Why have a nice rig just to be run direct?

[Oobly]

This is yet another reason to use a modern 3 way cab and power amp.

You shape your tone completely BEFORE it gets to the power amp and cab.

That way your amp and cab do the same job as the FOH rig and you'll have the same tone through both (assuming the sound engineer does his job alright and you have a clean DI signal from your preamp setup).

Also, your rig can act as a backup PA if needed.

Plus it takes one more variable out of the equation to "find your tone", making it a little easier to get there.

 

[SteveC]

The way I look at at it, it's my job to construct a good tone and it is the sound tech's job to work it into the room. This may also mean that I have to change a few settings here and there because at the end of the day, the sound tech should know the room better than me.

Pretty we'll said.

 

[JimmyM]

They way I look at at it, it's my job to construct a good tone and it is the sound tech's job to work it into the room.

Agreed. But here's the rub...what if I consider what comes out of my cabinet the most important element of constructing my sound? Just because you don't doesn't mean that someone who does has created a less valid sound than yours.

 

[monkeyfinger]

Again, I think the issue is being flexible. If the cabinet is really a big part of your sound, then spend some time trying to figure out how to get as close as possible to your sound without it. Because there will be situations where you will not be able to mic and you need to know how to produce a sound you can live with.

Additionally, forget about having complete control over your sound. It's just not going to happen. Every room is different, every mixing board, every signal processor, and every P.A. stack. Every engineer is different. The best we can do is have a flexible approach to reproducing the sound in our heads and be willing to live with some compromise.

Agreed. But here's the rub...what if I consider what comes out of my cabinet the most important element of constructing my sound? Just because you don't doesn't mean that someone who does has created a less valid sound than yours.

 

[seamonkey]

This is yet another reason to use a modern 3 way cab and power amp.

You shape your tone completely BEFORE it gets to the power amp and cab.

That way your amp and cab do the same job as the FOH rig and you'll have the same tone through both (assuming the sound engineer does his job alright and you have a clean DI signal from your preamp setup).

Also, your rig can act as a backup PA if needed.

Plus it takes one more variable out of the equation to "find your tone", making it a little easier to get there.

+1 - that's it
Shape your tone completely before it gets to the amp and cab.

For playback of recorded media. It's always been better to have the best sound on the media - sent as straight as through as possible to the amp and speakers. It's the same principle. If you got a good sounding signal, you can amplify it through transparent amps and speakers - at any volume level.
Including recording it to modern media.

Some may deny it, but complete shaping of the tone from signal processing is here now, and been here for a while.

 

[monkeyfinger]

Yeah, that is pretty extreme action on the part of the soundman. Was that the band's soundman?

 

[bigchiefbc]

This is yet another reason to use a modern 3 way cab and power amp.

You shape your tone completely BEFORE it gets to the power amp and cab.

That way your amp and cab do the same job as the FOH rig and you'll have the same tone through both (assuming the sound engineer does his job alright and you have a clean DI signal from your preamp setup).

Also, your rig can act as a backup PA if needed.

Plus it takes one more variable out of the equation to "find your tone", making it a little easier to get there.

Believe me, I've tried. I've probably gone through 25 overdrive pedals (including almost all of the "holy grail" overdrives) trying to get the dirty sound I want. I couldn't find it until I tried an overdriven tube power section.

 

[JimmyM]

Again, I think the issue is being flexible. If the cabinet is really a big part of your sound, then spend some time trying to figure out how to get as close as possible to your sound without it. Because there will be situations where you will not be able to mic and you need to know how to produce a sound you can live with.

Trust me...I don't lug a $750 10 lb. DI with me through airports for my health! I learned this lesson the hard way after 3 years of fighting occasionally with soundmen over their refusal to use the excellent bass cab mic I always brought. Even when I brought it and a stand and made it totally easy for them by having a great amplified sound, they would argue. And every single one of them sucked as a soundman (and yes, I go out in the audience and listen pretty often).

Additionally, forget about having complete control over your sound. It's just not going to happen. Every room is different, every mixing board, every signal processor, and every P.A. stack. Every engineer is different. The best we can do is have a flexible approach to reproducing the sound in our heads and be willing to live with some compromise.

I don't necessarily want total control over my sound, but I sure as heck don't want them to cut the nuts out of my sound, either. I've had soundmen try to make me ditch my mic, I've had them want me to bypass my pedals, I've even had them want me to plug my REDDI into their own crap DI, thus totally defeating the purpose of bringing a REDDI.

But I will say it's still a DI world for bassists, and doggone right you need to have your sound together before it hits your amp, and it's a damn shame, too. Who decided that bass players shouldn't have a voice in how they're sent to the PA?

 

[dougjwray]

Having your sound together before it goes to the DI sounds logical, but it also helps to have a little experience. For example, if you don't know what the sound guy is going to have to do to your sound to make you audible in a cavernous space, you can sabotage yourself by sending him something which he can't FIX. Understand the space you're performing in, and what the sound guy's job is.

 

[kohntarkosz]

This is a very interesting discussion, and it has raised some points I have been thinking about for a while. One of the reasons I bought 112 cabs is so that I could break down my rig to be smaller, and run DI and then have the cab as a monitor.

When I used to gig (which I fully plan to get back into), I was always told by sound engineers that they wanted a solid DI feed rather than mic up any bass amps onstage. This is a sentiment echoed many times here. This is great if you love a bone-clean bass tone I suppose. However, if you are used to running a bit of grit, or you use a lot of distortion or fuzz, it will sound terrible on a DI feed. The sound engineer will whine about having to dial back the treble. Why? Because he isn't using a cab sim. I don't know why cab sims are not a standard bit of gear. One of the cheapest, lowliest Behringer DI boxes comes with a 412 sim built in. Why do guitarists get this privilege, but the bassist has to reinvent their entire tone to suit soundmen? If you turn up with an expensive Palmer speaker sim, what are the odds that your soundman will prefer to use some no-name black DI box covered in gaffa tape?

Maybe this represents a weakness in understanding bass tone, or a weakness in a venue's sound system. Distortion and overdrive was chased out of bass tones for the longest time, but that was back in the '80s!

 

[aborgman]

But still he has to do a good job or he's not gonna get paid by ANYONE anymore. His choice.

Sometimes he has to do a good job on the headliner, and an intentionally bad job on the opening acts - or he doesn't get paid by the headliner.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

Sometimes he has to do a good job on the headliner, and an intentionally bad job on the opening acts - or he doesn't get paid by the headliner.

I've been in this business a lotta years and I have never heard of a headliner requiring a soundman to mix below his capabilities. No soundman does an intentionally bad job on any mix...their mix is their calling card. The headliner might hold back equipment (amp volume, outboard gear etc) but the vast majority of techs will bend over backwards do the best mix they are capable of with the equipment available.

 

[Vintagefiend]

This is yet another reason to use a modern 3 way cab and power amp.

You shape your tone completely BEFORE it gets to the power amp and cab.

but...part of my tone comes from the way the amp interacts with the cab.

that's why I prefer to be mic'ed.

 

[Vintagefiend]

Agreed. But here's the rub...what if I consider what comes out of my cabinet the most important element of constructing my sound? Just because you don't doesn't mean that someone who does has created a less valid sound than yours.

yeah

 

[aborgman]

I've been in this business a lotta years and I have never heard of a headliner requiring a soundman to mix below his capabilities.

Intentionally lowering the volume of opening acts vs. the headliner for reasons completely unrelated to equipment are quite common examples of exactly that.

 

[eyeballkid]

+1
Also, I can think of a couple big name venues that ALWAYS give the opening bands a sub par mix and make the headliner sound incredible. It's quite annoying to go see a great opening band that sounds stellar anywhere else sound like crap so they don't upstage the "name" band.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

Intentionally lowering the volume of opening acts vs. the headliner for reasons completely unrelated to equipment are quite common examples of exactly that.

No, that's playing quieter that the headliner and it's extremely common. A competent audio tech can still do a good mix with the amps at 80%. Your exact words were," an intentionally bad job on the opening acts" and that simply doesn't happen often enough to even comment on. I worked at a well established 1000 seat road house for a few years as the house lighting guy. When the headliner would hold lights back I used to take great pleasure in doing a killer show for the opener with half the rig. Like so many things you've said in the past what you're saying here is really close but when your direct experience falls short you go just a little too far with your assumption and it becomes total BS. The tech community is small, good gigs are hard to get and no one intentionally does bad work.

 

[Vintagefiend]

No, that's playing quieter that the headliner and it's extremely common. A competent audio tech can still do a good mix with the amps at 80%. Your exact words were," an intentionally bad job on the opening acts" and that simply doesn't happen often enough to even comment on. I worked at a well established 1000 seat road house for a few years as the house lighting guy. When the headliner would hold lights back I used to take great pleasure in doing a killer show for the opener with half the rig. Like so many things you've said in the past what you're saying here is really close but when your direct experience falls short you go just a little too far with your assumption and it becomes total BS. The tech community is small, good gigs are hard to get and no one intentionally does bad work.

all true.

 

[aborgman]

No, that's playing quieter that the headliner and it's extremely common. A competent audio tech can still do a good mix with the amps at 80%. Your exact words were," an intentionally bad job on the opening acts" and that simply doesn't happen often enough to even comment on.

I think you'd be suprised how often it happens in certain places.

I worked at a well established 1000 seat road house for a few years as the house lighting guy.

At that level, I doubt it happens much. A few levels below that - it can be a different story.

The tech community is small, good gigs are hard to get and no one intentionally does bad work.

These aren't good gigs, they probably aren't that hard to get, and yes - some of them intentionally do bad work.

 

[JimmyM]

The only time I ever saw it happen at a pro level show was The Police in Lakeland FL in 1980. The opening band was a local band called Zenith/Nadir, and those guys got the absolute worst mix I ever heard at a big time rock show. I had seen them a few weeks before at a club, and while they weren't the greatest band in the world, they weren't THAT bad. A total screwjob if I ever heard one.

The next worst was Firefall at a stadium show with Heart, Cheap Trick, Blue Oyster Cult, and UFO. UFO was the opener and they sounded great. But Firefall was next and had a really low stage volume and probably didn't get much of a soundcheck, and I expect the soundman expected more SPL's out of their stage gear because it sounded like he was geared up for UFO still. Took him half the set before the sound was even decent. I believe that wasn't so much of a screwjob as it was just ill-preparedness all around. But the Police thing was a definite screwjob, no doubt in my mind.