Why have a nice rig just to be run direct?

[karl_em_all]

Interesting...
In my experience, this translates as a rookie mistake: cornering the (legitimately) busy sound man and bothering him with your petty demands... and giving the signal that you don't trust him to see the big picture and mix the entire band well.
But congratulations if you've made this work for you.

Yep.

 

[SteveC]

We are all DI at church. No stage amps, electric drums, you name it. LOVE IT! Everyone sounds great. FOH mix is better than ever according to many in the congregation - even those who have an idea of what they are talking about. We all control our IEM mix with our phones. It's great.

I have never thought of the amp I use as a VITAL part of my sound. And really, with some exceptions, I sound like me no matter what gear I'm using. Thankfully(?) I tend to spend more time obsessing over which bass to use.

 

[Bulldawg82]

My experience with the "suck button" is that the soundguy will get the settings (from the sound check) for the main attraction and the band that "warms up" has to live with those settings (cuz he ain't changin' them). That doesn't always work out for the band playing first, but sometimes it does. I've noticed this from arena concerts to smaller concert halls.

 

[monkeyfinger]

With digital boards, this is no longer true. You set up the headliner and save the settings. Most modern boards will save the head amp gain settings too. In fact, touring acts now supply board settings on a thumb drive that they hand to the FOH and MON engineers.

 

[squeezer]

We're talking about big stages with only perhaps a wall for a boundary to colour the player's perception of the cab tone. Itty bitty stages with low ceilings need not apply for FOH support.

I have no problem believing Jimmy gets his cab sound coming out at FOH, simply by mic'ing his cab into a well tuned system with minimal extra eq required.

If you want to hear what the "cab tone" really is try sticking your ear right next to the cab front where the mic usually is; it's probably nothing like you're hearing on stage standing up, especially in the mid and treble where a lot of the "tone" comes from. That's what's going into the PA, not what you're hearing.

(if it is the same -- like Jimmy? -- you're probably an exception)

I'd say itty bitty stages with low ceilings are the case where you want the lowest volume on stage with *more* of the sound through FOH -- a loud bass (or guitar) cab at the back of such a stage is sitting in a little resonant box which usually makes the sound out front nasty and boomy and muddy.

Anyone who doesn't believe all this, go and set up a PA and a band in a real room like this and try it for yourself. If you're just speaking from experience of standing in front of a cabinet not mixing you really need to appreciate how the other half lives...

 

[Bulldawg82]

With digital boards, this is no longer true. You set up the headliner and save the settings. Most modern boards will save the head amp gain settings too. In fact, touring acts now supply board settings on a thumb drive that they hand to the FOH and MON engineers.

Yep. But, unfortunately, not every sound person is as savy on the latest technology or use of it. It is a pleasure when you find one though and he makes you sound good!

 

[rolandm]

Very true. Our monitor settings are always saved with the two sound companies we use, which is great. They can also recall venue settings for FOH, and provided we haven't changed anything too drastically, this is a huge time-saver in terms of dialing in sounds.

 

[squeezer]

Yep. But, unfortunately, not every sound person is as savy on the latest technology or use of it. It is a pleasure when you find one though and he makes you sound good!

I've played at festivals with separate digital desks and engineers for both FOH and foldback where the settings from soundcheck were supposedly saved, but both the on-stage sound (heard by us) and FOH (heard by the audience) during the gig were still rubbish. And another one where the sound (with a digital desk) was so bad out front I had to go and fix it at half-time so the audience could hear the vocals at all.

Used properly digital desks are great, but the complexity can just give more opportunity for a poor sound guy to get it wrong. In the end it's down to the ears of the man (or woman) behind the knobs, not the circuits underneath them ;-)

(no different to playing an instrument, no high-end bass will turn a bad player into a good one)

 

[monkeyfinger]

That is because you have 3-5 thousand bags of salt water standing between the speakers and the desks during the performance. That kind of changes things.

 

[Marcus Willett]

You Branson guys are a breath of fresh air. Marvelous Marvin says hi y'all.

Hey there! You guys doing the Sedona gig?

 

[rolandm]

(no different to playing an instrument, no high-end bass will turn a bad player into a good one)

Well thanks for bursting my bubble with that one! This means I actually have to practice, then, right?

 

[jj4001]

Heres a little story.

I play an old heavyish P with old flats fingerstyle and it has a beautiful thick mid rangey tone. We did an outdoor gig on a big stage couple of years back. Sound on stage coming out of my rig was just right, nice and thick with cut, I was di'd direct no mic.

When I watched a pro video of the show I was floored! and shocked. I sounded like I had the treble turned right up bass down and playing a set of brand new rounds.....it was incredibly clangy and thin.....sound guys huh? lol

I've had this same experience too many times. This is why I don't trust the DI and an unknown soundman.

 

[ThisBass]

I'd hate it to feel every time at every show like a potential warrior who fights a losing battle towards soundmen.
I'd probably do surrender and hang off from bass guitar playing instead of ruin myself.

 

[BurningSkies]

Recordings both video and audio (board or otherwise) are tough. You mix for the room, not for a tape, and video recorders have awful mics that distort easily and rob the lows. Most 'audience grade' mics and recorders are pretty much the same.

We do get recordings of our gigs, and I usually expect them to be light on bass and light on lows. I also as a conceit play very loud and in small rooms don't get a lot of support from the PA. That's fine with me. I sound great out front anyway (I know, I've gone FOH for sound check) and know that often times the house sound will use a tiny bit of reinforcement in the deep lows I tend to cut out then they'll 'bring the rest of the band up' around me. Of course, I've got a rig that's designed to be able to do that and when I'm outdoors or on large festival or theater shows, I bring my volume down and work with the house to a greater extent. The people in my band WANT me to be very loud on stage, the sound men pretty much get what I'm doing and I have good relationships with them. On gigs where I have a borrowed backline rig and low volume it usually impacts the performance because I'm not the only one unhappy with my lack of presence on stage, and soundmen don't like to put lows in their monitors besides the drum fill.

If you see me standing on the drum riser, you will know its because that's the only place I can hear myself effectively.

 

[squeezer]

That is because you have 3-5 thousand bags of salt water standing between the speakers and the desks during the performance. That kind of changes things.

Of course it does -- and an on-the-ball sound guy should be able to sort that out. Doesn't explain the on-stage mess, same number of water bags on stage as during sound check.

I assume they failed to either store or recall the setup correctly so we got a different one, and they wouldn't be told they'd got it wrong in spite of everyone in the band (6 separate foldback channels IIRC) telling them it was -- they were convinced the digital technology meant it was right, therefore all the musicians must be wrong.

Muppets.

 

[squeezer]

I'd hate it to feel every time at every show like a potential warrior who fights a losing battle towards soundmen.
I'd probably do surrender and hang off from bass guitar playing instead of ruin myself.

Me too. Unfortunately a lot of sound men aren't musicians and a lot of musicians don't understand PA, leading to such battles where nobody goes home happy.

Life would be a lot easier if more people understood the other guy's point of view ;-)

 

[lfmn16]

One of the reasons it might have been all trebly was because the bass player was too loud onstage. If all the soundman is hearing is a wall of mud he may have tried to add some definition with the board. If it was a board mix then what you would hear the most is what was being boosted on the channel strip.

That is possible. Or another reason could be that he's too lazy to do his job. Or he thinks thin and trebly are the way to go and doesn't care what the bass player thinks. Or he thinks he's a producer and will craft the sound without regard to what the band wants.

 

[MrDOS]

Life would be a lot easier if more people understood the other guy's point of view ;-)

I'd love to see how some of these folks who insist on using a mic would feel if they mixed 5 bands a night, 3 nights a week for a month.

It's also clear that there are a number of players here who need amp/effects/cab(s) to do their thing. The more soundguys who see that, the happier everyone will be.

Happy New Year!

 

[JimmyM]

I'd love to see how some of these folks who insist on using a mic would feel if they mixed 5 bands a night, 3 nights a week for a month.

I'm sure I'd feel exactly the same as I do now. Some bands need a bass cab mic, some bands don't.

 

[JimmyM]

That is possible. Or another reason could be that he's too lazy to do his job. Or he thinks thin and trebly are the way to go and doesn't care what the bass player thinks. Or he thinks he's a producer and will craft the sound without regard to what the band wants.

I flat-out reject the notion that your problem was caused by being too loud. I've played too loud before and the soundman had no problem at all getting the sound I like in the PA anyway. I've also not played very loud at all and had a problem getting the sound I like in the PA. Here's a for-instance...

On a cruise ship setting up for a show with Bowzer once. For those who are unfamiliar with Bowzer, you do not play loud on his shows or he will make you hate life. The guitarist goes out in the FOH to listen. He says to me, "The bass sounds like it's coming out of a transistor radio from the 60's." I go out and listen and he's right.

The soundman says, "It's been my experience that the bass players on here want a sound without a lot of low end but with bright treble and pushed high mids."

I said, "Well I'm not one of them. That's fine for jazz guys I suppose, but my sound is more about lows from about 60 hz up and low mids around 100-200 with not a lot of treble at all and just enough high mids to give a little definition." To his credit, he dialed it up that way and it sounded great.

So I do believe that in your case there was editorializing going on, and I seriously doubt it had anything to do with your volume level.