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Propped on Bass Sound - No Amp Onstage

jaywa

jaywa

May 5, 2008
7,702
283
Iowa City, IA
#1
Played a tiny room last Saturday and I elected to do what I've done there before... P-Bass to SansAmp BDDI direct to board and IEMs.

Get to the first break and two older gentlemen come up and introduce themselves, tell me they love they band and that they've never heard better bass sound. Turns out they're both players with many years experience (one of them a bassist) but now pretty much out of the scene. I showed them my "rig" and they just kind of shook their heads like, "can you believe that?" Pretty sweet.

:bassist:
 
#2
way to go.

I think average bass dorks forget a band's sound is only as good as the PA... gear now days is SOOO much better than it was just a few years back.

Reminds me of last time I brought out my big rig... someone pined away on the sound attributes of an SVT + 8x10...

I'm sure it was douchbaggery of me to walk them over and show them it was unplugged.
 
#4
MNAirHead said:
way to go.

I think average bass dorks forget a band's sound is only as good as the PA... gear now days is SOOO much better than it was just a few years back.

Reminds me of last time I brought out my big rig... someone pined away on the sound attributes of an SVT + 8x10...

I'm sure it was douchbaggery of me to walk them over and show them it was unplugged.
Click to expand...

Awesome…

I’m starting a new band, new PA and new sound. All will be DI (monitors, not IEMs yet), but I sorta fantasized about the first time we play a big stage, where I’ll bring out every guitar and bass cab I own…

all props, nothing plugged in, haha.

;)
 
#8
While I have switched over to a REDDI instead of a cab mic and I absolutely love it, I still believe a good cab mic is vastly superior to most other DI's, especially the ones that show up supplied by soundmen on gigs. And you will pry my onstage bass amp out of my cold, dead hands. Or you'll buy me an IEM rig and pay me $100 more per night than I usually get ;)
 
#10
JimmyM said:
And you will pry my onstage bass amp out of my cold, dead hands. Or you'll buy me an IEM rig and pay me $100 more per night than I usually get ;)
Click to expand...


Same here - I've yet to experience ANY monitor setup, including IEMs, that actually sounded good for bass... For me, a big part of the overall experience of gigging is enjoying my own sound - I can't enjoy my playing nearly as much if it doesn't sound good *to me*... I would have to be extremely well compensated to gig without a bass amp...

Also, having an amp on stage does not mean you can't still sound good out front - as long as the soundman is atleast marginally competant, and you don't go crazy with stage volume and low end, that is... My rig and preferred sound carry alot of low end - and occasionally, I'll have a soundman ask me to cut some lows because my rig is causing him some difficulty... It's usually only at one or two venues we play, and I suspect it's because of room acoustics... I went out into the room, verified what he was saying, and complied - after all, I don't mind compromising my tone a little if the paying customers benefit from it...

Still, having an amp on stage and sounding good thru the FOH are not necessarily mutually exclusive of one another...


- georgestrings
 
#12
My band generally doesn't use much amplification on stage (except for our last show, PA support wasn't that great). My rig is my bass--> Relay G50 wireless --->Line6 Bass POD XT Live -->SABDDI in passive to the board and my amp setup that I use strictly for the rest of the band, I personally have IEMs for myself since I like to move around a lot. If we have good enough monitoring on stage I could probably forgo the amp and cabinet, or at least not plug them in.

Peace,
Greg
 
#13
Dantreige said:
That's close to my rig. P-Lyte bass into a Sansamp PBDDI. I use a yammy 15" wedge instead of the in ears though.

Good for the back too. :)
Click to expand...

No doubt, and in this case there literally was not enough room on the "stage" for even my little 150w combo. I was standing about 2 feet away from one of our 2x18 subs and we had 3 Crown power amps at 2,400 watts apiece pushing the P.A. so that gave me plenty of bottom and then the IEMs filled in the rest.
 
#14
jaywa said:
Played a tiny room last Saturday and I elected to do what I've done there before... P-Bass to SansAmp BDDI direct to board and IEMs.

Get to the first break and two older gentlemen come up and introduce themselves, tell me they love they band and that they've never heard better bass sound. Turns out they're both players with many years experience (one of them a bassist) but now pretty much out of the scene. I showed them my "rig" and they just kind of shook their heads like, "can you believe that?" Pretty sweet.

:bassist:
Click to expand...

Same here, I use the sansamp PBDDI and the Oxford, no amp thus right into our PA, still our lead guitar which is quite experienced love my sound. He say he never had better bass tone then mine :)
 

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