Topic: taping drum and bass should I roll off some bass straight off ?

[Lonman]

Taping ying/yang bass player this weekend and looking for some advice. I will be a small theatre probably 750 peeps set up for music so pretty good wall treatments and the like. I will be 15 feet from the stage front and center in a little pit area for supporting members. Neavton 400s > Littlebox > R09hr or Sony M10 (mics on outside of shirt collar) It should be thumping loud I would expect and i want to capture the bass as well as possible. Do I roll off some bass straight off or just set edirol on 40 and turn littlebox up until -12db levels leaving some headroom like usual? Will there be too much bottom with the omnis and maybe use CA14 cards >9100 > R09hr or M10 instead ? Any thoughts are appreciated. Usually this artist allows taping but is often with another out of control musician avec le banjo...so open taping and don't want to chance NO by asking so low pro it is.
Thanks

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

No, tape as much "sound" as you can get straight away and do any kind of roll-off in post as required...  You might decide when you get home that you need more bass and the roll-off was unnecessary - you can always cut hair short, but you can't cut hair long...

Also, amount of bass is relative to your playback.  What I thought was too much bass before became perfectly tolerable (and requried) once I got a better system with a subwoofer...

Terry

[stevetoney]

For the vast majority of gigs I agree, but I don't necessarily feel it's a universal 'yes'.  I've been at gigs or in locations of the room where the bass is over the top and the recording simply couldn't be EQ'ed well enough because of the masking effect where the bass drowns out everything else.  In that case, I really wish I'd been able to switch on -6db or even better -12db up front on the low frequency bands.

[rhinowing]

as a general rule, I'll turn on rolloff if/when I'm actually getting my chest shaken by the bass...otherwise I find it isn't really necessary

[Lonman]

Thanks so far for your comments. I don't use limiters or low cuts or any altering of the signal in but thought I would see what the overall concensus was. No comments on omnis vs cards ? Again, much appreciation.

[deadheadcorey]

my vote goes to the cards. i think they do a better job when it comes to a bassy show

[adrianf74]

+1 on the cards in bassy/boomy rooms.  I've used the CA-14/c's for about 10 shows this summer and have found that they've done a good job of "rolling off" on their own (Chris Church has told me *NOT* to run bass roll-off with his mics, ever).

If the sound mix is muddy/murky and boomy, you're done - nothing's gonna help it (even the best EQ).

[Lonman]

You guys are right on. My show came out great. All the bass cabs (x4 goliath cabs with 4x12's per) were all againt the back wall of the stage. Serious kick drum sound chest cavity percussion and I was 4 rows back from the stage. I used the CA14s>littlebox>R09hr and set the edirol at 45 and had the littlebox left and right at 12:oo (I have an imput in my littlebox for Chris' mics) and it all came out perfectly. No bass roll off, no limiter, nothin' but chest hair standing at attention! I just started using 24/48 and don;t know how to change it to 16/44.1 or get anything on this board so I can share the results but man it;s the donkey dung for sure. i used chris's 14s (cards) sitting 10 feet in from of an Allman's bros cover band and same thing, sounded great! I cannot believe what his mics can handle.....way lives up to the hype. Haven't used the CAFS yet but did finish building them into a crokie last night.....we'll see what happens this weekend.
Thanks for all the suggestions! You guys are great and your equipment suggestions and ideas are stellar all the way around +T
Lon