The Nightmare PA Speakers

M

Murdox

Member
I have generally tuned my presets to both my FRFR CLR Atomic speakers and a set of K12.2 QSC powered speakers and I've got a nice PEQ block set up for the QSCs to shelve a bit off at 3 KHz and above with some other minor tweaks. I've been feeling pretty good about this, but last night my group played in a rehearsal studio I've never been in before. They used a digital mixer with tablet as interface and had a set of very large JBL PA speakers in there with what seemed to be a 15" speaker in the bottom, maybe an 8" speaker above it diagonally and a separate horn. I can't even find anything that looks remotely like it online. They were obviously some old JBL model and they were way bigger than necessary for the rehearsal space. On top of that, the folks working at the place didn't want us touching their digital interface and they did a terribly fast job getting us set up with limited to no EQ tweaking.

After getting some volume up and running I have never, ever run into speakers that made my guitar tone sound worse than these through the FM9. They seemed to suck all the mids out of the tone and emphasized all the worst frequencies for distorted electric guitar. To salvage the sound I set up a global output EQ on the fly through my tablet and ended up with basically a bell curve peaking in the 1KHz - 2KHz range, but even then it wasn't great.

Anyone have similar stories and suggestions on how one might best deal with the "unknown" PA speaker where there is little EQing help from the staff?
 
Murdox said:
Anyone have similar stories and suggestions on how one might best deal with the "unknown" PA speaker where there is little EQing help from the staff?
Click to expand...
I ended up building our own little rack with a mixer, which served as a monitor mixer and a stage box to have one place for all connections on gigs, and also as the main mixer for rehearsals. That was based on a MOTU Ultralite AVB interface with some breakout cables and wireless for the whole band in the same 3U rack. You can if course also use a Behringer X32 or similar.

Or, as Dave said, just listen to yourself through IEMs and don’t worry about PA, leave it to FOH to deal with (ideally, make friends with a FOH engineer and treat him as another band member - ours was more important for the end result than myself 😂)

You can only control things when you have access to controls, it’s not possible to give a universal EQ advice for all situations.
 
I've played different venues with different sound guys. Sometimes the audio engineer is brilliant, he'd walk around the venue and EQ the room using an iPad while we did sound check. Best sound we ever had.

Other times the sound guy got drunk and wasn't even at the board while we played a show, it was a disaster.

I kinda doubt that it's the fault of some mystery PA system. We've played through some grimy PA, it was massive, weird name on it, it looked like there was 3 decades worth of cat hair stuck to it. When EQd properly, it sounded really good. Even without IEMs I could hear myself and every other instrument clearly.

If you're going back there, get the people running it to create a separate preset on the board just for your band and either get them to EQ it better or demand access to the board so you can get a sound you're happy with. I imagine you're paying for the rehearsal space, you should be getting a sound that suits you regardless of the owner's opinion and feelings about it.
 
I don't play at a venue until I've heard some familiar tracks playing through their PA and monitors. Too often, old gear like that has a driver burned out or the crossover is destroyed, and no amount of EQ will fix it. And the venue either doesn't know about it (or claims ignorance) or doesn't care. But I care.

I'd rather, at that point, try to pull in some of my own gear. Because no matter how much you'd like to think the sound man will be blamed for bad sound, it unfortunately ends up reflecting on the band.
 
Live mixing a band can be a real challenge. In most clubs that have their own sound system, and are insisting on silent stage, you're likely to just be sure every channel is working, rather than optimized for the band and song. I've seen situations where the bass and kick were so loud there was no sonic room for anything else. You could hardly tell when the guitarist took a solo.

A good place to start in a new venue is to play a reference track during setup so you can at least hear what the PA is capable of doing. If you can't get that to sound good, it's going to be pretty hard to make the band sound good.

Then try to encourage the sound guy to focus first on vocals, then drums, then bass, then guitars (or lead instruments) and finally everything else (rhythm guitars and keys). This ensures the sonic space is consumed by the most important things first.

For guitars, less gain and more volume can be helpful. And if you have two guitarists, don't have them playing the same chords on the same kind of guitar and with the same pickup all the time - there's no distinction between them and it can contribute a lot of midrange mud that covers the vocals.

Finally, if you can't hear enough of something, try turning other things down first. Otherwise it's a loosing race to the top.
 
Jim Amsden said:
In most clubs that have their own sound system, and are insisting on silent stage, you're likely to just be sure every channel is working, rather than optimized for the band and song.
Click to expand...
Not sure what you mean here?

Silent stage + FOH engineer you know and who knows you IS the way to sound good almost anywhere, that’s been my experience, and the moment we switched to IEMs without anything on stage except drums was a huge improvement and consistency, noticed by the audience right away. Even with crappy PA.

So IMO the less predictable the situation is, the more important it is to have as much control at the mixing desk as possible, with someone there who can tune the PA and run your sound while also caring for the result.
 
Just want to add to this discussion—this topic has always been a pet peeve of mine. I firmly believe you shouldn’t EQ your presets for your PA speakers, as this approach ignores the fact that you have to EQ the PA for the room. My go-to strategy is to keep my preset EQs as flat and neutral as possible and leave the final EQ’ing of the system to the soundperson (or myself if I’m mixing).

It’s even more critical for me since I use IEMs live. A flat preset EQ ensures my in-ear mix remains consistent from gig to gig, giving FOH a clean slate to work with for the room—no pre-baked EQ curves to contend with! The results are predictable whether I’m using house gear or my own.

I also run my band’s PA from the stage, so I know the challenges for bands that have to DIY their own mix. What’s worked for me is running reference tracks through the PA before the set to get a rough EQ for the room, then making adjustments during the first few songs by moving from the stage to the crowd. Over the years, this has given me consistent—though never perfect—results. It’s not easy or fun acting as a performer and sound engineer, but for bands without a dedicated crew, it’s a workable solution.

Bottom line: dial your rigs flat for clarity, and let the PA and room EQ handle the rest. There’s no one-size-fits-all—it’s always about making it work when you’re both playing and mixing.

I will add this - if the soundguy SUCKS, you cannot fix it. Be professional, perform as contracted, and move on. We've all been victim to it, there is no real way to correct that doesn't make it worse. IMHO.
 
Scott Peterson said:
Just want to add to this discussion—this topic has always been a pet peeve of mine. I firmly believe you shouldn’t EQ your presets for your PA speakers, as this approach ignores the fact that you have to EQ the PA for the room. My go-to strategy is to keep my preset EQs as flat and neutral as possible and leave the final EQ’ing of the system to the soundperson (or myself if I’m mixing).

It’s even more critical for me since I use IEMs live. A flat preset EQ ensures my in-ear mix remains consistent from gig to gig, giving FOH a clean slate to work with for the room—no pre-baked EQ curves to contend with! The results are predictable whether I’m using house gear or my own.

I also run my band’s PA from the stage, so I know the challenges for bands that have to DIY their own mix. What’s worked for me is running reference tracks through the PA before the set to get a rough EQ for the room, then making adjustments during the first few songs by moving from the stage to the crowd. Over the years, this has given me consistent—though never perfect—results. It’s not easy or fun acting as a performer and sound engineer, but for bands without a dedicated crew, it’s a workable solution.

Bottom line: dial your rigs flat for clarity, and let the PA and room EQ handle the rest. There’s no one-size-fits-all—it’s always about making it work when you’re both playing and mixing.

I will add this - if the soundguy SUCKS, you cannot fix it. Be professional, perform as contracted, and move on. We've all been victim to it, there is no real way to correct that doesn't make it worse. IMHO.
Click to expand...

I wish I could. Unfortunately, I can't help but run into bad situations in rehearsal studios from time to time where there is simply nobody assisting with the EQing, and they don't want the band members playing with their system. The simple answer is not to play there again, of course, but that's not so easy given this particular studio is often the closest for a few band members. It's just amazing to me how different the PA speakers can sound trying to reproduce the guitar tones from the FM9 - especially with distorted guitar scenes/presets.

What I have done is use Output 2 to go to my band's typical FOH mixer. Output 2 has an EQ block that is set specifically to sound good with our typical speakers (in fact, I've saved that EQ block as the "QSC EQ"), and these would be QSCs that have quite a bit of "push" above 3KHz. I can simply bypass that block to return to a tone that I have tweaked to sound good with my Atomic CLR FRFR speakers. Output 1 is EQ'ed for my IEMs and I can use the phones jack there.

But the giant JBLs in this studio I could never find anything that worked. They were serviceable at vocals, but just ridiculously bad for the Fractal.
 
Murdox said:
I wish I could. Unfortunately, I can't help but run into bad situations in rehearsal studios from time to time where there is simply nobody assisting with the EQing, and they don't want the band members playing with their system. The simple answer is not to play there again, of course, but that's not so easy given this particular studio is often the closest for a few band members. It's just amazing to me how different the PA speakers can sound trying to reproduce the guitar tones from the FM9 - especially with distorted guitar scenes/presets.

What I have done is use Output 2 to go to my band's typical FOH mixer. Output 2 has an EQ block that is set specifically to sound good with our typical speakers (in fact, I've saved that EQ block as the "QSC EQ"), and these would be QSCs that have quite a bit of "push" above 3KHz. I can simply bypass that block to return to a tone that I have tweaked to sound good with my Atomic CLR FRFR speakers. Output 1 is EQ'ed for my IEMs and I can use the phones jack there.

But the giant JBLs in this studio I could never find anything that worked. They were serviceable at vocals, but just ridiculously bad for the Fractal.
Click to expand...
If the house facilities are terrible for guitar, bring your own. There's no other solution that's not going to suck.
 
srooijens said:
That is something I'll never understand... if it's bad for guitar it can't possibly suck any less for vocals imho.....
Click to expand...

I’m with you. I can’t understand it either, but there is something about the overdriven guitar tones that just sound terrible through certain speakers. The clean tunes are generally less offensive and passable.
 
Murdox said:
...there is something about the overdriven guitar tones that just sound terrible through certain speakers. The clean tunes are generally less offensive and passable.
Click to expand...
It's true. Distorted tones generate harmonics and intermod frequencies. They fill up the spectrum way more than clean tones. If there's an unpleasant part of the frequency response, distorted tones are more likely to find it than clean tones.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom