I have ran mic'ed and DI'ed many times. Both can be acceptable. What is not acceptable is poor mixing. I think the higher you go up the food chain the more likely you are to be able insist on having things your way, nevertheless, I cannot imagine ever employing an engineer more than once if he refuses to work with me.
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Why have a nice rig just to be run direct?
- Thread starter mancefine
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+1
It drives me crazy when someone in the band doesn't give full effort because it's only a dive bar. I strive to reach the standards I set for myself. Not that I don't enjoy compliments, but I'm only really happy on the rare occasions I reach those standards.
No mic on my bass rig for me, always a DI from the amp. Even done a gig with only my Peavey Alpha bass tube preamp direct to the board (no head/cab) and it sounded really good for me and the audience.
Anybody having experience using a line6 bass pod XT pro direct to PA? Might be better than a DI only (you can even take the unaltered out to your rig if you like). I'm using POD Farm on my laptop for practicing with IEM and it sounds fantastic but wondering how it will sound in a PA.
Anybody having experience using a line6 bass pod XT pro direct to PA? Might be better than a DI only (you can even take the unaltered out to your rig if you like). I'm using POD Farm on my laptop for practicing with IEM and it sounds fantastic but wondering how it will sound in a PA.
If I knew that I'd be running direct for 100% of my gigs, I would be first in line to ditch my amps.
For me, the thought of walking into a club with nothing but a bass and a DI is right up there with licking honey off of Jennifer Aniston's tummy.
Well, maybe not quite that far up there, but neither of those things is likely to happen to me.
For me, the thought of walking into a club with nothing but a bass and a DI is right up there with licking honey off of Jennifer Aniston's tummy.
Well, maybe not quite that far up there, but neither of those things is likely to happen to me.
I felt like I was the only one with that philosophy in my previous band, and that applied to any and all the gigs we did (the rest of them were seriously rank amateurs). :scowl:
Maybe that's why I am no longer in that band!
The interesting point here is that a lot of amps, like my GK MB Fusion, aren't much larger than a DI anymore. Even if I didn't need the cabinets, I might still take the GK to gigs as a preamp.
- Feb 8, 2005
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- Endorsing Artist: Bag End - Dean Markley - Thunderfunk
+1.
I have never understood this mindset. So, I should only concern myself with what the audience will notice? That REALLY makes thing easier. I needn't worry much about note choice, feel, phrasing, intonation or a whole whose of issues.
I mean, if the audience noticing is the benchmark, why worry about ANY of the things the audience won't notice? Seriously, why discriminate?
I felt like I was the only one with that philosophy in my previous band, and that applied to any and all the gigs we did (the rest of them were seriously rank amateurs). :scowl:
Maybe that's why I am no longer in that band!
Seems like some people always have an excuse why THIS gig isn't important.
I agree. And fortunately for me, my only gig is at church where we all go DI /IEM. LOVE IT!
I keep a small combo for practice at home and the occasional fill in with a jazz trio or quartet around town.
I have all my stuff on a pedal train Nano. DI, tuner, IEM. Couldn't be easier or happier. But now I'm debating messing the small and simple up with a REDDI.
LOL
To the original poster, my "nice rig" is my monitor when there is FOH support. The better I hear myself (tone and volume) the better I will play. I have no control over the FOH so I don't try. Having as flat of a rig as I can gets me close to what the FOH should be hearing as well so when I make adjustments on my bass that is also effecting FOH, I have a better chance at making the right decision. Slightly off topic, but that's why I tend to make only cut adjustments and not boost adjustments on my bass when running to FOH for fear of clipping their channel which will result in the immediate reaction of getting turned down in the mix. It's had playing when you don't know the sound guy. You really are at their mercy. I go back to my first comment, I have no FOH control so having a nice rig on stage with me, I can at least sound good to me (at a minimum) and "hope" that I sound good out of the FOH.
The few larger stages I've played on, the stage monitors and side fills were so massive, the tone was mighty impressive where my good rig quickly became obsolete. I honestly didn't need it. Pretty hard to compete with a full FOH and Stage mix when done properly. What was nice about this is I knew exactly what I sounded like out FOH. Took all the guess work out of it.
You've played a few gigs; truer words never spoken. It's one of the reasons I do almost nothing to my tone in the middle of a song or set, and also why both of the basses Pete built for me are passive.
Our 6 & 7 string counterparts on the guitar are slowly but surely wising up to the idea of running digital preamp systems with cabinet emulation into full range cabinets which closely approximate the sound of a mic'd cabinet (but via DI feed) being sent to FOH and monitors. Kemper, AxeFx, Line 6 and other modelers are creeping their way on stage with more regularity. Obviously, guitarists that employ cabinet emulations in their rigs have realized the benefits of taking the time to go this route: speed and ease of setup; less gear (no mics); consistency of tone from gig to gig; smaller footprint/weight cabinets - or NO cabinets utilizing stage monitors only; flexibility of tones from different emulated guitar cabinet/mic/mic pre combinations; etc.
A key component in executing this method is the cabinet emulation (IR). It is a technology that is coming of age and being refined almost daily. So, when we say we would like to be treated like guitarists who customarily receive a mic without hesitation, do not discount the many guitarists who now are bucking the "mic" trend by asking for only a DI or mic cable (out of their digital preamp)....sort of the same problem bassists face, but in reverse, with sound techs giving them grief for not wanting to mic their cabinet.
In the end, I see the refining of DI via cabinet emulation as the ultimate solution that can satisfy the needs of all parties, and is sonically virtually indistinguishable from a traditionally "mic'd" cabinet. It's already done successfully, and by some pretty high level talent. IMO, just a matter of time before it becomes a widely embraced standard practice for both guitarists and bassists. Time will tell.
A key component in executing this method is the cabinet emulation (IR). It is a technology that is coming of age and being refined almost daily. So, when we say we would like to be treated like guitarists who customarily receive a mic without hesitation, do not discount the many guitarists who now are bucking the "mic" trend by asking for only a DI or mic cable (out of their digital preamp)....sort of the same problem bassists face, but in reverse, with sound techs giving them grief for not wanting to mic their cabinet.
In the end, I see the refining of DI via cabinet emulation as the ultimate solution that can satisfy the needs of all parties, and is sonically virtually indistinguishable from a traditionally "mic'd" cabinet. It's already done successfully, and by some pretty high level talent. IMO, just a matter of time before it becomes a widely embraced standard practice for both guitarists and bassists. Time will tell.
I've been running the same way live for years. Sans amp RBI xlr to foh, my swr750 powering a non ported classic cab. It's actually kinda funny how i got into sans amps because it relates to the OPs story. There is one venue we play about a hundred miles away where the sound guy insisted on running all the bass players direct with a di before my amp. I was livid at first, but after the show i got many compliments on my tone, i asked the sound guy what the deal was because no one sounded like they were running direct and as it turned out he had a sans amp BDDI back at the board. I went out and got the sans amp RBI and next time i went back he was perfectly fine taking the xlr off the RBI. Its one thing for the sound guy to have a bass pre back at the board and it's another to have absolutely no signal processing on the bass. No matter how my rig is run to the PA if it sounds bad i focus less on sounding good and more on putting on a good show and having good stage presence , if the sound is flat out terrible we don't go back to that venue.
As for cabs turning into stage monitors, that is the case for me 90% of the time. It's pretty rare that i mic a cab because if i can only have one or the other i choose the full range xlr. Over the years i tried a bunch of different cabs and ended up favoring the non ported ampeg 810e and 410he cabs because they give me what i need to hear onstage instead of trying to do the job of the PA like a lot of more expensive cabs do. I've read like a hundred comments on talkbass about guys arguing over which cabs are better but really from my experience cabs with big frequency ranges disappear in the mix on stage because if your cabs reproducing frequencies below 40hz and you can hear any bleed from the pa onstage it turns into a mudfest. Mic wise i prefer a mic that compliments my xlr tone as i only use a mic along with an xlr. Usually a non-beta shure 58 vocal mic.
As for cabs turning into stage monitors, that is the case for me 90% of the time. It's pretty rare that i mic a cab because if i can only have one or the other i choose the full range xlr. Over the years i tried a bunch of different cabs and ended up favoring the non ported ampeg 810e and 410he cabs because they give me what i need to hear onstage instead of trying to do the job of the PA like a lot of more expensive cabs do. I've read like a hundred comments on talkbass about guys arguing over which cabs are better but really from my experience cabs with big frequency ranges disappear in the mix on stage because if your cabs reproducing frequencies below 40hz and you can hear any bleed from the pa onstage it turns into a mudfest. Mic wise i prefer a mic that compliments my xlr tone as i only use a mic along with an xlr. Usually a non-beta shure 58 vocal mic.
First, I think this topic needs stickied, because it seems like there is a new "If you have FOH support, doesn't your rig become a monitor?" thread every month.
With that said...
...I think this bears repeating. I've dealt with crappy sound guys too, but they've been few and far between. Most of them have been the guys who bought some beat up Peavey SP-2s and subs, thinking they can start their own production companies.
The vast majority of sound people I've worked with have been competent and cordial. I always have to take the conversations like the one in this thread with a grain of salt. There are a bazillion guitarists in this world with over-gained, scooped, processed, thin, crap tone. It's been my experience that guitarists don't have a monopoly on this. There are countless bass players with flabby, flat, steps-all-over-the-kick-and-rhythm-guitar, scooped tone as well. I'm not saying that anyone in particular in this thread has that tone, but statistically speaking, I'm sure many do. And it's not a tone that any sound engineer who takes their job seriously wants to deal with.
I'm not saying I'm some bass tone god or anything, but ninety-seven percent of sound engineers I've ever worked with have been pretty happy with what I send to their desks; and that's almost always a post-EQ signal. I try to give engineers a signal with the least amount of line-noise possible, with relatively fresh strings on my bass, and I'm not afraid of a little 2k in my sound to give some note definition. Also, I don't play with my amp all night. I make sure that an adequate volume is set during sound check, and then I only touch my amp to put in and take it out of standby between sets. If I use any effects that affect gain structure, I make sure that is set before the gig, not in the middle of a song. YMMV The only time I've ever ran into trouble when requesting a mic is if it's a house system and available mics are at a premium (which unfortunately sometimes happens when house systems are run by multiple engineers on different nights as pieces of gear have a tendency to get up and walk away sometimes
).
With that said...
...I think this bears repeating. I've dealt with crappy sound guys too, but they've been few and far between. Most of them have been the guys who bought some beat up Peavey SP-2s and subs, thinking they can start their own production companies.
The vast majority of sound people I've worked with have been competent and cordial. I always have to take the conversations like the one in this thread with a grain of salt. There are a bazillion guitarists in this world with over-gained, scooped, processed, thin, crap tone. It's been my experience that guitarists don't have a monopoly on this. There are countless bass players with flabby, flat, steps-all-over-the-kick-and-rhythm-guitar, scooped tone as well. I'm not saying that anyone in particular in this thread has that tone, but statistically speaking, I'm sure many do. And it's not a tone that any sound engineer who takes their job seriously wants to deal with.
I'm not saying I'm some bass tone god or anything, but ninety-seven percent of sound engineers I've ever worked with have been pretty happy with what I send to their desks; and that's almost always a post-EQ signal. I try to give engineers a signal with the least amount of line-noise possible, with relatively fresh strings on my bass, and I'm not afraid of a little 2k in my sound to give some note definition. Also, I don't play with my amp all night. I make sure that an adequate volume is set during sound check, and then I only touch my amp to put in and take it out of standby between sets. If I use any effects that affect gain structure, I make sure that is set before the gig, not in the middle of a song. YMMV The only time I've ever ran into trouble when requesting a mic is if it's a house system and available mics are at a premium (which unfortunately sometimes happens when house systems are run by multiple engineers on different nights as pieces of gear have a tendency to get up and walk away sometimes
).
You've taken polls?
Why buy a bass? Why practice? Heck, why even bother to show up if that's how you feel about it? You're just wasting space up there that could be used for another guitar player.
Underestimating their audiences is the number one biggest mistake that musicians make. I firmly believe that attitude is what keeps certain musicians from getting anywhere with their music. Audiences are way more savvy than many musicians want to give them credit. Some might not know the difference, but many do. And by now, everyone's heard music through a nice system and they can easily tell the difference between music played on a $50 boombox vs. a $5000 stereo. At my shows, I have many people either compliment or complain about the mix. And you know what? They're almost always right.
Sorry, but I find that attitude arrogant and self-defeating, and crappy bars that pay musicians nothing are absolutely full of musicians who feel that way, and they will never get past the level they're at because of it. It's not the audience's job to take your sound seriously...it's yours.
+1
I know I mentioned this a few weeks ago in my comparison thread of my 400+ and SVT-II, but I've had the opportunity to hear my friends play through my 400+ on multi-band bills while I was out in the audience. I know I'm biased, but that amp produces a sound in the FOH mix that you're just not going to get with some passive DI box - no way, no how. Is the audience going to be talking at their tables about that sweet Mesa sound? Probably not. But the sound that amp produces is going to greatly affect how the entire band sounds, and that is something the audience is going to notice.
I've been doing that; using my GK MB500 as the DI.
The only reason I have been bringing my cabs lately is because our drummer wants to have them so he can hear me better.
I think the best live tone I've ever had was when the soundguy gave me two channels. One direct and the other miked. Sounded excellent out front.
Why have a nice rig just to be run direct?
I fought this fight with many soundmen. More often than not, I was wrong. I know that now.
Soundmen in small bars/clubs are not generally 'living the dream'. They are making crap for money, usually have crap gear to work with, and they have to deal with crappy little kids to cranky old farts that call themselves musicians and whine about how they want 'their tone' to come thru to the crowd. All this guy wants is for the night to be over.
I've seen guys come in, set the board for the first band and not touch anything but the volume for the rest of the night.
Other guys constantly fiddle with every little thing and get really pissed when someone touches a knob on their amp or god forbid the instrument.
We as bass players seem to get the shaft when it comes to sound setup. I've had soundmen spend quite a bit of time getting drums and guitar and even vocals setup just so. Then comes the voice "Ok, let me hear some bass..." Pluck one open note and the voice cuts in immediately "Ok, sounds good, but can you turn your amp down a bit?" or you get the really cranky soundman who stalks up to you with his cable in his hand and says "Here, plug this in and turn that <pointing at your amp> down!"
I fought this fight with many soundmen. More often than not, I was wrong. I know that now.
Soundmen in small bars/clubs are not generally 'living the dream'. They are making crap for money, usually have crap gear to work with, and they have to deal with crappy little kids to cranky old farts that call themselves musicians and whine about how they want 'their tone' to come thru to the crowd. All this guy wants is for the night to be over.
I've seen guys come in, set the board for the first band and not touch anything but the volume for the rest of the night.
Other guys constantly fiddle with every little thing and get really pissed when someone touches a knob on their amp or god forbid the instrument.
We as bass players seem to get the shaft when it comes to sound setup. I've had soundmen spend quite a bit of time getting drums and guitar and even vocals setup just so. Then comes the voice "Ok, let me hear some bass..." Pluck one open note and the voice cuts in immediately "Ok, sounds good, but can you turn your amp down a bit?" or you get the really cranky soundman who stalks up to you with his cable in his hand and says "Here, plug this in and turn that <pointing at your amp> down!"
From what I gather, at the lower end of the vaguely successful foodchain most of us have plenty of rig to cover the room for volume but not very good dispersion. If you want to gain the dispersion of the PA you have to lose the stage volume.
Still waiting for the "real sound guys" in this thread to give reasons for rejecting mic'ing. Being jaded about the potential of a cab sound isn't a good one.
Still waiting for the "real sound guys" in this thread to give reasons for rejecting mic'ing. Being jaded about the potential of a cab sound isn't a good one.
Great thread, and lots of real world advice/concern. I've been up against this lately, as I've been adjusting and eqing for my cab, but I'm having trouble telling what I sound like in the FOH. It seems best to find a cab that doesn't overly color or change tone, so it's at least a close representation of what the audience is getting out front. Seems logical, but still not sure I'm accomplishing it.
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