Finding your sound

[Stub Mandrel]

My local club is the one venue where almost every band praises the sound.

 

It is rectangular with all dimensions very different. The ceiling steps down at the far end, but is all suspended tiles that absorb sound well. This mesms there are no strong resonances.

 

One side has several windows, but with curtains. Curtains across the patio-style door behind the band. The ends of (normally hidden) skittle runs each side create modest sound traps behind the band. The suspended floor gas heavyweight vinyl that seems to stop any booming. It sounds fairly dead with no noticeable reverb.

 

Asudd from the curtains, none of this was deliberate, just a happy chance.

[Stub Mandrel]

Hard to see but they are deep brown.

 

 

[ezbass]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Hard to see but they are deep brown.

 

 

Lovely peppers, but how do these affect your sound?  

[Russ]

I've gone through a few phases over the years. I used to go for a very mids-heavy sound and quite heavy-handed technique to try and cut through in a band with two guitarists with Dual Rectifiers. It sounded decent, but a bit boxy and it peaked out a lot. Then I decided to go back and re-engineer everything and try and get something closer to the Tony Levin sound, with my own twist. So I started using a moderate amount of compression (I used to avoid it if possible), scooped out everything around 800Hz and started playing with a much lighter touch to "play" the compressor, so the bottom end bloomed out more, but still kept definition in the high mids and treble so the sound cuts through. A bit more mids, and a little wash of DG-style distortion gets added for when the guitarist goes off to solo to fill things out a bit. I'm also not averse to a bit of delay/reverb, and love me a bit of ambient/shimmer reverb.

 

It took a while to get to this point though, lots of experimentation with playing style, basses, effects, gain staging and so on. It's the sort of thing that only really comes with time and lots of listening.