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[lorenjones]

Sorry for slaughtering the quote function.

[lorenjones]

Justin Bartlett wrote on Tue, 27 October 2009 11:45

Does your bass player use a stage amp, or is the bass guitar fed straight to the DI?  If it's straight to the DI, I'd try getting a Sansamp or similar product to replace the regular DI; it makes a big difference for us.  We basically use the "SVT emulation" settings on the Sansamp most of the time and it works great.  Using a regular DI only resulted in a weak, muddy, flabby sound when we did that.

Definitely something to consider.  No stage amps at all for us.  Straight in via DI although one of the bassists does have some sort of an amp emulator rig...not sure which.

[lorenjones]

Brian Ehlers wrote on Tue, 27 October 2009 12:26

Great suggestions so far. For the bass, try an active DI and make sure that the attack time on the compressor isn't too fast.  Compressors are nice on bass, because they help even out the sustain, making sure there's always a good chordal foundation to the music.  But you still want the initial attack of the string to get through.  Also, I really wouldn't be playing much with the channel EQ for bass, unless either the bass's pick-up is real uneven or is interacting poorly with the direct box (which is why I suggested an active DI). For the kick, get that mic close to the beater head!  In fact, close to the beater itself.  And don't be shy with the EQ.  Also, I don't see where a compressor will ever help give a kick drum more punch, so unless you need it to even out the drummer's right foot, get rid of it. It's ironic that the "punch" in bass instuments actually comes from the higher frequencies.  Make sure you aren't cutting anything above, say, 1 kHz.

OK, what havoc have you found passive DI's to play with bass guitar sounds.  Perhaps tat is part of the problem.  An active DI or Sansamp or similar probably would be worth trying.

Definitely going to adjust mic placement closer to beater head to and tune the kick to see what we get from that.

[lorenjones]

Mike Galica wrote on Tue, 27 October 2009 13:31

lorenjones wrote on Mon, 26 October 2009 22:28 Anyway the bass guitar sounds like all deep rumple with no clarity or punch.  I compress it around 2:1 with 6 db or so of gain reduction max on a  dbx 166xl on auto for the attack and release.  On the channel strip I put the HPF in at around 40hz, boosted some with the low shelf at about 80hz, cut some 200 hz with a fairly broad q and then boosted a little 1khz.  None of it seemed to help clear things up much.  The bass is coming straight in via a basic passive DI box into the board with the comp inserted on the channel. If you're lacking clarity and punch from a bass guitar, that cut at 200 my have something to do with it.  If I'm trying to bring a bass out in the mix I'll roll off the lows and give a pretty stern boost somewhere between 200 and 350 Hz. And I second the thoughts to tune the kick and get the mic closer to the beater.

I'll give it a try as far as putting more midbass and cutting some deeper bass.  You are about the fourth to suggest getting closer to the beater with the kick mic so I will definitely give that a shot.

[lorenjones]

Tom Young wrote on Tue, 27 October 2009 17:47

First, and this echoes what at least one other post has suggested: make sure the source is good before you play with what comes after. Many drummers do not know how to tune their kit. Period. There is at least one very good article (maybe with a video, I don't recall for sure) on this if you do a google search. Same goes for bass guitar. If the strings are old and/or if the bassist does not know how to set the controls (not to mention the player's technique, istelf) this can result in not-very-clear signal. This is one of the downsides of having the bass go direct without a stage amp ..... the bassist has no "local" reference. But the other, even more important (because they impact everything), issues to consider are the acoustic characteristics of the space and the design of the FOH loudspeaker system. If either (or both) of these is compromised then this may be the biggest culprit. I am amazed that many folks who do the system design well and then optimize (measure, align, equalize, etc) the fullrange loudspeakers never look at (measure) the subs. Perhaps in 90% of the systems I have done or have "fixed", the subs required 2-3 parametric cut filters to smooth their response in that specific space/system. The crossover parameters also have substantial impact on the clarity of the instruments reinforced by the subs.

Tom, thanks for the input.  I think I have looked at the video that you are talking about on tuning kick drum.  The one I saw was on the website for Evans drumheads.  Seemed to make sense.  Not being a musician at all I guess all I can do is talk with the bassists to tell them what I am hearing and see if they don't mind trying to work on providing a better tone to FOH.

As far as the system implementation and optimization goes I am certainly far from being knowledgeable on even describing that.  The room is about an 80 foot rectangle with 35 ft or so cielings and then a small wedge shaped wing on each side of the seating area (the little wedges have lower cielings).  The bass definitely has some prominent nodes in the little wings off to the side of the seating area.  The system is an LCR design with 3 KF650's plus the SB625 at the center cluster and 2 KF650's plus an SB600 in the L and R clusters.  The SB600's are not being run as true subwoofers though, because listening to a bass instrument, or pink noise through them vs the center cluster it is apparent that the L and R clusters roll off much higher than the center does.  So I surmise that the SB600's at L and R are being implemented as additional upper bass cabs for those clusters but not allowed to run down to anywhere close to their 40hz or so cutoff.  I need to get our former team leader (no longer at the church) who worked with the install contractor on the system design to give me the rundown on how the DSP is implemented and optimized.  I will say that playing a CD through the system the tonal balance seems quite good and coverage pretty even across the room from each of the three clusters (definitely the L and R drop off a little on the opposite side of the room but it isn't too bad to my ears at least).  I have often thought that to mix to 90 dbA at FOH in a room the size of ours that we perhaps need a little bit more subwoofer capability to give a nice full bottom end without things being pushed and sounding strained/out of control.  One dual 15 front loaded cabinet alone to handle all the true sub duty doesn't seem like much for that size room and around 600 to 850 people, but perhaps I am wrong.  Anyway, I think it will be wiser to try the kick mic placement adjustments, changes to compressor technique, tuning the drum better etc first.  If that stuff doesn't help then a harder look at the loudspeaker system implementation and it's processing would be next I guess.

[lorenjones]

Benamin John Brunskill wrote on Tue, 27 October 2009 19:34

One useful tip, (you may be doing this already) is get rid of all the useless low rumble. Use a HPF at 80-100 on guitars, female vocals, overheads, your violins, anything that doesn't have a lot of lows. That make a bit of space. Are you gating your drums? That can help to tighten up low end.

Every channel had the HPF engaged.  Our board has sweepable HPF so I set it down at 40 on the kick and bass since that is about the lower end cutoff of our sub, but on all the other channels it is much higher (100hz to 300hz depending).

[lorenjones]

Tim Padrick wrote on Tue, 27 October 2009 23:36

Most every system that I encounter has a nasty bump somewhere between 60Hz and 80Hz, usually closer to 80Hz.  Once I EQ that out, I find that I can turn the subs up and then CDs finally sound as they should, instead of having one-note bass.  Live instruments benefit as well. Unless your channel strip LF is sweepable, it is boosting a lot of unwanted 200Hn when you boost the bottom.  That's why I prefer Allen & Heath if I'm mixing on an analog console - the low-mid sweeps down to 35, and I can use that as a peaking LF boost and get some action happening. I never high pass the bass or kick.  The bottom is where the fun is.  (That's why the old pipe organs had the 32' and 64' pipes - the feeling of His majesty comes from the very low frequencies.)  If it was necessary to make some room, I'd tailor the kick to make way for the bass - the bass goes lower, and has melodic importance, both to the ear and the body (the lows). Unless the guy has a very inconsistent foot, I never comp the kick. It just never has the same impact.  I most always gate.  However if the music is very dynamic (on purpose), a gate might not work. Add mids to the bass to get note definition.  This can be anywhere from 200Hz to 1500Hz, depending on what you want to accomplish: 200Hz emphasizes makes the notes "punch through", above 500 or so makes it "growl".  You may have to cut the highs to remove "click" or "twank" that can easily become just noise in the mix.

As stated in reply to a couple other posts, I think the system sounds pretty good with recorded music.  The tonal balance sounds nice, even and full with a slightly prominent low end but it doesn't sound overpowering or one note to me on recorded music.

Our board is an Allen and Heath ML5000 so the channel strip EQ's are pretty versatile.  The HPF corner as well as the low shelf corner are adjustable with the two full parametric mid bands and as you mention the low mid one goes all the way down to 35 hz.  So with the adjustable HPF available I figured I would cut out stuff below 40 hz that our speakers can't really reproduce anyway, even on the kick and bass channels.  Then I used the low shelf to put in the boost around 60 on the kick and a little higher on the bass.  I should probably use the low mid to tailor the shape of that filter a little more precisely.  Thanks for the hints on the bass guitar EQ.  I will try ditching the comp on the kick and trying to get the gate adjusted to where it will work better for us.  I am sure that having the mic placed further inside the kick drum will give better isolation from the snare and give more difference between kick and snare levels to allow the gate to have some room to differentiate between the two.  What do you find gating adds to your kick?

Thanks to everyone for the great input.  This board is a ridiculous resource.  It will probably be a couple weeks before I am back at the controls to mix so I may not be able to try all these ideas out as soon as I wish, but I will definitely get back here to report results.  Thanks again.

[Tom Young]

Without actually seeing and hearing it, I obviously cannot comment on how well your system is designed and optimized.

I agree that the subwoofer system design seems a little "weird".

But if, as you say, the system sounds good with pre-recorded music then that is an indication that it is probably OK.

Which puts you back in the realm of addressing the problem through instrument tweaking, mic selection and technique and channel processing.

Obviously, if the source instruments are loud this may be part of your problem. But I am not sure that this could be the culprit as you say that the bass has no stage amp (right ?) and you made no reference to very loud stage volume.

Wish I could help more.

[Arnold B. Krueger]

lorenjones wrote on Tue, 27 October 2009 04:28

Hi, I find I am having trouble getting a tight but full bottom end dialed in for our worship services. Anyway the bass guitar sounds like all deep rumple with no clarity or punch.  I compress it around 2:1 with 6 db or so of gain reduction max on a  dbx 166xl on auto for the attack and release.  On the channel strip I put the HPF in at around 40hz, boosted some with the low shelf at about 80hz, cut some 200 hz with a fairly broad q and then boosted a little 1khz.  None of it seemed to help clear things up much.  The bass is coming straight in via a basic passive DI box into the board with the comp inserted on the channel. The kick also sounds flabby to me.  Mic is a B52 right at the hole in the resonant head, compressed at about 2:1 with approximately 8db or so of gain reduction on an ACP88.  The gate wasn't really able to help keep the snare out of the kick without killing the kick so I turned it off.  Strip EQ on the kick was something like HPF in around 40 hz, low shelf boosted around 60 hz, some cut around 300 and some boost around 2.5khz.  The kick just sounds flabby and boomy with a sound somewhat like a car sub that is working a little too hard.  (BTW, I don't think the sub was being overdriven, but perhaps pushed near capability...It is an EAW SB625 powered with a bridged MA2400.  I didn't see any clip lights). Too much information I am sure.  If you have read this far and have any kindly hints or can point me to a great reference then I would be much obliged.

One hidden agenda in any sound system is sound from monitors, mains, and acoustic sources sneaking in for a ride, often a second ride, through the system via its microphones.

Just for grins, move the high pass filters on *every* mic input up past 200 Hz, and see what happens.

I can't get a clear read from the posts on whether your drums are acoustic or electronic, but if they are acoustic there could be bleed into the mic on the kick. Bleed can stab you in the back, as for example I have to fight with the drum monitor leaking in through the mics for one of he auxiliary percussionist. The platform is very tight and reflective so everything wants to leak into everything.

I think the first thing you'll notice is that many voices aren't changed that much by moving the high passes up this high. Not even deep male voices may change that much.

It has been years since the last time I had any problem coming up with the WD's desired flavor of the week from our bass instruments using just the parametric eq on my 02R96. No dynamics processing anyplace. In addition to the boosts and cuts you describe, I also have a variable low pass that sometimes sweeps below 1 KHz. I work with 4 different bass players and 2 different drummers, so I'm dialing up a different flavor package for one or both instruments every week.

Admittedly, I'm working with 14-16 musicians including like a dozen instrumentalists,  we're not all that dependent on any of them carrying all of the mail in their range of operation. IOW, we're probably not as picky about bass instrument sound as we would be if we only had 4 total instruments.

BTW, our drum set and bass guitar come in via some of Behringer's cheapest DIs. I've got some pricier DIs kicking around, but we use what works, not just what looks good on the equipment list.

I am very aggressive about high-passing every input and working aggressively to move the corner frequencies as high as possible. This seems to be a big problem-solver. OTOH, the high pass on our bass input is < 30 Hz.

[Brian Ehlers]

lorenjones wrote on Wed, 28 October 2009 00:30

OK, what havoc have you found passive DI's to play with bass guitar sounds.  Perhaps tat is part of the problem.  An active DI or Sansamp or similar probably would be worth trying.

My comment about DIs applies to any type of guitar (bass, electric, or acoustic).

Passive pick-ups have a fairly high output impedance, and that impedance changes with frequency.  Even if the guitar has an on-board pre-amp, it is usually designed to drive a fairly short cable, not a long run.

Enter the Direct Box, which is designed to transform that nasty long cable run into a more friendly load.  Unfortunately, a passive direct box can only do so much.  The load it presents to the guitar's pick-up (or preamp) is still lower than desirable and varies with frequency.  So you've got a variable, too-high impedance driving a variable, too-low impedance.  The result is all sorts of frequency and phase anomalies.  Are they good or bad anomalies?  That's a matter of taste.  Can you correct them with the channel EQ on the board?  Again, a matter of taste.

Many (not all) active direct boxes have a very high input impedance -- something like 1 MegaOhm, and not varying with frequency.  So your board will receive a signal more faithful to the original signal at the guitar.  Will this more faithful signal sound better?  Again, a matter of taste.  But I prefer to not waste my channel EQ just compensating for signal loss.

I'm not saying the passive DI is your primary problem, nor even a major contributor.  I'm just suggesting it's something to experiment with.

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