Members mstreck Posted August 26, 2012 Members Share Posted August 26, 2012 We use our driverack primarily for a crossover, but I know it can do so much more. We play a variety of rooms and our 31-band FOH EQ gets changed every time. Does it do any good to take the time to pink noise an empty venue and save the settings? I'm sure we couldn't entirely bypass the EQ, but how close will that setting be to what we need the next time we play that same room? Would it minimize tweaking? What has been your experience? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Alan Roberts Posted August 26, 2012 Members Share Posted August 26, 2012 Save the EQ setting once the room has filled and use that next time you play there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jwlussow Posted August 26, 2012 Members Share Posted August 26, 2012 We never pink in the room. Only outdoors away from buildings. That establishes the baseline. We do save presets for each room we play regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members minn12 Posted August 27, 2012 Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 A couple more options to use would be the limiters for protection, and also the ability to delay mains/subs to the backline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wades_keys Posted August 27, 2012 Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 The band I just joined has a drive rack and mike says he RTA's the rooms with it. Once I gig with em I'll let you know more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted August 27, 2012 Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 First ... your Graphic EQ shouldn't need much if any adjustment from room to room unless you are playing in very small rooms (your bedroom). In a decent sized room your speaker will be very close to it's factory spec. It doesn't really change from room to room and most of the things that do change from room to room cannot be fixed with an EQ. Your bet bet is to set up outside and run the autoEQ. Then you have to make some decisions because the driverack tries to make your speaker "perfect". You speaker will never be perfect but the driverack tries to boost the low bass and highest highs well beyond what they are capable of reproducing. You need to pull this back out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WynnD Posted August 27, 2012 Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 My approach is to set the EQ with the speakers faced out of my garage at the door for a non-reflective acoustic situation. Just trying to get the flattest response as a base. In most rooms, that's an improvement over most ear tuned systems. (Not counting my 59 year old hearing.) I rarely move any channel's EQ off of flat. It's not a perfect answer, but it's a pretty workable solution without forcing pink noise on an open club. Now I use my amp stack with 5 different speaker combinations and have set all of these up in the same manner. The HF amp is only setup for frequencies above 2K. For those situations that involve speakers with internal crossovers, I drive them with the mid amp running full range. (And auto-EQ'd after doing that setup.) End result is the same input without regard to the output and no changing connections inside my rack case. Only 2 mid/Horn and 2 sub/horn connections on the output side. (HF horn is always on the +/- 2 speakon connection for its protection.) Though the sub amp could barely fry the mids, it would be pretty obvious before running full power to the setup system. So what I use the DriveRack for is crossover, Auto-EQ, and anti-feedback. (And speaker flexibility, cause you don't need the largest system for the smallest club we play in and the smallest system isn't adequate outdoors.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted August 27, 2012 Author Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 A couple more options to use would be the limiters for protection, and also the ability to delay mains/subs to the backline. I think John set up the limiters. Not sure about the rest, but I'll ask him. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted August 27, 2012 Author Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 The band I just joined has a drive rack and mike says he RTA's the rooms with it. Once I gig with em I'll let you know more. Thank you, sir! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mstreck Posted August 27, 2012 Author Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 My approach is to set the EQ with the speakers faced out of my garage at the door for a non-reflective acoustic situation. Just trying to get the flattest response as a base. In most rooms, that's an improvement over most ear tuned systems. (Not counting my 59 year old hearing.) I rarely move any channel's EQ off of flat. It's not a perfect answer, but it's a pretty workable solution without forcing pink noise on an open club. Now I use my amp stack with 5 different speaker combinations and have set all of these up in the same manner. The HF amp is only setup for frequencies above 2K. For those situations that involve speakers with internal crossovers, I drive them with the mid amp running full range. (And auto-EQ'd after doing that setup.) End result is the same input without regard to the output and no changing connections inside my rack case. Only 2 mid/Horn and 2 sub/horn connections on the output side. (HF horn is always on the +/- 2 speakon connection for its protection.) Though the sub amp could barely fry the mids, it would be pretty obvious before running full power to the setup system. So what I use the DriveRack for is crossover, Auto-EQ, and anti-feedback. (And speaker flexibility, cause you don't need the largest system for the smallest club we play in and the smallest system isn't adequate outdoors.) That's great! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wades_keys Posted August 27, 2012 Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 Good ideas in this thread that I'll keep in mind for gig time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nchangin Posted August 27, 2012 Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 There are a bunch of posts on this in live sound and production re using "auto settings" driverack, did you search over there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tlbonehead Posted August 27, 2012 Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 We never pink in the room. Only outdoors away from buildings. That establishes the baseline. We do save presets for each room we play regularly.that's a great way too flatten out your actual system but it doesn't help much for quirky rooms with hot or dead spots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted August 27, 2012 Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 that's a great way too flatten out your actual system but it doesn't help much for quirky rooms with hot or dead spots. Actually there's not much you can do with an equalizer to affect hot or dead spots. Those things happen because of the geometric layout of the room. A bulldozer helps here;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted August 27, 2012 Members Share Posted August 27, 2012 That's great! Thanks! There's a lot of good driverack threads over in Live Sound. RTAing for individual rooms using pink noise is not really feasible in most venues that are operating during the day. You'll drive out any customers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members modulusman Posted August 28, 2012 Members Share Posted August 28, 2012 I think your best advice was what dboomer gave you. No offense to any other advice in this thread but since he actually helps design musical equipment I'm pretty sure he knows what he is talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mutha Goose Posted August 28, 2012 Members Share Posted August 28, 2012 that's a great way too flatten out your actual system but it doesn't help much for quirky rooms with hot or dead spots. That hammer might sink a nail OK, but it stinks at tightening a nut. Flattenning out your system is one of the reasons to use a DriveRack. For room modes and nulls, speaker placement and traps are the proper tools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wades_keys Posted August 28, 2012 Members Share Posted August 28, 2012 There's a lot of good driverack threads over in Live Sound. RTAing for individual rooms using pink noise is not really feasible in most venues that are operating during the day. You'll drive out any customers. Yeah I was wondering about that. I'll ask mike about that when I see him Saturday, and I'll also point him to the live sound forum. Btw modulusman, the pa is carvin tops and bottoms, drive rack, 3 carvin power amps, 1 p 1200 amp, BBE sonic maximizer and 48 channel carvin board. good sounding rig if a bit heavy. Oh yeah: also a b-ringer (gack) 31 band eq and several sennheiser wireless units as well as some kind of iem system I didnt get a good look at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members modulusman Posted August 28, 2012 Members Share Posted August 28, 2012 Yeah I was wondering about that. I'll ask mike about that when I see him Saturday, and I'll also point him to the live sound forum. Btw modulusman, the pa is carvin tops and bottoms, drive rack, 3 carvin power amps, 1 p 1200 amp, BBE sonic maximizer and 48 channel carvin board. good sounding rig if a bit heavy. Oh yeah: also a b-ringer (gack) 31 band eq and several sennheiser wireless units as well as some kind of iem system I didnt get a good look at. seriously WTF. That must be some ancient {censored}. I'm not sure that Carvin ever made a board that big. if they did it must be old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted August 28, 2012 Members Share Posted August 28, 2012 seriously WTF. That must be some ancient {censored}. I'm not sure that Carvin ever made a board that big. if they did it must be old. They used to make a 40 channel and a 56 channel mixer back in the 90s, I believe. Not sure about a 48 channel. But Carvin makes/made a lot of stuff over the years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members modulusman Posted August 29, 2012 Members Share Posted August 29, 2012 They used to make a 40 channel and a 56 channel mixer back in the 90s, I believe. Not sure about a 48 channel. But Carvin makes/made a lot of stuff over the years. I have a 1987 Carvin catalog. That year the biggest board they had available was 24 channels. I looked at the price and it was $3995.00:eek: You could buy a mixer today for $1000.00 that would have way better feature set and better specs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted August 29, 2012 Members Share Posted August 29, 2012 I have a 1987 Carvin catalog. That year the biggest board they had available was 24 channels. I looked at the price and it was $3995.00:eek: You could buy a mixer today for $1000.00 that would have way better feature set and better specs. Yeah, you can get those old mixers for $300-400 these days. Not sure I'd want to use ANY mixer that was 25 years old though. Saw one of those Carvin 56-channel mixers on eBay awhile back. Guy wanted $5K for it. I don't think anyone bid on it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mutha Goose Posted August 29, 2012 Members Share Posted August 29, 2012 Here's one now...http://tradingpost.sweetwater.com/82293-likenew-carvin-sl-56 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rezrover Posted August 29, 2012 Members Share Posted August 29, 2012 We tried doing the RTA thing but it was a PITA for the people at the bars we played cause there was always someone there. Said "F that" to the RTA and just made sure my crossover was set right and the outputs were set(mains at 0, subs +3) and never had a problem with that. The feedback filters were always set at the factory setting and we never had any feedback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members wades_keys Posted September 1, 2012 Members Share Posted September 1, 2012 They used to make a 40 channel and a 56 channel mixer back in the 90s, I believe. Not sure about a 48 channel. But Carvin makes/made a lot of stuff over the years. It may be a 56. It's a big mofo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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