I am home from playing a music theatre show at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville tonight. Using one B-1 with my new Mesa D-350 head, playing an Ibanez AFB200 bass. Sounded terrific down in the understage pit. Unfortunately, the sound guy came down after the show (not at intermission, that would have been nice) and said, without much tact, "You have to turn it down. I had you out of the house completely (with subwoofers) and it was still too loud for the rest of the band."
What all us bass players just long to hear from the sound guy- "You're too loud." Without further details on frequency ranges that were too loud, or anything like that. Lovely. (I might also mention that he told me the other night that he has a low pass filter on my channel set at 350 Hz. Well, wow. Talk about entrusting your tone to the sound guy.)
The Bijou is a 750-some seat venue with excellent acoustics, and I have heard some loud rock acts in there. How could a single B-1 be too loud? Sheesh.
A bummer for me tonight, after I put in a good performance. It's possibly a testimony to the low frequency output of even a single B-1. We have brass and a loud drummer, so I was playing just below half on the master on the D-350 to be able to hear myself. I guess I will cut the D-350 bass control substantially and crank the mids for the two remaining performances tomorrow.
This may not be the right Acme thread to post this in, but I thought I'd share here.
Most people want to hear their voice and instrument about 6-10dB louder than other sound sources in the mix. Because of this, most cannot turn up as loud as the want. As a pro you learn to deal with it, or use a strategy like me that gets you close to the desired 6-10dB without blowing out the room.
My approach is to elevate the cab to almost waist level, and then tilt it back to aim at my head. The point is to make it possible for me to hear myself at the lowest possible volume. Yes this approach reduces the balance of lows you will hear, but I am okay with that and long as I can hear the mids and highs clearly. For the record I even used this approach with my Low B-2.
Over the years, I also adopted a strategy of setting my stage volume so low that I was asked to turn up, rather than turn down. Apparently, this resulted in my volume being just about right. I stopped getting complaints, but it was rare that I was asked to turn up.
As someone who has toured professionally as both a bassist and audio-tech, I think I know exactly what the audio tech did. It was not unusual for the level of bass coming off stage to be so high that I had to make a choice between: 1. turn up the mix enough to actually gain a bit of control over the bass. 2. take whatever steps I can to mitigate the problem without turning up the mix.
If I choose 1. it usually allows me to make the bass sound better in the room, but the cost is the mix is way too loud for the audience. If I choose 2, the typical sequence is ask the bassist to turn down, pull the bass out of the subs, run the HPF higher and higher, and then pull the bass completely out of the mains as a last resort. By the time I dial the HPF up to 350hz, I am very close to giving up and simply pushing the channel fader all the way down. IMHO, if you are already too loud in the mix, there is really nothing more that can be done.
I usually chose step 2, and I remember occasionally running the bass HPF up close to 500hz.
So IMHO yes, the audio is doing something totally rationale in an attempt to provide a good experience for the audience.
I also did some pit orchestra work (as a bassist), and those gigs typically required me to run at an extremely low volume level. So IMHO your experience was typical. It is often difficult for the audio tech to get the dialogue and lyrics over the band, and having too much bass bleed from the pit tends to really complicate the problem.
One more thing I will add. I typically expected my amp to function as my personal stage monitor and the PA was expected to deliver my sound to the audience. In order to do this, the main mix has to be significantly louder than the stage wash. I.E. the mains must be dominant or they will fight with your amp out in the house. There is no way to smoothly integrate the stage sound with house sound. However, it's important to realize that the bass amp is often not the only sound source on stage for bass. Usually in the bands I played in, the bass was routed to the wedges. So frequently there is too much bass coming off stage, and the bass amp is not actually the problem.
This problem requires compromise. The audio tech will want the lowest possible stage volume, but the musicians need enough level to be able to perform. Compromise means no one gets exactly what they want.
