As to the OP.... How do you define a "nice rig"? Do you want good tone? Do you want good volume? It is expensive to get both. Now you get can get a lower watage system but spend all your money in getting soemthing with amazing tone.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Why have a nice rig just to be run direct?
- Thread starter mancefine
- Start date
- Status
+1
The sound engineer's job is to make the band sound like themselves, but louder, and compensate for any weird acoustics the room has that might interfere with the mix.
Anything after that starts getting into the realm of producing.
And if a band's sound sucks, it sucks. It's not the soundguy's job to fix it. If it's the room making the sound suck, that's what the soundguy is supposed to correct.
the sound guy we have been using has a presonus 24.4.2
http://www.presonus.com/products/StudioLive-24.4.2
he knows how to use it and makes us sound great. he does it for the love of doing it and would do it for free if we didn't shove money in his pocket when we gig. his goal is to make us happy with how we sound in any room. if your sound man isn't like this guy find one who is as dedicated and treat him well like we do. i know these guys are very hard to find but they are out there. geeks if you will just itching to get involved and spend money on sound gear. he said we are the best band he has ever worked with for several reasons. we do a sound check to check our stage volume first with monitors only and no mains. he records us and then we all go out front and listen to it and tell him what we think and he makes it happen. yes it takes extra time to do and the house has to accept the fact that we need to do a good sound check or we don't play there. but all of the places we have played so far are very cooperative about this and it gives them a chance to walk around with a decibel meter while we do the final sound check. win win for all involved including people who live near by.
http://www.presonus.com/products/StudioLive-24.4.2
he knows how to use it and makes us sound great. he does it for the love of doing it and would do it for free if we didn't shove money in his pocket when we gig. his goal is to make us happy with how we sound in any room. if your sound man isn't like this guy find one who is as dedicated and treat him well like we do. i know these guys are very hard to find but they are out there. geeks if you will just itching to get involved and spend money on sound gear. he said we are the best band he has ever worked with for several reasons. we do a sound check to check our stage volume first with monitors only and no mains. he records us and then we all go out front and listen to it and tell him what we think and he makes it happen. yes it takes extra time to do and the house has to accept the fact that we need to do a good sound check or we don't play there. but all of the places we have played so far are very cooperative about this and it gives them a chance to walk around with a decibel meter while we do the final sound check. win win for all involved including people who live near by.
Any professional sound engineer is still virtuall guaranteed to compress and limit your bass signal individually before sending it to the mains. And it'll sound much better in the PA after he/she does that also. Just sayin'.
Any professional sound engineer is still virtuall guaranteed to compress and limit your bass signal individually before sending it to the mains. And it'll sound much better in the PA after he/she does that also. Just sayin'.
that is a sound man's job my friend. just don't change my tone and we will get along great and i make that very clear from the get go.
and ftr my sound guy usually doesn't even run me through the mains. SVT FTW!Agreed! I think most everyone here is on the same page in more ways than we differ. We all want to get the sound we hear in our head, both on the stage and out in the house. We don't want a sound guy to change that sound at all unless there's a really darn good reason, and the changes should be as minimal as possible.that is a sound man's job my friend. just don't change my tone and we will get along great and i make that very clear from the get go.
I think these kinds of discussions are fun, and for me at least they tend not to be huge issues ever.
Then again, I like a perfect, pure jazz bass tone that all soundmen love!
P.S. Just kidding here, tongue in cheek.
When I'm mixing sound, it's quite easy for a player to send me a tone that is completely unusable. This generally only happens with inexperienced musicians, though.
For instance, if I'm sent a very thin sound I can't do much to thicken it up at FOH, you can only boost the frequencies that are already in the signal. You can't add what isn't there.
If someone sends me a boomy, muddy sound with no articulation I can help alleviate it by cutting low end but I can't really give it any clarity beyond that.
Also if your cab is mic'd you can bet the sound guy is going to EQ that mic. If for no other reason than that mic does NOT have a flat response.
Always, for me. I run an overdriven head. This is why taking a DI off my bass is not a good plan.
i think all musicians should have at least a basic understanding of how a sound system works. for instance, we had a guitar player who would constantly turn up his guitar amp. that is a big no no as most of us know but he didn't and would not listen so we canned him. hated to do it because the guy was a natural at sounding heavy but oh well. i even let him borrow my wireless and stand out front during sound check and he seemed to "get it" but 10 minutes into the first set he was turning up and i could hear his guitar coming from his amp and his monitor from where i was in front of my bass amp. i think he was half deaf. yes, what a great world it would be if we all knew how a board operates and what works and what doesn't. it is one of the main reasons i got interested in learning how to mix live sound myself.
+1. Something that hasn't really been give a lot of attention here. Even in a studio where you can put a cabinet in an isolated room, mic it however you want, and then record it, it seldom ever sounds the same on playback the way it does when standing in front of it. Usually some bottom end growl and top end clarity is lost in the mic.
Sound reproduction of any sort is always a game of compromises IMHO. Add to it all that most any two human ear don't hear things the same and can have very different sensitivities to different frequencies, and then you realize how much your perfect tone that is EQ'ed just perfectly for your own enjoyment can be heard entirely different by someone else.
There's so much variation that I think you can drive yourself crazy worrying about it if you aren't careful.
+1. IME, if the guitar player thinks he isn't quite loud enough, then usually he's just right. If the bass player thinks he's just a little too loud, then he's probably just right also. Also, the drummer is always wrong no matter what he thinks.
the great thing about playing in bars and small clubs(which i absolutely enjoy doing) is that people will come up and tell you all night how great you sounded even when to you it sounded like garbage. even musicians including myself have done this. i saw a band once that sounded so tight and so damn good and complimented each of them seperately and they all said the same thing. " ithought we sounded like crap! we had an off night" lol. the moral...shut up and play and have fun. so it ain't perfect you say? worry about that in the studio.
+1. IME, if the guitar player thinks he isn't quite loud enough, then usually he's just right. If the bass player thinks he's just a little too loud, then he's probably just right also. Also, the drummer is always wrong no matter what he thinks.
and the singer doesn't count lol
- Status
