Feedback Detection

[WolfgangParticipant]

I’d also like one thing: feedback detection.

no automatic control, only the fast detection would make sense.
that would be best if it were running in the background and, with feedback, recognizing on which mix and in which channel it happened. such a function could support us all, but then even inexperienced colleagues could react very quickly and very directly.

i had already posted this idea for the dLive. i wouldn’t mind if this feature also existed in the dLive 😉

[SwellParticipant]

Wolfgang,

What would this feedback detection do that the meter page wouldn’t already display? The metering page already shows levels and you can see feedback in red highlighted on the source channel and mix. Also with an IPad App, you can select PAFL on. A channel or Aux and see the problem frequency feeding back overplayed on the PEQ.

[WolfgangParticipant]

The red light only indicates when a channel is overdriven, but feedback doesn’t necessarily have to overdrive a channel (or a mix). sometimes there are slight feedback effects that are difficult to localize.

so it happened to me once that during a gig a feedback was always very short, i didn’t find it for several songs.
The solution to the puzzle: the drummer wanted to have his hihat on the monitor. somehow he touched the micro, so the micro turned away from the hihat and pointed towards the monitor. he didn’t notice it himself – and I couldn’t see the problem from the FOH!
if i had had a system here that could tell me where feedback came from (and maybe exactly at which frequency), i could have solved this problem quickly.

Sure, such problems are really very rare – but they occur.
and so far no manufacturer has such a solution.

[MarkPAmanParticipant]

I think, as yet, identifying feedback of that sort is something far too complicated for any sort of software. While we are pretty good at knowing that a sound is not part of the music, getting a computer to do it accurately is probably a long way off.
All the current feedback detectors are only able to identify the loudest frequency.

[WolfgangParticipant]

Maybe it can’t be done, I can’t judge that. I’m not a programmer.
But expressing this idea was important to me. Because it would be a good help in stressful situations.

[MarkPAmanParticipant]

We should have a “Wouldn’t it be good” section, for ideas that are, as yet, beyond what current technology can do.

I remember a conversation 35 years ago about walking round the room and adjusting the mix. We could just about see that it could happen, and although most of our ideas as to how it would work proved to be wrong, it’s now something that I can do every gig.

[Author]

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