Get some pedals and use backline amps via their fx return. A HPF3 should be top of shopping list.
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Looking for a 'tighter' sound live , especially low end
- Thread starter pbass888
- Start date
That works great, but now we're off and running on how to fine tune pedals..... where does it end.....
This.
Very cool that you got your first and most likely best answer within 20 minutes of posting.
I was at that show! It was awesome! One of the best concerts I've ever seen.
This. The HPF is your friend. Depending on the room you can benefit by attenuating your lows starting around 80Hz and get a much better and tighter sound. I'd definitely roll off everything below somewhere around 35Hz no matter what.
I wouldn't blindly cut anything in this territory. 250-500hz can be a little boxy sounding, but it's also where a lot of your note definition lives. This is a very tricky area. My EQ in this range veries vastly depending on the room and the bass I'm using (I may cut more in this range with a P-Bass, while I'd generally leave this area alone, or even slightly boost it when using something like a J or a Stingray.
250hz can be really flubby, but can also include a lot of warmth and - as stated above - note definition. Have I said that this is a tricky area? Also, 70hz may be a little high to start rolling off depending on the Q factor of your EQ. 80HZ is right about where nice round bass lives. I usually center my low cut around 50hz. Sometimes I may even go to 60hz if I'm dealing with a bass that is excessively "bassy"
As usual, JimmyM is dead on balls here. I tend to do my mid cut a little higher up, somewhere around 400-500hz on bass guitar, but nothing is set in stone as far as EQ. Heck, I might not even cut mids there - I usually don't with my Ray.
40-60hz is a great place to shelve off a bunch of sub bass that is only going to muddy things up. Any higher than 60hz and you might start choking out the 80hz nice roundness. I would not boost 125hz AT ALL, EVER. I know I say nothing is set in stone, but I have never needed to boost a bass guitar in these frequencies. Every bass I own puts out buckets of signal in that spectrum.
EQ is a tough subject, often subjective, and never the same from room to room. There's a lot of useful info in this thread. Best of luck !
As a Caribbean bassist that has played a fair bit of reggae live :
- First things first, and I know it's been said ad nauseum on TB and beyond...but the sound really does comes from your fingers. If the recorded sound is the sound you want in your head, the technique you're using in the live video I just watched won't get you quite there...you're plucking too close to the bridge. Play where the neck meets the body (or even farther up the neck depending on the bass/strings/pickup) to get that deep reggae sound. But as Levar says: "You don't have to take MY word for it...", watch Familyman (20min 40secs in):
- Cut the high freq...you don't need anything above 2 kHz for that sound, and that's being conservative...roll back that tone knob!
- A little mush never hurt anybody, embrace it, it's part of the style...if possible ask the FOH engineer to record a pass during soundcheck. The 2 most important things is that you can distinguish the kick drum from the bass and that you don't overwhelm the room (all bets are off if you're outdoors).
- 15" (or even 12") speakers are your friend, if you can get one for the backline. Ampeg 8x10 rigs will do the job nicely as well, but I've been digging the 15" "fearful" type rigs, but that's near impossible to find as a backline.
+1 simply for a "Familyman" shout out
So many great rigs out there and depends on what you play and the sound you want. For me I use the Ampeg SVT CL Heritage with the Ampeg SVT Heritage 410HLF or 810 for touring and very large venues. It gives me the exact sound I want and I've always been an Ampeg guy since '76! I still use my original Ampeg BA210 for practice and smaller rooms and it sounds great. The SVT CL is a bit on the heavy side as are the cabs but you can't beat the sound. If Stay away from the made in China version and spend the extra on the US manufactured Heritage line. Good luck!
In my last rock band, my tone was very similar. To me, that video on page 1 is not very muddy at all.
I now am playing in a reggae band (similar tone to ska IMO) and I am cutting a lot of high mids. As a POR I am playing a Precision Bass -> Fender Rumble 500 -> (2) Ampeg SVT-15e.
I now am playing in a reggae band (similar tone to ska IMO) and I am cutting a lot of high mids. As a POR I am playing a Precision Bass -> Fender Rumble 500 -> (2) Ampeg SVT-15e.
I think johndough and fugazibombs answers are about as complete an advise as possible. All I can add is that IME with finding the right thump is that finding the right 80 hz sweetspot depends a lot on the tuning of the cab. Lots of cabs have resonant peaks close to that spot. Sometimes that works, sometimes not. I like cabs that are fairly flat in the low end or that roll off from a relative high freq. Because with a good eq and hpf it is easier to dial in the right hump.
don't bump your lows!!!
if you feel that you are lacking low end, just rise the volume. it will give you the lows you seek but those will be supported by the very needed mids and highs. never my tone had been better since I use my EQ completely flat, compliments come frome audience and band mates.
extra: you should use an amp and cabs with more than enough headroom. when you push an amp beyond its confort zone the first element that suffers is tightness.
I hope this helps!
(I usally play non-PA jazz gigs with my P or a stingray using a little mark III completely flat and a 2x10" cab. the only EQ I use is the passive tone of the P)
if you feel that you are lacking low end, just rise the volume. it will give you the lows you seek but those will be supported by the very needed mids and highs. never my tone had been better since I use my EQ completely flat, compliments come frome audience and band mates.
extra: you should use an amp and cabs with more than enough headroom. when you push an amp beyond its confort zone the first element that suffers is tightness.
I hope this helps!
(I usally play non-PA jazz gigs with my P or a stingray using a little mark III completely flat and a 2x10" cab. the only EQ I use is the passive tone of the P)
When you're chasing the mighty big reggae bass tone, try a simple thing:
Go for a balanced sound without boosting the lower registers too much.
Then turn up your amp a LOT.
Now play very very softly with your right hand
somewhere between the neck PU and the fingerboard.
This needs a bit of practice since you're playing with an armed bomb under your fingers now.
Dig in hard and whoever stands right next to your amp will hit the back wall.
Go for a balanced sound without boosting the lower registers too much.
Then turn up your amp a LOT.
Now play very very softly with your right hand
somewhere between the neck PU and the fingerboard.
This needs a bit of practice since you're playing with an armed bomb under your fingers now.
Dig in hard and whoever stands right next to your amp will hit the back wall.
Knowing that you have a consistent sound as far as the signal that goes to the cab goes.That works great, but now we're off and running on how to fine tune pedals..... where does it end.....
Ok I have a gig Sunday... going back to playing up near the neck ( the video shows me near the bridge as i was trying to get more definition after furious knob fiddling.
2. Turning up the amp, a lot, the backline is a 8x10 and 450 ampeg head. Next gig a portaflex and a 4X10 after that.
Setting eq flat and hoping my HPF comes in in time....or using my eq to cut a little on the high mids highs and also near 40 hz.
3. doing a sound check where i head out in front and someone else plays bass(singer) to compare stage sound to 'crowd' sound..
BTW I used rounds( dead nickel daddario 45-100) on JAZZ or pj.
Will try to post sound clips soon after.
thanks a lot TB for the Education
2. Turning up the amp, a lot, the backline is a 8x10 and 450 ampeg head. Next gig a portaflex and a 4X10 after that.
Setting eq flat and hoping my HPF comes in in time....or using my eq to cut a little on the high mids highs and also near 40 hz.
3. doing a sound check where i head out in front and someone else plays bass(singer) to compare stage sound to 'crowd' sound..
BTW I used rounds( dead nickel daddario 45-100) on JAZZ or pj.
Will try to post sound clips soon after.
thanks a lot TB for the Education
I've played in A LOT of reggae bands and this is the exact reason I began using a rack set up with a compressor/limiter. I also have a sub-harmonic synth in my rack, but it's not really plug and play with a simple set-up. It sounds too much like an octave effect if you send it your full range signal. You have to bi-amp and send only your lows to it for optimal results. YMMV
THIS!
I'd add dial in a little boost in the low-mids if you have a choice. I dial in about 3 clicks of boost at ~250Hz on my Eden amp to get that nice definition and thump in the chest without the mush and mud.
A lot of this depends upon the cabs you have paired it to also. I used to drop the bass EQ by 2 clicks running an acoustic B410 over a GK115blx just to clear out the mud from the 115 (super-boomy cab!), which was too bad because the acoustic needed that Bass EQ. My DNS410 has a far superior and much tighter and well-defined bottom end, so I leave my bass EQ set flat while using it by itself and it still sounds night and day better (and louder) than that stack ever did. So you probably will run the settings differently on the various backlines provided. But the "drop the bass, boost the low mids a bit" is a really good starting point.
Sounds like you've got the gist of it. Also, remember that nice round reggae tone is right around 80-100hz. You can boost there slightly to bring out some of that oomph, but do your best not to boost too much - at least at first. 80-100hz is the money frequency for reggae, but it can't do it all on it's own. It needs higher order harmonics around 250-500 hz to be heard. If you feel like you're being "heard" too much, rather than being "felt" you can remove some of that all important 250-500hz stuff, just keep in mind that taking away too much away will make it hard to hear you in the mix at all. My "dub reggae tone" on my pedal board is just a LPF that gets rid of everything above 300hz, but you have to have buckets of power to be able to push that and hear it on stage. I run 950 watts through an 8x10 and sometimes that really low dub stuff gets lost even on me. I know it's banging in the FOH, tho, so I just roll with it.
I built my rig with powerful lows in mind. That's why I run so much power into so much speaker area. It's the only way you can get the low, dub-y sound you hear in the studio recording at decent stage monitor volume. Also, compression is important. Those deep lows really start to disappear as you climb the neck. The comp helps even that out. I run the sub harmonic synth to further combat that, so I can climb all the way up past the 12th fret and the bass still hits really hard. I've heard people with simpler set-ups than me get pretty nice lows (my buddy has an Eden stack that puts out some mean lows) so don't stress feeling like you've got to shell out a bunch of cash to get that sound. I would start with a good compressor, pedal or rack. There was a pedal comp that had every parameter I have on my rack gear (ratio, threshold, attack, release, etc) but I do not recall what it was. Pedal forum can probably help you out with that. Also, a parametric EQ pedal might be a good idea to give you a little more tone shaping than a backline might provide.
Like others have said, play near the neck joint. That will get you closer to that tone. Favor the neck pick-up if it isn't too noisy. Playing through flats is also an option. I don't dig them, but they work for a lot of people.
