Overall response flat; or to taste?

EQ guys are using on their cabs/systems. A good starting place if you don't have your own RTA.
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byacey
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Overall response flat; or to taste?

#1 Post by byacey »

I'm just curious how many of you EQ your FOH mains as flat as possible, or do you put a curve in the overall response to suit personal preference?

I'm not asking about the standard smiley face curve. :horse:
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dswpro
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Re: Overall response flat; or to taste?

#2 Post by dswpro »

I start with a flat response. I use my DEQ 2496 to measure that and tweak my system to get close to flat. But I only do that every once in a while and not at each venue. After that I do add some "eq to taste", but not on the DEQ. I use an X32 with a parametric on the mains for most gigs and I usually dip 500 hz -2db since my Otops sound a little boxy. I also dip 4k and 10 slightly to get some of the harshness out of the tweeter arrays. If I need more low end I tend to only boost bass on the channels which contribute to the low end, for example the kick drum, bass guitar, tom toms, music playback, etc. On rare occasions I will notch out a troublesome feedback frequency from the mains, or from an input channel if I have a singer who likes to be way out in front of the house speakers.

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Radian
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Re: Overall response flat; or to taste?

#3 Post by Radian »

I've had good results running as flat as possible on the subs, and using a variation of an X-curve on the mains.
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Bruce Weldy
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Re: Overall response flat; or to taste?

#4 Post by Bruce Weldy »

Every time that I've EQed the bottom end flat, I have to increase the bottom end in the driverack.

Now I leave a bump on the bottom, but try to make sure that the 100-250 area is flat....that's where I seem to have the most problem.

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CoronaOperator
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Re: Overall response flat; or to taste?

#5 Post by CoronaOperator »

I adjust the bass by ear using well known songs, tops I'll eq flat. However, our room is really reflective, so I'll set a high shelving parametric eq at 3.5k, about minus 3-4 dB's to start the night to tame the highs, and as the room fills up and the bodies absorb some of the high frequency energy, I'll slowly flatten that out, then eventually remove the high shelving filter all together. Well, mostly remove it (-0.1 dB's), on the DCX 2496 you can adjust levels on the fly, but if you hit 0 dB's on the filters, there is a small pause in the sound output, very annoying. If I hear any annoying resonances I'll set a steep, high Q bandpass parametric filter, then sweep that like a radio dial to find the annoying frequency, then adjust the level and Q to stop it from ringing. Wash, rinse repeat. YMMV
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Jools4001
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Re: Overall response flat; or to taste?

#6 Post by Jools4001 »

dswpro wrote:I start with a flat response. I use my DEQ 2496 to measure that and tweak my system to get close to flat. But I only do that every once in a while and not at each venue. After that I do add some "eq to taste", but not on the DEQ. I use an X32 with a parametric on the mains for most gigs and I usually dip 500 hz -2db since my Otops sound a little boxy. I also dip 4k and 10 slightly to get some of the harshness out of the tweeter arrays. If I need more low end I tend to only boost bass on the channels which contribute to the low end, for example the kick drum, bass guitar, tom toms, music playback, etc. On rare occasions I will notch out a troublesome feedback frequency from the mains, or from an input channel if I have a singer who likes to be way out in front of the house speakers.
I do almost exactly the same thing, but I'm thinking about taking the DEQ out of the rack and just using it as an RTA setup tool. The reason is that I use the Stereo TrueEQ 32 band GEQ that is available in the FX section of the X32 as an insert on all my output busses, both monitors and mains. That means that on each output channel the signal path goes GEQ > PEQ > Output.

I've used the AutoEQ on the DEQ to RTA each speaker type I'm using in open air, then translated the resultant EQ curve onto the PEQ of whichever X32 output buss I'm going to hang that cab on. This means that to all intents and purposes the system prior to the PEQ will see the cab as flat response. At the venue I use the absolutely fabulous SMAART like spectrograph RTA overlay that you can apply over your EQs and then I use the 32 band Graphic to ring out the monitors. The X32 can do pink noise and sine wave as well, but I don't subject the audience to that (cos there are invariably people already in the pub when we're setting up) so I just nudge the volume on each monitor channel up until it just starts to ring, the spectrograph gives me a little red trace at the frequency(s) that was ringing, so I cut that frequency a little and simply rinse and repeat until all the problem frequencies are suppressed enough...then I take the master level down a couple of db for some headroom.

For the mains, the same thing applies...don't want to pink the room with an audience in it, so I've just started to use a Dave Rat thing of simply playing some reference tunes from the USB stick that the X32 can use as a 'tape' and going back and forth between a set of Beyer Dynamic cans on the monitor output, and the mains and EQ the mains until they subjectively sound the same as the cans.

I haven't done this live yet, only rehearsed it, but it seems to work nicely in our rehearsal space - remember that the PEQ curve I've applied to correct the Jack 12s for a nominally flat response is the last thing the signal sees before it hits the amp and cabs, so the stuff I'm doing on the GEQ is seasoning to taste for the room.
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