Hi, maybe some of you can help with a problem of huge "boom" on playback of band rehearsal recording. It's my basses (not just one, also probably not just one amp rig) that sometimes pegs the needle on any F#. I have noticed this in rehearsal recording sporadically, but we just moved to a new room and it's back in a big way. I guess I won't sweat it out during rehearsals, but I find it very curious and need an explanation for my anal guitarist to the effect I don't need to bury my volume and gain. thoughts?
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Perceived boomy resonance in recording (F#)
- Thread starter Pocket4
- Start date
Room resonance most likely. My practice room resonates like crazy whenever I play an open A.
Next time you're all set up, mic'd up and PA'd hit an F# loud and immediately mute it. See if something continues to ring briefly. Bet it's a drum.
If it doesn't turn out to be a drum... What are the dimensions of the room you're in? Are there parallel walls? If there are parallel walls just wider than 12 feet apart, F# is going to boom like a... boomy thing... The fundamental of F# is about 46Hz, which has a wavelength size of about 24.5 feet. The first overtone is 92Hz, and that's about 12.25 feet. These frequencies could be bouncing back and forth between the parallel walls and building up in the room. If your guitarist wants more science: Room modes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It's time to bring out the comb filters. They efficiently solve these issues by notching resonant frequencies.
We are using an ambient stereo handheld size recorder, so the offending sound didn't benefit from a better setup and mic inputs. The walls in parallel to my rig seem maybe 16 feet apart, very tall ceiling, couch and upholstery chair are only soft things in the room other than our bodies. Thanks for the good information
I agree with what others have said. Room resonance from walls, drums, or possibly a combination of both. I've had more problems with walls than I have with drums over the years. A relatively cheap solution is to buy some sheets of Owens-Corning 703 rigid insulation, double them up, skin them with burlap, and straddle them across all the vertical corners of the room. Hang them in the horizontal corners where the ceiling meets the walls if at all possible as well in a similar straddling (i.e. 45-degrees to the corner) approach. These types of basstraps with nothing but air behind them (this forms a roughly 17" x 17" x 24" right triangle) are very effective in the mid-bass and up to the lower-mids frequency region. Not terribly expensive either. This assumes you have the floor space to do this of course, and you must realize that this will improve the room, but won't make it perfect.
