Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tim McCulloch]

Keep in mind all this work and expense just to make on stage "feel" better stands a good chance of making the main mix for the actual audience worse.

One of my venues features a plaster over lathe concave, fresnel band shell.  Think "That's All, Folks!".  Hollywood Bowl, indoors, on a smaller scale.  Most performers say it feels "weird" on stage, even with IEMs (I'm guessing the reflections into vox mics).  For fun, what sounds "good" on stage to the bassist and guitarists is muddy out front.  If the singer wants a 'really warm sound' in the wedges FOH is hopelessly screwed.  And out front *everything* on stage is louder that it seems to the players on stage.  Adding noise-making stuff to make it feel like a proscenium stage with soft goods just makes for additional misery.

[Mike Caldwell]

One of my venues features a plaster over lathe concave, fresnel band shell.  Think "That's All, Folks!".  Hollywood Bowl, indoors, on a smaller scale.  Most performers say it feels "weird" on stage, even with IEMs (I'm guessing the reflections into vox mics).  For fun, what sounds "good" on stage to the bassist and guitarists is muddy out front.  If the singer wants a 'really warm sound' in the wedges FOH is hopelessly screwed.  And out front *everything* on stage is louder that it seems to the players on stage.  Adding noise-making stuff to make it feel like a proscenium stage with soft goods just makes for additional misery.

Do the people who run that venue say how great the acoustics are in that room? Most seen to think rooms with odd reverb decay or just really long decay with some flutter echo thrown in have great acoustics.

A time of two a year I work in room with a small bowl style stage and the room has two domed ceiling sections for added extra fun.

[Chris Grimshaw]

Venues like those can have "great acoustics", for the right program material.

Difficulties arise when the music doesn't match the venue.

Chris

[Mike Caldwell]

Venues like those can have "great acoustics", for the right program material.

Difficulties arise when the music doesn't match the venue.

Chris

True, but all too often it a music & venue mismatch.

[Mal Brown]

OK, so what would you suggest for this scenario. Is it worth me making an attempt to fix this or am I just wasting my time trying t make this work? 

Thanks for all of your input.

LeVan - I'm a bass player and sound guy...   My bass rig is designed as a monitor with the use of a dedicated HPF.  Prt of my job is to get enough bass on stage to keep my other players glued together rhythmically bur not wnough to compete with the FOH.   ... and from a mixing perspective it is always VOCALS on top and out front!  Then the other stuff like bass, dums, keys, guitars...   One way to bet there is a quiet stage...   In my vocal pop oriented band, we can pretty much talk across stage amd we let the FOH do the heavy lifting.

I often get more bleed from the subs that I really want on stage anyway...

I would recommend that instead of trying to increase the level of bass on stage - get the rest of the band to turn down so the apparent bass is useful.

My .02, hopefully worth more.

[Ivan Beaver]

Venues like those can have "great acoustics", for the right program material.

Difficulties arise when the music doesn't match the venue.

Chris

Exactly

"great acoustics" for pipe organ are completely different than the acoustics needed for speech, which are different than traditional jazz which are different than to those needed for rock.

Back in the "classical era" the composers often wrote material that sounded good in the performance spaces near them.  They would not sound the same in different rooms.

When someone says "great acoustics", the answer should "for what?" 

We have a local Church in which the architect "claims" that the room will not make the "bad notes" stand out.

I have often wondered which notes are the "bad notes"?  Sure it sounds impressive to state, but what does it really mean?

All to often people just "spew" out things to try to impress others, who have no idea what they really mean.

[ProSoundWeb Community]