What Am I Missing?

[g-dude]

It sounds like you could benefit from a compressor

Final answer. Lock it in.

 

[Geri O]

Final answer. Lock it in.

Nope.

 

[darwin-bass]

You're plagued by a lack of band dynamics. You got quieter with palm muting but the band played on forte.

Does the FOH engineer have tools available to provide per-channel compression? They should already have it engaged. If not you could add compression but it doesn't change the fact that quieter bass techniques go with quieter music.

 

[g-dude]

I need to point out that I play for a Pentecostal (Holiness) church and, if you’re not familiar with that type of worshiping, they like things LOUD and FAST!

I go to a different type of church, but I got some chuckles and strange looks when I mentioned on one song that I'd be going "Full Pentecostal".

Frankly, I think more churches should try to tap into the Pentecostal/Gospel level of energy when it comes to the music portion of the service. I mean, look at how great the music can be, especially once the folks really get going...

 

[LowRick]

I like strong stuff too, (thinks whiskey) but whatever the soundguy etc says and sees on his gadgets and fancy stuff, bottomline should always be: How does it sound in the mix? you ever heard other people complain over not hearing you well enough or for that matter, do you hear yourself well enough? We're into making music. Not into making graphical interfaces of soundpeople work.

 

[Nightman]

Unless you are only playing back prerecorded music that isn't really going to help all that much.
If the person at the desk can't make those adjustments in real time it's a lost cause as soon as anything on the stage changes.

I suspect so, but not my call and out of my realm of responsibility. I do what I can to help, but I'm just a hired bass player.

 

[Nightman]

I like strong stuff too, (thinks whiskey) but whatever the soundguy etc says and sees on his gadgets and fancy stuff, bottomline should always be: How does it sound in the mix? you ever heard other people complain over not hearing you well enough or for that matter, do you hear yourself well enough? We're into making music. Not into making graphical interfaces of soundpeople work.

I have a line feed from the Eden to my personal monitor for my more-me needs and I get a line feed back from the house of what I want to hear from vocal mics, keys, organ, drums (we don't have an up-to-date house board and can't use any phone app to personally adjust).

I feel the main vocal mics in the church are too hot/high and the band is also turned up too loud, but that seems to be the "thing" with Pentecostal churches.

I just do what I was hired to do, which are turn my bass to ten, play adequate bass lines to the best of my best abilities, and give the house a signal, which in Sunday's instance was a little weaker than normal.

 

[Deleted member 271037]

Unless you are only playing back prerecorded music that isn't really going to help all that much.
If the person at the desk can't make those adjustments in real time it's a lost cause as soon as anything on the stage changes.

I'm assuming the pro engineer was brought in to "tune" the PA system for the room (weed out standing waves and such) and that there's still a house engineer present during the gig?

Still, if the PA is tuned in an empty venue the room will of course behave differently when it's filled with "water based absorbers" (aka human beings). The regular house engineer will still have to do proper sound checks and work the board actively during the gig. Or are we talking about some kind of "set and forget" situation here? That's never ideal.

Also, if there was a need to bring in a "pro" for this it suggest to me that the regular house engineer isn't very experienced. Maybe that's the answer here after all.

 

[crazyBassClown]

You're plagued by a lack of band dynamic. You got quieter with palm muting but the band played on forte.

That isn't actually what the FOH guy said. He said nothing about volume at all, assuming what the OP said is actually his wording.

I'm assuming the pro engineer was brought in to "tune" the PA system for the room (weed out standing waves and such) and that there's still a house engineer present during the gig?
...
Also, if there was a need to bring in a "pro" for this it suggest to me that the regular house engineer isn't very experienced. Maybe that's the answer here after all.

If the somewhat strange wording used in the op is what the soundguy actually said, which I presume it is given how strange it actually is this is almost certainly the case. Maybe he was told to set the levels to some level on the meters and that is as much knowledge as he has.

the sound guy tells me that the house board doesn’t register a strong signal from the bass DI when I’m palm muting and finger plucking, but gets a strong signal when I play with my thumb.

 

[Nightman]

I'm assuming the pro engineer was brought in to "tune" the PA system for the room (weed out standing waves and such) and that there's still a house engineer present during the gig?

Still, if the PA is tuned in an empty venue the room will of course behave differently when it's filled with "water based absorbers" (aka human beings). The regular house engineer will still have to do proper sound checks and work the board actively during the gig. Or are we talking about some kind of "set and forget" situation here? That's never ideal.

Also, if there was a need to bring in a "pro" for this it suggest to me that the regular house engineer isn't very experienced. Maybe that's the answer here after all.

You are exactly correct. We do not have currently an experienced live sound engineer for services. What we do have is a volunteer member of the church to sit at the board and basically turn vocal/speaker mics up or down. He is not trained to be a sound engineer nor has he the experience to act as one, but he can do some things, but being there to adjust music volume based on the song selections is not one of them.

 

[Mike Caldwell]

I give him credit for stepping up to volunteer but after four pages of post the question has been answered.

Any change of bringing in actually sound person to double check the system and do some operational training?
That said you can generally train someone how to turn stuff on and off, turn up the pastors mic at the right time,ect. but training someone how to actually mix music, adjust channel EQ to make things fit into a mix can be tough at the least.

 

[Nightman]

I give him credit for stepping up to volunteer but after four pages of post the question has been answered.

Any change of bringing in actually sound person to double check the system and do some operational training?
That said you can generally train someone how to turn stuff on and off, turn up the pastors mic at the right time,ect. but training someone how to actually mix music, adjust channel EQ to make things fit into a mix can be tough at the least.

There was an experienced live sound engineer to come in and make changes and suggestions, one being “don’t let folks make changes to the board!”. Well, that was not adhered to, and things are not the way the engineer left them.
However that goes beyond and is another hurdle to get over to what my issue was, which I mentioned in my post #39.

 

[Deleted member 271037]

You are exactly correct. We do not have currently an experienced live sound engineer for services. What we do have is a volunteer member of the church to sit at the board and basically turn vocal/speaker mics up or down. He is not trained to be a sound engineer nor has he the experience to act as one, but he can do some things, but being there to adjust music volume based on the song selections is not one of them.

Well, the good news is that at least your technique doesn't seem to be the problem here. Also, if this is a regular gig in the same room you should be able to find a permanent solution that will work. There may me some trial and error involved but once you've "learned" the room and how to deal with it you should be able to dial in your settings on stage and make it work. Any chance you get to walk around the room when playing (with the full band): DO IT. Knowing what the bass sounds like from the audience's perspective will help you more than anything you hear on stage.

The bad news is that in a situation like this you may have to do some basic "engineering" on stage. It's not ideal of course as you won't be hearing the same thing as the audience in the room. The cheap&easy solution would probably be to set your main output levels based on your most aggressive playing and get a clean boost pedal to kick in whenever needed when you're playing more softly. Don't go crazy with the boost though, a little goes a long way!

I mentioned earlier that I don't think a compressor is a good solution for this and I still think so. It MIGHT help a little bit if you set a compressor for a FAST attack, high ratio and the threshold set to ONLY catch the loudest peaks when playing aggressively. Use it more like a peak limiter than a compressor. Just make sure the gain reduction never gets too extreme and starts to affect your tone negatively. You can probably get away with shaving off 3-4 dB from your strongest peaks without any significant degradation of your tone but it's a fine line and you don't want to cross it. You would need a compressor that can handle fast attack settings for this though, not one of the "vintage", opto types. Something like an MXR M87 could be a good choice. Of course, when you set a compressor for peak limiting like this it won't smoothen your note-for-note dynamics in the way that most people want from a compressor. You would need to have a second compressor in the signal chain for that (but note-for-note dynamics doesn't seem to be the problem here, which is why I don't think a compressor is really the answer).

Whatever you do, don't start using meters to visually "mix" your levels on stage. Meters won't always tell you the whole story. They may react stronger to a warm, fat tone (like when playing fingerstyle vs slap) due to low frequencies having more energy. The slap tone may still be perceived as louder in the room due to the brighter, more piercing tone and stronger transients. Different types of meters will also respond differently to fast peaks/transients (like when you're slapping). The sound in the room is all that matters.

But most importantly, ask people in the audience for advice. Preferrably someone with some musical experience but NOT someone who will just be polite and tell you what they THINK you wanna hear instead of what you NEED to hear. Anyone with a bit of musical experience should be able to tell you if the difference in output between slap/fingerstyle is really a problem or just something this "engineer" thinks may be problem based on looking at the meters.

 

[chadds]

Dustin Hoffman was about to deliver his lines. He asks, “what’s my motivation?”

Sir Lawrence Olivier was there and asked, “can’t he just act?”

 

[Ric5]

One of the ways I can get more consistent volume is by playing with a pick, another is by using compression.

 

[Nightman]

Well, the good news is that at least your technique doesn't seem to be the problem here. Also, if this is a regular gig in the same room you should be able to find a permanent solution that will work. There may me some trial and error involved but once you've "learned" the room and how to deal with it you should be able to dial in your settings on stage and make it work. Any chance you get to walk around the room when playing (with the full band): DO IT. Knowing what the bass sounds like from the audience's perspective will help you more than anything you hear on stage.

The bad news is that in a situation like this you may have to do some basic "engineering" on stage. It's not ideal of course as you won't be hearing the same thing as the audience in the room. The cheap&easy solution would probably be to set your main output levels based on your most aggressive playing and get a clean boost pedal to kick in whenever needed when you're playing more softly. Don't go crazy with the boost though, a little goes a long way!

I mentioned earlier that I don't think a compressor is a good solution for this and I still think so. It MIGHT help a little bit if you set a compressor for a FAST attack, high ratio and the threshold set to ONLY catch the loudest peaks when playing aggressively. Use it more like a peak limiter than a compressor. Just make sure the gain reduction never gets too extreme and starts to affect your tone negatively. You can probably get away with shaving off 3-4 dB from your strongest peaks without any significant degradation of your tone but it's a fine line and you don't want to cross it. You would need a compressor that can handle fast attack settings for this though, not one of the "vintage", opto types. Something like an MXR M87 could be a good choice. Of course, when you set a compressor for peak limiting like this it won't smoothen your note-for-note dynamics in the way that most people want from a compressor. You would need to have a second compressor in the signal chain for that (but note-for-note dynamics doesn't seem to be the problem here, which is why I don't think a compressor is really the answer).

Whatever you do, don't start using meters to visually "mix" your levels on stage. Meters won't always tell you the whole story. They may react stronger to a warm, fat tone (like when playing fingerstyle vs slap) due to low frequencies having more energy. The slap tone may still be perceived as louder in the room due to the brighter, more piercing tone and stronger transients. Different types of meters will also respond differently to fast peaks/transients (like when you're slapping). The sound in the room is all that matters.

But most importantly, ask people in the audience for advice. Preferrably someone with some musical experience but NOT someone who will just be polite and tell you what they THINK you wanna hear instead of what you NEED to hear. Anyone with a bit of musical experience should be able to tell you if the difference in output between slap/fingerstyle is really a problem or just something this "engineer" thinks may be problem based on looking at the meters.

I had a conversation with the keys player last night and he was saying how much he liked the music Sunday and even liked what I was doing on bass (the palm muting with thumb and index finger plucking), which gave a different rhythmic and melodic bass lines from the recorded bass lines. I asked him if he had any issues hearing me and said he heard me just fine and that me and the drummer were locked. He also told me the same sound guy told him (Sunday) that he needed to turn the keyboard up because he could hardly hear him.

I'm of the opinion now that the sound guy has developed hearing issues, which doesn't surprise me with how loud the house is and he doesn't wear any form of hearing protection.

 

[Geri O]

I'm of the opinion now that the sound guy has developed hearing issues, which doesn't surprise me with how loud the house is and he doesn't wear any form of hearing protection.

That is certainly possible, especially if he’s getting up there in years, but an audio mix person can simply have bad taste in what a mix should sound like as well, especially an inexperienced one.

 

[Nightman]

That is certainly possible, especially if he’s getting up there in years, but an audio mix person can simply have bad taste in what a mix should sound like as well, especially an inexperienced one.

True! The drummer was hitting with me and would react to my fills and we all (drums, keys and bass) are wearing either IEMs or headphones throughout the services.

I did setup the pedal board at home and revisited the settings with various active and passive basses that I have, and reviewed the WTDI club thread which is not as active as it has been, but plenty of useful information from others about this pedal.
So, I’m hoping to be a little more prepared to use the WTDI and to make necessary changes to it when needed and to give the house a strong enough signal to where the sound guy will asked to turn my bass down.

 

[Nightman]

@Modulus 96, @Geri O, @Deleted member 271037 and other fellow TB’ers.
So, today I brought in my usual pedal board and a passive DI. My bass is Active. No sound guy today.
With the bass through the passive DI to the board I could barely hear the bass through FOH.
I switched to the Eden DI w/EQ Bypass Off, the Gain set at 9 and the bass presence in the FOH was strong. I set the Bypass On and the change in volume was not noticeable.
I set the Eden Bypass Off and had to turn Gain up to 10 after service started.

Without visiting the house board I assume the Gain on the board is down causing the situation with a weak passive bass last week.
I need to bring an Active/Passive bass and see what happens switching from active mode to passive.

 

[Deleted member 271037]

@Modulus 96, @Geri O, @Deleted member 271037 and other fellow TB’ers.
So, today I brought in my usual pedal board and a passive DI. My bass is Active. No sound guy today.
With the bass through the passive DI to the board I could barely hear the bass through FOH.
I switched to the Eden DI w/EQ Bypass Off, the Gain set at 9 and the bass presence in the FOH was strong. I set the Bypass On and the change in volume was not noticeable.
I set the Eden Bypass Off and had to turn Gain up to 10 after service started.

Without visiting the house board I assume the Gain on the board is down causing the situation with a weak passive bass last week.
I need to bring an Active/Passive bass and see what happens switching from active mode to passive.

If there are long cable runs you probably don't want to run a passive bass into a passive DI. At least not without using some kind of preamp/buffer before the signal hits the DI. The general rule is active bass into passive DI and passive bass into active DI (although active to active shouldn't be a problem in most situations as long as the active DI is good quality and can handle the output of an active bass).

In the studio I don't mind passive into passive if I like the tone I'm getting but with long cable runs it can be an issue. Still, if you used your Eden preamp into a passive DI it shouldn't be a problem even with a passive bass.

But yeah, this sounds like an issue with the levels at the board. If there's no engineer and the input gain/faders at the board are set permanently you need to set the levels on the board for ONE specific bass (and specific settings on all your gear) and stick with that setup. Changing between basses/pedals/DIs can give you considerable differences in output and if there's no engineer present it will never work.