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Author Topic: Avoiding bad bass  (Read 4189 times)

Stephen Gregory

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Avoiding bad bass
« on: November 03, 2014, 09:34:06 PM »

I'm looking for recommendations for an electric bass rig to replace what we use currently (Laney 4x10 and nexus tube 400 head). This is usually DIed, but we never put much in the PA. The room is 500 seats, bass is on stage next to an unshielded drum kit.

The reason we want to replace it is that although it is possible to get a good clean sound from this rig, it is very easy to sound awful.  I am not always playing nor doing sound, and we have a lot of young guys using it for various services and events and they seem to be drawn inescapably toward muddy, boomy and flabby. This is partly the room (a bit boxy and reflective), partly stage volume (they turn up the amp to hear themselves rather than let the PA do the heavy lifting), partly user inexperience (it's a bass, right, so I should turn up the "bass" dial, press the sub button and use a smiley eq  :o).

OK, I admit, I should be dealing with all those problems. Let's just assume for the moment that they are hard to fix, but I can change the rig.  What I would like is a bass rig that is very easy to make sound clean and solid and very hard to sound muddy.

I have been trying out Markbass stuff, and it can be excellent, but if you turn those VLE and VPF knobs too far you quickly enter a world of arggh.  My own Genz Benz rig is great, but no longer in production. I am after something in the mid range of price (say $1500 all up) that will sound good when you plug in anything, and does not have dozens of tempting tone-shaping options to lead you astray. A decent quality head and 2x12 should be plenty.

Any suggestions?
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Keith Broughton

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Re: Avoiding bad bass
« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2014, 07:09:17 AM »

I recently worked with a couple of bas players each using some TC Elecronics rigs.
BH series head with RH series cabs
Sounded great!
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Kyle Leonard

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Re: Avoiding bad bass
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2014, 10:45:40 AM »

Try a Line 6 BassPod. You can get them on eBay. The new versions are the HD500 line. You plug the bass directly into it and it has a balanced out and a line out for feeding an onstage amp if needed.

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Chris Penny

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Re: Avoiding bad bass
« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2014, 05:38:05 PM »

Is the plan to continue to use the bass amp to fill the room or do you want to get something small pretty much for personal monitor use? Do you use wedges/ears? Your choice will come what you want it to do.

We currently use a Markbass rig (Little mark III/Traveler 102P).  We normally run to our desk directly from the amp (pre-eq).  We are run it at levels suitable for bass player personal monitoring only, with the PA used to fill our 500 seat room.  Running mainly through the PA means that the sound desk ultimately has control on how it sounds in the room.

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Tommy Peel

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Re: Avoiding bad bass
« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2014, 09:18:14 PM »

My favorite bass solution from the very limited experience I have is running the bass into a Radial Pro48 to feed FOH and out to the amp for the musician to monitor with. Very few ways to mess up the FOH sound that way; the player just has the guitar's tone controls.

Sent from my Moto X(XT1053) using Tapatalk

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Bob L. Wilson

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Re: Avoiding bad bass
« Reply #5 on: November 05, 2014, 06:02:46 PM »

I'm looking for recommendations for an electric bass rig to replace what we use currently (Laney 4x10 and nexus tube 400 head). This is usually DIed, but we never put much in the PA. The room is 500 seats, bass is on stage next to an unshielded drum kit.

The reason we want to replace it is that although it is possible to get a good clean sound from this rig, it is very easy to sound awful.  I am not always playing nor doing sound, and we have a lot of young guys using it for various services and events and they seem to be drawn inescapably toward muddy, boomy and flabby. This is partly the room (a bit boxy and reflective), partly stage volume (they turn up the amp to hear themselves rather than let the PA do the heavy lifting), partly user inexperience (it's a bass, right, so I should turn up the "bass" dial, press the sub button and use a smiley eq  :o).

OK, I admit, I should be dealing with all those problems. Let's just assume for the moment that they are hard to fix, but I can change the rig.  What I would like is a bass rig that is very easy to make sound clean and solid and very hard to sound muddy.

I have been trying out Markbass stuff, and it can be excellent, but if you turn those VLE and VPF knobs too far you quickly enter a world of arggh.  My own Genz Benz rig is great, but no longer in production. I am after something in the mid range of price (say $1500 all up) that will sound good when you plug in anything, and does not have dozens of tempting tone-shaping options to lead you astray. A decent quality head and 2x12 should be plenty.

Any suggestions?

One can rarely solve operator problems by spending money on equipment. Untrained players can and will make most anything sound bad.
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Luke Geis

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Re: Avoiding bad bass
« Reply #6 on: November 05, 2014, 11:39:33 PM »

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I concur with this. There is no point in spending money on something that can still be made to sound like crap. There is no such thing as an amp that sounds good no matter what you do. Bass players are the worst anyway. I mean with no girlfriend, job, or car of their own anyway................. how could you expect them to play and sound good at the same time :) love the bass player jokes.
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Tim Perry

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Re: Avoiding bad bass
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2014, 12:41:28 AM »

I'm looking for recommendations for an electric bass rig to replace what we use currently (Laney 4x10 and nexus tube 400 head). This is usually DIed, but we never put much in the PA. The room is 500 seats, bass is on stage next to an unshielded drum kit.

I have been trying out Markbass stuff, and it can be excellent, but if you turn those VLE and VPF knobs too far you quickly enter a world of arggh.  My own Genz Benz rig is great, but no longer in production. I am after something in the mid range of price (say $1500 all up) that will sound good when you plug in anything, and does not have dozens of tempting tone-shaping options to lead you astray. A decent quality head and 2x12 should be plenty.

Any suggestions?

I would suggest http://www.genzbenz.com/?fa=detail&mid=2260&sid=610&cid=95

I am not a bass player but I own one of these.
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Scott Holtzman

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Re: Avoiding bad bass
« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2014, 12:49:48 AM »

I would suggest http://www.genzbenz.com/?fa=detail&mid=2260&sid=610&cid=95

I am not a bass player but I own one of these.

Some bass players will give it all up if they know and trust the engineer.  In this photo you can see Pierson is only using in ears and his bass is DI'd to the console.



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Stephen Gregory

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Re: Avoiding bad bass
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2014, 09:17:44 PM »

Thanks for all the suggestions.

In-ears and DI would be great, but no-go for our teams at the moment.

Gotta love Genz Benz - that 10" shuttle is what I play through as well! If I could get my hands on a 12 or 2x10 I'd be pretty happy, but I've had no luck finding one.

I agree that bad players are going to sound bad - this is a damage limitation exercise. There is bad, but then there is really distractingly awful.

I don't really want the bass amp to fill the room.  We have tried using a Radial BDDI, and it can be a significant improvement, but they like having control of their monitoring levels.  Even with my sound guy hat on I can sympathise - I prefer adjusting my amp to twiddling a pedal and waving at the desk.

I like the look of the TC electronics rigs, though I haven't had a chance to play one yet. My only concern is the Tone Print thing. I guess if I make sure the saved presets are harmless then it might be OK  :D
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Re: Avoiding bad bass
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2014, 09:17:44 PM »


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