Members doezer Posted November 19, 2013 Members Share Posted November 19, 2013 hi y'all.. im still getting inconsistency in sound from gig to gig. some venues great, some not so good... so im trying to put down a list of steps which i know can cover things.. so far i got this. anyone got any other ways of doing it?? 1. set up all inputs and speakers above head height on poles slightly in front of where you perform to avoid feedback.. 2. run the backing track into the mixer and adjust the input gain so its not clipping but its a strong signal.. have the volume fader on these channels to zero though. 3. put master volume to around 0dB or a bit less.. 4. raise volume of backing track channels until it sounds right.. oh an use a good straong bassy upbeat track for this.. adjust the main master EQ till it sounds close to right. e.g. back off the bass eq if its booming.. then tweak the EQ on the actual BT channels after its sounding OK.. 5. then mute the BT channels and move onto the voice. do the same thing with the voice singing or speaking quite strongly into it but making sure it doesnt come near clipping... 6. then raise the volume fader on the voice channel and then unmute the BT channel... change voice fader until voice stands out nicely.. 7. do the same with guitars etc..... but still every now and again the sound is just muddy.. i know rooms and stage types (wooden raised stages for example...) can cause big problems with muddiness.. but man. it shouldnt be that hard! I had a bad one at the weekend and in retrospect, i did all of the above except I rushed step 4... and i think there was an overall bass end that muddied everything up and the sound sucked as a result.. anyone else having lots of fun with sound these days...?! ( d Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TIMKEYS Posted November 19, 2013 Members Share Posted November 19, 2013 doezer wrote: hi y'all.. im still getting inconsistency in sound from gig to gig. some venues great, some not so good... so im trying to put down a list of steps which i know can cover things.. so far i got this. anyone got any other ways of doing it?? 1. set up all inputs and speakers above head height on poles slightly in front of where you perform to avoid feedback.. 2. run the backing track into the mixer and adjust the input gain so its not clipping but its a strong signal.. have the volume fader on these channels to zero though. 3. put master volume to around 0dB or a bit less.. 4. raise volume of backing track channels until it sounds right.. oh an use a good straong bassy upbeat track for this.. adjust the main master EQ till it sounds close to right. e.g. back off the bass eq if its booming.. then tweak the EQ on the actual BT channels after its sounding OK.. 5. then mute the BT channels and move onto the voice. do the same thing with the voice singing or speaking quite strongly into it but making sure it doesnt come near clipping... 6. then raise the volume fader on the voice channel and then unmute the BT channel... change voice fader until voice stands out nicely.. 7. do the same with guitars etc..... but still every now and again the sound is just muddy.. i know rooms and stage types (wooden raised stages for example...) can cause big problems with muddiness.. but man. it shouldnt be that hard! I had a bad one at the weekend and in retrospect, i did all of the above except I rushed step 4... and i think there was an overall bass end that muddied everything up and the sound sucked as a result.. anyone else having lots of fun with sound these days...?! ( d what kind of show and what kind of music? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Notes_Norton Posted November 19, 2013 Members Share Posted November 19, 2013 You might consider a BBE Sonic Maximizer.Here is a layman's explanation of how it works:Any electrical coil resists changes in electrical current direction due to it's inherent inductance. The voice coil in your speakers delays the higher frequencies more than the lower frequencies. This results in the lower frequencies getting to the ears of the listner first.The Sonic Maximizer pre-delays the low frequencies so that the lows and highs are approximately in phase (there is a process knob so you can adjust to your ears). The result, everything sounds brighter without losing any of the punch of the bass.One thing, if you get a Sonic Maximizer, de-EQ everything adjust the Sonic Max and then re-EQ. You will find that you need much less treble and high midrange gain.The Sonic Maximizer gets inserted between your mixer and your power amp (or powered speakers). Two controls, one for process (adjusts the delay) and one for low contour. This makes it possible to boost the bass or cut it back depending on the room acoustics.It is perhaps the best tool I have in my PA rack.Notes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted November 19, 2013 Members Share Posted November 19, 2013 doezer wrote: 1. set up all inputs and speakers above head height on poles slightly in front of where you perform to avoid feedback.. 2. run the backing track into the mixer and adjust the input gain so its not clipping but its a strong signal.. have the volume fader on these channels to zero though. 3. put master volume to around 0dB or a bit less.. 1 ... the larger effect of putting your speakers up above head height is because the high frequencies can easily be blocked by people standing in front of them. If this happens then only the lows get further back in the room.2. On most mixers it wouldn't make any difference where the channel fader is because the distortion is most likely to happen in front of it. You can test this out by turning the fader all the way down and then turning the trim up until you see the clip light fire.3. Where the master volume control is doesn't really mater as much as where the master output (as seen on the meters) is. What you really want is to be pushing yellow lights when you are medium to loud during a song. Of course this also depends on how high you have your speakers or amps turned up (almost everyone has them up too high). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Potts Posted November 19, 2013 Members Share Posted November 19, 2013 I love having Don Boomer around! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bob Dey Posted November 19, 2013 Members Share Posted November 19, 2013 I've put together a few backing tracks that had lower/mid frequencies that were overpowering causing mudiness. The cuprit lately was the fender rhodes patch. Very realistic sounding, but gotta be careful in the lower mid range. I changed the patch to an acoustic piano and it sounded much better.Set everthing at unity gain and only go above or below unity in one place along the chain when adjustments are needed. Low voltage in some venues can also cause distortion. Even bad cords can affect tone. But, I never even do a sound check. I just Set up and start with an instrumental so I can set the mix between guitar and backing tracks, then do a vocal song next. I set speakers slight behind so monitors aren't needed. Never get feedback since I'm not playing that loud, and play electric guitar rather than acoustic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted November 19, 2013 Members Share Posted November 19, 2013 Bob Dey wrote: Set everthing at unity gain and only go above or below unity in one place ... While people treat it like the holy grail ... the term "unity gain" is about meaningless unless you have a fully calibrated system.It's kind of like the term hot or cold. The question is hot or cold compaired to what? So if your system isn't calibrated then you don't know what you are comparing to. The numbers on a mixer don't really mean any specific thing until you do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Shaster Posted November 20, 2013 Members Share Posted November 20, 2013 First of all, if you can't get a consistent sound in a duo or solo then the last piece of gear you need is a sonic maximizer. Start with good gear and a consistent set-up, everything should fall into place after that.Unless you are super loud, you should be able to have your speakers either slightly behind you and/or crossed, so you can hear what is really going on. I've played in some pretty loud duos with a couple on NX55's cranked and still not had feedback problems. OTOH I've heard Bose users get feedback at very low volumes so it all depends. Anyway, most of the duos or solos I see or play in, have their speakers behind YMMV.And why do you need to set up your backing tracks and vocals everytime out, are you using a different PA in every room? I set my backing tracks, guitar, and vocal pretty much the same for every room The FX level might change depending on how live the room is, and the volumes might change, and thus require a little EQ change but really, you seem to be complicating things by reinventing the wheel everytime you play.A benefit to leaving everything the same, is that you can tell if it's the room if it doesn't sound good. Then you can work on correcting the problem (within your systems limitations) and not worry about whether you didn't set things correctly. And frankly most modern mixers are pretty hard to screw up. Worrying about unity gain (see dBoomer's comments) and input trims and all that is fine, but it won't solve a bad mix. You could have the trims down and the fader cranked and probably not notice the less than ideal signal to noise ratio. Mix and EQ and speaker placement and quality of gear and source material are the keys IMHO.So to that end; what is your gear? Is it up to the task? Perhaps some make and model numbers could help us give some specific suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members doezer Posted November 20, 2013 Author Members Share Posted November 20, 2013 hiand thanks all....im using a hk audio sub + sat system thru a behringer 1832fx mixer.ok behringer arent great etc etc but to be honest i dont think its the mixer. my yamaha 01v96 at home is clearer but the basic sound quality is the same.am defo going to try setting teh speakers behind and ditch the monitor. nice idea thanks.the backing tracks i use are mixed fine i am sure its not a problem with them.to be honest i am sure what happened was that i didnt roll off the bass on the master EQ to tame the lower fequencies. i think it was a very boomy room and the bass needed that extra bit of taming. next time im there (assuming we got away with it of course!) i will try to prove it but i reckon if i had of reduced the dB on the master EQ in the 0 to 150Hz range things would have cleaned up a lot. and then the trebles would have had a chance to breathe..some really great tips there folks. especially putting the speakers behind you so you can lose the monitor and hear exactly what they hear.. and cross them aswell so your hearing any stereo effect too. thanks to all!!d Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SLScott86 Posted November 20, 2013 Members Share Posted November 20, 2013 I agree, Steve. But I haven't had backing tracks in the mix either. I like a mid-cut on my guitar, which conveniently opens things up for my voice. I adjust the reverb amount based on the room, but use it sparingly anyway. That's it. BT's would complicate things immensely for me. I do really really really love that "tone" button though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SLScott86 Posted November 20, 2013 Members Share Posted November 20, 2013 That's exactly what the tone button does. Albeit to a very limited number of presets. Thankfully the default one songs perfect to my ears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SLScott86 Posted November 20, 2013 Members Share Posted November 20, 2013 I'm Wrong- it's adaptive based on qualities like proximity effect, not dynamic like a rolling loudness button as you describe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SLScott86 Posted November 21, 2013 Members Share Posted November 21, 2013 Steve, does the GTX use the Roomsense to further shape the tone based on what it's picking up p from the PA? Or is it like the Harmony-G XT that bases it on the incoming signal level? I've been borrowing the G XT ( and REALLY loving it) and am on the fence between going up from there to the GTX or down to the simpler phantom powered mic mechanic. I may end up buying both, but if the GTX further adjusted the tonality using Roomsense that would swing me a little in that direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members steve mac Posted November 21, 2013 Members Share Posted November 21, 2013 The Adaptive Tone algorithm is only for voice signals from the Mic input. It dynamically adjusts EQ, Compression, De-Essing and Gating based on the input signal.RoomSense has no effect.Cheers Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SLScott86 Posted November 21, 2013 Members Share Posted November 21, 2013 What do you mean "or not?" -Seriously, everyone I know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted November 22, 2013 Members Share Posted November 22, 2013 Regular EQ simply applies how ever many dB of boost or cut you dial in to everything that passes through. Dynamic EQ only adds or cuts proportional to certain conditions that you set. So in the case of the BBE process it adds treble boost only to those notes that fall some preset amount below the average level. So some notes ( the more quiet ones that your ears do not hear correctly) will get some treble boost so there isn't as much tonal shift with level. So if you add it to the entire mix it makes it sound clearer. If you add it to only select channels it tends to make them cut through without actually raising the level. I don't have a dog in the fight so I don't care whether anyone likes it or not. Personally I find it valuable and I have never had anyone tell me it made my systems sound anything but better. Some people claim the opposite but I suspect that it is mostly because they don't have it properly setup. It's built in to a lot of commercial recordings where they don't even realize they are listening to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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