i never feel like my bass amp is loud enough!

he doesn't like to, he says it's hard to get feedback and stuff he needs if he goes too low on the gain....if we had a van and i had $$ i'd just say fuck it and get a big ol' 70s tube SVT and a 8-10 cab - ARMS RACE! take that Guitary McGuitaritarzan!

1) Ask for more bass in your monitor (if they have monitors)

2) Change where you stand in relation to the guitarist. If you're further from his amp, like maybe on the other side of the drummer, you might have less of a problem.

The arms race bankrupted the Soviet Union, and it will bankrupt your band's sound too.

yeah, it's no problem if they actually mic the bass or run direct lines...but a couple of places we play a lot have minimal PAs, so the PA is basically just vocals-only and the kick drum mic...most places it's not biggie...plus, we wanna do some more all ages punk venues that aren't exactly legal places so you can't expect much in the way of PA...

It is a bit the same with your bass amp, as there might be boodles of bass out in the crowd about 8-10 feet or so as that is where the signal completes, as low end really carries, but on stage it sounds small.

Now your amp is a 350 watt amp, but at what ohmage? I'd probably guess that number is 350 watts at 4ohm and you might be using 8ohm cab, so your amp is really only putting out about half that wattage. It really won't increase the volume, but you might want to try a 2x10 second cab (again probably 8ohm) with the head. One you will have a second set of speakers for that amp to push and two it would put a set of speakers up a bit closer to your ear. It won't drastically boost the volume, but getting something up ear level might help.

You could also work a bit with your EQ, especially in the Mids, to get your tone a bit more cut and separation from the guitar. This is probably the place to start.

But yes, adjusting the EQ and adding some mid range will help you cut through.

But really, in 9 out of 10 situations, it's the guitarist that needs to turn down. There is NO REASON on earth to have your stage volume be louder than your drumkit - that's a pretty good indiciation of whether your guitarist is stupidly loud.

hey also my guitarist is a really nice, soft-spoken guy! i feel like i'm acting like he's some kind of egomaniacal yngwie malmsteen! there's no way i would replace him, he's awesome....

also, he's already turning down as much as he thinks he can...his gain is like at 6 or 5, it's not all cranked up to 10s or anything....those lil' Twin Reverbs can be louder than marshall stax i swears...

Also, if you can't get feedback without an out-voluming the bass player, you need to get one lesson in feedback-getting. Which is to say experiment moving around in front of the amp until he finds the places where he can get teh rockin feedback. Cause like, if I can do it with a Champ and a cheap fuzz pedal, there's no reason it can't be done with a Twin that isn't crizanked.

you're getting sucked into his passive-aggressive vortex. tell him to turn the fuck down.

haha jeez i feel so bad now! i don't think he knows that even, he had just seen other people in bands he like use 'em so he bought one...i'm so sorry eric.

There are several reasons why you need to solve this. If the guitarist is driving the band (e.g. louder than the drumkit) everything will likely sound off in the audience. It's obtrusive.
If you start competing with him volume-wise, there is a risk that you're driving the band, at which point everything usually goes to shit (e.g. drummer on the beat, bass ahead of the beat, guitars oscillating around the beat = the shitzors).

I would recommend he downgrade his amp for live work. Tell him to check out Vox AC-15s or something. The Twin is just too much for your average venue, especially if you're going for natural breakup.

http://img3.musiciansfriend.com/dbase/pics/products/5/5/8/338558.jpg

God, I love math.

i still think i should get those replacement pickups too.

If you can find a used one for a reasonable price anywhere or on eBay, they're indestructible and worth every penny. They were made so guitarists could dime their Fender Twins and such and corral the stage volume while guaranteeing a maximally responsive amp.

But everything else almost never stays the same, and wattage values are especially misleading when comparing tube (valve) amps and solid state amps, because wattage is generally read at a certain amount of harmonic distortion -- and you (the bass player in this case) are much more likely to exceed that level of distortion in real life playing situations on a tube amp (where it sounds nice) than with a solid state amp (where it sounds like a sinewave nightmare).

The only thing you have to be cautious wrt the power tube pulling idea I mentioned upthread is speaker impedance. If you have a twin w/switchable impedance settings (most silverface and modern), no problem. If you don't, TECHNICALLY you should unplug one of the 12" speakers. 90% of the time, it won't matter...but as a tech I would advise you to think about it.

I was suggesting caution on the tubes not because it'll be dangerous if you do it correctly, but because there are a lot of things that can go wrong (and dangerously wrong) if you don't know what you're doing.

What else is good, err, little speakers as well as big ones for the mid freqs are always nice. one 15 and two 2 x 10s or something is often good.

If you have a compressor with an EQ lying around, thats always good as well.

2-You might be louder than you think. A lot of times on stage you don't hear ANY bass, meanwhile you're blowing people away 20 feet off the stage. It's the nature of how long it takes a bass wave to develop. Other times they might have you in a corner and you ONLY hear bass, think you're too loud, and you're actually barely audible.

Either buy/borrow a wireless and walk out to the middle of the room while you play, or have a friend play bass for a bit during sound check and walk out to the middle of the room. See how it sounds out there. There's a good chance that it sounds fine. If (this is a big if, as a audio engineer myself, i know how bad many soundmen are, and how little they care) But, if the soundman knows what s/he's doing and gives half a shit, s/he would have done something to fix the problem.

If you go out to the middle of the room and everything is audible, and you can't hear on stage, ask the soundman to hook you up through a DI to a channel, give that channel some nice mids, and only send that to your monitor mix, not the Mains. If you couldn't hear bass out in the room, have it go through the monitors and the mains.

Also, turning up way too much is often a way to cover up shit. I'm a huge fan of getting shit right first, then turning up if you asbsolutely need to fill a room. But that's what the PA is for.

I play bass and do sound for a hip hop band. I've yet to need to mic/DI my bass amp. It fills the room just fine. My guitarist has a tiny little fender amp, he barely has to turn it up at all, and i haven't had to mic that amp either. I'm talking he hasnt had to go up past 2 on the amp. I get great mixes with Drums (electronic/real drum hybrid) Keyboards, MC, female singer, bass and guitar.

plus that shit's just bad for your ears. If you can't get your guitarist to turn down, none of you are going to be able to hear anything soon.

You know how when you are in your house and a car rolls by blasting some bass it rattles the windows?

one just went by. "grim reapah!" burbbhrbhbbhbburbbb. and sometimes like there's this kinda reggae dub sorta beat

― burt_stanton, Sunday, November 30, 2008 12:30 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink