My band is a three-piece prog/jazz fusion group. Bass, guitar, percussion (and we plan to start playing keyboards soon). It should be simple to get a good mix from a small group, correct?
In my old metal band, I discovered that rolling off my tone all the way and playing fretless with flats produced a sound that pleased me, as well as made me distinguishable from the rest of the band without cutting into their space. I found it wonderful that I could always be heard, and never cover up their sounds.
For my new group though, I need to figure things out. I discovered just a few days into jamming with them that I had to end the habit of rolling off my tone and only dominating the low, fundamental frequencies because now, I'm doubling as a source of basslines and chords. The guitarist is playing leads and melody 90% of the time, and I'm providing chords and counterpoint basslines.
The guitarist has an amazing Fender Mustang IV (V2) and I love the lead tones from it when the patches are right. And I have tools to manipulate my EQ through a graphic EQ on the amp, and an extra EQ on my multi effects pedal.
The problem is that during rehearsals or gigs, one of us is always dominating the other. I start with a flat EQ usually and just adjust as we go to find a good mix, and he has whatever EQ the patches on his amp come with. I want to find a mix for us.
This would be very easy to fix if I played the bass like a bass, but I play it more like a rythym guitar and play everything up to the 24th fret with chord extensions.
I know this question may seem simple to many of you (that is why I'm asking you of course), but I need some direction as I don't know very much about EQing and live sound.
So can you please give a suggestion as to how the guitarist and I should try EQing our amps?
Thank you
In my old metal band, I discovered that rolling off my tone all the way and playing fretless with flats produced a sound that pleased me, as well as made me distinguishable from the rest of the band without cutting into their space. I found it wonderful that I could always be heard, and never cover up their sounds.
For my new group though, I need to figure things out. I discovered just a few days into jamming with them that I had to end the habit of rolling off my tone and only dominating the low, fundamental frequencies because now, I'm doubling as a source of basslines and chords. The guitarist is playing leads and melody 90% of the time, and I'm providing chords and counterpoint basslines.
The guitarist has an amazing Fender Mustang IV (V2) and I love the lead tones from it when the patches are right. And I have tools to manipulate my EQ through a graphic EQ on the amp, and an extra EQ on my multi effects pedal.
The problem is that during rehearsals or gigs, one of us is always dominating the other. I start with a flat EQ usually and just adjust as we go to find a good mix, and he has whatever EQ the patches on his amp come with. I want to find a mix for us.
This would be very easy to fix if I played the bass like a bass, but I play it more like a rythym guitar and play everything up to the 24th fret with chord extensions.
I know this question may seem simple to many of you (that is why I'm asking you of course), but I need some direction as I don't know very much about EQing and live sound.
So can you please give a suggestion as to how the guitarist and I should try EQing our amps?
Thank you
