How much do we really need to know?

[jazzyvee]

I recently went to a presentation by a professional bass player which was superb. I won't name the person because that's an aside.
 
Anyway one of the questions asked during the presentation was about the instrument being played and what the pickups configuration was and what the controls and switches did.
The presenter said that they had a vague idea but didn't know the details of what they actually did but knew how to use them to get the sound that was required either live or in the studio.
Is there anything wrong with treating that stuff like a black box and merely learning to use the controls to do what you need.
 
If I can use the analogy of a car, many drivers have absolutely no clue about what happens under the bonnet or how the transmission or how anything at all on a car works. However they have the controls to interface with the car and are able to drive perfectly well.
 
Yes like me, you may have an interest in knowing the details of  how things work but is it really neccessary. Knowing this stuff helped me but that's because I have a painfully inquisitive mind so want to know how everything I use works.  
 
But had I battled on blindly I would have eventually learnt to use the bass without knowing the theory.

[tubeperson]

Same issue with computers.  Most people by much more computer or laptop than they could get by on. We tend to like gadgets and features.  If you look at purchases using cost per use, your buying decision might be very different.  Still we all like gadgets bells and whistles.  Play on Sir!

[keith_h]

The only time I can think of where having more than a black box knowledge of the inner workings would be helpful is when something doesn't go as planned. In the case of a musician that would be more in the area of handling poor room acoustics. By having some knowledge you are more likely to adjust the needed controls faster than hunting for them by fiddling but even the fiddler should eventually resolve the issue.
 
Keith

[811952]

It's always a judgement call, tailoring the presentation to the audience. If he'd detailed what the controls did, he'd need to go into inductors and resonance and all that hoo-haa, and the physics people would still be waiting for the explanation of what actually the controls were doing.
 
I work at a university. Can you tell?
 

 
John

[hammer]

And then the theoretical physicists would argue with their applied colleagues to the point where their discussion would be as much about philosophy as about acoustical physics (I work at a university too).
 
I agree with Keith that knowing the inner workings of things is critical when everything doesn't go as planned and your on your own.  Beyond that, however, as everything has become more complex it's become increasingly difficult to develop both a practical and theoretical understanding of all of the technical aspects of one's gear while having the time to maintain the technical aspects of one's craft. If I was to take the time to attempt (and I emphasize the term attempt) to fully and deeply understand the workings of my basses, F1-X, SF-2, amp etc. I'd have absolutely no where near enough time to sufficiently practice the musical aspects of the craft.
 
Now you might say that's because I am an amateur as opposed to a professional musician but I think it applies to the professionals as well. A couple of good examples...From what I understand Jackie Stewart and Sterling Moss two of the most prolific formula 1 drivers knew everything about just about every aspect of the cars they raced. With the complexity of today's cars it would be nearly impossible for Lewis Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel to possess that same degree of knowledge (they may actually know more but there is so much more to know).
 
I also had an experience in Europe a number of years ago when I was watching The Tour of Flanders and George Hincapie flatted on one of the famous cobbled hills of the course. As he was waiting for a support car to catch up to him to provide a wheel change I stood about 5 feet away as he struggled to get the rear wheel off his bike all the while cursing and under his breath muttering how the hell do you get these f...ing wheels off.
 
So practical knowledge (e.g., where do I set the pan control to get the tone I want..yes. Theoretical knowledge...as much as have the time and capacity to understand.

[sonicus]

A skilled surgeon might not need to manufacture his own scalpel .

[ed_zeppelin]

I went to a party once where somebody had rented a massive PA and by the time the second (of eight) bands took the stage, the soundman (I.e.: the guy who rented the PA) was passed out.  
 
The garbage coming from the PA was horrific, and somebody had to do something quick. I had no idea what any of those knobs and sliders did, but I stepped up anyway, if only to shut down the ear splitting feedback. Nobody else did.
 
Meanwhile, the band kept playing, and the singer made a big show of his disappointment in my lack of ... well, anything ... And people all around the board were yelling at me; turn up the singer! More bass! More drums! Etc. it was absolute pandemonium, and they kept it up all night. Instead of being hailed as a hero, I was cursed and reviled among men.
 
I resolved to learn just enough about mixing boards so it never happened again. (Resolved means; when I get around to it in my world. Just ask the Foghorn.) I bought the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook and got all the way to page 4. Woo hoo!
 
A couple of years later I was in a killer band and we played a festival, and the sound was superb. We were on early, so after our set I hung out at the board and just watched. Between bands, I complimented the soundman and we got into a discussion that is still, to this day, the single most productive conversation about sound that I've ever had.
 
He showed me the layout of the board and how it pertained to gain structure (remarkable that neither topic would have sunk in to my rather thick, yet handsome skull without the other, but because he equated gain with each knob, I GOT IT!)  
 
The most important thing he told me was to get a set of Sony 5706 flat-response headphones and use them to familiarize each knob and slider so I'd get the FEEL of what it did, purely by ear.
 
He said that the trim/input/mic knob was to set the hotness or sensitivity of each mic or instrument, and that you wanted as much out of it as you could get without distortion. Easy! I could listen for it in the headphones, and it would be just like the singer was singing directly into my ear. Once it's set, don't touch it.  
 
My god, that simplified things. He also said to never let a singer go check check one two three etc., because it was worse than useless. Have him sing a song, because with headphones you'd have the trim set in about five notes, and could move on to the next channel. It was all about finesse.  
 
Things like; you should know what the trim pot setting is for an SM-57 or 58 without hearing a note, roughly and he was dead right. (And I do  )
 
He told me about using a parametric EQ to eliminate the bad, rather than staring into space, going; does this sound better than THIS? Crank the level, sweep for what sounds worst, turn the level down and away it goes. (It's startling through good headphones, believe me.)
 
It was all about getting the basics, as quickly as possible. Boy, did I Hoover every word of the Sound Reinforcement handbook after that. It was such a pleasure, rather than the drudgery of my first attempt.
 
I'm not telling you this for my ego's sake. Quite the contrary. I was astounded by my ignorance, and how much I could learn from listening with headphones.  
 
My favorite tip was; nobody bothers you when you have headphones on. He was absolutely right.
 
I apologize for the length of this rant, but it was important to this topic because I learned how precious my bass sound ISN'T, in the great scheme of things.  
 
Somebody posted a video of their band a while back, and even though he was a MONSTER bassist, I cringed because they only faced the audience for a few seconds and spent the rest of their time twiddling with knobs on their amp and bass. I don't think they realized that everyone else in their band was relaxed and smiling, and they looked like deer in the headlights. Just petrified.
 
I was just like that for a long time, until somebody way smarter than me (which admittedly ain't saying much) told me to get some headphones and find out what those knobs actually sound like, and how much of your sound is actually in your hands. (Especially because upright bass is my primary instrument, which includes all the weird harmonic stuff that happens when you smack the crap outta the strings about two feet from a couple of Fishman transducers clipped to the top of the [wooden] bridge. At serious volume levels you can potentially make people ears bleed.)
 
It literally changed everything about the way I play bass, and focusing on the FUNCTION of bass within an ensemble. I try to sound as close to the bass drum(s) as possible. Like one of my favorite drummers said; you play like you're hiding from the police.  
 
Yeah, that's why I get the gigs, though.  
 

[gtrguy]

All knoweldge is a good thing, I think. My own goal is to be able to know as much as possible so as to be as transparent or do as little tweaking as possible at some point and concetrate on my playing during a gig. However, I will move the knobs to get there.
 
Often I have to accept what I can get, knowing that what I hear may not be what is out front. I do know that when I like my sound, I play better. I also know truly great players who can play through any situation and still play fantastic.
 
A good thing to do is video tape your gigs and see how you look and sound. If you are always tweaking stuff, it looks bad.

[5a_quilt_top]

If you are a musician, you need to know whatever is important to you that will allow you to create and perform to the best of your abilities. This is personal and will vary from person to person.
 
For some, it is critical that they understand everything from mic placement and room acoustics to the tonal properties of wood and the purpose and parameters of each knob on their instrument and amplification system.
 
For others, as they say, ignorance is bliss.
 
Hendrix, for example, was certainly no technician, but he was very intuitive and creative. In his case, not knowing what each knob did allowed him the freedom to think beyond traditionally accepted practices and use his tools in ways that most likely would have been discouraged by a strict technician.
 
He was pursuing the sounds that existed in his mind and was using whatever he had available at the time to find them. As a result, the rules were re-written and a new set of traditionally accepted practices was established.
 
The same could be said of our hosts.
 
If they decided to continue to design and build instruments using the accepted standard practices that existed at the time Alembic was born, these fantastic creations that we are so privileged to use might not have ever seen the light of day.
 
Thankfully, they had the courage to challenge tradition.

[bigredbass]

I've seen everything from guys who had utterly no clue who were brilliant players all the way to guys who could build/repair their whole rig who couldn't play their way out of a bingo hall, and everything in between.  It just depends on the person.
 
But then, the wondering is how Les Paul and Ed Van Halen and more like them did the things they did.  This puts me in mind of Ed talking about opening up his Marshall head to add the Variac and getting lit up and blowing up the head more than a few times until he figured it out.
 
For me, the things I taught (or learned from brighter heads than mine) myself were out of necessity.  When I began, like most of us, a lot of older guys would give you the 'well, if you don't use one of THESE, forget it' speech when it came to basses and amps.  In my case, they were uniformly FOS.  
 
So as to not waste any more money, I began researching and asking smarter people and reading and eventually found my way here.  I was never going to be one of those guys with a beater Precision and a rattle-trap amp.
 
Not that it was a smooth trip through the education.  I'm utterly convinced that my go-round with an Eden stack is proof that you really can be 'educated above your intelligence'.  
 
Still hurts when I sit down . . . .
 
Joey

[terryc]

I addition when I was 'volunteered' to do the sound(how come it always seems to be the bassist?)
I too took some time to learn 'the strip' as you only need to know one channel as the rest are all duplicated.
On addition to get the singer to sing acapello he advised me to get them to say the alphabet as well as the 5 vowels.  
Glad I don't do it now because as mentioned previously you can either be George Martin/Eddie Offord/Phil Spector et al combined or be the  most hated person in the world !

[sonicus]

Terry  the most hated person in the world !  was how a  new soundman in training looked at me recently when he approached me at a recent festival gig that I played at me when  he told  me that they wanted to take a DI signal from my bass. ____I asked him  do you want  pre or post EQ ?    do you want a balanced or un balanced signal?
If balanced do you want PIN 2 hot or PIN 3 HOT ?  He then handed me a quarter inch TS cord !  He said from your Bass , NO , I replied  I then said give me a balanced XLR and be sure to be PIN 2 HOT , the signal is pre EQ  and +4dBu . He looked at me with daggers in his eyes and then ran to the Dog House and another Sound man showed up who was the actual FOH guy at the board/desk , he smiled and said  thanks for making it clear what your signal source consists of, the other guy is really green and just learning.  
 
   That real FOH guy did a great job just to mention and provided the band with multiple monitor mix's and put my bass through his house system only after coming up to the stage and listening to my stage volume and tone and EQ preference and asking me is this what you want to sound like ?___ I nodded and smiled and he gave me a thumbs up and said  You got it man   That was KOOL !  SO  What do you have to Know ? ___  It helps if you know what you want and can communicate in technical terms , BUT if there are real professionals on the job with educated ears then ;A skilled surgeon might not need to manufacture his own scalpel  as I wrote in my post 4520 above in this thread.    
 
  Wolf
 
(Message edited by sonicus on October 01, 2015)

[5a_quilt_top]

Supplement to my previous post above:
 
The knowledge requirements are quite different if you are interpreting the creative requests of the musician / artist while you are assisting that person with their sonic quest.
 
Back to the Hendrix analogy - I'm dead certain that Eddie Kramer knew far more than the average bear about what each knob did. Same could be said for Sir George Martin and his army of technicians working with the Beatles. And Ron Wickersham and the Dead. And the list goes on...
 
The magic happens when the innocent / ignorant creative asks what if we did THIS and the knowledgable technician has the courage to explore the idea instead of simply dismissing it with a bunch of rhetoric based on the dictates of conventional wisdom.

[ed_zeppelin]

>>>I was never going to be one of those guys with a beater Precision and a rattle-trap amp.

[sonicus]

Forest,     Your post above is Kool and asks of our influences and quests of emulation to either add them to or bag of musical tricks or in a journey to find our own sound and technique.   If we are called upon to provide tracks in studio work our bag of tricks can be an important aspect of our ability to span multiple genres .  
 
    I my self find that my hand techniques are a product of such emulation and have resulted in a mix of influences on the electric bass. I think of it like a triangle in the  moment of action . Why a triangle ? Here is why ;
 ______________________________MIND_________________________________________________
 
 
LEFT HAND (fingering hand)___________ RIGHT HAND (plucking    hand)
 
  I utilize the techniques that I have observed from different players right and left hand techniques and the mentation( chops and perceived mind set)  of different players simultaneously as my own voice on the Bass. In example  My Mind might be in  LESH mode / My left  fingering hand inENTWISTLE MODE / And my right plucking hand in JACO MODE . I feel free to mix and match at will with other influences at any given time  This has been developing for over four decades and changing all the time.      I have fun with this !  
 
  Wolf