I used to always set up flat, but then I'd pretty much end up mirroring the "band" setting in the driverack to make it sound right (bumping the bottom and pulling the 125-250 range).byacey wrote:I think I would forget about the various "tunings" and just set it flat as possible and then adjust it to taste from there. Full response more or less flat will sound good for music and speech.
Good example was yesterday. We've been playing this same venue for about a year now, once a month. I've been running with my driverack set on a flat EQ setting. Haven't ever quite got the bottom dialed in. Music sounded great through the system, but I always felt that the bass guitar was a little muddy.
So, I went a little early and ran the driverack auto-EQ with the "band" setting. I could immediately tell the difference in the low-mids - they were cleaner. The bass guitar was instantly better as the whole bottom end was open and every note was articulated. I didn't make any changes to my overall system EQ - just left it where the driverack set it.
Bottom line is that flat is just usually too lacking in the bottom end. And since the biggest problem with mud is in the low mids - using the "band" curve gets you closer to fixing these two problems before you start tweaking.
I'm pretty much sold now on this setting. I had been using it this summer when I was running my full rig, but was still using the "flat" setting when using only 2 subs....not anymore - I'll be leaving the "flat" behind.....the other one is just that much better and less work.
Anyway, try it both ways and see which one sounds better. Do a flat AutoEQ, save it over to a new preset, the AutoEQ with the band setting. Then while listening, you can go back and forth - listening to both settings. That's what I did, and it was very noticeable.