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Double Bass The Room / Stage From Hell - how do you deal with it?

Robert Strickland

Robert Strickland

May 23, 2008
719
475
Tampa Bay, FL
www.southsidejazzproject.com
#1
Looking for tips. I have a monthly gig in a room that sounds so bad it plays with my head and makes it hard to perform. Here are the facts:

- jazz quartet: drums, bass, sax, guitar. Some traditional, but some louder funk/blues.
- I have tried using both a Phil Jones Superflightcase and a Markbass CMD 121 P
- Small, plywood stage (8 inches or so high) covered in thin carpet.
- 15 foot ceilings.
- Concrete block walls, concrete floor, lots of glass windows
- long, narrow room

So, I have unbelievable problems with echo and boominess, and I can't find an amp / setting that I like. People in the audience (including the owners, who are musicians) say that the balance out in the room is god. But on the stage I can barely distinguish my notes, and the band members on the other side of the stage say it sounds like one big "woooooo". When I turn way down, it's a bit better for the band and me, but then people in the audience say that the bass is almost imperceptible.

I have tried a Gramma Pad by Auralex under the PJB amp. I have also tried putting the Markbass on a stool. Part of the trouble is that the stage is barely deep enough to stand with my bass in front of the amp, so I usually have to put the amp in the corner facing diagonally, which I'm sure makes it worse.

Any tips on how you brothers and sisters deal with this kind of situation? Not sure what to do next. Have even considered dropping the gig.
 
#3
Often, a wooden stage with nothing to fill the empty space under it can cause all kinds of low-end problems, as it can become a big hemholtz resonator, just what you do NOT want in a room. And yes, corner placement can make things worse, but sometimes ya just gotta do watcha gotta do to get through the night. Good luck, these are always hard issues. Have you tried playing with headphones?
 
#4
Hard to sit in front of a keyboard far away (as opposed to in that room) and say much helpful, but I'll try. The room you describe would be very reflective, especially at higher frequencies. That explains the problems with reverberation and late reflections (echoes) that you describe. As for the boominess, that's usually caused by a peak in the upper bass/lower midrange region-- somewhere in the two-octave span between 250 Hz and 1 kHz. A really good tone-shaping circuit (parametric or semi-parametric) might help.

As for you being able to hear what you play, the ideal solution would involve minimizing the path-length from the speaker to your ear. Can you put your amp or a cab extension up on a chair or on a pole?

I'll offer one more suggestion. Not being able to hear the pitch and articulation of the notes in difficult rooms was substantially improved for me when I switched to the Ehrlund pickup. As I've posted elsewhere, I believe that the Ehrlund transduces the temporal attack/decay envelope of the bass far better than any other pickup I've used. Bridge-mounted pickups just don't do that well. Of course, in a tight space, the Ehrlund would be more susceptible to feedback than would be a bridge-mounted pickup. I played a few gigs in a nightmare restaurant setup with small cramped raised wooden stage and about 1.5 feet between the bass and the cab. Even then I was able to tame feedback.

I'm not suggesting that you necessarily go out and buy new equipment to remedy your situation in one room. I'm just describing potential solutions so that you have more to consider. For me, on my bass, and given my preferences, IMO, IME, FWIW, the Ehrlund represented an improvement across all rooms and situations. YMMV.
 
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#7
Indeed, an HPF can do a fine job taming boominess if what is causing the problem is primarily the low bass. Keep in mind that if you place the cutoff of the HPF high enough to attenuate the upper bass, then you kill the lower bass with it.
 
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#8
Maybe some corner bass traps on stage would help.

I've seen wedge configurations like this: http://www.atsacoustics.com/corner-bass-trap-b.html , and tubes like this: Invalid Link Removed

If you're like me, you don't want to go out and buy something just for this one gig, but maybe you can make something or find some foam that would fit the bill. Also might ask the clubowner if you can temporarily put up some sound absorbing material on the walls of the stage.
Don't know if adding something heavy between your amp and the stage would inhibit it from vibrating, but it might be worth a shot.
 
#9
Carl Hillman said:
Maybe some corner bass traps on stage would help.

I've seen wedge configurations like this: http://www.atsacoustics.com/corner-bass-trap-b.html , and tubes like this: Invalid Link Removed

If you're like me, you don't want to go out and buy something just for this one gig, but maybe you can make something or find some foam that would fit the bill. Also might ask the clubowner if you can temporarily put up some sound absorbing material on the walls of the stage.
Don't know if adding something heavy between your amp and the stage would inhibit it from vibrating, but it might be worth a shot.
Click to expand...


That quarter round bass trap looks interesting, but at $500 to $700....yikes.
 
#10
+1 on trying a hpf/pre. If your amp doesn't have one try something like the fdeck. If you aren't currently using one then it will help with the low end "mud," but like drurb said, you want to not cut out all your low end.
 
#15
Yeah, the cheapest first option is a hpf. Honestly though, the amp and speaker have a lot to do with it too. I have a ma45 by mike arnopol that's main design principal is full bottom end with no boom. I've used it on hollow stages and I had two gigs where we were in a 200ft long hall with 40 ft glass ceilings and it did better than all my other cabs have in the past. I use the ma45 on a weekly gig on a hollow stage and I stick it in the corner tilted back and I'm about 15ft away and I can hear the pitch and tone of every note perfect.

If things get tough I bring my fdeck hpf and my dtar para eq and notch filter.
ImageUploadedByTalkBass1410186842.851627.jpg
 
#16
I once played in a corner stage in a very reflective room that was hard to hear on stage. The next time I tried a small rug in front of my amp and some foam behind it and then I could not hear myself at all. All definition was gone. Had to take those back out.
 
#17
DirtPoorRobins said:
Yeah, the cheapest first option is a hpf. Honestly though, the amp and speaker have a lot to do with it too. I have a ma45 by mike arnopol that's main design principal is full bottom end with no boom. I've used it on hollow stages and I had two gigs where we were in a 200ft long hall with 40 ft glass ceilings and it did better than all my other cabs have in the past. I use the ma45 on a weekly gig on a hollow stage and I stick it in the corner tilted back and I'm about 15ft away and I can hear the pitch and tone of every note perfect.

If things get tough I bring my fdeck hpf and my dtar para eq and notch filter. View attachment 475370
Click to expand...

To make things a bit clearer

The MVW technology that I use does one interesting thing. It seems to not excite room resonances to nearly the degree of a reflex cab. It is due to the decorrelation of the sound emitted due to very small delays. (imperceptible). Don't ask me exactly why it does this. But it does. It makes a much bigger difference-to me----than room treatments. As was stated above---room treatments can reduce the anomalies, but you lose other things as well.
 
#18
Things I would try:

Angle the amp up like in the picture above.
Definitely get it off the stage (floor) and/or some dampening material, like a carpet or pad.
You might try facing the speaker into the corner and up instead of out at the band or audience. Sometimes that works. Only one way to find out.
Put your ear near your fingerboard and keep it there all night. Focus on hearing the note and the pitch, knowing that it's making it out in the audience, just not up to you.
Acoustic sound sometimes is best in those situations. Turn the amp down for support, but try to do it primarily without.

I hate bad rooms, but I love regular gigs. Sorry man, we've all been there.
 
#19
another thing

parametric EQ's can do wonders in these situations if one actually learns how to use them. I never play a DB gig without my trusty Fishman Dual Parametric Direct Box. It hasn't been made in years but you can find them used. I've talked to the engineers at Fishman and they all thought that this box was the best thing they've come up with. Unfortunately, it didn't sell. Correct input impedance for a piezo. Usually in problem rooms it's really one or two really bad areas.With the parametric (once you get savvy at using them) you can relatively precisely----attenuate the problem areas without affecting areas that would hurt your sound if they were cut. I do always elevate my cabs a bit----I can eq in more low-lows if needed----but I can remove that mid to upper bass hump---for me always a problem in amplifying upright. The problem for me is that most of the solutions talked about may help cure the problem---but may detrimentally affect areas where the problem doesn't exist. The problem is usually resonant areas excited by the amplified frequencies. One solution that I had said---these areas can be precisely tamed by a parametric eq. The other solution is to not excite these resonances in the first place.
 
#20
Mike Arnopol said:
another thing

parametric EQ's can do wonders in these situations if one actually learns how to use them... The problem for me is that most of the solutions talked about may help cure the problem---but may detrimentally affect areas where the problem doesn't exist.
Click to expand...
Yup, that's exactly why I recommended a parametric or semi-parametric in post #4 and commented in post #7 that an HPF, when used to tame midrange, by necessity, kills the low end.
 

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