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Soundman insist on me going direct

#203
bluesbasshound said:
Mic your cab and give him his D.I.
Usually the soundman wants a straight signal in case an amp quits or some other electronic reason. If you use your Sansamp and mic your cab that gives the soundman an option to mix his direct signal with your colored signal. That way if your signal gets dropped during performance the soundman can keep your bass strong in the mix. It's a win/win.:cool:
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I wish people would stop parroting this "just in case" stuff. There's no more risk of a bass amp going down than there is for the guitar. Nobody makes the guitarist go direct. I know, "The amp sound is essential to the guitar". Well, it is for a lot of bass players too.

And IME if you give a lazy sound man the "option" to blend a mic and a DI, they're going to choose the "option" of leaving the mic off and going straight DI. On top of that, blending the two can cause phase cancellation, which will be ignored by the lazy.
 
#206
jj4001 said:
Right? Isn't it kind of unrealistic to suggest not working with a particular SE when 99 out of 100 times, the band has no say in who runs sound on any given night?
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not really at a festival...usually there is a guy or two that does audio for all bands, unless the band specifically supplies their own sound tech. for which most headliners supply their own techs anyways, but usually most openers don't. but im sure that its not ever a problem to have the bands supply their own...
 
#208
Cheap DIs tend to need a lot of EQing to sound ok, and seem somewhat gutless. A Sansamp or an amp's DI often has more body in the midrange and to me it needs less work. Sometimes I hear live bass sounds that are just the stuff below 200Hz and turn to pure mud, or it's just mud with a bit of high pitched 'tinky-tink' on top. Luckily there are also sound guys who understand the money is in the mids and you can hear everything. A case in point would be the recent Crazy World of Arthur Brown gig I went to. 200 capacity venue, or thereabouts, but you could hear all the instruments, and the bass came through very well and everything had its space.

That having been said I almost always wear earplugs at gigs now, partly due to volume, and partly to cut out excessive top end that just sounds like horrible distortion to me. I wish gigs were just.. quieter. When I did a bit of sound engineering a while back the main complaint I got was it was too quiet, though. I am just not a fan of having my ears assaulted until it is all distorted and the bass drum thumping me in the chest so much it's like someone punching me. The CWoAB gig was of a level where I could have probably have managed without earplugs, so maybe loudness is the key here to hearing everything.
 
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#210
-Asdfgh- said:
Cheap DIs tend to need a lot of EQing to sound ok, and seem somewhat gutless. A Sansamp or an amp's DI often has more body in the midrange and to me it needs less work. Sometimes I hear live bass sounds that are just the stuff below 200Hz and turn to pure mud, or it's just mud with a bit of high pitched 'tinky-tink' on top. Luckily there are also sound guys who understand the money is in the mids and you can hear everything. A case in point would be the recent Crazy World of Arthur Brown gig I went to. 200 capacity venue, or thereabouts, but you could hear all the instruments, and the bass came through very well and everything had its space.

That having been said I almost always wear earplugs at gigs now, partly due to volume, and partly to cut out excessive top end that just sounds like horrible distortion to me. I wish gigs were just.. quieter. When I did a bit of sound engineering a while back the main complaint I got was it was too quiet, though. I am just not a fan of having my ears assaulted until it is all distorted and the bass drum thumping me in the chest so much it's like someone punching me. The CWoAB gig was of a level where I could have probably have managed without earplugs, so maybe loudness is the key here to hearing everything.
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Holy smokes! Is Arthur Brown touring? I love that record.
 
#213
I played a small festival yesterday and it was smooth sailing. They used the DI on my amp post EQ and it went really well. Except for a ridiculous amount of compression FOH, where we hold some tones to fade at the end of some songs, and as the band faded on stage I could hear the bass FOH just infinitely sustaining, lol. Knob fade and kill the sound to the rescue. Still very easy to work with and it sounded fantastic.

There are too many good sound engineers who just easily incorporate the artists' desires into their work to deal with or apologize for these crusty know-it-alls who don't like effects on bass or won't use a Sansamp.
 
#215
Bufalo said:
So did this gig, the one that started all this absurdity, ever happen? I'm curious to see what the outcome was. Maybe I missed it somewhere through the thread.
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Well the gig happened and all went well. They handed me a Cable to plug in my Sansamp before I even needed to say anything. Maybe he read this thread:D. Honestly I don't know what the change was all about maybe just the fact this was their SECOND time for the event they were ready for it all and more mellow about the whole thing. We were busy all weekend with gigs Fri, Sat, and this big event on Sunday. I had decided that I would just keep quiet about it since we were all a little wore out and I didn't want to make any issues for the band members and it turned out to be a non-issue anyhow.

I DID learn something from this thread though. Being a semi-pro musician for 30+ years I truly felt what it was like to be a NEWBIE who posts questions on a BB for help they might really need. The number of idiots who didn't bother to read my post and those who decided to post that I was a Diva/idiot/jerk astounded me.

I thought back on times where I maybe posted demeaning or mean spirited replies to threads I deemed moronic. I will NEVER do it again. I appreciated those whose posts were truly helpful. In the future I will help when I can and if I can't say anything nice I won't say it.
 
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#216
I have a new gig playing 70's and 80's rock with some young cats 19-21 years old. My second gig with them the sound man plops a mike stand in front of my rig and puts a SM57 in the clip, I didn't have to say a word. I thanked him profusely and his reply was that's the only way to handle a rig like mine. The even better news is he is their regular sound man. Love that guy!
 
#218
dsanders said:
IMO the reason he's insisting on a clean DI, is that he knows his box is dead quite and problem free.

Perhaps just humbly say "Will you try my line? If it's a problem we will use your DI."

I've never had anyone be unwilling to at least try my gear. Even at festivals.
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Right on. Well your advice must have worked, because he said when he did the gig that the soundman didn't say a word about the Sansamp and just went with it.
 
#219
Had an interesting experience yesterday - showed up with my newly acquired AKG P2 w/stand at a multiband benefit and they said they were meaning to pick one up so were happy to get a chance to try one :) . Dunno how much they put in the PA, I brought an SVT and 8x10 and had it up to where it would overdrive the outputs when I dug in (largish outdoor venue, ~1000 cap and the PA was stoopid loud anyways) . I was told it sounded great - of course I had earplugs in, nobody sane is gonna stand in front of a cranked SVT without protection. Our frontman just takes out his hearing aids when he's playing <eek> .
 
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