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Getting good bass tone in a cavernous room

BobDeRosa

BobDeRosa

Commercial User
May 16, 2012
2,445
4,403
Finger Lakes area of New York State
tritonejazz.com
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Owner, Tritone Jazz Fantasy Camps
#1
A keyboardist and I play jazz in the huge food court of a grocery store--sprawling room with very high ceiling. We're right outside a pub (also part of the store), and our music is intended for the diners in the pub as well as the patrons of the food court and the shoppers walking by. Because we're very close to the podium where pub guests are greeted, we need to keep our volume down.

Sometimes it's okay, but last night I thought my fretless bass sound (active Yamaha BB3000af through a 300w Promethean combo with 10" speaker) was horrible--diffused all over the place, with no "center." No one else, including the keyboardist, complained, but it drove me nuts. No matter what I did with EQ, I couldn't get a focused sound.

Is there a cure for low-volume, large-room situations? Is there a device or pedal that can help shape bass tone, like a DI or a compressor or something? Could an amp with more headroom add focus without adding volume? Would an extension speaker help? To play fretted rather than fretless? It's a tough acoustics situation, but I'll bet many of you have found a way to cope with similar situations.

Thanks very much for your ideas.
 
#3
Sealed cabs and a high pass filter in the signal chain are your friends in boomy rooms.

I'm not going to advise you on EQing. If you've been playing long enough to be playing a fretless on a gig you already know that you need to cut bass and low mids and find the sweet spot on your high mids dial and show judicious use of your treble setting. This is one of those situations where having an outboard parametric or graphic equalizer in your gig bag can save the day. (If you're a gigging fretless player you may want to consider getting one. I've found them to be a godsend when on the road.)

However, if nobody was complaining - and the band thought it sounded ok - your ears might just have been having an off night.

Funny thing about fretless…there are days when mine (I have two) "just don't sound right" no matter what I do. My intonation seems wrong, but if I run it through my strobe tuner it shows I'm good. And EQ seems impossibe to dial in sometimes too. Even at home.

So part of it might just be in our own heads. Or there's some peculiarities in the venue's acoustic environment that simply doesn't work with our particular ears. That happens sometimes too.

Luck! :thumbsup:
 
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#4
40Hz said:
Sealed cabs and a low pass filter in the signal chain are your friends in boomy rooms.

I'm not going to advise you on EQing. If you've been playing long enough to be playing a fretless on a gig you already know that you need to cut bass and low mids and find the sweet spot on your high mids dial and show judicious use of your treble setting. This is one of those situations where having an outboard parametric or graphic equalizer in your gig bag can save the day. (If you're a gigging fretless player you may want to consider getting one. I've found them a to be a godsend when on the road.)

However, if nobody was complaining - and the band thought it sounded ok - your ears might just have been having an off night.

Funny thing about fretless…there are days when mine (I have two) "just don't sound right" no matter what I do. My intonation seems wrong, but if I run it through my strobe tuner it shows I'm good. And EQ seems impossibe to dial in sometimes too. Even at home.

So part of it might just be in our own heads. Or there's some peculiarities in the venue's acoustic environment that simply doesn't work with our particular ears. That happens sometimes too.

Luck! :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Great insights! Thank you.
 
#6
BobDeRosa said:
Great insights! Thank you.
Click to expand...

You're welcome. Fretless electric basses have been an unending source of enjoyment and (at times) absolute frustration for me for as long as I've played them. You'd think that my starting bass playing on an upright would have made a difference. But in my case it hasn't seemed to. I run into the very same issues every other fretless player I know experiences regardless of their background.

It's just in the nature of the beast I think. Easily one of the more rewarding albeit annoying instruments I've ever played. :laugh:
 
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#9
Two things I do whenever I'm in those cavernous ambient spaces (e.g., high school gymnasiums, trade show floors, I once did a gig in a motorcycle garage)...

1) get your speaker up really close to your ear. Really. Close. Like 3" away, right behind your head. You want to be able to hear the direct sound clearly and have it much louder for you than the indirect sound. And
2) roll off the low bass a tad and add a broad lower-midrange boost, centered around 400Hz. This provides more definition to cut through some of the reverberant mud.
 
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#10
You guys could run a mixed signal of the keys and bass to a small speaker at low volume facing into the entrance to the pub. If you can get it sounding like low level recorded music people inside might hear you better and appreciate it and you don't have to worry about having enough volume in the boomy room to project into the pub.
 
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#13
In a cavernous room, I'd be inclined to EQ carefully. Minimal bass, just the right level on mids and no excessive highs. You do not want to hear the natural reverberation that a large room can cause. The goal is to find "silence" between the notes you and your keyboard are playing. Keep your tone "focused" as much as possible. Keep volume down, even though there is probably lots of ambient noise in the air. You must make the right compromises, as this is a very imperfect venue. The good thing is that you are playing jazz.
 
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#18
Bob_Ross said:
1) get your speaker up really close to your ear. Really. Close. Like 3" away, right behind your head. You want to be able to hear the direct sound clearly and have it much louder for you than the indirect sound.
Click to expand...

Best advice so far.

Before buying pedals or different amps and cabs, get an amp stand that lifts your cab up and points it at your head.

Besides making it louder for you it will decouple it from the floor. That alone will take care of a lot of mud.
 
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#20
As others have said here, it helps to get your speaker off the floor. Also, the bloom or Mwah that we look for on a fretless bass is difficult to tame in a cavernous room. I would suggest a fretted bass with a foam pad near the bridge. I do a gig in a restaurant with concrete floors, high ceilings and brick walls. For this gig I use a short scale Danelectro longhorn with a foam pad near the bridge. Works great.
 
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