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[Jon McElvain]

Today, we had a great example of how clean the current sound is. Special music was a solo singer accompanied by an accoustic guitar. The sound level on the guitar was a little lower than what I would have had it, but it was so clean that it was difficult to tell if the microphone was on at all. In the past it would have been painfully obvious.

The sermon portion of the service was a congregational discussion using multiple wireless microphones. This is always a challenge because the sound booth is in the balcony making it impossible to track the microphones. The best solution is to leave all the microphones open. Normally, it doesn't have any real consequences, but today we had some low level feedback coming through. My brother-in-law spent a few minutes at the board trying to EQ it out and had some success. In the past the noise level in the system may have almost comet sly covered it up.

Any thoughts on using the DriveRack in a more manual mode for an EQ?  Any other product suggestions in the $500 range?  We have a very limited budget such that if it is working we don't often make changes. I donated the new amplifier because I wanted it and as it turns out it really wasn't needed on we were able get things setup correctly.

Any suggestions for just an EQ with some semi automatic method for setup?  I am not sure any of us would have much success doing it just by ear.

[David Sturzenbecher]

Today, we had a great example of how clean the current sound is. Special music was a solo singer accompanied by an accoustic guitar. The sound level on the guitar was a little lower than what I would have had it, but it was so clean that it was difficult to tell if the microphone was on at all. In the past it would have been painfully obvious.

The sermon portion of the service was a congregational discussion using multiple wireless microphones. This is always a challenge because the sound booth is in the balcony making it impossible to track the microphones. The best solution is to leave all the microphones open. Normally, it doesn't have any real consequences, but today we had some low level feedback coming through. My brother-in-law spent a few minutes at the board trying to EQ it out and had some success. In the past the noise level in the system may have almost comet sly covered it up.

Any thoughts on using the DriveRack in a more manual mode for an EQ?  Any other product suggestions in the $500 range?  We have a very limited budget such that if it is working we don't often make changes. I donated the new amplifier because I wanted it and as it turns out it really wasn't needed on we were able get things setup correctly.

Any suggestions for just an EQ with some semi automatic method for setup?  I am not sure any of us would have much success doing it just by ear.

It sounds like what you need may be an auto mixer.  Simplified, it will only allow for one microphone to be on, automatically.  If one person is talking, they get the full level, and all other mics are muted.  If two people are talking, they share the equivalent level of one mic.  Essentially, muting microphones not in use.

[Michael A. Yates]

Don't use a feedback eliminator or the auto EQ feature on the Driverack.  They tend to cause more problems.

I assume you are having feedback issues with the vocal mics.

A 31-band EQ inserted on the mains or monitor bus (1 eq channel for each bus channel of course) will allow you cut the offending frequencies and increase the gain-before-feedback of your vocal mics. That same EQ can also be used to adjust the overall EQ of the system if needed to dial back the bass you mentioned.  A Driverack will work just as well or better for that but manually adjust it, don't use the Auto-EQ feature.  If using the DriveRack, you may want to use the PEQ's instead of the GEQ's.

+1


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Jon McElvain]

Is part of the problem with the auto EQ related to the single point measurement in a large venue with varied acoustics?  I am familiar with home audio auto setup that have multiple locations in the measurement and the use an algorithm to optimize. My church is certainly larger than a home theater setting, but reasonably small on a church scale.

If we were to get a 31 band graphic EQ what is the best way to set it up?  Pink noise with some type of measurement throughout the church to identify hot spots to be eliminated?

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Is part of the problem with the auto EQ related to the single point measurement in a large venue with varied acoustics?  I am familiar with home audio auto setup that have multiple locations in the measurement and the use an algorithm to optimize. My church is certainly larger than a home theater setting, but reasonably small on a church scale.

If we were to get a 31 band graphic EQ what is the best way to set it up?  Pink noise with some type of measurement throughout the church to identify hot spots to be eliminated?

I have a PDF primer on this.  Send me an Email address via PM and I'll send it to you.  PDF's cannot be attached to PM's.

[Jon McElvain]

Thank you dick reese for the primer.

I have been discussing what I'm learning with some of the other guys on the AV Crew and I think the final decision will still be to go with the dbx Driverack PA+ with the knowledge that using the Auto-EQ and Feedback Supression has limits and may prove to be a poor solution.

One reason that we are planning to go this direction is that it includes 28 band graphic EQ that we can setup manually if we are not satisfied with the Auto-EQ.  I looked at several of the 31 band EQ units and even though the physical sliders would make setup easier than dealing with the menus and such, we think that it would be far to tempting/easy for people to tinker with it.  The sound equipment isn't isolated to prevent people from messing with it, it's used on occasion by people that are not on the AV Crew for small events during the week, and we rent to two other churches.  The reality is that we often find things like the amplifier levels adjusted.  I wish we had a little more control over things, but without a significant financial investment and/or being willing to run AV for the other churches this is where we are at.

The feedback elimination has a lot of setup options that should give us a reasonable chance of success, or at least avoid making things worse.  Our praise teams never practice with us we we're always reacting on the fly and the vast majority of the people using the microphones refuse to hold them correctly (we're working on this).  We think there are things that will happen that just having a perfectly EQ'd system may not account for.  As an example, a couple of weeks ago one of the singers dropped their microphone and pointed it directly into the monitor.  If the results are not positive, then we can disable the feedback circuit and rely on the EQ.

We're hopeful that we can eliminate the majority of the feedback issue with the EQ (auto or manual) and can then just rely on the feedback elmination for the unstoppable events that are sure to happen.

The Driverack has lift setting so that we can release the filter after 5 seconds or hold them up to 60 minutes in the live mode.  It seems that lifting the filters sooner rather than later should better maintain sonic integrity.  We can also set it up to use faster acting wider filters (i.e. speech) or slower acting narrow  filters (high music).  I would suspect that we should be able to find a reasonable balance between the sensitivity and the lift time to yield unobtrusive results.

Our goal is quality sound without feedback and we're most of the way there.  Our sound quality is great, we have plenty of volume so we don't need to get every last ounce out of the system, but we need to get the feedback under control.  The dual purpose unit should give us options for an affordable price.

Any thoughts on a good starting combination for the feedback sensitivity (not the right word I know) and lift times?

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Thank you dick reese for the primer.

I have been discussing what I'm learning with some of the other guys on the AV Crew and I think the final decision will still be to go with the dbx Driverack PA+ with the knowledge that using the Auto-EQ and Feedback Supression has limits and may prove to be a poor solution.

Sorry to hear that, Jon.  The DR will not substitute for learning and understanding.  It will make the same idiotic mistakes over and over again.  It can't learn.  The only thing it can substitute for is human inexperience and ineptitude.

Every journey begins with a single, sure step.  If you do not take that first step, you'll never get anywhere.  The DR is the wrong step.

I would suggest you use the DR strictly for speaker processing, then add an analog EQ between it and the mixer.  One you derive proper settings by using the method in the primer, transfer them to the EQ in the DR and lock them down securely.  This will take care of the standing wave/room mode issues.  You can then use the analog EQ for tonal adjustments of the overall mix.  This uses each piece to the optimum level.

Trying to use the DR as you describe will be "treading water" forever....and you'll swallow a lot of water in the process.  Better to bite the bullet, learn and apply the proper methods and spread the knowledge through your volunteer base.

 

[Jon McElvain]

Sorry to be "that guy" that asks for advice and then ignores it.  I have learned a lot in my short time on the forum and I certainly don't think that I know better than you.  I'm looking at the DR as the next step.  At worst it will give us a 28-band EQ that should be adequate for doing a proper room EQ and at best it may resolve our issues.

Are products like the DR primarily intended for temporary quick setup venues (that seems to be where a lot of the positive reviews come from) or do you consider it a gimmick in general?  If the feedback eliminator functions were turned off, is it safe to assume that we shouldn't have any negative sonic effects?

I hope you're still willing to give me some advice as to where either the DR or a graphic EQ should be put into the system.

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Sorry to be "that guy" that asks for advice and then ignores it.  I have learned a lot in my short time on the forum and I certainly don't think that I know better than you.  I'm looking at the DR as the next step.  At worst it will give us a 28-band EQ that should be adequate for doing a proper room EQ and at best it may resolve our issues.

Are products like the DR primarily intended for temporary quick setup venues (that seems to be where a lot of the positive reviews come from) or do you consider it a gimmick in general?  If the feedback eliminator functions were turned off, is it safe to assume that we shouldn't have any negative sonic effects?

I hope you're still willing to give me some advice as to where either the DR or a graphic EQ should be put into the system.

John, the Drive Rack PA series is in the vein of a Leatherman multi-tool.  It's a lot cheaper than buying the all of the tools it contains, but no one does much real work with a Leatherman screwdriver.

In the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, a graphic EQ can be useful, and the one that's in the DRPA is fine.  The problem is the general thinking - a magic $500 box will make everything better, and tools like the "auto-EQ" "room tuning wizard" mean you don't need to know what you are doing to use it.

As was said earlier in the thread, a feedback buster doesn't belong on the main sends or in the speaker processor.  As a channel or group insert - fine.  Over the whole system - no.

The secondary problem with Drive Rack PA devices is that once the user figures out that the box isn't as useful as marketing info claims, you find out that the tools you really need - alignment delay, etc., are insufficient in the PA series, and you have to throw it away and start over.


A proper room EQ starts with hiring a person with measurement skill to come and using a combination of EQ, delay, speaker placement, and knowledge of how to interpret the results, comes up with a system tuning suitable for your purpose.  For a fixed install, this tuning should be done in a DSP device (and it's possible the DRPA+ may be good enough, but possibly not), that's locked so later help doesn't come in and try to "improve" it.  At this point, if feedback issues are still present, now you may choose to use a feedback buster, or other methods like moving speakers, changing mic type, etc.

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

John, the Drive Rack PA series is in the vein of a Leatherman multi-tool.  It's a lot cheaper than buying the all of the tools it contains, but no one does much real work with a Leatherman screwdriver.

In the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, a graphic EQ can be useful, and the one that's in the DRPA is fine.  The problem is the general thinking - a magic $500 box will make everything better, and tools like the "auto-EQ" "room tuning wizard" mean you don't need to know what you are doing to use it.

As was said earlier in the thread, a feedback buster doesn't belong on the main sends or in the speaker processor.  As a channel or group insert - fine.  Over the whole system - no.

The secondary problem with Drive Rack PA devices is that once the user figures out that the box isn't as useful as marketing info claims, you find out that the tools you really need - alignment delay, etc., are insufficient in the PA series, and you have to throw it away and start over.


A proper room EQ starts with hiring a person with measurement skill to come and using a combination of EQ, delay, speaker placement, and knowledge of how to interpret the results, comes up with a system tuning suitable for your purpose.  For a fixed install, this tuning should be done in a DSP device (and it's possible the DRPA+ may be good enough, but possibly not), that's locked so later help doesn't come in and try to "improve" it.  At this point, if feedback issues are still present, now you may choose to use a feedback buster, or other methods like moving speakers, changing mic type, etc.

Well said.  Equally a potential waste of time AND money.

The user interface for such multi-purpose boxes is a real handicap for folks with your proposed application, Jon.  And by the time you've learned how to make it even marginally functional, you could likely train your whole team to do it quicker and better.

That's what the primer is for.  It should take anyone who can follow directions far less time to implement an acceptable EQ job with an analog graphic than to hack it up with the DR.  I'll venture that even the first attempt with the BTI method will be lightyears ahead of the DR EQ.

[ProSoundWeb Community]