what's wrong with micing?

[NoiseNinja]

Nothings wrong with a mic.
If you want to capture the sound of your rig that's the way to go. Just be sure it's a good mic made especially to handle bass frequencys.
When we was recording we miced up the bass amps and it worked just fine.

 

[nysbob]

I grow more and more reluctant to plug into a DI the older I get. My amp does exactly what my bass needs to sound right. Fortunately I'm well known enough in my burg that the FOH guys will go with my request for a mic only...

 

[PlungerModerno]

I always mic a cab. Often I'll be told well we don't have another mic or there isn't a free channel. I carry my own mic and stand, and I can do without the DI. problem solved.

Seems legit. If you give them a mic line and a DI, who's to say they even plug the mic in

 

[fdeck]

Do you mic the cone or the port?

 

[TimmyP]

And there's no reason in hell you shouldn't be mic'ed. This business about onstage rigs only wrecking the sound is crazy.

You must be listening to a lot better caliber of bassists than I am. All it takes is a narrow range of frequencies being hot from the bass rig to wreck the entire mix.

 

[JimmyM]

If the bass is that loud, take it out of the mix. As long as people can hear it, doesn't really matter where it comes from.

And while I don't always work with other bassists, sometimes I do, and yeah, most of them are pretty darn good.

 

[Jake Saint]

if a band is completely adamant about using a mic, then sure...but i strongly believe that it gives you a cleaner (and easier) sound to work with in a live environment.

SO much of this. i love the tone of micing a cab, so you get the final end mix, but for a live gig, it just doesn't give me the clean ability to control the sound the way i need to in order to work with the venue. My preferred DI comes right out of the back of the amp, instead of being between the amp and the effects.

 

[t77mackie]

Why is it that soundmen are scared to use your amp's DI but insist you plug into a beat up, dented, no paint left, duct taped, POS D-box instead?

Anywho, I prefer going direct. Post preamp if at all possible. If the D-box looks the way it does imagine how the mic is!

 

[Munjibunga]

Micing as in Mice ?

Micing is fine, but ratting works better for me.

 

[Mark Reccord]

Micing is fine, but ratting works better for me.

Beat you to it! I did credit you though...

Clearly.

That crew doesn't seem like they were very adept at troubleshooting to me, all the same.

I prefer ratting, myself.*

*possibly stolen from Munjibunga

Do you mic the cone or the port?

Why would you mic the port? The sound coming out of it is not directional so it would be picked up regardless of where the mic is placed.

However, if you were really concerned about that, you'd add a DI line to pick up the lowest stuff.

I use a sealed cabinet with no tweeter so there aren't any of these potential complicating factors with using a mic for me.

You must be listening to a lot better caliber of bassists than I am. All it takes is a narrow range of frequencies being hot from the bass rig to wreck the entire mix.

Sure, but that could be said for any instrument or if the vocalist's monitor is too loud or for any other number of possibilities. Things that can destroy the mix aren't limited to bass guitar. Chances are if the bass rig sounds that bad, you're going to hear it out front whether you mic it or not unless the player is very quiet. Unless the bass amp is in an isolation box and the player's using in-ears, the stage sound is going to contribute to the house sound in some way.

SO much of this. i love the tone of micing a cab, so you get the final end mix, but for a live gig, it just doesn't give me the clean ability to control the sound the way i need to in order to work with the venue. My preferred DI comes right out of the back of the amp, instead of being between the amp and the effects.

Personally, I think this is nonsense given a good payer with good tone. The amount of bleed and potential overall gain reduction from a single mic tight in on a bass rig is going to be negligible. Most of the time there are a lot bigger things to be concerned with when mixing live sound.

Like anything in live sound, there are times when a mic will work and is the best solution and there are others where a DI works best and still others where the solution is to stuff your fists in your ears and try to tune the band out entirely.

 

[levis76]

This is why I open up my amp and physically disconnect the DI. I have an amp clamp mounted to my cabinet. When the soundman comes walkin' up with his cable I simply point to the mic already mounted and say "plug in there." Some do as their told, others like to argue, but in the end they all plug into the mic.

One instance the soundman said "Well I can't patch you into the PA without a DI, I won't mic the bass" I said "OK", and turned the master volume up a bit. One song into the set and he popped on stage and plugged into the mic and asked me to turn it down a bit.

 

[Emanuel Apascaritei]

Look, I have never understood this fight with the soundmen, and I´ll never do.

But before calling the man stupid and other smart words, try to figure out what happend first and than do the judging.

It´s true that half an hour is way too long to solv a problem but I´m pretty sure there are plenty of "stupid" bass players out there as there are "stupid" soundman or "guitards"


I´m a soundman too and done many PA work. There are so many things/problems that can occur you can´t imagine. Maybe the guy didn´t have a spare DI (and even if it sound like it sounds, it can really happen) or maybe he didn´t have a spare mic, or a spare channel on the board (if the channel were the bass was plugged was damaged). Maybe the guy was trying to figure out a way to solv the problem even if it was impossible and you already seted him as stupid....

 

[Bassbubble11]

I have DI's on both my amp's. The house gets the signal pre EQ (it's not like my eq setting is gonna sound good thru there PA). I also have a SansAmp. Either way my effects always remain intact (pre DI). I never use the sound guys DI.

Mic's are cool if that's the way the soundman wants to go. Every sound guy is different. As a matter of fact the last big show I played I was DI'd from my amp AND mic'd.

BTW if you think you are getting "your" sound once the soundman gets your signal whether you are mic'd or DI'd, you are mistaken.

 

[johng999]

A lot of people get the acoustics confused and I am no expert. Yes it is true that bass wavelengths are very long. At 82 degrees F the speed of sound is 1143 ft/sec. making a 40hz wave over 28 ft. long.
But the sound pressure at the mic is still varying (and following a sine wave pattern) 40 times in a second. So the mic will pick up the 40 hz wave. What the audience will hear is a different story - it is the room acoustics that are impacted by the wavelength. You can get node crossing and signal cancellations, etc.
Here is a true story. I was setting up a hifi in my loft above the garage several years ago. This was a big McIntosh high powered system, and I was running through a pair of AR 303's, a speaker known for clear low end down to 32 Hz. The amp in question has true power meters, and I was using a test CD with various sign wave frequencies (and other stuff) for testing. In particular, I had a low frequency input into the system, and could see power at the meters, but couldn't hear anything. Having the remote in hand, I turned it up, but still didn't hear anything. However, somewhere over 150 Watts my windows started to vibrated horribly. Problem? I believe I was standing at a frequency node. I moved over a few feet in the room, and yes could hear the tone! Ha, won't make that mistake again. Point is, just because your system is producing what you want it doesn't mean that the audience will hear it unless you take room acoustics into account.

 

[Lindsay]

BTW if you think you are getting "your" sound once the soundman gets your signal whether you are mic'd or DI'd, you are mistaken.

^ This.

You can enjoy that special feeling that comes with getting your way with the soundguy but at the end of the day 'your' signal goes through a mic, preamp, EQ, another EQ, crossover, power amps and an entirely different set of speakers.

 

[Big_Daws]

Why is it that soundmen are scared to use your amp's DI but insist you plug into a beat up, dented, no paint left, duct taped, POS D-box instead?

primarily the DI out on the back of an amp goes out to the PA extremely hot. in which distorts at the board even when they pad the signal. and because there is no pad control on most bass amps. the best way to fix this is the put a DI box in line...

as long at the DI isnt a crappy behringer DI then if its beat up and dented, it still doesn't the job just as effectively as when it was new...just looks crappy!

 

[Bassbubble11]

primarily the DI out on the back of an amp goes out to the PA extremely hot. in which distorts at the board even when they pad the signal. and because there is no pad control on most bass amps. the best way to fix this is the put a DI box in line...

as long at the DI isnt a crappy behringer DI then if its beat up and dented, it still doesn't the job just as effectively as when it was new...just looks crappy!

Interesting. I have never had a problem with my amps DI being to hot. Sound guys always want to use the pre EQ. Could that have something to do with it? Pre as opposed to Post?

 

[Big_Daws]

^ This.

You can enjoy that special feeling that comes with getting your way with the soundguy but at the end of the day 'your' signal goes through a mic, preamp, EQ, another EQ, crossover, power amps and an entirely different set of speakers.

this is what i have been trying to say...the other factor is that microphones are limited by frequecies as well. unless you have a microphone that is a full 20Hz-20MHz then you aren't ever going to come close to being able to capture the sound that you are reproducing through your amp. you are only going to find that in a studio condenser mic in which are super sensitive to stage noise and bleed. as a side note i havent found a dynamic that does this yet.

my bet is that if you actually listen to your raw signal through a good set of headphones (not monster or beats or some BS overemphasized bass headphone) your bass when mic'd vs DI by the time it gets to the PA you would be extremely surprised at how different things sound.

 

[Big_Daws]

Interesting. I have never had a problem with my amps DI being to hot. Sound guys always want to use the pre EQ. Could that have something to do with it? Pre as opposed to Post?

i think a lot of it has to do with the amp's gain and master volume settings and how hot specifically the "player" is setting the signal.

for example, my bass is a SPECTOR reBOP 5 string, using EMG-HZ pickups. the output on those are sooo high that the max i can output on my bass is 1/2 volume on both pickups and im still running the gain at 10 o'clock on my amp before it clips out. since its a new amp im not 100% sure on the DI output levels, but because im running a hot signal in, im expecting hot out.

post/pre eq, the levels may be can be adjusted, but the main reason for going preEQ is that when you change the bass/mid/treble levels or anything else, it wont affect the levels or EQ at FOH

 

[Mark Reccord]

this is what i have been trying to say...the other factor is that microphones are limited by frequecies as well. unless you have a microphone that is a full 20Hz-20MHz then you aren't ever going to come close to being able to capture the sound that you are reproducing through your amp. you are only going to find that in a studio condenser mic in which are super sensitive to stage noise and bleed. as a side note i havent found a dynamic that does this yet.

my bet is that if you actually listen to your raw signal through a good set of headphones (not monster or beats or some BS overemphasized bass headphone) your bass when mic'd vs DI by the time it gets to the PA you would be extremely surprised at how different things sound.

There are mics that go up to 20MHz? I know this is a typo, still funny, though.

I don't buy into the idea that you need a 20-20kHz mic to appropriately capture bass guitar for a number of reasons. Most bass cabs don't go anywhere near that low for one and there's not very much useful information down there anyway. Most decent instrument mics work just fine, especially given the proximity effect. I frequently use a Beta 57a for bass (sometimes combined with a DI) and in most venues and for most players it provides plenty of low end. I sometimes end up high passing the mic and adding in some of the DI signal for real low end, but often it's not required. Obviously there are times when DI just works best, like when the player's rig is set up to be as neutral as possible and no effects are used, but if the player's using effects or a cranked tube amp to get overdrive or a number of other effected tones, there's no substitute for a mic on the cab. Overdrive usually doesn't sound right through a DI, even ones that are set up to accept speaker level signal.

I'd also go as far as to say that most of the information that defines bass tone exists in the lower and upper midrange and not so much in the real low end and that a lot of people grossly overestimate the ability of any sound person to fundamentally change their sound. Assuming a halfway decent PA system, what goes in is what comes out, except louder. Channel EQ and dynamics processing can only do so much and the main system should be set up to be as neutral as possible (not always easy, I know). While I may be able to roll off a bit of low end if necessary and maybe tweak the midrange, the general character of the player's tone remains intact. That goes for everything, not just bass.