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Quick question about playing live....


Monk Rocker

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Should you raise a bass combo off the floor so it's nearer ear level on stage if you are playing with a full PA?

I can't seem to get a satisfactory answer - some say that decent combos are designed to work with the floor' date=' and others say you should raise it up despite bass being omnidirectional. Confused.....[/quote']

If your using the combo with a PA handling power duties, you should only need it for monitoring so you can raise it off the floor. As long as you can hear yourself fine then thats OK.

If however you are using the combo on its own or to supplement the front of house sound then you may want to place the combo (or amp speaker set up) on the floor to take advantage of the "close coupling effect" and get a deeper bass sound. This can cause you problems depending on the stage you are on - the sound could become too boomy or muffled at certain frequencies.

If your PA is powerfull enough and has subs and monitors you may want to consider just walking in with "a pre-amp of your choice", DI'ing direct into the desk and getting your sound out of the monitors. Saves the poor bass players back no-end as well as reducing on-stage sound and crosstalk through mics!

Hope this helps

Mike

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I've heard it said that the frequency of the bass notes don't really 'gel' until you get about

4-6 metres away from the cab, hence why bass players sometimes play too loud. IE they can't really hear what they are playing. I know that whenever I change over to play bass, it always seems to be quieter than it was when I was standing at the other end of the stage. So raising your combo would probably make no differance to what you were hearing (unless you were 4-6 metres away). I presume.

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for the amp to have any effect through being in contact with the floor it would have to be running at a fantastic volume.

and for that reason, you need to have your amp cranked to the rafters all the time!! saying that, i played my last show with quixote on tuesday and i was coming through one of those little laney combo's that sits at an angle. 1x10. jesus christ they're crap!

/x

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fart machines

i think they could actually be the worst sounding "bass amp"s in the world

quite possibly so! the place we jam at in cumbernauld had them and i went in one day and they're replaced it with a behringer head and an 8x10 cab. that was the first time in recorded history that someone was actually pleased to be faced with a piece of behringer equipment!

/x

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Guest lime ruined my life
Should you raise a bass combo off the floor so it's nearer ear level on stage if you are playing with a full PA?

I can't seem to get a satisfactory answer - some say that decent combos are designed to work with the floor' date=' and others say you should raise it up despite bass being omnidirectional. Confused.....[/quote']

it depends exactly how omni-directional your speakers are. Obviously the lowerr in frequency you go the more evenly diffused the bass will get, but bearing in mind that speakers are not perfect models. Sub woofers will be more omni directional, speakers are inherintly directional, just less so at lower frequencies.

The answer i'd give is 'aim your speaker cabs to an extent'. and 'it doesnt really matter about woofers'

(i always think of dogs when i say woofers)

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Guest lime ruined my life

oh yeah, i forgot one other thing.

While bass is omni-directional, a bass guitar produces a range of frequencies. Therefore unless you plan on rolling the tone controls down on your guitar and bass amp (urgh), then the omni directional theory falls flat on it's face.

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