Ringing Out The Room – Channel or Overall PEQ?

[coffee_kingParticipant]

Hi Andreas
I’m not sure why you are irritated, but anyway.

a) How do I check the pattern of the PA?
b) I am not expected to fill the room with sound, nor does it need serious volume anywhere or even at the back of the room. It just needs volume on the dancefloor and around the nearby tables (We are a function and wedding band, we not playing Wembley Stadium. We usually play to 100-150 guests)
c) My speakers are what they are, Yamaha MSR400, and MSR800w.

Cheers.

[AndreasModerator]

I’m irritated because of such a stage design normally (at least for my experience) pretty well isolates sound from the room back to the stage, at least for lower frequencies. Running into feedback problems with that setup (and IEMs, just to repeat that) gets even harder to understand.
The pattern of the PA is normally given by the manufacturer (same as with microphones), the spec sheet of the MSR400 states 90 degrees horizontal and 40 degrees vertically. I know Yamaha loves plastic cases and looking at the bounce picture in that paper I’m wondering, how stiff the case is and if it properly isolates sound distribution from the back (towards the stage).
Yes, MSR400+MSR800, specified with 1600 Watts total but only consuming 400 Watts from the mains. Yamaha power saving magic… 😉
Did you notice, that continuous power output isn’t even specified for that system? Anyway, I’m not familiar with that particular model, maybe I underestimate them.

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

Speakers need to be firing most of ther energy over the guests on the “front row”, else they’ll be deafened and no one else will hear.

That rig, that size venue…

Should be fine – assuming you are aiming for dance floor volumes on the dance floor and lower at the periphery, so people can communicate, the MSR400s don’t shape the mids particularly sharply, but it should be good enough.

You also have kids in with the guests, so I’d want to be running the volume down a bit for their ears – unless there is somewhere a bit quieter they can sit with parents.

Do you measure volume on stage / on the dance floor with anything better than a phone?

Just to add, I’ve run larger venues with the MsR400’s, even without a sub to beef up the bottom, and they are capable little speakers. They are plastic, but the case is by no means floppy. It won’t compete with a top end speaker, but for the price it’s a decent unit. Disregard the Yamaha Watts, get a SPL meter (even an uncalibrated one from Maplin will give you consistent readings) then work out your stage and PA volumes, with a gap of 10dB or more..

[dpdanParticipant]

“I’m not singing into a microphone and its screaming feedback back at me, more when I stop singing”

It sounds like compression is turned on somewhere in the mixer, perhaps mic channels and/or main outputs.
Spend a little time and go through every single input channel and output channel to make sure the compressor and gate is completely off. The easiest way to do this for the input channels is by pressing the green SEL (select) bottom for each channel. Look at the buttom below the Gate and Comp knob, if they are on (green) push them to turn them off.

It is also possible that the speakers may have limiting built in, if they do, then the feedback may be coming from the mains, and the reason it happens sometimes when you stop singing is because the volume of the loud vocals caused the speakers to go into limiting. This automatic limiting prevents the speakers from blowing. When you stop singing the limiting releases and then the gain goes back up, (unlimited).

We’re just trying to help you get to the bottom of this dilema,
hang in there Coffeeking 🙂

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

No autolimiting that I’ve ever noticed, unless it’s in the 800…

The speakers aren’t obviously *badly* placed, we have to make do with what is acceptable in some gigs…
But the stage layout isn’t great for musicians to get a feel from the guests – fairly typical small gig space though

[Dick ReesParticipant]

As you say, maybe I have too much gain on my mics?
But I was always shown/read to have as much gain as possible on mics with the clip light only just occasionally flashing?

Probably so.

Try setting your mic input gain by PFL’ing the selected channel and setting the gain by the meter on the touch screen. I prefer peaks to be just slightly into the yellow. This is very likely 12dB lower than what you describe if I’m understanding your description correctly.

While it is true that it’s total system gain which determines GBF, if you’re setting your mics as hot as I think you are, you’ll have to run everything else after that “cooler” to make up for it. And if you set your mics hot, then try to set your channel and/or master faders at “unity”, you’ll be sending an extremely hot signal to your speakers, requiring you to decrease the speaker level to much less than the setting you’re now using.

And I agree with those who say it sounds like you’ve still got compression engaged somewhere. It sounds like multiple problems. I’m pretty sure any of us who are trying to help could sort this out in person in a few minutes of hands-on, proceeding from “square one”.

Could you save a typical scene and Email it to one of us? We could load it into our board and check all your settings to verify levels, processing, EQ and such. If there’ something grossly out of whack, it should show up in the scene.

[dpdanParticipant]

Coffee, it would also really help us if you could post an MP3 recording of the system in the room when it does feedback.
Ideally, and just for this purpose, it would be best if the audio recording could be made with a separate audio recorder like a small Tascam, Sony or Zoom with a stereo mic. A camcorder will not work since most of them have auto-level. We are not interested in a high quality stereo recording from one of these devices. It would really help to hear the feedback, then we can advise you on how to eliminate it in the future.
A recording on a USB stick from the mixer would probably suffice, but a Zoom or Tascam portable recording would be better for this test. If you didn’t want to post it publically, you could send any of us a personal message through this forum with a link to download the MP3 file through any of the free file upload sites.

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

And the digital equivalent of the clip light occasionally flashing is -12 or -18 occasionally flashing. Can’t recall where the yellow starts on the QU, but there is a world of pain when clipping starts…

[AndreasModerator]

Channel clip is -3dB Full Scale, the 0 Led indicates 18dB headroom left. On this desc my target is to level for 0 mostly on and red never flashing (never understood the request for more level leds on the channel). Feel free to correct me… 😉

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

I’ll run with that, with the bottom of the yellow “just on” “most” of the time.

This is one of the biggest changes from an analogue desk – the absolute values are not “from ideal” but “from clipping”, and the bit depth is such that having headroom will not have an effect on the audible output.
The consequences of running into clipping are also “nastier” in the digital domain.

[Dick ReesParticipant]

MSR 400: Note the recommended setting for “line” input…9 o’clock, not 12.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/340754/Yamaha-Msr400.html?page=5#manual

[coffee_kingParticipant]

MSR 400: Note the recommended setting for “line” input…9 o’clock, not 12.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/340754/Yamaha-Msr400.html?page=5#manual

Hi Dick
I’m not saying your wrong but on what page does it state that in manual please?
Cheers

[Dick ReesParticipant]

Page 5, the page I linked. Look carefully at the picture. See the arrows pointing to “line” (9 o’clock) and “mic” (3 o’clock)?

I guess they used the picture to save 1,000 words…

[coffee_kingParticipant]

Hmm, youd think that but if you then go on a page where they have actually shown the two different set ups

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/340754/Yamaha-Msr400.html?page=6#manual

Theyre still just pointing to 12 o’clock…..brilliant eh 🙂

[[XAP]BobParticipant]

I’ stick to the 9 O’Clock position on mine, else I end up with mush and feedback issues (Oh, hello) without any useful metering on the desk (i.e. it messes up the rest of the gain structure)

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