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Ok bass peeps here's a question for ya !!

#42
DavC said:
i remember the DriveRack having a few different X-over slopes ... maybe that might help ... they usually have a pretty dip at the Xover point .

do you have a low filter / rumble filter / below 20hz on your channel ..?? that might help

if you have a DI before your rig ,... you can eq things separately ... do whatever you wanna hear on stage , same with FOH ... maybe you need a separate EQ Inserted on your channel to give you more control over your FOH sound ....

i ran the PA for most of my bands ... playing bass and keys , which both where rather hard to get to sound like they did on stage thru FOH !! vocals , drums , horns, guitars = fine
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Personally I don't like driveracks... I prefer old school nice xover and use the graphic on the iPad channel .. Straight forward tone imo and less guess work
 
#43
slamsinger said:
Here's a shot of the bass EQ On the iPad bump in 80hz bump in 160hz bump in 800hz high rolled off a bit View attachment 820792
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Overall this curve looks pretty good, but perhaps a bit bass heavy. Given the sound you have described, I suggest setting band 1 to bell and adjusting the Q and level so the response rolls off gently below about 100 hz. If you need more clarity move the knee higher and if you need to add fatness move the knee lower.
 
#45
slamsinger said:
I don't think that's the solution :)
I need a fat even punchy uncolored bass tone for this band but thanks
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With my full respect, I think you want the opposite actually.. Bass amplifiers in general color the sound much more than a pa. You like your sound through your amp because of that. The sansamp bass di for instance is made specifically for that, to make your bass sound like it is played through an amp through a pa and it does color the sound a lot. If your bass amp has an xlr out after its preamp, send that to foh instated. Also, you can try to mic the amp and mix that in with your di.
 
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#46
s0c9 said:
depends on how he has it set up... has he auto-RTA'd the PA ?? Meaning, put a reference mic out front and run pink noise thru the system to set the crossover points and the DSP's EQ settings?
If so, then reset the DSP.
The K12's handle 52Hz-18KHz, and idk what subs you have, so can't check those specs, but "guessing", you probably want the H/L crossover point set somewhere around 90-105Hz.
I also guessing that R&B/Funk has a lot being fed into the tops.. keys,vocals, etc.. and those K12's right now are trying to do too much.
Without more details on your setup.. it's a needle in the haystack search.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm guessing the crossover is now at something like 200-250 Hz.
 
#48
Very good advice in this thread! Don't need to repeat much.

Maybe some of them too anal and over the top. Don't do overachievment. I for one has detected that you can't play through too high-end gear especially when DI-ing and so on. Say if I have a high end bass with real active pickups like EMG, split them through the Radial DI box and let X go to amp, and Y to board, chances are that they will clash and mismatch a great deal. Clinical and sterile sounding. If I have passive P-bass or J-bass equipment, and do a line out from the amp on stage where the preamp colors the tone too before it's on the way to the PA, I have had much better results directly without fiddling too much.

There are too many things to consider and too many factors that can water down your actual sound. Mismatch of the input levels. Gain structure. Some at +4db and some at -20 db, and you have no optimised gain structure. Your preamp in your onstage amp can bring in a lot of compression and "punch" to the sound which is lost in the PA. Mind you, tube amps or tube simulating things can sound compressed without even having the name compressor. Which MAY be the one that brings out the punch, without you ever knowing of it. Crossovers points can make havoc too. The best is to mix miced up cab and direct. You MAY run into phase anomalies, but if you balance them well enough it should'nt be a problem.

I think you should measure the gain structure and follow the cable path. Check that the gain isn't attenuated or aggrevated along the line, and each input has its maximum line level without distortion or "line level distortion" which is always ugly. If there's some grittines reaching the board that is to your taste see if you can do a sidechained compression from any of the mixer or racks effects you've got, if you got any at all. Sometimes a Tech21 VT "direct pedal" which colors the sound quite well, is what is needed before it gets to the board, and amp.

- - - - - - -

By and large, I think it's the same thing with guitar amps. They are almost exclusively not lined or x/y split before raching amp. They're almost always miked up. You just get that sound, that way and not in another way. Save for latest digital modelling thing, but anyway. It might just be as easy as that. Mic it up, close.
 
#49
slamsinger said:
. It's almost like there's a gap between the 18's and the 12's..
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Maybe that's the culprit? It can very well be. Reading it all through (yes, no "i-havent-read-the-whole-thread-but" with me) it can be a number of things but this comes to my mind the most considering it all. I've never ever heard anyone go past 15 subs if they don't play outdoor arenas and festivals. If they have 18s there, they'sure mix it up with going with 15's and 12's and 10's too, down to tweeter dimensions. I think - if I may force myself into a qualified guess - it's about transient response, which are maybe good on your twelves. Most people say - regarding actual bass cabs on stage - that 4x10s or 8x10s have the most and fastest and punchiest transient response. Here's some links to Barefaced site, which has a lot to say on transient response, and which ones works the best at it.

Link Removed

"Transient response is the ability of a speaker to start and stop exactly when the sound going into should start and stop. A bass cab with excellent transient response sounds far more alive and responsive than one with poor transient response and makes it easier to both groove hard and be heard on the gig. It is particularly important that a musical instrument speaker has good transient response because it is how the player hears themselves and thus has a huge effect on how they play. So, you need transient response in a PA speaker system too."

The conclusion is that you have to make a trade off. If you want fast punch attack and transient response, you have to make huge tradeoffs at the lowest end.

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Another one of his, regarding "what is punch":

Link Removed
 
#50
The best and easiest experiment to do is to JUST mike up your cabinet once.
Make all adjustments and line levels to a tee, and then go out and have a listen again.
If it's still lacking, it's sure the gap between the 18's and the twelves. Might not be, but chances are that you are ruling out (or in) that one, to begin with. The thing is to first rule out things by emprical and in real life tests.

Use occams razor.
 
#51
Many years ago, I read an article that covered this exact topic. It said that the mistake many bass players make is that they set their eq according to how they like their sound when they are playing by themselves without the rest of the band. Once the band joins in, many of the frequencies get lost in the mix. The article recommended setting your eq with more mids and highs. It said you will not like the way it sounds when you play alone but it will sound much better in the mix. On Hartke's website, there is a video of Billy Sheehan talking about how many bass players set their eq in the shape of a smiley face, boosted lows and highs with the mids cut. Billy does the exact opposite. He cuts some of the lows and highs and boosts the mids. It cuts through the mix much better.
 
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#52
Lots of great advice here.
If this situation I would recommend cutting some lows at your bass so you can bump your overall volume. Panning to more towards the bridge pickup should do a good job as well.
 
#53
- you have a deep cheshire smile of bg coming out of the foh. tons of lows and highs.
- everything else sounds great.
- everything else sounds great.
- everything else sounds great?
- why would you mess with the whole foh picture?

- cut/eliminate the lows on your bass' channel.

cut the mountains and you'll have a plain.



also, I like trying to haul haybails with my porsche. I'm not getting a pickup truck. I'm just a porsche guy.
 
#56
Biggbass said:
I had an experience once where a sound guy came up to me and asked me to roll off most of the
low end on my amp tone settings and increase the upper mids. He said it sounded flat and muddy out front. So I did, reluctantly, until he gave me the thumbs up. It sounded like thinned out crap at the amp but everyone I talked to after the show said the bass sounded great and they could hear the notes instead of just a muddy low boom.
go figure.
but the moral of this story is; the secret is apparently in the upper mids. but what do I know?
I stand in front of an amp, not 100 feet out front. I do know that the room has a lot to do with bass clarity and punch and every room is different.
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This...

As a sound engineer who used to regularly do live sound I think most people would be surprised how much low frequency cut and roll off is used in most set-ups for bass. Emphasize and boost the frequencies between 400-900hz (got find your sweet spot for each room) and cut just about everything below 80hz.

You mention everything below 80hz is clear and the issue is that is shouldn't even be there in most rooms as all it does is bounce around the room and cause cancellation of other important frequencies in most instances.

Cut the lows, absolutely roll off anything lower than say 60hz (again in most cases) and boost the low mids while increasing the entire volume in the mix. As it is your PAs are using a lot of energy to produce frequencies that no one "hears". You feel that bottom but truthfully no one hears that once the band plays another note on top.
 
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#60
Kmonk said:
Many years ago, I read an article that covered this exact topic. It said that the mistake many bass players make is that they set their eq according to how they like their sound when they are playing by themselves without the rest of the band. Once the band joins in, many of the frequencies get lost in the mix. The article recommended setting your eq with more mids and highs.
Click to expand...

Good point, but there is a simpler solution than having him totally re-configure his stage EQ.

He just needs to send a pre-EQ DI signal to the board. This way he can have his cake (his tone on stage) and eat it too (an un-EQ'd signal going to the board without unwanted artifacts).

EQ'ing an already EQ'ed signal is a challenge many sound engineers would rather avoid, and in this case it will let him more easily diagnose where the problem is.
 

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