I ran across this video recently and was tinkering with it, and figured I'd share it here and get peoples' thoughts:
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Double Bass distance monitoring
- Thread starter Mark_T
- Start date
I've never tried this, but would be interested to see the difference it makes. I have, however, been on the other side many times.
Touring shows are now almost all-headphone/closed pits, and the monitor sound you get is usually from a tiny mic right up against the table of the bass, or worse, off of a pickup. This amplifies every little bit of string noise and it is right in your ear. For me, this type of monitoring makes it extremely difficult to know just how loud or soft you are, and if you are blending with the rest of the orchestra. I've even choked notes on occasion because it seems like I can't ever play p - pp soft enough.
Maybe if I did enough practicing with distance monitoring I could psyche myself out to not worry about the terrible, and terribly close, sound I get in my ear the way most shows run their monitors.
Touring shows are now almost all-headphone/closed pits, and the monitor sound you get is usually from a tiny mic right up against the table of the bass, or worse, off of a pickup. This amplifies every little bit of string noise and it is right in your ear. For me, this type of monitoring makes it extremely difficult to know just how loud or soft you are, and if you are blending with the rest of the orchestra. I've even choked notes on occasion because it seems like I can't ever play p - pp soft enough.
Maybe if I did enough practicing with distance monitoring I could psyche myself out to not worry about the terrible, and terribly close, sound I get in my ear the way most shows run their monitors.
I tried it out today. I need to work a bit on mike position, but I agree with their conclusion- I am digging in to hard almost always, and I need to emphasize dynamic changes more. But I can mostly do that by subtracting and playing more horizontally.
The more I do this the more I think it’s an absolute practice hack. Not something to be done all the time but it gets really high quality aural feedback in your ears in real time. You need to go in doses like everything because it’s not something you can do on stage, so you need to make connections between what you hear in the phones and what you hear live.
I saw this video last week and went ahead and ordered a 25' cable from Monoprice (around $12 or so shipped). I happen to also own an older Tascam handheld recorder that has a line out, so I oughta be able to replicate what they did in the video pretty well. Haven't tried it out just yet but definitely looking forward to doing so and will report back with my findings.