Why Boost the Low End on a PA

[Chienmortbb]

I have seen a number of pros ideal response for a PAs , and they usually have a boosted shelf at the low end. Can someone explain why is it the they do not sett the response flat? 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

By and large because it sounds better. Equal loudness curves show why. But it can be overdone, especially where electric bass is concerned. PA systems with large subs are capable of going far louder and lower than electric bass cabs, so it's all too easy for FOH engineers to create pounding lows that are nothing like what electric bass is supposed to sound like, often drowning out everything else. I've walked out on more than a few acts for that reason. IME the FOH engineers who really get it right are themselves either bass players or recording engineers, if not both.

[Downunderwonder]

More bass = more better, until it isn't.

[Jack]

7 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

By and large because it sounds better. Equal loudness curves show why. But it can be overdone, especially where electric bass is concerned. PA systems with large subs are capable of going far louder and lower than electric bass cabs, so it's all too easy for FOH engineers to create pounding lows that are nothing like what electric bass is supposed to sound like, often drowning out everything else. I've walked out on more than a few acts for that reason. IME the FOH engineers who really get it right are themselves either bass players or recording engineers, if not both.

Rammstein. The bass guitar just sounded like a distant rumble, it and the kick were by far the loudest things in the mix. You couldn't miss that he was playing but you couldn't tell what he was playing. 

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

The worst I ever saw was Greg Lake playing with Ringo's All Starr band. The low EQ was boosted so much that any note he played from D2 on down shook the entire arena, but when he played G2 and above it disappeared entirely. If I didn't see him playing the higher notes I wouldn't have known he was playing at all. As for kick, I saw Max Weinberg's band where every time he hit the kick there was a feedback rumble through the PA subs that masked everything else. The guy at the board didn't even notice it. 😒

[Buddster]

10 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

IME the FOH engineers who really get it right are themselves either bass players or recording engineers, if not both.

As I fall into both these categories, I completely concur with your statement 😊

[Chienmortbb]

2 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

The worst I ever saw was Greg Lake playing with Ringo's All Starr band. The low EQ was boosted so much that any note he played from D2 on down shook the entire arena, but when he played G2 and above it disappeared entirely. If I didn't see him playing the higher notes I wouldn't have known he was playing at all. As for kick, I saw Max Weinberg's band where every time he hit the kick there was a feedback rumble through the PA subs that masked everything else. The guy at the board didn't even notice it. 😒

I saw almost exactly that at a Glenn Hughes concert. Whenever the kick drum was hit, it obliterated the bass the vocals. Just because you can, does not mean you should!

[Dan Dare]

I used to assume that punch in the gut bloated bass was due to d1ck waving by engineers, but I wonder whether it's due (at least in part) to the fact that they are often situated up a tower at large gigs, far from floor and walls and therefore do not hear much reflected sound. Not making excuses for them - they should do their due diligence and check the sound from multiple locations - but it happens so often, it's hard to believe they are all deaf or showing off.

Edited Friday at 21:22 by Dan Dare

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I've heard the same bloated bass in venues ranging from pub sized rooms to stadiums, so it's not the room at fault. I've also heard results ranging from gosh awful to splendiferous in the same venue over the course of hundreds of concerts spanning decades.

[lemmywinks]

A few years ago I took Mrs Lemmywinks to see Maroon 5, the bass was some form of low rumble that couldn't be heard. The fella looked like he was playing decently enough but I have no idea if he was playing the parts.

 

Came away from it feeling like I should audition for some touring acts, seema like the ultimate blag gig.

[PinkMohawk]

As a sound engineer myself, I feel I should defend my colleagues. I won't though, because yeah, most of them are a little too heavy handed with the low end. There is the old 'power alley' problem, where FOH tends to be situated directly central to the stage, which leads to the sound all hitting them first, ignoring reflections and the room and enabling the engineer to mix while not considering what everyone else is experiencing. Another is yes, engineers not walking the room and getting a feel for the mix that everyone else will be hearing. And of course, half of them are most of the way to deaf and can't tell that the mix is arse anyway. 

 

My goal when I'm running the board is to make sure that yes, there's plenty of bass, but even more importantly, that that bass is clear and punchy and well defined, not just a wall of mush that blows out everything else. Modern metal mixes tend to fall into that trap a lot I find, since the guitarists love to crank up the low end on their modellers with no consideration for the bassist, assuming they actually have a bassist and aren't just using a backing track for bass as is getting more and more common. That leaves us in the unfortunate situation of either the engineer being a guitarist as well, and cranking that up higher in the mix, or just not being able to cut lows enough to let the bass breathe in the mix without destroying the guitars. 

 

It's all a horrible balancing act that often leaves me wanting to chuck a glass at their heads and tell them to shove off and ruin someone else's mix. 

[Dan Dare]

14 hours ago, PinkMohawk said:

There is the old 'power alley' problem, where FOH tends to be situated directly central to the stage, which leads to the sound all hitting them first, ignoring reflections and the room and enabling the engineer to mix while not considering what everyone else is experiencing.

 

Exactly. It isn't the "fault" of the room. Virtually every venue has anomalies and idiosyncrasies, but many engineers don't allow for them or check the sound from anywhere other than the mixing position, which is often central/in a direct line from the FOH and high up.

[PinkMohawk]

23 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Exactly. It isn't the "fault" of the room. Virtually every venue has anomalies and idiosyncrasies, but many engineers don't allow for them or check the sound from anywhere other than the mixing position, which is often central/in a direct line from the FOH and high up.

Absolutely, my mentor always preached what he called 'Democracy of sound' as his key principle (Well, that and 'bring more subs'). Effectively, making sure that everyone gets as close to the same sound as everyone else. He'd work closely with his system engineer to make sure that the sound was as even as they could get it across the room. It's easier to do in arenas and other 'empty rooms' where the band is bringing in the full rig, and things can be much more easily customised to achieve the desired results. When it comes to older venues, you're often stuck with whatever they've got installed. 

 

Shepards Bush Empire is a good example of this, they've had the same point source system for a long time now, and any band coming in isn't just going to dismantle that system to hang their own, because there just isn't anywhere to hang a line array from. You get what you get out of the system, and you just have to roll with it. That said, I do believe they're updating their system soon, in the next year or so? Not sure on the timescale. 

[JPJ]

I’ve played a few venues with installed systems that double as nightclubs (often as soon as the gig has ended) and these systems are almost always ‘tuned’ for dance style music. That coupled with the house engineer’s need to run the rig flat out results in the bass and bass drum obliterating everything else, and the bass just sounding like mush. 
As the old adage goes, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. 

[BigRedX]

19 hours ago, PinkMohawk said:

Shepards Bush Empire is a good example of this, they've had the same point source system for a long time now, and any band coming in isn't just going to dismantle that system to hang their own, because there just isn't anywhere to hang a line array from. You get what you get out of the system, and you just have to roll with it. That said, I do believe they're updating their system soon, in the next year or so? Not sure on the timescale. 

 

Last time I went to a gig there (about 10 years ago) the sound problems were definitely down to the engineers doing the mix. HIM were just a mess of low-end sludge to the point that it was only possible to tell what the song was from when Ville Valo when into the higher register vocal parts. By contrast Fields of the Nephilim sounded great. The kick drum was big and tight without being boomy and the bass guitar parts well defined, and even Carl McCoy's deep vocals were clear and audible. So a balanced mix is possible.

 

I'm lucky in that most of the gigs I go to are smaller venues, and the bands I like have bass players whose parts are often doing much of the important melody of the songs, so I hardly ever encounter the excessive/undefined bass problem. IMO the only way to prevent it, is to name and shame the PA engineers responsible.

[Dan Dare]

21 hours ago, PinkMohawk said:

Shepards Bush Empire is a good example of this, they've had the same point source system for a long time now, and any band coming in isn't just going to dismantle that system to hang their own, because there just isn't anywhere to hang a line array from.

 

I remember playing the Hammersmith Odeon many moons ago (before it was re-named the Apollo). They had a newer PA (as in newer at the time - this was a while ago), but in the wings, tucked out of sight, they still had the old Voice of the Theatre horns. They were enormous. I could easily have climbed into the horn throats without stooping too much.

 

I'd love to have heard them. I appreciate they probably wouldn't have had a lot of low end, but as a vintage hi-fi fan, it would have been nice to hear them. I hope they haven't ended up in a skip. One of the resident engineers told me they had driven them with big old Western Electric 300B valve amps back in the day. Lovely.

Edited Sunday at 14:11 by Dan Dare

[PinkMohawk]

5 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Last time I went to a gig there (about 10 years ago) the sound problems were definitely down to the engineers doing the mix. HIM were just a mess of low-end sludge to the point that it was only possible to tell what the song was from when Ville Valo when into the higher register vocal parts. By contrast Fields of the Nephilim sounded great. The kick drum was big and tight without being boomy and the bass guitar parts well defined, and even Carl McCoy's deep vocals were clear and audible. So a balanced mix is possible.

 

I'm lucky in that most of the gigs I go to are smaller venues, and the bands I like have bass players whose parts are often doing much of the important melody of the songs, so I hardly ever encounter the excessive/undefined bass problem. IMO the only way to prevent it, is to name and shame the PA engineers responsible.

Oh for sure, I didn't mean to make it sound like the engineers were blameless when it comes to venues like that. I was there on a visit for the Biffy shows they did over a few nights last year, Jon Burton (ex The Prodigy engineer) is their engineer, and he had it sounding huge with the in-house system (point of interest, they were all running live amps on stage, at high volumes too. Anyone who's had a look at Simon Neil's rig will understand what a bear it is to deal with on a relatively small stage like that). What I was getting at with the 'get what you get' comment was that, if there's an inherent problem with the system/room combo, then sometimes you really can't do anything about it. Some engineers have the experience and skill to remedy those issues to the point that they don't get in the way of the mix, others don't. 

 

Anyway, to minimise my rambling, there's a huge amount of science and tech that goes into modern system design and implementation in modern day touring, all of which becomes totally moot the minute you get a crap engineer working the faders and making the calls about system tuning. 

[Hellzero]

All the above is the reason why I stopped attending "rock" concert something like 2 decades ago: deaf "sound engineers" are a real pain in the āss.

 

And the funny thing is that I was always standing near the mixing desk, because this is were the sound was the least bad... 🤮

 

We go mainly to jazz (where the sound engineers know what the mediums are for) or classical concerts where the sound is ALWAYS good.

 

Ok, classical concerts are (most of the time) unamplified, but the musicians placement is a science too and is sound engineering in itself.

[Chienmortbb]

On 03/01/2025 at 15:02, Chienmortbb said:

saw almost exactly that at a Glenn Hughes concert. Whenever the kick drum was hit, it obliterated the bass the vocals. Just because you can, does not mean you should!

I should add to this that I saw Glenn Hughes as part of Black Country Communion at the Apollo. Full backline for him and Joe Bonnamassa (2 Orange AD200 stacks for bass and two Marshall stacks for Bonnamassa). Sound up in the gods was superb. 

 

 

[Lozz196]

I saw The Pretenders at The London Palladium in Oct last year. Bass and both guitars using amps as backline.
 

Was easily the best sound I’ve ever heard at any gig. For some reason the bass drum sounded like a bass drum rather than a cannon, letting the other instruments and the rest of the kit be heard properly. Most strange nowaday.