Genos and Bass

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi

I have new monitors now and love the detail they give ,astonishing on sound and separation being flat

I can get all sounds sounding great except the bass.
I recorded my latest effort and tried It on my home hi-fi Marantz system and the It sounded great sat down In front listening.
As I move to the sides the bass resonates really heavy and reverberates outwards droning.. It is even worse when in another room. Even at low volume It seems that the bass is droning.
I am useing a dance style with I think some sub bass In there.
So, I go back to my monitors for another try and I have got to a point where the bass Is now in the background very faint.
On my Marantz hi- fi which is a good setup the bass Is nearly normal In musicality to the rest of my song.
I put all faders down on the Genos and raise each one slowly, but It Is always the kick drum that drones or the double beat that they put on top of It to give it that sound of pressure.
I have to now bring some top down when mixing.
I will have to make a template of this type of style as I find the Yamaha Basses In dance format really heavy from out of the box sound.

Another thing is ,when you put up a pro recording the bass comes out loaded but does not drone even at high volumes.
Do mixers use a gate on bass sounds or Is It the Millions of pounds of equipment they use.
I might be talking nonsense as I want to know ,Is It me or them???  " They are all In the wires you know" flaming Gremlins!!

So, Does anyone hear the same as me ,faint bass on monitors and heavy or just right on stereo's and cars etc
I do find it better to handle 60s.70s 80s styles.
Maybe It is sub bass patterns that are diffcult to handle.


All the best
John

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi
I am tryng to day just to get a Electro House Style to sound punchy but not droning outside the speaker area,If that makes sense.


1 ---I have tried recording just the style and on the Genos the compression Is normal and EQ flat
Play that on a Hi-fi and that Is muddy and boomy. So out of the box sound Is not good.
Does this mean recording with EQ and Compression on the Genos??
2  ----Take the Kick drum and Bass down and all can go thin
Listen to Kraftwerk and everything Is clear punchy and Tight and the Bass stays at the speakers  and does not travel all over the place booming or droning
I thought they said Yamaha Genos styles out of the box are great. The Electro house Style  Is muddy and boomy If recorded from out of the box.
They are ok when playing , but not when recorded for Hi-fi etc. All sounds ok on headphones and studio monitors.
This is totally weird to me and I am sure it will reveal all to me if I keep ploughing on.
I would love to get a basic mix on the Genos to work on which sounds even.
If there is someone more experience than me out there ,tell us where you start with the Genos before going Into Cubase for finishing.
I did get better out of the box recordings with the Tyros 5, but the Genos sounds far better. Weird that!!!

I a Will keep trying different things but this is a hard task to get Bass right.
Everything else to me is straight forward apart from that Bass.


ATB
John

[EileenL]

Hi John,
  I never record in Genos with compressor on. The recording I get is what I heard on the keyboard when playing it. As you know I don't use anything other than my Genos speakers and am quite happy with what I record as are the people who I do these songs for. I think perhaps you are making things to complicated for yourself instead of just sitting playing your Genos.

[maartenb]

Hi John,

The Genos sounds absolutely great out-of-the box. I've heard the Genos over HS7 monitors, Yamaha DBR powered speakers and several times over a professional PA. I've talked to a sound guy at the back of the room and he tells me the sound from the Genos is so clear, that he doesn't need to do anything to the sound to make it sound good, except for problems with the acoustics of the room.

Since you have weird things happening with your bass, you'll have to investigate the whole chain: Genos --> Genos settings --> speakers --> room.

Genos: I trust the sound from this instrument. If this is not good, you might have a broken Genos.
Genos settings: Best is to set EQ to flat and compression to Off. This gives you the most neutral sound.
Speakers: What brand and model do you have? Might they be broken? Test this by playing a .wav audio file that you know to sound good. Any difference between Genos and .wav?
Room: If the .wav also sounds weird, the problem is with your room. Maybe standing waves. Put things in the room that absorb sound.

This process eliminates factors where you have to look. You can narrow it down until you find the source of the problem.

Good luck,

Maarten

[jwyvern]

Quotes from John,
1 ---I have tried recording just the style and on the Genos the compression Is normal and EQ flat
Play that on a Hi-fi and that Is muddy and boomy.


The Electro house Style  Is muddy and boomy If recorded from out of the box.
They are ok when playing , but not when recorded for Hi-fi etc. All sounds ok on headphones and studio monitors.

Hi John, I am not a sound engineer so take that into account, but have read a few things over the years.
Apparently Hi-Fi speakers are deliberately  "coloured" - often with a smiley face EQ profile to boost bass and treble- to give the sounds more impact for listening. Whereas monitors are flat to closely reproduce the actual signal coming from (in this case) Genos, the idea being to show and not mask errors in the mix so they can be readily corrected after recording.

From what you say above your recordings are OK as far as monitors and headphones are concerned, so doesn't this point the finger somewhat at your Hi-Fi speakers for the faults, rather than Genos, since the presumably  trustworthy monitors are telling you the latter is fine?  Is the HiFi overloading with the type of signals you are feeding them, especially if they are exaggerating the bass end as they allegedly are designed to do?
Having said that I'm assuming your monitors are designed to cover the low frequency range you are using in the bass (and do not need a sub-woofer to pick up any  possibly remaining faults in this range).

JohnW

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi John and Maarten and Eileen

I am saying that the Cd's of Jarre and Kraftwerk remixes sound great on the HI -FI----- Solid and punchy. Have Marantz amp and Mission speakers to test out in lounge
Out of the box Genos bass Is nowhere near that of a pro cd. That is on the dance styles
I will of course keep experimenting until I get there.
I do record  flat and natural as I want the song 100% before mixing. This Is why i am asking questions at this early stage
Ok I do need to put some corner and side panels In room and I do need a blackout curtain one side, but if you put monitors down low there Is no apparent reflection.
So Cd's sound perfect on my Hi-Fi ,but not those Dance styles.
I will go through with a fine toothcomb again and roll off more bass and make sure nothing is interfering on same frequency.
I am nearly there and I am being highly critcal here with the sound differencies.
I must admit that most other styles of different genre's sound better than the dance ones.
Maybe dance styles are meant to be more boomy as they do resonate.
When you hear a good bass beat It stops at the speaker and It does not extend outwards with boom resonance.
I think that is the differnce with pro and amateur.
You try recording a dance style and play on your hi-fi  with out of box Genos style and you hear a ververevervvoom  resonance extending outwards at the side .
In front It sounds ok
With pro cds you will tell the diference straight away with the modern dance beats all around a room sounding punchy and even.
The trouble is what I hear on the monitor speakers is 100% and I compare the pro ones with mine and I get pretty close. But mine always sounds totally different on other sound systems when testing.
Someone may see through what I am saying as this does baffle me at times.
Hi Maarten ---Nothing is broken as the machine sounds good on my Focal Alpha 50s and my Hi-fi system Is 100%
I have got to get over some nuances. I get so much detail In the monitors it is unbelievable.
It Is something probably I am doing wrong and I will admit that.
Hi Eileen--- I do practice actual playing two to three hours a day. cannot keep away from playing, but I would like to conquer the fine arts of mixing
I have been studying and boom Is In the 100/200khz and mud is  200/300Khz,
So can the Genos eq solve that and where do I look around those two dials???

All the best
John                   Once happy I will put my song up and you can pull it apart. I want to beat this enigma


All the best
John

[Lee Batchelor]

Apparently Hi-Fi speakers are deliberately  "coloured" - often with a smiley face EQ profile to boost bass and treble- to give the sounds more impact for listening.

As far as I know, HI-FI speaker manufacturers go to great pains to make their speakers as flat as they can. Those who fail either get the box or porting wrong, so John is correct under those terms.

Studio monitors are simply more accurate in terms of flat response and phase relationships between the drivers. If the Genos comes across perfect in the studio but boomy in the HI-FI room, I'd suspect the amplifier settings as well. With the modern day home theater amps that most people use, there are dozens of different presets. Gone are the days of being able to buy a simple stereo amp with bass and treble knobs, at least from what I see! I guess you can still buy them, but I wonder how many are sold. Home theater amps seem to be the rage.

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi Lee

It is a funny thing sound and can be baffling
I used to run a mobile Disco years ago and something made me think, Oh,what is going on.
You get a speaker with a tweeter gone. Listen to a new tweeter and you can have your amp very loud and you can put your ear to It and It sounds just like a transister radio sound, distant and weak. Put It with a bass speaker and Hey presto, you get all the hi -hats and that range clear as a bell sounding loud. Take the tweeter away and you have a muddy bass. Weird, sound Is!!


I have sat down today on the assumption that Maarten is right and out of the box Genos sounds are good.
I am delving into one track at a time and comparing how the sounds sit. There Is so many movements on faders as someone said and now  I cannot save the positions of the faders on the Genos. Run out of memory.
So I have compared and Imported Into Cubase to get all fader positions right and also panning and volumes. I now realize that I am getting somewhere at last.
So recorded flat and continue to get the sound and all panning and volumes right plus automation before mastering.

If a commercial cd sounds great on my Hi-Fi which is not a cheap one, there is nothing wrong with the system
When you listen to commercial cds they sound crisp and the bass never reverberates outwards. My mix sounded great on the monitors, but a little over the top on the hi-fi In the bass. department. I also compare the sound with the loudness button In for lower volumes.
I am getting there slowly ,I think!!


Al the Best
John