House Curve

[garyhParticipant]

When we set up our qu-24 in our church, we used the boards pink noise and a reference mic to tune the EQ. I used the graphic EQ fader flip and slowly adjusted until the peak led would switch back and forth rapidly between all frequencies. I assume the EQ to now be “flat”. We noticed that the sound seemed overly bright with weak bass. We’ve had to lower the high frequency on all the mics just to keep them from feeding back. I then decided to use the parametric EQ for the mains and lower the highs this way. The mix sounded better and feedback problems diminished but bass was still weak. I recently read some articles on applying a “house curve” to your EQ. I did this by using the parametric settings on top of the flat graphic EQ and our sound now seems a lot better. Does anyone else have any experience doing this with your Qu system?

[GCumbeeParticipant]

Been voicing systems for 50 yrs. Was really hard in old days with little gear that do it plus bad speakers and low power. That said what you have experienced is very normal. You can’t have 10K and above the same as 1K. If you do you’ll have severe problems. A gentle roll off starting around 8k. Some start at 6.8k. As for weak bass. That goes back to the desire for heavier bottom end than in old days. Now many let low end ride up more to get more bass feel. Of course this is dependent on whether you have subs or not. Some like me get the low end just above flat then bring in subs. It’s like salting food to taste.

To be honest in last several years I use pink noise less and less. Reason? Noise will generally look much the same on anything. With better speakers today that’s the case. In old days we got a lot more spikes with more inferior products. Today I may or may not use noise. I often just play some music I know. I know how it sounds so I voice the system to make it sound correct. Once done then I will work with the main mics to tweak some feedback generally with PEQ.

[Mike CParticipant]

Depending on what your system actually is it may not be able to even what is truly considered a flat response in an actual room (few speakers can actually make it out to 16,000 before falling off a cliff or truly make it down to 30hz) regardless your not really going to like the sound of flat or close to it anyway. Depending on the speakers and system attempting to make them flat with large amounts of EQ boost could actually result in speaker damage.

What does the system consist of your working with?

I do basically what “Cumbee” just outlined.
I have already taking care of rough spots in my systems at the system DSP and at the show will ring out the system with the vocal mic of choice for the event with some ole fashion check 1 2’s, a little music, a few more check 1 2’s and call it done. During sound check I’ll walk around some and tweak as needed.

[garyhParticipant]

Our system is a Bose Panaray 502 with the bass unit hung centered above the front of the stage and the two mid/high speakers hung on either side about 6 or 7 feet apart. The specs say the bass unit goes from 55 to 150 hz and the others from 130 to 15k hz. Crossover at 140. When I EQ’d the system I noticed we weren’t getting much of anything below 50hz from the speakers so I’m thinking we’ll never get gut punching bass from it, but as I said, adding the “house curve” did help. Using the parametric EQ I added about a 4db boost starting at 32hz that slopes to 0db at around 150hz and then fairly evenly slopes down to around -10db at 16khz. This really seemed to help even out the sound. Both music and speech sound better, and no more feedback when dealing with soft spoken speakers. I’ll probably do some more tweaking when I get a chance.

[Mike CParticipant]

Do your have a Bose system processor in the system and properly setup and connected?

The EQ curve you added may have made it sound better than before in comparison to what ever before sounded like but that does not sound like a proper EQ curve for the system.

Bose processors apply a LOT of EQ to get their speakers to sound well like Bose wants them to.
If you do have the proper processor in place your boost at 32hz was more or less
removed by the processors high pass filters, if you don’t have a Bose processor you could run the risk of damaging the speakers by not having the proper crossover and high pass filters in place.

[GCumbeeParticipant]

Agree we th Mike. Also -10 at 16K still sounds too bright for me. There’s really nothing up there to consider. Why do it?

[garyhParticipant]

Yes, we do have the processor, but it’s not the newer digital one. It is my understanding that there’s nothing to set up, it’s plug-and-play. If not, does anyone have instructions on setting it up?

[GCumbeeParticipant]

There is nothing to setup. If it the older analog fixed model there is nothing to do. The last 2 digital models you have to select the right preset

[garyhParticipant]

It’s analog.

[garyhParticipant]

This is approximately the “house curve” I added to the L/R EQ.

[GCumbeeParticipant]

Google house curves for sound systems. You’ll see a lot of ideas.

[Mike CParticipant]

Some of the analog Bose processors have a three or four position selector switch
on the back to put it in the correct operating mode for your speakers (with subs, without subs, ect.) and you have to connect your amps to the correct outputs. I know if it’s done wrong you can have full range signal feeding the sub, not what you want.

As for what you have been attempting, don’t take this the wrong way but I feel you have
just been turning knobs and watching the display on the screen.
You want to think along the lines of more specific narrower bandwidth cuts/removing frequencies that sound bad and or want to feedback and leaving good the frequencies in place.
We can give you general guidelines to follow but it’s the combination of your speakers, your room, your mics that will determine the “house curve” is not a one size fits all thing.

A little trick with a parametric EQ is to boost a section of frequencies a little bit, sweep that boosted section back and forth while listening for the sound you thought was
bad, when it gets worse narrow in on it a little and then cut that section till it sounds better. Same goes for feedback, you hear a ringing frequency wanting to feedback, find it by making it a little worse and than cut it.

Careful not to get too cut crazy with the EQ or you’ll have nothing left!

As for your mention of soft spoken people, try educating them on how to move the mic to them and or to talk into the mic that’s even more important if those people speak at the mic on a regular basis. I am well aware though that some people will never get it when it comes to speaking into a mic, sometimes to the point that the more they hear themselves the more they back off of the mic!!
After a certain point no amount of knob turning is going to fix that.

What kind if service does your church do, what is the general size of the room and ceiling height. I know church services can range from just spoken word with maybe a couple hymns to a full on concert. If your service is something a full live band and your trying to get that concert “experience” the system you have is not going to a cut it.

What board did you have prior to the QU24 and how was the system sounding and working? Are the Bose speakers something you have had in place for while?

[garyhParticipant]

I’m having problems posting.

[garyhParticipant]

This is a test post. Ever since I tried uploading a graphic to a post that gave me an image to large error, I keep getting blocked because I’ve been flagged as spam. If this post gets through, I’ll try to post a smaller screen grab later.

[Dick ReesParticipant]

I get the same SPAMbot screen once in a while. As to image size, I use this free re-sizing tool:

https://www.shrinkpictures.com

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