What Do You Use To Tune the PA With?
- Thread starterEboy87
- Start date
Schniapereli
Active Member
I usually like to do a series of music from different genres and varying ranges of production quality.
I'm not too crazy about Dave Matthew's Band, but I will admit it's always very full and well engineered. It's perfect for tuning a room because it has heavy drums and so many extra instruments. I always consider it a goal to achieve clarity through the songs by controlling and tightening up the heavy drums and bass. When you can hear Dave Matthew's acoustic guitar and the violin cut through clearly, you know you've be able to control the bass and drums.
As there are barely any short-term and inexpensive solutions to dealing with a room's acoustics, controlling the bass and drum's habit of sticking around longer than wanted is where most of your efforts will go to when tuning the system. It's always very tempting to maximize bass response when tuning and optimizing a system for a room. It's important to always acknowledge the aggregate mix as your main priority. It drives me nuts when I listen to someone tune a room for drums and only drums. Sure it sounds cool to have big powerful drum sounds, but what about everything else? Maximizing low end destroys the main goal of an intelligible mix.
A great song to test if you've managed to control and tighten your low end is "Gold Digger" by Kayne West. It's sampling of Jamie Fox covering/interpolating Ray Charles' "I've Got A Women" from the movie 'Ray'. Right after the introduction there is this very loud bass drum that plays straight sixteenth notes for one measure. If you can hear the first chorus clear after that, you've tuned your room nicely.
I like radiohead for controlling echo when tuning mids and highs because they often have this ambient keyboards, guitars, and samples in their songs. "Airbag" from OK Computer is always very good for this.
I like Sigur Ros (ambient, modern classical, post rock) to get a listen to the aspects of the system that don't get as much attention because percussion and bass often upstage these areas. Sigur Ros has very minimal and simple percussion, if any. But it can be very bass heavy (legato/long notes) and gives you a good understanding how and if the low end blends with the rest of the mix. This is very important in theater/choir/classical environments. Many woudl say, "Why not just play choral or classical music?" I've been a fan of doing this because the music is recorded in a such a way that is dramatically different than what it is like live (you can't crank the gain on fancy boutique condensers like you can in the studio).
This test is in no way critical, but I'll do it sometimes when I have time. Pick an old lo-fi mix and try to liven it up as much as possible. This is another great test for theater/choir/classical environments because you're often very limited by how much you can capture. It's an everyday occurrence to not have the time and money to mic everything individually as opposed to mic'ing as an ensemble. The Pet Sounds album from the Beach Boys is a personal favorite. I always find it a nice challenge to get a song like "God Only Knows" to rock a room as much as possible. Deerhoof, Jimi Hendrix, Django Rheinhardt, etc come to mind as good examples.
And finally, to see if the room is fun (can make people dance) and is enjoyable I'll pick something funky or dance-able such has LCD Soundsystem, Talking Heads, Stereolab, Matthew Dear/Audion, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, etc.
I'm not too crazy about Dave Matthew's Band, but I will admit it's always very full and well engineered. It's perfect for tuning a room because it has heavy drums and so many extra instruments. I always consider it a goal to achieve clarity through the songs by controlling and tightening up the heavy drums and bass. When you can hear Dave Matthew's acoustic guitar and the violin cut through clearly, you know you've be able to control the bass and drums.
As there are barely any short-term and inexpensive solutions to dealing with a room's acoustics, controlling the bass and drum's habit of sticking around longer than wanted is where most of your efforts will go to when tuning the system. It's always very tempting to maximize bass response when tuning and optimizing a system for a room. It's important to always acknowledge the aggregate mix as your main priority. It drives me nuts when I listen to someone tune a room for drums and only drums. Sure it sounds cool to have big powerful drum sounds, but what about everything else? Maximizing low end destroys the main goal of an intelligible mix.
A great song to test if you've managed to control and tighten your low end is "Gold Digger" by Kayne West. It's sampling of Jamie Fox covering/interpolating Ray Charles' "I've Got A Women" from the movie 'Ray'. Right after the introduction there is this very loud bass drum that plays straight sixteenth notes for one measure. If you can hear the first chorus clear after that, you've tuned your room nicely.
I like radiohead for controlling echo when tuning mids and highs because they often have this ambient keyboards, guitars, and samples in their songs. "Airbag" from OK Computer is always very good for this.
I like Sigur Ros (ambient, modern classical, post rock) to get a listen to the aspects of the system that don't get as much attention because percussion and bass often upstage these areas. Sigur Ros has very minimal and simple percussion, if any. But it can be very bass heavy (legato/long notes) and gives you a good understanding how and if the low end blends with the rest of the mix. This is very important in theater/choir/classical environments. Many woudl say, "Why not just play choral or classical music?" I've been a fan of doing this because the music is recorded in a such a way that is dramatically different than what it is like live (you can't crank the gain on fancy boutique condensers like you can in the studio).
This test is in no way critical, but I'll do it sometimes when I have time. Pick an old lo-fi mix and try to liven it up as much as possible. This is another great test for theater/choir/classical environments because you're often very limited by how much you can capture. It's an everyday occurrence to not have the time and money to mic everything individually as opposed to mic'ing as an ensemble. The Pet Sounds album from the Beach Boys is a personal favorite. I always find it a nice challenge to get a song like "God Only Knows" to rock a room as much as possible. Deerhoof, Jimi Hendrix, Django Rheinhardt, etc come to mind as good examples.
And finally, to see if the room is fun (can make people dance) and is enjoyable I'll pick something funky or dance-able such has LCD Soundsystem, Talking Heads, Stereolab, Matthew Dear/Audion, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, etc.
herr_highbrau
Member
Sting. Fields of Gold.
I never used to use it, but nearly every pro system I've seen set up has been done to Fields of Gold (and the Canford test CD) - and I've seen some very pro systems! If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.
Otherwise, I use a mixture of Richard Burton's Eve of the War speech (from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds), Jools Holland's "River Boogie", and Kraftwerk's Pocket Calculator. All invariably followed by something appropriate for the event.
Regarding auto EQs -
. Learn to use your ears! This is a great little program - Simple Feedback Trainer. It's also impressive (and useful) being able to name the frequency that's causing problems 
.
I never used to use it, but nearly every pro system I've seen set up has been done to Fields of Gold (and the Canford test CD) - and I've seen some very pro systems! If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.
Otherwise, I use a mixture of Richard Burton's Eve of the War speech (from Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds), Jools Holland's "River Boogie", and Kraftwerk's Pocket Calculator. All invariably followed by something appropriate for the event.
Regarding auto EQs -
. Learn to use your ears! This is a great little program - Simple Feedback Trainer. It's also impressive (and useful) being able to name the frequency that's causing problems .
Eboy87
Well-Known Member
SFT! I highly recommend it too. You'll have to learn these frequencies eventually if you guys want to go far in this business. Every show I've been on, the guys call out the frequencies they want cut, and sometimes ask you for your input. Learn the frequencies so you don't look like an idiot with your foot in your mouth.
deadlygopher
Member
Do we have a Feli Kuti fan here? Mbira/Kalimba/Thumb Pianos are awesome! A friend of mine is in a sweet Afrobeat (myspace.com/nomomusic) band that uses them. I've never thought to use afrobeat music to tune a room before. I'll have to try that.
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