3 P.A. Questions - Please Advise!

[jaywa]

I'm in a 5-piece cover band that has its own P.A. and runs the house sound from the stage. Here are three things that have been bugging me and/or causing issues within my band.

1) Test/break music on iPod vs. CD. We use an iPod to test the P.A. during set-up, EQ the room etc. Personally i loathe the hyper-compressed, midrangey sound of iPod tracks and think we absolutely should not be using it to test the P.A. and should be using a CD instead. I am trying to tell the other guys in the band that an MPEG file is not a representative mix and we should be using a different format so we don't get our FOH EQ all out of wack. We also use the iPod for our break music. It sounds like crap... OTOH when we get up to play live we sound that much better in comparison so maybe that's OK. Thoughts?

2) Our P.A. is a mish-mash of gear belonging to two guys in the band who have very different ideas regarding room EQ. We have a 31-band EQ we use for the whole mix, i.e., to tune the room. For some reason one of the two guys insists on running that EQ as near to flat as possible regardless of the venue, while the other guy says it should be reset for every room and sometimes makes some pretty extreme setting changes to it which pisses the other guy off. I don't know that much about sound but seems to me you should be varying that EQ based on the room. If it's going to all be set flat most of the time what's the point of having it? Please enlighten me on what my bandmate might be thinking here. These two guys bicker about it at every show and I'm about ready to tell them both to eff themselves and we're going to hire a soundman and then neither of them will have a say about it.

3) We have 4 sub cabinets, each with a single 18-inch driver, that we run two on each side. One guy in the band says that for the best bass efficiency we should stack them in the upright position, the other guy says we should lay them on their sides and stack them that way. Who's right?

Thanks in advance.

 

[David Jayne]

1) Better than nothing. Really should be fine.

2) Should be adjusted for room. As you say, if not, then why have it?

3) Doesn't matter at all.

 

[RustyAxe]

1) Test/break music on iPod vs. CD. We use an iPod to test the P.A. during set-up, EQ the room etc.

No big deal. As long as the sample you play has the full spectrum of sound it'll do fine. Remember, you're EQ'ing the room ... looking for "troublesome" frequencies. The fact that you often sound good once you go live tells you it's OK.

2)We have a 31-band EQ we use for the whole mix, i.e., to tune the room. For some reason one of the two guys insists on running that EQ as near to flat as possible regardless of the venue, while the other guy says it should be reset for every room and sometimes makes some pretty extreme setting changes to it which pisses the other guy off. I don't know that much about sound but seems to me you should be varying that EQ based on the room. If it's going to all be set flat most of the time what's the point of having it? Please enlighten me on what my bandmate might be thinking here. These two guys bicker about it at every show and I'm about ready to tell them both to eff themselves and we're going to hire a soundman and then neither of them will have a say about it.

I always start flat. Then, I cut where required to equalize the freq response in the room. I avoid adding gain this late in the chain, so rarely do I move a slider up. As long as the bass isn't boomy, the mids aren't "honky" and the highs are loud and clear it's done its job. If that means all sliders are left flat, then that's the way it should be. In most rooms, that's the case. In one room I play, the best EQ is a 9db cut on bass, up to "flat" on the highs. Looks like a "/". Whatever works is right. Feedback control is another function of final EQ, and that can look very strange ... sometimes a single slider needs to be cut drastically. Do you guys actually "ring out" the room?

3) We have 4 sub cabinets, each with a single 18-inch driver, that we run two on each side. One guy in the band says that for the best bass efficiency we should stack them in the upright position, the other guy says we should lay them on their sides and stack them that way. Who's right?

Depends on the speakers and the stage. Are they on casters? Are they bottom ported? Does the stage create a problem in one position or the other? Neither orientation is right or wrong.

 

[Zooberwerx]

1) We use Tim's iPhone because its handy and he has it loaded already.

2) Using a DriveRack, RTA mic, and pink noise to set levels venue-to-venue.

3) Cluster your subs together center-stage or to one side.

Riis

 

[topper]

1) I seriously doubt 99.9% of your crowd could tell the difference between CD and MP3. If you're splitting hairs that finely, you must be running some seriously hi-fi live sound.

2) In general I agree that the eq should be set for the room, but I think most folks use graphic EQ primarily as a means to control feedback. In which case you could leave it mostly flat and then only cut problem fqs. But it shouldn't be totally flat all the time.

3) I don't know anything about this. There's a lot of stuff on TB about the advantages of vertical stacking for bass guitar cabs. It could apply to PA subs, but my gut says it wouldn't really matter.

 

[jaywa]

Good suggestions, thanks.

Re our subs, they are bottom ported, no casters and we always put them on the floor in front of the stage, never on the stage itself. The guy who wants to stack them upright says we should have the bottom one upside down so the two ports are right next to each other. When we lay them on their sides we make sure the ports are aligned with each other and on the "outside" of each stack.

Re the EQ, we don't do white noise or anything like that. Just our ears. The problem is that the one guy will set the EQ with certain freqs notched out (usually mids and a low freq or two if there is boom or howl), and then we'll set the house volume to that. Well then if this other guy comes over during break or whatever and sets everything back to flat, then there's more mids and then we get people complaining we're "too loud" even though we haven't turned up at the board at all. As a listener nothing will drive me out of a venue faster than "harsh" or "shrill" vocals so I am especially sensitive to not killing the crowd with midrange.

 

[Zooberwerx]

Re our subs, they are bottom ported, no casters and we always put them on the floor in front of the stage, never on the stage itself. The guy who wants to stack them upright says we should have the bottom one upside down so the two ports are right next to each other. When we lay them on their sides we make sure the ports are aligned with each other and on the "inside" of each stack.

Re the EQ, we don't do white noise or anything like that. Just our ears. The problem is that the one guy will set the EQ with certain freqs notched out (usually mids and a low freq or two if there is boom or howl), and then we'll set the house volume to that. Well then if this other guy comes over during break or whatever and sets everything back to flat, then there's more mids and then we get people complaining we're "too loud" even though we haven't turned up at the board at all. As a listener nothing will drive me out of a venue faster than "harsh" or "shrill" vocals so I am especially sensitive to not killing the crowd with midrange.

Re: sub configuration....interesting! I'm sure somebody-in-the-know can give a better explanation as to whether this really works or should be avoided.

Re: notching EQ freq's. If guy #1 sets a notched EQ response and everybody ('specially the audience!) is fat and happy and guy #2 sets a flat response resulting in a myriad of complaints, I'd go with guy #1.

Riis

 

[Stinsok]

Eq'ing with an iPod is tough. It's also annoying to me to use during breaks because not all the songs play at the same level!

 

[Quadcam]

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
http://www.prosoundweb.com/forums

that should be a huge help

 

[AlembicPlayer]

RE: SUBS

have you tried running the subs cardioid?
three boxes laying flat on the floor center , the middle sub box in the reverse position(facing the band). This will create a cardioid pattern rejecting almost all of the sound from the rear(on stage) and providing more energy to the front.
there's tons of info out there on how to run cardioid subs

 

[groove pump]

Our PA is rather wee and it really only runs our vocals, plus a little kick drum, and sometimes a touch of guitar. Yep, I'm on my own, unless we play a spot with a hefty system and a sound-dude to square us away.

We do the iPod for our breaks, but we don't use it to "set" the PA. Eq-ing is mostly flat to start, but if we're in a bit of an echo chamber, I'll shave the lows on the PA as well as my rig by a little bit to start out.

Sounds like your band has some political issues. I'm thinking that if you can all arrive at some sort of consensus toward the needs of the group, you should all consider hiring a sound man to come to one of your shows and get you squared away with your setup. He could give the two eq mongers in your crew some general guidance on how to best use the gear that you have so that they can be a bit more on the same page, too. That ought to contribute toward a better general show.

We're probably going to do this at one of our next gigs and we don't even have dueling eq pilots!

 

[jaywa]

RE: SUBS

have you tried running the subs cardioid?
three boxes laying flat on the floor center , the middle sub box in the reverse position(facing the band). This will create a cardioid pattern rejecting almost all of the sound from the rear(on stage) and providing more energy to the front.
there's tons of info out there on how to run cardioid subs

This is a great idea... I've never heard of it before but it makes perfect sense. Then do you run the cabs for mids and highs on each side of the stage per a more traditional setup?