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Peaking with medium volume...say what??

S

SkinnyP411

Guest
Nov 3, 2011
119
0
Tennessee
#1
Allright bass fans, heres the issue: I took my newly acquired 5 string(ESP LTD c-305f) to my church last night for a Christmas service for the youth. I turned my volume on my amp at 12 o'clock, gain at 1 o'clock, and everything else at 12 o'clock. I plugged in and the sound guy told me to turn my gain down because I was peaking(on the board). So i turned down, and just moved my volume up to about 2-3 o'clock so I could hear myself. Why would I be peaking with settings so bland? Keep in mind this is the first time I've played the ESP there. Before I was playing a Fender Jbass.
(My rig is an Ampeg pf 500 w/ SWR Workingmans 410, not sure if that info is needed(?)
 
#2
I seem to remember that gain affected the DI output of the pf500, so turning the gain down would give him less of a signal.

But there is a -40db pad switch on the back for the DI. Turn the pad on and you should be able to turn up your gain and have a happy soundman.
 
#3
SkinnyP411 said:
Allright bass fans, heres the issue: I took my newly acquired 5 string(ESP LTD c-305f) to my church last night for a Christmas service for the youth. I turned my volume on my amp at 12 o'clock, gain at 1 o'clock, and everything else at 12 o'clock. I plugged in and the sound guy told me to turn my gain down because I was peaking(on the board). So i turned down, and just moved my volume up to about 2-3 o'clock so I could hear myself. Why would I be peaking with settings so bland? Keep in mind this is the first time I've played the ESP there. Before I was playing a Fender Jbass.
(My rig is an Ampeg pf 500 w/ SWR Workingmans 410, not sure if that info is needed(?)
Click to expand...

What you hear and what the PA sees are two different things. You hear what goes through the amp and speaker but not the voltage seen by the PA. If your DI isn't controlled separately from the amp's output, you need to change that. If you use a DI box, get one that has a level control for the DI audio. That way, you get the sound you want and the mixer gets the signal level that it wants.
 
#4
Your sound man probably could have just lowered your channels gain knob on the mixer to compensate. Or maybe you were sending a slightly overdriven tone, and he just claimed he was peaking because he happens to prefer a super clean bass tone. But if your not the regular bassist, maybe he just didnt want to change any of the mixers settings for that channel.
 
#5
If he is running an active bass with high output, not using the input pad or the DI output pad, and running gain at 1 oclock, he could be pushing such a hard DI signal that it was clipping the board channel even with the board gain turned all the way down. If the board does not have an input pad, then there is nothing the soundman can do.

Regardless of whether the soundman had an option to bring down the signal that he didn't use or not, hitting the -40db pad for the DI on the back of the Ampeg pf500 should solve this to eveyone's satisfaction. This is precisely why they put it there!
 
#7
You said you set all the EQ controls to 12 oclock, so the pre/post EQ switch shouldn't have changed anything.

If you do set it to POST, then turning up the EQ knobs past 12 oclock (especially the bass knob) would increase the signal out the DI.

I recommend setting this switch to PRE. This way you can make EQ changes to your amp mid show without affecting the signal to soundman and the FOH sound. Let your soundman apply the EQ he needs to make the bass sound good from the FOH speakers.

You would use the ground lift switch if the soundman complained he was getting hum, this could be a ground loop and lifting the ground might fix this.
 
#10
Exactly. The Pre/Post switch on the back of the PF500 controls whether the signal that goes to the DI output is tapped before (pre) or after (post) the EQ knobs on the amp.

However, if you had turned up the EQ knobs on your instrument, that could have contributed to how hot your signal was.

On Passive instruments, the tone controls are roll-offs, meaning that you get unaltered signal with the tone controls turned up all the way, and you turn down bass or treble by turning the control down.

On Active instruments, the tone controls are usually cut/boost. This means there is usually a center detent position that is unaltered, turning up boosts the signal at that freq, turning down cuts the signal at that frequency.

On a passive bass, I'll turn the tone controls all the way up, and then roll them back if needed.

On an active bass, I'll center the tone controls, and then adjust as needed.
 

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