Too muck Kick drum in the mains

[imdkoz]

****Kind of long post alert!!!****

I recently purchased a new PA that consists of 2 EV ZLX 12P powered mains, 2 EV ELX 118P powered subs and a Mackie DL1608 to mix. We are a 3 piece rock/cover band where I sing lead, play bass and run sound. We have 3 vocals, guitar, bass, kick, snare and toms mic'd. To make this clear I am not a sound engineer!! I do the best with what little knowledge I have. I used the common setup of L to one sub, out from the sub to the main, using the internal crossover of the main and mirror that to the R side. The ZLX has a setting on the DSP that lets you select the sub you are using with it. Pretty cool option. Used this setup for the first time last night and everything was sounding great during soundcheck until the kick drum. No matter what I tried on the EQ there was way too much kick drum coming through the mains. I have read of sending the kick, bass and floor tom through an Aux signal to the subs and everything else through the mains but was hoping I wouldn't have to do that.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. We have another show coming up this Sat so hoping to find a solution. Thanks!!

 

[seamonkey]

Turn the gain down on the kick
If you have compression on the kick change it to a limiter
Could be you have bleed from the kick to another mic

 

[imdkoz]

Turn the gain down on the kick
If you have compression on the kick change it to a limiter
Could be you have bleed from the kick to another mic

I had to turn the gain down otherwise it would peak the mains. All other mics were muted and no compression.

 

[seamonkey]

Wow - really so you turned off all the mics the kick was still to loud
Sounds like you tried everything in nature to figure this out and you can't
Can't help with the supernatural

 

[s0c9]

Umm.. isn't that what "faders" are for?? Mixing and adjusting levels in the mix?
When testing any line feed.. select the channel, PFL and adjust the gain/trim so that it barely turns "orange" on the meter when hit/played hard.
Now you've set the gain. You should not have to touch it again during the gig.
Then bring up the fader for that channel so that it blends to where you want it in the mix..
If that isn't working, you have something mis-routed on the DL1608.

 

[imdkoz]

Umm.. isn't that what "faders" are for?? Mixing and adjusting levels in the mix?
When testing any line feed.. select the channel, PFL and adjust the gain/trim so that it barely turns "orange" on the meter when hit/played hard.
Now you've set the gain. You should not have to touch it again during the gig.
Then bring up the fader for that channel so that it blends to where you want it in the mix..
If that isn't working, you have something mis-routed on the DL1608.

Umm I know what the faders do..... But thank you for the rest. Let me clarify.... I'm not getting the separation that I was hoping for with the internal crossover. I know how to set the gain and adjust the faders. When I adjust the level of the kick to have it sit well in the mix it is coming out of the subs and the mains in equal level. I would like it to come out of the subs more than the mains. not equally.

 

[Frankjohnson]

Umm I know what the faders do..... But thank you for the rest. Let me clarify.... I'm not getting the separation that I was hoping for with the internal crossover. I know how to set the gain and adjust the faders. When I adjust the level of the kick to have it sit well in the mix it is coming out of the subs and the mains in equal level. I would like it to come out of the subs more than the mains. not equally.

Then run your subs on aux and feed as much or little as you want. Its that easy. I just went through this with a friend who really overcomplicated it. it is really that easy - along with what was said about faders/gain. The biggest difference is you can get separation of the top end and low end. Much better than using L and R to separate..... (edited to add this last sentence)

 

[JohnMCA72]

Umm I know what the faders do..... But thank you for the rest. Let me clarify.... I'm not getting the separation that I was hoping for with the internal crossover. I know how to set the gain and adjust the faders. When I adjust the level of the kick to have it sit well in the mix it is coming out of the subs and the mains in equal level. I would like it to come out of the subs more than the mains. not equally.

You should be able to experiment with the relative levels of the mains & subs themselves. There's also the matter of the respective low-pass & high-pass filters on the sub & mains respectively, & what frequencies the kick drum is producing. If I'm not mistaken, the crossover with that configuration is 100 Hz, which means that only above that is coming through the mains, below through the subs. You should be able to adjust that with channel EQ, cutting from around 100 Hz to around 350-400 Hz or even above that? At the same time, if you cut all or most of the above-100 Hz sound out of your kick drum, it might not sound the way you like it to. However, if it sounds good, I'd worry less about how much is coming out of which speakers.

 

[imdkoz]

Then run your subs on aux and feed as much or little as you want. Its that easy. I just went through this with a friend who really overcomplicated it. it is really that easy - along with what was said about faders/gain. The biggest difference is you can get separation of the top end and low end. Much better than using L and R to separate..... (edited to add this last sentence)

Thanks Frank. I was thinking about doing that. Sending the kick, floor tom and bass to Aux 6 then adding some to the mains for flavor.

 

[logicman69]

Could be the tone of the kick doesn't sit well with the rest. We had that problem with one of my drummer's acrylic kits. No matter how we mixed it or eq'd it, it just sounded... bad.
New drummer has a Maple/Walnut kick on hit set. It sits perfectly in the mix without too much of a hassle, and really helps with mixing the rest of the band.

Just saying, sometimes its not the sound guy.

 

[s0c9]

Umm I know what the faders do..... But thank you for the rest. Let me clarify.... I'm not getting the separation that I was hoping for with the internal crossover. I know how to set the gain and adjust the faders. When I adjust the level of the kick to have it sit well in the mix it is coming out of the subs and the mains in equal level. I would like it to come out of the subs more than the mains. not equally.

Apologies.. but there was no mention of that aspect in your OP.. so I took a stab
What do you have setup for the crossover?
Filter type ?
Slope ?
x-over point ?
if it were me.. if I had the choice, I'd use LR 24 and set the starting point of the xover at 94 Hz.
You may need to adjust that up (but not over 106 Hz) or down (but not under 84 Hz)..
My $0.02

 

[Reedt2000]

Then run your subs on aux and feed as much or little as you want. Its that easy. I just went through this with a friend who really overcomplicated it. it is really that easy - along with what was said about faders/gain. The biggest difference is you can get separation of the top end and low end. Much better than using L and R to separate..... (edited to add this last sentence)

This is the way to go. You get control over the amount of kick going to both the subs and mains. Chances are you'll need a touch of kick drum in the mains for definition. Plus you get the same controls on everything so you can keep vocals and other instruments out of the subs. It's a simple setup with much better control.

 

[HolmeBass]

I think using the aux send for the subs is probably the sure-fire way to handle this, but I bet you could also work the crossover point from subs to mains and the kick EQ to get what you want - raise the X-over freq and EQ the highs and mids out of the kick.

 

[bikeplate]

Don't know how many aux's your board has. Mine has 6. I use one and run the subs from an aux. that way nothing goes through the subs that I don't want

 

[Epitaph04]

An aux send to the sub is the only real answer here. Should be cake from there on.

 

[five7]

Get a local soundman to help you sort out the problem. If everything is muted, no sound should be going thru.

 

[imdkoz]

Get a local soundman to help you sort out the problem. If everything is muted, no sound should be going thru.

Not all channels were muted. Every channel but the kick. So no bleed through from other mics.

 

[MYLOWFREQ]

With all my respect, I don't think having the kick coming out of the subs only is a good idea.. it'd sound muddy.

The crossover only separates the frequencies at the crossover point and sends the frequencies below and above the point to the subs and the mains respectively. If your kick has high frequency content, they'll come out of the mains (which is good imo). If you don't want that, you need to lowpass filter the kick at the crossover frequency on the channel itself. In other words, if your crossover point is at 120Hz, then you need to cut everything above that frequency on the channel.

 

[micguy]

In a well set up system, you should hear more kick in the mains than in the subs, as a kick usually has a bunch of stuff in the high mids, which won't come out of tge subs. But, if you mute the sub feed, the heft of the kick will go away. Aux fed subs are a great idea, but the reason you do that is not to make the kick sound better. You use aux fed subs to keep handling noise and other low freq stuff from vocal and other mics out of the subs - it breaks a loop that can add mud or blur.

 

[Frankjohnson]

With all my respect, I don't think having the kick coming out of the subs only is a good idea.. it'd sound muddy.

The crossover only separates the frequencies at the crossover point and sends the frequencies below and above the point to the subs and the mains respectively. If your kick has high frequency content, they'll come out of the mains (which is good imo). If you don't want that, you need to lowpass filter the kick at the crossover frequency on the channel itself. In other words, if your crossover point is at 120Hz, then you need to cut everything above that frequency on the channel.

Thats why aux fed subs are good - you feed the main channel and add in the aux with sub to add the bottom you want.