Acoustic Playing Sweet Spots near the Wall

[David Powell]

Originally Posted by Mark Mazurek

I'm new to DB, but own/operate a home studio in my spare time.

What you're experiencing are early room reflections, which affect lower registers far more than higher ones. 90% corners multiply what's happening.

Certain frequencies cancel and others are reinforced. It is a nightmare to deal with bottom end in a smaller room in the studio world. That's why most small rooms are 'dead' rooms, and most big rooms are 'live' rooms.

Sometimes it screws things up, sometimes it enhances things. You use it to your advantage when you can.

Do your same experiment in a corner for DOUBLE the fun. Moving in and out will increase/decrease certain frequencies. Similar to a severe EQ notch where it bumps up the frequencies just outside the cut frequency.

Fun stuff.

I tried it in a corner of my dining room today. And it is exactly like you say. Just like you boosted a selective frequency band depending on how far out of the corner I am up to about 7 ft., which is the middle of the room. And the D& G strings are much less affected, as you suggest. My house doesn't have many rooms, but they are in the 15' x 15' range and are definitely "live" with old pine floors on joists and 11 ft ceilings and plaster walls. I bet it would sound awesome recorded out in the middle of the room.

Thanks for explaining that because I think it may be why when one is faced with a crowded shallow stage, the EQ / feedback issues become tricky. But now that I know what's happening the effect could also be useful in all acoustic settings. When we were doing the recording with the two guitars and the bass was loud, that room was carpeted, had a normal ceiling height and had a good deal of reflection cutting foam forms in the corners. I was not set up real close to a wall then, but was about 5-7 ft. from the wall.

I've tried to delete this echoing post that I some how inadvertently submitted twice, can you help me out, Mike? Just leave the one post above that this one duplicates.. cates .... cates ... cates.......

[Mark Mazurek]

Yes, in a nice 'lively' room, it's very easy to place things and hear the differences.

Most studio 'problem rooms' have heavily treated walls and possibly carpet.
This kinda 'masks' the obvious high end spacial 'cues' you hear and drives people NUTS on why their low frequencies seem 'all over the place'.

To complicate the problem more, you find a great spot in a room (where you love your bass sound), but it doesn't sound like that on the recording, and wonder why. It's because you put a mic in front of your bass, not out in the room (or where your ears are).

When 'working' a room (or wall combo) like this, you need to look at the room as part of the instrument. Sound sources never sound good in anechoic chambers (no reflections). Play the room as part of the 'rig'.

This is the foundation of all the frustration with amplification when playing 'out'. Every room has different size, reflection, absorbtion, shape, etc...
It's why 'swiss army knife' amps include phase switches, high pass filters, notch filters, fancy eq, etc...

Sellers of live equipment should have generous return policies, because you rarely can tell an amps true potential/pitfalls in the one room you try it in.

[David Powell]

I really appreciate your insights into all of this, Mark. I have recorded the DB a few times and gotten really nice results with Garage Band, my Macbook and a Tascam USB 122 interface and a couple of cheap condenser mics. In most of the situations there were other acoustic instruments recorded ensemble on just two stereo channels, no isolation or separate tracks. We put the mics just kind of out there in the room to get general mixes of all the instruments and really didn't think to much about what we were doing in any technical way. And I guess we got lucky considering the possible pitfalls you are describing. We did do some multi-track stuff too, but didn't move the mics from where we had already set them. I think we just had all the levels looking good and just left it alone without really thinking about putting it right up close to the bass. Dumb luck completely.

I'm thinking that whenever I go to an acoustic jam session now, I'm going to claim a corner and then work my way out until it sounds loud and balanced. Imagine, all this time I thought I had a great sounding bass and instead I just have a great sounding house.