Sheesh, you younguns...
'77 the start for me.. Back in the day..
A phone? A PHONE??? what are you talking about, phones don't have.........
Oh...this century....
Nevermind...
jn
First post, so call me a noob or whatever.
I mix FOH for medium churches and smallish live bars (around 1500, and 500 respectively). No clubs.
This is how I would do it for a perma-install:
Borrow a starter's gun from your university's atheletics dpt.
Get a relatively flat SDC mic and an audio interface.
Set up the mic and record the FIR of the of gun in three different positions.
Note: It's easiest of you use a DAW like Adobe Audition which has a spectrograph-vs-time for each sample.
I would pick the DJ booth, middle of the floor and somewhat close to a wall of the floor.
Notch the bands with the LONGEST DECAY (not necessarily the highest initial level!) appropriately. Don't kill them, tame them.
Guess what? I haven't even turned on the system yet. That's right, I'd make sure it's the room that doesn't ring before I take into account the speakers. Assuming that the speakers are decent and you did SOME coverage analysis and weren't a total idiot about things.
Brickwall limit input signal at -0.5 dB. Any half decent loudspeaker processor will do that. The more expensive ones will do it cleaner.
Apply appropriate compression below that if desired. Also, you probably want some timing delay.
Turn the system on, play music, have a listen. Take notes. Don't do anything.
First night, walk around and take more notes at the start, middle and end of the night.
Apply more EQ at the end.
Repeat second night, etc. until you are satisfied that you've achieved what you think is optimal.
No one said you have to get it right first time, because it rarely ever is.
*SDC - small diaphragm condensor
*FIR - finite impulse response
I mix FOH for medium churches and smallish live bars (around 1500, and 500 respectively). No clubs.
This is how I would do it for a perma-install:
Borrow a starter's gun from your university's atheletics dpt.
Get a relatively flat SDC mic and an audio interface.
Set up the mic and record the FIR of the of gun in three different positions.
Note: It's easiest of you use a DAW like Adobe Audition which has a spectrograph-vs-time for each sample.
I would pick the DJ booth, middle of the floor and somewhat close to a wall of the floor.
Notch the bands with the LONGEST DECAY (not necessarily the highest initial level!) appropriately. Don't kill them, tame them.
Guess what? I haven't even turned on the system yet. That's right, I'd make sure it's the room that doesn't ring before I take into account the speakers. Assuming that the speakers are decent and you did SOME coverage analysis and weren't a total idiot about things.
Brickwall limit input signal at -0.5 dB. Any half decent loudspeaker processor will do that. The more expensive ones will do it cleaner.
Apply appropriate compression below that if desired. Also, you probably want some timing delay.
Turn the system on, play music, have a listen. Take notes. Don't do anything.
First night, walk around and take more notes at the start, middle and end of the night.
Apply more EQ at the end.
Repeat second night, etc. until you are satisfied that you've achieved what you think is optimal.
No one said you have to get it right first time, because it rarely ever is.
*SDC - small diaphragm condensor
*FIR - finite impulse response
Club music in high power levels can be oriented into directions one of them will be rock music and the other one will be house music
Sub products of music moving in the middle or between those like fore example soul music should be covered by putting closer to the one direction or the other ..
To my understanding or knowledge there is no clubs that play for example country or soul music in extreme power levels and even if i wouldnt know the music to perform a proper tuning according system/room/program material .
I could shoot various spots to get the feeling of a club and a reading of the room but this will come as a general additional information .
For a rock venue i could use plenty of bass but in no case something that will dominate middle and high ... I wouldn't consider special needs on limiting or compressing too far bass .
I could go for plenty of middle keep my vocals clean rich and tight will focus on keeping my upper mid's very well controlled and limited very ready to face problems when and if over driven.
Similar but less for high try to keep them as clean is possible while also make sure that depending on the program material will not come to excessive or overdrive at any point.
In general the system should be dominated by the middle while tops and lows should be enough present .
For a house /disco club i could go the other way around bass should be plenty fast and rich but in no case fluffy or booming around ...Snare drum should have a killing speed and spread over the venue with mid tuning enough to hear not only the leather but also the body of the drum
Similar to the mids i could keep my vocals clear but in general there is no need to dominate the all system from the mids ..
Now my high should be plenty and crystal clear so clear and plenty that i could easily drill a hole in the upper mids just to emphasize my high ...
In total i could say that my total tuning for a house / disco club is going to be edgy but this is a very general description
You may disagree with the approach but working and setting up like that for a bit more than 30 years i can really tell you that this is what the crowd likes and this what clubs are made for : crowd to have fun and not learn about sound engineering
Obviously this the "tone" approach, and this all procedure will always be depending on the capacity and physical limits of the system ... Often you have to lower your targets depending on other factors like cost , availability of equipment , average available power , sometimes limitations originate from the neighborhood and so on .
Sub products of music moving in the middle or between those like fore example soul music should be covered by putting closer to the one direction or the other ..
To my understanding or knowledge there is no clubs that play for example country or soul music in extreme power levels and even if i wouldnt know the music to perform a proper tuning according system/room/program material .
I could shoot various spots to get the feeling of a club and a reading of the room but this will come as a general additional information .
For a rock venue i could use plenty of bass but in no case something that will dominate middle and high ... I wouldn't consider special needs on limiting or compressing too far bass .
I could go for plenty of middle keep my vocals clean rich and tight will focus on keeping my upper mid's very well controlled and limited very ready to face problems when and if over driven.
Similar but less for high try to keep them as clean is possible while also make sure that depending on the program material will not come to excessive or overdrive at any point.
In general the system should be dominated by the middle while tops and lows should be enough present .
For a house /disco club i could go the other way around bass should be plenty fast and rich but in no case fluffy or booming around ...Snare drum should have a killing speed and spread over the venue with mid tuning enough to hear not only the leather but also the body of the drum
Similar to the mids i could keep my vocals clear but in general there is no need to dominate the all system from the mids ..
Now my high should be plenty and crystal clear so clear and plenty that i could easily drill a hole in the upper mids just to emphasize my high ...
In total i could say that my total tuning for a house / disco club is going to be edgy but this is a very general description
You may disagree with the approach but working and setting up like that for a bit more than 30 years i can really tell you that this is what the crowd likes and this what clubs are made for : crowd to have fun and not learn about sound engineering
Obviously this the "tone" approach, and this all procedure will always be depending on the capacity and physical limits of the system ... Often you have to lower your targets depending on other factors like cost , availability of equipment , average available power , sometimes limitations originate from the neighborhood and so on .
Sheesh.. DJ's get no respect.
“That went over like a Led Zeppelin. I tried, but it just wasn’t loud enough. After ten minutes, my mom came bursting through the door saying the house was on fire. Well, it sure was on fire all right. The QSC amplifier was hotter than the blazes of Hell and Damnation, and those ‘five hundred watt Pioneer Professional Speakers’ had been reduced to charcoal. The little toy midranges and tweeters were completely frozen in place, and wisp of smoke came from under the dust cap of one of the woofers. For this, I needed something with a little more kick to it.”
That's why I said the amplifier shouldn't be driven into clipping.
Square waves at too high a power kill speakers.
Well this can work both ways it just depends what type of end user is at the controls.
If he/she doesn't own any of the gear and doesn't know or care what it sounds like then they will surely drive any amp you give them well into clipping, and in that case the speakers stand a much better chance of surviving with an amp that is quite a bit undersized. This of course assumes there is no system limiting outside what the amp itself contains.
But if the end user cares he could use an amp several times more powerful than the speakers and get quite a bit more SPL out of them as long as thermal and mechanical driver limits are managed with effective processing.
If he/she doesn't own any of the gear and doesn't know or care what it sounds like then they will surely drive any amp you give them well into clipping, and in that case the speakers stand a much better chance of surviving with an amp that is quite a bit undersized. This of course assumes there is no system limiting outside what the amp itself contains.
But if the end user cares he could use an amp several times more powerful than the speakers and get quite a bit more SPL out of them as long as thermal and mechanical driver limits are managed with effective processing.
Let the 5 subs handle the bass--you need high pass filter for the higher frequency speakers so that excessive cone flapping movement doesn't scramble vocals. That's fairly important--just ask any pro singers.
This high pass filter can be the upper portion of a passive sub/main crossover (a little board from parts express will do fine). It can also be DIY quite easily and with better quality components. You'll probably need 5 of them.
Other notes. . .
I'd run all of the subs in mono.
As for the 5 full band. . . I'd run 2 left, 2 right for the dance area. . . and 1 mono on the opposite side of the room for a "bigger" sounding presentation, since that 1 mono channel will help pull the sound image all the way across the room.
This high pass filter can be the upper portion of a passive sub/main crossover (a little board from parts express will do fine). It can also be DIY quite easily and with better quality components. You'll probably need 5 of them.
Other notes. . .
I'd run all of the subs in mono.
As for the 5 full band. . . I'd run 2 left, 2 right for the dance area. . . and 1 mono on the opposite side of the room for a "bigger" sounding presentation, since that 1 mono channel will help pull the sound image all the way across the room.
Do this and the mid/hi's will go out with a "bang", and you'll have little bits of paper floating around inside the speaker cab.
By the time you buy 5 10mH iron core inductors with 16 ga wire, and 5x 200uf of poly caps (not NPEs which WILL explode) you've bought a CX2310 and possibly a used amp. Two words. Bi. Amp.
All the previous advices are prone to failure/misery in the hands of a novice.
Just get a DBX driverack and your system will tune up correctly, and will be protected from misuse.
http://rdn.harmanpro.com/product_documents/documents/2483_1427835601/VENU360_Quick_Start_5041207-A_original.pdf
Dan.
Just get a DBX driverack and your system will tune up correctly, and will be protected from misuse.
http://rdn.harmanpro.com/product_documents/documents/2483_1427835601/VENU360_Quick_Start_5041207-A_original.pdf
Dan.
Bi-amp is excellent advice so long as you can get the same job done--remove the bass signal from the higher frequency speakers so you can enjoy the non-scrambled vocals.
The concept leading to enjoyable clear vocals may be the most important thing
Advantages of the bi-amp
Bi-amp adds better features, such as the (active) crossover pieces at line level are tiny and inexpensive (should be inexpensive but ready-built may cost); and, when the sub amp clips, tweeters don't get fried because separate amp.
Advantages of the crossover method.
The passive crossover/filter parts decrease amplifier loading considerably. What I'm not seeing is a significant price difference between the two approaches. Its a wash on price. The passive crossover also features DC protection. Last, but not least, the passive crossover is bolted into each of the 5 higher frequency speakers, where it stays working and is non-adjustable; and, the advantage is that it is impossible to maladjust. So, you set it just once and it stays working exactly as you intended. So, that's a fair bit of durability.
Both is good. I recommend both approaches. They are interoperable. And they are extraordinarily durable together.
For a nightclub system compression/limiting/eq is required.
Good reason to use a processor/crossover such as the DBX.
There is no really cheap way out, and besides the DBX is a whole lot of functionality for the price.
Prevention of blown drivers or diaphragms pays for itself.
The OP is not knowledgeable enough to get a passive setup working correctly...if he was he would not be asking advice here.
Dan.
Good reason to use a processor/crossover such as the DBX.
There is no really cheap way out, and besides the DBX is a whole lot of functionality for the price.
Prevention of blown drivers or diaphragms pays for itself.
The OP is not knowledgeable enough to get a passive setup working correctly...if he was he would not be asking advice here.
Dan.
If your bass driver is 18" teamed up with a 2-way speaker of a 15" and a horn, then the size of your midrange/midbass driver just happens to be 15".
Yes, but you won't passively cross from 18" to 15", or in this case passively cut low freq from the 15 inch mid/bass. You will always use active crossover, since you already need at least two amplifiers. It simply do not make sence to use passive crossover in a setup like this (plus you will most likely fry the crossover coil)
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