themetallikid Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 Other than just spending time (which is limited in the short term) are there any specs I can compare between two speaker systems to know how presets will sound from A>B? My current powered wedge (EV) is pretty close to my sound guy (soon to be ex sound guy), however our new system seems to be on the brighter/stiffer side of the spectrum. Now, I don't know what my current sound guy is doing at the board, but he raves about my current presets...and generally trusts my ears for what I bring to the table. However, he is unwilling to share his information so I don't know if I'm being run flat or other stuff is happening. Any specs I can use to compare models/brands to have an idea of how to adjust things....other than just logging hours between the two units? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinon2 Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 30 minutes ago, themetallikid said: Other than just spending time (which is limited in the short term) are there any specs I can compare between two speaker systems to know how presets will sound from A>B? Simply put, no. There are way too many external variables that have nothing to do with the speakers themselves...a test drive is the only way to tell. 30 minutes ago, themetallikid said: Now, I don't know what my current sound guy is doing at the board, but he raves about my current presets...and generally trusts my ears for what I bring to the table. However, he is unwilling to share his information so I don't know if I'm being run flat or other stuff is happening. What an a$$...this guy is what's technically known as a "schmuck". What possible justification could he have for refusing to tell you? National security? Does he think it'll cause the magnetic poles to shift? If he's getting paid, then he has no legitimate reason for withholding his "double secret" channel settings.... when he goes to take a leak, sneak behind the board and take a picture. Then post his "magic" on Facebook. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 14, 2019 Author Share Posted February 14, 2019 I would take a picture but he is using the X32 series which is all run on a tablet he uses....so not as easy as an analog board. He has been our soundguy for about 7 years, but we are shifting to running our own system. So if I ask it will begin to rock the boat and we haven't told him yet, and we aren't ready to do that yet...however once we do, we are about 85% sure he will take his ball and go home. Which I understand in a way..... The issue for me is time....we have 2 remaining practices before I go on vacation for 2 weeks and I get back the day before we have 2 shows for st. patty's day weekend. At least my base presets are set from an amp/effects/volume standpoint, I just need to worry about swapping IR's and adjust EQ's which once I find ones that work, is just a copy/paste exercise in HX Edit.....its just hard to find time to spend with the system all hooked up. The other guitar player owns the speakers and I own the mixer (Xair 18). I did setup a few test presets with a typical Amp sound, and a few different IR's that sound good at home, and then setup snapshots with different EQ Low/HI Cuts of 1) no cuts 2) 100/12k 3)120/8k 4)150/6k That should help me find a speaker IR that sounds good, and then go through the snapshots to find the best EQ starting point for the low/high end. Also added a gain block at the end of 3db so I can get my lead boosts set right cause I'm sure the mixers channel gain will be different between what he has it set (he is stuck on keeping the fader at unity gain if possible, ugh don't get me started)...and with him I was having to use +8db boost at the end of my chain on the gainier presets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DunedinDragon Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 First off, speaking as a soundman myself, there's literally no reason he should be doing any adjustments to your presets other than gain staging them, unless the main speaker setup is something really odd such as a set of passive speakers with a centralized amp that is just a plain jane amp with crossover and isn't really very sophisticated, or he somehow has his speakers tuned incorrectly. I'm not sure what you mean by your new PA being brighter/stiff? Did you get new speakers as part of the new system, and if so are they DSP contoured and possibly not contoured correctly based on their placement and usage? If in fact the whole system is brighter/stiffer he shouldn't be adjusting it channel by channel. That's a rookie mistake as that's a global function and should be applied across all channels equally as it would affect them all equally so it should be applied post channel fader and pre master fader. Assuming you're using a EV ZLX-P series speaker and have it's DSP contour settings correct for it's usage and placement, any decent system should sound pretty close to the same unless there's a problem at the board or front mains. Which is pretty likely if it's a new system and he's not familiar with how it should be configured. Especially likely if he's coming from an analog mixer to a digital mixer such as the Behringer X32. Two completely different worlds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 14, 2019 Author Share Posted February 14, 2019 I'm at work, but I'll clarify a few things....as I don't have all the information your referring to Duned.....but I do appreciate the help.... 1) the new pa is being run by us, so far everything sounds great. 2) I haven't spent a ton of time on my guitar with the new pa, as I'm the most cpu savvy one in the group, and I bought the mixer, I've been the one deemed to set it up. 3) I know enough about sound to get by, but am by far any sort of an 'expert'. we do have the main EQ set in a way that everything else (first tweaked with several MP3 sound examples being played through it, then with setting up channels, for the most part avoiding EQ except for some obvious channels.) 4) I don't know which exact model I have at home, I'll have to check, its a powered 15 and works great, sounds great at home....the little bit of time I've had with my guitar at practice has been more of a rush to check signal level, and establish general guidelines, and what I heard sounded just different than what I recall from my powered wedge and the little bit I heard from previous sound guys system. 5) I have not had a chance yet to A/B directly our new FOH vs. EV wedge....but that's what I was hoping to minimize time required with my original question. If I compared specs between the two, could I get in the ballpark just based on that, or if (as I expected) its a 'set it up and tweak' thing....which I'm ok with, I'll just need to set aside time to do it correctly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codamedia Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 5 hours ago, themetallikid said: However, he is unwilling to share his information so I don't know if I'm being run flat or other stuff is happening. I have never met a sound man that wouldn't tell me how my STRIP is set at the console. There is no secret involved with that. How he mixes the band is irrelevant... every tech will have their method. I don't give it any thought unless I hear complaints... or see people running to the door when we start - LOL Tell him to show you the strip! If he won't, then good riddance! IMO: My goal is to provide a tone/signal that sounds great over multiple systems with a flat strip. I don't mind seeing a slight boost/cut on the strip (eg: 3db here of there)... that could be preference, or it could be room adjustment. What I don't want to see is anything drastic that shows up consistently. EXAMPLE: If every tech has to roll my highs back 12db, I have a problem I need to fix. If I see one tech rolling off 3db and the next one adding 3db... that's within tolerance. AS for delays/reverbs.... unless it is part of the tone (ie: syncopated delay) I always leave a lot of room for the tech to add more if they want/need to. If I give them too much - they can't take it out... but they can always add. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DunedinDragon Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 1 hour ago, themetallikid said: I'm at work, but I'll clarify a few things....as I don't have all the information your referring to Duned.....but I do appreciate the help.... 1) the new pa is being run by us, so far everything sounds great. 2) I haven't spent a ton of time on my guitar with the new pa, as I'm the most cpu savvy one in the group, and I bought the mixer, I've been the one deemed to set it up. 3) I know enough about sound to get by, but am by far any sort of an 'expert'. we do have the main EQ set in a way that everything else (first tweaked with several MP3 sound examples being played through it, then with setting up channels, for the most part avoiding EQ except for some obvious channels.) 4) I don't know which exact model I have at home, I'll have to check, its a powered 15 and works great, sounds great at home....the little bit of time I've had with my guitar at practice has been more of a rush to check signal level, and establish general guidelines, and what I heard sounded just different than what I recall from my powered wedge and the little bit I heard from previous sound guys system. 5) I have not had a chance yet to A/B directly our new FOH vs. EV wedge....but that's what I was hoping to minimize time required with my original question. If I compared specs between the two, could I get in the ballpark just based on that, or if (as I expected) its a 'set it up and tweak' thing....which I'm ok with, I'll just need to set aside time to do it correctly. Yeah..that really helps to fill in the picture. Generally speaking most powered speakers these days are pretty much equal in terms of frequency response profiles, but that really depends on which generation of speaker you have for your mains. Your EV (again assuming it's ZLX-P series) should be very close to any of the current generation of speakers, but that may not be the case if your 15" powered speakers are the older style with tone controls rather than DSP contouring such as is on the ZLX. If your mains are the older style I'd personally use the ZLX as my standard and try to tune the mains to have as close to the same response as is possible with the ZLX as that's more likely to have a genuinely flatter response. One time saver might be to plug your Helix directly into one of the one of the mains (without the mixer) and see what differences there might be. You need to bear in mind that if you're using the ZLX as a floor wedge you'll have more bass response due to bass coupling with the floor if you don't have the DSP setting on the ZLX set to the 'Monitor' DSP contouring configuration. If you normally run powered subs which are connected to your main speakers you should have a hi-pass setting on the sub so that it only passes through frequencies above a certain limit to your mains. Normally this will be 100 to maybe 125 HZ. This will isolate your guitar signal so it's only in the mains and not the sub. If you don't have such a thing, you can also set the hi-pass on your mixer channel to help isolate it from the bass frequencies and you should probably do that not only with the guitar but also with the vocal channels. It just helps with clarity in the mains. Those are just some tips of things to look for that occurred to me right off the bat. Generally speaking the mixer itself isn't likely to be coloring your signals unless you specifically take actions to do it in some way. But it may also be that your older analog board wasn't as efficient and precise in processing the incoming signals as is this new board, so you could see some differences there. Generally it will pass the channels signals through to the speakers in the same way it receives it, so I would look primarily at the main speakers to isolate how they differ from the response of your ZLX and make corrections either directly on the mains or on the mixing board so it matches up with the response of the ZLX since that's definitely more likely to be state of the art when it comes to flat response speakers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 14, 2019 Author Share Posted February 14, 2019 1 hour ago, codamedia said: I don't give it any thought unless I hear complaints... or see people running to the door when we start - LOL And this is the reason we are choosing to go the route we are. Among other reasons, he mixes more like a cd/jukebox mix, and not a 'live' mix. I don't want to get into ranting about details but we get comments on how we sound as a whole. The bass/kick isn't punchy, its more like a bad sub in a ghetto car you hear driving by...the guitars aren't 'in your face' they are mixed 'polite' (2 guitar band playing 80's90's rock covers, we should be more guitar driven for a sound...I'd think), and generally you can't really hear the 2nd guitar much out front, even though we play complimenting parts on a lot of songs (Anyone really hear Izzy on Appetite for Destruction? its like 80% Slash in the mix unless you pan the audio) and the other guitar is the only guitar sometimes when I'm singing. People say his sound is a little harsh, I don't hear that necessarily but others make a comment on it. There just isn't any reason for us to get those comments when he has the gear he has, and refuses to listen to us regarding how 'we' want to be mixed. Our vocals (although he swears they aren't) are being compressed/limited in a way that when I sing 3 Doors down I'm at say a 6 on my voices volume, when I sing Metallica/Rob Zombie etc, I'm usually more like a 8 or 9, however the monitor mix is only giving us about a 7.5, and that 7.5 isn't enough to get through cleanly. Again, don't want to lose point of the original questions, but you get my point, this change is necessary at this point, lol. 1 hour ago, codamedia said: IMO: My goal is to provide a tone/signal that sounds great over multiple systems with a flat strip. I don't mind seeing a slight boost/cut on the strip (eg: 3db here of there)... that could be preference, or it could be room adjustment. What I don't want to see is anything drastic that shows up consistently. EXAMPLE: If every tech has to roll my highs back 12db, I have a problem I need to fix. If I see one tech rolling off 3db and the next one adding 3db... that's within tolerance. This has been my goal as well. If we have a new sound guy (next week we have one filling in) I want to be able to tell him to run me flat and adjust from there....I usually like hearing my guitar through other systems flat as it gives me some better feedback on what could be wrong in some other scenarios. I get minor adjustments for the mix/room or whatever....but generally I'm pretty much a set it and forget it tweaker. 12 minutes ago, DunedinDragon said: Generally it will pass the channels signals through to the speakers in the same way it receives it, so I would look primarily at the main speakers to isolate how they differ from the response of your ZLX and make corrections either directly on the mains or on the mixing board so it matches up with the response of the ZLX since that's definitely more likely to be state of the art when it comes to flat response speakers. Yes that is where I'm going, I just need to get some time comparing A to B and then I'll have a better reference... Specifically what I meant by 'stiff' before...I'll try to describe it....at home and the 'current' PA situation, my guitar has an openness in the mids...a fuller Marshall/Slash type sound, I typically low/hi cut at 120/12k and am happy with only a slight boost in the 800-1k range to cut through a little more. Sounds good to my ears....with the limited time I've had on the new PA...it seems like the mids are very 'tight' or thin sounding....like its not a very open sound. I have the channel EQ 'off/flat' right now per my thoughts above on that...But when I cycled through my sounds a bit so we could start setting a band mix, and I listened to my guitar on its own, it was not what I was expecting...I know I need more time to fully evaluate it, but given how easily and good we got the drums/bass/rhythm guitar and vocals sounding...my guitar was a shocker when it didn't hit that same mark of awesome. lol. I'll check my wedge and get the powered speaker set models and maybe I can draw some comparisons...thanks again I appreciate the conversation/thoughts...I sometimes have to go through this process outloud to get it....you guys are awesome! CHEERS!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DunedinDragon Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 46 minutes ago, themetallikid said: Specifically what I meant by 'stiff' before...I'll try to describe it....at home and the 'current' PA situation, my guitar has an openness in the mids...a fuller Marshall/Slash type sound, I typically low/hi cut at 120/12k and am happy with only a slight boost in the 800-1k range to cut through a little more. Sounds good to my ears....with the limited time I've had on the new PA...it seems like the mids are very 'tight' or thin sounding....like its not a very open sound. I have the channel EQ 'off/flat' right now per my thoughts above on that...But when I cycled through my sounds a bit so we could start setting a band mix, and I listened to my guitar on its own, it was not what I was expecting...I know I need more time to fully evaluate it, but given how easily and good we got the drums/bass/rhythm guitar and vocals sounding...my guitar was a shocker when it didn't hit that same mark of awesome. lol. I'll check my wedge and get the powered speaker set models and maybe I can draw some comparisons...thanks again I appreciate the conversation/thoughts...I sometimes have to go through this process outloud to get it....you guys are awesome! CHEERS!! Interesting. It's been a while since I was on an analog board but I kind of remember they were sometimes more mid-heavy which I had attributed to the difference in the preamps which were older and not quite as good as newer digital ones. That could be what you're experiencing, but I'm still leaning toward a difference in the main speakers. If you get a chance let me know the make and model of your mains and maybe I can give you some insight on them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 15, 2019 Author Share Posted February 15, 2019 I think one point you missed Duned is that my 'soon to be' past sound guy was running the Behringer X32 mixer, we are running the smaller Xair 18. Basically the same thing, just some minor differences we shouldnt run into. The wedge I have at home is the EV ELX 115p, i've been using this as a vocal monitor, and made a swap with him for my IEM's as i could not survive with the IEM's and my guitar. I need that 'live' sound.... I believe the tops we are using are a pair of Yamaha's....I'll have to ask the other guitar player tomorrow.... right now I'm reeling from another disappointing night of bowling....damn hobbies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DunedinDragon Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 Ahhhhh...ELX 115P!! Much clearer now and definitely should be the standard by which you measure the tops. I'll be interested in hearing what fronts/tops you're using and if you're also using a sub out front. If you get a chance let me know what contour settings you're using on the ELX. I'm assuming as a wedge you have them set for flat and no sub. Also if you get the info from the other guitar player on the tops ask him what DSP contour settings you;re using on them if applicable. That might fill in all the blanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 16, 2019 Author Share Posted February 16, 2019 Yes, our configuration in the new PA will be a powered top/sub on each side, with a pole between them. The ELX is being setup as full range (no sub), that is really the only option I have with it. Our PA consists of the DSR115/DSR118w per side. There is a contour switch, but it is not on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DunedinDragon Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 Sounds like you guys will have a pretty nice setup and everything seems to be matched up pretty well settings-wise. The only thing that may be coming into the picture here as far as a mismatch between your ELX and the DSR mains could be some bass coupling effect you might be getting on your monitor if it's placed in the wedge position on the floor. That would cause your on stage sound to have more low end than what's being produced out of the DSR mains possibly resulting in the mains appearing to be brighter than your stage sound. This is especially true on hollow stages, but will be there to some degree or another if your wedge is on the floor. I don't have this problem since I mount my stage monitor on a half height pole behind me. But if you want to keep yours on the floor you might want to invest in an isolation pad to place your monitor on. These are pretty inexpensive. I used to use a Auralex Gramma pad for my monitor when placed it on the ground. Other than that you might do a A/B test between the ELX and the DSR115 (both on poles or ground isolated) coming direct out of the Helix and see if there are any differences, but I'd bet they're going to be very close. This would at least help to identify whether the difference is in the speaker or the mixer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 16, 2019 Author Share Posted February 16, 2019 Yea the bass coupling effect is something i'm 'aware' of, and thats something i've accounted for with the 'current' PA situation....I do have an extra pole stand here at home, maybe I should get that setup and mount the speaker...maybe that will help. I've always just mentally adjusted where the tone needed to be....but it makes sense. I'm hoping to take my helix over to my guitar players house and set it up to run through those presets I setup with the EQ Snapshots to see what makes sense.....but I agree with your other post about they should be pretty in the ballpark of each other and shouldnt need to much additional tweaking. The only other factor I can't really A/B test is the difference between the mixer channels (like I mentioned)...I can't imagine the mixer preamps between the x32 and xair 18 would be that much different they would sound that drastically different....but thats the only variables I can't experiment with. I'm sure I can find settings to get where I need, but was just shocked between what I heard and what I thought I'd hear. With setting everyone else up though, I'm sure I was mentally distracted and maybe not listening fully too....who knows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DunedinDragon Posted February 16, 2019 Share Posted February 16, 2019 Yeah, the only difference between the X32 and XAir 18 is just that the XAir has less channels and no direct interface other than tablets. Should all be the same EQ and effects. I use something similar which is a QSC Touchmix 30. On my channel I just gain stage it and leave it's EQ flat on the channel and no effects, compression, or gates as that's already taken care of in the Helix. The one thing I'm not sure of with the Behringers is if they, similar to the QSC, allow for EQ optimization presets for different types of speakers which basically allows you to select global presets for your brand of main speakers. As I said, we have that but I don't implement it because I haven't really seen any reasonable advantage to it other than to play havoc with the tones coming in from our instruments. Generally speaking everything we have is direct in to the mixing board, so I'd just rather pass that stuff straight through to the speakers so it matches the sound on the stage and concentrate on EQ'ing the things that really benefit from it like vocals, harmonicas, congas, acoustic guitars, etc. That kind of thing probably has more benefit for bands that use mic's to capture the sound of their amps to send it to the mixer. For me it's just a nuisance. Good luck with all of it.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 16, 2019 Author Share Posted February 16, 2019 Yeah I agree...we really have tried to not 'abuse' the abilities of each channel, on every channel. We have some stuff setup for the drums/bass channels to help them punch and not 'ring' where they shouldnt. But both me and the other guitar player run direct with stuff, and he needs to adjust his a touch as well, but his seemed more ballpark than mine did. The Xair series allows for presets to be applied per channel, but I have left our channels for guitar 'naked' if you will. I only used them as a template on the channels that need it. The ones I went with were ones from a soundguy that runs at the Whiskey in LA, so I figure they probably know what they are doing, lol. It was a great starting point, but we still had to adapt to all the variables that we add at the input stage. Anyway, sounds like I'm heading over to his place tonight to spend about 20 min testing my EQ Snapshots out....We'll see. Thanks for the help Duned, CHeers as always. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 17, 2019 Author Share Posted February 17, 2019 ugh so annoying, please nevermind I'm 6 beers in, lol....but I plugged in and our new speakers sounded exactly like they should have....so...that only leaves the Xair18 mixer as a culprit or my ears....which its looking more and more like my ears that night.....although logical, its annoying, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DunedinDragon Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 Just be sure to check the EQ on the main outputs on the mixer. You may have removed all the EQ on your channel, but it's entirely possible to apply EQ to the entire output for the purposes of correcting for the sound of the room and such. That may be what's throwing you off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 17, 2019 Author Share Posted February 17, 2019 yeah I went over last night and plugged in direct to main speakers and it sounded pretty exact to my EV wedge, so once I get some time later today, going to hook up to Xair mixer and from there into my wedge and see how it sounds....that should be the final piece of the puzzle...we'll see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 17, 2019 Author Share Posted February 17, 2019 hooked up to the mixer...into the EV Wedge...and it sounded great....for the sake of creating my patches I took the mixer out of the equation and actually lost some low end lol....not enough to matter. In the mixer I had the low cut on my channel just to help clean up the boomyness of the guitar...the frequency was at 95, but there is some rolloff above that frequency a touch and it sounded good there. Im thinking the loss of low end may be from using the Low/Hi cuts on the IR blocks as opposed to a PEQ block as I think those have the steepest slope....so I may just have to tweak them a bit to get the same response I had before....but that saves me an EQ block as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DunedinDragon Posted February 17, 2019 Share Posted February 17, 2019 Glad this all worked out for you. Just for reference, I've found you can clean up a lot of boominess on some patches depending on the amp and cab by using the PEQ and taking a smallish notch out of the 450 - 500Hz range maybe around -2db or -2.5db, width of the notch to taste. Takes out the muddiness and leaves a pretty crisp lower range. This is typically in conjunction with a low cut. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themetallikid Posted February 18, 2019 Author Share Posted February 18, 2019 Yeah I think I've found that trick as well, I (for myself) like a very narrow boost at 125hz (helix only has 120 available, but it works)....but to counter act some of that boomyness I do usually usually find something between 300-450 depending on the amp/cab combination. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.