Topic: To reduce bass or to not reduce bass?

[boyacrobat]

driving bass is what makes live shows.
leave it and know your equiptment and clip levels and surf the waves.
mics will swallow it up no probs.

but its not my call, its yours
many people have good hp that can handle the truth.

g

[Evil Taper]

The settings are completely dependent on the material being compressed.  Set a fast attack and moderate release, the threshold and makeup gains are dependent on the material.  It's easier to just use a limiter and set it to get a decent final output, RMS around -6dB or whatever you like.

[rdflash]

good thread.

[gratefulphish]

I have been using a roll-off fairly frequently, especially in smaller venues with hyperactive subwoofers.  Even with a mild roll-off, the waveform drops down to barely above -18db, meaning to me, that the bulk of the sound being picked up, and affecting the setting of our levels, is coming from the low end.  I find that it can dramatically clear up boomy recordings in acoustically challenged rooms as well.  I usually copy and paste sections from a few songs onto a new page in SF and then try different settings, as they process much quicker than the entire file.  Once I figure out what I like, I go back and apply it to the entire file.

[junonato]

I have been using a roll-off fairly frequently, especially in smaller venues with hyperactive subwoofers.  Even with a mild roll-off, the waveform drops down to barely above -18db, meaning to me, that the bulk of the sound being picked up, and affecting the setting of our levels, is coming from the low end.  I find that it can dramatically clear up boomy recordings in acoustically challenged rooms as well.  I usually copy and paste sections from a few songs onto a new page in SF and then try different settings, as they process much quicker than the entire file.  Once I figure out what I like, I go back and apply it to the entire file.

well said, i have been using rolloff for onstage recordings as of late and it seems that it works well to drown the low end a bit, while keeping the high end and horns quite nicely!

[Jhurlbs81]

 I usually kick down the 150-200Hz frequencies by about 5-6db.  I find those frequencies when knocked down clean up my recordings dramatically.  Don't do it for all of them, but most of my recordings I will EQ slightly.  Over time I've found that less is more.  Usually, what you leave the venue with on tape is what you got, but you can improve a lot tapes with a gentle EQ and compressor IMO.

Jesse

[JoeKiller]

I had crazy bass with my setup and didn't quite like the results.  starting running X-Y, instead of ORTF, and I don't have to touch a thing in the post now.