Sometimes everything on stage sound off key.

[Marko]

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

I haven

[wades_keys]

Possibilities:

 

You're too loud.

 

Guitar tone is too dark.

 

Bass tone is too muddy.

 

Drummer is too loud.

 

Vocal monitors are too loud.

 

Vocal mics are picking up other instruments and you're hearing that in your monitors.

 

You're tone deaf.

 

You have hearing issues.

[wades_keys]

I just thought about it and I had what you describe happen to me exactly one time.

 

I play bass, and in this case I could hardly tell the difference in tone between my low G, F# and even E note.

 

The PA was too bass heavy - subs were overpowering the mains, and I was hearing that more than my stage amp.

 

So try dialing the subs back a few notches and see what happens.

 

I assume you play bass.

 

Also check the crossover frequency - make sure you don't have "hotspots" low on the neck, like say from the low G on down (from the subs). I don't know the freqs off hand but that area tends to be problematic with badly dialled in subs/crossover.

 

Not sure why you'd be hearing other instruments out of tune - again, I'm betting your subs are way too loud and possibly not crossed over intelligently.

 

You did the exact wrong thing with your tone. Boost mids and presence for clarity - cut lows to reduce mud. Get your guitarist to get some of the bass out of his tone too - sounds cool solo but will mud up the mix. Take time as a band to carve out your own space frequency wise - brown-sound guitar tone is a big cause for mud, but boosted lows on the bass is even worse a lot of times. And stage volume too, obviously.

 

Drum tuning is important too: when in doubt, tune em a little higher if you're having mud issues, especially the snare.

 

Oh, and if you're running dirt on your bass, dial it back. Too much dirt = mud. THe problem you have is a muddy mix. Open your ears, especially to what is coming out of your monitors: that's where the bleed will really kick your ass, is in vocal monitors.

[Marko]

The more I think about it, I think it

[Marko]

 

I just thought about it and I had what you describe happen to me exactly one time. I play bass, and in this case I could hardly tell the difference in tone between my low G, F# and even E note. The PA was too bass heavy - subs were overpowering the mains, and I was hearing that more than my stage amp. So try dialing the subs back a few notches and see what happens. I assume you play bass. Also check the crossover frequency - make sure you don't have "hotspots" low on the neck, like say from the low G on down (from the subs). I don't know the freqs off hand but that area tends to be problematic with badly dialled in subs/crossover. Not sure why you'd be hearing other instruments out of tune - again, I'm betting your subs are way too loud and possibly not crossed over intelligently.

 

 

It

[bassred]

Ive been on some insanely loud stages (not my style, but on sub-in gigs or when you are called up to sit in, it's amazing how loud some bands 'have to' have it....) before and can only offer this:

 

If it sounds like things aren't in tune/in the right key, they probably aren't. You should video tape the gig and if it seems that this is happening, listen/watch the tape, or post it here. I really don't think that anything that sounds that off could be a volume issue. Volume and Pitch are two very different things

[wades_keys]

 

Ive been on some insanely loud stages (not my style, but on sub-in gigs or when you are called up to sit in, it's amazing how loud some bands 'have to' have it....) before and can only offer this: If it sounds like things aren't in tune/in the right key, they probably aren't. You should video tape the gig and if it seems that this is happening, listen/watch the tape, or post it here. I really don't think that anything that sounds that off could be a volume issue. Volume and Pitch are two very different things

 

Yeah, I was wondering that too.

 

Like I said, I've only had the problem with my bass and insanely loud subs. I still heard the guitars and everything else fine.

 

Dude, are you sure you're not lost and playing in the wrong key yourself?

[wades_keys]

It

[Marko]

Oh, I

[wades_keys]

Oh, I

[Marko]

 

Well, then check the other things I mentioned. If you guys play down tuned, then subs can cause these issues even with guitars.

 

 

Now that you mention it, I was just a few feet away from one mains stack, sub and main, and the subs were probably kicking pretty good.

[Marko]

Before, we were using my one sub, now the guitar player brought his two, huge suckers, and I

[wades_keys]

Before, we were using my one sub, now the guitar player brought his two, huge suckers, and I

[trmckenz]

maybe just troubleshoot it at soundcheck? you could start with just drums, add bass, guitars, etc until you isolate the issue

[SpaceNorman]

I've had it the same sensation before - and have always attributed it to outrageously loud stage volume. Turn down (alot!) and see if the problem doesn't simply vanish.

[raagam]

about hearing things sounding out-of-tune onstage - made me think of this hilarious post from Mr Knobs, about the creative use of a pitch shifter by a sound guy: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=167769&highlight=TD2#post167769

[cooterbrown]

The only time I've ever experienced that was when I had a bad sinus/ear infection...everything sounded a quarter step, or so, flat.

VERY disconcerting for someone with perfect pitch.

On top of that, the gig was in a former armory, so everything was reverberating off the walls.

[Marko]

I think I

[jwlussow]

This started happening to me when I first got tinnitus. Be very careful with your hearing. When I first got tinnitus I would actually hear two pitches for every note. It was awful. Somehow it stopped or I trained myself not to listen. Now I just have constant noise and virtually no frequency response in my right ear. Make sure your problem is not due to excessive volume.

[Lee Knight]

"Sometimes everything on stage sound off key."

 

It is resonance. Either from a hollow stage or room dimensions. When a stage or room has an uncontrolled resonance, it manifests itself as a pitch. So even when the bass player is playing a low E which is 41Hz (octaves/overtones 82, 165), and say the hollow stage has a resonance of 175Hz (165 / 175 is close enough to excite). That means the band is in E but you're hearing this dull roar in the key of F. Every time the kicks excites the stage you hear whoooooommmmm in F. No matter what key you're playing.

 

the room can do this too.

 

Isolate the kick from the stage. Find the hot frequencies in the bass region of the room by sweeping your mains eq. Be ready to pull that frequency down more during the gig. Same with monitors.

 

Have the bass player rig up a parametric to his rig and have him sweep for stage resonance. Notch it out at the rig.

 

All the comments about stage volume are true. Volume excites the resonance.

 

Ever notice how it doesn't happen outside when you're on a solid surface?

[wades_keys]

 

"Sometimes everything on stage sound off key." It is resonance. Either from a hollow stage or room dimensions. When a stage or room has an uncontrolled resonance, it manifests itself as a pitch. So even when the bass player is playing a low E which is 41Hz (octaves/overtones 82, 165 ), and say the hollow stage has a resonance of 175 Hz (165 / 175 is close enough to excite). That means the band is in E but you're hearing this dull roar in the key of F. Every time the kicks excites the stage you hear whoooooommmmm in F. No matter what key you're playing. the room can do this too. Isolate the kick from the stage. Find the hot frequencies in the bass region of the room by sweeping your mains eq. Be ready to pull that frequency down more during the gig. Same with monitors. Have the bass player rig up a parametric to his rig and have him sweep for stage resonance. Notch it out at the rig. All the comments about stage volume are true. Volume excites the resonance. Ever notice how it doesn't happen outside when you're on a solid surface?

 

YUP: Harmonics and resonance, aggravated by subwoofers and excessive stage volume.

 

That's why I told him to cut lows on the bass, not boost. Great call on the parametric: I'll take your explanation a step further in case dude doesn't know how to "sweep the parametric":

 

Set the level on the frequency in question to +6db or so. Then sweep the frequency knob until you hear bad stuff. That's your hot spot, and that's where you want to apply cut - which means (of course) to set the level on that freq to below 0db. Repeat for all of the frequencies ("bands") that your parametric is setup for. I'd leave the Q knob alone for the most part - you can use it after you've found the hotspot to narrow or widen the range slightly - too wide of a Q and you'll kill not only the bad freqs but some good ones too. Too narrow and you won't dampen all of the bad stuff. Use your ears and a little common sense.

[bassred]

I guess I've been lucky enough to have never had this sort of experience. I have experienced the joy of phase cancellation from a stage monitor... I was rocking away at a little church up the road from Vegas and got woozy every time my head got in a certain spot on stage. really woozy.

 

I realized that because of the position of the monitors on stage I was experiencing some fierce brain/time/space continuum thing.

 

Good thing I was there to do a session about playing bass in a praise setting, and doing a session to get their sound guys up to speed (on the very basics) because they were all volunteers. There were a couple changes I made to their rig that night that helped out right away. Changing the positioning of the wedges (not to mention the giant smiley face EQ I flattened and re-rung) and explained that when the singers can't hear, it's probably because all the music stands were blocking the line-of-sight to the HF horns in the monitor wedges... but I digress.

 

So that is my only experience of anything wonky on a stage, and it was a pretty amazing demonstration of the phenomenon.