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I come on this forum thinking that someone has an insight or a question. Then I see that the last post was from about a hundred years ago. Who in their right mind, well, except for me, would keep coming back?C'mon guys, are you *all* type A's, or are you just introverted wannabes? Or isn't there such a thing as "PRO AUDIO"?
For example: What's your opinion or question on live sound EQ, and how to do it well? Jeez, there's gotta be a bazillion bands with PA's out there. Don't you guys give a crap about your sound, or are you all experts?
Follow Ups:
I think alot of people have no idea what pro audio is...
they are so caught up in what is most expensive and what they can show off at home. (or whatever the magazine of the minute says)
I use alot of pro gear at home in my system.
I dedicated the closet in the living room to rack mount all the components and amps and ran all the rest of the wires under the house and where they belonged respectively,
I use a slew of different speakers from apogee to peavey, and even some canton floorstanders, and a couple other floorstanders, regardless, I have about 1800 watts into 8 ohms,
with everything being pro that drives the 2 channel and home theater system in the living room, by a sherwood newcastle R-945 pre outs.
it might not be class "a" tube, with discrete circuitry,
but I guarantee its more accurate in real time than any sound system in the $20-3000 range. (I know I rta'd it)
yeah lets all be leamers and jump off a mountain cause stereophile,
or the absolute sound told me to, rather than a system that actually sounds the same as it would live.
esoteric 30 year olds complaning that they dont like rock and roll or electronic music on their 5 thousand doller amp/preamp, and
quad electrostats,
they dont know. they have no idea.
what a tangeant,
anyways,
real sound engineers are going to know whats up.
you cant expect rack mount components to do the job of everything that "could be done by a human, its time to take away digital,
and make live sound engineers go analog, the best music of the entirety of all generations until the 80's were doing everything analog.
Im a analog freak. if you ask me a eq is a mans best friend in a tricky room or large maybe outdoor space, but take that away from a engineer..... let me hear how it sounds, thats a true test of skill.
Suggestions from a 30 yr. veteran who learned most things from actual experience:There isn't anything useful above 11khz on a dynamic vocal mike like a 58 or 57, so why boost them at the master EQ? There could be a reason. You do this to catch the highs in cymbal overheads (got a condenser?)and turn the highs on the other mic channels down to compensate. Too many sound guys point their cardioid dynamic right at the center of a guitar cabinet speaker. That's the dust cap!! Not much tone there when close-miking. Point at one side of the cone or the other.
Boosting the guitar channel's high eq very much will result in a harsh, brittle sound if the guitarist is using harmonic distortion, and most guitar stomp boxes come with a good deal of "hiss" that make your PA's horns elements deteriorate, and your audiences won't appreciate, and just helps make your power amps oscillate. (A poet, don't 'cha know-it?)
As a bass guitarist for many years, while relying on someone to hook my rig into his snake & PA, I couldn't imagine why he said my bass had an over-ring, or extra resonance. He was close miking with a SM 57, a poor choice, and always neglected to use the low-impedence line out that Fender had thoughtfully built into this amp. No wonder it boomed like that. One cable away from resolution, this went on for years.
If you don't have a 1/3 or 1/2 octave EQ available, you might squeak by (I like a pun now and then too, ;-) ) by using the interactions between adjacent bands of an octave EQ or with even fewer bands, along with the shelving on the channels, etc.
Some rooms, overly reflective, overly small, or poorly laid-out, are going to sound like shit anyhow, pardon my 4 letters; and the best that even the talented can do is to make them sound less like it.
Wooden stages in ballrooms before they had much PA used to deliberately build hollow, resonant floors. The string bassist and drummers loved this; it was like a big wooden amplifier/speaker setup,
with reverb. One place I know used to store the audience chairs below the stage, hundreds of them. But beware when the modern band sets up on one of these; though these venues have become more rare; some, to save their heritage, have been "saved."
They still boom and resound like in the old days although they no longer 'need' to to provide a richer sound. Every footfall near a mic in a place like this will threaten to start a feedback fest anywhere from 80-160 hz, though I believe it begins from an octave lower, or appx. 40hz. The thing to do is to isolate mic stands as best as you are able, and use the subsonic filters you have. If you know the band, you might ask them to change out of their combat boots. What it does to cut the feedback frequencies as an afterthought is to take all the thickness out of the vocals.There is a similar effect that happens when PA bins and other cabinets share the stage with an amplified band. Whenever possible, isolate the mics from the cabs, & even the guitar cabs from the actual stage. Casters=good, stands=good, even resting on the seat of a chair=good.
As a bassist of 25 years or more, I'll reaffirm that there rarely is any useful information below about 42hz, or with a 5-string to about 30hz. just extra work for those in the speaker re-coning business. Exceptions would be a 40" or greater concert bass drum, the last 1/2 octave or so on the piano, which is seldom-utilized, and only sounds good in a fine brand of large grand or a high quality large upright. Tuning pianos for a long while has taught me something after all. 27.5 is correct for a low 'A,' but Boesendorfer Concert grands have another couple below even that.
Here's an interesting shortcut if you lack a pink noise/RTA setup and still want to, or HAVE to do a (virtually) silent soundcheck. I saw this when at a concert by the 'ghost band' of a once-major big band, the original leader long-deceased. Their sound guy showed up so late that the concert had almost begun without him. The small, self-powered mixing board was mainly for their vocalist and pianist. It was capable of emitting a fairly consistent white noise when cranked on the main strip. He did this, then tweaked the room by very briefly running each EQ band up, one at a time, just until he got a squeak or hoot of feedback (triggered by that 'hiss',) determined whether that brief noise rang too long, too short, or about average, and then backed each eq band down by a fixed measure below that stage, say -3 db. When the band started, he was almost dialed in, really. Quick and dirty, but effective when "life" happens.
Under an assumed name
It's more bueno
Well, Bill and Stuart are correct, first it's damn hard not to be surly when, in order to make some kind of living you have to do SR gigs with every possible geek God awful band that has a following and pays. I apologize for my surliness in advance.Made me wish I had the budget for 48 “Dynamic Talent Processors” complete with a talent control going to +11 and a suck control going to -11, These are very hard to come by with “Unattainum” being a prime component.
As Stuart says, identify acoustic qualities of the room, and fix 'em with a good 1/3 octave EQ, assuming you have a “standard mike” and the RTA, but don't stop, make the room sound good, and after all of this remember it will change when people are in it. Nova Productions (Earth Wind & Fire) often took several days to tweak in a venue, and it usually sounded great just about everywhere.
EQ, some is good but more isn't necessarily better, the basic Salan & Key circuit imparts phase shift proportionate to the amount of boost or cut, take a guitar, patch it through your EQ, all sliders @ flat, hit a 12th fret harmonic on the A string and sweep the 360- 700 hz sliders one at a time, WOW, sounds just like a Wha Wha peddle. That's whats happening to everything, spread your house curve across the 0 dB line, if your highest boost is +6dB the maximum cut should be -6dB.
Instrument and vox mikes, there are lots of choices and applications, Shure 57's & 58's are good all around choices but have a unique quality in vocal applications that could make even that petite green eyed redhead sound like she had a hairy chest, EV and AT have some very good quality cost effective mikes, AKG, Senheiser, Beyer, high quality but financially challenging.
If you only have 1 monitor mix use the same model mike for all vocals, remembering the only difference between a lead female vocalist and a terrorist is you can negotiate with the terrorist.
Instruments, how does it sound on stage? Does it sound the same from the stacks? A audio guys responsibility is to re enforce what needs to be there and make what is not suppose to be there go away, the sound system should accurately reproduce what the performers are doing, transparently, adding nothing of itself but the appropriate effects and coherency delays.
Mike placement, depending on the mike and instrument / amp will require some experimentation remember the wash from other sources, common sense things, isolating mike stands from mechanical contact with drum hardware, speaker cabinets, sources of vibration.
When you top mike or cabinet mike a piano remember you will also hear all the clicks popps and squeaks of the action and peddles.
Stage volumes, your always going to fume about this, guitarists (Usually compulsive-obsessive) the real pros usually are good to work with, ones who don't get lucky are sure it's your fault, it couldn't be their fault, Marshalls on 11, 148dB on stage, washing every damn open mike. Under these conditions if you have a good desk with patch facilities phase inversion and sweet limey parametric you have options to clean up your vocal buss and monitors, otherwise fume city.Cro-Magnon drummers “ A 14 X 8 ˝ marching snare is perfect for house gigs “ and “I didn't know you could tune drums” there is nothing worse than having the decay harmonics of an out of or untuned drum kit beating against each other, and the crowd will look at you, this is why “Deadringers” are sold and quackstrap is frequently applied to drumheads, drums are usually tuned in 3rd's or 5th's and are considered melodic percussion.
Frequency & horsepower..Piano low C 27.5hz, bass guitar open E 42 hz, hits ya in the chest kick drum fundamental 62 hz, better pro SR cabinets of my era were effective (3dB down point) from 70 to 50 hz, you needed trick subs more amps..... But there is so little important information down there, but you sure can put all of your power into it leave the 20 & 40 @ 0 or cut, if it's below the cabinet cutoff freq, you can heat up the voice coils but it ant gona help the sound. Vocal sibilance S & T sounds 3.6K, back of the throat rasp 1.2K, MMMMMMM 630-800 hz, low guttural (Chutzpah) 160-430 hz, P Popping 160-250 hz.
I get my hearing checked annually, a laminated graph of my hearing loss is always in my face at every gig, I correct my curves cause if it really sounds right to me, 2/3 of the audience are being sterilized. I'm an old timer now, still do monitors and love every second of it, at the most I only have to keep 20 odd folks happy, long as I get eye contact and a smile my gigs right. Only do some blues/rock, jazz and acoustic acts, really love the horn band.
If every form of compensation ever conceived from the beginning of time until now were totaled and offered to me to do a hip hop gig my denial would still be absolutely no.
It's just who I am, music is made by musicians making their own lix, not sampling other cats lix.Hope I haven't discouraged you, play around with every toy you have, find the effects of EQ on individual instruments where their center freqs, are, learn to identify feedback freqs, and tell the difference between a 4.6 K ring and the smartass playing a wineglass behind you. It's just another challenge in the path of many, just be sure you dig it and the bands, you just do a better job when you dig it.
Good response, chi7! I chuckled all the way through it twice!
NOW we're talking pro sound! Chi7, thanks for all the info and all of the time you obviously spent in writing it! I hope there's a thousand sound guys out there who read it and will start to come forward with more questions and more input.My original post in this thread was intended to stimulate a little more activity in this forum, and I'm glad to see that there's something happening.
All the "bar band" sound guys should be checking into this forum with questions and experiences, not just the big boys. Only through admitting that we don't know everything, and then asking questions, can we improve. I'm expecting to hear better sound more often in the coming months!
I use filters to achieve what would be as close as possible to
a flat response on the FOH as I can getI always use Pink Noise and measurement to get me in the park on
a systemThe human ear is exceptional in hearing freqs and one can fine tune
it a bit if it just sounds funny in a regionFilters being, Parametrics, 1/3 Octave, 2/3 Octave and never Ocatve
because it just dont git to the nitty gritty enoughAnd the most critical regions I believe on any sound system
is the midrange
If the midrange aint right its a dam mess up there :)
Do you EQ to take into consideration the effect a populated hall has? It would suck out a lot of the midrange frequencies and change the bass region doesn't it?
If you're asking that question, you're already ahead of "the curve". (haha, I'm funny.)The answer is yes. The amount of difference depends on the venue. An empty nightclub with a hard floor, hard walls, hard chairs, etc. (beer and booze ends up everywhere) will change a lot when it's filled with people. On the other hand, a concert hall with cushioned seats (especially if they're also upholstered on the underside of the seat), carpeting in some areas, etc. will change less.
But EQ'ing for the house is just the beginning. Balancing the sound of the musicians is another issue. Especially in the nightclub situation, the band often sounds like "boom, cymbal wash, snare crack, distorted guitar" accompanied by unintelligible vocals and some distant horns.
So, please tell me that you don't bring up the range below about 125 Hz to "get more bass". All you're going to do is bottom out the woofers and end up reconing them. Usually, what we're looking for is "punch", not rumble. Punch is more in the range of 125 to 250 Hz. So set the very low end where you want it, and then add punch by bringing up the the overtones.
And on the vocal channels, roll off everything below 150 (unless the main event is a bass singer, in which case, cut it below 125 and don't tell him ;) ) and above 10 KHz. It'll tighten up your sound and reduce the cymbal wash and guitar distortion bleed.
Think "what frequency range does this mic need to pick up?" and chop the rest.
Absolutely and across the spectrum, house gigs with dynamic crowds are the endless tweak, concert venues without a lot of crowd migration are somewhat less challenging but any audio desk, mains or monitors is a jealous lover once you take your eyes off it something will happen requiring all of your attention, right now. Keeps ya on your toes, a good thing cause after your confident in your basic house curve and mix you need to take a walk, see how it sounds everywhere, fix as required and walk again.
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