Aux Fed Subs | Pros, Cons, & Finding Common Ground With Dave Rat
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- čas přidán 4. 07. 2024
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Over a year ago I posted my first video addressing what I thought about aux fed subs and offered some alternative workflows. Little did I know that video would become one of my most popular and most polarizing videos.
Now that I’ve had some time to try out some other ideas, listen to others approaches and opinions I’ve decided to revisit the subject in a different way.
I want to go on the record here saying I don’t think it is wrong to have a certain workflow in live audio.
Today I’m not trying to convince you one way of driving your system over another, I simply want to start a conversation and assess the pros and cons of each. I will of course have my own preferences, but - spoiler alert - I have used aux fed subs on several shows this last year when it made sense.
I actually want to couch this approach in a larger framework - what we’re doing when mixing subs on an aux is pivoting from a LR driven mix approach to a stem mix approach. You’re fanning your mix out into discrete separate parts with different functions, and I do believe there’s merit to that approach when it makes sense.
My hope for today is for you to have another tool in your toolbox when choosing how to design, drive, and mix on a system for your given application.
We’ll learn:
- My favorite application for aux fed subs
- A critical mixing misapplication of aux fed subs on larger systems
- Is the “it will change your crossover” argument valid?
⏱ Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
01:35 - Pros - Stem (Aux) Driven System
11:32 - Cons - Stem (Aux) Driven System
17:30 - Pros - LR Driven System
21:56 - Cons - LR Driven System
23:28 - Conclusion
#livesound #subwoofers #liveaudio - Hudba
The event that finally made me switch to aux subs was a show I did for comedians. Subs were required because of walk-in / walk-out music and different intros..etc. I was getting a low rumble / roaring sound on a particular comedian and I couldn't understand because my High Pass Filter was high..... cranked to 250 - 280Hz yet the frequency was around 120Hz. How can this be? It is only speech from a person. So it hit me that High Pass Filters don't filter out everything below a certain point after all. 24dB slope and still getting through. So after making ridiculous cuts on the EQ channel, I decided to figure out how to properly do the aux sub thing. Aux Sub totally fixed this issue.
So here are my thoughts:
High Pass Filters do NOT filter everything out like we think & not necessarily their fault either.
The reason High Pass Filters don't filter out the frequencies we think may be because we are asking them to do something not designed to do.... for example... a 10 -15dB boost on the low end that many are accustomed to for a Rock Show or even a Rap Show (20dB boost), and we want them to filter all of that out.
If the system was set up with minimal low end boost, the HPF would work better or so it seems.
The problem comes down to how much low end boost you have on your PA. Strong low end, no way you can high pass your way out of that. Don't believe me, shut off your tops and speak into the vocal mic while you listen to your subs, you will hear all kinds of muffled up mud it will blow your mind. By the time you High Pass it, you will be at 500Hz but then your sound coming out of the TOPS will be horrifying. The ONLY way to get that out of there is to keep the vocal from going to the subs in the first place. Aux Subs fixes this. Same thing applies to guitar players who think Low End is best leaving no room for the Bass player....
Its a personal thing for me now and I don't always stick to aux subs. I'm open for correction but I just keep going back to aux subs.
Final Observation: I worked at a 1500 capacity venue and 99.9% of the touring bands that came through.... their engineers want the subs on an Aux.
Hey Michael,
love how you decorated this room as a comlete mirror image to your usual recording room. 🥳
Really appreciate all your videos!
I go back and forth. Today, I used aux fed instead of matrix fed because the rig I was using was two dual 12” Yorkville subs (which really impressed me) and even with aggressive high pass filters on the vocals, and a third order crossover on the subs, I was still getting them in the subs.
Yorkville makes impressive subs
This is probably the best and most thorough comparison I have found, and has answered so many questions and put to bed a lot of the concerns I've been spinning around in my brain as to how I am going to set up my room. I am now certain that I want to do aux fed, but will be heavily relying on your explanation of the pros and cons to guide me in my pursuit of the perfect sound! Thank you!
The musical ability to fade subs up and down 5db throughout the show is the most effective way to keep people interested. Hands down.
Its also fatiguing if the subs are too hot the entire show.
@@funkyjaunt5456 ya think?
kudos for being open to new things and changing your mind.
He wasn't concerned with if it can be heard or not - he was talking about getting rid of even the slightest unwanted 1-80Hz content driving the multi-kilowatt sub arrays. Even if you cant hear it, and the highpass filters do have some roll-off per octave, it will inevetably bring some voltage to the subs no matter how slight or inpercievable it is. He also thinks of it as a ON or OFF sub switch
Yeah... When I feed my subs on my M32, I set the send to be "Subgroup" so it's on or off, and not a variable send. If it's too much, or not enough, I need to adjust channel processing, or maybe my subs are too loud.
yeah this guy hasn’t mixed on 32 high powered Dual 18” subs at a music festival
I love the way your presentation on this video
I used to prefer aux fed subs, and I HATE hearing vocals in the subs, but after using properly constructed and balanced PAs I'm now fine to mix LR (though I often want control of front fill and delay mixes). I don't mind aux fed though, it's just a modestly different workflow. I have a better time thinking of the sub mix as LFE, there for when the epic video plays or when the band wants to shake the earth. I think the ideal system is one where half the subs are integrated into the LR mix to make it balanced full range, and the other half are on a separate LFE mix (assuming these mixes are processed to play nice together).
love the detail you provided in the video!
Different strokes for different folks. Comes down to most how you are able to control and manage your system, but I do believe you can achieve more consistent and more accurate results by using The plethora of processing available and a straight LR mix.
It's been a while since I've visited your channel, aaaaaaand you broke my brain as per usual, but in a good way. Cheers!
I was about to make a comment on your previous video two years ago, since you've made a follow up here's my take on this. We should be open to different perspectives and approaches but I'd stick running my Subs via aux as I have more control which channel I want route to use subs specially on a Church setup. This get's sure to prevent bleeds specially from headworn and lapel mics. I only use subs to supplement the low's of the FOH speakers. I have no problem with this setup on our livestream as I have live mastering mix.
Hey, if you matrix out your subs, can’t you still simply push up/down that sub matrix w/ LR feeding it? The lav mic example was nice, and I would like to try the on/off sub aux approach.
If you have a 48dB/Octave pass filter at ie 60/80Hz how will that cause the x over point to vary at different locations from your mains and subs , considering they are time/phase aligned.
The amount of level variance will need to be excessive to shift 60/80Hz at point A to 120/160Hz at point B , 48dB.
Not sure you explained that correct. Unless im not understanding how a pass filter works.
Vocals, guitars, and other non-sub instruments still have low-end that is part of their sound. Too much can get in the way, but too little (or nothing, as some people like) might be pretty bad too. The subwoofers are there to reproduce low frequencies, not specific instruments.
I don't get the logic of aux-fed subs. To be really consistent with that mindset, we should also mix the midrange separately from the hi-end, but that doesn't make sense at all!
I get there are certain situations when aux-fed subs are a good thing, but for me, that's the exception, not the rule. Thanks for the video!
In this context, subs are supposed to be only the very low sounds so they can be driven hard and FELT.
The sounds you are talking about are supposed to be handled by the "woofer", and don't need to be in the SUB Woofer.
It's just like how the crossover separates the mids and highs and handles them differently in different speakers.
The issue is that in live sound, you get a lot of low frequency sounds that you don't want, handling noise, wind noise, harmonics, rumble, etc, and when it gets into the subs it creates a higher noise floor, and just makes the actual bass sounds, kick drum, bass guitar, etc, sound muddy.
And just because an instrument or microphone HAS a low frequency component, doesn't mean that you WANT it! Lol
Unless a singer has a really deep voice, there is nothing about their voice that I want to hear from the sub.
But probably the biggest issue is, on a good concert system, the subs are run totally different than the mains, and are designed to thump chests and rattle the floor.
You might appreciate the bass in someone's voice through the woofers, but unless it's a super low voice, you don't want the floor shaking from it, because it's not what a voice is supposed to sound like.
And when you get handling noise that is booming out, it sounds really bad.
So being able to remove that from the SUB woofers is important, because you should still be able to HEAR all those low end parts in the mains, just not FEEL it from the subs.
@@ke6gwfnone of that is necessarily true on a properly deployed system with a dialed mix. Plenty of very established pros get stellar mixes without aux fed subs.
@@TheMrRelicyou are correct, as long as you are going by your definition of what a properly deployed system sounds like and what a good mix is.
As I said, if you are going for a chest rattling bass line, rather than a well balanced vocal mix, then you are operating the SUBS differently, and the extra separation and control of an aux fed design is useful.
I'm glad that you mentioned the corporate situation, because I come from both Corporate and Rock N Roll.
I never understand why people would want lavs/headsets to go to subs, so in most corporate gigs I'll always have aux-fed subs.
Still finding my stance with this on live music, though I do think that aux-fed gives more manageable quality to low-end. I don't for example want my rack tom to drive the same weight as my kick drum, but I do like a proportionate amount that feels appropriate for the instrument.
I am always happy to be wrong, but haven't personally experienced the same sense of balance/separation on a L/R system (yet).
I did a unique show where the band was performing aboard a century-old sailing schooner, and the audience was paddle-boarders on the water. I rigged my EV ETX-12P speakers from the ship's rigging. This speaker produces an impressive amount of bass for its size, but covering this kind of distance outdoors, I wanted the 18s to handle more of the upper bass range. So I crossed it at 100 Hz (ordinarily I cross at 80 or below). Problem: I was high-passing guitar and vocals, etc., at 80 Hz, but had subs on an aux. So, if I'm high-passing mics at 80 Hz, it means that there's content at or above 80 Hz that I want, and that was getting tossed since it wasn't going to any speakers set to produce that 80-100 Hz range. But I also didn't want a lot of wind rumble in my mics to go through the subs. In this case, it probably would have been better to just feed the subs from a matrix fed from LR, since the subs were in effect acting as a system WOOFER, and not just as a sub. There's a video on my channel that I took while mixing from a separate boat, if you're interested.
Have you ever heard of the term "analysis paralysis"?
My point is that I think you are getting extremely lost in the weeds about something that literally makes no difference at all.
Firstly, I can absolutely guarantee you that a high pass filter at 80Hz is, in practice in a live sound situation, completely indistinguishable from one at 100Hz. Literally nobody will be able to tell at all, not even you; it is such a minuscule difference. You might benefit from reading up on psychoacoustics, which is the study of how the brain interprets sound; of particular note here is the fact that we can still interpret low frequencies that are not there based on the overtones that are still there. What that means in practice is that you can take a guitar signal, even a signal that includes that low E at 80Hz, and you can high pass that well above 80Hz, let's say 300Hz for example, and that low E will still sound like a low E, even if 80Hz is completely filtered out of the signal. The general loss of low end will certainly be noticeable from filtering at 300Hz instead of 80Hz, but the fact that the fundamental frequencies of the lowest notes are missing will be completely unnoticeable. (I would personally argue, in fact, that the loss of low end from filtering vocals and guitars at 300Hz is generally an improvement, because those signals don't really need low end, and your mix will probably sound better and your system will perform better by not wasting sonic space and power handling on reproducing low-end that is not needed.)
You also seem to be missing the point that crossover filters are not hard filters; that is to say, when you have a low pass filter in effect, there is still some amount of content above the crossover frequency, and in fact, there is also some amount of attenuation below the crossover frequency, so it's not like a crossover point of 80Hz means you have 79Hz at full force and nothing at 81Hz. In your case, even with a crossover point of 100Hz, the mains are still producing down to, and even below, 80Hz, so you are mistaken in your assessment that your vocals and guitars were not going to any speakers set to produce 80-100Hz.
(For what it's worth, I am firmly in the aux-fed subs camp; that may have been obvious from the fact that I mentioned I literally routinely high pass things like vocals and guitars well above 100Hz. Vocals have absolutely nothing to contribute to the subwoofers, and the only effect I can foresee them having by being fed to the subwoofers is to introduce noise that I don't want.)
@@thunder____I totally agree with you about shelving guitars and vocals. When setting the low-pass filter sweep it with your eyes closed till you start hearing a loss of low frequencies. Yepp like you said it’s way higher than 80 or 100Hz. Mix with your ears not with your eyes right 😊👌🏼
An application I use Aux SUBs for is controlling transients. Specifically room resonance in the low end. On my digital board I duplicate the kick and other SUB sources and through processing I can reduce the transients in the low end going to the SUBs but still allow them in the upper frequencies. Hopefully that makes sense.
Makes sense, in other words you're using an out of phase signal to cut transients ?
I have always been a subs on an aux guy in the old analog world but have switched mono bus via the matrix due to the fact that delay compensation is often just applied to the mains busses on digital desks.
I still use an aux with certain bands where I want more control for creative effect. Boosting the sub on certain floor Tom hits etc.
Speaking nics is deffinetly where I run into needing the seperation the most. I've been moving toward relying on groups more. Most consoles not having the ability to route busses to busses for gorups it can make it difficult to run intrument and vocal groups to an overall band group then to the mains. I've been leaning toward sending the band groups (including singers) to stereo buss, and the groups I want in the subs to the mono buss. SInce I deal with speaking a lot I send the stereo to a matrix for the mains where the speaking meets up with the band. I usually set up a stereo broadcast matrix and mono matrix (Mono feeds and smaart) so I can have a little more speaking for broadcast and keep the others at unity so my decisions in the house make everything else easier. It does complicate things so getting use to it can take time. But for routing new instuments, if their added suddenly on random channels, I just add them to the appropriate group and their going everywhere they need to quickly. I also use the pultec on the band buss(Stereo) since most consoles seem to have something like it. I don't like the way it interacts wiith speaking mics or playback so keeping thoose seperate helps. In the end once I have it set I don't have to think about it while mixing at all but I still get the seperation and clarity long with a quick way to warm up the band or tame high end very quickly, especially if I have multiple bands which is common. The subs aren't affected by the pultech but I'm looking for it to add some body ususaly and have my subs optimized to be tight and not overworked for their dominent frequencies so I am happy with it sepperated.
When on a Behringer I also use the BGV group to sum the singers into the personal mixers since they ussually feed the band. It saves on channels and they appreciate me keeping the highs and lows of that group in check since it's the same group am using for the mix so I always hear it.
I really wish more consoles gave the option of sending busses to other busses to sipmlify my routing, but I also see the danger for the average user.
I toured with a Grammy award-winning mix engineer and i picked up some habits along the way. One of those being put the Kick In only in the tops and the Kick Out only in the subs for tone control. Same thing with bass DI/mic. Can't do this with matrix subs
Is it reasonable in a left-right driven system to have the subs at 15-20dB above the flat part of the frequency response in order to get that chest-felt kick drum experience? This is a current scenario I'm facing as a mix tech in a house of worship for 300 people, and I'm finding it difficult to keep microphone noise out of the subs, and generally to get intelligibility for replay of pre-recorded speech content without the subs blooming up obnoxiously. Obviously, I'm using the high-pass channel filter to the best of my ability, but it seems not to be enough.
Thanks for another great video, Michael! I have always been a "subs always on an aux" kind of guy, but I have to admit that this gives me something to think about. LOL! Would you mind explaining further the physics behind WHY the crossover changes when you have subs on the floor with flown mains? Is it a change in the phase relationship between between the two over the freq. spectrum that the mains and subs share as distance changes? Thanks so much!
Hey, Stephen. You're very welcome!
The reason the crossover point changes as you move front to back is that the mains and subs are dropping in level over distance at different rates, since they're starting at the front row over different distances.
To make the point, if you're standing 3 feet in front of a loud speaker, then back up another 3 feet, the level will drop 6dB. But if you already three HUNDRED feet away from a speaker, then step back 3 feet, the level will change hardly at all.
With the same reasoning, you may set the levels of your mains vs subs to be locked in at mid-depth in the audience, but if you move forward in the audience that relationship will change since you're moving along a flat plane towards your subs, but a slanted one away from the mains. Hope this helps!
@@MichaelCurtisAudio Thanks for the explanation. Love your channel!
On larger systems I love the extra control subs on aux/subgroup gives. When running dozens of kilowatts of PA it really helps in my experience clean up the low end. I also prefer to have separate processing for my subs (with plugins or hardware) to dial in the right amount of punch. Smaller or medium systems I am fine with subs on a matrix (like you described near the end). It still gives the control I like, without dealing with added complexity, and allows for certain sources (deep male vocals, certain pianos/keyboards) to use the high end of the subs when main LR cannot go low enough.
On a multi-channel mixing board, Dave Rat's point about feeding low-end bleed from cymbal mics into the subs is a non-issue. On each mic preamp, you have both low-cut and graphic EQ filters, with which you can eliminate everything from any particular mic below any cutoff frequency you prefer. With aux-fed subs, you have just one crossover frequency to work with (typically somewhere 80-120 hz), and more often than not, it's not exactly what you want for each mic channel. In the analog days, that was good enough, but with independent banks of digital EQ and dynamics dedicated to each mic channel, why not make use of the tools you have readily at hand?
@@spick1923 - If your subs are outputting "LF junk", that's on you to learn how to use the tools effectively. Anyone who's actually listened to a sub knows that "clarity" is impossible to evaluate in isolation, you have to hear how the entire system responds.
@@FallenStarFeaturesthe issue is that in the real world, High Pass filters reduce, but do not eliminate, the problem sounds, and so when you are running 10s of thousands of watts of subs, that bass noise in the high hat that gets attenuated but not entirely removed from the mix by the hpf, gets amplified a lot in the subs and makes it sound bad.
If you look at a HPF, you notice that it's got a curve to it, so unless you push it way up and take the whole lower end off, you are still getting lows through it, just at a lower volume.
And Dave found that this was a problem, and so he removed the problem by removing anything from the Sub mix that didn't need to be in the subs, and that's by using the auxs on an analog board generally.
Now on a digital board, yes, you have more options, you can split it off through mix groups or whatever, but no filtering is going to be as effective as simply not sending any signals from the unneeded inputs to the subs period.
And if you do it by splitting out a post fader signal from the channels you want in the sub to a dedicated sub send, you can make it completely seamless to the sound human, and get the same benefits.
Add another consideration to consider considering when mixing auxed subs:
Panning laws and stereo sources, vs "mono" or "stereo" sub feeds...
I'll use a combo of the variable send and on/off modes : I'll set most of my sends to a certain level as "zero" depending on where & how my pa is set up that night - (it's usually actually 0 when I've had time to get my outputs just right). Anything going to the subs is usually set there to start, so I can properly EQ first.
Then when i have a stereo source feeding a mono sub send, I'll drop the sub aux 3-6 dB on each channel (relative to my chosen "zero" point) to compensate for the 2 channels adding in the sub, vs. with a pair of auxes that allow the stereo main panning to follow through to the aux busses - where I'll set the aux sub to "relative zero" (wherever value I've determined the system needs for "flat"/balanced) and allow "stereo subs" to pan through as they will.
Great points! Yes, pan laws add another layer of complexity to the puzzle.
I always prefer mixing aux fed, but after watching this I'd say the biggest merit against it is the introduction of latency, thus misaligning subs, when using any master bus processing. I hadn't ever really thought of it for some reason. I've never really been a victim of obvious issues when doing so either. But it's something to think about for sure.
Thanks for the comment, Darrin. Although the latency can be "accounted" for, the bigger difference for me is that your mains have the master bus processing (any EQ, compression, saturation), then your subs do not, unless you duplicate the processing. But even then they will be reacting differently since it's only the content being sent to the subs pushing that processing chain.
For live band aux subs works coz we have control of the vocals but what about for the playbacks? That we cannot seperate the vocals from the music.
It's already going to be mastered, so any "bad" frequencies like handling noise etc will have been filtered out, so it should be able to reproduce well enough, and with aux fed subs you can easily control how much signal you want to send to the subs.
What if you have a situation where you have diverse inputs in a situation of a dance show where various playback tracks from different choreographers with different taste as well as floor mics which need a lot of bass as well as lapels that shouldn’t have any because they are moving around a lot. All of these inputs would need different RATIOS of sub. I don’t think that would be possible with matrix fed subs.
Most pro mixers out there mixing big names are not using subs on an aux. There are several reasons for this. Proper EQ and HPF are all you need in a well designed and properly deployed system.
I have a few rules about how I approach aux-fed subs:
1. There isn't any input channel that I ONLY send to the subs
2. I do NOT use aux-fed subs without ALSO having a crossover, I do not use aux-fed subs as a substitution for a crossover
3. I do not vary the levels of the instruments going to the subs, they are on or off
First of all, thank you for your videos. I know that creating them requires time, study, and dedication.
I would like to highlight a point that you often mention, which is sending only certain elements to the SUB LOW and not to the entire PA. However, what I learned after spending two days with Buford Jones is that:
You should only send to the sub what needs that energy. Your PA should respond very well WITHOUT THE SUBS and not rely on the subs as if they were your low-end.
I mentioned this to Buford at the time, and his response was: "That's why I use Meyer Sound."
What you do in the mix is to use the sub as a reverse filter, only placing it where it is truly needed. This way, it won't affect the mix of the recording because the sound will always be different from what is heard in the live environment, whether with or without subs. After all, you align the subs to complement the PA and vice versa.
When I work as a system engineer, I leave it flexible for any technician to use as they wish. I align the PA in four ways:
PA LR + SUB LR
PA LR + SUB MONO
PA LR + SUB AUX SEND LR
PA LR + SUB AUX SEND MONO
If the console has the option of a mono send or a STEREO B, I use the latter for the sub because it's important not to adjust the volume directly on the channel. Doing so would result in significant differences in sound and the way it is equalized.
Once again, thank you for your videos.
Best regards,
Jovai Santana Lopes
I’ve listened to a lot of different views on matrix or aux fed.
I still prefer Matrix fed, but mix the way that you do.
If I had a choice I would just send a LR to a system processor and do all the system stuff on that.
As for having to turn up an aux to get low end on something, if you just view that as similar to a reverb, it’s not really that much more to think about.
wow, that's a LOT of words, like me, I feel you may be on the edge of being too wordy, it takes me a few watches to absorb your videos, but I really like them and respect your opinion, so I persevere! (Being efficient with a subject you know and have passion for is REALLY HARD) My 2p on this subject is, with a smaller system, when the hire company were the cheapest available and the rig was sent without a drive rack, I NEEDED the sub send to act as the drive rack would have, it saved the day! Even it means losing AUX 5-6 of 6 monitor mixes... What I have realised is that if the Subs are set up on a group, not an Aux, the system largely behaves as it would without it as long as it is well balanced, and that's what that fader is for!!! it it's better to have the option than not... It's hard to disagree with Dave, but he doesn't work the gigs we work, nor does he use the gear we have, plus I sure he would agree we will always do what we can to make the PA sound great, no matter what!
I will happily use an on/off aux for sub, with that aux’s master calibrated in advance. It’s the variable send I cannot accept, inevitably changing a channel’s EQ by dialing a non-repeatable sub contribution.
My experience with AUX fed subs is that I get more power from the subs this way by not sending unwanted signals to the subs. This might be more relevant to me that only have two 18" subs and I really need to get the most out of my system. A question to you Michael. Is this just placebo, or do I actually get more sub power by only sending channels to them that needs to be there, like the kick drum, floor tom, bass guitar and synths?
Hmmm, that's an interesting question and I honestly don't have a hard and faster answer for you, but I could at least help you figure out how to test it.
Next gig, if you have time, you could set up each sub - have one on an aux, one on full range. Then bump your mix into it. See which one hits limit first!
Likely a placebo for most practical purposes. If you take the amount of sub energy that exists in your "non sub" channels, then account for the attenuation from the HPF you'd have on each channel, then any EQ, the amount that's left over will be inconsequential in terms of power demand from the subs. 3dB of attenuation will cut the power requirement in half, and channel HPFs are usually at least 18dB per octave. It could make some difference if there's a lot of sub energy near the HPF corner frequency where it hasn't done much attenuation yet, if this is on a console where you can't change that and where you don't have LF EQ available to reduce it either.
@@Motorman2112 my theory is that the amount of signal hitting the input of the sub is hotter from all of the L/R channels, compared to just sending the necessary channels to the subs, which may trigger the limiter due to signal strength.
This might be placebo and completly off, but I feel that I can push the subs harder without limiting when doing subs on AUX.
@@mikaellavrell It will be a little bit hotter, it's a question of how much. It would depend where these inputs and limiters are in the signal flow too.
If you're sending the a full range signal into the sub and it's doing the crossover filtering internally, then yes, the other channels in your LR mix will have quite an impact on the total signal level at that input.
If you have a crossover before the sub, the amount of energy leaving the LF passband output will not be significantly affected by the presence of signals that have very little sub energy in them anyway.
Limiters will usually be at / just after the crossover output, before the amplifier, though for a powered system there may also be a limiter at the input.
@@Motorman2112 I refer to an active system, should have been clearer about that. So it has a built in limiter that I guess reacts to the full range input signal before it is crossed over.
Interesting topic for sure :)
Appreciate this video man! I saw Dave’s video and was like mannn we need a forum on this. Especially after reading Michael Lawrence’s book.
I mix LR every week at church using a Driverack as my pa distro…ive never ever had a problem with vox or other junk being in my subs. I have even tested this theory out by soloing my subs during soundcheck and having folks singing. Maybe if someone is beat-boxing I could understand- but never had that problem. I think simplicity + having the right system capacity just makes LR the best solution. And for all of additional mix matrices going out (streaming, etc) Im not having to think about low end xyz.
You also are probably in a different environment. If you are running 10s of thousands of watts of subs, any unwanted sounds become VERY problematic.
Your system probably isn't a floor shaker of a sub design, so you can get away with sending handling noise and such to it, and not have it be very noticeable.
But when you have a concert system, or even a church system like one I have worked at recently that has very boomy subs, you can't filter out the plosives and handling noise from the subs, and it was horrible! Lol
So I switched them over to aux fed subs (they are still on analog...), and it improved their sound SO much! Especially for the sermon, because now you don't have all that boomy mess when he's using the handheld with lots of plosives or handling the head worn mic.
So if your system is mild enough, and your talent doesn't create bad handling noise or plosives, than you probably don't NEED aux fed subs, or something similar and better in the digital world, but that doesn't mean it's not a very powerful tool, just not one that everyone needs.
Love your video and dave as always, open up our hard grumpy sound man Mind .. hahaha 😅
I literally know of no tour that is doing sound field Immersive...ie LISA or SoundScape...I know there must be a few but in most touring applications its completely unfeasible as most tours don't have enough time daily to dial in that type of system...Overwhelming #of tours are L/R/S/FF config...
When I'm SE I have both configurations ready so I can give touring engineers their preferred option. Same with aux fed/matrix fed FF
With every aux contribution to what is essentially a single band of a 3 or 4 band crossover, and at that, for only one instrument, the user faces a fundamentally new response of the system, for only that instrument! That’s just not worthwhile for me. I feel I can do a better job without all that tail-chasing.
Apple and adobe meet 3-D TV, yeah you don't know what that is because it lasted how long.
Simpllicity is the strongest argument - second is the fact that modern consoles have plenty of filtering tools available.
Dave Rat's example I saw was a sub fed from an 80hz hipass vocal - then he complained about the bleed. What console does he use that is restricted to a single 80Hz butterworth? No one (including dave) uses only an 80Hz hipass on a vocal on anything close to a modern digital console.
Dave is also very much a system engineer, so of course he wants the power to craft the system stems.
What if you want the low end on a vocal to be in the mains at a reasonable volume, but you don't want to put it into your 50,000 watt sub array that registers on the seismic recorders?
If you try to filter the mic hard enough to prevent any of that low end from reaching the subs, you have to set the upper edge of the filters high enough to start affecting the sound in the mains.
But if it's a vocal or cymbal mic that doesn't need to be in the subs to begin with, you can simply entirely prevent it from getting there through routing, and leave the eq for balancing the mix, instead of trying to kill the low end.
And just as a modern digital console has many more filtering options (just like his analog outboard racks in past days), digital consoles also make it much easier to not route the unwanted channels to the subs, so you don't have to do separate aux sends, you just run subs through another post fader group or whatever that only has the desired bass channels sent to it.
Set it up once and you don't have to think about it again.
@@ke6gwf Absolutely, this is a fine reason to do aux/bus subs. I believe he addresses it in the video :)
However as soon as you start talking about speaker array responses, you are a system engineer - not a mix engineer. Sure sometimes you have to be both. This is not bad, just not an argument from simplicity.
When you play your reference track in the house, the vocals aren't only going to the mains - does that sound good? Thats a stereo mix. If it doesnt sound good, your system tuning and crossovers probably do need some work.
And absolutely modern tools make it easy do this routing. But easy does not equal simple. If you have a shared system run by non-experts or volunteers, the simplicity argument gets much stronger. If you are Dave Rat and spec/setup/tune your own systems and rule FOH - sure, do whatever you want haha!
@@jasonkuzman9630in other words simplicity=poor sound lol
The reference track that you play is going to be a Mastered professional recording, so it's already going to be precision EQ in post, so the vocals only exist in the designated frequency ranges, and they were recorded with pop filters on shock mount stands, and the drums are recorded with mic placement and filtering that prevents bleed through, so there will be no sub bass frequencies in the recording that don't sound good.
Something to try sometime is to plug your headphones in and listen JUST to the subwoofer output on the crossover during a live band, and see if it sounds good, or if are getting signals that shouldn't be there.
If you have a digital console you could simulate this by routing the LR mix to a sub or aux, and then setting up an EQ on it to cut everything above your subwoofer cutoff frequency on the crossover, and then solo it.
You may be surprised what gets in there, and how messy it can get from bleed and handling and plosives.
And yes, if you have untrained fader jockeys running sound, you are not going to have good sound anyway, so why complicate it! Lol
But anywhere I have been in charge of the Tech Ministry (the 6th Fold Ministry I like to say, Paul just forgot to call us out ;) ), I am going to work to train my crew to System Tech level, because I want them to be able to understand it and have the ability to troubleshoot problems.
But really, it's not complicated.
At one little church I am helping at right now, basic Mackie 24-4 vlz, they had very boomy subs, and the pastor makes lots of plosives when he's preaching from the HH, and it makes it physically uncomfortable to listen to a sermon.
So I switched the subs to an aux, so the e-drums, keyboard, bass, and computer all run to the subs at unity on a post fader aux, and nothing else does, so the operators don't need to touch it, and as long as they don't touch it, everything sounds good.
You get kicking kick drum, good bass from tracks and KB etc, and no rumble from the vocals, because we don't have any bass singers so don't need it.
And even if you got a bass vocal in there, they would still come through the mains just fine, and it would not be bad not having them in the subs, and a lot better than having all the plosives in the subs every service.
So if you do it right, as the system tech you can set it up to be invisible to the fader jockey, and then as they learn, you can teach them how to also mix the subs separately, but it's not needed.
And especially if you are dealing with a digital where you can do all the routing in the back, so it's transparent for the operator, and simply cuts out the inputs that don't need to be in the subs from that feed, there is very little reason NOT to do it from an operator simplicity standpoint.
And maybe in your church you have small enough subs that you never hear the plosives and handling noise and bleed through, or maybe you have a quiet stage and good drum micing, so have fewer input issues, in which case, you don't have the need for it.
But if you upgrade your subs and start hearing the problems, than all of a sudden it's going to seem like a good idea, and more than worth the extra work and complexity! Lol
@@ke6gwf Nah, poor sound is from an inexperienced mix engineer or not having the right tools. Plenty of major tours to small venues are mixed without aux subs.
If you have a digital console powerful enough to make aux/bus sends easy, you have the tools to make a better mix.
Again, feel free to do it how you want. If you want to be a system engineer and mix engineer go for it. Sure, if your system is not tuned well, I would probably choose to aux subs too!
Also, most venues want a livestream/recording mix. The complexity of aux subs makes your recording mix less coherent with the live room. (Vocals too bass-heavy in the livestream because live you are not hearing them full range)
@@jasonkuzman9630 if you are mixing for Broadcast using the house speakers as your monitors, you have already failed lol
The house mix is known as Sound REINFORCEMENT, because you have a lot of sound already coming off the stage, and you are just filling in and adding to it, while a record or broadcast mix has to be mixed to get everything through the microphones, and so aux fed subs or not, what you hear in the room is NOT the same as what is heard on the recording, unless you have a separate mix for Broadcast, via subs or groups or whatever.
So if you are doing a professional quality recording mix or Livestream broadcast mix, you will be doing it with headphones, and creating a separate mix from scratch.
Just like with aux fed subs, you can do it post fader so it tracks what you are doing for the room mix, but it will need major offsets from it to sound good and balanced.
Just like you can't make a good house mix with headphones on, you can't make a good record mix without headphones on.
Next time you do a record or live send from the house mix, listen to it later and see if you are happy with what it sounds like.
Oh, and you will usually want to add an ambient mic to the mix as well, so you can get some audience and room acoustics, so it's not as dry.
Oh, and you must be really blessed if you are mainly working in venues with "properly tuned" sound systems! Lol
That's a minority of the churches and venues and portable systems in the world, because most places don't put the money into a properly designed system, much less someone who can tune it properly.
First of all, how dare you?!?
I rather do Matrix…
It isn't that complex to setup an aux mix and keep track of it. As a recording engineer first I have never used a compressor on the master bus for live sound. Crafting dynamics on each instruments channel is superior.
Dude… an audio error in your video is not inspiring confidence brother.. 😅✌️
Seems like a pretty small sample size to make a judgement about my competence as a audio engineer to me, but go right ahead.