Recording full of bass? Or it was the reverberation of the room? Options

[Zamana]

Hi!

This recording was made in a kind of bar, with concrete walls at side, glass at the rear, and a metal roof with 15 or 20 meters height.
I was FOB, sitted. The lineage was AT853 (omnis) > CA-9100 (bass roll-off OFF) > R-09HR (24bits, 96KHz).

Is there some equalization that can be done in order to "save" this recording?


Thanks.
Regards.

Attached File(s)

 sample3.mp3 ( 500.1K ) Number of downloads: 187

 

[Destroid]

I hear grating bass that shows at 70Hz and a harmonic at 130Hz, a parametric EQ with a steep Q of >90 takes the gnarliness off it but still not a very good fix since it depraves the music programme as well.

Bah, wish I had more but this is why I find fixing mixdowns so frustrating. Perhaps someone else might enlighten on this (possibly) room-distortion or possibly a mic stand without enough padding on the feet (I'm totally guessing).

[Fedot L]

Is there some equalization that can be done in order to "save" this recording?

I have suppressed the frequencies 65 Hz and 130 Hz (as its second harmonic) which looked “boomy” on spectrum analyzer display and practically “linearized” the bass FR of the track.

But from 10-th second where a massive instrumental accompaniment starts, too heavy non linear distortion is heard that an equalization can not affect. Something sounding like a very overloaded tube amp. In my opinion, I don’t see a method to "save" this track…

This post has been edited by Fedot L: Feb 7 2011, 12:11

[Martel]

Did it sound right while you were inside? Is it possible that the bass guitar exceeded the 121dB SPL maximum of your microphone?

I guess it would take some complicated signal analysis to estimate the character of the (nonlinear) distortion to filter it out. I doubt it can be repaired with a stationary (time-invariant) frequency filtering (since that is linear).
If I was desperate about saving the recording, I would try to detect the notes (fundamental frequency) played by the base and find the higher harmonics (multiples of the frequency) and their relative amplitudes. After gathering such empiric data, I would try to set up a dynamic filter (triggered by the base notes) removing the higher harmonics. I would prolly spend a whole weekend doing that and my tool of choice would be Matlab. I would probably give up in the end.

I can't think of any simple solution for a normal person (not involving DSP knowledge and programming). Perhaps some general limiter/DR compression removal/suppression tools? (never used anything like that)

This post has been edited by Martel: Feb 7 2011, 19:02