P.A. support for bass cabs

[adrianman]

i've wanted to know for a while now how bassists set their cabs for venues. i know that some bassists have a kick drum pedal to put in front of one of the speakers but when i see some bands they have no mics in front of the cab. what exactly are they doing there? do they have a mic in the back if the cab were to be open? this has been bugging me for a while

[pikester]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DI_box

[Motleyguy]

Along with that, alot of heads now a days have a "direct" line out, which can be fed into the PA, achieving the same thing as a DI box, especially if it's an XLR line out.

[TriggerNYC]

id rahter mic the cab. i love the way cabinets sound. i think something is lost when you DI a bass instead of micing it.

thats mostly in recording tho. live use you can usualy do both. but if i had to chose one, i like having the speaker pumping.

[EADGCF]

Mic, DI, line out, any combination of those. You can use a bass drum mic but in my experience most people don't. Personally I prefer to mic but it depends on variables such as the quality of the mic and the PA system.

[Motleyguy]

I use an AKG D 112 on my bass cabs, and use a DI. Blend the 2... golden.