After you get your audio analyzer set up, how do you know that
you've got good data? How do you know what to do with all these squiggly lines
on your screen? In these next few videos what I want to do is talk about
how to verify your data; make sure you've got everything set up correctly so you
don't have to worry about that anymore and you can start really taking action
on the information that you're getting so I recommend that you guys use a
checklist that's what I do when I'm out in the field even if I'm just using a
mental checklist I'm still going through all the steps to make sure that
everything is set up correctly you guys know if you're making assumptions about
any part of your setup that's probably the part that's gonna fail right so I'm
going to give you my checklist in a link below this video and you can download
it's just a PDF okay so the very first step in the audio analyzer verification
checklist is your physical IO right so we need to just make sure that all the
inputs and outputs are connected correctly and I have two ways I'm going
to show you how to do that the first way is like the fast simple easy way and
it'll just get you up and running you can start taking measurements
the second way takes a little bit longer it's a little bit more complicated but
it'll save you time down the road if you're actually going to be measuring
during a soundcheck and measuring during a show okay so let's take a look at that
now over here here's my setup I've got my audio interface my audio console I've
got the UM C 404 HD and the x32 rack alright let's take a look at the back I
don't have really anything plugged in yet so let's talk about the simple way
first so if you just want to immediately start making some measurements and you
want to get set up quickly then I recommend that you just start with a Wye
cable okay this is a simplest way to do it
plug the output of your audio interface so we've got output left here from the
main outs of the audio interface take one side of that split I'm going to plug
it into the reference input that's usually my first input okay
reference input input number one and I'm gonna take the other copy of that signal
and plug it in to my console and in this case I usually just try to use the last
inputs on the console so in this case that'll be aux in number six on the x32
then all I need is my measurement microphone okay so got my measurement
microphone plugged in here I've got everything labeled I've got my reference
in the first input and I'm done I can start taking measurements I can start
putting sound into the system and seeing some results in my audio analyzer
now here's the only problem with this setup later on if I want to actually
measure soundcheck if I want to measure the show I'm not going to be able to do
that and that's because when I'm looping directly from the output of my audio
interface back to the input I can only measure the signal generator
from my audio analyzer okay and that's fine for setup but it's not going to
work for this show so if I want to actually measure during the show and
during the soundcheck then I also need to get my reference from the audio
console because I want to get a copy of the mix going through it so let me
unplug this Y cable
so we're going to need a couple different cables here's a super-short
TRS a TRS and I'll just take the same output from my audio interface and I'll
plug it into that same input I was using oxen number six on the x32 okay
then I'll plug the output from my audio console back into the reference input on
my audio interface so I'm also taking aux out number six here
and I'm plugging that into the reference input my audio analyzer okay those are
the physical connections the great thing about this is that now I can measure
during setup I can measure during sound check and I can measure during the show
okay so it takes a little bit more time a little bit more thought to think how
you're gonna set this up but then you'll be ready to go for the rest of the day
if you're gonna be working on a show as well we didn't talk about the output if
I didn't have an audio console and I was just going to measure maybe a speaker
then I could just take a copy of the output from my audio interface here and
run that directly up to the speaker okay but in this case I'm setting this
up like it's actually going to be a show so I've got the output here my main
speaker plugged into output one on the x32
okay last thing I need to do when I get into my x32 software is I need to send a
special copy of the mix if I send the exact same copy of my output that I'm
sending to the speaker it's going to also include all of the processing that
I do in a console which is fine if I'm doing my speaker processing so all of my
EQ dynamics and delay in a separate speaker processor so if I have a console
and then a speaker processor unit and then the speaker then my sound system
then I don't have to worry about then I can just take a copy from the console it
can be exact same thing I'm sending to the speaker processor but if I'm doing
the processing in the console like a lot of people are doing now and to drill
consoles because they're so powerful and you you kind of you can if you want to
then I need to take a copy of the mix before any of the system processing so
how am I going to do that so in the x32 I'm gonna open up my routing page okay
let's go to the XLR outputs here output number one is my main mix going to my
main speaker I'm gonna get that from matrix number one now you can handle
this however you want just make sure you keep it consistent right so matrix
number one is where I'm getting my main output cool let's go to the aux outputs
remember this is where I connected that TRS cable back there I connected it to
aux output six
same routing okay output one matrix one aux output six matrix one big difference
here though check out how its read under you can barely tell they don't make it
very easy to see this but it's read here normally it would be purple right and
then all the processing that I'm doing on my matrix output here all of my
speaker processing my EQ and stuff would be included in this reference input that
I'm sending to my audio analyzer and then I wouldn't be able to see the
changes that I'm making in my measurements since I want to be able to
see those changes and I'm going to take a copy of the exact same thing I'm
saying to the speakers except I'm going to remove all of the EQ so I'll take a
input and low-cut tap here click on that again and it turns red okay so it's that
simple there's a lot of different ways you can do this that will work I think
this is the simplest way I used to create a separate channel and send that
out of the mono output and route it that way but I just discovered this default
signal tap setup here and I think this is actually a little bit simpler and for
me maybe the most simple way to do this so if you have a better way to do this
or if you have a way that you like to do this that you'd like to share with me
I'd love to know I'd only use the next 32 all the time just occasionally and so
for this setup I think this is what I would do it's kind of quick and painless
and really clear to me what's happening I'm always using matrix one that's where
my entire mix is going but for the audio analyzer it's pre EQ
okay so this is the very first step in the audio analyzer verification
checklist I've checked my physical i/o and my settings of my mixer to make sure
I'm getting the tap from the right place
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