bass madness

[hollywood_steve]

I'm on my way down to the studio in a half hour to reconnect my gear and begin mixing the show I recorded the other night. Based on what I heard in the room and through my phones while tracking, I know of one definite problem I will face; wildly varying bass levels throughout the stage area. The trio (bass, piano & drums) set up in a little alcove at the end of the main room; the alcove was maybe 20ft across, 12ft deep and 10ft high, and opened into a 50ft x 40ft x 10ft room.

The mix of hard surfaces and plenty of soft furniture filled with softer bodies (the yacht club / blue hair crowd) actually yielded decent response for everything above 100hz, or so. But below that it was UGLY. Nodes were the big problem, when the bass player played an open E, the SPL in the alcove could vary by 12 to 15db or more in just a couple of feet. In other words, the bass mic could be picking up a balanced level, while the drum mic 6 feet away might be "hearing" TWICE the SPL for just one specific bass note! Depending on what key the song was in, there were times when I had the bass channel preamp "off" but the bass was still too loud in mics 6ft or 8ft away that were purposely placed with their nulls towards the bass amp. And to make me seem insane, the bass sounded fine out in the main room; this problem dropped off as soon as you left the alcove.

A couple of observations:

1. As a general rule, I hate it when acoustic bass players use an amp, particularly in a small club, low volume setting. (I'm certain that they would overplay less if they had to concentrate on sounding each note cleanly and strongly, but the amp gives them the confidence to "noodle.")

2. This recording may be the first time that I will ever have thought that automation might make my mixing work a little easier. Something tells me that I will be muting or at least pulling down the vocal mics countless times in an effort to minimize these bass hot spots.

And a question:

1. Has anyone got any suggestions for how to deal with this sort of bass node problem, where the relative bass volume on stage varies WILDLY with each step as you move across the stage? It wouldn't be so bad except that the problem is frequency dependent, so that a location that is a hot spot on one song is a dead spot on another song, or even on a different part of the same song. (In other words, when I felt satisfied that I had solved the problem of the booming bass in the drum mic, the band changed songs and the problem suddenly jumped to the piano mic, then to the left side of the stereo pair. And so on, all night long......)

It should be interesting to hear how this all sounds......

[Roland]

Originally posted by hollywood_steve
I'm on my way down to the studio in a half hour to reconnect my gear and begin mixing the show I recorded the other night. Based on what I heard in the room and through my phones while tracking, I know of one definite problem I will face; wildly varying bass levels throughout the stage area. The trio (bass, piano & drums) set up in a little alcove at the end of the main room; the alcove was maybe 20ft across, 12ft deep and 10ft high, and opened into a 50ft x 40ft x 10ft room.

The mix of hard surfaces and plenty of soft furniture filled with softer bodies (the yacht club / blue hair crowd) actually yielded decent response for everything above 100hz, or so. But below that it was UGLY. Nodes were the big problem, when the bass player played an open E, the SPL in the alcove could vary by 12 to 15db or more in just a couple of feet. In other words, the bass mic could be picking up a balanced level, while the drum mic 6 feet away might be "hearing" TWICE the SPL for just one specific bass note! Depending on what key the song was in, there were times when I had the bass channel preamp "off" but the bass was still too loud in mics 6ft or 8ft away that were purposely placed with their nulls towards the bass amp. And to make me seem insane, the bass sounded fine out in the main room; this problem dropped off as soon as you left the alcove.

A couple of observations:

1. As a general rule, I hate it when acoustic bass players use an amp, particularly in a small club, low volume setting. (I'm certain that they would overplay less if they had to concentrate on sounding each note cleanly and strongly, but the amp gives them the confidence to "noodle.")

2. This recording may be the first time that I will ever have thought that automation might make my mixing work a little easier. Something tells me that I will be muting or at least pulling down the vocal mics countless times in an effort to minimize these bass hot spots.

And a question:

1. Has anyone got any suggestions for how to deal with this sort of bass node problem, where the relative bass volume on stage varies WILDLY with each step as you move across the stage? It wouldn't be so bad except that the problem is frequency dependent, so that a location that is a hot spot on one song is a dead spot on another song, or even on a different part of the same song. (In other words, when I felt satisfied that I had solved the problem of the booming bass in the drum mic, the band changed songs and the problem suddenly jumped to the piano mic, then to the left side of the stereo pair. And so on, all night long......)

It should be interesting to hear how this all sounds......

Crazy as you may think it sounds, I would take a DI, if you know what you are doing it can be much better than satisfactory, even on an acoustic bass. the other alternative is to place large heavy block items ( like the piano and the bass cab, in such a way to break up the worst nodes) however I suspect the 10ft ceiling is really the bigest problem (about 100hz?).

Regards



Roland

[hollywood_steve]

re: the suggestion for a DI

This was a live gig in a room without a real PA, only tiny vocal monitors used as a vocal-only PA. So, regardless of how I record the bass (DI, mic, etc.) the bass player needs to fill the room with bass, without the help of a PA system. The problem I am having is that the sound of the bass varies so greatly from one point to another that I was getting wild bass response in other mics, like the single drum mic, or one of the vocal mics. And as it was frequency dependent, the hot spots and dead zones danced all over the stage as the bass player moved around the neck of the bass.

Even if I chose not to record the bass at all (no mic, no DI), the problem would still exist in the other mics. When I was working on some rough mixes yesterday, I got the idea of just cutting EVERYTHING under 80hz on all the mics. With any luck, this should remove the bass from all of the other mics and I will then be able to control the bass with the single channel assigned to the bass.

(reading this back I realize that it probably doesn't make much sense to anyone who wasn't there...... I guess you just had to be there, but be glad you weren't!

[Douglas Whates]

Hi Steve,

As a bassist who has played in a number of such sonically challenged venues, I know exactly what you mean. When space is tight bass just has an uncanny ability to explode on certain notes.

As you suggested, I think the low cut idea is going to be your best bet for this, but as an off the wall suggestion, have you tried mucking around with phasing? Perhaps inverting the phase at key points could effectively cancel out the booming bass? Or you could try some tight eq cut on the other mic's, depending on what node they were emphasising - tight enough to not effect the overall sound of the instruments...?

Really sympathise with you on this one. Sounds like the sort of thing that could drive a guy insane.

Douglas.

[mml]

Hi Steve-

Happened to stumble on this today. You may want to see if you can somehow rent a Multiband compressor like the Tube Tech. I'd suggest Protools for this, but I know you're dealing with way higher fidelity than that. It might not be worth the expense of renting though. You could always sidechain one of the compressors you own.

I'm probably too late with this, but good luck!

Matt