Beginner sound system tuning tutorial

[@MichaelCurtisAudio]

Great job here, Andrew! The trace you use in the video is from Nathan, which he modeled after some L-Acoustics traces. The one I'm using these days I stole from Michael Lawrence, who stole it from Dennie Miller : )

[@OffshoreAudio]

Thanks Michael! 😁 I guess we're all stealing from someone haha, thanks for setting me right. I'll have to check out Michael Lawrence's!

[@marcokleiner8795]

what an awesome video man! thanks a lot! this is exactly the information I was looking for, I will try making my first transfer function measurement in a few days.. one thing I would add from my experience as a live sound guy with 'simple' RTA ist the importance of mic placement relative to speaker placement. if you measure in the 'power alley' between two stacks or expirience comb filtering effects moving the mic 1m can give you very different results.. so in the end you still need to walk the room and try to project the influence of the human sound absorbers that are going to populate the listening area :-)

[@josuastangl7140]

Wow your channel is a gold mine, subscribed!

[@T1TAN-92]

Awesome video! Need more system tuning tutorials please 🙏🏼

[@OffshoreAudio]

Thanks! Anything in particular you'd like to see?

[@T1TAN-92]

A full walkthrough with phase alignment and sub alignment would be great 👍🏼

[@matthewcselby]

​@@OffshoreAudio - timelapse/walkthrough of tuning a system would be great to see - how to review phase data and what to look out for? - what to do with subs? measure with tops or separate from tops? - crossover - do you rown or use built in if your subs have that? If your own, how to choose crossover and what filter type to use. - how many measurements to take? before too much data becomes unhelpful.

[@chemdrum]

This was a great video! Question: before EQ-ing the system, would you first balance the system(tops vs subs) with music just to get a general balance of lows and highs?

[@OffshoreAudio]

Thanks! I wouldn't tend to no, I use music as the final stage of quality control. So I'll measure the system with noise and then adjust with EQ to get near my target curve. In theory this should sound pretty good with music. So then I'll play back a few tracks and double check that it sounds nice. Quite often I make a few changes after playing with the music but that's subjective and I like to go with the data first. Having said that, half the time I don't have time to measure stuff so I just do it by ear.

[@AlexandreLollini]

I like to do a second pass with both speakers playing pink (different random signals left and right) just because some rooms have those strange effects, then I simply use a slow decay spectrum analyser display and do the last adjustments (only down for the new peaks) and usually this gives me a more appealing sound, and usually this one last does not change when thare are a lot of people in the room. When I adjust speakers individually this setting is not reliable, even if it "sounds well" on the first listen. Also it's good to walk while listening music to spot weird changes and resonances (or modes).

[@OffshoreAudio]

Totally agree that you should do a final check with all speakers on where you walk around. I like to use music instead of noise at that point.

[@AlexandreLollini]

@@OffshoreAudio it's important to use music in the last pass. But when using some pink noise and when playing on left + right : it is important that the pink noise signal be DIFFERENT left and right, because a mono signal playing from two sources is not natural and can interfere with itself.

[@alanp6980]

Very nice and well explained tutorial! Thank you for that! Just wanted to ask if the delay compensation is a big deal to tune the room (?)... because i could do all this except the delay compensation just with my mixer. Without an aditional laptop and audiointerface..

[@OffshoreAudio]

Thanks! It's a fairly big deal. Without delay compensation the software isn't able to reliably and accurately compare the test signal and the reference. Though I don't know any mixers that have transfer function measurements built in? So that would be a bigger deal as you wouldn't have a reference to compare to. If you're just thinking of taking an FFT measurement then you can do that without delay, sound card or whatever else. But that's not what this video is showing.

[@RBAudios]

Thank you andrew so much for this appreciate it...🙌

[@OffshoreAudio]

My Pleasure!

[@enochzhang6126]

Thanks for the video, very concise and easy to understand. I'm curious, should I put my RTA mic in the front to adjust my EQ, or the whole center or back of the room?

[@OffshoreAudio]

I'm glad you like it! Put your RTA in the middle of the room. Or rather in the direct firing line of the speaker. Ultimately You're just measuiring how it sounds exactly there but that should be a good place to start.

[@enochzhang6126]

Thank you. It's very helpful.

[@wattscharliedoing]

When tuning were you doing it separately for both left and right speakers? Or was that reading in the video the combined signal of both?

[@tveitmorten]

Ha! I play this venue from time to time, and to be fair, I’m not surprised that you’d have to boost that lo-end that much, because the sound has been quite harsh a couple of times. You often work there?

[@OffshoreAudio]

OIP in majorstuen? I'm not there super often but I jump in every now and then to cover for Jon. I think the last time I was there was April. I can only handle so much haha... I'm doing 4 weekends from the end of July into August though. What band are you playing in?

[@tveitmorten]

@@OffshoreAudio Oh yes, that is the venue! I’m playing in a band called HitPatrol. Jon is one of the guys that gave us very good sound, but he rarely does sound there anymore, I think. We played OIP in Stavanger, and that PA has subs to match, which frankly I don’t think Majorstuen has. You make really good quality videos, so thanks heaps for that! Would be cool if we bumped into you one time!

[@simonshawmusic]

Thanks for the video! I have a question, if the idea is that we are testing each side of the PA system individually (lets assume a small PA-Center subs and two tops) and take measurements, how do we then apply EQ from the master on the mixer as it would be applying this EQ to both sides of the PA? Or is the idea to test each side individually to assess if there are any inherent problems with the PA and then EQ with the PAN centered using a summation of all the speakers in the room? (the limiting factor being only one EQ for both main speakers and subs) thanks again

[@tallakbertin]

Could you use a bus or a matrix on your console instead of a separate sound card? I have both, it’s just a little less equipment to have to bring

[@biswakarmasound6058]

Sir How to Manage 2 Type Sub. I mean 2 /3 types bass reflex sub , example - 1) Front Loaded 2) Hornload 2) Revers speaker sub In one venue. How to manage it

[@Alex_Martz]

Why don't you use the signal generator from inside smaart instead of the console?

[@jonesromateppy]

Awesome video, thanks

[@OffshoreAudio]

My pleasure!

[@BestialShow]

Hello! Where we can find, the ideal graphic? Thanks 🙏🏻

[@matthewcselby]

on Step 4 "Measure & EQ" - what do we do with the db level from these two sources "mic and ref"? do we gain match these to a healthy level in the green only on the first measurement per speaker and then leave that gain the same when capturing different distances? second question - if it's the same gain, do we keep that gain structure when measuring the other speaker[s] so that the trace levels match? Gain levels from PA L near, middle, far vs PA R near, middle, and far.

[@mesak02111995]

Thanks for the video! can i get the target trace link please 😃

[@OffshoreAudio]

Try this www.sounddesignlive.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Share-Traces.zip

[@박규민-o3z]

What level should I level the gain of the measuring microphone on the sound card?

[@SammytheSalmon]

What would you recommend one does to get a PA tuned for a 4-piece pub/function band who get around 2 hours to set up? Maybe just reference track over EQ calibration? From getting through the door, to finishing sound checking. Keeping in mind that the room is noisy with punters, we ask the pub to turn background music down, but then the landlord is staring at you wanting to hurry up setting kit up and finishing sound checking because some landlords are a-holes and don't understand the process to setting up for live sound.

[@OffshoreAudio]

Yeah that's an awkward one. At the end of the day if you don't get a soundcheck there's not a lot you can do tuning wise, but you can check that everything works how it would. I agree with the reference track since it's the least invasive to punters. Just play it through left, through right, check all the monitors. Make sure it's sounding clean and normal. You can at least find out if there's any routing problems, gain staging problems, are they the same volume, etc. Double check speaker placement: are they aimed at the audience. I've been in that situation plenty of times. It is what it is and you can't work magic without time and resources. But you can make sure that everything is at least functional and work from there.

[@wofaakwei2800]

What of analogue mixers for those of us in the third world countries...any links????

[@OffshoreAudio]

Hey, great point. I've not got any links but I'll make you a video specifically about doing it with analogue/ affordable equipment. Send me an email ([e-mail]) And tell me what equipment you've got. I'll work something out based on what you've got

[@slitz4581]

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

[@OffshoreAudio]

You are very welcome

[@ThalamusGhipopotamus]

Why don't you use one mixer for measurements, but only with an audio interface?

[@WadoskyProAudio]

Nice one

[@OffshoreAudio]

Thanks for watching!

[@TiefdruckINC]

Why don't you use DVS and spare your sound card in the use case with QL1?

[@OffshoreAudio]

Great question! I'm not always on a ql mixer or something with Dante. I just do it this way because it's the workflow that works for me And I have all the cables in my bag. You could absolutely use Dante.

[@dward1112]

Why do you go into Input 2 on your Focusrite with a ¼" jack rather than a male XLR? You're sending the pink noise signal out of Output 6 on the console. That would be an XLR out. A simple female XLR to male XLR would be able to handle it.

[@kali852]

Good morning from trinidad, to answer your question, it's because the xlr connection on your interface is a mic level input. And your out from the board is a line output. There is a difference in voltage level. Like I always say , it's like hooking up a cassette player to a record player (phono) input. The level will be hotter, but there will be no headroom which leads to distortion faster

[@OffshoreAudio]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[@kenners02]

2:01 if you have a digital mixer (I’m on an SQ6), do you need the sound card for this as well? Or can you use the sound card within the mixer to execute this properly?

[@OffshoreAudio]

Great question! You can totally use the mixer as the sound card. I'm just often on different mixers so I use my soundcard to keep it simple. I don't even use the noise gen on the mixer anymore.

[@robertdtorres5844]

Im assuming you Need Smaart or can this same technique be use with Room Eq Wizard. I want to learn this but I'm stuck since the Smaart v9 is 900 bucks.

[@OffshoreAudio]

You don't need smaart. You can use open sound meter which is free. I don't know anyone that uses room EQ Wizard, not sure it's got the same functionality. Check out open sound meter. opensoundmeter.com/en/

[@chuckmaddison2924]

What i love about pro audio there's no physics free speakers and mystic cable .

[@HaharuRecords]

Tf is you mean by pro audio

[@chuckmaddison2924]

@@HaharuRecords The stuff Mick Jagger uses on stage and the Abbey studio.

[@SergeyMachinsky]

Nice 👍🏻

[@OffshoreAudio]

Thanks!

[@PilotExtreme]

Where is your phase video?

[@OffshoreAudio]

Heh. Maybe I should make one. What do you wonder about, regarding phase? What's the problem and I'll try solve it or answer it in a video

[@PilotExtreme]

@@OffshoreAudio thanks for the reply. A few ideas would be talking about phase and crossover with subs. Stereo sub and pa phase issues, monitors phase coherence with PA, flip the phase on them for smaller venues and help deal with feedback. Stuff like that. Thanks for your videos. Phase issues form a bass cab and subs depending on distance and volume. Why can't the base player hear his bass on stage. Eq and phase shift....

[@mightymcgee9199]

What software did you use ?

[@OffshoreAudio]

Smaart, v8 in this I think. Though I use v9 now and have a much more straightforward workflow if you're interested :kzbin.info/www/bejne/d33NdnWAja16h9k

[@mightymcgee9199]

@@OffshoreAudio thannk you so much

[@wesleyjeanpierre5856]

Tiouu that seems complicated 😢

[@OffshoreAudio]

Ah I'm sorry. Tried to make it as simple as possible. Why not start off by just getting the equipment together and setting it up at home or next time you're around a mixer? Eventually you'll get used to it.

[@curtismiller8627]

Beginner? I don't think so. I'm just a piece of shit mobile dj who doesn't have a music engineering degree, nor do I have time to take all of these steps as on average I get only 2 hours for set up... my bad this must not be the right video for me, but I watched and learned that there is so much I can learn to make my sound better!!!

[@OffshoreAudio]

I'm glad you learned something, Everyone starts somewhere.

[@LazayLada]

Hahahahahahahahaha this is so funny.

[@박규민-o3z]

What level should I level the gain of the measuring microphone on the sound card?