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[Ed Walters]

OK, so I'm almost afraid to ask this...

Mushy low end. The kind where the kick is loud but the bassline is a continuous run of mixed together notes that are hard to tell apart.  We've all heard decent low end, and also loose, sloppy, mushy, orsomeotherwordforit, low end.

The question:  assuming a decent sized pile of subs placed in a reasonable fashion, in a reasonable room, with enough amplifier, not being driven hard -- WHY is the low end mushy?  WHAT is actually wrong?  What causes mushy low end?

 And even more: what can a person coming into the room to mix a band do about it? Please note I did not say to assume the subs themselves were of any particular quality -- maybe the only solution is to burn them for scrap wood. Let's hear your thoughts.

Ed Walters

[Jay Barracato]

Because the part of the bass note that gives it definition doesn't come from the subs.

Step 1 Make sure you have enough subs to keep up with the tops and a nice clean crossover.

Step 2 remove any low end boost at the bass guitar amp and make sure you don't have the low mid scoop many people put there.

Step 3 add a low mid boost about 800 hz to taste ( bonus add some shine with a small boost somewhere between 2000-4000 hz depending on the guitar and player technique).

Step 4 tell the bass player he can no longer hide musically in the mud .

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[DavidTurner]

OK, so I'm almost afraid to ask this...

Mushy low end. The kind where the kick is loud but the bassline is a continuous run of mixed together notes that are hard to tell apart.  We've all heard decent low end, and also loose, sloppy, mushy, orsomeotherwordforit, low end.

The question:  assuming a decent sized pile of subs placed in a reasonable fashion, in a reasonable room, with enough amplifier, not being driven hard -- WHY is the low end mushy?  WHAT is actually wrong?  What causes mushy low end?

 And even more: what can a person coming into the room to mix a band do about it? Please note I did not say to assume the subs themselves were of any particular quality -- maybe the only solution is to burn them for scrap wood. Let's hear your thoughts.

Ed Walters

The pitch and definition require mid-range...

[Keith Broughton]

The pitch and definition require mid-range...

Quite true!
Most of my system setups are aux fed subs and I usually get a nice clean bass sound before adding the bass to the subs.
That 400 to 800 boost can really help too.

[Art Welter]

The question:  assuming a decent sized pile of subs placed in a reasonable fashion, in a reasonable room, with enough amplifier, not being driven hard -- WHY is the low end mushy?  WHAT is actually wrong?  What causes mushy low end?

 And even more: what can a person coming into the room to mix a band do about it?

Ed,

First step to answer your questions is to listen to the mix with isolation headphones (like GK Ultraphones) to determine whether the source sounds tight or mushy. Mush in, mush out. Gating low tuned drums can eliminate some mush, not pushing too much low bass can help definition in a mix, but the player's style, instruments and tuning are critical factors.

Assuming the source is decent, "mushy" bass is often caused by a time/phase misalignment between the subs and top cabinets in the crossover region. To be "in phase", the output of the various cabinets should be within 1/4 wavelength, which is only 2.8 feet at a crossover of 100 Hz.
This begs the question, what is a reasonable fashion to "pile" a decent sized pile of subs ?

In addition to the typical array problems, room modes and reverberation can accentuate "mush" problems. Short of extensive (expensive and bulky) bass traps, or changing the room design or stage/speaker position, little can be done to fix those problems, other than cutting the offensive frequencies from the mix.

Poor damping factor due to undersized cable, especially with long runs at low impedance reduces cone control, which does sound "mushy".

Cones subjected to long term abuse, especially in high humidity can become floppy, another source of mush.

That concludes the short list of mush factors :^).

Art

[John Rutirasiri]

The question:  assuming a decent sized pile of subs placed in a reasonable fashion, in a reasonable room, with enough amplifier, not being driven hard -- WHY is the low end mushy?  WHAT is actually wrong?  What causes mushy low end?

 And even more: what can a person coming into the room to mix a band do about it? Please note I did not say to assume the subs themselves were of any particular quality -- maybe the only solution is to burn them for scrap wood. Let's hear your thoughts.

Ed Walters

Because it's not a Danley.

Seriously, first suspect would be as Jay stated, the subs are trying to reproduce freq beyond the cabinet's design -- all the mid-bass and other freq are getting into the subs.  Use LPF -- 100Hz -150Hz with reasonably steep slope (24dB/oct).  Specific values depend on the subs and top cabinets.  To prevent over-excursion, also use HPF at the recommended freq which depends on the sub (I use 30Hz on my TH118).

Possibly the wrong driver for the cabinet design or volume, or the cabinets have too much resonance, not enough bracing.  If it's bass reflex, then the drivers may be too "slow" (magnetic flux density not strong enough, low BL factor.)  Amps can have a great influence on the tightness of the sub.  For example, a similarly rated (wattage) Crown XLS and ITech sound completely different driving subs.

On a digital board, it's not too complicated to side-chain a kick to a gated low freq (50-70Hz) sine wave or two, to help tighten up the low end.  I've never done this with a bass guitar, but I suppose it can be done.

John R.

[John Chiara]

OK, so I'm almost afraid to ask this...

Mushy low end. The kind where the kick is loud but the bassline is a continuous run of mixed together notes that are hard to tell apart.  We've all heard decent low end, and also loose, sloppy, mushy, orsomeotherwordforit, low end.

The question:  assuming a decent sized pile of subs placed in a reasonable fashion, in a reasonable room, with enough amplifier, not being driven hard -- WHY is the low end mushy?  WHAT is actually wrong?  What causes mushy low end?

 And even more: what can a person coming into the room to mix a band do about it? Please note I did not say to assume the subs themselves were of any particular quality -- maybe the only solution is to burn them for scrap wood. Let's hear your thoughts.

Ed Walters

First...hi pass the bass. Actual bass instruments have a steadily declining level as they go power in frequency. Making the bass a sub bass instrument with hay stacked subs is never gonna work. An uoright bass' lowest note is 32db down from the loudest note...if you make that the same it sounds ridiculous. Bass sound is all about harmonics. If you let the kick provide the foundation, a bass...high passed and with the proper harmonic content..can pretty freely 'float' right on top of that and not get muddy.

[drew gandy]

Overcooked fish is never good.    

[John L Nobile]

I had mushy bass for a while until I got the bass player get his bass cab up higher and turned down.

Not sure what freq range you refer to as mushy bass. I would put it as between 100 and 200 hz which seems to be where his bass cab was most efficient.

So turning down the stage bass level is what worked for me. YMMV

[Tim McCulloch]

Does it involve the Bass-o-Matic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BQFv83QJ2Y

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Does it involve the Bass-o-Matic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BQFv83QJ2Y

Or Billy Bass?

http://youtu.be/6WC6EbRQmJ0

[Bob Leonard]

Why do people assume all bass/lower frequency notes come from the subs. Big clue here - They don't.

[John Chiara]

Why do people assume all bass/lower frequency notes come from the subs. Big clue here - They don't.

The fundamental frequency might but the harmonics that determine the timbre do not. Same with a kick, definition cone from different places.

[Ed Walters]

Assuming the source is decent, "mushy" bass is often caused by a time/phase misalignment between the subs and top cabinets in the crossover region. To be "in phase", the output of the various cabinets should be within 1/4 wavelength, which is only 2.8 feet at a crossover of 100 Hz.
This begs the question, what is a reasonable fashion to "pile" a decent sized pile of subs ?

Thanks to you and everyone else for their replies.  These days, I rarely use a sound system I don't have control over. This time, I have to deal with what's there. This club (capacity 300, but it's an old theatre, 22' ceiling and lots of plaster) has an awful sounding installed system. I listened to my typical system tweaking playback material for about two minutes, because that's all the time I had.  The bass was mush, the upper mids/highs harsh and horribly beamy/lobey. I didn't pay attention to the low mids because they weren't offensive, probably because they were lacking.

I'm back in there with actual setup time in a couple weeks. Sounds like I will start with Smaart and setting sub to top delays, and creating a crossover from X32 (theirs) output processing (there is something being done for a crossover but it ain't right). Maybe I can get it to suck less.

It's just that it bugged me a lot more than usual. I am doing the gig as a favor to a group of old friends, and I took one listen and realized that no matter what I did behind the console, it was going to be a disappointing mix.

Thanks for the ideas, wish me luck.

As far as Art's question, I consider a reasonably arranged pile of subs to be one that at least tries to get them close together in the center of the stage-front, symmetrical, etc.   Fancier arrangements like end-fire or cardioid are good, but not useful in smaller environments where there's limited depth to put speakers and there's no available DSP.

Ed Walters

[Tim McCulloch]

Thanks to you and everyone else for their replies.  These days, I rarely use a sound system I don't have control over. This time, I have to deal with what's there. This club (capacity 300, but it's an old theatre, 22' ceiling and lots of plaster) has an awful sounding installed system. I listened to my typical system tweaking playback material for about two minutes, because that's all the time I had.  The bass was mush, the upper mids/highs harsh and horribly beamy/lobey. I didn't pay attention to the low mids because they weren't offensive, probably because they were lacking.

I suspect the architecture is not in your favor.  The plaster ceiling is probably barrel-vaulted and the dimensions are probably even integer multiples, i.e. 1:2:3.  Everything bad happens at octaves and what sounds bad changes when you move 4 or 5 feet.  Let me know if I'm getting close...

Damage or "improvements" to the installed system are a further factor as well as the possibility the Rig Ain't Up to the Gig.

I'm back in there with actual setup time in a couple weeks. Sounds like I will start with Smaart and setting sub to top delays, and creating a crossover from X32 (theirs) output processing (there is something being done for a crossover but it ain't right). Maybe I can get it to suck less.

Good luck with that.  Do you have access to the D9 eq?  From your description it sounds to me like there are multiple speakers covering the same audience area (or there are some really crazy reflections, also possible), and unless you can turn off an amp or unplug an offending speaker there isn't much you can do to fix that.  Breaking out Smaart can give you some insight if you've got sufficient time and chops for in situ measurements but most likely you'll have just enough time to say "wow, it looks as bad as it sounds."

It's just that it bugged me a lot more than usual. I am doing the gig as a favor to a group of old friends, and I took one listen and realized that no matter what I did behind the console, it was going to be a disappointing mix.

Thanks for the ideas, wish me luck.

As far as Art's question, I consider a reasonably arranged pile of subs to be one that at least tries to get them close together in the center of the stage-front, symmetrical, etc.   Fancier arrangements like end-fire or cardioid are good, but not useful in smaller environments where there's limited depth to put speakers and there's no available DSP.

Ed Walters

Good luck, Ed.

[Ed Walters]

Do you have access to the D9 eq?

HAHAHA! 

I wish. Thanks for the laugh!

Ed Walters

[Jim McKeveny]

First...hi pass the bass.

This is the eureka advice.

Couple the instruments' natural proclivities, with typical R&R haystack system tuning, and mush is what you get.

Artfully applied subtractive EQ is step 1.

[Art Welter]

Assuming the source is decent, "mushy" bass is often caused by a time/phase misalignment between the subs and top cabinets in the crossover region. To be "in phase", the output of the various cabinets should be within 1/4 wavelength, which is only 2.8 feet at a crossover of 100 Hz.
This begs the question, what is a reasonable fashion to "pile" a decent sized pile of subs ?

As far as Art's question, I consider a reasonably arranged pile of subs to be one that at least tries to get them close together in the center of the stage-front, symmetrical, etc.   
Ed Walters

Ed,

Assuming the mains are L/R, a horizontal center sub array guarantees that there will be virtually no place in the room where the subs will be phase aligned to the mains in the crossover region. The inverse distance law guarantees that the ratio of low frequency "mush" picked up by stage mics in close proximity to the center subs will be greater than if they were co-located in a vertical "pile" under the L/R mains.

Art

[John Chiara]

Assuming the source is decent, "mushy" bass is often caused by a time/phase misalignment between the subs and top cabinets in the crossover region. To be "in phase", the output of the various cabinets should be within 1/4 wavelength, which is only 2.8 feet at a crossover of 100 Hz.
This begs the question, what is a reasonable fashion to "pile" a decent sized pile of subs ?Ed,

Assuming the mains are L/R, a horizontal center sub array guarantees that there will be virtually no place in the room where the subs will be phase aligned to the mains in the crossover region. The inverse distance law guarantees that the ratio of low frequency "mush" picked up by stage mics in close proximity to the center subs will be greater than if they were co-located in a vertical "pile" under the L/R mains.

Art

I observe this often. The people deploying think it's the 'right' way to do it.

[Luke Geis]

Easy fix. Only put one stack of subs under one side of the PA. Can't be any more wrong than it is right..........

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