Howto dial in a good Live tone

Quote from Acker

Hi!

Do you guys have some tips for me, how to dial in a good tone for playing live? Will the sound coming out of my Yamaha 80m's will translate well on stage?
Some things I should be aware of?

Any help is appreciated!

What's your stage amplification?
The deal is: the less colouring it is, like Atomic CLR or Yamaha DXR, the better the translation. The Yamaha HM80 is very neutral which is good.
Just don't forget to tweak at home with gig volume to make up for the Fletcher- Munson effect.

The Hs80s are far from neutral, however they will get you in the park. They have a decently high, high mid and treble spike around 3k or so, and a slight suck out in the Lowe mids area.

I got a lot of complaints from my band - the way i have it dialed in at low volumes, at home ends up painfully bright in a band setting.
I had to drop the treble on my (flat and very powerful 15") PA a bit and take the treble to -2 and presence to -3.5, which brings the spectrum much closer to an amp-in-the-room kind of thing.

On stage i suppose i'd go flat, direct to FOH but if you're used to cranking an actual amp in the room, try -2 and -3.5 on treble and presence respectively as a starting point.

Quote from Quitty

I got a lot of complaints from my band - the way i have it dialed in at low volumes, at home ends up painfully bright in a band setting.
I had to drop the treble on my (flat and very powerful 15") PA a bit and take the treble to -2 and presence to -3.5, which brings the spectrum much closer to an amp-in-the-room kind of thing.

Interesting, science tells us it should be the complete opposite (which is what my experience has been as well, I need to drop the amount of bass heavily when playing loud). Maybe your PA is just a lot brighter than your monitors? Going from 60dB to 100dB doubles the perceived amount of low end (~10dB difference on the equal loudness contour) compared to the loudness of the midrange.

Quote from nakedzen

Interesting, science tells us it should be the complete opposite (which is what my experience has been as well, I need to drop the amount of bass heavily when playing loud). Maybe your PA is just a lot brighter than your monitors? Going from 60dB to 100dB doubles the perceived amount of low end (~10dB difference on the equal loudness contour) compared to the loudness of the midrange.

Not really. Notice how the 3-4k region gets noticeably more sensitive with higher loudness. From bedroom levels and up, the low mids get considerably less sensitive. For guitar, this will yield a much sharper, edgier tone at higher levels, as these are very important frequency bands for shaping edge and body respectively on this electring thingy we play. If you play metal on some 8-stringed monster, or like some seriously deep shit in your tone, you probably have to roll back way down there though. But hey, why not leave some room for the bassist in the first place

Quote from Trazan

Not really. Notice how the 3-4k region gets noticeably more sensitive with higher loudness. From bedroom levels and up, the low mids get considerably less sensitive. For guitar, this will yield a much sharper, edgier tone at higher levels, as these are very important frequency bands for shaping edge and body respectively on this electring thingy we play. If you play metal on some 8-stringed monster, or like some seriously deep shit in your tone, you probably have to roll back way down there though. But hey, why not leave some room for the bassist in the first place

Not really seeing that in the graph, or in real life. Ime, presence needs to go up and bass down when you play loud with a full band vs. quietly at home. But ymmv since it hugely depends on how loud you play, 1 or 2 guitarists, keys or no keys, etc. and the room you're playing in. I play metal, but not deep shit.

Btw. Fletcher-Munson ≠ equal loudness contour.

Bah. Quoting doesn't work.
Fletcher-Munson is a derivative of an equal loudness contour, so he's sort of technically right.

If you really want to get techy about it, the real issue is that while you perceive less bass at higher volumes, lower frequencies are harder to amplify.
Add the fact that amplification is a linear affair and your hearing is not, and it turns out a 50W tweeter at half-volume is almost twice as loud as a 200W woofer at the same settings.

My PA has a 400W woofer and a 100W tweeter, which shouldn't display such a problem. In theory.
In practice, i suppose what i'm experiencing is the mechanical difference between moving a woofer and a horn diaphragm.

Quote from VESmedic1

The Hs80s are far from neutral, however they will get you in the park. They have a decently high, high mid and treble spike around 3k or so, and a slight suck out in the Lowe mids area.

According to this graph
http://www.gearslutz.com/board…ab-frequency-response.jpg
you're right.
Still they are fairly neutral.
Not everybody can afford to tweak on Adam A 7’s.

Anyway, this is more about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher–Munson_curves
anyway.
According to the curves we as humans are most sensitive to mids and high mids at low levels, so we tend to dial in too much bass and treble.
The louder we play he more the curve equals out. At 80 dB it is fairly flat.

Im glad thats solved ! I'll tell my neighbours that everything sounds fine and thats why I need to play at 80dB at 3.a.m.

Quote from nakedzen

Not really seeing that in the graph, or in real life. Ime, presence needs to go up and bass down when you play loud with a full band vs. quietly at home. But ymmv since it hugely depends on how loud you play, 1 or 2 guitarists, keys or no keys, etc. and the room you're playing in. I play metal, but not deep shit.

Btw. Fletcher-Munson ≠ equal loudness contour.

The graphs out there are a bit different. This is the one I've seen the most:

[Blocked Image: http://www.roger-russell.com/equalizers/graphg.jpg]

Between the 80 and 100 dB curves I'd guess a 3dB/oct hipass around 80 Hz, +2-3 dB at 3-400 Hz, -2 dB around 3.5 kHz would get the 100 curve similar to the 80. But yeah, there's a bloody lot more to it than that in a live situation

Quote from Ingolf

According to this graph
http://www.gearslutz.com/board…ab-frequency-response.jpg
you're right.
Still they are fairly neutral.
Not everybody can afford to tweak on Adam A 7’s.

Anyway, this is more about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher–Munson_curves
anyway.
According to the curves we as humans are most sensitive to mids and high mids at low levels, so we tend to dial in too much bass and treble.
The louder we play he more the curve equals out. At 80 dB it is fairly flat.

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well, this is good to know that my ears aren't playing tricks on me! haha! My singer mixes on these, so I am decently familiar in how they translate, and the information I gave is what I had basically picked up over the last few months when listening etc, good to know I am not COMPLETELY tone deaf This makes sense about the low volume thing as well, we are probably all alittle guilty of dialing in too much bass/highs. I hear you about the adams, but I must say, they translate so well it's not even funny, my guitar tones have never been better, they translate ridiculously well. It's also worth noting that pair of the Adam a5x's will run about the same, if not cheaper than the HS80s, when buying used, which is what I did. I will agree they are "fairly" neutral sounding (the hs80s) but still, that bump (and your logic about the human ear proves it) in the high/high mid area, all the while sucking out a tiny bit of the low mids, will make a difference. But like anything, if you "know your monitors", it is irrelevant, you will learn how to mix accordingly.

I could imagine that lot of those problems come from the fact that most PA system are anything but flat in their frequency response. I would really like to know if those problems would be gone if you used a 30 band EQ in the master section and use a measurement mic and noise generator to really balance the PA system. If the drums and bass of a live mix would be processed and leveled the same way as in a studio production, do you still think the KPA sound would be off?

I did not gig with the KPA yet but i am highly interested in this.

If the PA was flat and the other instruments were processed, what you'd get is the equivalent of playing back a fully produced song -
still susceptible to loudness contours and amplification discrepancies, as any DJ can tell you.

Quote from Quitty

If the PA was flat and the other instruments were processed, what you'd get is the equivalent of playing back a fully produced song -
still susceptible to loudness contours and amplification discrepancies, as any DJ can tell you.

Sure. What i am thinking about for quite a time already is some sort of automatic EQ compensation for the individual monitor and master out sections. It the KPA could emit some test tones and you would plug a measurement mic into the return of the KPA, it could perhaps analyze the differences and automatically adjust the EQ. Those settings could then be stored and recalled for individual venues.

Maybe this could even help using stage monitors that are not as flat as others.

What do you think about this?

Quote from tylerhb

Sure. What i am thinking about for quite a time already is some sort of automatic EQ compensation for the individual monitor and master out sections. It the KPA could emit some test tones and you would plug a measurement mic into the return of the KPA, it could perhaps analyze the differences and automatically adjust the EQ. Those settings could then be stored and recalled for individual venues.

Maybe this could even help using stage monitors that are as flat as others.

What do you think about this?

Brilliant idea!

To be more precise, it was thinking about getting something like this:

http://www.thomann.de/de/behri…496_ultracurve_bundle.htm

But why not implemeting this into the KPA itself?

It is, indeed, a brilliant idea - if a little cumbersome (extra mic), one-time and potentially expensive.

With that said, i'd happily support any solution that brings a more versatile EQ to the output section. As far as i'm concerned, a studio EQ on the main output would solve everything.