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Why have a nice rig just to be run direct?

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#381
electracoyote said:
Yes, your expensive rig turns into a glorified monitor when you have really loud PA support.

However, I have a post EQ option on my amp's DI, so whatever I dialed into the amp gets sent to the board. So all is not lost. Unless the sound guy tries to EQ my EQ, then it gets weird and messy. A good chat is in order.

P.S.--my sound engineers have been additionally mic'ing my cab a lot more these days than they used to, FWIW.
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I have this option as well on my GK 1001RB, a post/pre switch for my DI out the front. It's a great feature of the amp. Most places I go they seem to run the DI out of my amp and mic me at the same time. It seems to work out well. I have a preamp pedal on my board as well that I've ran the DI out on before but I figured if I did that it was indeed bypassing my amp n cab on stage. So I run my amps DI post EQ and I'm good to go and I still have my amp n cab sound. I'm happy.
 
#382
JimmyM said:
I'll point out that while Jamerson did record through the homebrew preamp in Motown Detroit, when they moved to LA, a lot of producers he worked with mic'ed his B-15. And he was on some very heavy records in LA, too.
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True, and that reinforces my point. His tone was colored, quite a bit.

Common sense and history tells us that as Leo was designing and prototyping his first electric bass, he was listening to it through an amp, and making tweaks based on that feedback. It was built, designed and it's electronics tweaked based on the assumption that it would be heard plugged into an amp with a speaker (and a tube amp at that).

It's an interesting thought how Leo might have built his first Precision if he had been plugging into a modern DI and a super clean HI FI rig. No doubt the original design would have been different.
 
#384
This isn't really a fight of mic or DI. I personally prefer a DI to a mic, but want MY DI...which isn't a basic passive or even work-a-day active unit. I'd rather have tone generated between my bass and preamp and a fairly neutral speaker setup to reproduce that on stage. That gives me a fairly good representation of what I'm sending to the board. I also find sending post EQ DI is way more effective for my situation, where if I send a full range unaltered signal to the board it is a 50/50 chance of full-on nightmare out front.
 
#385
NeonVomit said:
Yeah I've been thinking about getting a good mic to do the whole dual-input thing. Might go pick one up on Monday...
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If I might make two recommendations? I don't know what your budget is but id definitely consider trying the EV RE-20 if you want something that won't suffer from proximity effect so much, or the sennheiser MD-421 for a versatile large diaphragm dynamic microphone.

There are obviously a million other candidates as well but these are two of my go-to mics for low/medium attack sources in the low end spectrum, so I thought I'd share. I'm mic obsessed, so please do share your decision once you've made a purchase. :)
 
#386
My favorite mics for cabs are the RE20, Heil PR40 backed off the grill a couple inches, 421, Beyer M88 (a little bitey on the top but sounds good), and if you have a DI to cover the lows, even a 57 or 58 sounds really good on a cab.

Have not tried the AKG P2 yet, but it gets pretty rave reviews, its specs are right up a bass cab mic's alley and it's only $100.
 
#387
superHEAVYfunk said:
If I might make two recommendations? I don't know what your budget is but id definitely consider trying the EV RE-20 if you want something that won't suffer from proximity effect so much, or the sennheiser MD-421 for a versatile large diaphragm dynamic microphone.

There are obviously a million other candidates as well but these are two of my go-to mics for low/medium attack sources in the low end spectrum, so I thought I'd share. I'm mic obsessed, so please do share your decision once you've made a purchase. :)
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Thanks for the tips, I looked them up but those are somewhat out of my budget! I need something within the £60-80 range, so say maybe $130 tops. Any suggestions?
 
#389
JimmyM said:
My favorite mics for cabs are the RE20, Heil PR40 backed off the grill a couple inches, 421, Beyer M88 (a little bitey on the top but sounds good), and if you have a DI to cover the lows, even a 57 or 58 sounds really good on a cab.

Have not tried the AKG P2 yet, but it gets pretty rave reviews, its specs are right up a bass cab mic's alley and it's only $100.
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I have tried the P2 and it is a great, cheap mic.
 
#392
JimmyM said:
My favorite mics for cabs are the RE20, Heil PR40 backed off the grill a couple inches, 421, Beyer M88 (a little bitey on the top but sounds good), and if you have a DI to cover the lows, even a 57 or 58 sounds really good on a cab.

Have not tried the AKG P2 yet, but it gets pretty rave reviews, its specs are right up a bass cab mic's alley and it's only $100.
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SM-57/58 are like the P/J basses of mics. Everyone decent knows how to set 'em up. Usually I am relieved when I see the sound guy bring out a 57.
 
#394
BWB said:
Buy a quality mic. Bring it to gigs. QUALITY.

Disable the direct output on your amp, internally.

Do not allow your bass to be plugged into a DI box out to the house.

You are done.
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Next time you're in Coral Springs, FL, call me and I'll drive down and introduce you to the guy who sneaked a DI line on me while the band was having dinner.
 
#397
JimmyM said:
Next time you're in Coral Springs, FL, call me and I'll drive down and introduce you to the guy who sneaked a DI line on me while the band was having dinner.
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I got a reverse true story you might appreciate. A few years back, I was working at a theater where I was butting heads with a soundman that INSISTED that I use his POS DI. I kept trying to tell him the DI on my Thunderfunk was better, and that the input impedance (100K ohms) on his DI was too low for passive basses.

We went around and around, him insisting his junk was industry standard, that input impedance didn't matter, that I didn't know what I was talking about. He refused to budge and it got pretty ugly actually.

Eventually I just shrugged and took it back and we did a soundcheck. Bass sounded thin and wimpy, as i suspected it would be but he was happy. Before the show, I switched it to the post DI out on the Thunderfunk (not very professional I admit, but I'd had it with this idiot).

Shocker...he came up to me after the show, gave me this big thumbs up and says "Yeah man! See? Bass sounded killer". I resisted the urge to say anything, just nodding and letting it go.

About a week later of course, he comes up onstage during soundcheck and saw where the cable was connected. He had a fit about me lying to him, etc, etc. I pointed out that I never said I was going to use his DI, I just took it and walked away aaaaaaand that he himself had remarked how much better the tone was, and so what was the issue again....?

It was a truly glorious moment.
 
#400
I'm a pretty crappy player but I can't imagine why any bass player would be OK with trusting a sound engineer with shaping their sound. Do you play every song with the same effects? Do you not care whether the audience hears the effects that you think sound right for each song?

I can see sending a post-effect and/or post-amp signal to the board--you can always add cabinet simulation--but a completely dry signal? No.way. That's crazy.
 
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