Suboctave Feature on Yamaha Boards - am I hearing things?

jaywa · #1 04-18-2011, 12:15 PM

So I just joined a band that has a really nice P.A. including a smaller Yamaha digital board.

Last weekend, my 1st time ever playing a gig through their system and I SWEAR there was a sub-octave effect with the bass going on the whole damn show. It was driving me nuts because on about half the songs I literally could not tell (from the stage anyway) which octave I was playing. And this was with wearing IEMs so I don't think it was just an acoustic anomaly of the room (though I have experienced that before as well).

I know those Yamaha boards have a lot of bells and whistles built in and so I'm wondering if a sub-octave effect is one of them and if it got engaged by accident or was used at the request of their former bassist. If it is, I'm going to have to have figure out a way to tactfully ask the singer/bandleader/P.A. owner to please turn that sh*t off.

testing1two · #2 04-18-2011, 12:45 PM

I'm not sure about the smaller boards but the PM5D does have pitch shifters in the FX library. You should not be shy at all about asking what processing is being applied to your bass signal, especially since this issue affects your IEM mix.

If you know the model of the console you can download the manual here:
Manual Library | Downloads | Yamaha Pro Audio

jaywa · #3 04-18-2011, 01:13 PM

Yeah it was weird... right away during soundcheck I asked the other guys in the band, "don't any of you hear that low octave on the bass" and three guys said no and the fourth guy said "I think the bass sounds great".

I'm gonna give it one more gig with their P.A. (in another venue) just to make sure it wasn't a room anomaly before I make an issue of it. I'm wireless so this time I'm gonna actually pull out my IEMs for a song and walk out into the room and hear what's coming out of those subs for myself.

RevNigel · #4 04-18-2011, 11:08 PM

IEM's make me nuts... I'm back to dragging a mini-amp for personal monitoring.

jaywa · #5 04-19-2011, 07:42 AM

I'm running both. IEMs for clarity (and ear protection), but still a bass rig (or combo amp) on stage turned up just loud enough so I can feel it. I'm actually liking that setup a lot.

jaywa · #6 05-02-2011, 01:32 PM

Reviving this thread to give an update.

We were soundchecking last Saturday and this issue came up again. At first when I brought it up no one else in the band claimed to hear it, then when our singer got on his mic the effect was happening on his voice as well. At that point the other band members heard what I was talking about. After some extensive troubleshooting we traced it back not to the board, but to the crossover system we're using. The bandleader switched out seem things there, and problem solved. I have no idea why crossovers would be causing a sub-octave effect but that's what was happening.

FWIW this was the 2nd gig out of 4 I've played with this band where I have detected something wrong with the sound that nobody else in the band caught (the other issue being a non-functioning subwoofer caused by a bad cable). Maybe it's true what they say about bassists having the best ears...

testing1two · #7 05-02-2011, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaywa

Reviving this thread to give an update.

We were soundchecking last Saturday and this issue came up again. At first when I brought it up no one else in the band claimed to hear it, then when our singer got on his mic the effect was happening on his voice as well. At that point the other band members heard what I was talking about. After some extensive troubleshooting we traced it back not to the board, but to the crossover system we're using. The bandleader switched out seem things there, and problem solved. I have no idea why crossovers would be causing a sub-octave effect but that's what was happening.

FWIW this was the 2nd gig out of 4 I've played with this band where I have detected something wrong with the sound that nobody else in the band caught (the other issue being a non-functioning subwoofer caused by a bad cable). Maybe it's true what they say about bassists having the best ears...

Some active units (like the dbx DriveRack) have a switchable subharmonic synthesizer on the inputs to extend low frequency response. I'm not clear on why this would affect your IEM's unless you're running them through a system processor as well.