guitarist playing through bass rig--volume and frequency overlap issues

osus

New member
hello,

i'm a bassist vocalist in a band with drums, guitar, keys and saxaphone. we're having issues with live sound and the mixing stage of recording that i think i know the cause of, but which i wanted to get a few more opinions on.

here's our rig:

vox--whatever pa is available
sax--jbl eon 15 powered cabinet, or through the pa
guitar--(the problem child, i think) gibson es 137 something
--gibson lab series l-9 amp (used as a head only, through...)
--some unnamed 15 inch speakered bass amp (used as a cabinet)
bass--musicman stingray 5
--ampeg v4 (70's era)
--bag end 2-12 cabinet (ported, closed-back)
keyboards--roland alpha juno 1 & jx 303
--crate something-or-another 100 watt head
--crate something-or-another 4 x 12 cabinet (ported, closed-back)
drums--slingerland set & assorted symbols

the problem is that we get a lot of washiness and muddiness, particularly in the lower mid frequencies. the louder the band gets, the less anything seems to stand out. with the exception of bass--in most situations the bass is always distinguishable.

my supposition is that because everyone is essentially playing through bass rigs (or guitar rigs designed for much larger rooms than the clubs we've been playing) there's a lot of lower-mid being reinforced and a lot of conflict.

my guitarist is very concerned about being heard and being able to hear himself--to the extent that he typically cranks his amp, making for heavily overdriven, squealy muddy tone.

am i right in thinking that were he to reconfigure his amp rig to a more traditional setup that he may stand out more at lower volumes and thus not need to push his amp so hard? this would seem to be an exponential improvement if i'm right. his l-9 amplifier is actually a combo 1x15--designed i think for pedal steel--open back, no crossover or anything. there's something wrong with the amp (i think maybe it's running dc current) and keeps blowing speakers, so he has instead routed it through a no-name bass amp as a cabinet. we're in the position to get a replacement speaker and fix the amp for a reasonable price, but he's complained that when the speaker was working he could never get very loud, so he'd rather keep things as they are.

any thoughts / suggestions / recommendations?

thanks in advance
 
osus said:
the problem is that we get a lot of washiness and muddiness, particularly in the lower mid frequencies. the louder the band gets, the less anything seems to stand out. with the exception of bass--in most situations the bass is always distinguishable.

my supposition is that because everyone is essentially playing through bass rigs (or guitar rigs designed for much larger rooms than the clubs we've been playing) there's a lot of lower-mid being reinforced and a lot of conflict.

my guitarist is very concerned about being heard and being able to hear himself--to the extent that he typically cranks his amp, making for heavily overdriven, squealy muddy tone.

am i right in thinking that were he to reconfigure his amp rig to a more traditional setup that he may stand out more at lower volumes and thus not need to push his amp so hard? this would seem to be an exponential improvement if i'm right. his l-9 amplifier is actually a combo 1x15--designed i think for pedal steel--open back, no crossover or anything. there's something wrong with the amp (i think maybe it's running dc current) and keeps blowing speakers, so he has instead routed it through a no-name bass amp as a cabinet. we're in the position to get a replacement speaker and fix the amp for a reasonable price, but he's complained that when the speaker was working he could never get very loud, so he'd rather keep things as they are.

any thoughts / suggestions / recommendations?

thanks in advance
Very good job of describing the problem, Osus. I think you're analysis of the problem sounds pretty much spot on, too. It sounds like the guitarist is fighting for sonic space with the keyboard rig. It appears that he's going for a very mellow jazz sound. That might very well conflict with some of the keyboard frequencies.

When this kind of problem occurs, you do need to find a way to separate the instruments in the frequency spectrum. Many sound engineers would simply try the judicious use of equalization to position the keys and guitar farther apart in the sonic spectrum. However, I would like to point out that you can also accomplish the same thing by simply making adjustments to the arrangements of the songs. Just make sure that they (keys and guitar) are playing in different octaves or, at least, are playing parts that don't overlap each other. (Having them play on different beats of the measure might help, for example.)

You mentioned having the guitar player switch to a more "conventional" rig as a way to address the problem. While this might work, you should remember that lots of other amps, including many conventional guitar rigs (such as 4x12 cabs) are capable of quite a bit of bass, too. Even more so than a single 15, in many cases. Besides, keep in mind that if the guitar player is playing on a jazz axe, which is what it sounds like he's doing, then simply changing the amplifier might not stop all the mid-bass frequencies. The guitar, itself, is designed to have that mellow, bass-heavy sound. Most guitarists will not be very cooperative if you suggest that they change to a different guitar to make the mix sound better.

I would also point out that the keys might sound better injected directly into the PA. This may also have the advantage of giving the sound man enough control over the eq to solve the problem at the board.

At least there are some things to start experimenting with.

Lots of luck!
 
I used a L9 for several years, yes it is a little bottom heavy to start with. If your guitarist wants to cut through more he needs to do two things; 1 trim the bass and push the terble more, 2 cut back on the distortion ( I hate trying to talk a guitarist into cutting back on distortion but less will eliminate some of the muddyness and slur.) My L9 had a 15 inch Electro Voice speaker and sounded great by itself, however when the rest of the band joined in it was too bassy and sounded muddy. I added a second cab with two 10 inch Electro Voice horns and suddenly had a whole new amp and sound, it cut through the wildest mix. I know a lot of guitarist dont like the idea of using horns but on the L9 it works, even just one will bring out some of those upper mids and highs that are getting lost.
A second thing that might help is to use a keyboard amp for the sax, while a bass rig is less prone to feedback a keyboard amp will cover the range and again help to cut down on some of the muddyness. Sax needs those mids and highs to cut through.
Idea three, listen to the cymbals, anything sound gongy? Cymbals which are too deep and ring for long periods tend to cloud certain midrange tones, the result-muddy sound. Also heavy handed drummers who rely on floor toms for a lot of their sound create a lot of rumble, the result again-muddy sound.
Now that all the bass gear has been freed up from the guitarists and sax player, hook them into the bass system (where they belong) so the bass player can feel the bass without having to crank it up quite so much.
Now if you can play somewhere with a decent PA and a good sound man you should have a much clearer sound with each instrument comming through distinctly.
These tidbits are accumulated from almost twenty years of on the road experience, and another twenty years to think about all the things I did wrong the first time. Sometimes I wish that someone would have told me stuff like this forty years ago, but most likely i wouldn't have listened and had to learn it the hard way.
 
thanks!

thanks for your replies--these are all very helpful suggestions.

dani--

we'd talked about getting a 2x10 to augment the L9, i definitely like the idea. any suggestions as to which would be best suited? all the 2x10's i've seen are closed-back extension cabs for bass. would these do the trick, or is there something guitar specific?

bassman--

we definitely have some arrangement issues. we're still a relatively young band and many of the songs weren't written as a band (i wrote them and then the band added parts) which i think might have caused some of these difficulties--we weren't all listening to each other in one room while writing, not a good model for creating something that's going to be played live. keeping our ranges in mind as we move forward writing will certainly be important.

i guess to simplify and re-ask part of my initial question--how much of an impact would simply switching from an closed-back 15 to and open-back 15 have on the bass/boom of a guitar amp?

thanks again!
 
osus said:
i guess to simplify and re-ask part of my initial question--how much of an impact would simply switching from an closed-back 15 to and open-back 15 have on the bass/boom of a guitar amp?
Well, once again, I don't think the amplifier or the speaker cabinet is the problem. The guitar, itself, is a jazz box, and will always have a bassy, boomy sound. I really don't think switching to a different cabinet, no matter what speaker compliment it has, will solve your problem.

This is going to lead you back to the old standby strategies of trying to "reposition" the instruments further apart from each other with either equalization or by song arrangement.

By the way, I really do want to commend you for your excellent description and analysis of the problem. You simply can't imagine how important that is in performing sound reinforcement duties. Most newbies, whenever they hear something go wrong, they just start twisting knobs before they've even identified the problem. Of course, this often just makes things even worse, because they are often doing something totally foolish, such as trying to correct a phase problem with equalization. I don't know how many times I have had to tell inexperienced sound engineers, "Dude. SLOW DOWN. Listen. Figure out what is WRONG before you try to fix it." I am quite impressed with the strong analysis skills you brought to this problem. I think you have the potential to be a very solid audio engineer. Keep up the good work, man! ;)
 
A 2-10 might do the trick, or drop the 1-15 and use a 2-12 or a 4-12 cab, depending on what you can afford. Another thing to try is adjusting the pickups on the guitar, lower the bass end and raise the treble, this might help if the guitar has a more bottom end tone. Lots of bottom end seems to be common among club bands, I say it's best to let the bass player have them. It's the mids that allow a guitar to cut through and be heard without having to crank the volume up untill it hurts. Your guitarist might try slaving to a trebly second amp, I do this, one amp for highs and one for lows, that way I get a deep growl but don't loose those piercing high notes. Another option is a second guitar, I use a hollowbody for sweet and mellow and a solid body for when I feel like shredding and another solid body for when I want a crisp clean sound.
All this gear talk makes me want to get another guitar, oops I forgot, I did that last week.
 
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