Where we stand makes a huge difference when tweaking!

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gregrjones

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My LSC is a 1x12 combo. I had been perplexed at the fact that the amp sounds great in my bedroom but when I play at my church, it doesn't sound as great on the platform. Now, I understand that volume levels effect tone tweaks, however I keep the master volume at the same level for gigs as I do in my bedroom because my sound guys are shooting for a low stage volume.

The difference is that when I'm playing out, I have the amp on a stand where the amp is angled straight to my ears. I noticed this effect today in my bedroom. The amp sounded great, with a balanced tone until I lowered my stance to get my ears down where the mic will normally sit in front of the speaker. Then I heard the amp's treble way out of whack.

So now I'm EQ'ing the amp with less treble when gigging so that the PA mic will get a more balanced tone.

Would the Weber Beam blockers help mitigate this effect?
 
A little bit. But the best is the Mitchell doughnut. I really need to start a thread on these around here. Here's the original thread from TGP. And here's what mine look like.
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=470956
Mitchelldonuts.jpg
 
I installed the 4" Weber Beam Blocker on my LSS and it made a huge difference. Without it. and standing close to the amp one doesn't hear the highs like you would standing 10' or more in front of the amp. We tend to push the presence and treble to compensate and this results in sending ice picks into the ears of the audience. Since putting in the Weber Beam Blockers, I've noticed that there is very little difference in tone from where I stand; I no longer need to tilt my amp to hear it on a small stage; the drummer can now hear the amp without it coming through the monitors; and the factory sample settings become far more useful. Not bad for $18 :D
 
I find it interesting I just answered another post with this...

Read this article. It explains in all in detail...

http://www.egnateramps.com/TechTalk/TechTalk102.html

-Danny
 
According to Jay Mitchell, (sound engineer) the author and inventor of the "Mitchell doughnut" (link and pic I posted, 2nd post, this thread). While lower frequencies tend to be "omni Present", the higher are not. As stated in that egnator article as well. The problem with center blocking, according to Jay, be it solid or foam, is that there is a misconception that high freqs emanate from the voice coil or center of the speaker. But actually, their waves run out and down the cone and toward the edge. If this wasn't true, then mic'ing on the edge would produce woofy bass tones only while the highs would remain at the center. If that were true, I would mic at the mid point to get the best mix. No, all the best mix flows outward. So Beamblockers, and the like are missing the boat.

Enter in the "Mitchell Doughnut". It's not for sale. You make em. He is not going to market them. He recommends covering the whole speaker with a specific density foam while leaving a 3" center hole open. The foam filters the highs till there's very little beam. Take it from a guy who hates beaming ice picks, and wants to hear the same tone...everywhere, on stage and in the audience. Hi, my name is plan-x, and I was a Blocker addict for a couple of years. I was openly using weber's, then I tried a shield(way over the top blocking), then started moonshining my own center blockers. Different sizes, with speaker dust covers. Using wood to rid that annoying metal vibration from webers. Speakers wouldn't mount flush with dem webers either. Center blockers kill a small direct on axis beam, but step a couple of feet off center and Bang! Ice pick returns.

Ok time to separate the men from the boys, the blue Pigs from those insane recto guys. Do you want the same tone, equal all over the room, stage and audience? Then this is your mod. Putting these in a pig is alot of work. Because the foam has to cover the whole speaker. I had to remove the grill and insert them in the frame of the grill. 3/4" thick was a perfect fit, grill frame is also 3/4". Getting the 3" hole in the center of the foam lined up with the voice coil was tricky. And there's only one place that Jay recommends to get this stuff. It has to be a certain material and density to properly filter the highs. It's about $5 a 12"x12" sheet. Anyone who wants to do this, I will be available for tech support.
 
I bought a set of Webers that just arrived today (I'm not the type to build so the Mitchell idea deterred me). For those of you who have put the Webers in, how come it didn't come with the mounting screws? Can I use the pre-existing screws already in the Lonestar's speaker mount? Will I have to be careful about the Web vibrating?
 
Yeah, just use the existing speaker mount screws. What's the web? You mean the steel cross bar? Out of 20-30 users I've communicated with, only one guy complained about the vibration besides me. He taped wrapped some cloth or something around the bar which sounds reasonable to me. So it might not be an issue with you. It only happened at higher volumes for me.
 
plan-x said:
According to Jay Mitchell, (sound engineer) the author and inventor of the "Mitchell doughnut" (link and pic I posted, 2nd post, this thread). While lower frequencies tend to be "omni Present", the higher are not. As stated in that egnator article as well. The problem with center blocking, according to Jay, be it solid or foam, is that there is a misconception that high freqs emanate from the voice coil or center of the speaker. But actually, their waves run out and down the cone and toward the edge. If this wasn't true, then mic'ing on the edge would produce woofy bass tones only while the highs would remain at the center. If that were true, I would mic at the mid point to get the best mix. No, all the best mix flows outward. So Beamblockers, and the like are missing the boat.

Enter in the "Mitchell Doughnut". It's not for sale. You make em. He is not going to market them. He recommends covering the whole speaker with a specific density foam while leaving a 3" center hole open. The foam filters the highs till there's very little beam. Take it from a guy who hates beaming ice picks, and wants to hear the same tone...everywhere, on stage and in the audience. Hi, my name is plan-x, and I was a Blocker addict for a couple of years. I was openly using weber's, then I tried a shield(way over the top blocking), then started moonshining my own center blockers. Different sizes, with speaker dust covers. Using wood to rid that annoying metal vibration from webers. Speakers wouldn't mount flush with dem webers either. Center blockers kill a small direct on axis beam, but step a couple of feet off center and Bang! Ice pick returns.

Ok time to separate the men from the boys, the blue Pigs from those insane recto guys. Do you want the same tone, equal all over the room, stage and audience? Then this is your mod. Putting these in a pig is alot of work. Because the foam has to cover the whole speaker. I had to remove the grill and insert them in the frame of the grill. 3/4" thick was a perfect fit, grill frame is also 3/4". Getting the 3" hole in the center of the foam lined up with the voice coil was tricky. And there's only one place that Jay recommends to get this stuff. It has to be a certain material and density to properly filter the highs. It's about $5 a 12"x12" sheet. Anyone who wants to do this, I will be available for tech support.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I'm not a lonestar owner, but this would pertain to any speaker cab. I may have to do this. I've been using 'fizzy lifters' (an alternative to the beam blockers) and they work OK, but not perfect.
 
I don't know about the technical arguments made by Egnator, but I just installed my Weber Beam blockers this evening and boy am I hearing a difference.

Regarding the point that if the treble came only out of the cone, micing the edge of the speaker would only produce woofy tones misses the point.

What is not disputable is the fact that placing a mic on the edge of the speaker rolls of the highs. It might not sound woofy, but there are certainly less highs. There are more highs as you move the mic towards the center.

I am therefore hearing the Weber disperse the frequencies in a more uniform fashion. I'm hearing less of a change when moving my head down towards the front of the speaker. I anticipate that this will effect the sound of micing the amp for both live and recording situations.

Before, when I played live, to get a balanced tone, I would EQ the amp in such a way that having it sound balanced to a mic, it sounded dull to my ears as I stood above the speaker's throw.
 
BTW, with my new Weber Beam blockers, I have not heard any rattling with my Strat playing SRV type tones. However, I did hear a rattle with my archtop hollow body attempting to play classic jazz tones.

The archtop is woofier. I only heard this rattle when I played certain specific lower notes. I couldn't confirm whether or not the rattle was the Weber or not. It could have even been a resonant frequency rattling another guitar hanging on my wall. I'll have to experiment more and find the source.

But if I were to find it to be the Weber, what is the proposed solution to this?
 
Wrap it (the cross bars and maybe the back also) with tape. Possibly with a cloth or some foam underneath the tape. I haven't actually tried this, I talked to a guy on TGP who did, and he said it worked. Before I heard that solution, I moved on to making my own out of wood to fix that problem.
 

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