EQ a Room
A lot of debate rages around the best way to equalize (or “EQ”) a room, but all agree that although you can’t change the structure of the room, you can change the way the speaker system responds to that space. When you EQ a room, the goal is for the speaker system to produce the same signal that’s put into it. There are many methods to equalize the Make a Good Sound System for Under 80 Bucks. in a room. This article discusses the feedback method for equalizing a performance space.
Steps
- Place a dynamic microphone with a cardioid pattern at the center of the stage and point it toward where a person would speak or perform.
- Ask anyone making noise on the stage to leave so they don’t corrupt the EQ process.
- Set all of the microphone’s EQ channels on the mixing board to flat.
- Bypass the compressor-limiters, feedback destroyers and other similar processors so you get a clean signal.
- Move the microphone and instrument channels in the monitor(s) to about where they need to be for the performance.
- Adjust the Main House EQ so it’s set to the Center position.
- Turn the mixer’s Input Gain to “Off” and the channel fader to 0dB or -10dB. The fader setting on the Main Out needs to be at -10 or 0dB.
- Raise the Input Gain slowly until you hear a ringing noise from the speaker system. Turn it down until the sound stops.
- Manipulate the channel fader to cause the speaker system to ring at a low, nearly steady tone.
- A real-time analyzer will show you which frequency is ringing, but it isn’t the most accurate reading. If you have a multimeter with frequency, plug it into the Headset Out and use the Pre-Fade Listen (PFL) Output as a signal. The better reading you get, the more accurate your adjustments when you want to properly EQ a room.
- Decrease the ringing by -3dB on its frequency, which should eliminate the ringing sound.
- Raise the fader once the ringing stops.
- Repeat these steps for each slider until several of the frequencies rise at once or until one of the frequencies hits -12dB.
- If you hit the EQ’s bottom before this happens, there’s a problem with the room itself or with the system design.
- Turn the master monitor volume back to your preferred level for the performance.
- Ask someone to stand at the microphone(s) and instrument(s) and check them so you can adjust the levels of each individual input.
Tips
- Another option when equalizing a room is to use a computer program that measures the room’s responses to the sound and then helps you adjust the resonances to EQ the space. These programs often measure impulse and frequency response and calculate reverberation times. Some can automatically adjust the settings of your equalizer.
- Use a tripod microphone stand instead of a solid stand to avoid sound energy from traveling from the platform and up the microphone stand.
- Consider playing a CD of music you’re familiar with through the sound system as a final check of the equalization. Use the equalizer to make the music sound great.
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