Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Soundman insist on me going direct
- Thread starter badstonebass
- Start date
.
godofthunder59
Life is short, buy the bass.
- Feb 19, 2006
- 9,060
- 38,448
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Cataldo Basses, Whirlwind products, Thunderbucker pickups
60 songs one rehearsal. Here is a little taste of the band Knight Patrol. The guitarist on the right turned 20 on 6/28/14! ohttps://[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Glad you survived (the Gig and this thread!)
The easy answer when this comes up is that you are feeding them the tone you want to be in the house.
BUT to any one reading this...if you are doing heavy EQ that ends up needing lots of fixing in the house, you will quickly lose your creed with th engineer.
I feed a DI (post Pedals including overdrive) to the House and put a Mic on 2 amps....one amp is the same signal that is fed to the DI and the other is for Fuzz.
I almost always just use the direct outs from my heads, post eq, post effects send and return. Sound guys love em. theyre xlr already. I have yet to have a se not want to use them or use his own di instead. wash, lather, rinse, repeat. individual results may vary, some settling may occur during shipping
I'm not a soundman, but I think the reason he wants to use his DI rather than your sans amp is because he probably feels more secure in his equipment. I think sound men approach the bass as a set it and forget it operation. When you have multiple channels with multiple open mics things can gets tricky so having one less open mic on stage makes for less problems.Just so I understand...they will be changing out and re-micing guitar amps and whole drum kits and because I want to take the direct out of my Sansamp instead of his DI, requiring ZERO effort or hassle on his part, I am being a diva?
Like I said previously I am not a soundman, and this is only my opinion I could be totally wrong.
My approach is to just go with the flow. If it really is that big of a deal your band should have their own soundman.
The bass mic being open should never be a problem unless you play so quiet that they have to crank your mic to an insane level.
But a Sansamp sounds waaaaay better than most of the crap DI's sound companies like to provide.
I don't think is a question of what sounds better to you, but rather what the sound an is familiar with and trusts.. I've had soundmen not want to use my DB751's DI because they didn't have experience using one. I've been able to convince them to try it agreeing that we would not use it if it wasn't up to par, but it's a non issue once they try it. However I always send a pre signal so I'm easy..
godofthunder59
Life is short, buy the bass.
- Feb 19, 2006
- 9,060
- 38,448
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Cataldo Basses, Whirlwind products, Thunderbucker pickups
No no no. You are the musician/arist the sound man is there to serve you not the other way around.
I really don't care what the soundman is familiar with, to be quite honest. I want the sound I want.
Actually the soundman is there to serve whoever is paying him and if that ain't you pulling the "you're working for me" BS might not buy you very much of what you wanted.
godofthunder59
Life is short, buy the bass.
- Feb 19, 2006
- 9,060
- 38,448
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Cataldo Basses, Whirlwind products, Thunderbucker pickups
Usually we are paying the sound man so I guess that does makes me boss. On the occasion where we are not I still insist on a mic, no other way to catch my effects. Music is all about self expression, One would think cookie cutter solutions would not be the norm. I don't think it's just the musician who should be expected to be flexible.
Last edited:
Well I think you have to be somewhat realistic about this. usually these people are working under pressure, and they don't have a whole lot of time to learn your gear or work with unfamiliar gear or worse yet gear that has problems.
Many musicians have borderline gear and it can become quite confusing and difficult to make things work in a timely manner, and we all know what happens if we get on the wrong side of the soundman.
However, If you use effects then I suppose you would need a mike in front of the cabinet which I agree should not be a big problem. I'm easy. all I need is one good clean sound the rest is in my hands but I play mostly blues rock so there you go..
Last edited:
I would think in this situation it would be best to have your own soundman as a member of the band.
Yep, I use effects, hate plain vanilla DI's, and love tube amps. I don't use a mic anymore, but I did until I got my REDDI, and I loved micing. Unfortunately, I didn't love arguing with soundmen about it. Despite bringing my own awesome mic and Z-Bar, 1 in 5 gigs with an unfamiliar soundman turned into an argument or a day of subterfuge where they try to get over on me. So I bought a REDDI, and problem solved.
And yes, your own soundman is better, and we bring one on some of our gigs, but I play a lot of situations where our own soundman isn't in the budget, or the owner of the sound gear refuses to let our soundman run the board, etc. So it's not as easy as it sounds.
I didn't read the whole thread but I'm with the OP. I'm surprised how much undeserved revernce goes to soundmen. Most of them are clueless. They're failed musicians who want to still be in the scene. They do not understand sound and are especially ignorant about bass waves.
In any major concert hall I've played, where the soundmen are actually qualified, they take what i say into consideration and give me a great sound in about 2 minutes. It's always the small venues, the clubs, bars and the wedding band soundmen who want to do it THEIR way -- because they really don't know what they're doing. Well, they aren't playing. You are. How it sounds to the audience is THEIR job. How it sounds on stage should be YOUR choice. You're not there to make their job easier. They are there to work for you. And the pro soundmen know that. It's always the amateurs with the biggest egos.
In any major concert hall I've played, where the soundmen are actually qualified, they take what i say into consideration and give me a great sound in about 2 minutes. It's always the small venues, the clubs, bars and the wedding band soundmen who want to do it THEIR way -- because they really don't know what they're doing. Well, they aren't playing. You are. How it sounds to the audience is THEIR job. How it sounds on stage should be YOUR choice. You're not there to make their job easier. They are there to work for you. And the pro soundmen know that. It's always the amateurs with the biggest egos.
Last edited:
That's a sweeping stereotyping generalization and a violation of the forum rules; check the stickies at the top of this sub forum.
??? You're serious? It's against the rules to make a generalization based on general experience? That's all this forum IS! lol I'm not attacking anyone or disparaging anyone's opinion-- I'm just trying to help the member. Lighten up.
