Hello all! I am a sound man in progress, learning from mistakes and lots of hours reading this forum.
I DJ and set up sound equipment for social country western dances at various locations near the university I attend. Lately I have been having a terrible time with sibilance in my music and I simply don't have enough experience to know what I'm doing wrong. I have done a fair amount of googling, but most of the advice has to do with mixing live vocals or creating mixes in a program.
I'll list the specifications for the sound system at the bottom of my post, however here is the general set up. The dances are in a basketball gym. Music purchased from itunes is played from a laptop at 70% volume and routed to the mixer through the stereo RCA in jacks. I usually set the channel fader about 3/4 of the way up, a little below unity. The main fader is about 1/3 up. L and R audio is then sent to the two powered speakers set 40 feet apart using the XLR out on the mixer. And that it! There's no real mixing going on. The problem I am having is that I have started to have some painful sibilance.
I have tried turning down the highs, but that has only made the lyrics muddy. I turned up the laptop volume until the VU lights are hitting right where they should, and then raised the channel volume fader and dropped the main fader. That helped some, but it was still bad and the music was muddy.
I am almost certain it is caused by operator error and not the equipment because I have used this exact same set up for previous dances in the same location and did not have a problem. The music format may be contributing, however I have used the same music files before with no issue.
What are common causes of sibilance when playing professionally produced music over a PA? Any advice anyone has would be appreciated. Thank you for helping a noob out!
Equipment used:
Yamaha MG12XU mixer
2 Peavey PVXp15-DSP 800W 15" Powered Speakers
Lenovo laptop playing music from itunes
I DJ and set up sound equipment for social country western dances at various locations near the university I attend. Lately I have been having a terrible time with sibilance in my music and I simply don't have enough experience to know what I'm doing wrong. I have done a fair amount of googling, but most of the advice has to do with mixing live vocals or creating mixes in a program.
I'll list the specifications for the sound system at the bottom of my post, however here is the general set up. The dances are in a basketball gym. Music purchased from itunes is played from a laptop at 70% volume and routed to the mixer through the stereo RCA in jacks. I usually set the channel fader about 3/4 of the way up, a little below unity. The main fader is about 1/3 up. L and R audio is then sent to the two powered speakers set 40 feet apart using the XLR out on the mixer. And that it! There's no real mixing going on. The problem I am having is that I have started to have some painful sibilance.
I have tried turning down the highs, but that has only made the lyrics muddy. I turned up the laptop volume until the VU lights are hitting right where they should, and then raised the channel volume fader and dropped the main fader. That helped some, but it was still bad and the music was muddy.
I am almost certain it is caused by operator error and not the equipment because I have used this exact same set up for previous dances in the same location and did not have a problem. The music format may be contributing, however I have used the same music files before with no issue.
What are common causes of sibilance when playing professionally produced music over a PA? Any advice anyone has would be appreciated. Thank you for helping a noob out!
Equipment used:
Yamaha MG12XU mixer
2 Peavey PVXp15-DSP 800W 15" Powered Speakers
Lenovo laptop playing music from itunes