Live Show: Should I Run The Bass Direct?

[drummerdoug86]

For a live show coming up ,we are playing outside and I need to know what I should do about the bass. Here's the setup so far:

The Guitar Amps (2) will me mic'd and put into the mixer.

The two vocals will be put into the mixer.

3 drum mics will be put in the mixer.

And of course we will have a PA system running with the mixer. Proabably two mains and maybe two monitors.

Now, should I run the bass directly, because our band is fairly new and he does not have a bass amp. My only concern with running it directly is that the volume of the guitar amps plus the volume of the guitars out of the two mains will overpower the bass? Am I wrong? Please tell me what to do.

[Gidge]

depends on large of an area you are playing.....if its a small audience and you go direct, you will rely mostly on the amps for the guitar sounds and feed less into the PA, but send more bass into the PA....also depends on houd loud the guitar amps are....

of course if you go direct, the bass player will have a helluva time getting enough bass in his monitor to hear himself.......

[M.Brane]

Perhaps you should consider renting/borrowing a bass amp with a direct out and run both.

[Sennheiser]

I agree. The bass player will have a heck of a time hearing himself with that setup. Get a bass amp for him.

[BrettB]

last gig I did I just miced it with an sm57, it sounded really ok, the direct output of his amp sucked bigtime.

I suggest yoy try both, it doesn't take that much time during soundcheck.

[Track Rat]

Beg, borrow or steal a bass amp. If you can and it has a line output, you can run that to the PA. I would NOT rely on the PA to carry the bass though.

[Axis]

i was just about to post this question.