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Absolutely buried at outdoor gig
- Thread starter burgerdj
- Start date
I see the scientific graphs, and I can't refute the laws of physics, but that just never translated to my real-life experience.
Real world results vary significantly due to a range of factors such as: size of sub array, placement of subs, placement of your bass amp in relation to subs, interaction with the monitors, where you are standing, SPL of various sound sources, etc.
I have done plenty of gigs where bleed from the subs was a problem, and I have also done plenty of gigs where it was not. Sometimes bleed from the subs enhanced my onstage experience. From the players perspective the results tend to be random and unpredictable...but this is only because we don't grasp all of the factors at play.
My advice as a player:
1. Don't assume that if you it sound bad on stage that it sounds bad out in the audience. You cannot judge what the audience hears from the stage.
2. If it sounds bad on stage, do what you can to make improvements. The action that gives the best improvements varies from gig to gig. Sometimes it's a hopelessly lost cause and nothing seems to work.
3. Typically the primary goal of a gig is to entertain. When nothing works to improve what you hear on stage, put a smile on your face and pretend for the audience, and do the best you can.
This is nothing new...it's been going on for decades.
In the early to mid 90s I went to a free Beach Boys concert on the beach. We got their well before the concert and staked out a nice place for our blanket. The opening band played and the sound level was comfortable and the PA sounded great.
During the break between bands I walked around behind the stage and the techs were turning on additional amps. Apparently only about half of the system had been energized for the opening act.
When the Beach Boys took to the stage it sounded like the lead audio tech simply pushed all the faders to max. The sound was painfully loud and the system was pushed into noticeable distortion. The highs were brittle, crunchy, and IMHO painful. To my ears it sounded absolutely awful. My wife and brother-in-law seemed oblivious to this and were obviously enjoying the show. I got up and walked to the back because I forgot to bring my ear plugs.
Maybe that's why I do well with our typically more-mature crowd.
No heavy Bass, no pounding Kick (nor any screechy guitars for that matter), just great vocals/harmonies which always goes over well, and right-hand keys that make wonderful sounds that a second guitar can't do.
I keep getting these older folks walking up to compliment how good we sound, unlike anything before.
and it's kinda weird, like it's more than a compliment, more like they're genuinely appreciative.
No heavy Bass, no pounding Kick (nor any screechy guitars for that matter), just great vocals/harmonies which always goes over well, and right-hand keys that make wonderful sounds that a second guitar can't do.
I keep getting these older folks walking up to compliment how good we sound, unlike anything before.
and it's kinda weird, like it's more than a compliment, more like they're genuinely appreciative.
Maybe that's why I do well with our typically more-mature crowd.
No heavy Bass, no pounding Kick (nor any screechy guitars for that matter), just great vocals/harmonies which always goes over well, and right-hand keys that make wonderful sounds that a second guitar can't do.
I keep getting these older folks walking up to compliment how good we sound, unlike anything before.
and it's kinda weird, like it's more than a compliment, more like they're genuinely appreciative.
In my experience, most older folks tend to dislike heavy bass and excess volume. So if you keep the volume down and don't crank the lows, they tend to be thrilled and free with compliments. It's not just that they are genuinely appreciative, many also express surprise.
Passinwind
I know nothing.
- Dec 3, 2003
- 23,087
- 46,071
- Disclosures
- Designer/Toaster Tech @ Passinwind Electronics
Maybe that's why I do well with our typically more-mature crowd.
No heavy Bass, no pounding Kick (nor any screechy guitars for that matter), just great vocals/harmonies which always goes over well, and right-hand keys that make wonderful sounds that a second guitar can't do.
I keep getting these older folks walking up to compliment how good we sound, unlike anything before.
and it's kinda weird, like it's more than a compliment, more like they're genuinely appreciative.
When I was mixing club sound I often used to get thanked for turning half the house subs off for acts that I felt benefitted from that, including by management. staff, and many of the bands. The extras were mostly meant for the DJs anyway...
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,086
- 5
- 221,205
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
It's part of the evolution of music, and tastes. Often, it's exactly what the band is after.
The whole "unity gain" concept is actually one of the old wives tales of pro audio. It started out during the days where there were no input level meters or clip detectors, so setting the faders to a "nominal" level and roughing in the gains was a practical workaround. Of course, this sometimes resulted in the summing bus in some designs being overloaded instead, which then created a need to simultaneously monitor summing bus levels and clipping.
In reality, there is not real "unity gain" on a console. The working levels inside the console shift through ranges of levels that vary depending on the function being done. For example a HPF filter block may not have any attenuation or gain through the signal/bypass path, but an eq may have attenuation into the eq to insure that when the eq is boosted, the eq and following sections aren't overloaded. The summing bus, ESPECIALLY on large channel count consoles, may become overloaded as more and more channels are mixed together. Some architectures utilize higher voltage summing bus amps, or will segment the summing function into more manageable blocks of say 12 or 16 channels. All of this happens simultaneously with noise floor management and the tradeoffs that naturally accompany gain structure management.
My idea of a pro show is based on 40 years as an FOH engineer doing pro shows... national and international acts that consistently sell enough tickets to play say 500-5000 seat venues, indoors and out. While I have worked arena and stadium shows and festivals, it's not my preferred environment.
For each audience member like you who can't stand it, there are 10 who prefer it. I have to accept this sort of thing as the way it is and mix to make the most folks happy with as close to middle ground as possible. This is also done with the input of the act and the tour manager or in many cases I end up being the SE and the act's FOH engineer will mix as they see fit. I don't always agree with their choices, I prefer a more middle ground, but they represent the band's vision more directly that I do in these cases and my job is to make it happen.
Throughout my live audio career (which was always simultaneous with my design career), I was careful to protect my ears as without good hearing my design work and income would suffer. That said, a lot of kids (and older people too, it's not exclusive to kids) are already suffering from damage to their hearing and will continue to suffer for the rest of their lives. Pretty short sighted (read as dumb) IMO.
Maybe that's why I do well with our typically more-mature crowd.
No heavy Bass, no pounding Kick (nor any screechy guitars for that matter), just great vocals/harmonies which always goes over well, and right-hand keys that make wonderful sounds that a second guitar can't do.
I keep getting these older folks walking up to compliment how good we sound, unlike anything before.
and it's kinda weird, like it's more than a compliment, more like they're genuinely appreciative.
Yes, what my old group experienced was people telling us they could hear every instrument, that we all sounded good, and that they were not used to that in bars. We only mic'd the vocals (and snare for White Rabbit) and set up just like rehearsal and adjusted to the sound of the (very talented and loud : ) drummer playing his kit. Being an amateur I have never played with FOH, and have heard it be great with only one exception, however only went to shows in the SF Bay
Area where obviously the sound people were on par with the musicians at those mostly large (loved the Cow Palace : ) shows: Grateful Dead (w/various Dylan, Santana, Fogerty,) original lineup of Deep Purple, Stevie Ray Vaughan, BB King, Buddy Guy, Dr. John, Junior Walker and the all Stars, Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Pat Travers, Blue Oyster Cult, Steppenwolf, Johnny Cash, ZZ Top, Carter Family, Judas Priest, Little Richard, and other similar in stature acts. In all those shows there was just one bad sub experience (in the small Berkeley Civic Auditorium?) at a tiny ZZ Top show, but their big concert at at the Sharks Arena was perfect, so not the bands fault, not the Subs fault, it was some person.
I've played for years and the amount of musicians that simply do not understand bass and what we bring to the party is ridiculous.....Les Pauls with the bass cranked on neck PU only. Keyboards pounding the left hand all night long. Horn sections playing portions of bass parts!......There have been many times when I just felt like packing up and going home.
One keyboardist that pull some vox duty that I used to play with would position his mic stand to cut off the left part of the keyboard when he played with a bass player. A subtle reminder to stay out of my sonic territory... Worked really well. Another dude I played hadn't played with a bass player for so long that it took awhile before he figured out the dissonance wasn't me - it was him.
I hate to keep talking about my new band, but...
Trust me, I'm just lucky, I didn't design all this.
Guitar player isn't nor ever was a Rocker, mainly a rhythm player, and isn't looking to fill all the sonic space.
Keyboard, just right hand finds a nice place in the middle,
and I stay low (5-string helps) yet clean...
and vocals rule, both of them singing every song sharing leads and harmonies, and with a vocal-harmony pedal, tastefully add a third voice on certain songs.
Nobody steps on anybody- nice and clean.
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- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,086
- 5
- 221,205
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
I hate to keep talking about my new band, but...
Trust me, I'm just lucky, I didn't design all this.
Guitar player isn't nor ever was a Rocker, mainly a rhythm player, and isn't looking to fill all the sonic space.
Keyboard, just right hand finds a nice place in the middle,
and I stay low (5-string helps) yet clean...
and vocals rule, both of them singing every song sharing leads and harmonies, and with a vocal-harmony pedal, tastefully add a third voice on certain songs.
Nobody steps on anybody- nice and clean.
Sounds like my kind of music actually, since this describes jazz, folk, folk rock and Americana (which are the genres I toured most with)
Famous FOH engineer saying (don't remember who though)... In an arrangement, time exists so that everything isn't happening at once and space exists so it isn't happening on top of itself.
If I was to guess who I heard this from, it would have been Taj Mahal's long time production manager and engineer Carey Williams. He was a little ahead of his time when working out compromises for sound issues. I also worked Etta James shows with him, an entirely different set of compromises for sure, for example negotiating better band meals or buy-outs as a way of getting the band to turn down a little. Who would have thought that dinner would become part of balancing the mix?
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You forgot the "IMHO"...
...and no it isn't, just different. By the way, I play through a Legacy 1200 right now and love it.
A large part of why I started wearing earplugs to gigs (watching) was to cut some of those piercing highs
My current band uses a small PA; rather decent sounding 12" mains, no sub, and powered monitors with only one monitor (aux) channel off our current mixer. The PA usually carries our vocals along with a little bit of kick drum. Sometimes our guitar players will also run some sound through the PA, but they're always tweaking their levels (no surprise there, right?) after we get the balance about right to start a show.
So I'm often playing without PA support and I use a pair of 2x10 cabs in a vertical stack driven with either a Genz Benz Shuttle 6.0 or a GK MB 500. Both heads are pretty good, but I like the GK for playing outdoors. Even without any "Boost", etc., that MB 500 is quite eager to throw bigger volume around for me, which is helpful when playing outside.
With the vertical stack standing around four feet high and closer to ear level, this seems to do a terrific job with helping me to hear myself. Rumor has it that this also allows for better sound dispersion. No objection here - this setup works great for me. I'm usually situated over at the left edge of our stage and I'll point my cabs diagonally forward at what would be the "dance floor" out in front of us. This angle gives our drummer enough of my sound so that we can work together well without blowing all of my sound through everybody on stage.
I can say that ever since I started using a pair of rather good 2x10's instead of a mediocre 4x10, I haven't missed that big hefty cube one bit. Easy to adjust the orientation of these cabs as necessary, the vertical stack has a nice small footprint on smaller stages, and I can also do the small-rig option using only one cab for some settings.
One more thing that helps me with playing outside is to try to stay away from making my own rig push lower frequencies that are just going to disappear without the assistance of a pretty big PA system, soundman, etc. I've used a HPF both for cleaning up my sound in a boomy venue and also for trimming the lows that will tax my rig if I try to make too much of a fat sound outdoors. Instead, I try to establish my sound in the low mids - perhaps around 400 Hz. At least for what I do, this rig isn't overkill, but it lets me make as much sound as I want in different settings... as long as our guitars aren't doing a Spinal Tap thing
This. So many bass players want a "nice full sound on stage" Truth is that's the last thing you want. Ur stage tone wants to be mean lean and kinda meh. Kill the bass knob on ur amp and push those mids/lower mids. Bass frequencies coales at about 50 feet into a nice tight ball...Keep it lean.
