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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Need more bass -- badly
Need more bass -- badly
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Martin
472 posts
Oct 07, 2013
4:31 PM
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Every now and then I jam with a few guys, who are so-so from a musical standpoint but nice fellows and it can be fun since they play stuff that I like.
However, they use a PA that´s really a bottom shelf product, cheap Chinese crap, and it should rightly be handed in to the nearest police station, but it fits their purposes. Unfortunately it has almost no bass at all.
What I have been using is either a Roland Mobile, or a RP 150 (with Richard Hunter´s settings), and the Roland is a good little amp but to small to make much noise, and so has to be miced up through that horrible PA; the RP pedal goes right to the board, with predictable bass response.
(I´m not going to buy another, bigger, amp for this jam, it ain´t worth it, and generally I´m not much into the Bassman etc classic sound. Or more precisely, I not into PAYING for that sound right now (my impression is that it costs a bit), and even if I could afford it an amp would be a bother to drag along: I have no car.)
So I wonder, is there a rabbit to be drawn out of a hat here? I can sacrifice distortion, but I must have more bass and warmth, or I call this quits: the sound is so shrill it hurts. (And no, it´s not my playing technique.)
What I have is an extra Boss parametric EQ. The RP already has an EQ, and I probably could learn a bit more how to fiddle with that, but still I wonder if that Boss pedal would do me any good?
Have any of you guys succeeded in milking bass out of a really sub-standard PA, and if so how?
I´m willing to put up a few bucks but no bigger sums -- and no bigger gadgets.
Last Edited by Martin on Oct 07, 2013 4:32 PM
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S-harp
182 posts
Oct 07, 2013
4:52 PM
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I'd say go for a LowZ dynamic, say a SM-57, straight in. This will give you the best working sound that PA can deliver. Some bad PAs even sound cool this way!
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The tone, the tone ... and the Tone
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dougharps
459 posts
Oct 07, 2013
5:47 PM
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Are you using the Fireball V with an impedance converting transformer to the RP150 as Richard Hunter suggests? If you are, try it straight to the PA with an XLR cable only, and see if the lows are there. Your input to the PA should match impedance or you may lose signal and/or frequencies. If you are using a bullet mic you may be lacking lows in your signal. Or you may need to try other RP patches. Some may be more "trebley" than others
A 57, the Fireball V, or other good low-Z mic would let you check out the PA's possibilities. Use a straight XLR cable to the PA. If the mic or other instruments get OK low frequencies, then it is in your signal chain before the PA.
The PA may have overall EQ and individual channel EQ. try adjusting.
If the PA speakers are out of phase, you would lose low frequencies in the PA speaker output due to frequencies canceling. Are the cables wired right?
It could just be a poor PA. It is worth trying the EQ pedal, but I would try that after you look into all of the above.
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Doug S.
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arnenym
221 posts
Oct 08, 2013
3:39 AM
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I never used a Roland Mobile, but they i've seen had two small speakers. If you put the PA microphone in between the speakers and not in front of one of them you gonna get some better bottom response.
Last Edited by arnenym on Oct 08, 2013 3:40 AM
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The Iceman
1209 posts
Oct 08, 2013
5:10 AM
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If the PA speakers can be put on the floor in the corner of the room, this will increase the speaker's bass response.
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The Iceman
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Martin
474 posts
Oct 08, 2013
4:03 PM
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Thanks guys, but it´s probably a lost cause.
Microphone straight to PA is no go, sounds like a sewing-machine with a serious attitude problem.
I´m using a vintage Beyerdynamic (the only valuable piece of equipment I own ...) and it works just fine with other PA:s, but as I said, this is not good stuff, Radio Shack quality: around 5-600$ purchase prize, and I guess to a considerable extent you get what you pay for. (Arnenym, who is a Swede, may recognize the name JJ Labs.)
I will see what I can do in terms of adjustment, but I´ve fiddled with the channel I´m using, and I´m pretty sure the PA is properly wired and all that.
I have not tried XLR cable -- but my understanding is that the signal then gets weaker? (I´m already at almost maximum volume.)
The EQ pedal may be my last hope.
You win some, but ... etc.
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dougharps
460 posts
Oct 08, 2013
4:44 PM
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It isn't that the signal gets weaker, it just is that XLR is for a balanced, low impedance mic, and the 1/4" jack for guitar amps is for a high impedance unbalanced mic. If you don't match the impedance of the mic to the input, you lose signal.
If your mic is high impedance (high-z)then you don't need the transformer unless going to an XLR input, and the XLR is not the right cable to go straight from mic to PA.
If your mic is low impedance, and you use an XLR to 1/4" cable with no transformer, then you lose half the signal.
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Doug S.
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Martin
476 posts
Oct 09, 2013
5:26 AM
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Thank you, Doug, appreciate the input.
I will take that info to my tech guy -- who´s also in the same band -- since I´m so impossibly ignorant in those matters. (Zero knowledge of "electronics" is something of a plight in this day and age if you want to play music, and I should probably take a course or some such.)
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