On-Stage Spill from Bass Bins

[largo]

So, everything is typically mic'ed or DI'd in the band I play in.
As most people do I guess, we get our gear setup and have a quick onstage sound check making sure gear works, bass, drums, keys and set a decent onstage level. Then the PA volumes are cranked up and typically I can no longer hear my backline over the bass bins! Just get a low muffled bass. So, I turn up, the guitarist turns up, the drummer hits harder and we all have to wear earplugs because on-stage is so loud! I stand almost in line with the bins as is the case with most areas given to a band, wide but not very deep! I haven't got the option of moving further back.

We did think it was the bass bins last time, so last resort was investing in a new PA rig. Very same thing is happening. So, I was wondering if others have a similar problem and what might be done to fix this. Would, for example having a couple of boards with acoustic foam, strategically placed to prevent "spill" back to the stage make a difference. Or will it not make a difference to bass bins?

Getting desperate.

Edited November 14, 2016 by largo

[EBS_freak]

If you are having problems like this, its probably the sub lows that are mushing everything up. HPF pretty much everything at least 50Hz as a starting point. If you are still getting swamped, then start increasing the point of the HPF until you can cope on stage. If you are getting swamped and you are playing in a fairly small compact environment, there's going to be a hell of a lot of reflections and bass traps to contend with. Just because your subs go low doesn't mean that you should chose to mix those lows in - the room may not thank you for it and punish you with mush.

As long as you still have circa 60 hz in the frame for the kick drum, you can get away with HPFing the bass a bit higher... You may not get the fundamental but you'll get the overtones and you'll be heard a lot clearer and without the sub mush. In fact, your band may suddenly sound a lot tighter because of it. Most popular bass amps will actually shelve the lows for this exact reason - and the DI out will send the "unshelved" signal to the PA.

If you are miking the kit... make sure you are using gates. This is CRITICAL. The bass drum is going to get everything muddy very quickly without using one... the shorter you can make the gate open and close without making the kick sound off, the cleaner your mix is going to be. Same applies to the toms but you'll need a longer gate... that floor tom mic is going to be adding mud to the mix and all of the tom mics are going to be picking up the bass drum... so if you can gate them off when they are not in use, perfect. I've started to use a drum trigger on the bass drum to help in this department because you can get an isolated kick sound without picking up a load of crap... however... if you are playing stuff where your drummer is playing a lot of ghost notes, the trigger isn't going to get the intricacies of this. To get around this, you may want to use both a mic and trigger... but you can be really be savage with the eq on this front as you don't particularly want mega sub lows on a ghost kick because it would get all mushed up and inaudible anyway. (so in short, you are miking the overtones of the kick, not the fundamental, so you can hear the ghost notes but not necessarily feel them out front - perfect). Having said all this, a bass mic and gate should be your first port of call.

We could talk about cardioid sub arrays but I guess you haven't got three subs with this feature?

You shouldn't need foam and the like... but you may want to try putting your subs on pallets if you think that you are getting too much coupling.

You may need to spend a bit of time figuring out where you want to sit in the mix... for example, bass and kick will fight with each other unless you eq them both appropriately. Keys and bass will fight... Guitar and keys will fight... and of course once all that is good, your vocals have got to sit clearly on the top - which reminds me, make sure these are HPF pretty high - I tend to take vocals over 100Hz+ to keep the sub out of the vocal mics. Drums are a bitch - they seem to be picked up by every open mic going... as do sub bass frequencies (thats why HPF is so important)

And if you are running your subs low and hard - it's no wonder your 1x10s can't keep up!

PS - I am assuming you are either running a digital desk or have an analogue desk with appropriate outboard to do all this!

Edited November 14, 2016 by EBS_freak

[Ghost_Bass]

^ Excelent post!

My band also has everything in the PA. The way we do it is to have the 75Hz HPF on in every channel except for the kick drum (yes, even on the bass channel). On top of that the sound i dial in onstage doesn't have sub-lows whatsoever as i get them from the PA's bleed. It works like a treat and everybody can hear everybody on stage allowing us all to play at a moderate stage volume.

Follow EBS's advices, pay attention to the sub-bass region in the PA.

[mrtcat]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1479132791' post='3174166']
If you are having problems like this, its probably the sub lows that are mushing everything up. HPF pretty much everything at least 50Hz as a starting point. If you are still getting swamped, then start increasing the point of the HPF until you can cope on stage. If you are getting swamped and you are playing in a fairly small compact environment, there's going to be a hell of a lot of reflections and bass traps to contend with. Just because your subs go low doesn't mean that you should chose to mix those lows in - the room may not thank you for it and punish you with mush.

As long as you still have circa 60 hz in the frame for the kick drum, you can get away with HPFing the bass a bit higher... You may not get the fundamental but you'll get the overtones and you'll be heard a lot clearer and without the sub mush. In fact, your band may suddenly sound a lot tighter because of it. Most popular bass amps will actually shelve the lows for this exact reason - and the DI out will send the "unshelved" signal to the PA.

If you are miking the kit... make sure you are using gates. This is CRITICAL. The bass drum is going to get everything muddy very quickly without using one... the shorter you can make the gate open and close without making the kick sound off, the cleaner your mix is going to be. Same applies to the toms but you'll need a longer gate... that floor tom mic is going to be adding mud to the mix and all of the tom mics are going to be picking up the bass drum... so if you can gate them off when they are not in use, perfect. I've started to use a drum trigger on the bass drum to help in this department because you can get an isolated kick sound without picking up a load of crap... however... if you are playing stuff where your drummer is playing a lot of ghost notes, the trigger isn't going to get the intricacies of this. To get around this, you may want to use both a mic and trigger... but you can be really be savage with the eq on this front as you don't particularly want mega sub lows on a ghost kick because it would get all mushed up and inaudible anyway. (so in short, you are miking the overtones of the kick, not the fundamental, so you can hear the ghost notes but not necessarily feel them out front - perfect). Having said all this, a bass mic and gate should be your first port of call.

We could talk about cardioid sub arrays but I guess you haven't got three subs with this feature?

You shouldn't need foam and the like... but you may want to try putting your subs on pallets if you think that you are getting too much coupling.

You may need to spend a bit of time figuring out where you want to sit in the mix... for example, bass and kick will fight with each other unless you eq them both appropriately. Keys and bass will fight... Guitar and keys will fight... and of course once all that is good, your vocals have got to sit clearly on the top - which reminds me, make sure these are HPF pretty high - I tend to take vocals over 100Hz+ to keep the sub out of the vocal mics. Drums are a bitch - they seem to be picked up by every open mic going... as do sub bass frequencies (thats why HPF is so important)

And if you are running your subs low and hard - it's no wonder your 1x10s can't keep up!

PS - I am assuming you are either running a digital desk or have an analogue desk with appropriate outboard to do all this!
[/quote]

+1 to all the above. There's no need to run anything below 50hz and definitely HPF the vocal mics. You will need to spend some quality time setting up the gates on the kit because drum mics can be really tricky to handle without them.

What is the sound like out front? Is it mushy out there too?

Placement of subs can really affect the sound. I often find that having one sub under each top at either side of the stage is not ideal unless you have space to get them 60ft apart. You can often get a tighter sound from them when sat together and by doing so you can also reign them in a bit so they're not working so hard. If they're overpowering the mix then taking them up off the floor and away from walls helps (works in reverse if theyre getting lost). Bass will travel in all directions so no amount of foam baffling will really help and if it couples with the walls you can find it unbearably mushy in the corners of the room.

[Phil Starr]

All of the above is spot on, the only addition I can make is to eq your on stage monitors appropriately. If you are having these problems then I assume most of what the audience hears of your bass is coming from the PA? If this is the case then you can afford to roll the bass on your backline down quite a lot and boost the mids and highs. Then what you hear should be back to the sort of sound you want to hear, If that makes your FOH sound too toppy then you can cut a little of the mid/highs on your PA eq. Then take advantage of the directional nature of higher frequencies by pointing your cabs straight at your ears, either by raising the cab or tilting it back.

[bassjim]

Sometimes.......even if it seems like madness.......turn the subs off and just use the tops. Take everything out of the PA bar keys and vox and maybe just a tiny amount of kick drum. Just use the backline and turn it all down.

[el-gnomo]

I'd agree with everything already offered here. I've had this issue a lot.
The OP doesn't mention style of music, or size of venue, so excuse me if this suggestion doesn't fit your needs.

I've worked a lot with our engineer, and we've reduced the volume of the subs, and lowered the HPF for the 'tops', which has helped a lot for me.
I also try to avoid having the subs on the stage, if you can. Or have them as far forward as you can manage.

Festivals are the worst places for this issue IMHO. As a sweeping generalisation, they all seem to have the PA set up for ear blistering dance music, even if it's a folk festival, with the subs very close to, or on/under, the stage. Then they set a bassy kick sound twice a loud as it needs to be. For these events I mostly play from memory ;-)

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='bassjim' timestamp='1479141640' post='3174271']
Sometimes.......even if it seems like madness.......turn the subs off and just use the tops. Take everything out of the PA bar keys and vox and maybe just a tiny amount of kick drum. Just use the backline and turn it all down.
[/quote]

Get out.




Ha ha.

[dmccombe7]

I started with a new band few weeks ago that have their own small PA (bass Cabs with top end on poles from the bass bins - typical set up) They have only used it at rehearsals with reasonably moderate to low volumes. I had assumed the guitarist who bought it was well versed with PA's as he seemed quite confident. Last week he had trouble with feedback and he said he didn't know that much about PA's.
I used to hire them out years ago in 90's with couple mates so knew a little about them. When i looked he had too much high end on one of the mics. Reduced and that sorted it out.

Long story but my main point was the Low end filter button. I had never seen that on a desk before so when i punched it in the full pa sound just tightened right up and i was totally taken by surprise just how much it affected the overall sound quality.
The PA at moment has been set up with everyone thru it to see how it all sounds but for rehearsals we have only left the vocals thru it.

The post above is far most explicit but just shows you are never to old to learn the new technology used as standard on PA desks.

Dave

[RhysP]

Without my glasses on I read the title of this thread as "On stage spill from baked beans".

[el-gnomo]

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1479143225' post='3174292']
Without my glasses on I read the title of this thread as "On stage spill from baked beans".
[/quote]

Could happen at a Who gig ?
http://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/d0/e6/50/d0e6508db3e6092897a5a6d768e6fd37.jpg

[beely]

If you are using a mixer with enough aux outs then perhaps you could try feeding the subs from one of these. That way you would be able to have better control of what goes in, and ultimately what comes out.
Something like this.

http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/a_detailed_explanation_of_the_aux_fed_subwoofer_technique/

[largo]

Thank you for all your help, certainly a few things to try at the next gig. Will be interesting to see how our "sound engineer" guitarist responds to the advice

[EBS_freak]

The sub fed aux is a good call - although I wager that largo should stick with his existing setup as if the concept of HPF hasn't been mastered, the problem is going to be transferred to the tops - which will cause it's own problems as those tops are suddenly going to start struggling... and yes, there would need to be a crossover in the setup - or at least a LPF and HPF situation - but if the OP is already struggling, I would suggest he he should get the basics down before complicating matters with an aux fed sub. I'm yet to see one of the cheaper digital desks best a decent inbuilt crossover where the slopes crossover nicely. Yeah, you can go down the external speaker management system - but I would argue thats more complexity.

Should say though, aux fed sub systems are awesome... but conversely, there are loads of amazing sounding PAs out there, which aren't being driven by aux fed subs. In short, if the system sounds bad now, thinking that aux fed subs are going to improve things is wrong - there's something more fundamentally wrong at this stage.

Edited November 15, 2016 by EBS_freak

[largo]

I believe the FOH sound is great according to various reviews, it's just the volume/muddiness on stage that is an issue. For the record we use an analogue Allan & Heath Mixwizard 16:2 analogue desk and have QSC rig comprising of a KW112 top & K Sub each side. The desk definitely has HPF options and I'll be looking at using those on the next gig, especially on all vocal mics. We have no noise gate (AFAIK) for the drums, which are mic'ed on bass drum, snare/hi-hat & then overhead for rest of the kit. It's only in the last year or two that we've had problems with onstage volume, coincidentally since we changed to powered subs instead of passive driven from a power amp. I always put it down to the guitarists hearing going, he's the only one who has never worn earplugs in the 20 years we've been playing!

[bassjim]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1479142377' post='3174281']
Get out.




Ha ha.
[/quote] I'll get me coat..........

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='largo' timestamp='1479204285' post='3174669']
I believe the FOH sound is great according to various reviews, it's just the volume/muddiness on stage that is an issue. For the record we use an analogue Allan & Heath Mixwizard 16:2 analogue desk and have QSC rig comprising of a KW112 top & K Sub each side. The desk definitely has HPF options and I'll be looking at using those on the next gig, especially on all vocal mics. We have no noise gate (AFAIK) for the drums, which are mic'ed on bass drum, snare/hi-hat & then overhead for rest of the kit. It's only in the last year or two that we've had problems with onstage volume, coincidentally since we changed to powered subs instead of passive driven from a power amp. I always put it down to the guitarists hearing going, he's the only one who has never worn earplugs in the 20 years we've been playing!
[/quote]

Not that I know you are using K Subs - I'm quite surprised because they aren't overly loud or deep - so you should be able to get the useful lows (around the 60 hz) fairly tight. I'm pretty convinced with what you are saying that your problems lie with not using the HPFs on your desk. The HPF on your desk is set at 80Hz, so I would be putting that switch in for pretty much every channel... but you may have to leave it disengaged for the bass - use your ears to listen if theres too much mud...but I would expect you to have to cut the lows on the channel if it's getting too muddy. I'm guessing that they are more efficient than what they have replaced... so it may be down to the fact that the same mix results in a lot more mud than what you would have got with your previous system.

That desk also has a mono feed from aux 6 so you could experiment with an aux fed sub - but remember, you would be sending full signal to your tops - so they may get overwhelmed with bass... so you could try splitting the input into two channels, one EQed for the tops (with a HPF) and not sent to the subs (via aux) and one EQed specifically for the subs.

If you aren't running a gate for your kick drum, that is the number one upgrade that you could do for your system. If you want to get more out of your system together, then consider adding a compressor to your kick also... but ideally, you'd want compressors on your mics to bring them under control also. (Keeping it cheap (100 quid ish), DBX compressor gate... Samson, Phonic , Alesis 1u rack units could sort your boomy kick drum and make it sound really tight)... however, before you start spending too much, remember that buying a 4 or 5 of these would get you a digital desk... and a lot less to carry. But certainly, if you wanted to make one change to your system to tighten up the sound, the gated bass drum is it - it will cut out all the reverb and mush that is bouncing around inside the drum that will be picked up by the mic.

Besides that, I would wager it's also your bass to blame, so instead of looking to boost the lows, cut the lows and boost the mids... you'll be surpised how much low end rumble comes out of subs compared to a standard bass cab.

Have you got any monitors (e.g. wedges, drum sidefills) on the go?

Edited November 15, 2016 by EBS_freak

[largo]

Cheers EBS, it's definitely not my bass tone from the amp, the guys like to say I'm a mid player not a bass player! However, I do go pre-EQ from the DI on the amp though. The old subs were db Technology, cant remember the actual model but were supposed to be decent too. The plan is to upgrade the desk next year & go digital but cash is a bit tight just now, having spent £4K+ on new speakers and still paying that off.

I'll definitely go for the HPF option & keep a look out on eBay for a 1u rack mount for the bass drum too.

3 out of 5 of us have now go in-ear again to try & get around the on-stage volume/mud which has definitely helped. There's only one floor monitor, a Mackie SRM350? again for the guitarist/sound as he doesn't like the sound isolation that IEM brings. Funnily enough, he;s the one that complains most that the mix is suffering because we've all gone IEM.

Cheers again.

[EBS_freak]

From what you have said, I think the use of high pass filters will solve most of your issues.

Next time you sound check, drop the bass drum in and out of the mix to see if that is where they majority of your mud is coming from.

There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to get a decent sound with the gear that you have got by any means.

I think it's been mentioned before, but make sure the monitor is as quiet as it can possibly be and again, don't swamp it with low frequencies.

Good luck and keep us informed!

[ambient]

Why are you so loud on stage that you need to wear ear plugs ?

[largo]

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1479218101' post='3174814']
Why are you so loud on stage that you need to wear ear plugs ?
[/quote]
It's the circle of life please read my original post.

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1479218101' post='3174814']
Why are you so loud on stage that you need to wear ear plugs ?
[/quote]
Should be wearing earplugs regardless - theres a drummer on stage for a start.

[Ghost_Bass]

Another thing i've remebered. You should remove almost all sub-bass and bass from the guitar(s) also, both in the PA and especially in the backline. They just need that mid to high region to cut the mix and be heard clearly. There are a lot of guitar players that insist in dialing bass in their tone. It sounds good in their bedroom but very bad in a band mix and will give a huge contribution to a muddy stage sound.