hello my name is Dave Rat and today I'm going to talk a little bit about EQ'ing sound systems
if your sound man for a band or you work in a club maybe if you're dealing with any kind of live
reinforcement equipment sure you run into where to where the EQ what do you week you a where do you
EQ it. I've a pretty straightforward approach to this and the theory is that the channel EQ's
are dedicated to fixing repairing equalizing the combination of the microphone and the instrument
or the microphone and the vocal so if my voice sounds boomy through this mic we would reduce the
low-end on the channel we would EQ it on the channel, if I go to a different mic and I sound too thin maybe
we would we would EQ that on my channel so the combination of my voice and the microphone would
be or the instrument and the microphone would be repaired by EQ'ing the channel the speaker itself
the speakers that are in a box and the enclosure and the way that the speakers interact with each
other that is typically eq'd by the system processor it's generally now
supplied by the manufacturer of the speaker with some sort of preset in the processor and that fixes
the sound of the speaker enclosure combination and maybe they have presets for multiple enclosures
working together finally you have your outboard graph or your system EQ, your system EQ it's job
is to repair or to correct the speaker system to venue combination so theoretically if you follow
that line of thinking out if you use the same mics every day and you have the same band every day
they set up the same backline everyday and use the same speakers every day the only thing that would
change from venue to venue would be your system EQ because you'd be correcting for a different
venue all your channel use would stay the same because they're correcting for the instrument
if somebody the guitar player adds more low end of their guitar you would correct for it here if
you have a boomy room you fix it on the the system EQ and if there's some sort of peak
in the speakers that's done in the processor, pretty maybe pretty logical if you think of
it that way if you do follow that plan if you do correct the various equalizations in that method
theoretically this mic with somebody's voice or instrument coming through it corrected by the
channel EQ and all the channel EQ fix the mic / instrument combinations, you should be able to hook
up a recording system right at the left and right before the system EQ make a recording and play
it back on any quality sound system and have it sound good out sounds similar to a studio balance
or a it shouldn't be too bright it shouldn't be too dull it should sound correct because you've
fixed that microphone instrument combination on the channel strips what the one way to tell
that or to determine that is get a good quality pair of headphones and I do this mighty headphone
quest and some other videos YouTube videos and these are Denon D2000s these are my favorite of
the bunch cost-wise probably the Shure SRH840s they were amazing they're about half the price of
these and what those the reason I did that head for the mighty headphone quest was specifically
for this purpose to EQ I carry these with me live everywhere I go or a pair of 840s and plug this
into the headphone jack put the headphones on and EQ each of the microphone instrument combinations
using the channel strips to sound correct and the headphones reference this acts as a common
reference point that I bring with me everywhere always have the same reference point and if I
always make those instruments sound the same regardless or if there is a change different mic
a different guitar amp so make them sound correct here and I plug this in and listen to CDs that I'm
familiar with and they sound correct then my board tapes recorded off the left right bus before the
system EQ will sound correct so now I've got this correct sound created off the channel EQ s and now
I've taken I'm taking this correct sound now the next way we got to deal with it is now we have a
system EQ to deal with the system EQ we play a CD that we're familiar with we EQ the system so that
CD sounds correct we may use pink noise when we bring it to flat and it gets as close or closer you
may use smart and correct that so it's flat so now you've got some sort of way of getting your system
EQ so that correct music correctly recorded CDs sound proper through it and your EQing
your microphone instrument combinations to sound correct then when you marry those two together and
you've got your correct sound coming out of this into your correct sounding system and assuming
your speaker system has a processor or the actual yeah system processors or eq'd correctly then the
sound should come up sounding great and then when you move to another room you change your system
EQ to correct for the room variations another good trick to get your sound of the system EQ dialed in
you might be smart using various methods like as a comparative reference I'll take a CD I'll play
it through the main system I'll play it through the speakers and I'll also plug my headphones
right into the front of the CD player and I'll put the headphones on and listen to the headphones and
I'll try and match up match the volume so the main system is about the same size same volume
as the headphones and I'll listen to headphones and the main thing take them off and put them on
and I'll adjust the system EQ if the headphones sound much brighter than the mains and I know the
headphones are correct I'll dull the mains down and you can as you become more familiar with it
you can actually get pretty good at it where you know it's your listen to headphones cshhh cshhh cshhh
you take it off you listen to the PA schooo schooo schooo ok, cool okay that's a little bit too much maybe 630
or 800 or whatever you you keep going back and forth until you've got a nice
tonal match between your headphones your constant reference point and your system and you've also
used your headphones to get a good sound off of your various instruments if you've actually used
your common reference point properly you should be able to put those two together and have this
correct sound passed completely through the system I found that this method is so effective for me
that when I work in a recording truck let's say I'm doing a live TV show I can actually use my
same EQ settings that I use for my live show on the recording truck console and get very close to
the sounds that I'm looking for in a live festival I'll do the same thing I don't even need I can
actually check the entire band using my headphones and the familiar microphones and then I'll play
a CD in between bands EQ the main PA using the CD and the headphones make the main PA correct
check the channel inputs on the headphones make that correct never hear the instruments through
the main PA and when I bring them both together I can actually fire up the band and have them sound
correct through the festival system without ever doing a full blown line check or sound
check with the band all right that should cover it for now and I'll try and do more video soon