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#1
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
I have been having an annoying problem with my jazz group recording. Has
anyone else encountered such a problem? It sounds fine during the event, everything seemingly balanced for good sound all around. But when I get home and download it and try to produce the disc, I find a constant, thrumming bass frequency from this electric bass guitar that seems to be overwhelming my recording meters and my Velodyne subwoofer. In other words, it is fooling my meters about how loud the rest of the band is by driving the meters up for the bass freqs alone, leaving the rest of the instruments too low. You will tell me to just low cut the recording on mastering, to enable me to bring up the other instruments to their rightful levels. But that will also cut the drum kit from the low end of my recording, which I don't like much. I also wonder how to check the balances during sound checks and recording sessions. If this guy has his bass controls on his portable amp and speaker up all the way, so that there is this constant FOOM whenever he touches a string, can I measure that if I tell him to play alone and see if it drives my meters nuts? I am recording with a single point stereo miking system on a stand, not multi-tracking. People playing the recordings without a good sub may not hear the problem. My system is well balanced for most commercial recordings and is not bass heavy. I love the sound of the drum kit that I normally get, but cannot tolerate this constant thrumming from the bass guitar. HELP! Gary Eickmeier -- Gary Eickmeier |
#2
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Is there one frequency from the bass that predominates?
Peace, Paul |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Gary,
Try using a spectrum analysis tool, see if there is a room resonance or something. Ntrack studio has a nice spectrum analyzer that can augment your ears. There are many others as well. Mark |
#4
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
wrote in message ... Gary, Try using a spectrum analysis tool, see if there is a room resonance or something. Ntrack studio has a nice spectrum analyzer that can augment your ears. There are many others as well. Mark Thanks - you mean an instrument that can tell me the amplitude and freq that is dominating at any given time? My editing program, Audition 2, has a spectral frequency display that is about useless. How about an ordinary Audiocontrol C-101 octave analyzer with its calibrated microphone? Just a 10 band, but is that the idea? Gary Eickmeier |
#5
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
It sounds fine during the event, everything seemingly balanced for good sound all around. But when I get home and download it and try to produce the disc, I find a constant, thrumming bass frequency from this electric bass guitar that seems to be overwhelming my recording meters and my Velodyne subwoofer. In other words, it is fooling my meters about how loud the rest of the band is by driving the meters up for the bass freqs alone, leaving the rest of the instruments too low. What makes you think it's from the bass guitar? You will tell me to just low cut the recording on mastering, to enable me to bring up the other instruments to their rightful levels. But that will also cut the drum kit from the low end of my recording, which I don't like much. So move the mikes closer to the drum kit. Also the odds are that what you're seeing is very low... try a 50 Hz bass-cut to begin with, for instance. You won't hear much change at all on the kick. And really, if it's jazz, the kick is just an accent, it's not carrying the beat anyway. I also wonder how to check the balances during sound checks and recording sessions. If this guy has his bass controls on his portable amp and speaker up all the way, so that there is this constant FOOM whenever he touches a string, can I measure that if I tell him to play alone and see if it drives my meters nuts? Stop worrying about the meters and use your ears. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 21:54:56 -0400, Gary Eickmeier wrote:
wrote in message ... Gary, Try using a spectrum analysis tool, see if there is a room resonance or something. Ntrack studio has a nice spectrum analyzer that can augment your ears. There are many others as well. Mark Thanks - you mean an instrument that can tell me the amplitude and freq that is dominating at any given time? My editing program, Audition 2, has a spectral frequency display that is about useless. How about an ordinary Audiocontrol C-101 octave analyzer with its calibrated microphone? Just a 10 band, but is that the idea? Gary Eickmeier I use Audition 3. I find its Spectral Display very useful. Would I like it to have a higher 'resolution? Yes. But as is, it is very handy. I think you might want to spend a little more time with it. Right click on the Frequency scale at the right of the time line. Select logarithmic display and I think you'll like it better. Way OT. But having to do with moving a troublesome instrument. A friend of mine once spent some time as a roadie for the Maynard Ferguson big band. I got to sit in on a rehearsal and sound check, when he was playing the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, WI. Maynard was a perfectionist. He was unhappy with one of the trumpet players and had stopped the tune they were rehearsing a couple of times to 'correct' the player. On the third occasion of stopping Maynard said he thought it was the balance that was the problem, and he asked the player to move his chair back two feet. The guy replied that he'd fall off the back of the stage if he did that. Maynard said, "I know". SteveK |
#7
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
On Sunday, March 23, 2014 7:54:56 PM UTC-6, Gary Eickmeier wrote:
wrote in message ... Gary, Try using a spectrum analysis tool, see if there is a room resonance or something. Ntrack studio has a nice spectrum analyzer that can augment your ears. There are many others as well. Mark Thanks - you mean an instrument that can tell me the amplitude and freq that is dominating at any given time? My editing program, Audition 2, has a spectral frequency display that is about useless. You're looking at the wrong thing. The spectral frequency display actually is useful, but not for your purposes. What you want to do is click on the "Analyze" menu column, then select "Show frequency analysis". It'll give you a much better version of that frequency analyzer in your 10-band equalizer.. (On my version Alt-Z brings it up, but that may be a shortcut I added.) For FFT size select 65536, for the type of analysis try Hanning. If you click on the analyzer window, pressing the space bar toggles between linear and logarithmic frequency displays -- you want log. Now you can find what the problem frequency is. You can't do real-time analysis with the FFT greater than 4096, and 4096 won't give you sufficient resolution, so go back to the waveform window and select a part of the recording where the thrumming is bad. Go to the frequency window and find out what the bad frequency is. I'm betting the problem is a room resonance, which you may have to cure by asking the bass player to move the amp a couple of feet. The bass player may also be getting feedback from the amp to the instrument. Can you hear the thrumming when you listen in the room? Peace, Paul |
#8
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Scott Dorsey wrote:
What makes you think it's from the bass guitar? It is very obvious. Starts and stops with him and only him. You will tell me to just low cut the recording on mastering, to enable me to bring up the other instruments to their rightful levels. But that will also cut the drum kit from the low end of my recording, which I don't like much. So move the mikes closer to the drum kit. No can do, unless I want to put them inside the band. Drums are always behind everyone else. Also the odds are that what you're seeing is very low... try a 50 Hz bass-cut to begin with, for instance. You won't hear much change at all on the kick. And really, if it's jazz, the kick is just an accent, it's not carrying the beat anyway. Yes, probably around 50 Hz. I also wonder how to check the balances during sound checks and recording sessions. If this guy has his bass controls on his portable amp and speaker up all the way, so that there is this constant FOOM whenever he touches a string, can I measure that if I tell him to play alone and see if it drives my meters nuts? Stop worrying about the meters and use your ears. As I have said, I can't hear it so bad when standing there, but maybe the microphones can. Gary Eickmeier |
#9
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
wrote in message ... Gary, Try using a spectrum analysis tool, see if there is a room resonance or something. Ntrack studio has a nice spectrum analyzer that can augment your ears. There are many others as well. Mark Thanks - you mean an instrument that can tell me the amplitude and freq that is dominating at any given time? My editing program, Audition 2, has a spectral frequency display that is about useless. Absolute not useless but perhaps used less wisely. How about an ordinary Audiocontrol C-101 octave analyzer with its calibrated microphone? Just a 10 band, but is that the idea? No no no no no, will not give you single hz resolution, A2's fft analysis window will if configured properly. Select the entire file, hit [alt][Z], select "display as lines" select fft-length max, select blackman-harris. Gary Eickmeier Kind regards Peter Larsen |
#10
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
I have been having an annoying problem with my jazz group recording. Has anyone else encountered such a problem? It sounds fine during the event, everything seemingly balanced for good sound all around. But when I get home and download it and try to produce the disc, I find a constant, thrumming bass frequency from this electric bass guitar that seems to be overwhelming my recording meters and my Velodyne subwoofer. In other words, it is fooling my meters about how loud the rest of the band is by driving the meters up for the bass freqs alone, leaving the rest of the instruments too low. Subsonics or airflow across the mics? - First you turn off the aircon, if that doesn't do it you add windscreens to all mics - if that doesn't do it you add high-pass filtering as early in the recording chain as possible. Or: not to worry, just record with the required headroom to record it cleanly and use your (phase-linear) fft-filter in A2 to remove it after analysis. Kind regards Peter Larsen |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Peter Larsen wrote:
No no no no no, will not give you single hz resolution, A2's fft analysis window will if configured properly. Select the entire file, hit [alt][Z], select "display as lines" select fft-length max, select blackman-harris. Oh wow - THANKS to you and I think Paul for this - this is amazing. I even have a book on Audition, but didn't know about all this analysis stuff. This is a truly great program. Now I must see if this is in Bob Katz's book on Mastering. Gary |
#12
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
The next thing we'll read from you will be about your customers being extremely satisfied with your mastering job? That's how it was when you asked about basic microphone positioning technique.
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#13
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote: What makes you think it's from the bass guitar? It is very obvious. Starts and stops with him and only him. And when you walk around the room with a finger in one ear, is it everywhere, or only in some places? That is to say... is it really a problem from the bass guitar, or is it a problem with the room? If it's a a problem with the room the bass guitar is the only thing that is going to excite it because you really won't have anything else in the bottom octave going on. You will tell me to just low cut the recording on mastering, to enable me to bring up the other instruments to their rightful levels. But that will also cut the drum kit from the low end of my recording, which I don't like much. So move the mikes closer to the drum kit. No can do, unless I want to put them inside the band. Drums are always behind everyone else. Putting them inside the band isn't necessarily a bad thing at all, and one of the big advantages of baffled omnis is that it can allow you to do just that without becoming too dry. Also the odds are that what you're seeing is very low... try a 50 Hz bass-cut to begin with, for instance. You won't hear much change at all on the kick. And really, if it's jazz, the kick is just an accent, it's not carrying the beat anyway. Yes, probably around 50 Hz. So, EQ it, and don't worry. I also wonder how to check the balances during sound checks and recording sessions. If this guy has his bass controls on his portable amp and speaker up all the way, so that there is this constant FOOM whenever he touches a string, can I measure that if I tell him to play alone and see if it drives my meters nuts? Stop worrying about the meters and use your ears. As I have said, I can't hear it so bad when standing there, but maybe the microphones can. Put one finger in your ear, then move your head to where the microphones are, then move your head someplace else. If you don't hear it with your head there, then it's something being induced at the microphone or after it, and it's time to consider shockmounting and EQ. You do have a shockmount, right? --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#14
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
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#15
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
+1 on Scott and Frank's comments. As Scott asked, are you using shock mounts on your mics? If not that may be the problem right there.
Peace, Paul |
#16
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Frank Stearns wrote:
But, you also might have a problem with your room that up until now hasn't been revealed. Basses -- especially acoustic basses, can do some crazy stuff with the fundamental and harmonic sequences. Have you done a waterfall plot of your room? You might be mortified to see a narrow but very long resonance somewhere in the bass region -- and just by bad luck you're precisely exciting that problem with this recording. And THAT is why God and Burgess MacNeil made the parametric EQ, for just that eventuality. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#17
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
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#18
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
"Gary Eickmeier" wrote in message ... I have been having an annoying problem with my jazz group recording. Has anyone else encountered such a problem? It sounds fine during the event, everything seemingly balanced for good sound all around. But when I get home and download it and try to produce the disc, I find a constant, thrumming bass frequency from this electric bass guitar that seems to be overwhelming my recording meters and my Velodyne subwoofer. In other words, it is fooling my meters about how loud the rest of the band is by driving the meters up for the bass freqs alone, leaving the rest of the instruments too low. You will tell me to just low cut the recording on mastering, to enable me to bring up the other instruments to their rightful levels. But that will also cut the drum kit from the low end of my recording, which I don't like much. I also wonder how to check the balances during sound checks and recording sessions. If this guy has his bass controls on his portable amp and speaker up all the way, so that there is this constant FOOM whenever he touches a string, can I measure that if I tell him to play alone and see if it drives my meters nuts? I am recording with a single point stereo miking system on a stand, not multi-tracking. People playing the recordings without a good sub may not hear the problem. My system is well balanced for most commercial recordings and is not bass heavy. I love the sound of the drum kit that I normally get, but cannot tolerate this constant thrumming from the bass guitar. HELP! Gary Eickmeier Gary, this is a (not so wild) guess, but I would investigate whether the Bass Guitar had Active Circuitry in it, and that the 9v battery powering such circuitry was able to provide the required 9 volts. Gareth. |
#19
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
"PStamler" wrote in message
... On Sunday, March 23, 2014 7:54:56 PM UTC-6, Gary Eickmeier wrote: wrote in message ... Gary, Try using a spectrum analysis tool, see if there is a room resonance or something. Ntrack studio has a nice spectrum analyzer that can augment your ears. There are many others as well. Mark Thanks - you mean an instrument that can tell me the amplitude and freq that is dominating at any given time? My editing program, Audition 2, has a spectral frequency display that is about useless. You're looking at the wrong thing. The spectral frequency display actually is useful, but not for your purposes. What you want to do is click on the "Analyze" menu column, then select "Show frequency analysis". It'll give you a much better version of that frequency analyzer in your 10-band equalizer. (On my version Alt-Z brings it up, but that may be a shortcut I added.) For FFT size select 65536, for the type of analysis try Hanning. If you click on the analyzer window, pressing the space bar toggles between linear and logarithmic frequency displays -- you want log. Now you can find what the problem frequency is. You can't do real-time analysis with the FFT greater than 4096, and 4096 won't give you sufficient resolution, so go back to the waveform window and select a part of the recording where the thrumming is bad. Go to the frequency window and find out what the bad frequency is. snip ---------------------------------------------- more ideas... Try running the analysis on a longish stretch of the track - like 30 seconds or a minute. The musical sound will average out to a flatter line, and the resonance will really stick out. Once you find the fundamental frequency, you can high pass over it, or notch out the frequency, or even use narrow band limiting on it. Check out the first couple of harmonics too, the resonance may cause other things (like the mic stand) to resonate at a harmonic frequency. Sean |
#20
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message ... Gary Eickmeier wrote: Scott Dorsey wrote: What makes you think it's from the bass guitar? It is very obvious. Starts and stops with him and only him. And when you walk around the room with a finger in one ear, is it everywhere, or only in some places? That is to say... is it really a problem from the bass guitar, or is it a problem with the room? If it's a a problem with the room the bass guitar is the only thing that is going to excite it because you really won't have anything else in the bottom octave going on. I think definitely the guitar. I have noticed it in three different recordings now in three different rooms, most of them pretty large. You will tell me to just low cut the recording on mastering, to enable me to bring up the other instruments to their rightful levels. But that will also cut the drum kit from the low end of my recording, which I don't like much. So move the mikes closer to the drum kit. No can do, unless I want to put them inside the band. Drums are always behind everyone else. Putting them inside the band isn't necessarily a bad thing at all, and one of the big advantages of baffled omnis is that it can allow you to do just that without becoming too dry. Well, just doing single point stereo miking of the group as a whole. Also the odds are that what you're seeing is very low... try a 50 Hz bass-cut to begin with, for instance. You won't hear much change at all on the kick. And really, if it's jazz, the kick is just an accent, it's not carrying the beat anyway. Yes, probably around 50 Hz. Turns out to be more like 100, from the Analyze window in Audition. So I will try to EQ again. But what sort of curve do you look for on a recording? Dead flat, or with a little bass emphasis, or what? So, EQ it, and don't worry. I also wonder how to check the balances during sound checks and recording sessions. If this guy has his bass controls on his portable amp and speaker up all the way, so that there is this constant FOOM whenever he touches a string, can I measure that if I tell him to play alone and see if it drives my meters nuts? Stop worrying about the meters and use your ears. As I have said, I can't hear it so bad when standing there, but maybe the microphones can. Put one finger in your ear, then move your head to where the microphones are, then move your head someplace else. If you don't hear it with your head there, then it's something being induced at the microphone or after it, and it's time to consider shockmounting and EQ. You do have a shockmount, right? --scott Alas, now they tell me that was the last performance for the season. Glad I was there to catch it, and maybe I can EQ it pretty well. This was a larger room than our practice room, and I had great hopes for this recording. We shall see. Gary |
#21
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
"PStamler" wrote in message ... +1 on Scott and Frank's comments. As Scott asked, are you using shock mounts on your mics? If not that may be the problem right there. Yes, shock mounts are standard for the AT-2050. Fascinating info from Frank - I don't think I could do all that analysis, especially for a dance event where there is no pre show sound check or time to do all that. Gary |
#23
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
"Gareth Magennis" wrote in message ... Gary, this is a (not so wild) guess, but I would investigate whether the Bass Guitar had Active Circuitry in it, and that the 9v battery powering such circuitry was able to provide the required 9 volts. I guess anything is possible, but I just learned that the jazz group has done its last performance for the season, so I will have to wait. Thanks to all for some great tips! Gary |
#24
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
"Gary Eickmeier" writes:
"PStamler" wrote in message ... +1 on Scott and Frank's comments. As Scott asked, are you using shock mounts on your mics? If not that may be the problem right there. Yes, shock mounts are standard for the AT-2050. Fascinating info from Frank - I don't think I could do all that analysis, especially for a dance event where there is no pre show sound check or time to do all that. Er, which part of my post did you mean? It's all fairly standard stuff. But tell me what seemed like a "lot of analysis" and I'll try to clarify. Frank Mobile Audio -- |
#25
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
"Gary Eickmeier" writes:
"Frank Stearns" wrote in message news (Scott Dorsey) writes: Frank Stearns wrote: But, you also might have a problem with your room that up until now hasn't been revealed. Basses -- especially acoustic basses, can do some crazy stuff with the fundamental and harmonic sequences. Have you done a waterfall plot of your room? You might be mortified to see a narrow but very long resonance somewhere in the bass region -- and just by bad luck you're precisely exciting that problem with this recording. And THAT is why God and Burgess MacNeil made the parametric EQ, for just that eventuality. --scott True, but even after the notch you still have that long "hang time" at that Hz. Depending on a number of factors -- and whether I could identify the specific cause in the room -- I might also look at a trap or tuned resonator. Frank, just out of curiosity, if I had a portable player or frequency generator, could I use that to check for resonances in a room? Like, before the band arrives, put its speaker where the bass might be and just play transients and test tones and see what pops up? I seriously doubt it. You really need THAT player, with HIS instrument. You can, however, get a general sense of that room by going to other events there. Does the low end seem woofy? Boomy? What'd be useful for that purpose in general would be to do some analysis on the room with the appropriate test equipment. At least then you see if there's something generally odd about the room. Still, as Scott probably mentioned, you can do a lot with a finging plugging one ear while you bob your head around suspect places with the other. Frank Mobile Audio -- |
#26
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
I don't go to a dance concert and make a waterfall plot of the room, or have the bass player go through each note while I try to figure out that an open D, the strong fifth and first octave harmonic were the culprits - even if I knew what an open D is! Have mercy! A tape measure is a valuable acoustic tool when looking for resonance(s). Gary Eickmeier Kind regards Peter Larsen |
#27
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
"Gary Eickmeier" writes:
"Frank Stearns" wrote in message nacquisition... "Gary Eickmeier" writes: "PStamler" wrote in message ... +1 on Scott and Frank's comments. As Scott asked, are you using shock mounts on your mics? If not that may be the problem right there. Yes, shock mounts are standard for the AT-2050. Fascinating info from Frank - I don't think I could do all that analysis, especially for a dance event where there is no pre show sound check or time to do all that. Er, which part of my post did you mean? It's all fairly standard stuff. But tell me what seemed like a "lot of analysis" and I'll try to clarify. I don't go to a dance concert and make a waterfall plot of the room, or have I meant a waterfall plot of YOUR playback room to verify that you don't have some nasty node that's being excited by this particular field capture. Sometimes rooms will have narrow problems that are rarely heard. Only certain music will reveal the problem (or a good measurement) -- but when that excitation does take place, look out! Analysis of the venues you work in can be helpful as well. Here in the new town, as well as my old town, I'd eventually made friends with tech people at the various venues where I'd worked. Convinced them it would be fun and useful to do some testing. They were eventually convinced to work with me, then happy we'd done the measurements. And I was informed a bit more about the particular room, with good detail supporting what my ear had already told me in general. And that's still a good thing to use -- your ears. Perhaps go to these venues during other events, just so you can listen to the room and not be distracted by your recording tasks of the moment. Anything strike you as odd about the room? the bass player go through each note while I try to figure out that an open D, the strong fifth and first octave harmonic were the culprits - even if I knew what an open D is! Have mercy! Well, as a recording engineer, you don't have to play any instrument or sing, but it helps if you noodle around with something, and have a very basic grasp of music theory. At least familiarize youself with instruments. If nothing else, I'm sure there're instructional vids on Youtube that will demo instruments -- how they work, what they sound like. And other vids on basic music theory -- what are octaves, thirds, fifths, etc, etc; what do those relationships sound like? What are the harmonics generated? And, we didn't have the bass player tediously strike each note. He was just jamming around during set up and when he hit that open D string, jump back! Rattle city. Shocked the hell out of us. After the bass player left for the dinner break prior to the show, the other audio tech went up in the attic and I stood on stage plucking that note as the guy upstairs tried to quiet the worse offenders. (I'd never touched a bass before, btw, but rest assured that we did have the player's permission. And you ALWAYS want to get that. You're fondling the musician's child. You damn well better be careful and respectful.) But see, I'd already identified there was a rattle problem in this house with a tenor voice during a Messiah presentation. Soloists were amplified (cringe, but I wasn't working that show, just in the audience). On certain notes sounded like distortion. Told the lead tech, he thought I was nuts. But the next week we swept a sine and found that problem around 180 hz or so. Couple that with the bass thing and now he's a believer. Over time we hope to ID and fix all these issues in that house. Point is to LISTEN, be AWARE, then follow up best you can, given whatever the local circumstance might be. Frank -- |
#28
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
On Tue, 25 Mar 2014 20:13:26 -0400, Gary Eickmeier wrote:
... what sort of curve do you look for on a recording? Whatever *sounds* right. Dead flat, or with a little bass emphasis, or what? Don't look; listen. I know it's been suggested to you before, and I'm sure it'll be suggested to you again, but it really does come down to that. Your ears (accompanied by at least a few different monitoring systems and environments need to be the final judge of what's right, not your eyes. I work in one room in the house, then take CDs to other rooms, the car, my workplace, etc. and evaluate how well my results translate to those environments; I have yet to accomplish a first-try recording/mix, but I'm also not doing this on a daily basis. You were at the performance while it was being recorded. I believe what you're trying to do is massage the recording so that it sounds as close as possible to how the band sounded live in the room. Keep chipping away at the bits that don't sound like the band did live, until all that's left does. Burn that to disk, and listen to it in the car, on your home stereo, on your neighbor's boombox, on headphones, etc. You may need to go back and adjust your EQ, levels, etc. Repeat as required. Notice that what's being discussed here is all about how the recording sounds in these environments, and its comparison to how the band sounds in a live environment. Practice critical listening, with professionally mixed and mastered disks (of the same *and* different styles of music as the band you're working with) in these same environments. Notice how the various intruments sound, and how the overall blend sounds. Note what you can hear similarly in all (most?) environments, and on all (or most) recordings, versus what sounds completely different. Can you break down the recordings, and identify the instrumentation throughout, note where instruments come and go, follow general contours of individual melodic lines? This will help you to be able to listen to your own recording, and make necessary adjustments to get it to how you think it should sound. I hope that helps. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sylvain Robitaille Systems analyst / AITS Concordia University Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science Montreal, Quebec, Canada ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
#29
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
"Sylvain Robitaille" wrote in message a... On Tue, 25 Mar 2014 20:13:26 -0400, Gary Eickmeier wrote: ... what sort of curve do you look for on a recording? Whatever *sounds* right. Dead flat, or with a little bass emphasis, or what? Don't look; listen. I know it's been suggested to you before, and I'm sure it'll be suggested to you again, but it really does come down to that. Your ears (accompanied by at least a few different monitoring systems and environments need to be the final judge of what's right, not your eyes. I work in one room in the house, then take CDs to other rooms, the car, my workplace, etc. and evaluate how well my results translate to those environments; I have yet to accomplish a first-try recording/mix, but I'm also not doing this on a daily basis. You were at the performance while it was being recorded. I believe what you're trying to do is massage the recording so that it sounds as close as possible to how the band sounded live in the room. Keep chipping away at the bits that don't sound like the band did live, until all that's left does. Burn that to disk, and listen to it in the car, on your home stereo, on your neighbor's boombox, on headphones, etc. You may need to go back and adjust your EQ, levels, etc. Repeat as required. Notice that what's being discussed here is all about how the recording sounds in these environments, and its comparison to how the band sounds in a live environment. Practice critical listening, with professionally mixed and mastered disks (of the same *and* different styles of music as the band you're working with) in these same environments. Notice how the various intruments sound, and how the overall blend sounds. Note what you can hear similarly in all (most?) environments, and on all (or most) recordings, versus what sounds completely different. Can you break down the recordings, and identify the instrumentation throughout, note where instruments come and go, follow general contours of individual melodic lines? This will help you to be able to listen to your own recording, and make necessary adjustments to get it to how you think it should sound. I hope that helps. Well, yes, I generally do everything by listening, but sometimes you can then find a trend or a corellation between the listening and the tech measurements that can help to shortcut the long listening journey to perfection next time. Everyone thinks flat is perfection, but experienced engineers know about "room curves" and recording engineers may know a few things about emphasizing certain frequency ranges to make something sound better on certain media, like on the radio or the boombox or the car. It would be easy to EQ a recording to flat, as measured by these analysis tools, but would that be the best sounding recording? I suspect not, but I need the feedback of the more experienced practicioners out there. Gary |
#30
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
среда, 26. март 2014. 18.42.02 UTC+1, Gary Eickmeier је написао/ла:
"Sylvain Robitaille" wrote in message a... On Tue, 25 Mar 2014 20:13:26 -0400, Gary Eickmeier wrote: ... what sort of curve do you look for on a recording? Whatever *sounds* right. Dead flat, or with a little bass emphasis, or what? Don't look; listen. I know it's been suggested to you before, and I'm sure it'll be suggested to you again, but it really does come down to that. Your ears (accompanied by at least a few different monitoring systems and environments need to be the final judge of what's right, not your eyes. I work in one room in the house, then take CDs to other rooms, the car, my workplace, etc. and evaluate how well my results translate to those environments; I have yet to accomplish a first-try recording/mix, but I'm also not doing this on a daily basis. You were at the performance while it was being recorded. I believe what you're trying to do is massage the recording so that it sounds as close as possible to how the band sounded live in the room. Keep chipping away at the bits that don't sound like the band did live, until all that's left does. Burn that to disk, and listen to it in the car, on your home stereo, on your neighbor's boombox, on headphones, etc. You may need to go back and adjust your EQ, levels, etc. Repeat as required. Notice that what's being discussed here is all about how the recording sounds in these environments, and its comparison to how the band sounds in a live environment. Practice critical listening, with professionally mixed and mastered disks (of the same *and* different styles of music as the band you're working with) in these same environments. Notice how the various intruments sound, and how the overall blend sounds. Note what you can hear similarly in all (most?) environments, and on all (or most) recordings, versus what sounds completely different. Can you break down the recordings, and identify the instrumentation throughout, note where instruments come and go, follow general contours of individual melodic lines? This will help you to be able to listen to your own recording, and make necessary adjustments to get it to how you think it should sound. I hope that helps. Well, yes, I generally do everything by listening, but sometimes you can then find a trend or a corellation between the listening and the tech measurements that can help to shortcut the long listening journey to perfection next time. Everyone thinks flat is perfection, but experienced engineers know about "room curves" and recording engineers may know a few things about emphasizing certain frequency ranges to make something sound better on certain media, like on the radio or the boombox or the car. It would be easy to EQ a recording to flat, as measured by these analysis tools, but would that be the best sounding recording? I suspect not, but I need the feedback of the more experienced practicioners out there. Gary So, now you teach what experienced engineers think and do? Why don't you just buzz off once already. |
#31
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 11:54:45 AM UTC-6, Luxey wrote:
So, now you teach what experienced engineers think and do? Why don't you just buzz off once already. Luxey, the man is asking for advice from others with more experience. Isn't that one of the reasons this forum exists? Peace, Paul |
#32
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
среда, 26. март 2014. 19.04.53 UTC+1, PStamler је написао/ла:
On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 11:54:45 AM UTC-6, Luxey wrote: So, now you teach what experienced engineers think and do? Why don't you just buzz off once already. Luxey, the man is asking for advice from others with more experience. Isn't that one of the reasons this forum exists? Peace, Paul Well. Paul, that's surelly what he would hope it to look like. However, having experience with his previous posts and questions, soon turned into lectures, IMO, he's playing his sick game, again. You can take him as easy as you like, but I won't let history repeating. Not that easy, at least. |
#33
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:42:02 -0400, Gary Eickmeier wrote:
.... Everyone thinks flat is perfection, ... Yes, but what's being referred to there is "perceived flat"ness. Ie. it sounds even across the audible frequency spectrum. In order to accomplish that, as you appear to already know, the measured output is certainly not visibly flat. For what it's worth, your speakers probably aren't either (if they're at all pleasant to listen to, that is), so they (as much as other factors) will affect what processing you will apply to accomplish the desired result. ... but experienced engineers know about "room curves" and recording engineers may know a few things about emphasizing certain frequency ranges to make something sound better on certain media, like on the radio or the boombox or the car. Sure, but there isn't any point in discussing such adjustments without the context of the original source (in this case your *recorded* source material). If someone says (strictly for example here) "apply a boost at 150Hz for a nice warm kick-drum sound", but you're finding you need to *cut* in that area just to make the bass guitar sound natural, the advice given isn't exactly valuable. Not to mention that if they *did* say that, what would they be basing such a suggestion on, unless they'd heard the original unprocessed recording? It would be easy to EQ a recording to flat, as measured by these analysis tools, but would that be the best sounding recording? I think we agree it wouldn't be, but if you EQ it so it *sounds* flat (as in "even across the audible spectrum"), you'll probably have a reasonably good starting point. Personally, I aim for as little EQ as possible to accomplish the desired result. I don't know for sure that I'm always on target, but that's what I try to do. I also find that it's usually more productive to cut what there's too much of, rather than try to add back what isn't there, but there are certainly exceptions, and I'm sure others would use a completely different approach. I suspect not, but I need the feedback of the more experienced practicioners out there. I'll be surprised if any of them offer more specific suggestions than "it depends" (unless of course you can have someone come and listen to your recording), because ultimately it does depend. Well, I'll be the first to admit I'm not the expert you're looking for, but I do hope I've helped. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sylvain Robitaille Systems analyst / AITS Concordia University Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science Montreal, Quebec, Canada ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
#34
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Frank Stearns wrote:
Well, as a recording engineer, you don't have to play any instrument or sing, but it helps if you noodle around with something, and have a very basic grasp of music theory. At least familiarize youself with instruments. If nothing else, I'm sure there're instructional vids on Youtube that will demo instruments -- how they work, what they sound like. And other vids on basic music theory -- what are octaves, thirds, fifths, etc, etc; what do those relationships sound like? What are the harmonics generated? The Acoustical Foundations of Music - John Backus http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-09096-3/ -- shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com HankandShaidriMusic.Com YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic |
#35
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
Well, yes, I generally do everything by listening, but sometimes you can then find a trend or a corellation between the listening and the tech measurements that can help to shortcut the long listening journey to perfection next time. Not. Next time even in the same room there will be variance to some large or small degree from this time, and you will have to listen on site to grasp the implications of those differences. Everyone thinks flat is perfection, I don't know where you get that crap. First, you don't know everybody, and second, I don't know a single recordist/mix engineer who thinks that _when talking about the sound of a recording_ instead of talking about the specifications for some primary component in the signal chain, often not including microphones. You appear to carry an extraordinary burden of assumptions that are wildly amiss. but experienced engineers know about "room curves" and recording engineers may know a few things about emphasizing certain frequency ranges to make something sound better on certain media, like on the radio or the boombox or the car. Most excellent mix engineers with whom I am personally familiar are able to deliver one mix of a piece that will play well across the wide range of available playback systems. That is what is meant when people remark that a given mix "Translates well", or "Travels well". -- shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com HankandShaidriMusic.Com YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic |
#36
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message Turns out to be more like 100, from the Analyze window in Audition. So I will try to EQ again. But what sort of curve do you look for on a recording? Dead flat, or with a little bass emphasis, or what? Whatever sounds good. The FFT will tell you where the resonance is, but figuring out how to make it blend is a thing you have to do by ear and in order to do it you have to trust your monitoring. If it's as high as 100c, I'm surprised you aren't hearing it in the room very audibly. Are you _sure_ it's not leaking in through conducted vibration up the mike stand? --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#37
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message ... Gary Eickmeier wrote: "Scott Dorsey" wrote in message Turns out to be more like 100, from the Analyze window in Audition. So I will try to EQ again. But what sort of curve do you look for on a recording? Dead flat, or with a little bass emphasis, or what? Whatever sounds good. The FFT will tell you where the resonance is, but figuring out how to make it blend is a thing you have to do by ear and in order to do it you have to trust your monitoring. If it's as high as 100c, I'm surprised you aren't hearing it in the room very audibly. Are you _sure_ it's not leaking in through conducted vibration up the mike stand? --scott Reasonably. Believe me, I have some experience with that one! And I worry about it ever since. What happened is I was recording my daughter's cello group on a wooden stage. I put my mike stand on the same stage with them, and it was fine when their feet were still, but when they came in and moved chairs and sat down, it was a heard of elephants on a tin roof. I lucked out a little during the playing, because they didn't tap feet or vibrate the surface much, but I had to edit out the foot sounds between pieces (it was a video). I could have avoided all that by just placing the stand on the concrete floor. I had another nasty situation while recording her play at the local church. I needed to put the mike close to the stage to get the voices, in case the house system didn't pick them up very well. It seemed reasonable at the time, but when I got home there was a horrid problem with the stage speakers because I was in their bass range but out of their treble range, so there was a variable lumpy bass interference - something like I am complaining about in the OP. For this reason, I was trying to be careful about such positioning but maybe I failed. Thanks everyone for all your help. I have once again learned a lot for next time. I will try some of the suggestions about how to listen for resonances on scene. I was variously standing where the mikes were and also walking around and sitting on stage right where the offencing bass guitar was with his portable speaker. I even knew about this potential problem, but listened for it and couldn't detect it when I was there, so didn't worry about it. My questions about the analysis tools, which I had not seen before, were probably at a much simpler level than you read into them. It looked like a snapshot of an entire time period, usually a whole musical number, graphed out on a frequency response plot, and I didn't know what to make of it or what to do with it. It isn't like a FR plot of your microphones, because the band is not playing pink noise, they are playing music. So is it kind of like a histogram in photography? Not supposed to be flat, or evenly distributed, but shouldn't have extremes of anything either? Mine looked like a big hill, with a peak at 100 and rising up to that point from zero and sloping down towards the high end, kind of like a room curve. I assume I should just flatten the peak a little and then I should lose the offending bass emphasis. So OK, I've got some new tools, tips, and techniques for next season and I press on. Thanks again, Gary |
#38
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 9:37:28 PM UTC-6, Gary Eickmeier wrote:
It looked like a snapshot of an entire time period, usually a whole musical number, graphed out on a frequency response plot, and I didn't know what to make of it or what to do with it. It isn't like a FR plot of your microphones, because the band is not playing pink noise, they are playing music. So is it kind of like a histogram in photography? Not supposed to be flat, or evenly distributed, but shouldn't have extremes of anything either? Mine looked like a big hill, with a peak at 100 and rising up to that point from zero and sloping down towards the high end, kind of like a room curve. Kind of like a histogram, but showing what the sound is actually doing. That big peak is the bass resonance, whatever it's coming from. The default measurement shows the entire song, but if you highlight a particular portion and then bring up the analyzer with Ctrl-Z, you'll see what's happening at that moment. Both the whole-song measurement and the momentary measurement can be useful -- try measuring during one of the exaggerated FOOOOM sounds. I assume I should just flatten the peak a little and then I should lose the offending bass emphasis. That would be a good start, yes. So OK, I've got some new tools, tips, and techniques for next season and I press on. I'm still wondering about the effectiveness of the shock-mounting. When someone gets way too much bass in the mic, but doesn't hear it in the room, conduction up through the stand is a good possibility. Can you find a picture someplace on the web of this mic and the shock mount you're using? Peace, Paul |
#39
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
(hank alrich) writes:
Frank Stearns wrote: Well, as a recording engineer, you don't have to play any instrument or sing, but it helps if you noodle around with something, and have a very basic grasp of music theory. At least familiarize youself with instruments. If nothing else, I'm sure there're instructional vids on Youtube that will demo instruments -- how they work, what they sound like. And other vids on basic music theory -- what are octaves, thirds, fifths, etc, etc; what do those relationships sound like? What are the harmonics generated? The Acoustical Foundations of Music - John Backus http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-09096-3/ Thanks, Hank. Looks promising. Also, if anyone clicks the "music theory" link, a bunch of stuff comes up. Frank Mobile Audio -- |
#40
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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Thrumming Bass Guitar
Gary Eickmeier wrote:
It would be easy to EQ a recording to flat, as measured by these analysis tools, You need to understand that the FFT display references white noise, not natural sound. but would that be the best sounding recording? No, not if you have to eq. I suspect not, but I need the feedback of the more experienced practicioners out there. Here is an old one from back when I was learning more intensively than now, I would write it very different today: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/alt.audio.pro.live-sound/orange$20noise/alt.audio.pro.live-sound/cMkHUOVP20M/6vqOhGu1Ov4J What is important to understand is that while the observation describes natural sounds average characteristics it does NOT predict a single sound source or recording. Whith more work it became obvious that for eq prediction it breaks down into sub-cases, most of those have an additional treble roll-off flank, generally refenced to microphone distance from sound source. Also I should have broken down the manuscript referred to in several less all-incompassing then it might have been of some use and perhaps even gotten published. If you are bored during the off-concert summer, then sit down and analyse what sounds good and what sounds bad to you. Then you will begin to know when to apply the observation above and when not to. Remember: if you need to compensate for system frequency aberrations there is a good sporting chance that those are minimum phase, so use minimum phase EQ, in Audition that would be the standard equalizing functions, usually you can come close with the parametric. if you need to compensate for room frequency aberrations or just "unrecordable, strange sounding sources", then you use the FFT eq window and draw a curve. For a room resonance a very sharp 36 dB dip may be the best cure. It will not end up as a 36 dB dip. Use splines and add several eq points to get it sharp. If possible: find the Cool Edit help file and read it. If all else fails: listen to real sound, anybody doing sound should be a member of the local chamber music society and attend their concerts no matter what genre you're involved with professionally. Gary Kind regards Peter Larsen |
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