Bass too loud in stage montior - any devices that can help?

[miden]

I am using a floor monitor for live gigs and running from the control room out on the mixer, however there is no EQ on that output and sadly, the bass is really boomy and overpowering in the monitor, but if I turn it (the overall level) down I then cannot hear enough of the mids and highs...

Are there any devices (short of putting a small mixer - and even those are restricted to a fixed 80hz low control) that can simply limit the amount of bass going in, sort of like an in-line high pass filter of sorts?

Thanks

[thecontrolcentre]

You could put an EQ pedal in line before the monitor. Are you sure you're not just sending too much bass to the monitor? (mix too bass heavy)

https://www.gear4music.com/Guitar_Effec ... %20Website

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

The above,
plus......

If the mixer can spar a channel and has direct outs you can use two channels. one for mains and one for montors.

I am in the same situation as you. I have to get creative sometimes because every situation is different. You dont want a bunch of lows in your monitors. So one way or another you need to send the board two signals or eq after the board and before the monitor amp.

[BertKoor]

I usually have a Behringer graphical eq inserted between monitor send on the desk and any monitors. Cheap, does the job....

[miden]

thanks guys...F.O.H. mix is good. It's a small 10" floor monitor and it doesn't really handle under about 150hz very well at all. I have looked at EQ pedals, but I am told the battery life is terrible and I'd want to try and avoid having to use yet another power wall wart and needing another power source on stage. Needs must I suppose, but if there was some sort of even a passive EQ box, even that would be ok.

[JCJR]

Is this a powered floor monitor, or are you using one of the amps in an integrated mixer/amp, or separate power amp for the monitor?

I would almost certainly do as Bert Koor just go thru a rackmount extra graphic EQ box. Or a rackmount parametric eq if you can find one cheaper somewhere in a pawnshop. To hades with batteries and eq stompboxes that is just silly for 'pro" use..

If you don't have enough AC outlets then carry another AC outlet strip along with everything else to the gig.

Or if you are not very picky about getting it "perfect" spend a few bux and make up a simple special hipass cable you always use to connect between the mixer and monitor amp.

Get a plug with a roomier than usual shell and solder in a resistor and capacitor in the shell so that the cable becomes a fixed frequency hipass bass rolloff filter.

Cheep, no batteries or rack box or AC plug. But not real flexible either. You would be amazingly lucky if the first try had exactly the right amount of bass cut neither too much nor too little

Tell me the input impedance of the amp and the output impedance of the mixer and I'll suggest capacitor and resistor value. That is if you decided to do it. It is only a couple minutes work but I'd rather not bother calculating even something simple for no purpose of you did not intend to build it.

[miden]

thanks JCJR - yeaqh that's the sort of thing I'm after really. Something simple...it's just the monitor and it is the same place all the time at a gig, and is getting fed the same signal all I'd want is to remove the low end. But as you say the offending frequencies are a bit hard to distinguish in that low range. I might try for 100hz but find it's still there, or go for 300 and find it's then too thin, so yeah I see what you are driving at!
TBH, I was thinking of totally ditching the analogue desk and going for one of the new digital ones - where I can control it from the phone and they HAVE monitor (or aux) EQ control programmable inbuilt into the software. Just not sure if I'm ready for the "leap" into the digital mixing world hahaha!

[JCJR]

If you could set up some simple test to find the 'best frequency' it may be possible to get real close on the first try at building a simple hipass cable.

If you could play the exact same kind of music out of a laptop audio progràm into your mixer, and if the audio program has a setting or plugin with a simple "first order" 6 dB per octave highpass filter. There are so many possibilities and combinations of software that can do it dunno where to begin even making suggestions.

Slightly more complex version of the same thing-- Temp hook up the laptop as an EQ between mixer and amp. Play a set or two of yer gig thru the software in record monitor thru mode, until you are real certain under actual conditions you have the software 6 dB per octave hipass set to your liking. There are still many possible combinations of software to do the simple trick but it would need to be able to thru process audio in real time for the "actual use at the gig" variation of the test.

Once you know the frequency and look up your amp input impedance and mixer output impedance, then the first cable build ought to be purt close to the same sound you already tested.

I mean the impedance is not real critical to know because usually it is in a certain range, but knowing the impedance would avoid surprises if yer gear just happens to be unusually higher or lower than average.

[JCJR]

Well another option would be to build a variable passive hipass box with an input and output jack, a cap and a variable resistor so you could tune it in.

Main problem if you buy a nice little box, two jacks, potentiometer, capacitor and knob. Not only do you have to put it together but at retail markup the parts bill might be more expensive than a complete much nicer behringer eq box, just because the Chinese can make commodity devices so crazy inexpensive. Or alternately a pawnshop EQ box

[miden]

Hey JCJR, sorry I didn't reply sooner - thanks again. If I decide to go the digital mixer route I'll probably not worry about doing the tests, but if I don't (and I do read some stories about WI-FI issues!!) I'll do those tests above. I do like the simplicity of just modding a cable (and a spare of course haha) and use it just for foldback!

[miden]

I think I'll go a modded cable route - just been reading way too many horror stories about wi-fi issues with these digital mixers! They certainly promise a lot, but jeez they make you work hard for results!

I'll post the results of tests and we can try and narrow it down

[JCJR]

Yeah just let me know.

I have a B xr18 digital rackmount mixer for my small crowded home studio. Because it takes up such small space in the rack, and has real good fidelity and features for the money, and does a good job as audio interface am quite pleased. But dunno if I would want to take it out on gigs.

Because I am a.cheapskate looking for certain feature set the presonus digital rackmount mixers also looked like possiblea but I was judging from home use perspective.

One gotta have (or want real bad anyway) would be combo input jacks on all channels. Those presonus rack mixers and the beh xr18 and beh x32 expander stage boxes qualify. But for instance a beh x32 is mostly xlr only and could get expensive and annoying connecting lots of synths with a bunch of rts to xlr connecting cables or a crapload of direct boxes.

The beh dig mixers smaller than xr18 IMO do not have nice enough computer interface features but maybe fine for small live gigging.

I think for live gigging I might want a digital mixer but would want one with hardware channel faders. For live use I might even be leery of not having one fader per channel.

Maybe it could be inconvenient live if you had a 32 ch board but only 8 or 16 faders.

Live pa might be similar to the old saying about airplane pilots job, "99.9 percent complete boredom punctuated by 0.1 percent sheer terror." Maybe usually only one slider or a phone would be ok but once in awhile if you have 32 channels then 8 or 16 faders ain't gonna be fast enough?

Most of those dig mixers are built with live specs and just happen to also be good for small home studio. I mean how many home studios need 8 or 16 xlr sub outputs with compression and EQ on each one, and even the possibility of using the sub outputs as multi-band speaker crossover including room eq and time alignment? Something designed for home studio or even project studio wouldn't throw that kind of money at that kind of feature.

I get along fine with the xr18 at home. Have used it both wireless from Android and Ethernet from ancient slow laptop. Occasionally the computer loses connection with the mixer but at home this is not fatal. Takes about 1 second to reconnect. But wouldn't want to put up with any chance of that live. Just another unwelcome distraction.

When the computer loses control connection with the mixer nothing bad happens audio-wise. The mixer keeps mixing with the last known settings for days or weeks until you reconnect and change it. Sometimes I go weeks without adjusting the xr18 and the laptop goes to sleep and turns itself off but the mixer keeps it's last settings "forever".

However if you happened to be looking at onscreen level meters or the rta display and it loses connection, the audio doesn't change but the meters on the computer screen freeze and stop updating til you click the reconnect button.

It may be the fault of the Ethernet chip or drivers on my ancient laptop. Maybe a differnt better computer would never lose connection. It is rare enough I haven't gone on a big big hunt about it, just a couple of unproductive little bug hunts.

[miden]

interesting insights there, cheers....if I could find someone who has a setup with one of these things that can say "set it up like this, with this router, and no issues". But I could not find any?? I s'pose it's the old story that you only ever read about the bad experiences...hahaha I have read (one mebbe 2?) where some folks have even had success with the built-in wi-fi.

I agree with you fwiw, if it was JUST in the studio no probs as I could then run CAT 5 from the PC and all hunky dory! But live is a totally different kettle! As you'd no doubt know.

[miden]

oky dokes - frequencies are 50hz (needed -12dB) and 125hz (needed -3dB) and this gave me a clear unmuddied lower end.

Still umming and ahhing on the digital mixer though hahaha!

[miden]

JCJR, just to let you know I went with an XR 16, BUT I am only leasing it for a 6 month period (it's a used one) to see if I can get used to it/like it.

So just in case, I'll still build the box if you can advise what the components need would be and a wiring diagram, that would be much appreciated!