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Parametric EQ between bass and backline rig

ganttbos

ganttbos

The Professor
Dec 18, 2001
325
144
78
New Orleans area
#1
When I'm mixing multitrack recordings of my cover band I often EQ the bass channel differently for various tunes. For example, on some songs a little narrow Q peak at around 400Hz adds a kind of boxy sounding cutting tone that fits the tune. Similar to favoring the bridge PU on a jazz bass but not quite the same. Or boosting at 500Hz on an MTD or a Will Lee Sadowsky, except that it's the narrow Q that's available in a DAW (or a fully parametric EQ) that does it - onboard bass preamps can't really cut it. Has anyone tried a parametric EQ between bass and backline so that different EQ patches can be punched in for different tunes. The same EQ'd sound would thus be in the stage rig as well as sent to FOH. I wouldn't need more than 3-5 bands, probably 3, to do what I'm talking about. Does anyone do this? What are you using?
 
#2
Live, I can't make such fine-grained judgments about how the bass is slotting in the FOH mix from venue to venue.

I *do* like a parametric between DI (colored by the pre-amp and set post-eq) and the power amp stage of the rig, so I can adjust the stage rig for odd sounding stages without changing the tone to FOH.
 
#3
Another approach would be to use a bass with a very wide variety of tonal options, and handle it all on the instrument itself, balancing bridge/neck pickup selection, volume knobs, and B/M/T tone knobs to get essentially the same as you'd get from a basic 3 band EQ. If doing so, it might help to use a compressor right off the bass in order to keep the level fluctuations more steady (but that's a whole other topic, right?).

Otherwise, you may want to dabble with the idea using a relatively inexpensive programmable pedal that gives you presets at the touch of a footswitch. This comes to mind:

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Or, you could try the Zoom MS60B or something like that. $99 US and it has a very wide variety of different types of EQ and other goodies built in, but changing presets on it is a bit awkward. Graduate to the Zoom B-3 and you can have 3 switches for individual "stomp" on/off, with each switch being a specific EQ tone. Bonus is the built in tuner and direct box among other things.
 

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