I went to Evans All Time Low show (opening for Fall out boy), last night. I heard the most amazing display of bass and lack thereof in my life!
First the basics. The arena is your typical 13,000 seat arena. It was sectioned off (curtains) so about half-2/3rds of it was being used. Not sure of how many people were there, but there were over 5K in presales-so lets say 6-7K maybe.
The PA was provided by Clair and consisted of 16 I3’s per side and 12BT218’s center clustered in the middle. Power by Lab Gruppen.
FOH was directly in front of the stage at the rear of the floor.
In the general “middle” of the floor the bass was intense and pounding very good.
There was a narrow section (about 20’ wide) in the middle (where FOH was) that the bass was really punchy, but as you moved off to the sides (at the rear of the floor) it lost a bit of the punch and just got muddy-but still very strong.
OK here is where it gets weird. I did a good bit of walking around. They only allow 500 people on the floor-so it is easy to move around. As I went forward to the front of the audience –on the sides- and directly under the PA hang-the bass was GONE!!!
Not lower-but GONE. I mean at least 20-30dB down (from the center rearof the floor-despite bing only about 15-20' away from the subs). It was the same on both sides. I have NEVER in my life heard that much rejection.
As I walked up the rakes on either side, the bass was just as bad. It just simply was not there. Only the lows from the main PA.
As I walked up behind FOH, it got lower (but nothing as low in level as the sides) and as I got up a little bit in the seating (say halfway) it was pretty much gone.
Evan said they were not doing anything with the bass (steering wise) and the cabinets were all run with the same signal. The cabinets were forming a sideways line array of sorts (being side by side in a row).
Basically the good sub energy was staying on the center part of the main floor (where most of the people were not)
Before anybody thinks otherwise, this is not a knock on the subs themselves, but rather an issue of the physical layout and or room interactions-and maybe something unknown.
So lets say there were 6-7K people there. With only 500 allowed on the floor. And a good number of them off to the sides down front, only maybe 300 were getting good pounding bass. Add a couple hundred more for those seated at the back of the room (most of the people in the stands were to the sides).
Now you have maybe 10% or more, of the people getting the good bass experience.
As with many discussions on sound quality at concerts here, in this case it REALLY depended where you were located. Some would talk about the pounding bass that rattled their bodies, and others would say that there was no bass at all. And they would BOTH be correct.
HOw could something that drastic happen at the same concert? Well believe me-IT DID!
Sorry to rant, but I have never in my life, in all the thousands of gigs I have done, and close to a thousand installs-not to mention concerts attended, have I ever heard THAT MUCH variation of the lows/subs etc. It was simply STUNNING!
Evan did say they had been playing with different configurations on the tour. Well THAT ONE, did not work well-for the audience anyway. It was great at FOH-so I guess it really depends on who you are trying to please
.
On the rest of the mix, here are a couple of comments. Evan was running the screaming girls (in the audience) WAAAYYY to hot!
It was painful. I asked him to turn down the girls and he said he could not.
Being a half empty arena, there was a lot of “room” coming back and overall the sound was very cluttered. This was not due to his mix-which sounded like it would have been fine in a more tame room.
But in situations like this you do not worry about getting a “nice mix” and just concentrate on giving the audience a “Rock-n-roll” experience, and he did that just fine. The band put on a good show and the kids enjoyed it, and that is what it is all about anyway-right?
Regarding the coverage of the rest of the PA, I have no idea. I was so dumbfounded by the bass and how it was reacting, I could not even think about the rest of the system.
But I did miss the floor feeling like it was going to fall in anytime-as the last couple of gigs I have seen ATL.
Nice seeing you again Evan-=keep up the good work and you can go far in this business. We need more people who really care about how it sounds.
Keep on Rockin'