Topic: Low End Blowout

[mterry]

One thing I’ve notice since getting back into taping, are bands just throwing some absolute bass bombs. I had this happen to me in 2023 at Goose in Spokane and Phish in Nashville. I was taping FOB both shows, and for the phish show, I wasn’t the only one who suffered from massive distortion. Has this been more of an instance the last few years? Is it the curse
Of running up front? What is everyone doing to mitigate this shit storm of low end distortion that can’t be helped???

[grawk]

peak at -18 instead of 0

[nulldogmas]

I've noticed it at a few recent shows, but specifically with the kick drum. In both cases I ended up having to split the recording to stems and then apply an insanely aggressive EQ curve to the percussion stem only.

I can only assume this is venue sound engineers thinking it's their job to make audience members' teeth rattle, but I don't have any further info. (Similarly, I don't know when sound engineers started cranking the Shitty Reverb slider up to 11 on all vocals, but they can stop now, thanks.)

[fanofjam]

I'm not sure about it being a trend...but I haven't had any recording issues.  I also ride along at -12db and now that I have a Zoom F3 that I expect to use alot, I expect it to be even less of a possibility since I'll be recording in 32bit float. 

[breakonthru]

peak at -18 instead of 0

this. Sphere went +12dB at points

[fanofjam]

peak at -18 instead of 0

this. Sphere went +12dB at points

Did you see the clip going around about Drew Carey's Phish Sphere experience?  Loved it. 

[opsopcopolis]

Goose loves doing that shit. I find it kinda obnoxious. But yeah, no real reason to be peaking at 0, just run lower and you should be safe(er). Can always engage deck limiter right at 0 to save it from actually distorting if you're so inclined

[morst]

When I saw Hamilton in SF (Yes, Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical theatre production) there was one big bass bomb in each of the two acts every night.


Slightly off topic: Great interview with Hamilton touring sound mixer Kevin McCoy by Mythbuster Adam Savage here, but doesn't really mention the bass bombs
https://youtu.be/60OpF3DCVls?si=8CGVDzhBRaPRkmTA

[flysquirrel]

Slightly off topic: Great interview with Hamilton touring sound mixer Kevin McCoy by Mythbuster Adam Savage here, but doesn't really mention the bass bombs
https://youtu.be/60OpF3DCVls?si=8CGVDzhBRaPRkmTA

Thanks for posting this, Morst.  I really enjoyed that behind-the-scenes glimpse.  It all seems easy until you realize how many DPAs must constantly be in the process of failing on any given night!     Also sent you a private message on an unrelated topic if you can take a look.

[breakonthru]

One thing I’ve notice since getting back into taping, are bands just throwing some absolute bass bombs. I had this happen to me in 2023 at Goose in Spokane and Phish in Nashville. I was taping FOB both shows, and for the phish show, I wasn’t the only one who suffered from massive distortion. Has this been more of an instance the last few years? Is it the curse
Of running up front? What is everyone doing to mitigate this shit storm of low end distortion that can’t be helped???

your 2012s are very sensitive to bass. Not as much as an Omni, but more than a cardioid or hyper/supercard

There’s really no penalty to having your levels peak lower with modern recording equipment. The noise floor of any decent recorder is well above that of the mics themselves. That’s apart from the noise of the crowd which is even higher

It’s not like the days of 16 bit recorders with noisy inputs. You can peak at -20 to -12 and come out with a great recording with no fear of clipping

[datbrad]

This is where using a low cut filter, either on the mics, the deck, or in post makes all the difference. If you look at the RMS (average gain level) of a concert recording, 60-70% of the waveform comes from sound below 1000 hz, and often most is concentrated below 100 hz. If you apply a high pass filter set at 100 hz, you will see the RMS drop by as much as 50%. The peak levels drop accordingly, since it's the low frequency part of a transient that drives the force of it. When we listen to music with our ears, we can hear the mid to high frequencies better because the bass resonates through our bodies without diminishing our ability to hear the higher frequencies at the same time. What all this means is bass is the main thing to control if you want to impact the overall gain, and stay clear of the overloading it can cause.

[grawk]

I personally wouldn’t want to eliminate musical content when there is plenty of headroom to capture it all. But if your microphones are not capable of capturing information below 100 Hz without distortion, base rolloff would be a good choice.

[Scooter123]

Yeah, many bands have a subwoofer located under the drummers seat or in his/her general area, with a bunch of large diameter, like 18" or 24" drivers which spew out nothing but irritating bass.  I have to wear ear plugs.  Ridiculous, actually. 

[opsopcopolis]

Yeah, many bands have a subwoofer located under the drummers seat or in his/her general area, with a bunch of large diameter, like 18" or 24" drivers which spew out nothing but irritating bass.  I have to wear ear plugs.  Ridiculous, actually.

A well placed and configured drum sub should have essentially no effect on the audience at all. Just there to help the drummer feel their kick

[EmRR]

Elvis Costello in Raleigh 2024 had the lows of the kick so hot it obscured his guitar and some of his vocal intelligibility.  Just bad mixing, might sound great at FOH but shit awareness of the room. I was upper level but i heard this from friends on the floor.

[lmgbtapes]

I primarily record a rock band healy on stage and I always hack the extreme low end off my stage capture. Sometimes I'm recording directly on top of the sub with my CA-14 omnis.

[Gutbucket]

peak at -18 instead of 0

this. Sphere went +12dB at points

^
That!

Best to record it clean if you can, and adjust it however necessary afterward.

The bottom is the most difficult thing to get just right IMO.  Partly because it's hard to really monitor correctly, but also because its so often the most exaggerated and frequently abused part of live PA sound. I get why, but damn. Walk past the SBD and take a look at the spectral analyzer - you're very likely to see a huge hump down low rather than an overall flattish curve where the subs transition into low end from the main PA.  Its tactile, man!

It's super obvious and most egregious to me with PA amplified string bands. Really ridiculous when the open low E of the upright bass sounds like that string is 2" in diameter or something, an entirely different instrument than the higher register of the same instrument.  Always somewhat amazes me that can usually be corrected quite nicely afterward as long as it was recorded cleanly with sufficient headroom.

[EmRR]

The watts/$ ratio got so much more attractive than it once was and we're still all paying for it!

[Gutbucket]

And it's become integrated as part of "the sound" of some genres.

I do seem to value really good extended and rich yet clean low end on recordings more and more as I get older.  I think whether the low end correction we end up making is a high-pass hack off or a more nuanced sculpting, and more subtly, the shape of that corrective curve, is strongly tied to how accurate the low end of the monitoring happens to be when making the decision.  It's tough to get just right, but is a big part of the magical juju of live music.

[opsopcopolis]

It's super obvious and most egregious to me with PA amplified string bands. Really ridiculous when the open low E of the upright bass sounds like that string is 2" in diameter or something, an entirely different instrument than the higher register of the same instrument.

That always bugs me too. Never really understood why it's done that way, makes for an annoyingly inconsistent experience imo

[rocksuitcase]

It's super obvious and most egregious to me with PA amplified string bands. Really ridiculous when the open low E of the upright bass sounds like that string is 2" in diameter or something, an entirely different instrument than the higher register of the same instrument.

That always bugs me too. Never really understood why it's done that way, makes for an annoyingly inconsistent experience imo

Count me in on this pet peeve. As a former FOH guy, I JUST do not get why they allow the upright to be so "loose". It surely isn't that difficult to place the mic properly and ensure the 20-60 Hz band is EQ'd properly for the upright.
We did an entire Greyfox festival with exact same gear all day and the bands which used upright bass all came out very boomy, too boomy for the PA and gear we had.
OTH- I posit that MOST FOH sound guys are relatively deaf     

[Gutbucket]

^ Sure, although the flip side is that it always amazes me how the good FOH sound guys are capable of hearing so clearly and making the correct mix choices at high SPL levels.  I feel I can make good decisions at lower levels back at the shack, but its really difficult for me to make that kind of necessary nuanced discernment during the show. Granted I'm wearing hearing protection at those high SPL shows, if occasionally pulling the plugs out to compare.  But either way, at high levels the details become hard for me to hear.  Part of the magic of listening to a good recording after being present at the show is gaining that ability to hear all those little details and balances I was unable to really discern live.

[opsopcopolis]

^ Part of that is just learning how to hear through the mud. There are shows where I can make tiny (tenth of a db) changes on a fader and hear the difference. There are others where I need to make massive adjustments to hear the slightest change. Totally room dependent, and sometimes your mix just works better or worse in a certain room for whatever reason

[mterry]

Thanks everyone. I did open up the mini-me and change the factory gain settings POST phish in Nashville. At phish I was getting the yellow a few times in the first set, but nothing that was out of the norm. But during BOAF, Mike Just sent this bomb and I looked down. I wasn't clipping red on the MME, but it was just SOLID yellow with no fluctuation for like 15 seconds and I just remember thinking....."oh shit". 

I think I was running gain around 10 o'clock on the dials, but can't remember off the top of my head. Hopefully with the adjustment on the MME and just running a little lower I should be good.

[morst]

Thanks everyone. I did open up the mini-me and change the factory gain settings POST phish in Nashville. At phish I was getting the yellow a few times in the first set, but nothing that was out of the norm. But during BOAF, Mike Just sent this bomb and I looked down. I wasn't clipping red on the MME, but it was just SOLID yellow with no fluctuation for like 15 seconds and I just remember thinking....."oh shit". banging

I think I was running gain around 10 o'clock on the dials, but can't remember off the top of my head. Hopefully with the adjustment on the MME and just running a little lower I should be good.

how did the waveform look on the recording from the solid yellow?

[capnhook]

Thanks everyone. I did open up the mini-me and change the factory gain settings POST phish in Nashville. At phish I was getting the yellow a few times in the first set, but nothing that was out of the norm. But during BOAF, Mike Just sent this bomb and I looked down. I wasn't clipping red on the MME, but it was just SOLID yellow with no fluctuation for like 15 seconds and I just remember thinking....."oh shit". 

I think I was running gain around 10 o'clock on the dials, but can't remember off the top of my head. Hopefully with the adjustment on the MME and just running a little lower I should be good.

Did you engage the SL soft-knee?

[mterry]

Thanks everyone. I did open up the mini-me and change the factory gain settings POST phish in Nashville. At phish I was getting the yellow a few times in the first set, but nothing that was out of the norm. But during BOAF, Mike Just sent this bomb and I looked down. I wasn't clipping red on the MME, but it was just SOLID yellow with no fluctuation for like 15 seconds and I just remember thinking....."oh shit". banging

I think I was running gain around 10 o'clock on the dials, but can't remember off the top of my head. Hopefully with the adjustment on the MME and just running a little lower I should be good.

how did the waveform look on the recording from the solid yellow?

dreadful.

[mterry]

Thanks everyone. I did open up the mini-me and change the factory gain settings POST phish in Nashville. At phish I was getting the yellow a few times in the first set, but nothing that was out of the norm. But during BOAF, Mike Just sent this bomb and I looked down. I wasn't clipping red on the MME, but it was just SOLID yellow with no fluctuation for like 15 seconds and I just remember thinking....."oh shit". 

I think I was running gain around 10 o'clock on the dials, but can't remember off the top of my head. Hopefully with the adjustment on the MME and just running a little lower I should be good.

Did you engage the SL soft-knee?

Moving forward, if running FOB I will. I taped SCI in July last year with zero issues.