How to deal with a "muddy" room?

[drummer_jay]

I had a show Saturday in a large open venue. High ceilings, no acoustic treatment at all. It was a walk in show, so I had to use what was on site.. besides some mics I brought.

 

At the end of the night, I got several compliments and the owner said the band sounded the best he's ever heard a band sound in there. Even tried to talk me into being the in house guy... (no thanks!).

 

I was suprised, because I was a little disapointed with my mix. I just couldn't for the life of me get much clarity out of the vocals. When I tried to add back in some life and boost the typical frequencies that are associated with nice, clean vox.. I'd just get feedback.

 

Of course, I was dealing with too little PA for that room. I was pretty much getting MAX GBF the entire time.

 

Anyone have tips on how to EQ these rooms that are just naturally muddy sounding?

 

They had installed PA overhead throughout the place for DJ and announcement type things. Lower end JBL stuff. I even sent them a send from an Aux in my console... Asked them to tap into thier mixer and I'd send a seperate mix over. I was going to try an adjust this to fill out the room. However, they freaked out and couldn't understand what I was wanting to do. I gave up!

[Craig Vecchione]

If it's a reflective room, other than packin git with people, your best recourse is to keep volume as low as the genre permits. The louder oyu are, the more trips around the room the reflections will take, which is what mud/intelligibility is. Aim speakers at the audience if possible, rather than straight back at the wall (obviously not possible with most stacks, but doable with sticks) and if you can RTA the room at all, lower the most offensive frequencies a little.

[drummer_jay]

That's pretty much what I did. Except the volume issue! I had that PA working hard to keep vocals over the natural sound of the drums. It sounded pretty good within 45 foot from the stage. Once you got beyond that, the clarity dropped off drasticly! I've always known it's impossible to mix for the whole room... I just hate to throw my hands up in defeat!

 

I DID NOT RTA the room. Next time I'll be sure to take one with me and do that.

 

My EQ by the end of the night looked pretty hacked up. Not typicaly what it looks like when I'm done with a show. I had to roll all the high end of every vocal channel back several DB as well. All were Beta58's.. Mics I usually have good luck with.

 

The owner did say he's putting in some acoustic treatments over the next fe weeks! Hope that helps.

[Craig Vecchione]

Rooms like that are the sonic equivalent of throwing a Super Ball into a small box...the harder you throw it, the more bounces it takes. Each time it passes a given spot, that's adding to the mud.

 

RTA and EQ will only do so much, so don't sweat that aspect. Less volume or more absorbent material is the only really effective answer.

 

Another way to achieve intelligibility is to have a lot of low-volume speakers throughout the room, on appropriate delay. With less area for each to cover, volume is lower overall, but higher at listener's ears. This is how huge spaces like airport concourses, auditorium general PA, etc. are handled. Since no one speaker is loud enough to create a discernable echo, intelligibility is increased.

 

Obviously that's out of your league of possibility, but the info might be helpful.

[allexcosta]

I did a room like that few weeks ago.

 

3 store high ceiling. About 500 people in there. Place is setup for DJ, not for bands.

 

I brought mixer, powered monitors, mics and a small snake.

 

I plugged the mixer into the FOH, but had no access to amps, crossover or EQ's, so I couldn't isolate part of the system. The room had several speakers pointing to the stage, including subs spreaded throughout the place (see pics), so feedback was a huge issue.

 

Had no other option but turning everything way down. Band ended up MUCH quieter than the DJ, but we managed to finish the night.

 

Tough gig.

 

Pics:

 

 

 

[drummer_jay]

I was trying to accomplish the smaller speakers spread throughout idea by tapping into their pa. I had a spare aux, so I was planning mixing it too taste.

 

I didn't have anyway to properly delay the send though. So it might have just made things worse.

 

Next time I'm going to be pretty persistent about my intentions to tap into their system. Even without time alignment, I think it would improve the overall experience for the crowd.

 

I might also need to bring in some additional PA. Something with more throw that whats in house. Of course, that means money! Money the owner won't want to spend!

[Dogoth]

How to deal with a "muddy" room?

 

A Hose?, A Wrecking Ball?, Bass Traps!

 

top end problems are usualy a lot easier to deal with than low end. Careful placment can sometimes help a little but the lower the problem is the less effective this is.

 

For mid and especialy high end problems, controled dispersion patterns can help a lot (that's part of the idea of the line array - It doesn't send a lot of high end energy to the celing & floor).