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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: newscane on August 16, 2006, 09:39:33 PM

Title: Heavy on the bass, thin on the vocals...
Post by: newscane on August 16, 2006, 09:39:33 PM

Last weekend, I was basically in the second row of the front section at Sound Advice Amphitheater (West Palm Beach) for DMB.  With the height of my stand (about 9 feet), the mics were pretty much right in front of the subwoofers.  As a result, the tape is very bass-heavy.  Vocals sound a bit thin, probably because the main speakers were high above the stage.  Anything I can do in post-processing (Audacity, etc) to balance things out?  I'm guessing the answer is no, but I wanted to seek out advice before I threw in the towel..

Title: Re: Heavy on the bass, thin on the vocals...
Post by: itook2much on August 16, 2006, 09:56:58 PM

You could roll off some bass & maybe EQ a bit to pull the vocals a little more forward, but I don't know that it would help but so much.

Title: Re: Heavy on the bass, thin on the vocals...
Post by: newscane on August 16, 2006, 10:07:15 PM

Quote from: rspencer on August 16, 2006, 09:56:58 PM

You could roll off some bass & maybe EQ a bit to pull the vocals a little more forward, but I don't know that it would help but so much.

Hmm... the more I listen to the tape, the better of a balance there seems to be.  I may just leave it as-is, rather than risk screwing things up...

Title: Re: Heavy on the bass, thin on the vocals...
Post by: dorrcoq on August 17, 2006, 12:49:48 AM

Quote from: newscane on August 16, 2006, 10:07:15 PM

Quote from: rspencer on August 16, 2006, 09:56:58 PM

You could roll off some bass & maybe EQ a bit to pull the vocals a little more forward, but I don't know that it would help but so much.

Hmm... the more I listen to the tape, the better of a balance there seems to be.  I may just leave it as-is, rather than risk screwing things up...

You should be able to play around with it without losing your original file.

Title: Re: Heavy on the bass, thin on the vocals...
Post by: itook2much on August 19, 2006, 07:41:03 PM

This thread may help, and it has a number of links to other info that may be of use to you.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=17569.0

Title: Re: Heavy on the bass, thin on the vocals...
Post by: neiljung on August 20, 2006, 10:57:52 AM

Quote from: rspencer on August 19, 2006, 07:41:03 PM

This thread may help, and it has a number of links to other info that may be of use to you.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=17569.0

Thanks to all the advice on this thread. Really helpful.

Title: Re: Heavy on the bass, thin on the vocals...
Post by: beathydrolysis on September 08, 2006, 12:15:07 AM

You could definitely use a program like cool edit pro (or adobe audition) to adjust the eq (take some of the bass off and bring the vocals out).  Also I would recommend carrying a preamp with ability to do bass roll-off when you go to shows just in case you end up in another situation like that...I know that doesn't help your DMB recording but it would go along way to preventing problems in the event you ever wound up in a similar situation.

Title: Re: Heavy on the bass, thin on the vocals...
Post by: 69mako on September 08, 2006, 02:14:36 AM

I know this might now be the "ideal" method, but what I do with some recordings I want to enhance, I open the wave file in windows media player.  I open the EQ and play with the settings there to see what i can do.  (If changes on-the-fly)  Once satisfied there, I note my setting I made and go back into my audio software (Soundforge) and execute those changes.  I had a RUSH recording that was very boomy and using that method, I was able to "fix" it.  (I still kept the original files.)

Hopefully this helps.
Mike