How do you create a target trace in Smaart? Why would you want
to create a target trace? What is a target trace? In the last
couple of videos we've been talking about expectation right before we take
any kind of measurement we want to have an idea in our mind of what what do we
need from that measurement what what do we expect it to look like so that we
don't just have like a bunch of data coming at our face and we don't really
know what to do with it and we don't have any thing to compare it to right so
the reason we want to target trace is that we want to have some sort of goal
for our measurement or some goal for our EQ actions so don't want to just come in
and look at our magnitude trace and start just guessing for those of you who
have a flat target trace you can just use the 0 DB line but most people want
some kind of a boost in the low end and some kind of an int in you a ssin in the
high end just through attending other people's trainings working with other
sound engineers and doing work myself I've just discovered that that's the
kind of shape that I like that's the kind of shape that a lot of clients like
and a lot of other sound engineers and system techs it's kind of this kind of
shape right a little bit of boost on the low end and a little bit of 10 uation
the high end know what kind of shape you want to draw is totally up to you ok and
this is one of the fun parts now unfortunately in smart there's no target
trace in the transfer function if we head over to the spectrum view here is a
target trace you just press the X key and it shows up now if you don't see it
that's because it's up too high ok so I just went to the default view I'm
turning and pressing X over and over again I don't see it so I got to hit the
arrow key go way up here at the top there we go now if I practice the X key
I can see it but that doesn't help me a whole lot because I really want to see
it in the transfer function screen so let's go back to transfer function and
obviously pressing the X key does nothing pretty easy to create one though
all we need to do is measure an EQ and draw the shape that we want in the EQ
then we can save that trace and that can be our target trace we could even create
a few different shapes for different kinds of shows different program
material ok so in the last video I showed you how to set up and measuring
EQ so if you haven't watched it already please go back and watch that I'm
already set up and ready to go so let's turn on my measurement turn on the
signal generator ok everything's flat good to go cool so now I can open up my
EQ and start to draw so as I mentioned most people want sort of some low
frequency boosts in my case it's usually about 10 DB in a lot of concert or
theater or circus you're gonna see a plus 6 plus 10 plus 12 maybe if you're
doing an EDM show plus 20 I don't know okay so let's leave that at +10 cuz
that's the way I like it and it started a little bit too early so I'll just take
this down to 90 maybe split the difference there and then I also
mentioned that we generally want some kind of high end reduction so I'm gonna
put it in a 4 DB cut this is where you get to have fun ok so if you know that
although you like this kind of a boost that you always like some kind of a cut
around 200 then you can go ahead and put that in this is totally acceptable okay
now we have a little bit more drastic shape now this at this is more of what I
wanted at 160 we're only up to 2 dB okay so you can kind of stack filters on top
of each other because again in this particular case all we care about is
drawing a picture so I don't care about this phase trace I mean I could even
take this away right all I care about is really drawing a picture here create
your own target trace this way okay just measuring EQ do whatever you need to do
here and the controls to get the picture that you want here if you don't know
what your target trace is then just steal my start with mine start with this
and see if this works for you another way that I've seen people handle this is
that they will take a bunch of saved traces from previous shows where they
did a whole tuning they really liked it and they have some traces that really
represent what they feel like is a good sound or the kind of sound that that
client wants the kind of shape of the cue that that client expects to hear and
then they'll just import that and then your starting from some something that
you already know that works and then you can shoot for that that can be your
target I really like to see a really clear solid line here I might save this
as target concert okay and then as I mentioned I might
have a different one for my corporate events and then I might save that one as
target corporate and then what I recommend what I have done in the past
is I will then change this color so we right-click go to info click on color
and then just pull these all the way up and that's probably the fastest way to
do it fffff that's white apply okay there we
go so now I have a target trace so later on in future videos when I go to measure
a speaker let's reset this
then when I get this kind of a shape I can say oh okay obviously I need to put
in an EQ filter to get this boost that I want okay maybe I want this cut here and
this so now we have a target trace that's how you create a target trace in
smart and in the next video we're going to look at how to create a target trace
in SATA live
sound design