Signature sound and PA support

[HolmeBass]

You should just enjoy your stage sound, because it's not going to happen out front. Occasionally you get a tech that preserves some of it, but not often. Last time I thought I'd ask, they offered to mic my cab..... they stuck a SM57 in front of it. You can imagine how nice sounded. Now I just try to put it out of my mind.

Well I have an anecdote about miking up a bass rig with an SM57.

I was playing with a modern rock band with a bit of folk tendencies in that the BL / lead singer played an acoustic guitar. Our sound, at least sonically, was like DMB. The BL tried his best to match them musically, but that’s a different story.

So we’re playing a gig at a place with a nice stage, and I turns out the music guy, who was also running sound that night, offered to make a nice soundboard for us for an additional $40 on the side. A bit odd, but after hearing stories about his decade-long tenure doing monitors for Leftover Salmon, we agreed. He threw an SM57 on one of the 10’s in my Eden Metro. I held my tongue.

Afterwards we were chatting and I asked if he used the mic for the highs and the DI for the lows, and he said no, quite the opposite. He liked the SM57’s natural low end roll off. I again bit my tongue.

On the drive back to the hotel of course we popped the disk in. The bass sounded fantastic!

So here’s the secret: the SM57 has a pronounced proximity effect. He had close mic’ed the middle of the cone, 1/2 way between the dust cap and the edge, put the mic right up on the grill. So he used the proximity effect to get some nice punchiness around 100 to 120 and let the mic’s natural roll off do its thing. He used the DI to bring in clear highs and my effects.

So again, the skill in usage and conception can make tools we might initially feel are not the best for the job actually work quite well.

 

[wmhill]

Well I have an anecdote about miking up a bass rig with an SM57.

I was playing with a modern rock band with a bit of folk tendencies in that the BL / lead singer played an acoustic guitar. Our sound, at least sonically, was like DMB. The BL tried his best to match them musically, but that’s a different story.

So we’re playing a gig at a place with a nice stage, and I turns out the music guy, who was also running sound that night, offered to make a nice soundboard for us for an additional $40 on the side. A bit odd, but after hearing stories about his decade-long tenure doing monitors for Leftover Salmon, we agreed. He threw an SM57 on one of the 10’s in my Eden Metro. I held my tongue.

Afterwards we were chatting and I asked if he used the mic for the highs and the DI for the lows, and he said no, quite the opposite. He liked the SM57’s natural low end roll off. I again bit my tongue.

On the drive back to the hotel of course we popped the disk in. The bass sounded fantastic!

So here’s the secret: the SM57 has a pronounced proximity effect. He had close mic’ed the middle of the cone, 1/2 way between the dust cap and the edge, put the mic right up on the grill. So he used the proximity effect to get some nice punchiness around 100 to 120 and let the mic’s natural roll off do its thing. He used the DI to bring in clear highs and my effects.

So again, the skill in usage and conception can make tools we might initially feel are not the best for the job actually work quite well.

Well I did not have that luck- the mic couldn't handle the lows and was just a distorted muddy mess. If mixed with the DI it might have worked, but as is it was awful. I had probably a dozen people mention post gig how terrible my bass sounded, just what you want to hear. Also my rig has a horn/tweeter and my tone makes use of of those highs, and a mic misses that totally. I just accept that I have no recourse- the sound guy holds all the cards, and hope for the best.

 

[el murdoque]

1. Keep it simple
2. Offer the FOH a DI line that will work straight out of the box without tweaking.

I use a Sansamp pedal with settings that are quite neutral. Just a tiny bit of bass boost and a minimum of drive that shows the slightest bit of overdrive when I dig in.
This works with every FOH I played with so far. I often got compliments along the lines of 'All I had to do was take your line, set the gain and adjust the volume'.

 

[JRA]

Any advice on how to maintain your signature sound when using DI PA support? (Please don't say mic the cab).

If you want your signature sound why do you reject the best way of achieving it. Mic the cab!

I’m not inclined to act like an entitled 6 year old if I don’t hear ‘my signature tone’ coming out of whatever PA I happen to be in that night.

I have never understood folks who are up on stage and complain about "signature tone" from FOH - as if they have a clue as to how it sounds out front, from "up there".

i'd be more concerned about playing well --- and letting the PA show that you can do that. good luck trying to protect your "signature sound."

 

[HolmeBass]

Well I did not have that luck- the mic couldn't handle the lows and was just a distorted muddy mess. If mixed with the DI it might have worked, but as is it was awful. I had probably a dozen people mention post gig how terrible my bass sounded, just what you want to hear. Also my rig has a horn/tweeter and my tone makes use of of those highs, and a mic misses that totally. I just accept that I have no recourse- the sound guy holds all the cards, and hope for the best.

Skill is essential - if my stage volume has been overloading the mic (quite a feat with an SM57 as they can handle pretty high SPL) I would have needed feedback from the engineer to fix it. The tweeter didn’t need to be mic’ed because he took the highs from the DI.

In your case I would bet he more likely had an overdriven input at the board and didn’t realize it, which is odd if it was coming through FOH. I’m sorry it didn’t work out!

And I understand skepticism. I was skeptical. I was really glad I was able to hold by tongue about my doubts and “wait and hear” because this guy did an outstanding job on the recording. The recording was a separate mix from FOH, too. Without knowing for sure, I think FOH was just DI and the mic was only mixed into the recording.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

This is exactly the reason I moved to going ampless and running in ears thru my pedal board wich includes a preamp and cab impulse loader and I never had a issue getting my sound to come thru both on stage and thru foh. I just have the other band load in their bass rig on stage so I dont really lose the stage pressence/ look of a amp and for shows with poor pa support I bring a cab on stage. Sound guys love me and I've never been happier with my tone. The other huge bennefit is I have a bad back and not having to haul my ampeg svt and 8x10 is a game changer.

 

[PennyroyalWe]

Get your signature sound from your fingers and you’ll always sound like you. Trying to have a consistent “signature tone” sounds like asking for frustration to me. Between room acoustics and sound tech attentiveness/skill from gig to gig, PA set ups and quality, etc, good luck!

 

[scuzzy]

To help with this and assist our relatively inexperienced sound techs, I moved away from using an amp to color my tone at all. I am exclusively now using a line 6 hd500x direct out to the board. I run another line out into a "line in" on my amp, effectively only using it as a power amplifier. It's not 100% representative of what's coming through the house, but it's darn close.

I also run high and low pass filters on every patch. 40 and 5k. I use amp, cabinet, and mic placement simulators. I run two signal chains when using heavy effects to retain a clean signal. I have done most of the EQ work for them, and it has taken much tweaking. They typically just do EQ cuts to compensate for the rooms terrible acoustics. I have had great feedback so far with this approach.

Even with all that, they have the power to tweak the sound however they desire. As Elsa said famously, let it go...

 

[PotsdamBass8]

As others have said, the most control you’re going to have is to mic your cab (assuming you’re able to use your own cab at every show) or to completely construct your sound with effects including any cab sims. If you do the latter, then you would either use a flat amp and cab as a stage monitor, or if you use a bass amp still for the stage, accept that the sound you sculpted will come out of the PA and not your amp. But just keep in mind, even if you completely control your sound so it’s perfect going into the sound board, room acoustics are going to change the way it sounds to the audience. That’s why there’s a sound person to make adjustments.

Personally, I think any way you do it, you have to just have a little faith in the sound person and let it go. It’s not worth trying to control completely. Get as close as you want to but know that it will never be exactly how you get it to sound in practice.

 

[tadawson]

There really are three sounds being discussed here, and they are all going to be different:

1) Cabinet only. The house hears it in the far field, when all sound sources have blended, interacted, etc.
2) DI. It's dead on accurrate to the bass, but omits the cab.
3) Mic'ed cabinet. In PA use, this is a near field mic placement, which is *NOT* what the house hears. It is a sample of *one* small point on the cabinet, with all others falling off due to distance, and as such, what the mic hears is what you would h
ear if you put *one* ear where the mic is. If a single driver cab, it may get close. If multiple (say 4x10) it will miss the couplings and phase interactions between the drivers. If multiple types, say 12, 10,, and tweet, it will be a total miss, since it can't hear them all eqqually. To reallly capture a cabinets sound, you need either a fairly large iso enclosure or anechoic chamber, where you can capture just the cab at a far enough distance for all sources to balance.

All things considered, for PA use, DI with modeling of a desired sound will likely get you the closest, and mkcing a cab be the most frustrating . . .

At least as seen by a guy who is both a bass player, and a live engineer . . . and, having said that, I have taken our bass player out intonthe house more than oncenon a 'long leash' to get things dialed in, and about all I do FOH is a mild compand high pass, since all he is using is a basic SansAmp pedal . . .

 

[fourstringburn]

I do things opposite of what most of you do. My preamps EQ are set virtually flat.

Ampeg SVP preamps sound that good to me along with Fender P's and J's playing through them that I don't feel the need to alter their natural sound with EQ. If anything, I cut some lows if it tends to be too boomy.

So in essence, what goes to the FOH is similar to the sound on stage, that is a flat EQ signal. What a sound man does on his end is up to him but it usually isn't too different.

 

[JohnMCA72]

Here's what you have to ask yourself. (And I too have spent many years on both sides of the mixing board.)

What's more important? Your sound or the band's sound?

Now, many here would argue that "any good sound guy.... a real pro" can get you both. And sometimes that's true.

But sometimes it isn't.
...

To this I'd like to add: What sounds great by itself, up close, often sounds like absolute crap from a distance, when it's mixed together with all the other sounds from a band. You might have 4 or 5 individual instruments that all sound amazing by themselves, but if they're all walking over the same sonic space it can sound like indecipherable mush out front. You'd never know that, standing on stage, but it can be very apparent out at FOH.

 

[Dr. Love]

Any advice on how to maintain your signature sound when using DI PA support? (Please don't say mic the cab).

I think the only way to really do that is hire a sound person that understands what you want the bass to sound like. If that's not possible, communicate your desires politely and clearly beforehand to the sound person, preferably with concrete easily understood examples like "I'm going for a Chris Squire 'Roundabout' tone" or "Like the the bass sound in 'Ramble On' by Zepplin" rather than subjective terms like "I want the bass to be aggressive" or "round".

 

[Wasnex]

Well I did not have that luck- the mic couldn't handle the lows and was just a distorted muddy mess. If mixed with the DI it might have worked, but as is it was awful. I had probably a dozen people mention post gig how terrible my bass sounded, just what you want to hear. Also my rig has a horn/tweeter and my tone makes use of of those highs, and a mic misses that totally. I just accept that I have no recourse- the sound guy holds all the cards, and hope for the best.

I think the point of @HolmesBass 's story is the SM57 can work fine if you know how to use it. I believe the SM57 can handle about 150dB in the 100Hz range, so the distortion you experienced was likely the result of a damaged mic or bad gain staging.

In your case, it sounds like a DI would be preferable since extended high frequencies are important to you.

 

[FronTowardEnemy]

Yep. Can’t tell you how many times I have had the sound guy throw a box in front of my input and have me plug directly into the box, bypassing all but my bass tone.

Even after explaining that my effects board has a major role in how my band sounds, sound guys just shrug it off and say too bad.

For the last 6 years or so, I mostly forsake all gear but my bass, amp, and cabinet while playing live. We do have our own sound guy that we use occasionally who will do what ever we ask, so there’s that.

 

[Wasnex]

Yep. Can’t tell you how many times I have had the sound guy throw a box in front of my input and have me plug directly into the box, bypassing all but my bass tone.

Even after explaining that my effects board has a major role in how my band sounds, sound guys just shrug it off and say too bad.

For the last 6 years or so, I mostly forsake all gear but my bass, amp, and cabinet while playing live. We do have our own sound guy that we use occasionally who will do what ever we ask, so there’s that.

If your effects are all run before your amp, you should be able to plug the output of your effects into the DI instead of your bass. If you are running effects to color/modify your tone like distortion, flangers, phasers, octave doublers, chorus, etc, this should not be a negotiable point. If your effects are limited to EQ and compression then, I agree with the audio tech, plug your bass straight into the DI and let the audio tech do his/her job.

 

[hennessybass]

I've had sound guys, who I'm positive knew what they were doing, use a SM57 to mic my cabs... either solo, with a second mic, or with a DI.

I think you just have to trust the sound guy. You have your job, he has his.

The best thing you can do is make sure that your tone sounds good to you on stage, so you can hear yourself and play good. You should also have a way to send the sound guy a clean line. DI box, DI on the back of your amp, mic, post pedals, speaker level... what ever you use, keep it simple and be cool to the sound guy.

If you are a dick or don't have working equipment, or make things overly complicated, thats how you end up with a $40 whirlwind box right after your bass.

When you stress about things that are beyond your control, then you are thinking about that thing, and not your playing - which should be job #1.

 

[s0c9]

Try working WITH the sound guy (when he has time).

When I run sound, I am putting MY SIGNATURE on what that band sounds like. MY REPUTATION is on the line. Why on Earth would you think I, or any other sound guy, would go out of ky way to make you sound anything but amazing. And, frankly, I don't give a crap if that includes your signature sound or not. If that sound works for the mix, GREAT. If not, that's what I have knobs, slides and buttons for. I will do my best to make it fit the band and the room. Your ego and the amount of time, money amd effort you spent molding your sound doesn't even cross my mind.

^^^ THIS ^^^

 

[SirMoak]

These things have all been mentioned here in separate posts, but I'll write about my way of thinking anyway.
Since I've only been gigging for the past 1.5 years I built my rig around these experiences:

- Small club gig: PA is usually really bad, I tend to avoid going into it to keep it clean for vocals, keys and the occasional miced guitar cab. Amp EQ is usually needed, but not to shape my sound (that is done on the pedal board), but to compensate for room acoustics, boomy stage, etc.

- Outdoor gig with nice PA and good sound guy: the greatest thing there is with DI, just make sure the signal you send sounds good. I found the best thing is to check the DI signal with Hi-Fi equipment or headphones if a proper PA is not available at the practice space. If the sound can sit in a mix well, the FOH guy won't have a problem when you ask them not to EQ the hell out of your signal. I usually make a point in telling the guy that my signal goes through a multiband compressor, so they don't have to squash the hell out of it.

- Outdoor gig with bad PA and/or bad sound guy: you're basically f*cked

- Big indoor stage/arenas: not yet, but a guy can dream, right?

Now all of the above only applies if you have a signature sound that sits well in the mix. I usually make a point to check amp eq-s and keyboard sounds to work well with a live drum and my bass tone(s). It's not easy and the band has to practice this as well to be able to find problem spots in the sound and adapt to them.

 

[MDBass]

So many bassists obsess over gear to get the "the sound" only go gig out and DI into the PA.

It seems to me that all that careful sound crafting goes right out the window and only serves the bassist on stage and that the audience is subjected to the whims of whatever the sound tech decides is "the sound".

Any advice on how to maintain your signature sound when using DI PA support? (Please don't say mic the cab).

It depends entirely on where that “signature sound” comes from.

Is it the amp and cab you’re using? In that case, micing the cab is the ONLY option.

In my case, it comes entirely from my pedalboard, and that same monster tone gets sent to the FOH vi DI whether I’m playing to 50 people in a club or 5000 in a theater.