Help me understand sound reproduction

[FullumMusic]

Thanks for the detailed response. I appreciate your taking the time to write. I was half serious, half joking.

The half joking part was the head phone vs amp aspect. Studio recording as you pointed out in (2) is a combination of many factors. How many bass tracks came from just plugging a bass into the board. Bass cabs and headphones are crazy different.

The half serious part was how can I get closer to that good tone in my head, (good tone as opposed to perfect tone).

I think the part that I still am learning about is the EQ / parametric / filter stuff. Modern amps with pre amps, pedal with pre amps, parametric eq pedals, roll off / shelving . . . the list goes on and on. Some amps are flat with "everything at noon", other's are not. Some amps are more hi-fi, less voiced, some are more voiced. So thanks for your writeup.

Oh yeah, and to that notion of good tone or perfect tone...

Sometimes i feel like this is my one-person crusade.

There's no such thing as objectively good or bad tone. Tone is arbitrary; tone is contextual.

You could give me what you think is the worst sounding tone ever and i could produce a song around it where that tone is essential to it. In general we're making music, not bass tone. No matter how great your tone is while you play alone in your music room, it might not sound good in another context. That context could simply being moving your rig exactly as-is to another room. It could be in the context of a mix. Tone is only good if it works for the situation, and should be adjusted accordingly.

Close enough is good enough, because the second you get it "perfect" but put it in a mix or different room, you'll have to adapt it to fit anyway. Especially because everyone else's instrument isn't exactly like the recording neither, and you'll going through different signal chains in a different space from the recording.

Also, you know... studio magic and all that helps.

 

[Wasnex]

The half joking part was the head phone vs amp aspect...Bass cabs and headphones are crazy different.

The half serious part was how can I get closer to that good tone in my head, (good tone as opposed to perfect tone).

Part of the problem is big speakers don't vibrate exactly like the small diaphragms in headphone. Bass cabs in particular frequently are not capable of full-range, flat response.

Part of the problem is degradation from the acoustic environment and the distance between your ears and the speakers.

Part of the problem may be your speakers are not aimed at your head, so you are not hearing the full range of the cab directly.

The approach I used was intended to get me closer to the head phone experience. Basically I elevated my cab and tilted it to aim at my ears. The higher the fidelity of the cab you use, and to some extent the closer you get it to your head, the closer you will get to the headphone experience.

The clearest and most articulate rig I have ever used was a GK 800RB biamped into a Bag End S15D and a Ramsa WS-A200. This rig was pretty lean down low because the S15D is not a LF powerhouse. But the mids and highs definitely approached the headphone experience. You could get closer with a more capable woofer, but you have to be careful, or the sound that is heard in the distance will be a boomy mess.


WS-A200

The WS-A200 is a pretty high fidelity little cab. They used to be fairly common in high-end installs for background music. In the early 90s, Disneyland had them all over the park and they were cranked pretty darn loud.

Response plot from the spec sheet:

I currently own a GK 2000RB, some EV SX300s, and a Greenboy Dually. The sound is pretty similar to what I got with the 800RB, S15D, and WS-A200; other than the Dually is capable of a lot more fat than the S15D.

SX300 response plot:

 

[sheesh]

Part of the problem is big speakers don't vibrate exactly like the small diaphragms in headphone. Bass cabs in particular frequently are not capable of full-range, flat response.

Part of the problem is degradation from the acoustic environment and the distance between your ears and the speakers.

Part of the problem may be your speakers are not aimed at your head, so you are not hearing the full range of the cab directly.

Really what I am getting at with the headphone comment is not so much in terms of fidelity of the information, but the overall sound of what I am playing, the effect of what I am playing. The headphone comment was meant to speak to an experience that I have when I listen to, I will grant you, well produced recordings. The bass is just there, nice and round, full, right there in the mix.

I am learning about how to dial this in on my own. We had a PA last week with subs but the sound guy did not put very much bass into the mix. Monitors were not loud, so my rig carried the stage and a lot of the pub.

I find that I like the sound of modern amps through a more vintage voiced speaker. The first time I realized this was years ago during a music lesson where my teacher had me playing a GK MB200 through an SWR 1x10.

The clearest and most articulate rig I have ever used was a GK 800RB biamped into a Bag End S15D and a Ramsa WS-A200.

Ha - I used to have a GK 800RB back in the day. I bi-amped it:
- 100 watt top into a Hartke 2x10
-300 watt bottom into a Peavey 2x10
I wrote about in the "Bottom Line" years ago.

Both cabs were really heavy! I later got the first gen MB200 combo and the MBP200 powered cab. Paired together they could do 400. They were lightweight and loud and sounded good. Of course I don't have them anymore.

 

[Wasnex]

I am learning about how to dial this in on my own. We had a PA last week with subs but the sound guy did not put very much bass into the mix. Monitors were not loud, so my rig carried the stage and a lot of the pub.

I don't generally like having bass in my monitor if I am using a stage rig. IME, adding bass to a monitor often makes the bass louder and yet harder to hear.

AFAIK the problem occurs because the bass rig and monitor are sort of fighting. The most obvious issue is the propagation time from each sound source to your hears is not equal. I.E. you hear each sound from each source at slightly different times and phase angles. This is further complicated because the LF group delay and phase response of the monitor and your bass rig are likely to be different. So even if both speakers are equidistant from your ears, they are still going to fight. Something that may help in really bad acoustic spaces is to high pass the monitor, so you get a bit more clarity in the mids, but the monitor doesn't fight with your stage rig down low.

Subs can also fight with your stage rig. Low frequencies have longer wavelengths; so they tend wrap around cabs rather than shooting forward. When you are getting a bunch of bleed from the subs on stage, it may be helpful to cut the lows on your bass rig and rely on the lows coming from the subs. Also if your DI has a polarity switch, you can try switching it. Sometimes this helps and sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes it's impossible to get a good bass sound on stage. This doesn't necessarily mean it sounds bad out front. I have had gigs where my sound on stage was incredible and the sound out front was awful. I have also had gigs where my sound on stage sucked and people told me I sounded great out front.

IME, the quality of bass tends to vary pretty widely from gig to gig. The causes and solutions tend to vary quite a bit from gig to gig as well. With knowledge and appropriate tools, you can usually make some improvements; I.E. make it suck just a bit less.

IME perceived awesome sound is usually a product of an unexpected gestalt. Basically a lot of factors, many of which are beyond your control, align in an accidental way to produce incredible results. IMHO, when that happens, don't wonder why, just enjoy it!