EQ. Question

[bogie1519]

Ok I think all of us know what sound in our heads or ears we are looking for. It's out there somewhere. My question is if you have a sound man out front. And you trust him to get you in the mix where you would like to be.If he tells you that you sound boomy and to much bass eq in the mix. Where would you start to clean it up. Do you just turn down the bass which I think imho lowers you over all volume. Do you go to tremble next or mid-range. If you have xlr cable going to the main board. Do you go there and turn it down. Do you go pre or post... I think pre is better because you can control it more.
Thanks for any input....

 

[Wasnex]

Ok I think all of us know what sound in our heads or ears we are looking for. It's out there somewhere. My question is if you have a sound man out front. And you trust him to get you in the mix where you would like to be.If he tells you that you sound boomy and to much bass eq in the mix. Where would you start to clean it up. Do you just turn down the bass which I think imho lowers you over all volume. Do you go to tremble next or mid-range. If you have xlr cable going to the main board. Do you go there and turn it down. Do you go pre or post... I think pre is better because you can control it more.
Thanks for any input....

I generally prefer pre-EQ DI. In fact I usually plug my bass into a stand alone DI rather than using the DI from the amp. I play an active bass, and most of the time I run the volume wide open and have the tones controls set flat, although I may make some minor tone control changes on my bass from one song to the next.

In my opinion, boomy often means you are either too loud, or have too much going on in the low mids. Boom is often caused by poor acoustics. If this is the case, the only thing you can to is try and avoid feeding problem frequencies into the room. Once the room is excited it will ring at the offending frequency and create mud.

I don't generally experience audio techs telling my I am too boomy, because I setup my amp so that I can monitor at the lowest possible level. Because I run my amp at such a low SPL, it rarely has any significant impact on house sound. What I do is elevate my cab and tilt it back to aim at my ears. This approach works well if you like full-range, clear and articulate tone. If you like big fat lows you probably won't like it.

Why I use this approach. Elevating the cab decouples it from the floor and causes a bit of a dip in the low mids due to boundary interference. This article will explain how boundary interference works: Speaker Placement 101: Is Speaker-Boundary Interference Killing Your Bass?

Tilting the cab back to aim at my ears ensures I accurately hear the full frequency response the cab can produce. The problem is the dispersion pattern of speakers is not constant. Bass speakers are omni-directional at low frequencies and become increasingly directional as the frequency increases. In the mid range the sound shoots out in front of the cab in a cone shaped beam, and the beam becomes progressively tighter as the frequency goes higher. So if you have the cab flat on the floor aimed straight out, some of the mids, and all of the highs will shoot out below ear level. This is especially problematic if you stand close to the cab. I have a 215 cab and I need to stand about 15' away from it before I can hear the upper frequencies it can produce.

My stage sound is obnoxiously bright. It's not's clanky or overly grindy, but it is very articulate and clear. The idea is for my sound to jump out of the mayhem, so I can easily hear every little nuance of my playing at the lowest possible level. Also keep in mind my speaker is tilted back at 30-45 degrees. I play with lean lows and the bright mids and highs shoot out over everyone's head.

I have had a couple of audio techs accuse me of being part of the boom problem, but usually it turns out that all the other musicians have asked for too much bass in their monitors. IMHO it tends to create a really nasty mess when everyone wants a lot of bass in their monitor. As an audio tech, one thing I do to try and mitigate this problem is run an HPF no lower than 100hz on all monitors.

I suggest Googling "masking frequency slotting." Keep in mind that masking relates to the sounds of one instrument covering up another instrument, and it also relates to what happens when energy in the reverberant field overpowers elements in the mix. As I inferred earlier, boom tends to largely be a caused by low frequency reverberant energy.

Good luck!

 

[mouthmw]

I always go pre-EQ on my amp DI. Why? Easy. The EQ that I have set is set for my cab, not the PA. I prefer to just send a flat signal from my bass so the sound guy can do EQ corrections that are necessary for the room. We always cooperate with the sound guy when it comes to our tone, so most of the time we get it to our liking. I like the flat tone of my basses anyways, so it's a good foundation, and usually requires little tampering.

 

[Volker Kirstein]

From using the wireless, and wandering around the floor, I know my bass sounds totally different next to me than it does from 30 feet away, and that what sounds OK to me might sound like crap out there. And vice versa.

Raising and tilting the amp helps a lot, but distance is still a huge factor. Bass notes have wavelengths measured in meters, not centimeters.

Which means I have to trust the guy out front, not my ears next to the amp. If he says I'm boomy, and can't fix it on his end, I roll back the bass and low mids until he tells me it's OK.

 

[Kro]

If he tells you that you sound boomy and to much bass eq in the mix. Where would you start to clean it up.

In general, I'd find a way to use EQ or similar options (HPF or disengaging an ultra-lo button) to attenuate the lowest frequencies first, but that's an overly simplistic response.

How I'd go about that depends on the gear actually being used, and what options I have at my disposal.

On the topic of pre vs. post, sending a pre-EQ signal to the house can be helpful, especially for users less experienced with EQing, but what exactly is a pre-EQ signal? A signal from before your amp's EQ? From before any pedal's EQ? From before your bass' EQ?

When experiencing an issue, troubleshooting by removing variables can always be helpful, but I don't believe hitting the pre-EQ button on an amp is necessarily a silver bullet. There are just too many ways that a bassist can go about providing a poorly EQ'd signal to FOH.

It is certainly the responsibility of the bassist to send a usable signal to the board, but IMO I'd rather have a bassist that understands their entire signal chain and EQ structure from start to finish than one that just hits the "pre" button on their amp and calls it a day.

@bogie1519 , if this was a real-life scenario, what gear were you using at the time of said boom?

I think pre is better because you can control it more.

One last point, did you mean to say post here? Or pre, so that your sound guy can control it more?

 

[bogie1519]

In general, I'd find a way to use EQ or similar options (HPF or disengaging an ultra-lo button) to attenuate the lowest frequencies first, but that's an overly simplistic response.

How I'd go about that depends on the gear actually being used, and what options I have at my disposal.

On the topic of pre vs. post, sending a pre-EQ signal to the house can be helpful, especially for users less experienced with EQing, but what exactly is a pre-EQ signal? A signal from before your amp's EQ? From before any pedal's EQ? From before your bass' EQ?

When experiencing an issue, troubleshooting by removing variables can always be helpful, but I don't believe hitting the pre-EQ button on an amp is necessarily a silver bullet. There are just too many ways that a bassist can go about providing a poorly EQ'd signal to FOH.

It is certainly the responsibility of the bassist to send a usable signal to the board, but IMO I'd rather have a bassist that understands their entire signal chain and EQ structure from start to finish than one that just hits the "pre" button on their amp and calls it a day.

@bogie1519 , if this was a real-life scenario, what gear were you using at the time of said boom?



One last point, did you mean to say post here? Or pre, so that your sound guy can control it more?

I have a Fender 100T with either depending on the job 1 or 2 Fender 15in cabinets. My question about pre and post. Was about who uses which one. Pre is sending a signal before any adjustments are made on stage right?

 

[Jim Carr]

I have a Fender 100T with either depending on the job 1 or 2 Fender 15in cabinets. My question about pre and post. Was about who uses which one. Pre is sending a signal before any adjustments are made on stage right?

Yes. Sending "Pre" means sending before the EQ of your amplifier's preamplifier section, which is a bit confusing. In effect, pre means you send it BEFORE it hits your preamplifier.

I use that, because it helps the sound tech dial it in to suit the room. My EQ on stage is my desired tone. My stage EQ may not work well in the entire room, and I may not be able to tell from on stage.

"Pre" will be free of any boost or cut I do (except on my instrument), and will allow better control at the sound board. "Cut" is especially a problem, as once you take a band of frequencies way down, bring them back cleanly may not be possible with the sound board.

 

[Kro]

My question about pre and post. Was about who uses which one.

My signal goes from my bass, to my VTDI preamp, to my amplifier. My amplifier is generally set pre, so that any adjustments I make for the stage don't effect FOH, but at the same time, given that I have my VTDI in the chain and coloring my tone, I don't know that I really consider what I send FOH to be a true "pre" signal.

To me, an amp DI's pre/post setting is one tool among many to be used as the situation calls for it. It isn't a philosophy or a lifestyle.

Perhaps surprisingly, given that one of the things that my amp has in its preamp is a HPF with a steeper rolloff, sometimes I'll go post if feel that a sound engineer is struggling with bass in a given room with opening acts!

Sure he should be able to do that at the board, but not all sound techs are created equal, just like with bassists!