The Pros seem to favor mixed cabs

[DigitalMan]

yeah pretty much. i almost never hear that one.

Try being an American with one first generation English parent. All the sarcasm and odd vocabulary but no accent to explain it.

 

[SouthTunnel]

Wow, this blew up. I see why it's a hot topic around here.

I've been using a HyDrive 115 and 112 primarily for portability purposes, and usually just bring one or the other. My preference would be 4x10's, but I learned that if I'm breaking my back every show/practice then the annoyance lessens my joy of playing. And so I've sacrificed a bit of sound in favor of portability.

But you guys make great points. And if our gigs start getting more serious I'll probably go back to all 10's.

Thanks!

 

[chadds]

As there are many here who know every bit of minutiae about gear who aren't pros or even ever play out, there are many pros who know very little about gear.

 

[nojj]

I always bring my full rig. It sounds great turned down, but I dont want to come up short due to surprises like being outside.

I'm old & lazy. Too much of a PITA to load the big rig into my PU all the time. (and it's too heavy to leave it in there)
I usually take a medium one, and can beef it up should the odd emergency arise. There's always a B115 and a powered 15" PA cab in the truck bed.

 

[BassmanPaul]

It seems like 90% if folks here advocate matching cabinets. I get the logic behind this. However whenever I look at some of my favorite bass players gear... i.e. Norwood Fisher, Victor Wooten, P-Nut, etc. they almost always seem to use mixed driver sizes.

I'm probably just in denial because my past 2 rigs were a 410 + 115, and now a 112 + 115, but if matching was generally superior you'd think these well known Pros would have picked up on this.

Please do a search on the subject of mixed cabinets. It's an old chestnut that's been roasting for far too long. It comes up every few days.

 

[two fingers]

They don't need to, most of the work is being done by the FOH. They display what the amp company has to offer and only hook up what they need for stage volume (if not fed by side fills).

This.

 

[christoph h.]

I think it also has less to do with the gear being used but more with how clear someone's vision of his sound is.

Any setup has a lot of variables that can be configured to achieve a certain result.

Everyone can start turning a knob, but only the person that knows what he wants to achieve knows when to stop turning it.

The same goes for every component of a rig.

 

[totallyfrozen]

They don't need to, most of the work is being done by the FOH. They display what the amp company has to offer and only hook up what they need for stage volume (if not fed by side fills).

^^THIS^^

A pro may like a certain brand or piece of gear but what you see might not be what you hear. IEM to hear themselves and FOH for the audience and the stage set up is there for props many times.

 

[Stone Soup]

I think it also has less to do with the gear being used but more with how clear someone's vision of his sound is.

Any setup has a lot of variables that can be configured to achieve a certain result.

To some extent, that varies widely, from rig to rig. The frequency cancellation that happens is absolutely real and when you want those canceled frequencies, you're out of luck. Let's not forget about the odd summing that can happen, as well.

 

[JimmyM]

OK so Vic doesn't always mic his cabs. He has, though.

 

[Mystic Michael]

It seems like 90% if folks here advocate matching cabinets. I get the logic behind this. However whenever I look at some of my favorite bass players gear... i.e. Norwood Fisher, Victor Wooten, P-Nut, etc. they almost always seem to use mixed driver sizes.

I'm probably just in denial because my past 2 rigs were a 410 + 115, and now a 112 + 115, but if matching was generally superior you'd think these well known Pros would have picked up on this.

Logical fallacy - Appeal to authority:

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...and here's the refutation:

One should also remember that many top notch 'famous' bassists are totally, utterly clueless about gear. They either don't care, or just haven't focused on it.

MM

 

[DigitalMan]

Bad day to run out of popcorn.

 

[Timmah]

Bad day to run out of popcorn.

Here ya go.

 

[coyote1]

C'mon now. If you and I are into our amps, the pros certainly are not completely ignorant about theirs. Songwriters might not pay much attention to gear, but professional instrumentalists?

I dislike IEMs. If the house volumeis high, the volume of the IEM is also high. Having that blasting straight into your ears is, IMO, worse than stage monitors and amp stacks.

 

[walterw]

I dislike IEMs. If the house volume is high, the volume of the IEM is also high.

er, no it's not.

the entire point of IEMs is that they don't blast your ears, no matter what's going on "outside". you're protected in the midst of skull-crushing stage volume, and you're happily hearing yourself when the house level goes away entirely (like in the clapton example).

sounds like yours are just being run wrong.

 

[Downunderwonder]

If you want to check out the peak of bass amplification.... I mean some of the newest highest tech on it check out this YouTube video of Mike Gordon. He explains the problem with his old 4x18 n some 15s n some 4x10s, and what he has moved to and why. Omits really cool.

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Check it out.

Rob

Classic.

He gets some of the techy stuff wrong despite doing it all right. It's not a line array as such and his rig disperses wider, not narrower than a clump of cabs.

His rig isn't just biamped, it's quad amped! I wish he would have muted all the monitors.

He doesn't EQ his bass so he must be running a pre EQ just in case signal to FOH as well as his processed sound.

Listen to the comments at the end, he doesn't particularly like giving up the big stage volume but he's doing it.

 

[KJung]

C'mon now. If you and I are into our amps, the pros certainly are not completely ignorant about theirs. Songwriters might not pay much attention to gear, but professional instrumentalists?

I dislike IEMs. If the house volumeis high, the volume of the IEM is also high. Having that blasting straight into your ears is, IMO, worse than stage monitors and amp stacks.

Not to be snarky, but your point 1..... wrong, and your point 2, painfully wrong

 

[AngelCrusher]

C'mon now. If you and I are into our amps, the pros certainly are not completely ignorant about theirs. Songwriters might not pay much attention to gear, but professional instrumentalists?

I dislike IEMs. If the house volumeis high, the volume of the IEM is also high. Having that blasting straight into your ears is, IMO, worse than stage monitors and amp stacks.

Depends on what pros you are talking about.

First off, imagine being a pro by the age of 20-25. That is the age most players in rock bands get signed, as it is younger music.

So not many people that age have a ton of cash to buy all the best gear. You just play what you can afford. The first priority for me was the bass. The rig came second. So Hartke gear was pretty common. I upgraded to a GK800RB and got a modulus only because the guy who had it for sale believed it was perfect for my style of play and he took my Fender Jazz straight up, which was pretty nice.

So you learn a lot about gear, but there is no point in lusting after everything because you can't afford it anyway. You slowly upgrade what you have and thats it.

Once you get a deal, it changes again. First reason is you can gear lust if you want, but at some point, you will get a string, amp and guitar endorsement. And when you are getting this stuff for free, or loaner, or artist discount, you really get loyal to the company. That means even less GAS.

Then you add in the fact that you are playing some rather large shows and you need everything to feel the same..play the same..sound the same. This really took away any GAS for me since I liked what I had - it got me to where I was. Why change?

So while we all know about amps, gear..etc and talk about it. Its kind of secondary until you have some down time and can try some new stuff out.

It's just not the same type of obsession as some people have here. When you can just call and request for a head and matching cabs, or whatever..your lust goes away. It becomes more about the shows you are playing, the next tour you are going to do..stuff like that.

All the guys I know that got deals..we all basically played the same gear with a few tweaks the whole time. It was all about defining the sound, refining it, and mastering what we had.

And to edit : In ears are not effected by house volume. You use your own mixers for that. Our drum tech did our moinitor mixes and then saved the settings we liked...tweaked if needed..never an issue. In ears are freaking awesome.

 

[jeff7bass]

If you're talking about big concert performers, they mix cabs all the time but avoid the pratfalls by using multiple power amps to drive them as well as all sorts of electronics that most will never need.

Carvin's BX1500 head is a perfect head for mixed cabs because of it's got two amps in it (450w x 2 @ 4 ohms) plus the active CROSSOVER function (bi-amp mode) and two volume knobs.

With a single amp and mixed cabs, one cab is almost always going to be more prevalent in the mix because of all the variations in speaker size, number of speakers, sensitivity, etc...

 

[jasper383]

Wow, this blew up. I see why it's a hot topic around here.

I've been using a HyDrive 115 and 112 primarily for portability purposes, and usually just bring one or the other. My preference would be 4x10's, but I learned that if I'm breaking my back every show/practice then the annoyance lessens my joy of playing. And so I've sacrificed a bit of sound in favor of portability.

But you guys make great points. And if our gigs start getting more serious I'll probably go back to all 10's.

Thanks!

Actually, if you must mix cabs, a 112 and a 115 probably isn't a bad way to go.