Ideal EQ Curve for Wedge Monitors

[bgavin]

Is there an 'ideal' EQ curve for wedge monitors?
Something that provides maximum intelligibility while minimizing HF signal?

[Ron K]

That's a rather vague question. Intelligibility is in different frequency ranges for different instruments and voices.If you are referring to voice then I'd say mid frequencies 500-2K provide most of the vocal intelligibility range but without the next octave up they will sound lifeless.

The range between 500-5K is where the human vocal has it's intelligibility and presence.One without the other wont sound very good IMHO.

I prefer my wedges to be mostly flat up through the vocal ranges with a little air on top to help cut through the clutter. Below 100 Hz is almost a non factor on stages where there is plenty of PA low frequency support.I use a 6 db per octave roll off below 125 hz and HPF at 42Hz to keep the cones from running out of room.I also LPF @14K to keep the compression drivers from seeing any thing up that high.I find that upper octave to be totally useless on the stage (10-20K).

Mostly I like to keep a full sound in the wedges and both Male and Female never seam to complain.Little presence boost around 3-6K if needed.I almost never try for maximum gain unless I know ahead of time the band is going to have ear bleeding stage volumes.I'll ring wedges out for max gain but I dont run them at those levels unless it's an absolute necessity.

From my experiences overly loud wedges are not always very good sounding.Medium to high volume and a full sound is always better.I do find most of this to be subjective however and may not be correct for every application.In short different bands , different rooms can mean far different settings.The above approach does seam however to fit more of the acts I work with. Your situation may differ.

[bgavin]

My question is for voice only.

I'm doing a lot of various bands over 4 straight days, so individual adjustment is out.
Most are back-to-back kiddie bands.
Wedges are modest 1x10+H types.

[Sydney]

Unofficially with voice from 80 Hz to 1100 Hz ( E2 to C6 ); I'm assuming that "kiddie band" vocals are in upper register.
Like Ron K I normally remove all below 100Hz, Many times I can pull down a lot below 200 - 250Hz, especially if several mikes are going to be always open ( ie no gain riding or line muting is to be expected ) so cumulative gain is up.
There can be ( depending of course on the acoustics of the stage ) a lot of energy in the 250 and lower range anyway, and having a monitor added to it can boom and mud more.
In many cases, monitors have too much driver in too small a box for good bass, so I don't try to push bass. In fact if all other sound sources were removed the monitors mixes would tend to sound lean and dry. When the other instruments and FOH is up; that fills and fatten the stage sound.

BTW: How many vocal mics? and how many separate monitor mixes?

[Ron K]

Ahh I C now. Roll off the lows 125 and below and the highs 14K and up.Look to make cuts between 250 and 800 and possibly 5K to keep the feedback under control.Too much low mids will mud up vocals pretty bad.Bring up levels until you need to notch for feedback.Generally like Syd says the lows will become overwhelming in a multi wedge mix and keeping that bottom junk out will help immensely maintain intelligibility.It may not sound very good as a single vocal without music but the singers in "war" situations should be able to hear them fine enough to stay in key.

If you have low cuts on the strips I would employ these right out of the chute on all vocal channels.

These situations are probably the hardest to mix so I wouldn't get too wrapped up in trying to make everything pristine.

[Sydney]

Probably too many variables* to give anything other than approaches to scenarios...
Qualities of the monitors, Outdoors setting vs indoors,
Number and type of open mics; the distance between them, and other mics, and sound sources and reflective boundaries.
Though this is a speaker forum, a lot of analysis of comb filtering can be found in places other than speaker books; Microphone books for example.
Comb filtering between multiple mikes has been an.issue since the earliest use - recording soundtracks in movies; long before stereo recording.
On a stage now can be found many mics and monitors and sound sources, close enough that every mic has bleed, and plenty of constructive and destructive interference
Not enough room to practice 1:5 spacing.
( Unless you are on a big stage; they often have a separate monitor mix operator anyway. )

BTW: If you use headphones and solo mic channels, you can hear the amount of "other stuff".
When you punch up 2 seperate mic lines to sum in the phones, you can hear the combing, more dramatically as a sound source moves, getting closer and further from 1 mic to another.

On a related note:
Mackie Compact Mixers By Rudy Trubitt p211
"Why more mics don't sound better"
( IMHO A handy little book )

* From Chapter 13 - Mixing Ideas ( p 210 )
"No book can give you a cookbook solution to getting a good mix - not only are there too many variables, but a "good" mix is a subjective judgment to begin with."

[bgavin]

I'm using my daughter's floor wedges for an upcoming show.
All I'm really interested in, is getting them as loud as possible for the talent.

These are 1x10+H types, and prone to squealing like stuck pigs.

I figured to EQ them into a Bell curve arrangement during system setup and testing.
All I'm looking for is maximum noise and voice intelligibility. Fidelity is secondary.

[Sydney]

A simple bell curve would be telephonic. What I had in mind is more like the inverse of the Fletcher Munson curve.*

A breakpoint in human hearing perception is centered around 1Khz; The vowels are where the singing energy is ( below 1Khz ) but the consonant energy is above 1Khz and that is necessary for intelligibility, and it is also where the wavelengths are below 1' in length.

Much of the squealing is resolved by adding as much distance as possible between a mic and any sound source that should not be in that mic line. The back end of a directional mic should be on axis with the monitor, of course. Most mic feedback involves wavelengths of a couple of feet ( at the longest ) to a few inches or less at freq above 2Khz.
Distance, isolation and positioning are 1st approach, after all each mic/monitor path has a individual spatial and acoustic relationship than the others; that is why a single generic EQ is flawed.

* See page 13 of Soundcraft Guide to Mixing for "Procedure"
http://www.soundcraft.com/support/gtm_booklet.aspx
Also p17 - 19

FWIW: p21 Fig 4.4 represents the type of setup that I last worked with, because, at a certain point of complexity ( ie # of of open mics/monitor ) it becomes necessary for control flexibility and individual mixing needs:

BTW: I have also noticed that actives monitors are much better than cheap passive monitors.

[bgavin]

I use hypercardioid mics (OM6) which have the deaf spot at 120 degrees.
This angle is pretty close to where the wedges sit on the stage.

[Sydney]

* I haven't heard both mics side by side ( I have heard reports ) So...
I took the liberty of clipping out the polar plots from the OM6 spec sheet pdf.
http://www.audixusa.com/docs/specs_pdf/ ... 0Sheet.pdf

While the OM6 is a popular mic; It does not offer the 180 degree rejection null of the old workhorses SM57/58. Their patterns are very close to pure cardioid.

http://www.av24.co.kr/product/detail/sh ... _polar.gif
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan08/a ... 0108_2.htm

These Shures mics ( while not as sexy as newer mics ) are like claw hammers, they do what they do dependable, even if they are boring.
I would suggest letting the "kiddie bands" use/abuse these mics.

[bgavin]

My bass player just hates the OM6. Wants me to throw them away and replace with SM58.

I use a Beyer M400 Soundstar to keep him happy.
It looks like an SM58, and is a dark sounding dynamic.
The OM6 is thin and anemic by comparison.

[gdougherty]

The Sennheiser e835's would be my choice over the SM58. Similar rejection but retains fullness better over distance for singers with some amount of mic handling skills without being muddy right up close. You can also get 3 for ~$200 in a package. AVAlive.com had the best price last I looked. They're as durable, the flat top screens are less prone to denting than the spherical screen mics (excepting the spring steel Audix stuff) and Sennheiser will quickly replace them for any reason within 10 years of purchase.

[Sydney]

dark sounding dynamic....The OM6 is thin and anemic by comparison

There certainly is a lot of options in microphones, and flavors.*
There is an advantage to standardizing and using the same mic for all vocals, especially if the sound-scape is so tight that mike bleed is a given. Because the pickup patterns/rejection patterns are all the same and familiar.
If the person to be using the mike is an unknown, then I would use only a durable pure cardioid dynamic, and if it was a question of skill and consideration for YOUR mic, I would not not let them use the "good" stuff.
In your situation a pure cardioid dynamic would be my choice.
* F.Z's son has inherited his father's impressive collection of mikes, Zappa has always been a source of tips and techniques, because he was an experimenter/innovator since the 50's. Recently I have seen articles about the collection; interesting and insightful stuff.

[bgavin]

Problem is, all my mics are paid for.
I will be buying a Sennheiser wireless in the fall for another show, and that will be the G2 series with 835 capsule.

I have access to wholesale buying, and may opt for some wired 835s.
The OM6 are somewhat disappointing, even to my wishful ears.
But... these are all new-cash outlays. Cash is gone until after this show pays off.

[Sydney]

When I saw your mention of your purchase plans ( in a earlier thread ), I bit my tongue and thought good luck, because it seems like there is always something that happens; Either Murphy visits and forces an expenditure, or a "once in a lifetime deal" pops up.
For a friend it was ( recently ) the latter, he had an opportunity to buy a bunch of used Shure mics for $10 - $15 ea. He couldn't pass that up of course. ( BTW - I have seen them on Ebay for that price.)
At that price he doesn't worry about loaning/renting them out, as opposed to his personal mics.
Perhaps you could borrow a dynamic cardioid to hear if it improves things first.