Very boomy sound ...

[unrealrocks]

OK - I've got a really annoying problem ...

When I'm practicing with my group everything sounds very boomy and not like it should, its quite hard to hear between the instruments.

We're all using seperate amps, there all cheapish Peavy amps (what the room has). Its definately the room because I often take recordings of us playing and with the mics close to the speakers the recordinds sound clean and pritty good.

The room is basically a solid cube about 5m x 10m ... Its got solid walls, a very low pile carpet and echos pritty bad. I know the acoustics are bad but is there anything I can do about it? It needs to be a kind of temporary solution as the room is borrowed

Cheers, this is driving me up the wall!

[Treena Foster]

http://www.realtraps.com/mini_stands.htm

http://www.realtraps.com/


Treena

[RicPlaya]

We hung thick carpet padding on the ceiling and walls of our room, I have also see shag carpet used. A buddy used some thick foam padding used to place between the sheets and matress for more cushion and glued that up. Anything that's spongy, porus, thick but not dense will work. It's can't be dense and allow the sound to reflect, it's got to be soft or pourus so the sound will be absorbed.

[int]

Turn the bass down on the amps. Including yours. Then look to acoustic treatment if you need it, but don't spend money unnecessarily.

It's a tough concept sometimes, but EQ can be used to adjust for room problems. If you're using it to establish tone, stop it. The first thing bassists do is turn up the bass to shake the walls - gets that feel in right? But guess what? So do your guitarists. That's what sounds best when you're trying to get your tones by yourselves. But if your all boosting at 80 hz, you're gonna collide and sound like boomy a**. Don't be a boomy a**ist.

***Perceived tone works best in most cases...so get your tone while in perspective with the rest of the group.***

You'll create space in both your recording and your live sound, and your audience will compliment you for it - even though they won't know why.

If that doesn't work you can look to acoustic treatments. But you'd be surprised how needless they are for most practice spaces I've heard.

Try it and see. And if it doesn't work, then you can go spend money.