Essential PA System Tuning
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
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If you’re responsible for a PA, you want it to sound good.
You know you should “tune” your PA, but you’re unsure exactly what you’re supposed to do to get these speakers sounding their best.
To get sound to everyone, you need to choose the right speakers. To get even coverage, you need to place your speakers correctly. To get a smooth sound, you need to EQ the speakers. And to make them play well together, you need to balance levels and time align. That might seem like a lot, but I’m going to share a simple-ish framework to get your speakers sounding great.
You’ll, of course, be using your ears, but we’ll cover how to use data to remove any guesswork.
Nathan Lively's target traces that I used in this video:
www.sounddesignlive.com/targe...
00:00:00 - start
00:01:05 - Speaker Placement & Coverage
00:05:05 - When to Use Front Fills or Delays
00:09:46 - Verifying, Setting Level, and EQ
00:11:18 - Setting Up Smaart
00:14:13 - Target Trace
00:15:13 - Measure Mains, Levels, EQ
00:16:59 - Front Fills Levels, EQ
00:18:50 - Speaker Time Alignment
00:19:52 - Time Align Main and Sub
00:21:12 - Time Align Fills
The issue is that the EQ settings should account for the occupancy of the venue. The acoustics differ significantly between an empty space and one filled with people. When you tune your PA system in an empty venue, it may sound good initially, but as the venue fills up, the sound quality often deteriorates. This happens because the initial measurements were taken in an empty space, which doesn't accurately reflect the conditions when the venue is full.
yea thats true, how would we tackle that?
I'm more old school personally, the volume of the main foh is the benchmark to my way of sorting any venue, it is after all where the main action is focussed when the house has bums on seats, the 3 frequencies indeed do travel at their natural speeds so a simple adjustment to the frequency of each usually realigns any obvious latency issues, the science often gets in the way of the art too much these days and tends to make the process cluttered in my opinion, we use our foh only at room set intention and when it's kicking well in the main audience zone we then during our sound check slowly introduce our side fill and floor stage monitors to come into phase only with the foh from our stage listening as the players first, lots of players sound crap on stage to please the sound guy mainly, both are winners when the foh main is set correctly first, the fills elsewhere around the room if needed are only like monitors for the audience and not considered as able to replicate the main thrust of foh.
The drums if conventional are the usual phase-setter and the amps by guitar/bass/keyboard etc are not set higher than the already noisey drummer and when it's right on stage for the players first, it's going to be easier for it to be replicated in the p.a. and stage monitors and audience fills if any are required to match, the mixer if right on foh it can supply a copy to the monitors and it's less fluffing around, the process works in reverse too if required by letting the players get themselves great on stage first then sorting the foh next the monitors next...room fills can be included if needed when those 3 are in phase effortlessly.
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I think there is a reason why the SMART is showing the phase reading topmost. If you adjust the eq without doing delay compensation first, your reading might be way off due to interference between multiple speakers. It's like miking a drum kit, first place the mics and make sure the phases are right, then get the eq sorted, otherwise you might be eq-ing the phase issues. Align time first, then eq multiple source systems.
Another great video: keeping it simple keeps it clear!
Thanks. That's exactly what I was going for!
Very very well done!
Thank you!
This is the best video I’ve seen yet on time alignment!! Cheers from AUSTRALIA 🇦🇺
Aw you're too kind! Cheers!
I’ve been looking for a video on how to tune a system I’ve read books this by far is the best thing I’ve ever found for mixing a system
It really is a fantastic piece of internet this! 👌
Aw thank you so much. This means a lot ❤️
Thank you for this amazing video! Great Tutorial! This is pure gold ❤
You're so welcome! Very glad to hear it's helpful
This is an area I have struggled to get my head around. I kinda get it, but this really made the penny drop!
Thanks dude 🤘🔊🔊
So glad it was helpful. It's definitely a complex topic so if I can help you on your way then I'm happy
It's a basic process of 'triangulate' to find the optimum listening point to set any p.a. from or for the rest of the space, anything added beyond such is only replication of the ideal listening point which is the same distance directly in front of the p.a. enclosures being apart as foh. ...anything else is mere replication intent or additional monitors or 'fills' as you've referred to them as.
Hello and thanks for the video.😊
I have a question about the monitor.
How little / how much time do you spend tuning monitors?
Thanks in advance for your help and for sharing your knowledge🙏
🤓
Great video, but shouldn’t time/phase alignment come prior to EQ’ing to the target curve? For example: The bump in low end you just equalized could be due to the speakers misaligned. Fixing the alignment could result in a double increase/decrease of the level.
Plus: Crossover points change with level and thus with EQ.
Sure, you can only align the whole system at one listening point, but at least you can make sure it's properly aligned >somewhere.
Hi, thanks for your Video! It really made some things clear and helped me to understand the process :)
However, I have a question:
Are you doing the same to your Monitors at FOH so the sound you hear when mixing is the approximate sound in front of the Stage?
Hey, do you mean like near field monitors? I've never been in a position where I've had them or felt I needed them but yeah I'd like the response to match the rest of the system
What microphones and software are you using to set your eq level?
You remove the highs from the delay speakers (shelving) to give the impression the sound is coming from the main speakers ie the stage.
I wouldn't recommend this, if anything I'd say do the opposite. We lose high frequencies disproportionately to low frequencies over distance. If you remove the highs from the delays then you're removing the purpose of the delays, which is to restore the frequency response and level to our target curve or within 6db of it. If you find people are localising the source to the delay speakers, Use a little more delay and thus the precedence effect to make people localise the sound to the stage while maintaining your desired level and tonality
In the target trace part you clam that human hate flat system, is there a evdience? Because in contrary in most of Floyd Tooles paper mentions that anechoic flat system were prefered across both normal and trained listeners.
If the right mic, is in the right place, with the right desk and correct speakers, is eq necessary? 🧐
There is no "right" in audio. Everything is a compromise.
There is no answer to your question because what you are asking about doesn't exist.
It would've been good to get more information about system tuning when you're not using fills. I know you've got other videos that focus more on standard LR systems, so maybe just rename this video to highlight the difference? Great video though!
rule #1 use your ears not your eyes I see so many people doing things like subs L-R of stage and then wondering why there are power alleys and valleys. speakers are not lights
I agree, but sometimes you have to do LR placement of subs, because of client or artist (don't want subs in center or it's not possible to put subs in center), it depends. It's great video.
@@tomazklancnik7760 yeah I’m talking about the people that preferred to set up their subs left right because it looks like it’s the most even coverage
@@tomazklancnik7760 I'd rather put them together on one side or the other.. sounds cleaner
Center sub is to prevent power alleys and valleys.
@@jaken528 I’ve been doing that lately you get so much more output on top of getting rid of the dead spots
22:07 I believe there's s mistake here ("apply delay to mains first"), or creates confusion IMO. One doesn't need to apply delay to the mains, unless one is tuning the array of doing some sort of beam steering, and this stuff is often performed in the system processor. If that's the case then yes, correct.
But for the purpose of alignment, mains are most of the times the point of reference, because most of the times subs and front fills are nearer to the audience, so those are the ones who need to have delay applied. Correct me if I'm wrong?
If we are talking about flown subs then the conversation changes.
Cool video, thanks 👍🏻
You're very correct about about the mains being your point of alignment. However I said apply Delay compensation to the measurement with your main before turning on the fills. I can see how that's confusing. To set the record straight, that's applying delay to the measurement within smart to account for the travel time from the mains to the mic.
@@OffshoreAudio yes that's makes more sense. The measurement and the reference signals should be synced to the mains.
My bad, I'm not a English native speaker. 🤦🏻
@@DiogoCocharro no worries! it is confusing. it's a complicated topic and difficult to make it straightforward
Let me ask, why do I have to get the measurement of the on-axis and further back the intended listening area? Is the measurement in the intended listening area not enough? Also can I just measure with the sub already on? Please answer thanks!
To ensure the whole listening area is consistent. I explain at 16:00 - 16:30 in the video
👌
@16:45 did you measure Top and Sub together ?
Yeah. You can see the measurement change when I turn the sub on.
What if for time alignment, you measure the distance from any speaker, to the main PA? Then calculate the delay and apply it on the mixer? Isn't that simpler than using Smart?
i’m pretty sure this is what he was saying
You could, but then you're making assumptions about variables that affect the result like temperature and humidity. If you measure using smaart then you're measuring the real world result and aligning actual arrival times. I have done it with a laser measure and ultimately you can do whatever you like. You can do it totally by ear if you want, it'll just be less accurate and less consistent.
@@OffshoreAudio I understand. Thx a lot.
@@josh88745 I don't think so. Calculating the delay is distance over spead of sound in air. And most consoles you just input the distance. Hence me saying it's simpler🤷
Greetings from Boston Massachusetts USA! What a great tutorial. That helped me understand a bunch of things in a clear way. (No pun intended). Btw, is that a Scottish accent??? Whatever it is, I love it!
Thank you so much! So happy to hear this. And yes! No one ever guesses the accent correctly hahaha 😁
System tuning is overrated
Simply not true… Ever worked on a large-scale festival with multiple hangs, fills and audience zones? Tell the system techs to do it without proper simulation and tuning. There is a reason, today’s festivals are bigger and offer a better listening experience. It all comes down to the development of measurement tools and software, too.