My Bass Sounds "Worse" the Louder the Band Plays - What Can I Do?
I often get questions from customers who are playing in "louder" ensembles; it usually goes something like this: "My bass sounds great with my pickup when I'm playing in my living room, but once we get on stage and volumes go up, it sounds unnatural, tinny, or boomy and indistinct."
So, when playing a giant acoustic-bodied instrument, there’s a psycho-acoustic property we fight when things get loud; as I understand it, it’s sort of a feedback-related kind of thing. The vibrations put into the air around your instrument from your amp/the PA/other instruments/etc. actually interfere with the tone and natural vibration of your instrument, which can cause the sound to become less “natural” and “balanced” the louder things get. I assume that it creates almost a “phase” sort of effect on some of the frequencies. This is something that can be difficult to get around when stage volumes start to get out of hand.
Your best solution, IMO, is to try to work it out with your band to get the stage volume lowered - that's much better for everyone's ears and sanity, not to mention the soundman's ability to get a good balanced mix out front. But sometimes bandmates can be stubborn, and this may be a losing battle.
I don’t know the features on whatever amp you use, but a preamp might help (but might not.) Using the best resistance buffer for the piezo pickup (more info) can get the sound to its best before things start to affect it. Also, the lower bass frequencies are bigger and more powerful, and therefore more likely to affect your bass’ natural sound than the higher ones are, so a preamp that has a low-cut filter (more info) might “tighten up” your lower end tone and also help reduce that psychoacoustic effect – but it can also depend on lots of other factors.
The bright pink sheet that we included with any pickup you have purchased has lots of tips for tone-shaping as well as feedback; if you haven’t been dealing with conventional feedback issues (squealing, etc.) you might have skimmed that information. But since it’s a related phenomenon, you might want to revisit the tips related specifically to feedback – trying a few of them might have a positive effect. If you no longer have that sheet, email me through our contact form and I'll send you a copy.