do what it takes to bring that sound to the FOH, and then there are hacks. If you insist on only taking a DI at the beginning of the chain just because it might be a headache if something unexpected happens, you're a hack, not a sound engineer. LoL
What is your point? Sure, a guitar player is going to have different effects than a bass player is going to have, but it doesn't follow that it's more important for his Tube Screamer to come through FOH than it is for your compressor. His Super Wah Wah 9000 isn't any more vital to his sound than your envelope filter is to yours. A sound man respecting that a guitar player has spent good money and taken great care selecting *just the right amp* and *just the right cab* is an absolute given, whereas bass players spend just as much money (or more) on their amps and cabs, and have made those decisions with every bit as much care as their guitar playing counterparts, and 99% of sound guys couldn't care less about respecting that.
I'm not a "mic my cab" guy, to be clear (I've played 100+ shows without an amp or cab over the past couple years), nor am I a big time effects user, but the principle that guitar signal chains (including the amp and cab) are universally treated with supreme reverence while the signal chains of bass players are written off as having unnecessary potential for technical difficulties is absurd.
Yeah, but right or wrong, it still negates the efforts of the bassist to shape his tone. That's wrong. And that's why we pros call it "sound reinforcement".
The part that sucks is that when, not if, a problem crops up on the pedalboard, the soundguy is usually the first guy summoned by the bassist for help solving the issue. I've done dozens of these pedal-board troubleshooting sessions over the years. Made a lot of friends that way, too!...
A couple of problems here, pal.
First, your 99% quote is bu$$sh$t. What, were you born in soundguy hell? Sorry if you've had a bad run of sound guys, but again....
My boss has well over a million dollars tied up in pro sound and lighting. And about to drop nearly a million in a "keeping up with the Joneses" move of the latest, greatest PA flavor of the month PA. You got that kind of money tied up in your bass rig? I sure don't. But I don't care if you spent $.99 on your rig (and that's pushing it on a lot of basses and bass rigs I've seen over the years), I still do, or did until I retired, what's necessary to bring your bass tone to the PA mix. Making sure the DI came AFTER the pedalboard, out of the head, mic the cab, whatever.
So look up the word "exaggerate" and find some better sound guys to work with.
I've got a butthurt report around here somewhere. Obviously you missed my distinction between legit engineers and hacks. I assume if you're running a company with millions in gear, you're probably not employing hacks. I stand by my estimate that 99% of sound guys don't treat a bass player's signal chain (including amp and cab) the same way they treat a guitar player's. Absolutely ZERO sound guys would try to take a DI of a guitar player's signal chain instead of putting a mic on the cab (unless asked to by the guitar player). ZERO. ZILCH. NOT ONE. But in all my years and 1000+ shows, I've had precisely ONE sound guy automatically mic my cab. His name is Frank Gordon, and he's a BASS PLAYER. I went through a lengthy phase where I was convinced it mattered whether the FOH had a DI or a mic'd cab from me, so I would ask each sound guy as he was setting me up a DI if he could please mic my cab instead. "The DI is more reliable" "The mic stand could get bumped" "there's too much bleed" "I don't have a bass mic" "the acoustics in here don't work well for that". I've heard it all... every excuse in the book as to why I'm being silly for even suggesting such a crazy thing. I've gotten ignored, I've gotten eye rolls, I've been told "you spend too much time on forums". You name it. What I haven't heard? "Yeah, no problem!" 99% of guys reading this have heard at least one of these lines if they've regularly asked a sound guy to mic a cab. I'm confident of that.
Continuing with my "exaggeration", I'd be willing to bet 99% of the members of TalkBass have rarely (if ever) played a show with a sound guy who has any connection to a company with a million dollars worth of gear. Sure there are some, but most sound guys are going to be doing it for fun like the weekend warrior players are, and they're going to be doing it with gear they've cobbled together over the years. Mismatched wedges, mains that don't go with the subs, half reliable mic stands, beat up old 58s, and a console that's at the very most, not yet obsolete. I'm not saying these aren't tools that can be used to great effect, just that it's the reality of what most sound guys are working with. They pull up in a beat up old cargo van and out comes this mix and match setup. 99% of people reading this post right now just nodded and said "Yep, I know the guy/know the setup/know that van."
I've played a couple hundred shows with pro sound... top notch FOH guys, dedicated monitor guys, the works. I'm not saying they don't exist, and I sincerely appreciate them more than I can say. When I played in front of 10,000+ people at a festival in 2016 right before Phil Vassar closed the night, the phenomenal stage crew took a single DI from my pedal board. Mic on the guitar rig though, no second thought for either (And that's okay; the point is, it's different for bass and guitar - that's a reality). Most of my shows weren't as luxurious. I've played in half a dozen states, in garages, barns, on semi trailers, in the middle of the street, in someone's house, at cabins, at schools, for telethons on TV, etc, etc, etc, and the picture you paint is absolutely the exception to the rule.
Again, for every pro audio guy with a bunch of top notch expensive gear at his disposal, there are probably a hundred others who don't take it seriously, don't invest in it, don't hone their skills at it, and don't really care how great they do (or think they're way better than they are). The guitar community has the over the hill guys who show up at open mic jams and screech through the same Hendrix and SRV tunes week after week, never quite pulling off the licks, acting like rock stars for their moment, without ever actually aspiring to become great, or somehow already thinking they're there. Sound engineering has the same types of guys - the kinds of guys who will run sound for free for a poker run show and get bombed out of their minds 2 bands into a 10 band lineup, or the guys who pay way more attention to the tipsy woman they're chatting up than the band they're mixing. You can act like I'm crazy and every sound guy is a meticulous super genius with deep pockets, all the latest toys, and mics every drum 3 different ways because gosh darn it, nothing's gonna get in the way of a legendary sound engineering performance at the 50-max-capacity Hole In The Wall in BFE this Saturday night, but this is reality, where everyone else on TalkBass resides, and I'm confident very few have lived such spoiled musical lives to have only crossed paths with uber-dedicated sound guys with cutting edge gear.
Nothin' but love for ya Geri O. No hard feelings.
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If a guitar drops out of the mix, no big deal; it's just a guitar. If the bass drops out, the music comes to a halt. We can't let that happen.
I laughed out loud at this for some reason. Think I woke up my whole family. haha
Which is why a lot of experienced sound techs may ask to drop a DI right out of your bass if you'll let them, as well as taking your output, especially if it's for broadcast or recording. It's just for back-up, but it's there if needed, assuming they have the channels to spare.
Micing the cab? Sure, if someone's adamant, but please don't hand them an RE-20 or some other favorite broadcast mic - too many problems, and that's spoken from long experience runnning a sound board. Most techs IME will take your DI willingly, pre, post, whatever. What happens next is pretty much out of your control, and sometimes leads to strong statements like the one above
.Ham's right though. Most "tyipical" sound techs are pressed more for time than anything, don't often have spare channels, and will take whatever you give them. ...so choose your DI (or microphone) wisely.
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The way to go. Make it simple for the sound person. My Darkglass Vintage Microtubes has a knob to set the dry-to-dirt signal. If I use that pedal, it's because I want THAT sound out there. And the blend is part of my choice. Don't leave decisions like that for someone else! That advice is for live performance. Tracking for a studio recording is a whole different matter....
