Poll: Getting a better DI tone live (without IEMs)

[el murdoque]

I do think it's common for the bass to get a quick line check and little more...but in reality most audio techs will spend considerable time dialing in the bass once the entire band start playing, so the line check is not the end of it. Bass players feel a bit burned because they think it is. To be honest, I typically tweak channel EQs for the duration of most shows in order to tailor the sound to the music.

IMHO if someone is going to run effects it is absolutely essential that all of the effects are tweaked so that the levels and tones sound right as the patches are changed. Unfortunately as I mentioned earlier this is not necessarily as easy to do as people think it is.

If you dial your effects in for the frequency response contour of a traditional bass rig, they probably won't work very well for the PA frequency response contour which is very different. Resolving this dilemma is the promise of speaker SIMs.

Also in my experience it's typically necessary to rebalance levels and tweak the EQ of effects if you change your volume significantly. So if you have your effects dialed in for your stage volume, the tone and levels may not work well for the volume used at FOH.

IMHO it's really impossible to run a bunch of effects optimally without an extended sound check and a bit of negotiation between the bass player and audio tech. But if you really learn what is going on and practice, many people can develop a intuitive sense that allows them to sound pretty darn good.

Yeah, well - that is the big problem with playing bass with a big pedalboard nowadays.
There is no real way of making sure all your effect sounds are exactly as loud as they need to be through FOH - apart from balancing that stuff on stage, for that FOH system, with the tech.

I've tried with a Headrush board where I used a limiter last in line after the cab sim to make sure all my sounds have exactly the same level. Well, that's when you learn that different EQ curves will sound more or less loud, while having the same level. And even that will change once the band is playing. A common example is the overdrive sound. When you set it to have the same perceived volume your clean sound has in your bedroom, you will perceive a drop in volume in band context when you hit the pedal - so you need to balance the OD volume with the others playing and will have a much louder setting as a result. I have a synth-style setting with a bit crusher, a fuzz, heavy compression and a sweeping filter that comes across as much louder.
All my sound presets are matched to the PA system my band usually uses and that works most of the days.
When we bring our own PA we also bring our own tech, who knows our songs and how I use my effects - which is a big help.
When we play a place with a different PA, none of this works though.

 

[Jack]

I've noticed a bit of soundguy psychology before where anything on your board is an effect and anything not on your board is a hassle. For that reason I voted for the cabsim on your board before your Mesa option.

 

[Nunovsky]

I got the chance to listen back to a couple of gigs that were recorded recently and one high end one I sounded great (and my cab was mic'ed) but the other one I was sterile, not compressed enough (to my ears) and had the swarm of bees issue when I hit fuzz.

In my experience, this problem that you're complaining about is due to sending your D.I. from the amp without a cab simulator or some lpf filtering. The cab naturally works as a lpf/hpf in the way that it only reproduces certain frequencies more related to the instrument sound. When the bass is mic'ed you get a front sound more close to what you hear and like so it sounds better, specially with dirt.
When you send your bass signal to the front using only a D.I. you must realize thatyor signal is bein reproduced by full range speakers and whn you add dirt you're adding harmonics like with an OD or messin with the entire spectrum so a lot of upper frequencies will be reproduced and be more perceptible than the lower ones. That's why it sounds like a pack of bees. By adding a cab sim or a lpf/hpf you're taming those frequencies and your tone sounds more like you're used to.

 

[Wasnex]

Yeah, well - that is the big problem with playing bass with a big pedalboard nowadays.
There is no real way of making sure all your effect sounds are exactly as loud as they need to be through FOH - apart from balancing that stuff on stage, for that FOH system, with the tech.

I've tried with a Headrush board where I used a limiter last in line after the cab sim to make sure all my sounds have exactly the same level. Well, that's when you learn that different EQ curves will sound more or less loud, while having the same level. And even that will change once the band is playing. A common example is the overdrive sound. When you set it to have the same perceived volume your clean sound has in your bedroom, you will perceive a drop in volume in band context when you hit the pedal - so you need to balance the OD volume with the others playing and will have a much louder setting as a result. I have a synth-style setting with a bit crusher, a fuzz, heavy compression and a sweeping filter that comes across as much louder.
All my sound presets are matched to the PA system my band usually uses and that works most of the days.
When we bring our own PA we also bring our own tech, who knows our songs and how I use my effects - which is a big help.
When we play a place with a different PA, none of this works though.

Yes this is exactly what I am talking about. More people need to understand this and learn to work around it.

 

[jimfist]

This is a great thread to illustrate the options - with their inherent challenges - that we bassists have at our disposal now.
It can also set itself up as a "best of times - worst of times" kind of thing, too.
@Wasnex & @el murdoque have pretty much got it all covered, and from my own experience can concur with their observations.

Having spent a number of years in a TOOL tribute, though not the same genre musically, the bass sounds are quite demanding in much the same way as the OP's gig. I was able to crack this to *my own* satisfaction eventually, but only after literally a couple years of constant trial and error, live and rehearsal recordings (mic'd and direct from mixer), the fact that we headlined many shows affording me lengthy sound checks, and that fact that !most importantly! I have spent just as much time live mixing and providing live sound as I have as a performing bassists (well over 1000 gigs of each, and stopped counting years ago) to help get over the hump.

My personal choice was digital modeling (AxeFxII), a back end Empirical Labs EL8, all run into full range, flat response (as close as I could afford, and with LOTS of power behind it) speaker cabinets. Amp EQ is discrete to the stage in order to deal with stage acoustics without mucking up the tone to FOH. Had I been in love with a traditional pedal board setup, I could have just as easily opted for an IR loading device for speaker cabinet simulation. There are so many more, better IR loading choices now than there were in 2012 when I did this.

I hesitate to go into any further detail due to the amount of complexities and variables involved in finally achieving a fully modeled tone, again, all mentioned previously. As a single guy (at the time) with lots of free time, I can honestly say that this was quite a daunting task and a labor of love. And getting a modeled tone at a quality and volume to rival my beloved (and long since sold) tube SVT Classic rig was pretty expensive.

If you're game and want to go down the rabbit hole, and are willing to spend on gear as you might find necessary, then have at it. It's a great learning process if nothing else.

A more practical starting point might be to simply find a place in your signal chain - either before the amp head or after - to send a feed to an IR loading device, preferably one that either has (power) amp modeling or can go between the head and cabinet. But you'll have to have a really good way to monitor the sounds you're creating, ideally, the PA at a gig during sound check, and working with the FOH mixer. You'll also have to find a cabinet IR that suits your taste, short of a set of IRs of the exact cabinet you're using.

 

[Pacodelivery]

Hmm I've thought about bringing my own mic before but I've never thought about providing a full mix like that that's an interesting idea. I don't know if it's something I'd do in the short term but might be something to build towards. Also that's EXACTLY the setup I use when I record at home - DI pre fx (usually a whirlwind), DI post fx (radial JDI) and a 421 on my cab.

Bass will, in most cases get a line check where the gain is set and that's it. There is one XLR on stage for you and a symmetrical line level signal is expected to go in there.
In your scenario, you should focus on providing a signal into that XLR that more or less works out of the box and with minimal to no tweaking.

Have you thought about providing a mix yourself? You could mic your cab with your own mic (make sure it's quality one, like a Sennheiser 421), add a DI signal, do the processing with your own little mixer you brought for the occasion and feed the XLR the signal.
There is a hefty downside to this: When you tweak too much, you can easily provide a signal that's utterly useless for FOH.

I personally tried a lot before returning to my Sansamp PBDDI, which simply does it for me. I don't always have it last in chain, so I tend to use the amp's DI out set to PRE, but the Sansamp is always on and the baked in filters provide a Signal that will sound okay even when the FOH channel is run without any further processing.

 

[Pacodelivery]

Hey so this brings up kind of an interesting question for me. About a year ago I made a practice of dialing in my sounds at home through my DI, realizing that that's usually the main (and often only) sound source. My strategy is to get levels right in the headphones at home, verify in practice (because often distortion especially is a little tricky in this regard) and then the only tweaks I make live are more like adjusting the mix on a delay or the parameters of a modulation.

Am I setting myself up for success? When I get the chance I If I get the chance I try to ask the soundperson how my levels were across my sounds and I usually get positive feedback, but honestly I probably only get to do that less than half the time. I'm realizing that it's possible that I should be doing this with the DI in my mesa instead of the JDI or the built in one in my Audient id44 like I've been doing.

I do think it's common for the bass to get a quick line check and little more...but in reality most audio techs will spend considerable time dialing in the bass once the entire band start playing, so the line check is not the end of it. Bass players feel a bit burned because they think it is. To be honest, I typically tweak channel EQs for the duration of most shows in order to tailor the sound to the music.

IMHO if someone is going to run effects it is absolutely essential that all of the effects are tweaked so that the levels and tones sound right as the patches are changed. Unfortunately as I mentioned earlier this is not necessarily as easy to do as people think it is.

If you dial your effects in for the frequency response contour of a traditional bass rig, they probably won't work very well for the PA frequency response contour which is very different. Resolving this dilemma is the promise of speaker SIMs.

Also in my experience it's typically necessary to rebalance levels and tweak the EQ of effects if you change your volume significantly. So if you have your effects dialed in for your stage volume, the tone and levels may not work well for the volume used at FOH.

IMHO it's really impossible to run a bunch of effects optimally without an extended sound check and a bit of negotiation between the bass player and audio tech. But if you really learn what is going on and practice, many people can develop a intuitive sense that allows them to sound pretty darn good.

 

[Pacodelivery]

Yeah the IR thing seems like a solid option. I guess my concern (and others have brought this up in this thread) is that in some ways I don't want to do TOO much sound shaping. I feel like in a solid percentage of my gigs (especially the bigger ones >500 people) my sound from what I can tell has been great, honestly I feel like maybe I should have started this thread with "what's a solution that will help guard against the situations where it's one soundperson and they don't have the time to get things nicely dialed in that won't mess up the work of the higher end multi person crews that I also get to work with."

I mean maybe the solution is like, see if they give me two lines and mic my cab, and if not whip out a cabsim of some kind. That seems like what you were saying @bdplaid

This is a great thread to illustrate the options - with their inherent challenges - that we bassists have at our disposal now.
It can also set itself up as a "best of times - worst of times" kind of thing, too.
@Wasnex & @el murdoque have pretty much got it all covered, and from my own experience can concur with their observations.

Having spent a number of years in a TOOL tribute, though not the same genre musically, the bass sounds are quite demanding in much the same way as the OP's gig. I was able to crack this to *my own* satisfaction eventually, but only after literally a couple years of constant trial and error, live and rehearsal recordings (mic'd and direct from mixer), the fact that we headlined many shows affording me lengthy sound checks, and that fact that !most importantly! I have spent just as much time live mixing and providing live sound as I have as a performing bassists (well over 1000 gigs of each, and stopped counting years ago) to help get over the hump.

My personal choice was digital modeling (AxeFxII), a back end Empirical Labs EL8, all run into full range, flat response (as close as I could afford, and with LOTS of power behind it) speaker cabinets. Amp EQ is discrete to the stage in order to deal with stage acoustics without mucking up the tone to FOH. Had I been in love with a traditional pedal board setup, I could have just as easily opted for an IR loading device for speaker cabinet simulation. There are so many more, better IR loading choices now than there were in 2012 when I did this.

I hesitate to go into any further detail due to the amount of complexities and variables involved in finally achieving a fully modeled tone, again, all mentioned previously. As a single guy (at the time) with lots of free time, I can honestly say that this was quite a daunting task and a labor of love. And getting a modeled tone at a quality and volume to rival my beloved (and long since sold) tube SVT Classic rig was pretty expensive.

If you're game and want to go down the rabbit hole, and are willing to spend on gear as you might find necessary, then have at it. It's a great learning process if nothing else.

A more practical starting point might be to simply find a place in your signal chain - either before the amp head or after - to send a feed to an IR loading device, preferably one that either has (power) amp modeling or can go between the head and cabinet. But you'll have to have a really good way to monitor the sounds you're creating, ideally, the PA at a gig during sound check, and working with the FOH mixer. You'll also have to find a cabinet IR that suits your taste, short of a set of IRs of the exact cabinet you're using.

 

[Mechanical]

Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor at the end of the chain.

 

[Lammchop93]

Darkglass element and connect it to the speaker cab of your mesa. This will give you the tone of everything going into your amp and what your amp colors, then adds the cabsim.

 

[Pacodelivery]

So I've been doing some research and some thinking and realizing that if I boil down "my sound" to the barest essentials it would be:

a) some mid scoop
b) some high end roll off
c) otherwise, a clean sound that's a good platform for all my effects

Normally my mesa provides "a" with the voicing knob (and I run everything else close to flat) and "c" with the preamp. The problem is basically that the house doesn't get "b" unless they mic my cab.

The Avalon u5 keeps coming up and plugging into that at the magpie cage is probably my favorite recorded sound (and I've used REDDI, b15, SVT, etc). I was looking at the specs and saw that there's both a high cut option on the u5 as well as the eq curves. That kind of checks all my boxes! I'm kind of considering getting that, like if Wilco uses it like @halech54 says as well as Geddy and the bass player from Brothers Osborne it's gotta be effective for that application.

I've used the eq and I've liked it (and curves 1, 2 or 3 seem like they'd do well) but I didn't use the high cut in the studio. The specs say the high cut is -3dB at 8kHz minimum phase design (not sure what that last bit means). I know when people talk about speaker sims they often talk about a cut at a lower frequency (and maybe also a steeper one?) ... I've seen @JimmyM say several times that an 810e's cutoff is about 5k and I know the broughton lpf is 12db per octave ... is this apples to oranges or does the 12db in the broughton spec correspond to the 3db in the avalon? Regardless, does this sound like it would get me in the ballpark of the high frequency roll off needed?

 

[chiphaleonbass]

The LPF from Broughton would just have a steeper roll off per octave at a more flexible frequency, the Avalon is fixed at 8k, which can be good or bad, really depends on where you want that roll off to start.

Another user mentioned upgrading the M5 to a stomp; which also has LPF and HPF; might be something to consider knowing you're trying to achieve a lot of sounds in one board.

So I've been doing some research and some thinking and realizing that if I boil down "my sound" to the barest essentials it would be:

a) some mid scoop
b) some high end roll off
c) otherwise, a clean sound that's a good platform for all my effects

Normally my mesa provides "a" with the voicing knob (and I run everything else close to flat) and "c" with the preamp. The problem is basically that the house doesn't get "b" unless they mic my cab.

The Avalon u5 keeps coming up and plugging into that at the magpie cage is probably my favorite recorded sound (and I've used REDDI, b15, SVT, etc). I was looking at the specs and saw that there's both a high cut option on the u5 as well as the eq curves. That kind of checks all my boxes! I'm kind of considering getting that, like if Wilco uses it like @halech54 says as well as Geddy and the bass player from Brothers Osborne it's gotta be effective for that application.

I've used the eq and I've liked it (and curves 1, 2 or 3 seem like they'd do well) but I didn't use the high cut in the studio. The specs say the high cut is -3dB at 8kHz minimum phase design (not sure what that last bit means). I know when people talk about speaker sims they often talk about a cut at a lower frequency (and maybe also a steeper one?) ... I've seen @JimmyM say several times that an 810e's cutoff is about 5k and I know the broughton lpf is 12db per octave ... is this apples to oranges or does the 12db in the broughton spec correspond to the 3db in the avalon? Regardless, does this sound like it would get me in the ballpark of the high frequency roll off needed?

 

[chiphaleonbass]

Also a pic of John's rig here; with the U5 clearly next to his speakers and Schroeder head, but of course he's got his cabs mic'd up as well. So... the plot thickens! I've always loved John's live tone though

 

[Wasnex]

Hey so this brings up kind of an interesting question for me. About a year ago I made a practice of dialing in my sounds at home through my DI, realizing that that's usually the main (and often only) sound source. My strategy is to get levels right in the headphones at home, verify in practice (because often distortion especially is a little tricky in this regard) and then the only tweaks I make live are more like adjusting the mix on a delay or the parameters of a modulation.

Am I setting myself up for success? When I get the chance I If I get the chance I try to ask the soundperson how my levels were across my sounds and I usually get positive feedback, but honestly I probably only get to do that less than half the time. I'm realizing that it's possible that I should be doing this with the DI in my mesa instead of the JDI or the built in one in my Audient id44 like I've been doing.

I think this is a good idea. The efficacy of this practice depends somewhat on how closely the frequency response of the headphones mimic PA system. However, one big difference is headphones provide a very dry listening environment (free of referb), and indoor PAs are usually significantly impacted by a reverberant field. The qualities of the reverberant field can vary significantly from one venue to the next. The reverberant field may be something you can learn to intuitively compensate for with time, but it's not really something you can control.

The proof is in the results. If audio techs consistently tell you your levels and tone are good, then continue doing what you are doing.

But realize your ability to make everything perfect before sound check is limited, and the audio tech has to get involved at some point. Hopefully there is a bit of time for you to work collaboratively during sound check to make final adjustments. If not, you know you did the best you could.

 

[Pacodelivery]

Nice, looks like a beta 52 for the mic!

Also a pic of John's rig here; with the U5 clearly next to his speakers and Schroeder head, but of course he's got his cabs mic'd up as well. So... the plot thickens! I've always loved John's live tone thoughView attachment 4081889

 

[Pacodelivery]

Yeah the Avalon might be a good place to start I guess but I could see adding the broughton later. The only thing I don't like about adding the LPF is that I'm concerned that the LPF would make the signal to the amp even darker if I use the thru from the DI, unless I split the signal before the LPF and send it to the amp but then I would need a good splitter as well blah blah blah.

Yeah the IR thing like in the HX stomp is cool, but the M5 is doing an entirely different thing for me. It's in the fx loop of the memory boy so I can say, pitch it the delay up an octave with the mooer tender than run it through different mods or reverbs like the model of the zvex seek wah for instance and then off cascading into the compander and modulation circuits in the memory before it hits other delay & reverb downstream.

The LPF from Broughton would just have a steeper roll off per octave at a more flexible frequency, the Avalon is fixed at 8k, which can be good or bad, really depends on where you want that roll off to start.

Another user mentioned upgrading the M5 to a stomp; which also has LPF and HPF; might be something to consider knowing you're trying to achieve a lot of sounds in one board.

 

[Pacodelivery]

Yeah this is making me wonder if I should be like, trying to set up an IR in reaper when I'm practicing like this to model the sound of a venue.

I think this is a good idea. The efficacy of this practice depends somewhat on how closely the frequency response of the headphones mimic PA system. However, one big difference is headphones provide a very dry listening environment (free of referb), and indoor PAs are usually significantly impacted by a reverberant field. The qualities of the reverberant field can vary significantly from one venue to the next. The reverberant field may be something you can learn to intuitively compensate for with time, but it's not really something you can control.

The proof is in the results. If audio techs consistently tell you your levels and tone are good, then continue doing what you are doing.

But realize your ability to make everything perfect before sound check is limited, and the audio tech has to get involved at some point. Hopefully there is a bit of time for you to work collaboratively during sound check to make final adjustments. If not, you know you did the best you could.

 

[chiphaleonbass]

Question for you then; do you have an interface/DAW that you could try some of these HPF and LPF roll offs in? I think you could find the sweet spot for you and something like the HPF/LPF could be an invaluable tool even if you sent that to your amp and then through the DI out of there. There are tons of posts on this forum about the benefits of high and low pass, and how it allows your amp to run more efficiently, and how it overall just cleans up your signal. even rolling off the low at 25/30 hz will tighten the low end and Low pass at 5k-8k would probably work wonders.

Yeah the Avalon might be a good place to start I guess but I could see adding the broughton later. The only thing I don't like about adding the LPF is that I'm concerned that the LPF would make the signal to the amp even darker if I use the thru from the DI, unless I split the signal before the LPF and send it to the amp but then I would need a good splitter as well blah blah blah.

Yeah the IR thing like in the HX stomp is cool, but the M5 is doing an entirely different thing for me. It's in the fx loop of the memory boy so I can say, pitch it the delay up an octave with the mooer tender than run it through different mods or reverbs like the model of the zvex seek wah for instance and then off cascading into the compander and modulation circuits in the memory before it hits other delay & reverb downstream.

 

[Pacodelivery]

Oh yeah I’m set up in reaper that’s a great idea. I’ve recorded my bass a good bit and mix it sometimes too but it’s usually dry I just do sounds and stuff live so I don’t have to like carry a Juno with me or something. Thanks this is a great idea!

Question for you then; do you have an interface/DAW that you could try some of these HPF and LPF roll offs in? I think you could find the sweet spot for you and something like the HPF/LPF could be an invaluable tool even if you sent that to your amp and then through the DI out of there. There are tons of posts on this forum about the benefits of high and low pass, and how it allows your amp to run more efficiently, and how it overall just cleans up your signal. even rolling off the low at 25/30 hz will tighten the low end and Low pass at 5k-8k would probably work wonders.

 

[chiphaleonbass]

Might be worth while trying some of your patches; specifically the ones you've found issue with sound engineers potentially causing to be too mid heavy etc... and seeing if a HP/LPF will actually do anything at all for you. As others have stated too; engineers are going to tweak frequencies to a room; and I'd expect that most engineers know roughly where the low end needs to be cut and where mid/high frequencies need to be tweaked for the room they're mixing. It might truly be out of your hands. If the FOH likes your signal; what they do with it is at their discretion.

Oh yeah I’m set up in reaper that’s a great idea. I’ve recorded my bass a good bit and mix it sometimes too but it’s usually dry I just do sounds and stuff live so I don’t have to like carry a Juno with me or something. Thanks this is a great idea!