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Why have a nice rig just to be run direct?
- Thread starter mancefine
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So you think I'm either lying or deluding myself?
As for the sound of a P or J. ... by themselves direct? No, I don't like that at all, I think it's boring.
Through a screaming tube amp? Sure, that can sound bad-ass.
I actually kind of find it funny that you think that there is some magical tone that EVERYONE likes and agrees is awesome. Thats completely ridiculous.
I meant sharing your gear with other musicians at the same time, like two guitarists in one amp or a bassist and guitarist in one amp.
- Feb 8, 2005
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- Endorsing Artist: Bag End - Dean Markley - Thunderfunk
I think the problem here is that the "pure" tone of any bass (in your example, a Jazz bass) is a myth. It does not exist, it's sound by definition is an artificial and arbitrary creation. What is that pure sound you are talking about? A Jazz straight to a DI?
OK, how about with flats then? Or muted with foam? Or both? Or played with a pick? Slapped? Played really hard or really soft? With single coils or humbuckers? Tone control engaged? How much? Pickups soloed? All of those sounds are very different and this is without even really getting into electronics much beyond simple passive circuits.
So, all of those very different tones...they are ALL a "pure" Jazz tone as long as it is straight to a DI? If the answer is yes, then I submit that notion is so broad that it defeats itself in trying to be pure to anything...pure compared to what exactly?
If the answer is no, then again what makes one of those pure and the other not? And who decides that, public opinion? Then when tastes change, they're not pure anymore? Which was the pure tone then? You can see the whole idea is endless and unanswerable.
The problem (as I see it) is that some folks see the electric bass as essentially an acoustic instrument and the function of the electronics is just to amplify that acoustic tone and make it louder. However if the acoustic tone of the instrument is really what you're trying to capture, then magnetic pickups are a very poor way to go about it. Very few true acoustic basses (for example) would use a P style split pickup as its only tone source for this very reason. So again, this "pure" tone doesn't really exist in any meaningful way.
OTOH if you accept it as fundamentally an electric instrument, then here really is no line. It's all electronics, be it pickups, preamps, EQ, pedals, FX or anything else. It's all electronics. Now maybe you like some tones better than others, but they are all equally legitimate, all equally pure or impure, depending on how you look at things.
But in the end, these are just opinions. There are no bad bass tones or good ones. Popular ones, sure. Ones you like or don't, of course. But none of this changes the fact that it's still just opinions.
No what? That makes no difference to the question at hand, which is how do we get our tone expressed in foh.
Nonsense. You can't say we're in agreement and then say we should all be happy to hear naked DI eq'd for us, or we're not real bass players.You're still demonstrating my point. You just don't agree with it.
The notion that everyone has to like the same sound to be called a bass player is ridiculous.
You need to think again on this one.
You need to think again on this one.
I have a VERY, VERY similar question that's nagged me for quite some time.......... Ready? Here goes: Why have a nice, top o' the line bass, just to be played at home? Definitely, both questions are very, very similar. Agreed?? Of course!! I mean, all that high-end gear, and nowhere to play it, besides your specialized, NASA-Approved, germ free playing area......... Really?
Shoot......... I'd be raggin' that gear out..... Real hard. Like a one-night stand, Jack!!
Shoot......... I'd be raggin' that gear out..... Real hard. Like a one-night stand, Jack!!
I have a VERY, VERY similar question that's nagged me for quite some time.......... Ready? Here goes: Why have a nice, top o' the line bass, just to be played at home? Definitely, both questions are very, very similar. Agreed?? Of course!! I mean, all that high-end gear, and nowhere to play it, besides your specialized, NASA-Approved, germ free playing area......... Really?
I only ever play at home, if I could afford to I'd totally have a top of the line bass that I only play at home.
That is really frustrating. I've encountered those soundguys, too. It's so irritating.
+1
It's not that I think a clean DI can't sound good. Obviously it can. But lots of bass tones can sound good, and still not work that well in a specific band context.
The sound I use in my folk rock stuff might sound okay for my metal bands, but it doesn't sound as good as the sounds I actually use with my metal bands.
Similarly, the sounds I use for my various metal bands sound great in the context of those bands, but would sound weird as hell in my folk stuff.
This thread has become interesting. While I find the idea silly that you have to like a dry Jazz or Precision tone to be a real bass player, Eublet's advice about learning what a "good" bass tone sounds like is rather spot-on. Yes, tone is subjective and there's a wide palette to choose from. However, certain tones are going to objectively affect the fidelity of the mix in positive, negative, and neutral ways. Certain tones may create problems that are largely undesirable, such a boominess, muddiness, or frequency masking. They may sound thin. You may get second order harmonic rolls.
These are things that I think both most bass players and sound engineers want to avoid. Giving an engineer a tone that has articulation and avoids a lot of these problems is only a good thing. A good sound engineer can sculpt and slot your bass tone in the context of the mix and the frequency curves of the PA, but they can't take a magic wand to turn piss into wine. With that said, I generally find the average DI box to be lifeless and somewhat thin sounding in the highs. It's usually pretty easy to get something that "works" pretty quickly from a DI, but it's almost always vanilla sounding.
These are things that I think both most bass players and sound engineers want to avoid. Giving an engineer a tone that has articulation and avoids a lot of these problems is only a good thing. A good sound engineer can sculpt and slot your bass tone in the context of the mix and the frequency curves of the PA, but they can't take a magic wand to turn piss into wine. With that said, I generally find the average DI box to be lifeless and somewhat thin sounding in the highs. It's usually pretty easy to get something that "works" pretty quickly from a DI, but it's almost always vanilla sounding.
That is NOT what I am saying. If it's coming across that way, then I probably botched it. What I am saying is that sometimes it can be near impossible to get that great tone/character we want into the house mix. From there, it can cause us to really be distracted on the gig if we aren't careful. Sometimes you just gotta roll with the situation.
The comment I was making about liking a plain ol' jazz or precision tone was more of a segway comment really. You are reading too much into it, which is my fault for even throwing it in there to begin with.
Again, that's not what I meant. Nor did I mean there is one singular perfect tone that everyone has to agree upon. If it's coming across that way, then it is my fault. Sorry for the derail. All I mean is that playing most any instrument into a PA requires some degree of flexibility in how the tone comes across, and some instruments are more difficult than others. For bass, it can be much easier to get a more pure, unaffected signal to work than an extremely wet signal that has a lot of effects. Learning to like a more pure bass tone can help one be more happy with those situations. That's really the thrust of what I was saying. I never said it needs to be someone's goal, or that a person can't have their own identity in their tone.
I could not disagree more.
Like the vast majority of bass players, I'm not doing national tours with pro grade sound systems. I'm yet to find a provided system on the local level that has a spare parametric to assign to the bass guitar channel. So how is the system operator, with his 3 or 4 knobs, better able to EQ my bass than I am with the 6 bands (4 of which are semi-parametric) in my amp?
It's my job to make my bass guitar "fit the mix" with the other instruments. It's the system operator's job to make the entire system "fit the room".
If what I'm sending to the board doesn't "fit" with just minor tweaks at the board, we need to talk because one of three things is happening:
Room anomalies are causing me to hear something different than the operator is.
The system isn't set up properly.
The operator and I have very different concepts of what my "sound" should be.
It has never been impossible for me as long as the soundman and I are on the same page.
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