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"your" tone vs PA
- Thread starter Randy440magnum
- Start date
I'm sorry, digital mixers can usually accommodate custom mixes (have 6 or more Aux outs). And since a lot of venues now have digital mixers I used that term to mean that I can get my own tailored mix from the FOH. But, my connection to the FOH board is almost always an XLR or 1/4" line level feed. My own on stage mixer is a Touchmix 16 which is a few years old now. If I was buying something now I would probably end up buying the Behringer x32 rackmount mixer because it has advanced features such as multiband limiters and a room analyzer.
I built my tone via DI using headphones, not an amp and cabinet. It's the closest way to ensure the sound you are sending to the PA is what you expect it to be.
Really good thread!
My tone is fairly middy and "grunty", yet with fairly flat eq settings from my head. I have yet to run into a soundman that won't accommodate my request for a post eq out. I try to let him hear my tone up on stage, and let him know what I'm going for. While I love when they throw a mic up, I also understand that can be a mess sometimes (I don't mic when we run our own PA).
I'm really fortunate that my band plays with very low stage volume. As of late, we're running into situations where the monitor mixes are just too loud.... We find we play much tighter with lower/more reasonable stage volume. I could get away with playing my b15 on most stages.... I recently started playing a Shaw Audio B150 head, and the tone is glorious! It has a Jenson transformer balanced out off of the OT. It is the best sounding balanced out you ever heard! I've heard some room recordings and videos of recent gigs, and I couldn't be more pleased with my tone out front. It sounds like it does on stage.... Only louder, and eq'd for the room/venue.
My tone is fairly middy and "grunty", yet with fairly flat eq settings from my head. I have yet to run into a soundman that won't accommodate my request for a post eq out. I try to let him hear my tone up on stage, and let him know what I'm going for. While I love when they throw a mic up, I also understand that can be a mess sometimes (I don't mic when we run our own PA).
I'm really fortunate that my band plays with very low stage volume. As of late, we're running into situations where the monitor mixes are just too loud.... We find we play much tighter with lower/more reasonable stage volume. I could get away with playing my b15 on most stages.... I recently started playing a Shaw Audio B150 head, and the tone is glorious! It has a Jenson transformer balanced out off of the OT. It is the best sounding balanced out you ever heard! I've heard some room recordings and videos of recent gigs, and I couldn't be more pleased with my tone out front. It sounds like it does on stage.... Only louder, and eq'd for the room/venue.
Figure out how to get a sick tone independent of the eq print of the speaker cab. You'll be able to put sick tone into any and out of any PA. You're not planning on keeping that cab your entire career are you?
No but i'm (1) not a cork sniffer and so (2) have used a variety of cabs over the decades and always manage (except once and that cab is gone) to get something I'd call 'my sound.' It's not that hard. I do get a very decent sound going straight to DI too, no issues there. It's just that having the speaker mic'd makes it 'more better-er.' : D
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I use a Di out to FOH. My tone I like to hear I have at decent enough volume for me to hear. The audience is getting the best band mix our sound guy can get from the room. I have to trust he is doing his best to get the "band" to sound good, which at times the challenge is more than even he can lock in, some rooms are just not made for live music. My "tone" is one that I like, but doesn't always work in the mix sometimes. So instead of having it flooding off the stage and possible screwing up what he is trying to do, I make sure I am only at kick drum level. This has worked for both of us. As mentioned by coolhandjjl "All that matters is what the band sounds like in the audience."
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
^ THIS. (Almost) No one cares about "your" tone. Listen to lots of the isolated bass tracks. Often what sounds like %#$!%~ by itself sounds great in the mix.
s0c9
Supporting Member
NO matter how many times you REPEAT the above statement, there are folks who've NEVER WORKED FOH and will NEVER get it.. !!
I remember celebrated session guitarist Pete Thorn discussing this in-depth in some of his youtube vids going over new presets.
When you listen to those presets "stand-alone" they sound like %#$!%~, but are magically clear and distinct in the mix.
Keep in mind that there are so many factors that are out of your control in a live scenario that the amp vs. PA argument goes awry before it really even starts.
Take into consideration the room modes that exist in a room (that's where the room is excited by certain frequencies and their multiples). This will affect how your tone is being represented. More than likely, the tone that you are dialing in will be distorted by the room's acoustics, and any compensation you make to it will probably make it worse because your amp is not designed for surgical EQing (more than likely).
Think also about distance - the speed of sound is 1130 ft./sec, so that makes a 31 Hz sound wave (the low B string of a 5 string bass) roughly 36 ft long. That means you couldn't possibly be hearing the entirety of your lowest note when you stand in from of your amp because that particular note isn't fully realized until 36 ft away from your speaker cabinet. If you're dialing in your tone less than 36 ft from your amp, you're actually hearing a misrepresentation of the tone-shaping that you're doing at 30ish Hz.
These are just two variables that every FOH (Front of House Engineer is the actual term for the "sound guy") has to deal with whenever he/she goes to work on your band. So to think that your amp is necessary because the PA won't sound as good, or to think it's a lost cause because the FOH is gonna tweak it to death anyways, is kind of a moot point argument. It's not really important because so many factors are at play here that, one way or the other, are beyond your control.
So, what to do then? I manage this question by recommending that you do whatever you need to do in order to be comfortable on stage. Do you play better with wedges and an 8x10 behind you? Do it. Do you need a clean DI, a post FX DI and a mic'ed cab pulsing through your in-ears in order to get in the zone? Go for it. Nothing wrong with any of this.
Remember that you need to be comfortable as a performer in order to perform well, so don't worry about it. You do what you need to make the gig flow on your end, and hopefully FOH will do the same
Take into consideration the room modes that exist in a room (that's where the room is excited by certain frequencies and their multiples). This will affect how your tone is being represented. More than likely, the tone that you are dialing in will be distorted by the room's acoustics, and any compensation you make to it will probably make it worse because your amp is not designed for surgical EQing (more than likely).
Think also about distance - the speed of sound is 1130 ft./sec, so that makes a 31 Hz sound wave (the low B string of a 5 string bass) roughly 36 ft long. That means you couldn't possibly be hearing the entirety of your lowest note when you stand in from of your amp because that particular note isn't fully realized until 36 ft away from your speaker cabinet. If you're dialing in your tone less than 36 ft from your amp, you're actually hearing a misrepresentation of the tone-shaping that you're doing at 30ish Hz.
These are just two variables that every FOH (Front of House Engineer is the actual term for the "sound guy") has to deal with whenever he/she goes to work on your band. So to think that your amp is necessary because the PA won't sound as good, or to think it's a lost cause because the FOH is gonna tweak it to death anyways, is kind of a moot point argument. It's not really important because so many factors are at play here that, one way or the other, are beyond your control.
So, what to do then? I manage this question by recommending that you do whatever you need to do in order to be comfortable on stage. Do you play better with wedges and an 8x10 behind you? Do it. Do you need a clean DI, a post FX DI and a mic'ed cab pulsing through your in-ears in order to get in the zone? Go for it. Nothing wrong with any of this.
Remember that you need to be comfortable as a performer in order to perform well, so don't worry about it. You do what you need to make the gig flow on your end, and hopefully FOH will do the same
Some things you said are right, but this isn't one. This is an urban legend. The length of the wave is actually not a factor here. If it were, headphones wouldn't work.
I agree with most of your argument except the wavelength vs distance to source. In general, we only need to hear 1/4 of a wavelength to discern a frequency. So a low B fundamental can be heard about 9 ft from the source. But this is really a moot point since most cabs cannot produce these frequencies at nearly the same levels as higher frequencies. Plus our ears just don't hear these frequencies very well. So I think the discussion would be better served by looking at the first partial of B0, namely B1, which is ~62Hz. That 1/4 wave distance for that is about 4-1/2 ft.
Remember that even though the wave is long, it's moving past you at the speed of sound. So no matter how close to the source you are (mic-ing a cab for example) the peaks and dips are constantly marching past at high speed.
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''My'' tone is mid forward and sounds hellish without the rest of the racket of the band. If you can't mix my mic you have your head stuck somewhere unpretty.
Rooms should be EQ'D for a crowd years before your band arrives. There should be no need to wrangle FOH bass tones to fit the room, only the band.
If the band sound works without the PA, and keep it down to allow the PA to be the main deal in a big room, should be very easy to mix.
Rooms should be EQ'D for a crowd years before your band arrives. There should be no need to wrangle FOH bass tones to fit the room, only the band.
If the band sound works without the PA, and keep it down to allow the PA to be the main deal in a big room, should be very easy to mix.
Just got back into micing my cab. DI just never does it for me. Too sterile, too harsh. I'm so happy now getting the sound I want out of my cab to the PA relatively intact. For me it works. I always have PA support and I use in-ears but I need having that cab onstage with me. (If you ever had your in-ears system go down in the middle of a gig you'll know what I'm talking about.)
If you've got the budget, there's always cab sims for going DI. I just started using a DSM Onnicab and it is pretty impressive. I know there are others out there, with varying degrees of flexibility. I thought I'd be able to EQ in the cab characteristics I wanted when going DI, but I'm finding the Omnicab (and I assume others are similar) adjusts more than just the shelving or cut/boost, and makes it pretty easy to dial in decent direct tones that sound very cab-like. I had a chance to try a Kemper for a few minutes, and I was also very impressed. However, the pedal I bought was a little easier on my wallet.
I've owned a Kemper for about 18 months now. It has amazing capabilities once you dig into how it operates. It comes with an impressive array of models, but once you start altering available models, or downloading models, or creating your own models there is no limit to what you can find in a single box. Highly recommended!
