B1 Bass Module / Positioning: Difference between revisions

Line 34: Line 34:


=== It Depends ===
=== It Depends ===
Although the above suggestions describe our default arrangements, they don't always yield good results. The factor that we can't really control or understand easily is the room. Rooms often cause very uneven distribution of bass and there is no universal method of cure. Sometimes a different speaker placement seems to help, but what helps for one listener usually makes it worse elsewhere. It's easy to fool yourself and it's easy to fuss endlessly without finding a good solution. We try not to fall into that trap. If one or two alternatives don't cure the problem, we give up and move on.
Although the above suggestions describe our default arrangements, they don't always yield good-sounding results. The factor that we can't really control or understand easily is the room. Rooms often cause very uneven distribution of bass and there is no universal method of cure. Sometimes a different speaker placement seems to help, but what helps for one listener usually makes it worse elsewhere. It's easy to fool yourself and it's easy to fuss endlessly without finding a good solution. We try not to fall into that trap. If one or two alternatives don't cure the problem, we give up and move on.


There are only a few techniques that we think are likely to help. First, if there is too much bass, we might try to fix that with a tone control reduction before moving anything, since, if it works, we will have higher maximum bass output available to us (because the bass amp is working less hard to give the right amount of bass). If a bass control adjustment doesn't straighten out the problem we hear, we might move the stack closer to or farther from the nearest corner. Closer sometimes increases bass while farther sometimes reduces it. (That's the simplified theory, anyway.) But proceed with care: the change the musicians hear will probably be different from the change in the audience. Make sure you know who you are trying to improve the sound for. The last thing we might try is a different arrangement, say switching from a stack of 4 to 2x2. If these few alternatives don't give a clear improvement (and they usually don't), we think it's time to shrug our shoulders and get on with the show.
There are only a few techniques that we think are likely to help. First, if there is too much bass, we might try to fix that with a tone control reduction before moving anything, since, if it works, we will have higher maximum bass output available to us (because the bass amp is working less hard to give the right amount of bass). If a bass control adjustment doesn't straighten out the problem we hear, we might move the stack closer to or farther from the nearest corner. Closer sometimes increases bass while farther sometimes reduces it. (That's the simplified theory, anyway.) But proceed with care: the change the musicians hear will probably be different from the change in the audience. Make sure you know who you are trying to improve the sound for. The last thing we might try is a different arrangement, say switching from a stack of 4 to 2x2. If these few alternatives don't give a clear improvement (and they usually don't), we think it's time to shrug our shoulders and get on with the show.