Making live presets on studio monitors

Callan

Callan

Experienced
I'm mixing things up in a big way this week - my AX3 arrives Monday and today I'm off to buy a pair of Focal Alpha 80's for use at home.
I have been using an AX8 through JBL SRX812 live for a few years with a few go-to live presets and generally very happy with the sound, but it's time to start fresh.
I also have much less time to rehearse these days, so will only have limited time to test my presets with the band before gigs.

Even though this topic is covered often, I'm perhaps after advise from people who successfully tweak their presets on monitors that translate well to live use.
Do you try and aim to get the volume above a certain level, ie - so you can longer hear the guitar strings acoustically (to me this seems the minimum volume needed to hear accurately?)
Do you apply any environment specific EQ to compensate for the different environments?
any other hints?
Thanks!
 
Well what I would suggest doing right off the bat, which I would think would be the obvious thing to do, is when ya get the Focals fire up the live patches you have been using over the last year or so that you are already happy with and listen to them at the volume level you’re going to want to be playing at mostly & take careful note on how everything sounds. Then I would also crank them up a bit & see how they sound. You should probably even play along to some music as well & see how everything fits as well. This will give you an idea of what those particular speakers are either lacking in or coloring compared to the JBL’s. This way when you’re making patches on the AFIII you’ll be that much closer to where you’ll need to be & minimize your final patch tweaking for live usage. For the most part ya should be fairly straightforward and not too difficult. Depending on what type of music you’re playing I think most of the issues happen with setting the low & high cuts & perhaps too much gain, but I’d be a fool to try and contemplate about potential issues that could come up.
 
No secret at all really.... basically comes down to as simple as learning how what your hear from your monitors translates to what your hearing out of your JBL's, since the two are not going to be equal in response, volume, room acoustics etc.

You can essentially work with any monitor if you know how what your hearing is going to sound on a different system. "Best" way to do this is with familiar program material, favorite recordings etc.

Listen to it how your monitors, take notes, then listen to the same through your JBL's, is the bass more hyped up ? are the highs more present etc ?? Adjust accordingly....

Sometimes if you want it to sound "good" on a live system you want it to sound a little "bad" on your monitors.
 
Callan said:
I'm mixing things up in a big way this week - my AX3 arrives Monday and today I'm off to buy a pair of Focal Alpha 80's for use at home.
I have been using an AX8 through JBL SRX812 live for a few years with a few go-to live presets and generally very happy with the sound, but it's time to start fresh.
I also have much less time to rehearse these days, so will only have limited time to test my presets with the band before gigs.

Even though this topic is covered often, I'm perhaps after advise from people who successfully tweak their presets on monitors that translate well to live use.
Do you try and aim to get the volume above a certain level, ie - so you can longer hear the guitar strings acoustically (to me this seems the minimum volume needed to hear accurately?)
Do you apply any environment specific EQ to compensate for the different environments?
any other hints?
Thanks!
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A huge part of the equation will be your new monitors. You’re going to instantly have “speaker shock” and want to change everything drastically, but patience is the key. Focals are fantastic monitors, but like all new monitors, they need to be broken in before they sound right. I remember when I upgraded from my Dynaudio’s to my ATC’s, I was immediately thrown off and a little bummed. It was all midrange and top end with a sorry excuse for low end. I read up on them and everyone said they needed a couple weeks to break in. So I cranked music through them, and after a couple weeks the low end came in spades and they sounded enormous and crystal clear. So take time to break in your Focals before doing any heavy tweaking. Once they sound great (and they will), then push a little volume and dial your patches. You’ll be used to how your new monitors sound and will have no problem getting some killer tones.

Room treatment is also crucial to know that you’re hearing things accurately, but that’s another conversation. At the end of the day, you’re gonna love your new rig. Just enjoy the ride.
 
Just make sure your power amp and speaker sim is set to on, adjust the resonance to match the speakers under amp - speaker. My Axe was set to 65 stock. Most speaker are around 100 or more. Don't do like I did and make preset at bedroom volume and expect them to work. Thank God we have performance mode now we can tweak easy now. Cut all bottom under 80 hz and all highs above somewhere around 15000 or below to taste. After you get all treaked for the first gig, other gigs just adjust the global eq for different rooms. I had problems with the delay amounts being different from home and on gigs, so I put all my delay mixes assigned to one controller. I always have 4 delays for every preset on channel A,B,C,D and I have all the mixes assigned to one controller. You can have one controller control a ton of other parameters. Just make sure you only have only one on at a time. All my rhythms are set at unity gain and all my leads set just before redline. If needed I can take the rhythms down a little lower than unity gain if I don't have enough head room on my leads with out redlining. I don't have this problem any more because I use a volume pedal with about 10 percent volume overhead. All of this is stuff I wish I knew when I first bought my Axe 3.
 
Pedro_Almeida said:
Maybe you should read about Fletcher Munson contours. Highs and lows aren't perceived in the same way in different volumes.
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You are correct. Turn your AXE 3 down low and then turn it up loud, it has to be tweaked. My wife complained when I am playing and have to play low at home. It does not translate the same cranked. It is easy to fix now with the performance mode.
 
Thanks all.

@York Audio Justin - good tip on the low end, thank you.
I didn't actually notice anything missing out of the box, but I will keep listening to see if it changes.
I sometimes have a 2X18 sub in my studio, (SRX828) and it has stupid amounts of low end for the size of the room.
I also often use DJ headphones (HD25) and 3 driver IEM's, so my reference on what a flat system sounds like is really all over the place.

Thanks everyone else for the input too, and keep it coming.
Cheers,
Callan
 
From my experience, the biggest part of the equation, when it comes to patches translating from home monitors/headphones to a live PA is having the right IR, low cuts(at least 100hz and high cuts(at least 8000 hz).
Also at loud PA volumes a small cut at around 3600. Assuming the channel EQ on the board your going to is flat.

YMMV but this has worked for me for thousands of gig with just about every Axe Fx variant over the years. Also there is some validity to the statement that patches may not sound so great at home compared to what it sounds like over a loud PA when dialed in “correctly”.
 
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NightWalker said:
i trust my ears.
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99% of the patients I see day in, day out, always tell me they hear just fine, nothing has changed over time et al, then are always surprised how much high frequency hearing loss they actually have.

Nothing wrong with trusting one’s ears, but generally a good idea to have a hearing test done every now and again to actually get a quantifiable, objective measure of how the ears are working.
 
Conley Shepherd Are you pumping your band audio bluetooth into the Oticon's? I have a like new set we bought last year for my dad that recently passed away. Would be kind of kick ass to use those as in ears. Naturally I would need to go to an ENT and have molds made as well as tweak them to my hearing. 6 grand of toys just sitting on a shelf.
 
I have the device, but haven't hooked it up yet. Would be nice to do that. I am using a set of Shure earphones now for monitors using a Behringer PM system.
 
Tom Morris said:
Conley Shepherd Are you pumping your band audio bluetooth into the Oticon's? I have a like new set we bought last year for my dad that recently passed away. Would be kind of kick ass to use those as in ears. Naturally I would need to go to an ENT and have molds made as well as tweak them to my hearing. 6 grand of toys just sitting on a shelf.
Click to expand...

There are typically audio streaming interfaces for most major hearing aid brands, however, I would expect there to bit a bit of latency as they really aren't meant to work as IEM's. I should bring some demo sets home from work sometime and play around with them, never thought to use HA's in that manner
 
@ lqdsnddist I have the streamer box thats stereo for hooking to a audio source like TV. But I'm sure you're right not really designed for this application.

Anyone need a set of Oticon hearing aids? Slightly used............
 
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