advice about a bass amp solution

[Kitty]

Hi guys,

Our small worship team continues to grow, and that means a bass player more often. When I'm on bass, I just plug right into the system and use my little Crate for personal on-stage monitoring. But one of the other guys brings in this HUGE stack-o-stuff "because it has the right tone."

Well yeah, it has a great tone, but we're meeting in a school gym right now—basically a big concrete box with a tile floor—so when I'm leading worship, all I hear is bass, even when there's NO bass in my monitor and his stack is on the other side of the room from me. The sound guy doesn't even put it in the house mix—it's a little uncontrollable.

Now I understand you need to really hear it in order to be able to play with confidence. But bass frequencies behave differently than the rest of the spectrum and this is creating a bit of a dilemma for us all.

Here's what I was thinking... how about the church buys a Sansamp Bass DI so the bass has some life in the house mix, and a bass amp for an on-stage monitor... say 10" speaker and 20 watts or so?

What do you guys think? Do I know just enough to make me dangerous? :-) (I had to turn in a budget last night and just guessed at $350 for a solution.)

Kitty

[Barry]

It's hard to say without knowing the size of the room or the dynamics of the group and what else there is going on during the songs. Your idea sounds like it might be fine, but if this gentleman likes the tone from such a big "stack-o-stuff", it's not likely he'll be happy with a small amp for monitoring and a direct. Could be an ego issue for him, or maybe everyone is just a little too loud to begin with, I don't know. :dunno

Maybe my own experience will help. I've played bass for literally decades in various church and church-sponsored settings. My background has mostly varied between small acoustic settings and southern Gospel. Once in a rock outreach band, but we didn't use very powerful amps for that, either.

1) If it's just been me and an acoustic guitarist or a keyboard and vocals, I've used just a small amp, turned up just enough to fill in the bottom, and with the tone turned way down, how much depending on room acoustics.

2) If it's a few more acoustic guitars and voices, same as above, unless the bass needs to be a bit more gritty, in which case more tone and less low end, but the same rules regarding volume.

3) If drums are also invloved, things start to get more complicated. The drummer may need to hold back on how hard he or she plays and maybe not use much in the way of cymbals. I get closer to the amp speaker and try not to turn up any more than I have to to hear what I'm doing.

4) If there is a large choir, piano, an electric guitar and a drum kit as well as a vocal team and sometimes some brass, woodwinds and an organ, the best way we found to control volume levels is to:

- Put the drums inside a sound-proofed wall that goes up maybe 3 feet from the floor. Give the drummer his or her own monitor from the house console.
- Put me right next to the drummer (outside the wall), and next to the piano, for optimum tightness and accuracy. Place a small bass amp directly in front of, or next to, me and angle it directly toward my head and away from any mics that may be covering the choir, praise team and/or piano. Split the bass signal to both the amp and direct to the console. Also place a console monitor close enough so I can hear what's going on with the vocals. (This is also how we recorded a service live once, with the intent of putting cassettes in the local Christian book stores... But that's another story and was more than 10 years ago.)

The loudest thing should always be the vocals. There is usually no real need, I believe, for a bass to go through a stack of speakers during a church service. Even the large churches, like Carpenter's Home in Lakeland, Florida, don't put that much bass in the mix during services. Because it does carry.

On the same topic, it's real easy for everyone to step on everyone else if volume isn't controlled generally. The mess will effect the overall atmosphere of the service if it's too bad. To be honest, I tried a large bass stack myself during the #4 time frame above. It was cool to hear great tone from the bass, and it did effect my playing, but proved to be too much because some people were complaining about it. That's not a good thing.

Sorry for the long reply. Hope it helps somehow.

[UncleMarker]

I think you're on the right track, but maybe you need a bit more bass amp. Don't know what your house system is like, but if it's like lots of others I've met, the Sansamp won't help that much. The limiting factor tends to be the main speakers, unless you run subs. We run the bass through the house, from the direct out of the bass head. A mid-sized bass rig provides low end that is suplimented by the house mix.
In "big church", the bass runs through a Fender Bassman 100 combo (unless I crank up the Dual Showman!); the youth room system is a G-K Backline 250 with a Fender 115 cabinet.

On the other hand, it may be that the solution is not in hardware, but getting the guy with the stack-o-stuff to adjust to the room and the musical context of your church. If he's not happy with anything but the big rig, using a 'monitor' bass amp may not work - he may crank it up to the point that it REALLY gets in the way. Sometimes it helps to get the amp farther away from the player (sounds backwards, I know). That lets the player hear more of what the sound is like in the room, rather than just what comes out ot the amp.

Good luck - sounds like there may be a need to get the bass players together for prayer and negotiation!

Mark

[SAguitar]

There probably isn't a worse room acoustically than a gym. I've had to deal with that, and it ain't fun. Huge bass stacks only work well outdoors where the sound go off into space.

When I'm playing bass, and most of the other bassists at our church go through my system now, I use just one Hartke 2x10 cabinet on the floor in front of me, as a monitor. I have kind of an overkill amp powering it, an Eden World Tour 800, but it is clean and very adjustable. For several years now we have been trying to reduce our stage volume so the guys/girls at the board can put more of everything into the house mix. Granted, we have an excellent house PA, all Crown amps into JBL speakers, but hey, it's all for Jesus ain't it?

I've put away the Hartke 2x15 speaker box I used to add to the bass stack, and only drag that one out for outdoor events. We have also enclosed the drummers in plexiglas, and that is a big help. We have a policy on monitors that you can only have a maximum of three things brought into your floor monitor, also to help reduce the wash of sound coming off the stage. So you don't get to hear everything while your serving. I usually ask for the main keyboard for tone reference, and to help me stay in tune on fretless, whoever is singing lead on that particular song, and perhaps a tiny bit of acoustic guitar if the songs are driven by that. Usually you can hear enough electric guitar ambiently onstage so you don't need that.

Kitty, bass amps take a lot more watts to drive them adequately than guitar amps require. And you don't want any overdriven bass tones. While that may sound fine, even desirable on an electric guitar, it results in garbled mush for a bass. Don't go there, it would not be a sweet fragrance to you or the Lord, IMHO.

If you're talkin' solid state watts, in layman's terms those are a lot quiter than tube amp watts. I have an old '71 Fender Bassman 50 (50 tube watts) that is plenty loud for nearly anything and has great tone. But for solid state I wouldn't go much less than 300 watts for nice, clean tone. I play guitar through 1-12" speaker all the time, but I like playing bass through my little 2x12 cabinet. It is enough wtihout being too much. And just because I'm recommending 300 watts, it's not for big volume. It is for running the amp in the lower part of its range so it can just sound good, and not distort.

I also agree about getting the players together to make sure you are on the right page. In our case we paid a local recording engineer (same guy who engineered our last CD) a fee to come in, listen to us (both at rehearsals, and during some services), and make some recommendations for improvement, both for the musicians and the sound techs. It helped a lot, because he had the respect of each player/singer/tech, and no one could feel like he didn't know where they were coming from.

[Crunchyriff]

Yer avg Gym = musician's pain, soundman's nightmare

I dunno what the other cat is using, but I hardly think the issue is that the RIG is uncontrollable; more likely the player is. :roll: I mean, that thing has a volume control on it, (right?) and unless the amp rig's volume is uber-touchy like old Marshall guitar amp's is, methinks the lad needs to self-asses the situation and himself. (Do consider however, and you probably have, that some people are prone to complain, no matter what.)

Put it this way: when you are talking about players that have volume controls (not acoustic-only instruments like brass, etc), there is no need for anybody to be blowing the rest of the players off the stage. Usually I use an 80 watt all-tube combo for P&W; but once in awhile when we have a stripped-down, lean, mean worship machine (without horns, etc), I'll bring two 1/2 stacks- (yep, Marshalls) AND my combo; and I have to be told to turn it up at the pre-svc rehearsals...know what I mean? \:D/

Good tone and DB/loudness are two completely different items. The key is to get the right tone at a certain pre-determined volume- whatever the instrument. IMHO, the player, especially a bass player, has no excuse. (and I'm not picking on bass players, because I'm one, too)

Aside from the obvious pitfalls/complications of doing the sound in a gym, it sounds like the other bass player would probably be too loud in a more friendly environment, too. Is this a young player?

[Kitty]

Ok, here's a few more details:

The worship team is usually 2 or 3 vocals, an acoustic guitar (maybe 2 on occasion), sometimes keyboard, sometimes bass, and 1 or 2 hand drums and various percussion toys. We typically do not mic the percussion.

There are 3 of us who can each play several different instruments so that's why the team is different each week.

We set up and tear down every week, so we're using powered JBL's (20-inch I think, but I can check if you really want to know) - two for house and two for floor monitors. Somebody tweaked the graphic equalizer once upon a time, but that was before I came. We have two different compressors in the rack, but they're not hooked up and I don't know enough to use them properly so I leave them alone. (Out of all the people in the church, I'm probably the one who knows the most about sound systems right now — scary, huh?)

I've never really looked at the bass player's rig, but at least it's not taller than my 12-year-old. However it sits on the floor and is too big to tilt up at his head.

Is he a young player? I would guess he's somewhere in his 30's, but he's a single guy and he has lots of different instruments, for which he pays a lot of money. He had to leave his Stradivarius in England (he's here for 3 years) because no one would insure its ocean crossing, so he just has his electric violin here.

It's not that he refuses to turn the volume down; he's a cooperative enough fellow. It's just that when he turns it down, he says he can't hear it very well. You might wonder why the bass player can't hear it when it's too loud for everyone else in the room, but that's what I meant about bass frequencies behaving differently. I've been there myself, where I can't play with confidence because I can't hear as much as I want, but the sound guy says too much bass. I do know that sometimes you can hear your bass monitor better if it's about 6 feet away from you rather than right next to you. Must be something about the length of the wave.

Another possibility is that he has hearing loss in certain frequencies. I was once the production manager at a huge church and the main sound guy quit over the mix (also a great bass player). It's my philosophy that the lead vocal should be out in front as the "point" in worship. Maybe that would be different in other situations but we're LEADING people in worship — they need to clearly hear the melody. This guy kept saying he could hear the vocals just fine. But I suspect that was because he had hearing loss in all the frequencies that were drowning them out for the rest of us.

Anyway... there is NO WAY I'm giving a bass player 300 watts to work with!!! LOL! I'm not after "nice, clean tone" in the guy's personal bass monitor. Is your monitor not perfect? Well mine isn't either so stop whining. :-) But it would be nice to have decent sounding bass in the house (which may not even be possible as long as we're in the concrete box) so that's why I was thinking of the Sansamp Bass DI.

By the way, they keep talking about wanting to add a drum kit and I keep saying NO! Wouldn't THAT just make the mix crazy! :crazy

Ok, THAT was a long post. Sorry.

Kitty

[SAguitar]

You don't have to apologize, Kitty. This is an ongoing wrestling match everywhere, all the time. The concrete box is a major part of your problem. As much as I love playing with a drum set, adding one to that building will increase your problems exponentially. Bass speakers do have a longer throw, or focus compared to other amps. It does help to be furher away from them to hear them better. That is one reason I play bass through two small 12" speakers. I can be closer to them and hear them better.

Is this a combo bass amp, or a separate head and speaker? If possible, you could move his speaker off to the side of wherever you're setting up the band, and use it as a side fill speaker rather than one that is throwing sound forward. It is possible that he could hear it better that way, and perhaps everyone else could hear less of it.

We just approach these issues in the sense that we are always striving to present a better offering of worship to God, and enable our congregation to worship with less distractions.

[Barry]

First, if you get much bigger, I might recommend hiring a pro to come in and set up the EQ and compressors then take pictures of how the controls are set... just in case.

Your group seems relatively small in comparison to some. No matter. Even just one person playing acoustic and singing can be just as effective for worship as a full-piece band with orchestra and choir. Some churches allow larger ensembles so more members can play an active role in worship. It's not a "right" to be able to do that, but a priviledge. One that God can take away if it creates too many problems. I know of at least one large and very successful church that doesn't allow anyone to play on the platform who hasn't passed a special Worship Ministry class first.

I understand how he can say he can't hear very well if he turns down. There was a time when I played youth services in a gym with drums, 2 guitars and a lead vocalist (who was also the Youth Pastor). In a gym, he'll have to keep it down. Everything bounces in those kind of acoustics. Bass waves are longer than other waves. It's not the distance so much as the materials in the building construction. You can control standing sound waves and echoes in a sanctuary by using construction materials that help to absorb them rather than reflect. You could modify the gym to do that to a fair extent, too, by applying acoustic panels to the walls and in some corners, but tiles are pretty expensive. I suspect that's probably not an option for you, anyway.

Getting back to your original post.... I believe $350 should be more than enough to get the job done. Several of the other guys here have offered ideas as well as me, all of them good. As I see it, one simple option would be to ask him to please try doing it the same way you do when you play the bass (which I suspect you've already done). The stack he has moves more air than your little Crate, which is why he might try placing it to the side, or further back, and further away from him. If he tries your Crate, see if you can find a sturdy tray table or something so it can be closer to his ears. If that sounds okay to him (not necessarily "great") and he can hear what he's doing, then you can use the DI for the mixing console and everyone will be happy. With the few instruments you have, it shouldn't be that hard to hear everything.

Of course, if he plays a Stradivarius, he's probably going to be critical about the sound of nearly anything he plays. The real world doesn't always allow the luxury of perfect sonics.

I'll be praying for you guys.

[Kitty]

This is an ongoing wrestling match everywhere, all the time.

OH yeah. Very true.


Is this a combo bass amp, or a separate head and speaker? If possible, you could move his speaker off to the side of wherever you're setting up the band, and use it as a side fill speaker rather than one that is throwing sound forward. It is possible that he could hear it better that way, and perhaps everyone else could hear less of it.

I've never really taken a close look at it because I'm always scrambling to set up my own stuff and the sound system every week. But I think it is a separate head with a speaker. If so, this is a great idea for a little immediate improvement.

thanks, :-)
Kitty

[Kitty]

Your group seems relatively small in comparison to some.

Our church is relatively small in comparison to some. :-) In the year that I've been here, I'd say we've grown from maybe 30 adults to about 45 or so. Plus all the kids. (quite a change going from a church of 1,200 to 30) But we have two good worship leaders and we've been strategizing about mentoring and raising up more. Not just for Sunday; the home groups we plan to add will need time for worshiping through music too. I "see" a worship leader in the young woman who sings with me, but I don't want to move her too fast. If we have a song in the set she really connects with, I ask her to lead out and I'll do harmony. But she's still really nervous.

Man, I can get off on tangents. :-)


Of course, if he plays a Stradivarius, he's probably going to be critical about the sound of nearly anything he plays.

Well, I look at it this way... if he dragged his bass rig all the way over here from England, then he's probably really fond of it. But we're going to have to change something. He doesn't play bass every week so it hasn't been a constant problem.

Thanks for your prayers, man. I really appreciate that.

And all the great thoughts from everyone. Keep 'em coming.

Kitty

[stephen]

One question: Do you mic his bass amp through the house? (if you posted that and I missed it, i'm sorry).

The reason why I say that is I am a "tone-hound" myself, my playing might bite, but I sound good 8-[ :lol: ! Any-whoo, I play through a 40 tube watt combo amp, and though in size its small, it'll knock the plaster off of most wall's when I crank it :biggrin: ! But that aint feasable at church.

I'm mic'd through the house, and I have my amp set up at low volume where I'm happy with the tone, and I turn my amp to face me like a monitor. Keeps me happy, and everyone else! Just a thought.

[Kitty]

Do you mic his bass amp through the house?

Uhhh..... do you mean do we run the bass signal through the house system? We hook it up but the sound guy never turns it up because the bass is already too loud. I think they run a feed out of his amp and straight into the snake.

No mic's involved so that's why I'm a little unsure of your question.

[stephen]

Well, basically your running direct from the bass amplifier into the house mixer, with out a DI box.

Have your bassist work with the sound guy to find his tone, lower the volume, and get him piped through the monitors for the band to hear, and he can turn his cabinet towards himself, so he can get all the volume he needs without drowning everyyone out. It should bring the volume levels down to a more tolerable din. Just my 2 cents. I hope it helps.

[Crunchyriff]

It's not that he refuses to turn the volume down; he's a cooperative enough fellow. It's just that when he turns it down, he says he can't hear it very well. You might wonder why the bass player can't hear it when it's too loud for everyone else in the room, but that's what I meant about bass frequencies behaving differently.

Okay- thanks for the clarification, Kitty. That does make sense, and yes, bass frequencies DO take longer to form their 'wave' than highs. Okay I gotcha now.

But one of the other guys brings in this HUGE stack-o-stuff "because it has the right tone."

That threw me a curveball, Kitty, and I though it was a situation of "hey I have my tone at THIS level"..yadda yadda. My bad. Though I would agree that bigger rigs CAN sound better, it all boils down to what the player is capable of with ANY amp. (ie: "a rotten mechanic always blames his tools"). I have the luxury of playing with a true world-class bassist at church who owns about 4 or 5 different rigs, and this guy brings in the right rig for the right venue (sometimes it boils down to what he feels like bringing); and no matter what rig he uses, he always has great tone.

Many good replies to you for solutions (as per your update) Kitty. Not much more I could add here except that as was suggested to have some bass in the montiors for him, also have some more highs/mids (bite and punch) dialed in a bit for his stage mix to help himself hear a bit better

[reverbbb]

The right tools for the right task is always good. But on the other hand, Crunchy is right. Being able to play with any gear shows signs of a better rounded musician. I find myself playing "better" with my stuff, but I also play some live blues jams. I don't have the luxery (or desire) of bringing my own rig. I have to adjust to the situation - though it is often painful. But in the end, it is about what makes the setting work for the overall effect of the presentation.

Now you asked about a Sansamp. Our sound folks (and preacher) insisted that we eliminate the amplifiers on stage because we have a very unbalanced sound system. If you sit close (such as our pastor), then you can't hear the vocals coming from the speakers above. What you do hear is the guitars and bass coming right at you from the stage. So, I am now using a Line6 Pod Pro and the bass is using a Sansamp as a direct box. The bass player and I are constantly asking to get more bass in the monitor mix. We have 4 monitor sends, but none are dedicated to the bass exclusively. But we are sure to leave the bass out of the two vocal monitors for clarity. What we could use, is a bass amp that is aimed at the bass player and not the congregation. But our stage is too small for that.

I would say that a 20 watt w/10" speaker is not going to sound very full to the bass player and will weaken the overall sound for you and your church. But a 60 or 100W combo just might be the ticket. Before we got rid of the amps, we were using a Crate B-125 (or something like that). If pushed too hard, it begins to clip. But it would be much lower in volume than his current rig.

The next problem is the distance and the angle of the amp to the bass players ears. He probably needs to be standing about 8~10 feet in front of any bass amp to get a better wave formation to his ears. Angle a smaller combo right towards his head will give him plenty of "self" sonic image and not need to be so loud to the rest of the P&W team. His big rig will not be able to lean back like that.

If you buy anything, buy it at a store that has a good return policy. Try it for a few weeks and see if that has fixed your bass sound issues. The Sansamp is about $189 and the Crate combos are about $350. There is also a little Digitech bass modeling amp simulator called RP-50. These are cheaper than the Sansamp and may be more versitile. But you still might need some sort of a combo amp for the dedicated bass monitor.

YMMV

[LesStrat]

Kitty, you look familiar? Where are you located?

(Note: I typed a lengthy response, then lost my internet connection...here is an abbreviated response)

We run the bass direct through a D/I box. It works fine. Granted, we have a separate monitor board, and our main PA includes two large subs.

Sometimes, because the V-drums and bass share a monitor, the bass has to be mixed a little brighter in the monitors to be able to separate it from the bass drum. BUT, the house bass tone is amazing.

Our church is a medium sized A/G church that seats 1200-1500. We use a full band on Sundays.

Suggestions: If you convince your bassist to turn his amp facing himself, place some type of sound baffle on the wall behind him. It could be anything from a panel of acoustic absorption material, to a sheet of plywood covered in carpet or thick material, to even a sheet of egg-carton mattress foam. It probably would be helpful to have something behind the amp as well, to prevent sound bleed into the gym.

I hope this helps.

BTW, ministry requires sacrifice, and sometimes that includes our "optimal tone."

[Kitty]

Kitty, you look familiar? Where are you located?

Oops. Forgot to put that in my profile. I've lived in Colorado for 15 years. But I grew up near Natchitoches and actually know where New Iberia is. :-)

We don't have subs, just two powered JBL's. Some things (several things) get sacrificed when you set up and tear down in a rented gym every week.

If you convince your bassist to turn his amp facing himself, place some type of sound baffle on the wall behind him.

Here's a shot of this past Sunday's setup. It's still a bit messy because this was early in the morning. (Usually the stage is dark and the curtains closed and the cables and gear boxes cleaned up a little bit.) But as you can see, we're down on the floor and the wall is several feet behind us.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b358/KittyR/forums/setup.jpg

Our team changes weekly because three of us play many different instruments. The guy playing bass in this photo is actually the other worship leader and an excellent keyboard player. The guy on the violin is the bass player I was referring to. He was on guitar/violin this week. That's his amp. I didn't need any of his signal in my monitor.

[Hey, maybe this would be a good thread to start in the P/W folder: "Show us your worship team." Hard to get good pictures of Sunday morning without being obtrusive though.]

Kitty

[stephen]

[Hey, maybe this would be a good thread to start in the P/W folder: "Show us your worship team." Hard to get good pictures of Sunday morning without being obtrusive though.]

Kitty

Hmmm, pretty good idea!

[Crunchyriff]

Another possibility is that he has hearing loss in certain frequencies. I was once the production manager at a huge church and the main sound guy quit over the mix (also a great bass player). It's my philosophy that the lead vocal should be out in front as the "point" in worship. Maybe that would be different in other situations but we're LEADING people in worship — they need to clearly hear the melody. This guy kept saying he could hear the vocals just fine. But I suspect that was because he had hearing loss in all the frequencies that were drowning them out for the rest of us.

Kitty you are correct. Unless you are dealing with a more textural mix/effect with vocals at certain times, lead vox should ALWAYS be out front in the mix (roughly @3db); now days, you hear many secular and CHR mixes where the vocals are buried- well, there is a good reason for it. They sound horrid up front. (ie: shouldn't be singing..) Just like when any soloist takes off on guitar, oboe, keys, etc- they all should be bumped up roughly 3 db to be out front in the mix. Then pulled back into the mix.

[Kitty]

there is a good reason for it. They sound horrid up front. (ie: shouldn't be singing..)

Ha! :lol: