Sub woofers-good or bad for bassists?

[clankenstein]

With all the real time analysis tools around today ( I have a spectrum analyser on my cellphone FFS ) a sound engineer who cant calibrate a pa system to not have a monstrously over hyped bottom end really needs to ask an adult how its done. Loud and mushy bass is no substitute for bringing enough subs/ amps to do the job properly either.I will use a preamp lineout at venues where the f.o.h. has been tuned by a rational human but I put a mike on my top 15 (bit less lows in that one) if its bass pudding out there.

[Happy Face]

The more I ponder what you all write, the more I believe that the crossover is what is killing us, when a rookie or house-mix guy or just-earning -a-couple-of-bucks person or, God forbid, a guitar player is in charge if the board!

The bass signal gets split and everything above the cut point is ignored and/or squelched.

Ah well..

[Psycho Bass Guy]

If it were just the crossover frequency, there would still be a larger "hole" in the mid and upper bass regions, but you'll also notice that guitars still have tons of beef. The overwhelming "low end " we're fussing over is actually in the mid-bass region around 100Hz and maybe going as high as 180 and as low as 60 if the knob-twiddler has decent subs. 100Hz is just at low G on a guitar, but because of drum machines and bad EDM/industrial music and the plethora of consumer electronics assigning it as an arbitrary "low frequency," it's almost always boosted, both on the master house EQ curve and the individual channels, by bad soundguys to make guitars chunk and drums boom. Bass is an afterthought and usually becomes some sort of rolling murmur shadowing the kick and floor toms. REAL good, tight low end takes lots of speaker area and power and very, very few PA setups outside of a stadium array are even capable of producing, much less accurately reproducing it consistent with the rest of program audio, at all. ...so the knob-twiddler guns the 100Hz to get "more bass" and the sound turns to mush.

[Happy Face]

PBG - what cut frequency would produce better bass sound?

Thanks.

[Freakbassman]

I think some younger FOH guys think bass is always low. You mix in the left hand of the keyboard and the power driven guitar and all of a sudden its the bass that's too loud. Let alone add the bass drum into the mix. I was playing a worship service in church when the Pastor came in and said the bass was too loud. Turned out the sound guys where playing a click track for the drummer and forgot to turn it off the FOH.  Sound guys said sorry but no apology from the pastor.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

PBG - what cut frequency would produce better bass sound?

Thanks.

150-180Hz can be particularly troublesome; it's "woofy" enough to sound bassy but almost ALL cabinets are comparatively too efficient in this region and it's high enough to have directional characteristics, which means if multiple cabs are producing it, (stage/subs/mains) it's being phase-smeared and introducing a whole set of audio peaks and troughs that would be totally absent in a properly tuned and run system. Be careful though; 220-250Hz is where the bulk of the midrange meat of a bass tone lies and if you cut excessively there, the bass will be even more indistinct.

[slinkp]

150-180Hz can be particularly troublesome; it's "woofy" enough to sound bassy but almost ALL cabinets are comparatively too efficient in this region and it's high enough to have directional characteristics, which means if multiple cabs are producing it, (stage/subs/mains) it's being phase-smeared and introducing a whole set of audio peaks and troughs that would be totally absent in a properly tuned and run system. Be careful though; 220-250Hz is where the bulk of the midrange meat of a bass tone lies and if you cut excessively there, the bass will be even more indistinct.

Thanks for the tip. 150 - 180 is also low enough to be fundamentals of notes you might actually play (I think D on the G string is pretty near 150)... So if you experiment with cutting around there, check that playing up the neck still sounds OK.  Fortunately, I don't think I've ever had trouble with those notes being not  loud enough

[uwe]

I vaguely remember Uwe mentioning using an 18" cab on stage FOR sub lows...

In rehearsal rooms because I can then wank soundwise (I love the feel of being immersed in sublows), but not on stage. Hearing yourself on stage is more important than having your balls rumbled.

[Happy Face]

150-180Hz can be particularly troublesome; it's "woofy" enough to sound bassy but almost ALL cabinets are comparatively too efficient in this region and it's high enough to have directional characteristics, which means if multiple cabs are producing it, (stage/subs/mains) it's being phase-smeared and introducing a whole set of audio peaks and troughs that would be totally absent in a properly tuned and run system. Be careful though; 220-250Hz is where the bulk of the midrange meat of a bass tone lies and if you cut excessively there, the bass will be even more indistinct.

I realize I worded my question wrong. (Rather than cut, I should have said cut over.) But what I really meant to ask is what is a good crossover point to set on the PA? 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Crossover varies with the tops, subs, and the room. There are way too many variables to recommend a one-size-fits-most PA crossover point.  Once you've established where the generally optimal point lies, the speakers, crossover included, have to be tuned to the room by tweaking. Most crossovers are either set way too high or low: too high is easy because most subs will happily reproduce low mids, but the lows suffer (though most folks never notice), and too low of a cutoff frequency is bit more complicated; the subs will generally be swallowed because in general with consumer MI stuff, you need four times the boxes and power you have for real true lows. A lot of times in troublesome rooms, a parametric EQ is employed WITH the house graphic EQ: the graphic can be set to the raw speaker response and the parametric compensates for the room- BUT just like gain staging, doing all this stuff properly is an art unto itself.  I've never had to use one for that reason, although I have had to dial in massive cuts on digital EQ's that have both using both at once for really bad upper midrange spikes (common in rooms, mics, and speakers). The mix itself should be tailored to the acoustics of the room and many, many "producer" soundguys seem to have no clue that what comes out of the PA speakers should augment rather than overpower stage volume that is already there.

[Happy Face]

Thank you sir!!

[Happy Face]

Thanks PBM.

You can land more gigs if you can provide sound. But most bands don't want to pay a sound man a share. Or a set fee.

It can be really contentious, but your post above shows why it can be really worthwhile.... IF the person is good.

Ah well.