"Low end heavy" room

[ecolbeck]

Hi folks,
My band will be gigging at a bar whose management describes the room as "low end heavy". They also say

• Bass players, please heavily under-compensate your amp’s low end
• BASS/EQ control on all channels needs to start (and mostly stay OFF @ 7 o’clock on the mixer)
• Ease up slowly on the bass if needed (female vocals perhaps?)

I run the mix for our band and I've never encountered anything like this before. I can't imagine why this is the case. Any suggestions?

 

[Wasnex]

IMHO, mix to taste...and use good taste. If the bass is too loud without putting it through the PA, then don't put it through the PA. Try to negotiate with the musicians to reduce how much bass is bleeding off the stage. Could be because the bass amp is too loud, or it could be because the musicians have too much bass in their monitor mixes.

No need to blow out the room...but you need the musicians to do their part in keeping the volume reasonable. Be aggressive with the use of High Pass Filters...I run them on pretty much every channel and also on the mix outputs when available.

 

[aglide]

One thing I would do is use a High Pass Filter on the bass guitar before the amp and before any DI to FOH.

 

[Pulverizor]

Must be a helluva room or very sensitive managers' ears!

Shouldn't the mixers HPFs and low end shelving on the global EQ suffice?

 

[ecolbeck]

Thanks for replies. Seems likely that they've had problems with loud bands in the past. However, I was wondering if there's anything special about the acoustics of a particular room that would cause this issue?

 

[Marko 1]

Thanks for replies. Seems likely that they've had problems with loud bands in the past. However, I was wondering if there's anything special about the acoustics of a particular room that would cause this issue?

Not sure why you're even worried about it.

Since it's your band you're mixing, and assuming you're playing bass, and assuming you're using a stage rig,

it shouldn't be too difficult to keep the tone clean on stage and at an appropriate volume.

And yeah, high-pass your channel pretty high and you should be good to go.

As the PA guy for my band, I enjoy a challenging room...

it allows me to do better than other bands and get a leg up on them.


Edit to add: I wouldn't even bring in Subs.

 

[azureblue]

I've played several boomy venues, and it's great they warn about the low end resonance. The best solution is a parametric EQ or narrow band notch filter, since bass amp controls are pretty broad. Since you are running sound, use the mains EQ to notch out the boom. It would be better to turn down your bass amp and use the PA, to help dodge the boom issues. Spread out the bass, in affect.
TIP: get a sound pressure meter app on your cell phone - they are free. I use on my iPhone, one made by SLA. You can take a reading, then get a readout snapshot, so you will know what you are dealing with.

 

[jdjk7]

Hi folks,
My band will be gigging at a bar whose management describes the room as "low end heavy". They also say

• Bass players, please heavily under-compensate your amp’s low end
• BASS/EQ control on all channels needs to start (and mostly stay OFF @ 7 o’clock on the mixer)
• Ease up slowly on the bass if needed (female vocals perhaps?)

I run the mix for our band and I've never encountered anything like this before. I can't imagine why this is the case. Any suggestions?

Yes, particular rooms can have resonant qualities that can cause bass to be overpowering. I know a couple of venues that are like this, they tend to be large rooms with concrete floors or walls.

What would also help you in this case is to raise your cab a significant distance off the stage-- more than 2 or 3 feet, i think. This reduces or eliminates the ability of the cab to make the stage resonate. In a normal room this resonance would enhance your low end, but in a room like what we're talking about, it turns your low end into an earthquake. Whether you can do this depends on your cab.

A pitfall of doing your own sound in a challenging environment like this is that the way your mix sounds to you at the stage, or even standing in front of the PA, is not exactly the way it sounds in the middle of the audience with a room full of bodies. So, take that into account... I don't know how you do your sound, but if you have a wireless system that lets you listen to the mix anywhere in the room, that would be ideal for this kind of thing.

 

[Spirit of Ox]

HPF is your friend. I can't play without my Broughton HPF.

 

[Grinderman]

Hi folks,
My band will be gigging at a bar whose management describes the room as "low end heavy". They also say

• Bass players, please heavily under-compensate your amp’s low end
• BASS/EQ control on all channels needs to start (and mostly stay OFF @ 7 o’clock on the mixer)
• Ease up slowly on the bass if needed (female vocals perhaps?)

I run the mix for our band and I've never encountered anything like this before. I can't imagine why this is the case. Any suggestions?

It is certainly a thing.

Has anyone played at or seen a concert inside the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago back in the '80s and '90s? Acoustically it's a very difficult place for loud live music due to the cubic volume, 3D shape, and acoustic surface reflectivity of the space. Adding the variable of whatever headcount for the general admission audience to the large main ballroom floor is a curveball.

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My general SWAG starting point would be to adjust down bass, increase the ratio of mids vs bass, and use a high pass filter.

 

[Killing Floor]

I’d use a HPF for bass and don’t worry about any recommended setting, adjust that for the room.

Then dime it. Just because.

 

[erratick]

• Rooms with no absorption on the walls or floor (concrete box like many bars), note that people are absorption in a significant enough crowd, so this can be hard to sound check for
  
• rooms with parallel walls (increasing bounces/reflection), square rooms- as high as wide are the worst
  
• speakers in corners where a bass trap should be,
• sound in the round- meaning audience can be behind or on more than 180 degrees in front of you.
  
• curved walls- although they reflect predictably, it can focus sound.
  
• speakers on resonate materials, like some stages
  
• drop ceiling/ceiling voids that are resonant (essentially bass ports),
• rooms with the right dimensions to make a standing wave for a note or notes (usually smaller rooms, but hz are strange- so sometimes can be medium or large and get a multiple of E or F or whatever)- this is a special case of #2

Yes. I've been in all kinds of venues, most not planned with acoustics in mind. Some rooms are boomy because of the way they are, or they have a sound system that is too big or not tuned for the room.

I didn't know about these things- it was pre-internet- and had to learn the hard way via experience playing and recording in garbage venues and eventually working with competent sound guys and different venues. That's part of why playing outdoors or festivals has a certain charm. And then after that theatres or stages.

Good article that covers in a little more detail but still layman quality:
Room For Improvement

 

[dbsfgyd1]

IMHO, mix to taste...and use good taste. If the bass is too loud without putting it through the PA, then don't put it through the PA. Try to negotiate with the musicians to reduce how much bass is bleeding off the stage. Could be because the bass amp is too loud, or it could be because the musicians have too much bass in their monitor mixes.

No need to blow out the room...but you need the musicians to do their part in keeping the volume reasonable. Be aggressive with the use of High Pass Filters...I run them on pretty much every channel and also on the mix outputs when available.

Spot on. Great advice.

A point often not considered is that when playing a venue you are an employee 1st, an artist second. Their house, their rules. If you don't like it, play somewhere else.

 

[stigbeve]

Soundman sitting where the bass is cancelled out?? I've had that happen once. Someone finally
said something to him and he started running back and forth from the mixer at the rear corner
of the brick venue to the middle rear then back to adjust and it sounded better.

 

[Jazzdogg]

Hi folks,
My band will be gigging at a bar whose management describes the room as "low end heavy". They also say

• Bass players, please heavily under-compensate your amp’s low end
• BASS/EQ control on all channels needs to start (and mostly stay OFF @ 7 o’clock on the mixer)
• Ease up slowly on the bass if needed (female vocals perhaps?)

I run the mix for our band and I've never encountered anything like this before. I can't imagine why this is the case. Any suggestions?

There's a club in downtown San Diego that's like that. Big reverberant wooden stage, awkwardly-shaped venue. Boomy and reverberating low frequencies.

I used to use a Gramma pad, a LOT of HPF, and cranked my mids way more than usual. The key, though, was controlling on-stage volume. In-ears would be ideal - with no amps on stage, and no floor monitors.

Good luck!

 

[tadawson]

It is certainly a thing.

Has anyone played at or seen a concert inside the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago back in the '80s and '90s? Acoustically it's a very difficult place for loud live music due to the cubic volume, 3D shape, and acoustic surface reflectivity of the space. Adding the variable of whatever headcount for the general admission audience to the large main ballroom floor is a curveball.

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My general SWAG starting point would be to adjust down bass, increase the ratio of mids vs bass, and use a high pass filter.

A friend of mine used to describe the Aragon as a place where "the first set finally finished during loadout" it was so live.

 

[tadawson]

A lot of time what happens in spaces like this is not as much as they are reverberant, but that they have spaces that are the wavelengths of some common bass frequencies, so those basically reinforce and howl, as it were. I worked in a place like that for years, and they chose at one point to close in the back of a balcony. Despite more hard surfaces, it was amazing how removing the long deep space cleaned up low end in the room. In a lot of ways, this is best suited to a room analysis with something like SMAART and careful use of parametric EQ than the blunt force approach suggested, but then again, club managers have never been known to know much about sound or acoustics . . .

 

[Grinderman]

A friend of mine used to describe the Aragon as a place where "the first set finally finished during loadout" it was so live.

I've seen about half a dozen concerts there, including the infamous Public Enemy-Sonic Youth concert and Nirvana. The acoustics of that room are wild--and I don't mean in a good way. I've never heard or witnessed a live act and FOH sound person who got a good handle on that situation.

 

[micguy]

Soundman sitting where the bass is cancelled out?? I've had that happen once. Someone finally
said something to him and he started running back and forth from the mixer at the rear corner
of the brick venue to the middle rear then back to adjust and it sounded better.

A person running FOH that doesn't get out of the booth to walk the room is, at best, a complete novice at it. If they've been doing FOH for a while, and don't do that, then they're incompetent. That is a very basic part of doing sound.

 

[Groove Doctor]

Thanks for replies. Seems likely that they've had problems with loud bands in the past. However, I was wondering if there's anything special about the acoustics of a particular room that would cause this issue?

I’ve played some venues like this. Can be nightmares.
One place my amp EQ was bass full OFF, Treble fully ON, mids just past noon. (Basically playing in a concrete cube, bass in the corner).

A mate owned, rented out & operated PA in a busy live music room just like this for years.

His tips:
- HPF everything at 300Hz, especially microphones (they just amplify the mud).
- Add lows to kick drum
- Lower the Bass HPF freq as needed (usually 130Hz).
- Smaller amps/cabs sound the best (no guitarists with quad boxes)
- point cabs across the stage, not into audience. Elevated & angled up pointing at your ears even better.
- the quieter you are on stage, the easier it is to control the sound.

I’ve sometimes laid my bass cab on its back, elevated on milk crates & pointed at the ceiling. HUGE improvement in sound.

Remember, if you want to be asked to play there again then you better adhere to their ‘rules’.