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room acoustics

P

probert

Feb 25, 2009
69
0
Zürich
www.talkbass.com
#1
Hi folks,

this isn't particularly new for the most of you, but I was really amazed yesterday.
Usually me and my band rehearses in a rather small cellar down town and I often wondered why my bass sound is so damn muffled. Most of the time you can't hear clean notes but just a big deep sound. Yesterday we had to shift our practice to another room, because there are some equipment changes in our rehearsal room and we currently don't have a PA and drums in it. We took a minimum of equipment (guitar amp, small bass combo) to our drummer's neighbour's room. The room is a rehearsal room for some drummers ensemble and thus rather big. The thing which got me really exciting was that all of a sudden the band sound, and in particular the bass sound, changed: every instrument was clearly audible. For me as a bassist it was a real joy to play. Of course I knew that room acustics is a big factor in overall sound, but the change was so dramativ I couldn't believe it ad I only got a small and shite practice combo and not my usual Trace Elliot amp with me! I shy away from the thoughts that I have to go back to our old practice room, after I heard my bass sound blossom. Maybe I have to rearrange our instrument positioning in the old room..?
 
#3
Flooring material, wall coverings (bounce) and even ceiling height all effect sound quality. In general you keep your setting where they are on the amp and adjust for each room on your axe if possible. That's what the sound check is all about....

-richard
 
#4
It's funny how bassists spend fortunes on instruments, amps, cabs, strings, pickups and even cables, looking for that certain sound... and yet room acoustics -- the one thing we can't control -- has the biggest impact on our sound. I rehearsed in a crap room and suffered for years and couldn't believe my good fortune when we moved to a new space with a low ceiling and wall-to-wall carpets. THese days I am soooooo happy. And then there's live show sound. Boy what a crap shoot. I've learned to take small, high-quality gear and hope for the best ;-)
 
#5
StyleOverShow said:
In general you keep your setting where they are on the amp and adjust for each room on your axe if possible. That's what the sound check is all about....
Click to expand...

Since FOH and stage sound can also differ widely, I prefer to adjust my stage monitoring to suit the stage sound, and leave the settings upstream of the FOH DI consistent from venue to venue. That way, no matter how weird the stage sound is, I at least know that the sound going to the FOH is the tone I want.
 
#6
Small rooms create standing waves that mess with a bass's sound. A 100hz tone is just over 11 feet along. If the room is 11 feet long (or 22 feet, etc.) that frequency will get doubled, or canceled, or both depending on where you stand in the room.

Ever blow across a bottle? That tone is the resonant frequency of that bottle. If you could imagine doing the same thing to your practice room, you could find the resonant frequencies of your practice room.

Wall coverings will mostly only affect the high end, if you want to affect the low end you need "bass traps" which you stick usually in the corner & which absorb some of those resonant frequencies.
 
#8
Hi guys,

well playing softer isn't really an option, since we 1) are not playing very loud 2) in the end we have to adjust to the drummer's volume. I'm keeping the bass down as low as possible.

The amp ist standing some inches away from the wall, the distance to the next wall is about 5 ft and regarding the speaker mounting I dunno, it's a TE 1x15 combo, if that helps... cheers
 
#11
My rig is designed specifically for this problem. Most of the places I play in have fairly good PA systems. I run my bass though a DI and in my amp. Turn my amp sideways and make the PA do the work. My amp turns into a glorified stage monitor except way more kick ass. I run a 2x10 and nothing more, when your standing a few feet way it sounds awesome and then a good bass right into the PA system sounds just as good from the crowd. Works really well for most of my situations.
 
#12
fender_funk_man said:
My rig is designed specifically for this problem. Most of the places I play in have fairly good PA systems. I run my bass though a DI and in my amp. Turn my amp sideways and make the PA do the work. My amp turns into a glorified stage monitor except way more kick ass. I run a 2x10 and nothing more, when your standing a few feet way it sounds awesome and then a good bass right into the PA system sounds just as good from the crowd. Works really well for most of my situations.
Click to expand...

You're a great candidate for a Rols PM351 and earbuds.. leave the junk at home.

Microphone can pick up the ambient sound.
 
#13
Small sealed rooms tend to boost the low frequencies. Also, placement of the cab near room boundaries (floor, wall, corner) tends to boost the low frequencies. The boost comes from early bass reflections which direct more bass energy back into the room. A cab that is highly directional in the midrange and treble frequencies (this describes most cabs) is more likely to lose articulation in a situation where the bass is boosted by room reflections because there won't be enough midrange and treble energy to keep up with all that bass energy.

In your boomy practice room, I suggest turning down the bass and lower midrange controls, and maybe boosting the upper midrange and treble controls. If it's a ported cab, you might try stuffing the port. Last but not least, you might try positioning the cab well away from room boundaries, including raising it up off the floor by a foot or two. A couple of milk crates would probably be ideal.

If that doesn't work, I have one more suggestion but it's more complicated.
 
#14
It's always nice when you can move from a small, cramped space to a place where you can breath. We used to practice in my former guitarist's living room in a nice subdivision that hated the noise we produced :) . Now we practice/perform in a large pole-barn in the country. Area rugs cover the ground wall to wall. Cloth is up over the closer walls with hanging curtains here and there to absorb sound. Night and day, my friend. I hope you get to keep your new place.
 
#15
I've recently bought a dtar equinox parametric eq.. I bought it mainly to use as a pre for my double gigs, but since I rackmounted it, I have used it for electric bass in a few bad rooms recently ( through fx loop). I've found it a great way to tune out that horrible bass trap sound.. You can sweep the eq to find the boom, adjust the bandwidth to really tune into the offending freq, and then just knock back the gain a bit. I've found most of the problem areas around 80-125hz.

Definately won't completely fix a bad room, but certainly helps!
 
#16
DukeLeJeune said:
Small sealed rooms tend to boost the low frequencies. Also, placement of the cab near room boundaries (floor, wall, corner) tends to boost the low frequencies. The boost comes from early bass reflections which direct more bass energy back into the room. A cab that is highly directional in the midrange and treble frequencies (this describes most cabs) is more likely to lose articulation in a situation where the bass is boosted by room reflections because there won't be enough midrange and treble energy to keep up with all that bass energy.

In your boomy practice room, I suggest turning down the bass and lower midrange controls, and maybe boosting the upper midrange and treble controls. If it's a ported cab, you might try stuffing the port. Last but not least, you might try positioning the cab well away from room boundaries, including raising it up off the floor by a foot or two. A couple of milk crates would probably be ideal.

If that doesn't work, I have one more suggestion but it's more complicated.
Click to expand...

What he said. Basically a bass wave is big enough (5 feet, 10 feet, 15 feet, etc.) that if it hits the wall & bounces back, it doubles the size of the wave. Put it in a corner & the effect is tripled (wall, and two walls).

Reposition the amp. If you're serious about the practice space, get bass traps, and maybe try an some isolation pads - you can get them cheap.
 
#18
Here's an adaptation of the old sub woofer crawl trick.

Put your amp in the corner [so that you excite all of the room's modes] and play away... have a trusted assistant in a bikini crawl around and find the spots in the room where your rig sounds best... move your rig to one of those spots.
 

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