Worship Bass Pedalboards

[fauxtoe]

We solved our "lack of feel" with IEM's by putting an 18" Yamaha sub on the stage by the drummer and myself.
ButtKicker times 1,000. It really makes a difference. Drummer and I play a lot better now.

That's an idea our church I hope finally gets to. We just went from two venues down to one (for logistics purposes, not lack of congregation) and the PA is still in the process of migrating over. The biggest upgrade was getting working, and far more powerful subs for the FOH, as well as a dedicated monitor mixing board. It's almost scary how much bass there is now...and I never thought I'd say that. On stage though, it's still not enough to really get the feel aspect that everyone craves. I have a Bass Board and it takes care of that problem, but not for everyone else.

 

[scubaduba]

@tedsalt Sennheiser wireless > any one of many compressors (I do love the Effectrode though) > Xotic RC Bass booster > Shift-Line MKIII DI out to FOH.

 

[Valveman]

What NOS tubes are you using? I've tried vintage Mullards, Siemens silver plates, Bugle Boy, Telefunken, and RCA.

For the LA-1A: Two matched pair Toshiba 12AU7 (1961) and RCA 6201 in the 12AT7 socket.
For the TV-5A: Two matched pair Amperex Bugle Boy 12AU7 (1966) and a Raytheon 5814WA (1960).

 

[scubaduba]

@Valveman Cool. Do you feel it makes that much of a difference over the stock JJ's?

 

[Valveman]

@scubaduba I feel/hear they do. I did a lot of tube rolling when I had my Meatsmoke preamp pedal and there is an audible difference in every tube. I imagine the circuit design has plenty to do with it as well. Effectrode actually encourages trying different tubes and makes it easy to do so.

 

[jmbjandfam]

We solved our "lack of feel" with IEM's by putting an 18" Yamaha sub on the stage by the drummer and myself.
ButtKicker times 1,000. It really makes a difference. Drummer and I play a lot better now.

The additional "volume" and "frequency" pushed out by that 18" sub is what the BackBeat and ButtKicker are solving. Gives you the feel without the additional noise that a lot of the FOH guys want to avoid.

Hmmnnn..... at last count I think we have at least 8 subs (but not behind us) on our stage as part of our FOH so I can definitely feel them. Where are your subs for the FOH located?

 

[SteveC]

Hmmnnn..... at last count I think we have at least 8 subs (but not behind us) on our stage as part of our FOH so I can definitely feel them. Where are your subs for the FOH located?

They are on either side of us in the wall that frames the stage if that makes sense. We have 4 18’s but the FOH guy can’t push them or people get ticked.
That’s why we have the one on stage (it doesn’t look the best for our clean stage but....) so we can actually feel it.

 

[jmbjandfam]

They are on either side of us in the wall that frames the stage if that makes sense. We have 4 18’s but the FOH guy can’t push them or people get ticked.
That’s why we have the one on stage (it doesn’t look the best for our clean stage but....) so we can actually feel it.

Ok that makes sense. Ours are split on the outsides as well (just not into the wall like yours). I guess either we are able to run them hotter and / or I'm closer to them because normally I can feel them just fine.

 

[JKos]

Where are your subs for the FOH located?

Four 18s, two each on left and right in front of stage below stage level. Can't even tell they are on when on the stage. They are kept pretty low.

- John

 

[PraiseBassing]

To those with subs that are not arrayed together; if you’re not exactly in the middle between the two locations, you will experience various amounts of phase cancellations at certain frequencies based on the distance between arrays. Off center between 5-40 ft and you’ll get varying cancellation between 27-220hz.

This is also probably why the soundmen “can’t turn them up much” because the people who are in the multiple “hot zones” created by split arrays, have the opposite effect of the sound summing together and being twice as loud.

 

[projectapollo]

We run the house at 90dB peak, and often quieter. The Buttkickers vibrating is blatantly noticeable over the mains. It sounds like a ghetto blaster car is driving by rattling from the bass cannons. I haven’t been using mine due to this distraction I feel it causes the congregation.

Turn down the gain to the transducers so they vibrate more modestly?

 

[furym]

My contribution...
An American Standard P V into this. A little grind, a little fuzz, and little chorus.

 

[jacoby75]

My contribution...
An American Standard P V into this. A little grind, a little fuzz, and little chorus.

View attachment 3573738

Nuthin' but the classics. I like it.

 

[Dan Knowlton]

Old board:

New Board!

When I added in the pedals (Mission Engineering and Ernie Ball) the old rig was approaching 50 lbs! This new one (Pedaltrain Nano+) weighs in the 10 lb range! I still have a DOD expression pedal to add. I need to start working on the next bank of cc changes - I ONLY have 29 more to go from what you see here. Doing the controller was frustrating until I realized I need to change the preset to make sure that the switch on the Morningstar was working correctly. What can I say, I must be a midiot!

The HX Stomp is dead quiet and the presets and pedals are pretty realistic. I'm gonna have FUN!

Dan

 

[jacoby75]

Old board:
View attachment 3574830

New Board!
View attachment 3574832
When I added in the pedals (Mission Engineering and Ernie Ball) the old rig was approaching 50 lbs! This new one (Pedaltrain Nano+) weighs in the 10 lb range! I still have a DOD expression pedal to add. I need to start working on the next bank of cc changes - I ONLY have 29 more to go from what you see here. Doing the controller was frustrating until I realized I need to change the preset to make sure that the switch on the Morningstar was working correctly. What can I say, I must be a midiot!

The HX Stomp is dead quiet and the presets and pedals are pretty realistic. I'm gonna have FUN!

Dan

I keep debating trading it all in on a multi-effect unit, but every time I’ve tried one in the past I’ve been frustrated with dialing through menus and eventually decide to go back to pedals with actual knobs I can turn in real time. But I keep seeing this HX turn up around here.

 

[SteveC]

Old board:
View attachment 3574830

New Board!
View attachment 3574832
When I added in the pedals (Mission Engineering and Ernie Ball) the old rig was approaching 50 lbs! This new one (Pedaltrain Nano+) weighs in the 10 lb range! I still have a DOD expression pedal to add. I need to start working on the next bank of cc changes - I ONLY have 29 more to go from what you see here. Doing the controller was frustrating until I realized I need to change the preset to make sure that the switch on the Morningstar was working correctly. What can I say, I must be a midiot!

The HX Stomp is dead quiet and the presets and pedals are pretty realistic. I'm gonna have FUN!

Dan

I'm a little surprised to see you go from those "boutique" pedals to a Line 6. Not that Line 6 is bad but, it's definitely a different direction.

 

[Dan Knowlton]

I'm a little surprised to see you go from those "boutique" pedals to a Line 6. Not that Line 6 is bad but, it's definitely a different direction.

two big reasons -
1 The weight and size of the pedalboard made it difficult to lug around and, since people "hear" with their eyes, it was opposed by the sound guys and, to some extent, the Worship Leaders.
2 the quality of the sounds is as good as what I got with the analog pedals and it is VERY easy to tweak the existing sounds or create new ones.

Since I can't do an amp on stage I wanted an amp emulator in addition to the effects pedals - the combination of the VMT or VMTD and the OmniCabSim came close but dialing in something different for a song was difficult. Right now I am using the stock presets (with some tweaking) and a couple I got from the internet. Also, a third reason - I'm getting lazy in my old age and the light board is fantastic. And a fourth...I like fiddling with stuff and the Stomp is awesomely tweak-able (or, it works great with the built-in presets and effects).

Dan

 

[Dan Knowlton]

I keep debating trading it all in on a multi-effect unit, but every time I’ve tried one in the past I’ve been frustrated with dialing through menus and eventually decide to go back to pedals with actual knobs I can turn in real time. But I keep seeing this HX turn up around here.

I understand what you mean - I had a Zoom B1 that had some good sounds but it was very difficult to use.

The REALLY nice thing with the Stomp is that it uses the HX Editor and connects to the computer with a USB printer cable. You can tweak until your heart is content and, since it is a GUI, it is very intuitive. My biggest tweak issue was forgetting to check out guitar amps for sounds in addition to a good bunch of bass amp models. Picture -

The string of little boxes up above are the signal chain - since the amp/cab box is highlighted, you can tell that is what he is working on. If you want to change the distortion, you just click on the "DIST" box and tweak away.
Example of modifying effects -

The Stomp is dead quiet, the models are pretty good, and you can easily tweak stuff to your liking - it is a HUGE improvement over the old pedals.

FWIW, I sold so much stuff that I could have easily afforded the more expensive LT and probably the big daddy too, but I did not need more and having a SMALL board (18 inches) is a huge positive. The guitarist at the other church campus got the really expensive one and did much tweaking to get EXACTLY what he wanted - it sounds AWESOME!

I LOVED the quality of the pedals I had but this is better for me. I do miss the Darkglass stuff, though!

Dan

 

[MascisMan]

I agree with the HxStomp sentiment! I've found in a dense worship mix, any minor differences between an individual analog pedal and the digital (emulated) counterpart from the Stomp are largely lost. Especially in 100% IEM scenarios where no amps are present.

 

[jacoby75]

I agree with the HxStomp sentiment! I've found in a dense worship mix, any minor differences between an individual analog pedal and the digital (emulated) counterpart from the Stomp are largely lost. Especially in 100% IEM scenarios where no amps are present.

View attachment 3574983

But you're still using some Broughton pedals. That's cheating, lol.