Hi Everyone.

This post should have a sub heading > and how to control the lower hertz. Pun intended...

I have been getting my sound together slowly and in an attempt to get the bottom into my sound, I may be overdoing it. Well actually I am really overdoing it.

I run graphite 10, through SP2 > MXR bass compressor> Eventide Space.

I've also been tweaking the bottom end by way of setting up very slow mod flanger, just for tone boost.

However..... I did a gig this weekend in a venue that is notoriously a bit of a boom box, had the sound guy bring in 2 sub woofers, asked him to be very careful with their use and still had big problems with my bass side. I had a huge long bass tone that seemed to be impossible to tame.

So that's the preamble/context.

First question.

1. Are there any noticable benefits in playing NS Stick over 10 string when one is playing in an essentially bass player role. I'm still talking about tone here, not technique or approach. Is the NS better at delivering the bottom end with the way it's set up? Bit of a loaded gun there....

2. I don't have a rig that really support bottom end so I my be dialling up too much bottom in my effects (through a RCF 12), to compensate. Do the QSC 2 X 12 and sub woofer guys have any issues with having too much bass.?

Thanks in advance, for your responses.

The Stick bass side has plenty of bottom, but it falls off very fast as you go up in pitch. I believe that is the issue with trying to use the Stick as a bass. In order to play chords that don't sound muddy, it has to be set up that way. If you used strings that didn't thin out as fast (gauge wise,) you could get more of a traditional bass sound, but your chords would be muddier.

Adding EQ to balance things up is almost impossible because you add the EQ equally to the mid range notes (making them fatter) and to the low notes (making then even fatter than they already were.)

The NS is set up similarly to a Stick (so chords don't get too muddy,) but a little less so. That coupled with the 4ths tuning means the NS bass is fuller across its bass range than a Stick.

I don't have the perspective of the "normal" Stick since I have only played with the NS.

Russell makes a good point about the "bass" side of the Stick. Since it has such a wide range and you play a bass note and a chord it's very difficult to EQ to make it sound like a bass but also keep the chords/higher parts on the same side.
Using compression can help bring out bass but it can diminish the chords. This is one reason I play the NS/Stick in stereo mode so that I can preserve the bass side as a bass and the melody side as I want. My sound is to play like two instruments (Bass and Guitar).
It's a misconception that compression brings out bass. It happens to do this because bass frequencies are usually what triggers the compressor (unless you have a filter in the side-chain) and it keeps bass nice and even but squashes higher frequencies. You can crank your higher frequencies and squash the lows too.

I made, and keep making, the mistake of setting up my sound through headphones which has no bass. A lot of the time I play at night so I have to use the headphones. I crank up the bass and it sounds horrible when I play back on monitors... So I've had to learn how it sounds in my headphones but it's no substitute for the real deal. In the same vain, you just have to learn your system and how it translates into other systems when you plug into a larger PA... The sound guy really should be able to do a little EQ to your sound to get it balanced even if he has huge subs...
When I can play through my monitors I can check to make sure I'm not getting into the boomy regions. I also have a set of PA speakers to test it on there as well.
Another thing I do is split my outputs (my gear has stereo outs and everything I do is in mono so it's the same out of each side) and have is a small mixer with headphone out (ART PowerMix III) on my pedalboard and I can crank my bass side to my content without messing up the FOH mix.

Good Luck!

Too much bottom end?? Is there such a thing?lol I am using 2 K12's and with bigger gigs I bring in the Ksub.... No problems @ all. Articulate and punchy. I play a 12 String Grand.

This is an interesting topic; I find myself in situations where I am in the "Bass player" role as both a bassist and now most recently, a Stickologist.

I don't have any answers, but rather some findings and opinions on my end that may present more questions or lead you to a solution that I can steal from you at a later date... I know you are no stranger to playing live, either so most of this you already know. Still, have my .002! lol

Here is the thing; most guitarists don't have a clue as to how to dial in a tone for the stage, and at the same time, they simultaneously don't have a clue about stage volume and the concept of how a band is an orchestra. Add to this a drummer who doesn't know how to play dynamically, and beats the shit out of his kit (Complete with an absence of knowledge as to how to properly tune said kit...). Add to this a plethora of microphones on the kit, plus guitars, plus vocals... Add a keyboardist who is playing the entire range of his keyboard and stepping on every other instrument's toes, the bass player is usually treated as the ugly stepchild, and the overall fidelity suffers. Don't forget that added into this is a soundguy who has his own opinions about how everything "should" sound....

So anyways, I could complain further about this but I thought I might rather talk about Stick.

The Bass side on stick is bassy. Really frickin' bassy. More bass than bass itself, hahaha But it becomes less and less bassy as you change strings. Hence, I use my EQ in a subtractive manner on the bass side, and give a slight boost to midrange frequencies. All ambience effects are off. No reverb, no delays, none of that. A boomy room will just add noise. A DI direct to the board is critical (I Like the Radial DI's, they are great!) Also, on the playing side simplify, simplify, simplify. In a boomy, echoey room the faster articulations will be lost, especially way down low; so I tend to play 1/4 and half notes and just do my best to make everyone else sound good while basically outlining the chord changes. If I am playing as a "bassist" on stick, I tend to favour those heavier strings.

I wonder if the real issue is that this instrument is NOT a guitar, and it is NOT a bass, but we are forced to scavenge our amplification from their world?

Ahhh well, this didn't help, but I thought I'd vent... hehehehe

Maybe someone needs to design an effective, practical amp/effects solution for the Stick. Anyone called line6? Or FAS? lol

The SWR SM-400 and 500 offer an interesting solution to this. In the tube preamp section They have a bass and presence eq prior to the limiter, but after the limiter there is a 4 band paragraphic eq (fixed bandwidths but selectable frequencies).

Being able to eq both before and after your compression makes it easy to tame boomy notes and still get an even response across the board.

Watch out for 115 Hz or thereabouts.

Rad, you didn't say if you had the ACTV-2 or the PASV-4. This is very relevant to the discussion.

Hi Gents.

Jayeskerr, yes I hear what your saying about playing simply and also subtracting the bottom end. I've done both these things while playing in smaller settings. My trio is a big double keyboard type of thing if you wanna call Stick a kind of keyboard, at least in terms of thickness of sound..

I definitely overdid the whole subs thing and should've asked for those last the gig. I could also be adding too much bass at home, because of my RCF 12 which doesn't really cover the bottom end, but does have a sweetness and lightness for playing quietly which I do find hard to get on bigger stages. That is just as much concern for me as the bottom end....
Greg, I remember you were talking to me about the RCF 12 a few years back and that it wouldn't cover the lows past about the F on the low string.

My bass dear bass player friend from 2 Drunken Swordsmen, Nigel hope, loaned me his Aguilar Tone Hammer rig and I could get a sense of how the bottom was translating and I would have to say, contrary to my best efforts, I still had too much bass dialled in.

I love the big bass sound of the Stick, seems I have yet to tame it.!

Thanks everyone.

PS.

I have PASV-4

I love the Pasv4!