using EQ to ring out a sound sytem

[pounce]

since we have lots of soundguys here, perhaps some folks are willing to chime in on the subject of eq for live shows. channelstrip eq, inserted eq into groups, eq related processing on the mains, low cut on the channels, etc. anything related to getting a system tuned up with eq. another discussion about running sound got the subject of low cut introduced, so let's just dig right on in to EQ. there are some general rules i think, but there are some different approaches to EQ from different engineers. maybe discussing how using cuts only eq is more likely to maintain the integrity of the signal than adding gain via eq. or some comparitive applications for a graphic eq over a parametric and vice versa. maybe even getting into how problem frequencies are often harmonically related. room modes, or the use of spectrum analyzers like spectra foo to nail down what's going on in the room. lot's of meaty stuff to gab about. let's have the mother of all live eq threads start here.

so what's your take on eq?

[rockdart]

When I was doing it, I'd use 31 band eq's on the left and right and sound check the room to the Cult's "Electric". The rest I did through the board.

Would have like more gear, but you gotta work with what you have.

[bunnerabb]

I'm basically a 31/2 fan for mains and mons.

If the rig has proprietary controllers like DriveRack and it's sorted, I leave it be.

I have no problem creating completely artificial E.Q. settings for individual channels if it sounds good.

There's a few cats I wish I had some parametric inserts for... but.. you use what you got.

[Statick]

31-band across the mains and all the mons... check using a cd (currently using gravenhursts "fires in distant buildings") AND a vocal mic, i aim to have the vocals sounding about right without any channel EQ. get this right, then channel EQ is rarely needed on anything except for minor tweaks. use mons EQ to kill freqs that like to ring, aside from that they get treated the same.

most rooms have a node or two in the bottom end that absolutely takes off if its a good powerful rig, so i like to find those freqs and kill them in the mains

on existing rigs that i've not set up - if i notice i'm using the same/similar channel EQ settings, i'll bring that up on the mains instead.

[dumbass]

31/2's here as well...

Drive racks in the A rig w/KT wireless, and B rigs' loaded w/Protea and KT's. In the two C's; KT and dbx in the monitors.

Generally in the big venue's I start off with a small dump at 50-60 just to start off tightened up. I FUCKING HATE 3-4K bite!... so if I've got horn drivers, I slip 3db out right off the bat. Then it's tweak the mids and balance the LF.

I've been using a couple of things for checking lately... CAPE IV and Blood Sweat and Tears Greatest. If the horns sound right... it IS right.

I try not to pull out any more than I have to... on anything... but they put the fucking knob on there for a reason, right?

[bunnerabb]

I never got the whole checking with a CD thing... compressed and mastered audio Vs. whatever the fuck is gonna happen with this band.

I ring and E.Q> using my ears and the general footprint of the room and NEVER go near somebody elses record.

YMMV

[dwoz]

I used to ring out monitors so you could get 115db in your face, then point the mic down the barrel of the monitor horn and not hear a thing.

Sounded perfectly natural too.

EQing the mains is problematic...you can get it sounding great with empty seats, then when it all fills up with bodies, you're in a completely different room. Better to just take care of the WORST of the room's boogiemen, and leave it at that.

dwoz

[dumbass]

I never got the whole checking with a CD thing... compressed and mastered audio Vs. whatever the fuck is gonna happen with this band.

I ring and E.Q> using my ears and the general footprint of the room and NEVER go near somebody elses record.

YMMV

Don't get me wrong... I throw the CD's on just to do a quick verify/rough in before anyone's really on the stage...

You need to verify the cab's/cabling and amps are wired, working and in phase. Of you hear a node that's really hot, or sucked out... do a rough-in adjustment...

I'll do a short crank up... maybe tweek a touch, turn it down, grab a mic and check a strip for vox eq and then wait for monitor land to finish with ringing/spreading it around... but what I have found is that if a CD with horns (good horns) sounds right, then it generally is right on the money... for me anyway.

As always... YMMV as well:Thumbsup:

[bunnerabb]

The mains are always open to change.

Thing is, I leared to fudge curves on mains and channels almost seamlessly on the fly.

The monitors have to be etched in stone.

[bunnerabb]

No, don't think I don't respect it, I just check every rig in every room with a 57 and my voice and I NEVER lose track of where I started.

[burnsy]

Being quite new I shoved a behringer ultragraph and measurement mic into my room and eq'd it via pink noise. At the moment im in the process of learning ringing out my monitors but I dont do to much to an empty room as you will just be fighting a losing battle in the room I engineer in untill people get in.

[pounce]

ok, i want to kick start this thread a little.

when thinking of a sound system, it's necessary to consider all of the elements that effect the sound. that means the sound source, the sound reinforcement gear from the mics to the amps to the speakers, all the way to the room and the placement of things in that room. the interaction between all of these elements encompasses the whole system.

an eq is an equilizer, which is generally used to add gain or attenuation to specific frequencies tailoring the response of the sound system so that it is more flat/neutral and to reduce the impact of the room and characteristics of the sound gear itself (including the limitations of the sound gear). in a perfect theoretical system, pink noise run through a sound system would scope as as equal at all frequencies throught the actual live sound system in the room. rarely does this happen just out of the box, usually eq is used to adjust frequencies to get a more even response. rooms themselves tend to have modes, frequencies that are amplified much more than others, based on the size, shape, and materials in that room. room modes are unique to each room, and sound systems and their placement can avoid or utilize such modes. typically, an eq is used to tame room modes and even out the response of the sound gear within that space.

an eq is like a volume control that is frequencey specific. most sound guys prefer to cut problem frequencies instead of simply continually boosting other frequencies. when something is a little "muddy", cutting some 200 instead of boosting 4k usually works out better for a lot of reasons. boosting frequencies often adversely affects the phase of the signal, whereas cutting a bit tends to be kinder to the source audio. also, adding a ton of eq gain eventually throws the whole gain staging out of whack. i'm amongst those who stick with the old tried and true approach of cuts as opposed to boost. eq can balance out a room, add color or tone to a signal, or be used to eliminate feedback by attenuating the trouble frequencies.

troublesome frequencies are usually harmonically related. so it you are having trouble with 200, you might be having issues with 400 and 800 too. in practice, i find that cutting three or four harmonically related frequencies almost always does the trick. after that, you can run clean and loud and not have gain staging or feedback considerations.

i often bring a powerbook with spectra foo loaded up with me to rooms i dont' know. a frequency analizer is a cool tool to have around and i'm in favor of anything that helps you get running faster. i do use a soundcheck cd (or my ipod) as well. i have a few songs that help me to get familiar with a system and a room quickly. also, the more you use the same soundcheck songs the better those songs become as a reference for you. i still use some madonna ray of light tracks to check the low end, and i use some dixie chicks to check the high end on a system. also, i have some great purist jazz stuff to find out what really unprocessed acoustic instruments sound like on the system. speaking of which, just talking from foh onto a 58 is another great test. i know what my voice sounds like, so that helps me determine what the system is doing when you talk through it. this is a great way to check a system and since i'm often using 58's as vocal mics this reference works real well.

i like to get monitor mixes set up first, before getting too worried about a foh mix. i want the band to hear themselves and be happy and comfortable with things onstage. that is an important goal and should never be forgotten, even in the middle of a techie thread. that said, eq'ing and gain staging for the wedges is critical, and this is where you'll be setting the overall stage volume level. in the drum set, you'll have lots of mics close together and you'll have to pay a lot of attention to their placement, gain staging, and eq. in this case, lots of low cut might be in order. more on that later. in the meantime, notching out the frequencies that want to take off in the monitors is one of the first things to take care of and have taken care of early. the sooner things sound good for the band the better. and the sooner we eliminate the possibility of feedback the better. i do like to make it loud and tweak out the problem frequencies. if possible, a monitor mixing rig with seperate graphic eq's for each mix is ideal. the monitor mix guy has a cue wedge to hear each mix, and can dial in and eq mixes faster with that than any other way. you have to know your band with respect to how loud do they need to be, and how will they move around near the wedges or sidefills. some rock acts hang all over the wedges and like it loud and you have to accomodate that.

at foh, things are relatively simple compared to monitor world. at monitor world, the cuts -may- be more severe as the mics and speaker wedges will be closer together and things on deck are a little more chaotic. in the house, you only have one mix to worry about. assuming the stage monitors are tweaked so that everything is a good volume and there is no feedback, we can focus on a foh mix.

in a foh mix, most channels might be getting a low cut on the eq. kick drum, bass, and keyboards probably don't get low cut, pretty much everything else does (not a hard and fast rule, but a practical generality like all of the other comments in this post). i like to send things to logical groups on the mixer. for instance, all bgv or maybe even all vocals might get the same eq and compression. at foh you might not have a seperate compressor and eq for every single thing, and that would probably be unecessary anyway. i like to insert an eq and compressor into subgroups because i can work quickly that way. i insert both with the eq FIRST feeding the compressor SECOND. that way any frequencies cut out are not triggering the compressor more and everything is nice, tight, and controlled. the gtr and vox might get low cut and even have some of the highs rolled off. you have to play that by ear. same rules in studio mixing and live mixing, you want everything to have it's own "space". thinking in 3D while mixing helps me, and making sure everything has it's own space in the mix is something that eq can help with.

related to eq, feeding subwoofers from an aux is my preference and you can add more "ass" into the kick, bass, and keys by sending them to the subwoofer. there is no real need to send other elements to the subwoofers (other than video feeds or cd's). how about a home grown de-esser? an available eq and compressor (with a sidechain input) you can make a de-esser. insert the compressor only on the channel or group that you want to de-ess. feed the eq via an aux send, and in the eq boost the hell out of 10k or 12k or wherever you are getting the sibilance. send the eq's output to the compressor sidechain input. this will now trigger the compressor at whatever ratio you choose on the compressor thereby getting you a de-esser.

while i think the subject of sound system tuning is more complicated than this post can get into (i could do it more easily than i could type it all out!), use of eq is something that gets comfortable even kind of instinctive over time. one of the best things about live sound experience is being able to identify frequencies. calling frequencies quick is great, and that along with a decent eq (klark technic, bss, white, etc.) means you can get down to business. while i unfailingly recommend using only as much eq as is necessary, eq is a fun usable tool for getting the sound right. nobody should be afraid to get in there and get their hands on the eq. otoh, if you are cranking on the eq a whole lot you are probably screwing up your phase and gain staging, and perhaps other mic choices or other fixes are in order. eq is the first thing that less experienced folks totally screw up in sound systems. i've gone to things like church installs where a couple of graphic eq's were the cause of all of thier problems - they were given enough rope to hang themselves. otoh, a little eq to tune a system, compensate for room modes, and some low cut to clean it up can get you a nice clean sound real quick.

[Jason Phair]

How much time do I have?

[JRjr]

ok, i want to kick start this thread a little.

when thinking of a sound system, it's necessary to consider all of the elements that effect the sound. that means the sound source, the sound reinforcement gear from the mics to the amps to the speakers, all the way to the room and the placement of things in that room. the interaction between all of these elements encompasses the whole system.

an eq is an equilizer, which is generally used to add gain or attenuation to specific frequencies tailoring the response of the sound system so that it is more flat/neutral and to reduce the impact of the room and characteristics of the sound gear itself (including the limitations of the sound gear). in a perfect theoretical system, pink noise run through a sound system would scope as as equal at all frequencies throught the actual live sound system in the room. rarely does this happen just out of the box, usually eq is used to adjust frequencies to get a more even response. rooms themselves tend to have modes, frequencies that are amplified much more than others, based on the size, shape, and materials in that room. room modes are unique to each room, and sound systems and their placement can avoid or utilize such modes. typically, an eq is used to tame room modes and even out the response of the sound gear within that space.

an eq is like a volume control that is frequencey specific. most sound guys prefer to cut problem frequencies instead of simply continually boosting other frequencies. when something is a little "muddy", cutting some 200 instead of boosting 4k usually works out better for a lot of reasons. boosting frequencies often adversely affects the phase of the signal, whereas cutting a bit tends to be kinder to the source audio. also, adding a ton of eq gain eventually throws the whole gain staging out of whack. i'm amongst those who stick with the old tried and true approach of cuts as opposed to boost. eq can balance out a room, add color or tone to a signal, or be used to eliminate feedback by attenuating the trouble frequencies.

troublesome frequencies are usually harmonically related. so it you are having trouble with 200, you might be having issues with 400 and 800 too. in practice, i find that cutting three or four harmonically related frequencies almost always does the trick. after that, you can run clean and loud and not have gain staging or feedback considerations.

i often bring a powerbook with spectra foo loaded up with me to rooms i dont' know. a frequency analizer is a cool tool to have around and i'm in favor of anything that helps you get running faster. i do use a soundcheck cd (or my ipod) as well. i have a few songs that help me to get familiar with a system and a room quickly. also, the more you use the same soundcheck songs the better those songs become as a reference for you. i still use some madonna ray of light tracks to check the low end, and i use some dixie chicks to check the high end on a system. also, i have some great purist jazz stuff to find out what really unprocessed acoustic instruments sound like on the system. speaking of which, just talking from foh onto a 58 is another great test. i know what my voice sounds like, so that helps me determine what the system is doing when you talk through it. this is a great way to check a system and since i'm often using 58's as vocal mics this reference works real well.

i like to get monitor mixes set up first, before getting too worried about a foh mix. i want the band to hear themselves and be happy and comfortable with things onstage. that is an important goal and should never be forgotten, even in the middle of a techie thread. that said, eq'ing and gain staging for the wedges is critical, and this is where you'll be setting the overall stage volume level. in the drum set, you'll have lots of mics close together and you'll have to pay a lot of attention to their placement, gain staging, and eq. in this case, lots of low cut might be in order. more on that later. in the meantime, notching out the frequencies that want to take off in the monitors is one of the first things to take care of and have taken care of early. the sooner things sound good for the band the better. and the sooner we eliminate the possibility of feedback the better. i do like to make it loud and tweak out the problem frequencies. if possible, a monitor mixing rig with seperate graphic eq's for each mix is ideal. the monitor mix guy has a cue wedge to hear each mix, and can dial in and eq mixes faster with that than any other way. you have to know your band with respect to how loud do they need to be, and how will they move around near the wedges or sidefills. some rock acts hang all over the wedges and like it loud and you have to accomodate that.

at foh, things are relatively simple compared to monitor world. at monitor world, the cuts -may- be more severe as the mics and speaker wedges will be closer together and things on deck are a little more chaotic. in the house, you only have one mix to worry about. assuming the stage monitors are tweaked so that everything is a good volume and there is no feedback, we can focus on a foh mix.

in a foh mix, most channels might be getting a low cut on the eq. kick drum, bass, and keyboards probably don't get low cut, pretty much everything else does (not a hard and fast rule, but a practical generality like all of the other comments in this post). i like to send things to logical groups on the mixer. for instance, all bgv or maybe even all vocals might get the same eq and compression. at foh you might not have a seperate compressor and eq for every single thing, and that would probably be unecessary anyway. i like to insert an eq and compressor into subgroups because i can work quickly that way. i insert both with the eq FIRST feeding the compressor SECOND. that way any frequencies cut out are not triggering the compressor more and everything is nice, tight, and controlled. the gtr and vox might get low cut and even have some of the highs rolled off. you have to play that by ear. same rules in studio mixing and live mixing, you want everything to have it's own "space". thinking in 3D while mixing helps me, and making sure everything has it's own space in the mix is something that eq can help with.

related to eq, feeding subwoofers from an aux is my preference and you can add more "ass" into the kick, bass, and keys by sending them to the subwoofer. there is no real need to send other elements to the subwoofers (other than video feeds or cd's). how about a home grown de-esser? an available eq and compressor (with a sidechain input) you can make a de-esser. insert the compressor only on the channel or group that you want to de-ess. feed the eq via an aux send, and in the eq boost the hell out of 10k or 12k or wherever you are getting the sibilance. send the eq's output to the compressor sidechain input. this will now trigger the compressor at whatever ratio you choose on the compressor thereby getting you a de-esser.

while i think the subject of sound system tuning is more complicated than this post can get into (i could do it more easily than i could type it all out!), use of eq is something that gets comfortable even kind of instinctive over time. one of the best things about live sound experience is being able to identify frequencies. calling frequencies quick is great, and that along with a decent eq (klark technic, bss, white, etc.) means you can get down to business. while i unfailingly recommend using only as much eq as is necessary, eq is a fun usable tool for getting the sound right. nobody should be afraid to get in there and get their hands on the eq. otoh, if you are cranking on the eq a whole lot you are probably screwing up your phase and gain staging, and perhaps other mic choices or other fixes are in order. eq is the first thing that less experienced folks totally screw up in sound systems. i've gone to things like church installs where a couple of graphic eq's were the cause of all of thier problems - they were given enough rope to hang themselves. otoh, a little eq to tune a system, compensate for room modes, and some low cut to clean it up can get you a nice clean sound real quick.

nicely put...thank you:Thumbsup:

[Jason Phair]

thinking in 3D while mixing helps me


If you can't SEE the mix, then it isn't that good. You may be able to hear everything okay, but it isn't a good fucking mix.

[rockdart]

I always used the reference CD rather than my voice, for fear that the resonance inside my head may skew what I was listening for in the room.

I normally always cut... except in those areas to color the room.

Having the same PA for a decent amount is really huge too - different cabinets bring different responses, different power amps will color the sound different too... duh.

Curious... 2, 3 or 4 way stereo is all y'alls preference? 4 Way dialed in was my preference, but 3 way was a lot easier. Using 'superstition' cross-over points that a lot of people I saw do never accounted for the response of the gear... and they suffered for it whether they new it or not - and mostly not.

[AxeSlash]

This could turn into a thread of Slippy-esque proportions.

Seriously, where the hell does one start?

I think I'll bang on about mics first.

At the end of the day, if you've got monitors on stage, or are in a small room, feedback is something you gotta worry about. One of the major things that determines the likelihood of your ass getting feedback is a) the mic you're using and b) where the hell it is.

If you've got a cheap radio shack piece of cack sat a coupla feet in front of the mains and you're doing a loud show, you may as well quit now.

Mic pickup patterns are important as well, they're not the most important thing on the block, but well worth bearing in mind. In my experience, keep omni mics well the fuck out of the mons or you'll be EQing your ass off. Hypercardioid mics can be useful, but be a bit careful of that tail coming off the ass end of them, it can catch you off guard sometimes. For this reason, some guys like to use a hypercardioid mic (e.g. a Beta 87) with pairs of wedges (sit the tail between them), and cardoid mics with single wedges (so the tail doesn't sit on the wedge).

Damn, offtopic already.

EQ EQ EQ...I'm an XTA kinda guy for FOH. If I can get the house sounding nice with a decent parametric EQ, I'll more often than not hit the bypass on the graphic and let anyone else who's gonna be at FOH play with that for their own amusement. When you're trying to EQ out some narrow ass shit that sits between two bands of a graphic, it's not necessarily the most efficent option. All of our stuff tends to have at least a graphic and a coupla bands of parametric on the mains, plus whatever system processing is available for that particular system.

Monitors is a different game. Yeah, it's nice to have the mons sounding great, but at the end of the day if you have to whip some massive chunks of shit out of it so that you can deafen the (already deaf) guy who's holding the mic some more, so be it. At the end of the day they don't care if it sounds great if they can't hear it, and that's what you have to bear in mind. How many band guys come up to you and tell you there's a hole at X frequency in your wedges? How many just shout that they can't hear something? All of our rigs have a 31band graphic across each send, although if we have to drop some, in ears and sidefills are usually the first to go.

In terms of what to actually do with EQ...it's a game that you have to learn. You have to spend time with a graphic, and either some pink noise or a tone generator to be able to teach yourself what each band of that graphic sounds like.

For those who are COMPLETELY new to the fun and games we call EQ, generally speaking I think most people use EQ to knock out feedback frequencies on the mons - i.e. you hear feedback that sounds like a 1Khz tone, you pull down the 1KHz fader on the graphic EQ until it goes away. That's simplified, but that's the gist of it. For FOH it's more for knocking out stuff which makes the system sound crap. E.g. if there's a prevalent "whistling" sound, it could be that there's a narrow peak somewhere in your system that needs knocking out. If the whole thing sounds really harsh, you probably need to whip a wide chunk of high mid out of the system.

Analysers...oooo boy.

Smaartlive is what we use most of the time. We've got a KT DN60 as well, but it blows goats in real terms. Smaartlive's good because it shows you what you're sending out as well as what's coming in - i.e. you can then EQ your system to put out exactly what you put in (which almost no system on the planet will do straight out of the truck). There's a good post on PSW somewhere about how to use Smaartlive - there's a bit more to it than just "plug in mic and EQ til it's flat".

And of course then you have to bear in mind whether you actually WANT a flat response. I can tell you now that if you're doing a Prodigy gig and you EQ the system to be flat 20-20 you're in for a roasting. Most punters like the disco smile, and almost everyone seems to like shedloads more sub than anything else. Same goes for other parts of the frequency range, ya need to EQ for the STYLE of gig you're doing, not just for the room and the system.

And then of course it all changes when a room full of sweaty punters fill up the floor...but hopefully by that point you've at least got to the stage where compensating for that isn't so much of a big issue, and your ears can do the rest.

Don't rely on your analyser to do all the work for you. In fact it can be a hell of a lot easier to just EQ the system to sound good to your ears and worry about analysing it after that.

Something a lot of newbies don't get: INSERT YOUR WEDGE EQ. That way when you audition someone's mix in your listen wedge, you get to hear their EQ as well.

Oh and at the risk of blundering wildly offtopic, getting back to the feedback issues, think of your gain control as a control for the size of the mic's pickup pattern. The further up you turn that gain control, the more shit that mic is gonna pickup...the more wedges, FOH mix etc...therefore it makes sense to keep gains low and faders at unity on a monitor desk where possible.

Negative/positive EQ...well, IMO it's horses for courses. At FOH, I'm inclined to say "do whatever the hell makes it sound good". At mons, positive EQ can be bad news. In terms of system EQ I almost always go negative unless it's really wideband stuff. For channel EQ, in mon world it's almost always negative and FOH it'll be whatever the hell works.

It's rare that I insert EQ over a group unless we've got a coupla lectern mics or lapel mics on stage or something, in which case it can be very handy to have a KT DN410 that you can just slap over them all (assuming that they are all identical mics) and forget about.

On the subject of those "sod all coming in, need lots out" type situations like lapels and lecterns, the other thing to think about is what the FOH boxes are doing. If you've got a wall of forward facing dual 18" subs sat right next to your lectern you're in for some fun and games. If they're horn loaded it might not be as bad. If there's no subs at all you can bet it will be a lot easier.

On a similar, interesting note: for those who play with line arrays regularly, we discovered an interesting side effect to take into consideration with lectern mics and crap like that. If you've got the thing ground stacked and are curving it backwards so that it points up (e.g. to some balconies), there can sometimes be a lobe that comes off the centre of the curve that can do horrible things if it's going directly into a mic...

That'll be me blundering off topic then. Oh well.

Make of that what you will, it's probably all bollocks.

[archtop]

Personally I've found that a rig usually sounds best with it's main graphic left flat, with a couple minor dips allowed for troubled times, but with no trouble present, FLAT.

If it's blistering loud and needs to be loud, I might dip some
of our sensitive friends that live in the 2 -5k region, because as a sound guy/gal, your responsible for others hearing damage, take it seriously. I call it my wince guage, if something makes me wince, action needs takin', bring the whole mix down.

If your needing to make crazy curves to get your mains to feel right, maybe what you need to do is, set the curve back flat and go to the crossover and make adjustments there.

'Cause a rig should sound natural with a 58 and your voice and the E.Q.'s flat.

I have a motto.

FLAT IS WHERE IT'S AT.


Even with moniters.

I've had the luxury of having a house gig for a long time, and have had guest engineers tweak the fuck outta the monitor E.Q.'s, and the nobody can hear themselves right, and bouts of feedback happen frequently

When it's my turn to mix after them, I set the monitor E.Q.
back to flat, and people can hear themselves with ripping volume, and there is NO feedback.

Monitors are not supposed to sound pretty. They need to cut through.

A thunder mix with blazing clear vocals that don't hurt is
a good feeling.

[bunnerabb]

I call it my wince guage, if something makes me wince

I call those brain darts.

And if there wasn't a huge 125 to 500 ball of g0o in my house, I'd love to run flat.

It's a luxury I seldom get.

[AxeSlash]

Personally I've found that a rig usually sounds best with it's main graphic left flat, with a couple minor dips allowed for troubled times, but with no trouble present, FLAT.

If it's blistering loud and needs to be loud, I might dip some
of our sensitive friends that live in the 2 -5k region, because as a sound guy/gal, your responsible for others hearing damage, take it seriously. I call it my wince guage, if something makes me wince, action needs takin', bring the whole mix down.

If your needing to make crazy curves to get your mains to feel right, maybe what you need to do is, set the curve back flat and go to the crossover and make adjustments there.

'Cause a rig should sound natural with a 58 and your voice and the E.Q.'s flat.

I have a motto.

FLAT IS WHERE IT'S AT.


Even with moniters.

I've had the luxury of having a house gig for a long time, and have had guest engineers tweak the fuck outta the monitor E.Q.'s, and the nobody can hear themselves right, and bouts of feedback happen frequently

When it's my turn to mix after them, I set the monitor E.Q.
back to flat, and people can hear themselves with ripping volume, and there is NO feedback.

Monitors are not supposed to sound pretty. They need to cut through.

A thunder mix with blazing clear vocals that don't hurt is
a good feeling.

Agreed.

And something I forgot to mention: if you're cutting a hell of a lot of those 31 faders, you're not EQing. You're reducing gain.

Rule of thumb for monitors: knock out the 3 or 4 "hot" spots, and try and leave it at that. If you've got 15 of those faders at -6dB, you can bet that your monitors will be quieter than gnat's fart at 50 paces. You may find that by that time you've actually effectively lowered the output of the monitor and left PEAKS in there.

Having said all of that, I have been at festivals where we've had the same monitors and same mics set out for a number of different bands, and each monitor engineer has EQ'd the wedges differently...

[macfeedback]

Before discussing Eq one needs a discussion on gain.

[pounce]

Before discussing Eq one needs a discussion on gain.

well, go ahead and start the topic mac! i was just tossing stuff out there in no particular order. yes, a thread about gain structure is a good idea.

[macfeedback]

Hey Paul, did I say gain

I meant pain

They often mean the same thing.

[ggunn]

I used to ring out monitors so you could get 115db in your face, then point the mic down the barrel of the monitor horn and not hear a thing.


Last time I did that, I couldn't hear a thing for a while, either... ;^)

[pounce]

around here they still call that "blessing" the wedges as the guy on deck (usually the a2) will be talking into the mic, calling out the frequencies to be pulled down, and then kind of waving the mic at the wedges like he is blessing it to see if there is any other feedback wankery. folks can be plenty loud on deck after that process. it's not my everyday routine, but i've seen it done often.

[AxeSlash]

We tend to just start with a hand on a 58, open palm, then gradually cup the palm until either a) the mic is covered or b) it squeaks.

Then maybe we wave it around for good measure.

Then erect a 6' high steel fence around all the monitors so the talent can't get closer than 4'.

Works every time.

[Jason Phair]

We tend to just start with a hand on a 58, open palm, then gradually cup the palm until either a) the mic is covered or b) it squeaks.


Works every time.



Oh how I hate people like you.

[Jason Phair]

around here they still call that "blessing" the wedges as the guy on deck (usually the a2) will be talking into the mic, calling out the frequencies to be pulled down, and then kind of waving the mic at the wedges like he is blessing it to see if there is any other feedback wankery. folks can be plenty loud on deck after that process. it's not my everyday routine, but i've seen it done often.


More like "exorcising" than blessing, and just as much bullshit.

[CaptainHook]

I never got the whole checking with a CD thing... compressed and mastered audio Vs. whatever the fuck is gonna happen with this band.

I ring and E.Q> using my ears and the general footprint of the room and NEVER go near somebody elses record.

YMMV

Chimming in a tad late, but ditto to this.
Adjust slightly with people in the room but general dont have to
having done it that way so much now.

Sometimes my voice coming down the FOH as well but only
really to make sure i've done good for the vocals, which is
basically my main concern in live sound.

Find most live mixers around these parts to bury the vocals.
What the hell?