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Suggestions for Avoiding Room Boom: Help Needed

s_wood

s_wood

Gold Supporting Member
Mar 23, 2003
2,007
4,125
Delaware (USA)
#1
I am with an unsigned original band that works in and near Philadelphia and New York. Around these parts, unsigned original bands do nearly all of their gigging in small to medium-sized rooms. Three or four bands a night is the usual set-up, and unless your band is first on the bill there is no sound check. I play Alembic basses through an SVT Pro 6 and AccuGroove cabs (either an El Whappo, Jr. or a Tri115). AG cabs are pretty flat in their freq response, and I don't use much EQ at all - a little bit of boost at 600Hz, and a little bit at 50Hz, but that's it. The stages are usually small, so I am almost always within 5 feet or so of my rig while playing,

Here's my problem. My tone and levels are usually ok on stage, but out in the room I often have problems with "room boom." It sounds to me like it's often centered somewhere around 200Hz, but on a recent gig it sounded like it was at 55-60 Hz (my first octave "A" and "B" were much louder than anything else). I couldn't hear this from the stage, but that's what the gig recordings show.

So, given that I don't get a sound check and can't hear the problems from the stage, what can I do to avoid "room boom" and to make sure that my levels are where they should be?
 
#2
Your first impression of 200 Hz was a good one. "Boom" is very often centered around 150 Hz, but up to 200 is reasonable. It's often recommended to use a para EQ to notch out in that region.

Best thing to do is have someone else, whose ears you trust, walk around the room while you play up and down the neck. Use a para EQ to notch out different ranges until the trusted ears out in the room say "no more boom".
 
#4
Anywhere between 100 and 200 is a good place to start. Environment specific, you know. Also, a lot of bassists tend to pile up EQ there and bass cabs have often have a big hump in there. Later if the engineer doesn't realize this the FOH subwoofers will be blamed ; }
 
#7
I am grateful for all of these replies and suggestions, but here's my problem: I need to do all of these things without a soundcheck, and with at most 15 minutes of setup time. That's the environment in which original bands have to work, at least around here. Usually, each band gets an hour to set up and play - and then you are done. So, how do I defeat room boom on the fly, when I can't even hear it from the stage?
 
#8
Doesn't the DBX DriveRack have an automatic room EQ funtion? If you stuck one of those in your effects loop, you could probably have your amp EQed to the room in a minute or two.

The downside of this is that you would need the room to be fairly quiet or the realtime audio analyzer in the DriveRack would be screwed up by crowd noise. You would also need to take the reference mic out into the audience to get the right effect.
 
#9
Well Some of the older Peavey PA mixer amps head a feedback detection feature" We are discussing a form of feedback " and had LED indicators but ti would require walking around the room to detect the problem FQ. Maybe try putting some dapening material in the cab. It could be a reflex problem at the cabint propgating outward. Does the cab have porting ? If so front or rear ?Could try off angling the cab to move sound pressures. That would be the fastest.
 
#12
swood_de said:
I am with an unsigned original band that works in and near Philadelphia and New York. Around these parts, unsigned original bands do nearly all of their gigging in small to medium-sized rooms. Three or four bands a night is the usual set-up, and unless your band is first on the bill there is no sound check. I play Alembic basses through an SVT Pro 6 and AccuGroove cabs (either an El Whappo, Jr. or a Tri115). AG cabs are pretty flat in their freq response, and I don't use much EQ at all - a little bit of boost at 600Hz, and a little bit at 50Hz, but that's it. The stages are usually small, so I am almost always within 5 feet or so of my rig while playing,

Here's my problem. My tone and levels are usually ok on stage, but out in the room I often have problems with "room boom." It sounds to me like it's often centered somewhere around 200Hz, but on a recent gig it sounded like it was at 55-60 Hz (my first octave "A" and "B" were much louder than anything else). I couldn't hear this from the stage, but that's what the gig recordings show.

So, given that I don't get a sound check and can't hear the problems from the stage, what can I do to avoid "room boom" and to make sure that my levels are where they should be?
Click to expand...

You seem to have a pretty good grip on your EQ. Are you going DI, and if so, is it pre or post?

Lonnybass
 
#14
swood_de said:
Here's my problem. My tone and levels are usually ok on stage, but out in the room I often have problems with "room boom." It sounds to me like it's often centered somewhere around 200Hz, but on a recent gig it sounded like it was at 55-60 Hz (my first octave "A" and "B" were much louder than anything else).
Click to expand...

I run into somewhere between G and B a lot, and it usually isn't the fundamentals causing it - it's the harmonic one octave above (in these cases between 98 to 125 Hz) - where for electric bass is typically the strongest component, followed by the octave-and-fifth harmonic (in these cases between 146 and 185 Hz). Often the same note(s) an octave above also triggers the same room modes - then it's actually their fundamentals.
 
#15
Lonny, the pre or post EQ DI thing varies from gig to gig. After all of these years I still haven't made my mind up as to which way is the right way to go with that, because a lot of the sound guys I have to deal with know a lot less about how to EQ a bass to get a good tone than I do. Interestinq question, though, because on my last gig (where I had problems at 55-60 Hz) things got worse as the set went on despite the fact that didn't touch a thing on my rig or on my bass, which tells me that the sound guy was fiddling with the EQ. I was pre-eq on that one.
 
#16
I automatically shelf cut the bass from 150-400 Hz (just a bit) when I play live because this lets the guitars occupy more of that space.

Then cut the guitars below 100 Hz and boost them a touch around 1000 Hz.

This allows both instruments can be heard more clearly without having to compete with each other for volume in the critical frequency area around 125 Hz which is where boominess usually originates in typical venues.

I usually boost the bass a bit around 4000 Hz to add some clarity because it usually doesn't interfere much with vocals, guitars or other instruments.


These are rough guidelines for me and I adjust accordingly by venue.
 
#17
bassman1185 said:
Doesn't the DBX DriveRack have an automatic room EQ funtion? If you stuck one of those in your effects loop, you could probably have your amp EQed to the room in a minute or two.

The downside of this is that you would need the room to be fairly quiet or the realtime audio analyzer in the DriveRack would be screwed up by crowd noise. You would also need to take the reference mic out into the audience to get the right effect.
Click to expand...

The DBX driverack auto room EQ sucks, you would be better off just using a 31 band EQ. There seems to be this miss understanding that because the EQing sounds good through your cab that it will also sound good through the board which is often times not the case. If you are going to run post EQ plug your head into a console and EQ it with some head phones that way you can hear what the board will be picking up. Alot of times the sound man will have to work around bad EQing to make the bass sound alright where as if it were pre EQ it would have sounded alot better. Also a good tip, most sound guys are pretty cool so if you buddy up and talk to them for a while you will most likely get better sound. That ups the chance that they will give a ****.:smug:
 
#19
David: soundchecks aren't possible unless we are the first band on the bill. I use my own rig, which means I can't get stage access until it's time to play our set. As far as relying on the sound guy, I guess I was trying to be nice and avoid saying this, but if I'm in a situation where I need to deal with this from the stage that means the sound guy is either incompetent, drunk or disinterested - or some combination of the above. So, my question is this : how can I deal with room boom assuming no sound guy and no sound check?
 
#20
I delibrately tried to replicate your issue at a friends house last night. all concrete basement. What I found was the if I pointed the cabs at the wall opposite the cabs in a rectangular room that I got alot of boom back and mid field. I tried on a good sound hunch turning the cab 45 to the opposing wall. This pretty much killed the boom in the back field area but tended to move it into less noticeable areas.

So I would say trying playing with your bass amp turned off axis from the centerline of the back wall.



swood_de said:
David: soundchecks aren't possible unless we are the first band on the bill. I use my own rig, which means I can't get stage access until it's time to play our set. As far as relying on the sound guy, I guess I was trying to be nice and avoid saying this, but if I'm in a situation where I need to deal with this from the stage that means the sound guy is either incompetent, drunk or disinterested - or some combination of the above. So, my question is this : how can I deal with room boom assuming no sound guy and no sound check?
Click to expand...
 

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