Nevermind...I was misinterpreted what you were saying in the previous post. I'm on the same page with ya now.
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Why do we still use amps?
- Thread starter Raimonds
- Start date
Nevermind...I was misinterpreted what you were saying in the previous post. I'm on the same page with ya now.
I need to feel the air moving in front of my bass amp and I need to feel the bass vibrations. You don't get that with just a DI.
Its a case by case question.
I've played at church for 20+ years. Have gone ampless for the past 5-6 years. Once you get used to not having an amp, its no big deal.
That's my set of circumstances. Some venues and styles of music need an amp of various sizes. Also some people have been playing with an amp so long that they supposedly can't live without it.
Fortunately for me, I do not require an amp in my current set of circumstances. Money saved and I have a consistent sound due to pedalboard and tube DI.
I've played at church for 20+ years. Have gone ampless for the past 5-6 years. Once you get used to not having an amp, its no big deal.
That's my set of circumstances. Some venues and styles of music need an amp of various sizes. Also some people have been playing with an amp so long that they supposedly can't live without it.
Fortunately for me, I do not require an amp in my current set of circumstances. Money saved and I have a consistent sound due to pedalboard and tube DI.
I remember seeing Alphonso Johnson in the early '80s with Bob Weir's Bobby and the Midnights.
Here in Portland OR at the Euphoria Tavern. Alphonso's rig was almost as big as the venues PA. It looked like maybe Hard Trucker boxes. I think it was like 2 stacks of 2x18, 2x12, 2x10's and some sort of rack setup.
Not the big Peavey rig in later videos of the band. When I walked in I thought to myself, 'why is the PA stacked over in the corner of the stage?' Went with the band I was in at the time, The Reef Aires
Glorious!
Here in Portland OR at the Euphoria Tavern. Alphonso's rig was almost as big as the venues PA. It looked like maybe Hard Trucker boxes. I think it was like 2 stacks of 2x18, 2x12, 2x10's and some sort of rack setup.
Not the big Peavey rig in later videos of the band. When I walked in I thought to myself, 'why is the PA stacked over in the corner of the stage?' Went with the band I was in at the time, The Reef Aires
Glorious!
Same here!
Others may take a different approach, but for me, there is *NOTHING* like playing through a powerful all-tube amp & cabs on stage.
I'm talking about the tone and the tactile feel. Me likey! 
wmhill
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And another thing...
The idea that nobody can hear your amp when you run DI is a complete fallacy unless you have it in a box at a low volume. Don't know if you all have noticed that stages generally don't have invisible walls that trap all sound from the stage and prevent it from getting out to the audience. And I don't know if you've noticed all those other mics that you will usually see on stages. They will also pick up stage sounds from other instruments. Even at my piddly volumes I can still hear my amp when I venture out into the crowd, at least a little bit.
I consider this a good thing because I like the sound of my amp and that's what I want in the PA. I have to DI to get it these days due to whiny sound techs who would hold up production when I insisted on only using my mic, but that's what I want and I'll get it somehow, by golly!
The idea that nobody can hear your amp when you run DI is a complete fallacy unless you have it in a box at a low volume. Don't know if you all have noticed that stages generally don't have invisible walls that trap all sound from the stage and prevent it from getting out to the audience. And I don't know if you've noticed all those other mics that you will usually see on stages. They will also pick up stage sounds from other instruments. Even at my piddly volumes I can still hear my amp when I venture out into the crowd, at least a little bit.
I consider this a good thing because I like the sound of my amp and that's what I want in the PA. I have to DI to get it these days due to whiny sound techs who would hold up production when I insisted on only using my mic, but that's what I want and I'll get it somehow, by golly!
I use an amp and purposefully avoid the PA, because the band member running the PA always has issues with volume. I like being in 100% control of my volume and tone. Only keys and vocals go through the PA. Between bad levels for the keys and feedback from the microphone, I avoid it like the plague.
Exactly. And the reason products like the 'EICH Bass Board', the 'KT platform' and 'BackBeat rumble pack' came into existence: To make up for a very important thing and amp can do and IEM can't.
(*For the record. I'm am not against IEMs at all. They have their place and can be a godsend in certain situations.)
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Because I haven't bought other stuff yet. Because my drummer wants to hear my bass.
I could probably just bring my head and run a line out of there FOH, but I think that would be weird. My (limited) experience with running straight to the board has been undefined, boomy sound. That's not what I want my audience to hear from me. So I continue to haul my gear.
I could probably just bring my head and run a line out of there FOH, but I think that would be weird. My (limited) experience with running straight to the board has been undefined, boomy sound. That's not what I want my audience to hear from me. So I continue to haul my gear.
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I use a live rig whenever I can, because I love the sound/feeling of the air being pushed, but it's truthfully rare that I need it, so I usually just take a Line 6 Helix with me and all is good. Sounds great each time and I'm generally happy as long as there's a monitor pointed at me.
Once I switched to using headphones, I missed that body shaking sonic wave. I tried to recreate it with the
""Aura Interactor""
It was the first commercially available haptic suit, released on September 5, 1994.
Aura Interactor - Wikipedia
Though it did impart substantial “feel” the proximity of the speaker generally left one damp and sweaty.
<<Basically it was a backpack subwoofer>>
They occasionally come up for sale for less than $30.
Speaking of bass bleeding thought the mics. About the Gov't Mule Live At Roseland Ballroom recording:
Warren Haynes - It's a very cool record, the reason we decided to put it out was because it was a very concise picture of what Gov't Mule was doing at the time, it was only sixty minutes long but it was well performed. We felt like we walked off stage feeling like we had played a good show and it happened to be on tape and we were at a point in our career where we felt like it was important to put something live out so we decided to that.
There's an interesting story behind the bass sound on that record though. When Michael Barbiero and myself went in to mix that record, when we pulled up the fader for the DI on the bass it was too distorted, there was digital distortion and we couldn't use the direct sound so we were using what we thought was just the close mic on the bass speaker and we eventually discovered that it wasn't the close mic on the bass speaker it was Allen Woody's vocal mic, that the close mic on the bass speaker didn't make it to tape at all so the only bass sound that we were able to salvage for that record was Woody's vocal mic and we happened to be set up very tightly because we were the opening act and so his vocal mic was very close to his amp and picking up a lot of the sound and of course his amp was so loud there was tons of it in the vocal. That's the only way we could make that record work because there was no bass channels so to speak and we didn't discover that until we were actually listening to Don't Step On the Grass Sam where Woody was singing background and all of a sudden this voice comes in very loud and we're like oh my god this is the vocal mic, this is Woody's vocal mic so Michael just EQ'd it in a way and compressed it very heavily so when the vocal came in it wasn't disturbingly loud and that's the bass sound for that record and people to this day go how did you guys get such a great bass sound on that record. There's no DI and no close mic it's mic'd from about six feet way
FlyGuitars - That's really quite impressive. Maybe I'll try micing from a bit further away.
Warren Haynes - Well it's a little more old school but when you think back to a lot of the early rock bass sounds that we were talking about that's the way they mic'd the bass from a little further away than people would mic it these days so it had more air around it, more ambiance around it and in a trio once again you can hear that ambiance because there's so much space there
You couldn't do that with no live rig on stage Warren Haynes on Allen Woody Part 3 - Live with Gov't Mule
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I play in church, and use an amp. Half the time the sound guy literally doesn't know the difference between a guitar and a bass. And when we travel to other churches where they are ampless on stage, the sound guy doesn't know the difference between a guitar and a bass. And...oh, you get the picture...
I can't control how it sounds in the FOH, but at least I can be happy with my sound onstage!
I can't control how it sounds in the FOH, but at least I can be happy with my sound onstage!
Wow, I just listened to that song, and the bass is freaking excellent! They really compressed the track for his vocal, though.Speaking of bass bleeding thought the mics. About the Gov't Mule Live At Roseland Ballroom recording:
Warren Haynes - It's a very cool record, the reason we decided to put it out was because it was a very concise picture of what Gov't Mule was doing at the time, it was only sixty minutes long but it was well performed. We felt like we walked off stage feeling like we had played a good show and it happened to be on tape and we were at a point in our career where we felt like it was important to put something live out so we decided to that.
There's an interesting story behind the bass sound on that record though. When Michael Barbiero and myself went in to mix that record, when we pulled up the fader for the DI on the bass it was too distorted, there was digital distortion and we couldn't use the direct sound so we were using what we thought was just the close mic on the bass speaker and we eventually discovered that it wasn't the close mic on the bass speaker it was Allen Woody's vocal mic, that the close mic on the bass speaker didn't make it to tape at all so the only bass sound that we were able to salvage for that record was Woody's vocal mic and we happened to be set up very tightly because we were the opening act and so his vocal mic was very close to his amp and picking up a lot of the sound and of course his amp was so loud there was tons of it in the vocal. That's the only way we could make that record work because there was no bass channels so to speak and we didn't discover that until we were actually listening to Don't Step On the Grass Sam where Woody was singing background and all of a sudden this voice comes in very loud and we're like oh my god this is the vocal mic, this is Woody's vocal mic so Michael just EQ'd it in a way and compressed it very heavily so when the vocal came in it wasn't disturbingly loud and that's the bass sound for that record and people to this day go how did you guys get such a great bass sound on that record. There's no DI and no close mic it's mic'd from about six feet way
FlyGuitars - That's really quite impressive. Maybe I'll try micing from a bit further away.
Warren Haynes - Well it's a little more old school but when you think back to a lot of the early rock bass sounds that we were talking about that's the way they mic'd the bass from a little further away than people would mic it these days so it had more air around it, more ambiance around it and in a trio once again you can hear that ambiance because there's so much space there
Warren Haynes on Allen Woody Part 3 - Live with Gov't Mule
View attachment 3602390
EDIT: I'll bet you anything that the reason the close mic didn't make it to tape was they shut off the bass in the PA. Roseland holds 3200 max, and a couple SVT's at that volume don't need to go through the PA. So he probably remembered to send the DI to tape and forgot to send the mic.
Personally, I'd have recut it and lied about it
Great massive sound, and I'd try to duplicate it, but with a bit more bottom. He probably used a 58 to sing, and they do roll off bottom, especially at long distances.
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Real Simple:
Guitar players are still jamming through half or full stacks and drummers are still playing acoustic drums.
BTW, I've played ampless and with an amp in the same venue, and much preferred the amp, rather than without it
Guitar players are still jamming through half or full stacks and drummers are still playing acoustic drums.
BTW, I've played ampless and with an amp in the same venue, and much preferred the amp, rather than without it
