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TEN TIPS FOR GETTING THE BEST STAGE SOUND POSSIBLE FOR YOUR BASS by IGOR SAAVEDRA
TEN TIPS FOR GETTING THE BEST STAGE SOUND POSSIBLE FOR YOUR BASS by IGOR SAAVEDRA
Hi Folks:
This month’s article will be short but precise and straight to the point…
I will start this article by writing this quote:
“In my opinion, the last thing we have to do on stage if we want to modify the sound of our bass is moving the eq knobs… which, let’s be honest, is the first thing people usually do”.
This list is based on a precise, proposed order… so in this case “The Order of the Factors might alter the Product”.
1) Know your sound
I said this once long time ago on an article named “The Chain of Sound.” Knowing your sound at a mental, abstract and conceptual level is crucial… knowing what you want and knowing which the sound you are looking after is. If you haven’t solved that… the following tips might have no purpose for you….
2) Know where you’ll be playing
This means getting the most possible information about the place you are going to perform… If possible, be there at least one day before the show, get on the stage and scream, whistle and clap your hands and listen to what happens. Look at the walls and the ceiling, the angles they have, the materials of the room, consider the “audience effect” which will “dry” the room adding more bass sound to it. The place where you are playing affects enormously the outcome of your sound.
3) Choose the right amp configuration
Once you know where you’ll be playing, consider the right speaker configuration and the proper Bass Head Handling Power and their entire characteristics so to know what to bring there. As an example, usually a 2×10 cabinet has less low frequency response compared to a 1×15 cabinet. Tube amps are warmer and with less transient, etc.,
4) Earplugs
This advice is really simple… before turning your amp on for the sound check (if you are playing in a large venue with high stage volumes) PLUG IN YOUR EARPLUGS! After a few years of not doing so you’ll regret it. Also, do the whole sound check and modifications to the sound with your earplugs plugged in, because this will be “the real sound in your brain at the concert”, not the one without the earplugs.
5) Height and Angling of your amp
Once you have your amp on stage, “where to place it” and “how to place it” is a crucial action. As the higher you put the cabinet, the less bass content you will hear and quite the opposite if it’s resting on the floor… so take this into account. If there’s no way to place the amp over some rack, case or something like that, consider getting some “object” and angling/tilting the cabinet like a monitor if you want to hear more “Presence” from it. If for some reason the producer needs your amp over some box so to be seen for let’s say “esthetical reasons”, and you don’t like what you hear because you hear more highs than you need or you hear it too loud, the solution is quite simple… “Just move the amp (or you) a little bit to a side so you won’t be standing in front of it”… always remember that higher frequencies tend to be “Unidirectional” and lower frequencies tend to behave “Omnidirectional”… the difference is outstanding…
6) Gain Volume vs Master Volume
You already turned your amp ON… ALWAYS set the Gain control first right before the clipping led lights, and then go to the Master volume to set the final volume you need.
7) Distance from your amp
Consider that you’ll be able to feel and to hear the lowest frequencies of your amp by increasing your distance from the speakers… if you stand too close to the speakers the length of the low frequency wave won’t complete itself in relation to you and it won’t be felt by your ears… Lower frequencies are quite longer than higher frequencies, so they need more distance to “Express themselves in your ears”.
8) Sound of your Bass varies depending on the volume
It’s very important that you do all your sound checking at almost the exact volume you’ll be performing. The higher the volumes the more bass frequency content on your sound… always consider that!
9) Eq knobs of your amp
If NONE of this advices were enough… well… only then attempt to SLIGHTLY adjust the eq knobs of your amp to add or rest what you need.
10) Stage Monitors
Once you finished the whole process of getting the best sound you could from your Bass amp, only then see if you are going to need any Bass sound in your stage monitor. Avoid this as much as possible… consider that stage monitors are generic and not dedicated, they were designed to “do the best they can” with all the different textures of the sound that is passing through them. that means they have to deal with the Human voice, Drums, Sax, Trumpet, Bass, Keyboard, etc., but were not built specifically for getting the best bass sound possible. Also beware of the Stage monitor’s tweeter, many times they are terribly “un-warm” and can really harm the core of your Bass sound.
See you on the next month my friends!
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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