PTT Program 4 Day 5-12.txt
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00;00;00;00 - 00;00;26;23 Unknown We will be using a sound craft for former PSI as our example council today. This council packs a lot of features into a very small package, and it's pretty easy to operate once you get a feel for it. If you have another brand or model, check the manufacturers websit...
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;26;23 Unknown We will be using a sound craft for former PSI as our example council today. This council packs a lot of features into a very small package, and it's pretty easy to operate once you get a feel for it. If you have another brand or model, check the manufacturers website. Most manufacturers have in-depth tutorials posted on their website to start. 00;00;26;29 - 00;00;50;14 Unknown Let's get familiar with some of the terms you will hear when using digital mixing consoles. Most consoles will have shortcut keys to help you get around faster. Depending on what function you're trying to do, such as putting the console into monitor mode for mixing on stage monitors on this particular desk, they are called the one Touch Easy Mix. 00;00;50;14 - 00;01;21;13 Unknown Keys are OTM. These keys place the console into mix mode, allowing quick and easy mixing from channels to master outputs. On some consoles, referred to as output busses. Channels to or output busses to. Matrix busses are a lot like busses on a highway. You can put a lot of passengers on a bus, and you can put multiple audio signals into a bus. 00;01;21;15 - 00;01;49;12 Unknown All audio signals need to get on the bus to continue their journey to main monitor effects and backstage announced speakers. Now let's take a look at how this works and demonstrate how to set up a basic mix. The first thing you'll want to do is to label all your channels. Just like on an analog mixer. We've labeled our console to correspond with the sound plot for Little Shop of Horrors. 00;01;49;14 - 00;02;10;17 Unknown Working with input channels on a DMC is different than on an analog mixer, as there is one assignable channel strip or Ax for each input channel. When you look closely, you will notice all the same features of an analog console, but the controls are laid out in a different format. There is only one set of controls for all the channels. 00;02;10;19 - 00;02;43;20 Unknown To access the X on a particular channel strip, press SCL or select and solo to hear that channel in your headphones. On this council, you will notice a shortcut knob directly above the labels that can be assigned to either B input gain or trim, filter or pan, depending on which of these buttons you press. These knobs directly correspond to the characters they are labeled, and continue to perform the selected function regardless of what channel is selected to be controlled by the ax. 00;02;43;23 - 00;03;08;16 Unknown So let's say we want to set up a quick mix to the left and right bus to send sound to your main speakers on this console. Connect your inputs to the mic line inputs on the console. These would be actors. Mix playback sources like CD players and audio editing programs. The eyes from the combo, etc. two connect headphones to the socket under the armrest. 00;03;08;18 - 00;03;40;11 Unknown Three. Select what channel you want to work with by pressing the select button on that channel. Assign channel to left and right output channels. Number four if your mic needs phantom power like a boundary mic, press the Phantom Power button. Five. Adjust the gain to achieve a good level on each channel. As a guide, the -12 DB indicator should be on most of the time, with only the occasional flickering of the zero DB led to hear it in your headphones. 00;03;40;13 - 00;04;05;20 Unknown Press the solo key for that channel and adjust the headphone volume control. Six raise the master fader to zero DB. Seven. Slowly raise the individual channel faders and balance your mics. Eight. To control the processing of the main mics, press the select key above the main left and right fader to assign the ax to the main left and right buss. 00;04;05;22 - 00;04;32;27 Unknown Next, you may now open the Gek, which is an abbreviation for graphic for the main left and right buss by pressing either the Gek high or low key. Close the Gek by pressing the Let high low key again. Now we will demonstrate how to set up a mix to go to an on stage monitor. Speaker to create a simple mix to mix one. 00;04;32;29 - 00;05;06;02 Unknown Make sure your monitors are connected to analog output one. Two. Select Fader bank a three. Press the mix one. Follow key. Notice the input faders have changed color and position as they are now your sends from the input channels to mix buss one. Also note the select key over the model. Select fader is lit and the fader glow has changed color to yellow. 00;05;06;04 - 00;05;36;14 Unknown This is now mix one master fader four. Raise the channel faders and balance your monitor mix, much like you did for the mains earlier. Five. To make adjustments to the overall EQ on the mix, open the geek for mix one by pressing either the geek high or low key. Close the JQ by pressing the high low key again. 00;05;36;17 - 00;06;01;24 Unknown Now that you've set up a basic house and stage monitor mix, let's fine tune some things to make your show sound even better and to make them easier to run. Remember how we use subgroups on the analog mixer to group? Audrey and Seymour, the urchins, the boundary mix and the combo on a DMC we will use Vikas. Remember what Vikas are. 00;06;01;26 - 00;06;30;05 Unknown VCA groups allow the sound engineer to control the volume of several independent sources through one control fader, without having to route them all through a common subgroup. It is called a VCA because voltage controlled amplifiers are used to assign vocals on this console. First, press the VCA setup button, then press the number one button and select the input channels you would like to assign to that VCA. 00;06;30;07 - 00;07;00;27 Unknown For Little Shop VCA, one would control Audrey and Seymour. VCA two would control the urchins, VCA three would control the boundary mix and VCA four would control the combo to access the VCA fader bank to control the master level for each group. Press Fader Bank C and bring up the fader for the corresponding VCA group. Mute groups are very useful in situations where you want to turn on or off. 00;07;01;03 - 00;07;28;23 Unknown Groups of microphones are instruments that are not being used at a particular scene. Assigning a mute group is exactly like assigning a VCA to assign mutes on this console. First, press the mute setup button. Then press the number one button and select the input channels that you would like to assign to that mute. For a little shop mute, one would control Audrey and Seymour. 00;07;28;23 - 00;07;59;05 Unknown A mute two would control the urchins, mute three would control the boundary mics, and mute four would control the combo. It's also a great idea to set up an all mute setting for pre-show. An intermission. Remember how we said a singer's voice sounds better with a little bit of reverb? This is an effect. You want to be able to add reverb to your actors voices when they are singing, and then remove it for speaking parts. 00;07;59;08 - 00;08;31;15 Unknown We did this on auxiliaries on our analog mixer, but here's how to do this on a DMC. To create a simple mixed effects process or two. First select Fader Bank a. Next, press the FX to follow key. Notice the input faders have changed color and position as they are now on your sends from the input channels to processor two, while the on keys are now the routing on and off from the channel to the effects bus. 00;08;31;18 - 00;08;40;21 Unknown Raise the channel faders on the input channels you want to send to the effects units. 00;08;40;24 - 00;08;52;13 Unknown Now press effects again and push fader bank B and turn up the fader for effects. Return two to balance the level of effect to your mix. 00;08;52;15 - 00;09;20;27 Unknown Earlier we discussed snapshots, and you'll remember that a snapshot can be a very useful tool if you're doing a performance with multiple scenes and you want to create custom audio cues for each scene. To create a snapshot on this mixer, the coolest key opens the list of snapshots where you can select the next cue to recall and amongst other things, edit the cue name. 00;09;21;00 - 00;09;50;23 Unknown Press the store key to create a snapshot earlier in the analog section. We covered compression and gating using external rack mounted units and a digital mixer. These are built into each channel strip. This can be extremely useful when you want to even out the signal without writing a fader, for example. A little bit of compression can really smooth out the level of a really dynamic actor speaking parts, or help keep instrument levels in check. 00;09;50;25 - 00;10;16;08 Unknown Sometimes you may even want to send all the vocal mikes to a group and compress the overall group to keep everything at a nice, even level. Noise gates can also be really helpful in eliminating unwanted noise from sources that are not always being used, and eliminate the need for muting. When mixing music, I often use noise gate on drums to block out unwanted bleed through of a drum into all the other mics on the kit. 00;10;16;10 - 00;10;50;28 Unknown Noise gates can be fine tuned to only let signal pass when the intended source is being used. Noise gates can be used for actors microphones, but are not recommended. The next thing we'll demonstrate is how to set up a matrix. A matrix feed is basically additional outputs on your mixer. A good use for a matrix is if you need to send your mix to say, a lobby feed, a hearing impaired system, or a backstage feed to create a simple mix to matrix mix one. 00;10;51;01 - 00;11;30;05 Unknown First, select Fader Bank only. Second, press the MT x1. Follow key and press the mTORC1 key again. The three faders to the left of the fader bank keys now operate as left, right, and mono. Contributions to the matrix. You may now open the Q for matrix one by pressing either the GQ high or low key. Close the GQ by pressing the lip high low key again. 00;11;30;07 - 00;11;50;27 Unknown One of the funniest things about audio is that when you need help to carry in the heavy stuff, no one claims to know anything about it. But when you are having problems, everyone wants to get their hands in and play Mr. Fix It. Most of the audio gear made these days is pretty reliable stuff. I'm not going to say that something won't break now and then, but generally in equipment failure is not the place to start looking. 00;11;50;29 - 00;12;13;04 Unknown Unless your system is getting older and you already suspect problems. For the purpose of this troubleshooting section, we are assuming that all of your actual audio gear is working fine. It's all those little things in between that will make you pull your hair out. In this program, I can't possibly go into everything that could possibly go wrong, but there are some common issues that will go over that will get you through most problems. 00;12;13;06 - 00;12;36;07 Unknown The biggest enemy of the audio engineer is feedback. Now you've all heard it, but probably didn't know what it was called. Feedback can be acoustical or mechanical. Mechanical feedback is most often created by a vibration coming up a mic stand holding an open mic. Just from having your system up too loud and nothing running through it. It's that hum that starts slow and slowly gets louder. 00;12;36;10 - 00;12;40;06 Unknown That is mechanical feedback. 00;12;40;08 - 00;12;50;24 Unknown Acoustic feedback is more common and occurs when an amplified sound gets back into a microphone and gets re amplified again and again. 00;12;50;27 - 00;13;17;10 Unknown Which is that horrible screech that makes the audience cover their ears and has dogs barking for miles. Feedback is probably more common at higher frequencies, but can't happen in the low frequencies as well. Feedback can be caused by one of many things, or a combination of things, including speaker placement, microphone placement. Room acoustics. Using a live mic too close to a speaker, too far from a source, and even having too many mics open at once. 00;13;17;13 - 00;13;40;10 Unknown One way or another, feedback always comes down to a microphone, so you're in the middle of a performance, and feedback occurs when the audience turns around and looks at you. Your gut reaction to get rid of that hole is to pull down the fader of the mic that is feeding back. True, that does make the screech go away, as well as the voice of your actor to get the screech going quickly without losing your actor's voice. 00;13;40;15 - 00;14;03;23 Unknown You might try pulling the suspect fader back partially rather than closing it down totally. If you're finding feedback in the middle of a performance, make your adjustments very subtle. If the feedback starts to go away, there is a good chance you've found the culprit. Now you need to see what caused the problem. If your problem is pretty bad and the entire house is full of how you need to isolate the mic, that is ringing fast. 00;14;03;25 - 00;14;21;13 Unknown And one way to do that is by looking at your signal input lights. If you find the one that is on solid, rather than flashing like the rest, then there is a good chance you found the source of the problem. But you're only halfway there. You found the source, but now you need to fix the problem. There are a few secrets to getting rid of feedback. 00;14;21;16 - 00;14;41;18 Unknown Change your EQ assuming that you are flat in the room with your graphic equalizer. Check the input channel on your mixer to see if you might have accidentally moved a knob in the EQ section. Or maybe you're just trying to get too much out of that mic change microphone type. You might be using an omnidirectional mic in front of speakers whose output or getting back into the mic. 00;14;41;20 - 00;14;57;16 Unknown Instruct the actor not to point a mic at the speakers. If you have an actor using a stick mic who will walk out into the audience? Make sure that mic never gets pointed back at the speakers. Actors who might walk in front of speakers need to make sure the engineer knows that. They may need to pan that mic out of that speaker. 00;14;57;17 - 00;15;14;19 Unknown I have a special EQ setting when they walk over there. If your actor is particularly soft spoken, you may need to get them to project a little bit more or consider moving the mic closer to their mouth. If you remember when we talked about microphones, you need to get the sound to the mic. It won't reach out and get it. 00;15;14;21 - 00;15;31;06 Unknown If your signal is sounding kind of fuzzy, it's probably one of two things. There is a chance you are hitting the input of one of your devices too hard. That is called overdriving. The signal, which means you are putting too much signal level into it. Again, look at your signal level lights on all the devices in your audio chain. 00;15;31;08 - 00;15;47;26 Unknown On most pieces of gear, the lights will pulsate with the level of your source, so it might. Burning solid is a good place to start looking. Another cause of the fuzzy sound, especially if you are having trouble getting good level from a mic, is that you might have a microphone as a source plugged into a line level input on your mixer. 00;15;47;28 - 00;16;05;16 Unknown Check your console that the mic line switch, if it has one, is in the right position. A mic plugged into a line level input doesn't have as much energy as that input is expecting, and when you turn things all the way up to here, all you are doing is hearing the faint signal of the microphone, and it's just not going to get any louder. 00;16;05;19 - 00;16;24;28 Unknown Connecting two devices with different signal levels is called a level mismatch. On the flip side, if you plug a line level device into a mic level input, it will be like hooking your garden hose up to a fire hydrant. There is just way more than you can handle, no matter how much you try to turn it down. Now let's move on to another common problem. 00;16;25;01 - 00;16;43;14 Unknown I mentioned that most of the hardware is pretty reliable. But let's talk about how cables get treated. If mistreating cables was a crime. We'd all be behind bars. They are tossed. Pulled. Stretched. 00;16;43;16 - 00;16;47;27 Unknown Have lids closed on them. 00;16;47;29 - 00;17;14;03 Unknown Have heavy things rolled over them and have drinks spilled on them. And that's just before lunch. But I think you get the picture. Cables get abused and like, cars or appliances, things that are not treated well tend to fail at the worst possible time. Before we get into troubleshooting cables, there is a handy little tool that every pro audio guy in the world working in live sound, television, or film carries. 00;17;14;05 - 00;17;35;24 Unknown The gang on the Light crew have their crescent wrenches, and we have our cable checkers. These are made by a number of companies and have different features. Some of them will not only help you to identify a bad cable, but pretty much tell you what to do to fix it. Just take a cable and plug it into both sides of the cable tester, and wiggle both ends of the cable a little bit to make sure it's not an intermittent problem. 00;17;35;26 - 00;17;55;09 Unknown That's one that comes and goes. This one looks good, but this one well might need some work. Here is another type of cable tester that has a small speaker and amplifier built into it, so you can plug it in at different points in your audio chain to make sure that the signal is present and clean. This is a great tool for tracing a problem down. 00;17;55;12 - 00;18;12;25 Unknown A cable checker and listen box are good investments in your theater systems. You could expect to pay \$100 or more for one of these, so if that's out of your budget, you might try talking that kid in electronics class to build you a listen box. It might not be quite as small as one of these, but I'm sure it will work just as well. 00;18;12;28 - 00;18;32;13 Unknown Just don't plug the output of your amps into it. These boxes are made only for line and mic level signals. Having a buzz in your signal is one of the more troubling things that can happen, since there are so many places they can get into your system. I tend to divide the causes of a buzz into two groups a broken shield or ground, and an AC hum. 00;18;32;16 - 00;18;45;27 Unknown Now, not to sound like the guy who fixes your car, but you can get some clues about where to start looking for the buzz by listening to it sound. If it is more of a buzz like this. 00;18;45;29 - 00;18;59;08 Unknown Chances are it's an AC hum, which means you have a ground loop in your system, or you have your audio cables lying too close to the power. If it's more of a hum sounding like this. 00;18;59;10 - 00;19;17;19 Unknown That would make me think I have a bad cable somewhere that might have a broken shield or ground wire. If you were hearing something in your system that you know is not a part of your show, like a nearby radio station or a two way radio in a taxi or police car, it's a good indication that you have a broken shield and a cable somewhere in your system. 00;19;17;21 - 00;19;40;10 Unknown When a shield is broken, it's like a leaky pipe, except things are leaking in and not out. The signal of that powerful transmitter down the road will have no problem finding its way in at the slightest sign of weakness. Now, if you find a cable coming back to your board that seems to be leaking, but you don't find a bad cable with your cable checker, it could be that you have a really powerful transmitter. 00;19;40;12 - 00;19;57;27 Unknown Let's say like an FM radio station nearby. Try to listen to the interference long enough to find out what station it is. For instance, if you hear that it is a local country station, you might call them to ask where their transmitter tower is. The strongest point of an FM radio signal is almost exactly a mile from the tower. 00;19;58;04 - 00;20;20;09 Unknown So if that is the case, we have a problem. The radio station won't be moving their tower because of your show. And I doubt your school will build a new theater somewhere else farther from the tower. So I'm going to give you a little trick to pull out of your back pocket. What is happening is that the mic cable, good shield and all has become an antenna that is tuned to that radio station by the length of the cable. 00;20;20;11 - 00;20;43;12 Unknown By adding another 25 to 50ft of cable of that line, you can kind of tune your cable to another frequency. The chances of having two stations that close to your school are pretty remote. So another problem solved. A good place to start looking for any of these problems that will only take a minute to check, is to go back through all of the inputs on your mixer and listen to each one of them individually to see if it is coming into the console. 00;20;43;12 - 00;21;03;08 Unknown That way, if it pops up during a performance, you'll want to do this with headphones so you don't disturb the audience around you. Assuming you're not in the middle of a show and you begin to isolate the problem, start working your way back toward the mic, checking all of your cables. You have to think of these interferences like diseases and the sound system as a body. 00;21;03;10 - 00;21;31;08 Unknown Once that disease gets in, it will spread everywhere unless you are able to contain the problem. If you pay attention to the metering, those lights and meters on your console and outboard gear, they can tell you a lot of things. If you are doing a show that runs at a very high sound level, like some of the contemporary musicals, it's a good idea now and then to put on your headphones and quickly run through all of your inputs individually once or twice during the show, just to make sure you don't have a problem that might be buried in a loud mix. 00;21;31;08 - 00;21;48;29 Unknown That makes it hard to hear. If you start seeing meters and peak lights coming on too frequently, or worse yet, staying on, it's a hint that you might have a problem. Use the signal level lights on the devices as clues. If you have a signal that just isn't getting to where it's supposed to be, you'll need to run it down. 00;21;49;02 - 00;22;09;25 Unknown Your listen box is invaluable for finding the last point. Your signal passed. Start your search in a logical manner and eliminate obvious things first. Are all the power switches turned on? Are there any pulled power cords or blown breakers? If you have gear in the back of the rack all plugged into one power strip, did that little switch on the end of it accidentally get turned off? 00;22;09;28 - 00;22;28;17 Unknown I've solved what seem to be catastrophic problems with some pretty simple fixes like those don't always assume the worst, because most of the time it's something really simple. Just don't panic and forget to check the easy stuff. If you start hearing your speakers cutting out, chances are you have an amplifier clipping, which means it's trying to work too hard. 00;22;28;19 - 00;22;47;10 Unknown Amplifiers are like people. When they work too hard, they get hot. And when we get hot, we want to take a break. And so does your amplifier when your amp decides to take a break. It's called clipping and the result is called distortion. It usually occurs when you're trying to push too much signal to the amp, or have too many speakers on that amplifier. 00;22;47;12 - 00;23;11;11 Unknown If you notice it on just one source, then the problem is much earlier in your chain. Probably in the mic, wireless system or cable coming back from the stage. If the entire mix is cutting out, it's probably amplifier clipping. While most overworked amplifiers made now will just shut themselves off to protect themselves. You'll want to get a handle on this one pretty quick, since a clipping amp can damage speakers pretty fast. 00;23;11;14 - 00;23;31;24 Unknown Well, the bad news is that there are a lot of things that can happen with wireless systems. The good news is, most of them are pretty easy fixes. If you have a good wireless system and keep the receivers back at the console, the receiver can tell you a lot about what is going on. This sure receiver even tells you if the battery in the transmitter on the actor's belt is still good. 00;23;31;27 - 00;23;49;22 Unknown With other systems, you might have to actually remove the battery from the transmitter and test it. Always start your shows with fresh batteries in your transmitters if you can afford to, and you'll always want to buy batteries from a store who sells a lot of them, just like bread or milk, batteries have a shelf life and need to be purchased when they are fresh. 00;23;49;24 - 00;24;09;04 Unknown If there is a lot of dust on the battery package in the store, look for one less dusty. It's a sign they've been on the shelf for a while. Once batteries drop to about 80% of their voltage, it's time to replace them. For best performance of your wireless system. Now, if you look up at this receiver and see that you don't have any of the RF lights on at all. 00;24;09;10 - 00;24;32;15 Unknown Don't panic here either, because 99% of the time someone turned off the transmitter on stage. You call backstage and have the stage manager or someone on the audio crew turn it on. Problem solved. Right. They tell you it's on. And with this particular system, you know, if they are telling the truth. So if the RF lights are on but you're still getting no sound, what's going on on some type of wireless transmitters? 00;24;32;16 - 00;24;52;19 Unknown The power switch has a little stopping point between off and on called you in mute. The transmitter is still on and putting out signal, but in mute mode. The mic is turned off from getting to the transmitter, so it has no signal to send to the receiver. It has the same effect as when you put your hand over the mouthpiece of a telephone, so the person at the other end can't hear you. 00;24;52;22 - 00;25;11;21 Unknown There is still a phone call going on. It's just that no one is saying anything. Keeping track of your belt packs and transmitters will help keep you organized, which will make your shows run more smoothly. Some people will color code them, but remember, in the dark of backstage, it's hard to make out colors. Blue and purple can look a lot alike in the dark. 00;25;11;24 - 00;25;32;06 Unknown You might try doing numbers in fluorescent paint. These little numbers you get at the hardware store work well too. Since they are made to be put on your mailbox, they are reflective and will be easy to see backstage in low light. And don't do anything to your handheld wireless mikes other than maybe a subtle stripe of color, since you'll need to be able to see that from the front of house position. 00;25;32;08 - 00;25;53;09 Unknown You can also try colored windscreens, but a lot of people don't like that look on stage, and the windscreens can easily be put on the wrong microphone. If you know your transmitter is on and it's not muted, there is one other place you might look first. If your wireless system is frequency agile, check to see that frequencies on the transmitter and the receiver set to the same channel. 00;25;53;11 - 00;26;18;25 Unknown If not, it's like putting the wrong address on a letter. It's just not going to get where you want it to go somewhere else. Transmitters have output levels on the transmitters and receivers. There is usually what's called a unity gain. It's kind of a little quick stop where most actors voices would sound good. If you were having trouble with a level being too high or too low coming out of a wireless system, you'll want to have an audio engineer adjust them to a good setting. 00;26;18;27 - 00;26;36;06 Unknown And remember, you can take a listen box and plug it into the back of your wireless receiver to make sure the signal is good coming out of it. If you hear a motorboat sound kind of like this. Thank you for coming out tonight. We appreciate you being here and we look forward to seeing you next time. Good night. 00;26;36;09 - 00;26;59;02 Unknown There is a good chance you have the phantom power switched on a mixer channel that has a dynamic mic for an input. Since that voltage created by phantom power isn't necessary to operate a dynamic mic, it hangs up in the microphone and causes that sound to come back down the line. Many of the newer dynamic mics made now are built to ignore that voltage, but if you have some older mics in your arsenal, this one could haunt you. 00;26;59;05 - 00;27;17;17 Unknown If you have individual switches on each channel, turn that one off and you should be good. If you are having trouble getting good levels on your actors mics in a musical, it could be because your band or orchestra mics are bleeding into other mics, or the orchestra could be bleeding into the onstage mics meant to pick up the actors. 00;27;17;20 - 00;27;40;21 Unknown Keep your loud, natural sources, such as drums and guitar amplifiers, as far away as possible from any vocal mics or instrument mics that need a lot of amplification, such as a flute or acoustic guitar. Distance can be your friend when trying to isolate your sources. Believe it or not, troubleshooting is a skill of its own, and people who can fix things and do it fast will always find work. 00;27;40;24 - 00;28;05;24 Unknown It doesn't matter if you were on the set, crew lighting or sound. The people who can make bad things go away are always in demand, with new equipment and techniques coming out every day. There will always be new challenges, and if you plan a career in pro audio, it's your job to keep up on them. I hope you've enjoyed this overview of audio for theater, and even if you don't pursue a career in audio, it just might make you appreciate the guys like me sitting back behind the console. 00;28;05;26 - 00;28;14;22 Unknown I'm David Eisenhauer and thanks for watching. 00;28;14;24 - 00;28;48;11 Unknown Sound design is broken down into two main areas. Sound effects, abbreviated S effects and music. Sound effects be anything from the barking dogs or fall back. Music is exactly as it styles. Incidental music. Old music played by a character in the play. The example is that music is this music which I composed for the end of act one, the version of the third produced by John Lewis. 00;28;48;11 - 00;29;12;18 Unknown Shakespeare. In this scene, Richard has gained his way into full power and demands who's supposed to kneel before him, including his good friend or fellow conspirator, the Duke of Buckingham. You can see how music serves to heighten the tension of the end scene. 00;29;12;21 - 00;29;41;26 Unknown As an example of a character playing an instrument, here's a picture of me playing a natural trumpet and in production about the English Civil War for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the essential tools for sound design are a computer on which to create and edit sound effects of music on computer programs, the actual editing, an external hard drive for storing sound effects of music, and a good pair of headphones. 00;29;42;00 - 00;30;11;12 Unknown So the editing process. We recommend storing these in your school in an area to dedicate to the sound crew will examine these items in more detail later in the program. Many sound effects are available on CDs, usually as a compilation of different kinds of sound effects. The copyright license on how these sound effects may be used is clearly stated on the CD. 00;30;11;14 - 00;30;42;13 Unknown Some may be used only by not for profits like schools or other organizations. For others purchasing the CD pays for the license for the use of the sound effects by any group. Incidental music is an entirely different matter. If the sound designer uses copyrighted music, which is almost all recorded music. Permission must be obtained and may involve a fee. 00;30;42;15 - 00;31;18;23 Unknown Now this is where you need to do some homework. If you want to use copyrighted music in a production. You'll have to get permission from one of the two major licensing organizations. The American Society of Composers and Publishers, commonly known as S cap or Broadcast Music Incorporated, also known as BMI. For many years, both S cap and BMI have been really good about working with K through 12 schools. 00;31;18;25 - 00;31;51;05 Unknown Your school may want to get an email from one of those two organizations saying it's okay to use certain music. It's a good idea to keep that email with your sound effects library and give a copy to your administration so they know that you've gotten permission. As cap and BMI are really good folks who have always been supportive of education, why all this concern about copyright? 00;31;51;07 - 00;32;25;20 Unknown A good example is a gentleman sitting next to me. Robin has made his living composing and playing music since he was 20 years old. Composers deserve to be paid for their compositions, just like actors or stagehands get paid for their work. Now, Robin is going to give you an example of getting permission to use copyrighted music. For example, audiences for music used as examples in this segment of the program were composed by me. 00;32;25;22 - 00;32;58;28 Unknown So if you wanted to use any of the music in the segment, you would need to get my permission, which I now grant you. A necessary tool for a sound designer is a large library of sound effects. These can be obtained from several sources. The first is CDs. Many companies produce special sound effects CDs, and some companies, such as the BBC, have sound effects libraries of 40 or more CDs that can be purchased. 00;32;59;00 - 00;33;29;16 Unknown Secondly, there are a number of websites such as Sound Dogs, where sound effects can be purchased on these websites. You have to type in a keyword to search what kind of sound effects they have, and you can preview them before purchase. Also, before you purchase sound effects, make sure that with your purchase, you get a site license to use the sound effects in your sound designs. 00;33;29;18 - 00;33;57;10 Unknown These site licenses are usually printed on the jewel case or on the website. Keep a copy of the site license for your records and note what CD or website you got. The sound effect from. When we use incidental music for our programs, we have to provide proof that we have permission before we can start to get our DVD pressed. 00;33;57;12 - 00;34;35;24 Unknown Here is a typical form. Third, you can record your own sound effects. For example, I created magical sounds for The Tempest. These sounds were recorded using a percussionist using a variety of instruments. Here are several of the finished sound effects. First, we record you running our fingers around the rims of different sized wine glasses. Then we recorded a triangle whose label can combine the sounds to get this effect. 00;34;35;27 - 00;35;10;25 Unknown A variation of this effect was done by using several wine glasses 200 water, a triangle, and two flutes for the dance. Roaring Juliet. I have over 400 CDs of sound effects which I have transferred to external hard drive. The spent time putting in individual folders so that are easy to find. For example, when you categorize your first sound effects CD, create individual folders for the types of sound effects you have on that side. 00;35;10;28 - 00;35;43;06 Unknown As you add more sound effects, you can create new folders according to type and add to existing ones. You could then make folders in each category like this. You start out with a folder for vehicles. As you get more effects, you may want subdivided the cars, trucks, emergency vehicles, horns, motorcycles, etc. it's a good idea to note where you got each sound effect to protect yourself in the copyright world. 00;35;43;08 - 00;36;27;08 Unknown The external hard drive for the sound effects library should also contain a music library within the music library folder. There are individual folders for different styles of music, and then within those folders, the individual artists and pieces of music can be further identified. A good sound designer will collect music of every genre and style. You may have to design a show that takes place in Chicago in the Roaring 20s, a Shakespeare play set in 70s disco with funk music, or the Civil War using accurate period music. 00;36;27;11 - 00;36;58;04 Unknown Your personal taste in music cannot ever be reflected in your sound design. You may love heavy metal or hip hop, but neither would work in the Roaring 20s, a 70s disco, or the Civil War. At this point, I should also remark that every cuz I have created in the past, I also keep in the hard drive in the main folder for that particular theater, and then a subfolder for the production and the year. 00;36;58;07 - 00;37;34;21 Unknown You never know when you might want to use a Q again, and there's nothing like stealing from yourself. But remember, if you are using copyrighted music, you must contact the publisher and ask for written permission to use the card. Often, publishers will grant permission or no charge for schools at the first production meeting. You will be given a copy of the script first, read the script for enjoyment, then read the script and note where there are sound effects and incidental music. 00;37;34;26 - 00;38;11;10 Unknown For example. Scene changes. Most theater groups will have pre-production meetings with the director, stage manager, and the designers. Production concept, time period and the style of production will be discussed. Next we should discuss peak placement. This could be as simple as stage fright and stage left, or as complicated as you wish it to be throughout the theater. Consult with the stage manager to see if he or she has compiled a list of sound cues. 00;38;11;13 - 00;38;38;07 Unknown As in some theaters, this is standard procedure. Next, a one on one discussion with the director will determine which of these cues will be used and further discussion of the style of the music. At this point, a copy of your sound cues should be given to the stage manager and the sound operator. Some theaters will have a standardized form. 00;38;38;09 - 00;39;17;04 Unknown If so, use that. If not, the cue list should contain at least three columns one the cue letter A through Z, but avoiding q, q and then going to A, A, B, B, etc. the second column should be the page in the script that this cue occurs. The third column is for any remarks, including description and length. 00;39;17;07 - 00;39;41;04 Unknown The next section we need to look at is the auxiliary or orx section of the mixer. Remember how we could get on and off the highway on the way to the graduation party? Sometimes we left graduation pictures of people's houses. Sometimes we pick things up and got back on the highway. Well, the oxes are like entrances and exits on and off the audio Highway. 00;39;41;07 - 00;40;08;02 Unknown These axes can be used to take the signal to different places in the theater on some mixers. Ox one and two are dedicated to monitors and effects speakers. These axes are typically pre-filled, which means the fader at the bottom of the channel does not affect the level of those accents. Axes can also be used to pick up things to take to the final destination. 00;40;08;04 - 00;40;35;25 Unknown Like when you picked up the graduation cake and presents for your cousins and took them to the party instead of taking cakes and presents. Though, axes can pick up effects like reverb, delay, and other effects. For example, most actors sound better when they sing. If the audio person adds a little bit of reverb to each of their voices, to fatten up or make their voices sound fuller. 00;40;35;28 - 00;41;00;03 Unknown When the song ends, the reverb needs to come off. The actors voices are. They can sound kind of funny and be hard to understand. Box three could be dedicated to reverb, and OCS four could be your delay box. These actions are affected by the fader at the bottom of the channel. Each ox has a master control, usually in the middle of the mixer. 00;41;00;05 - 00;41;22;05 Unknown This is useful if we want to add reverb to a whole group of actors singing at the same time. Just add a little bit of reverb to each of the actor's channels and turn off the Master Ox knob. When the song is over, turn the Ox Master back to zero. So the spoken dialog has a dry mix with no reverb. 00;41;22;07 - 00;41;53;16 Unknown In other words, you can add reverb to every singer's voice by moving just one Master Ox knob. Common effects. Control through oxes are delay used to fatten up voices during dialog, or create a special effect like what's on my voice right now. Reverb used to create dimension and depth during songs or create eerie sounding voices. Typically is not used during spoken dialog. 00;41;53;18 - 00;42;20;27 Unknown Oxes can also be used to send signal to dressing rooms in green rooms, under balcony speakers, and assisted listening system for audience members who are hard of hearing. If you have a matrix in your mixer, you will send those sources through. The matrix will look at matrixes in a few minutes. The pan knob towards the bottom of the input channel allows you to send the mix to one side of the auditorium, or the other. 00;42;20;29 - 00;42;43;14 Unknown If you have a stereo system, you can get the effect of a car driving stage right to stage left by panning the knob. If you are running mono and have your CD player in a left and right channel, you can get the same effect by doing a kind of crossfade using the left and right pan knobs. These are also useful if you know an actor walks in front of a speaker and you're likely to get feedback. 00;42;43;16 - 00;43;08;06 Unknown Just pan some of the mics out of that speaker, and you don't have to lose the entire mix. The mute button is a quick and easy way to kill a channel's signal instantly. Always mute an actor as soon as he or she exits. It can be really embarrassing to the actors if their mics aren't muted and the audience hears them chatting backstage or in the green room. 00;43;08;08 - 00;43;35;11 Unknown If that happens even once. The cast will not trust any of the audio techs. The actors will then start to switch off their body packs when they go off stage, and then forget to turn them back on when the next song begins and the belt packs turned off. It looks like the engineer goofed things up. If you're the A1 at the mics position, how can you tell if an actor is turned off his or her belt pack? 00;43;35;14 - 00;44;01;17 Unknown If you look at that actor's wireless receiver and don't see any indicator lights on the left side of the receiver 99% of the time, the actor turned off the transmitter backstage. Call backstage and have the assistant stage manager or an audio crew member turn the built back on. If the indicator lights are on but you still have no sound, the belt pack may be turned to the mute position on many belt packs. 00;44;01;22 - 00;44;25;02 Unknown The power switch has a little stopping point between on and off called mute. Have the audio tech make sure the switch is turned all the way to on. By the time your signal goes through the input section of your mixer. It is very smart depending on how you've modified the electrical signal with your processing equipment like EQ, reverb, delay, and pan. 00;44;25;05 - 00;44;50;14 Unknown All this signal processing is like picking up the people and things for your road trip. When everybody and everything gets to your graduation party, having the whole family there makes for a more pleasant visit. Using signal processing, outboard gear and effects can make for a more pleasant experience for your listening audience. You may have equipment installed in your wreck and you're not really sure what it's used for. 00;44;50;16 - 00;45;09;21 Unknown It's best not to mess with that gear. For example, you may see a delay unit in your equipment rack and there is no delay on any of your axes. The reason being, delays can be used for more than adding effects to individual sources. Another use for a delay unit is to keep all of your speakers in time with each other. 00;45;09;24 - 00;45;29;00 Unknown A delay will make all of the audio from different speakers get to them at the same time, rather than the second set. Getting there later and causing an echo at that spot in the audience. So when you have more than one speaker aimed at the same spot, you will need to delay the cabinets closest to that point. This is how a delay is used at the U of Missouri space. 00;45;29;03 - 00;45;52;28 Unknown The delay unit that does this job should be left alone and not messed with. Since it was installed and adjusted by the company that installed the audio system. In other words, if you don't know what something is for, don't mess with it without asking your technical director first. And if something all of a sudden sounds strange, someone may have messed with your settings, and you may need an audio engineer to come in and get things back to sounding normal. 00;45;53;00 - 00;46;17;13 Unknown Another piece of equipment that might be in your equipment rack would be a compressor limiter. A compressor is used to hold down sudden peaks in sound level, which protects your equipment from overload and gives your mix a more consistent, even sound. It's kind of like a circuit breaker, but rather than just tripping and turning the audio off, it fine tunes the levels so the audience doesn't even know it's there. 00;46;17;16 - 00;46;45;11 Unknown On the front panel of your compressor. A good place to start for vocals is to set the threshold, or maximum level at zero, and the output at zero as well. Next, set the ratio at 3 to 1, which should provide a safe amount of level reduction for most vocalist. Again, you'll have to experiment a bit, but this basic setting should provide match gain structure and will minimize distortion on peaks. 00;46;45;13 - 00;47;20;13 Unknown There are dozens of different analog and digital units available that will assist you in adding equalizers, compressors, effects, crossovers, and much, much more. These units will work with your laptop and come preprogramed with dozens of speakers and amplifier setups. Some of these units also can be used to help EQ your room for you, by using a special microphone that takes a sample of the room and adjusts the parameters of your sound system according to the acoustics of the room and your sound system. 00;47;20;15 - 00;47;44;13 Unknown The output section of your mixer is where you can route and group your channel signals to different places. Routing and grouping your signals help control where you are sending the signals. Many consoles allow you to group mix together like sub mastering a lighting console in Little Shop of Horrors. You may want to group Audrey and Seymour into Group one since they sing several duets together. 00;47;44;15 - 00;48;09;24 Unknown The urchins always sing as a trio so they could be Group two. The three boundary mikes are always used during chorus scenes so they could be put into group three. The combo always plays together so they could be in group four on this particular mixer. To put Seymour and Audrey in Group one, you would press the one two button and then turn the pan knob to the left. 00;48;09;26 - 00;48;20;21 Unknown To put the urchins in the group two. You would press the one two button and turn the pan knob to the right. 00;48;20;23 - 00;48;31;08 Unknown The boundary mikes into group three. You would press the three four button and turn the pan knob to the left. 00;48;31;11 - 00;48;39;17 Unknown And to put the combo in group four, you would press the three four button. 00;48;39;20 - 00;48;50;06 Unknown And turn the pan knob to the right. 00;48;50;08 - 00;49;10;21 Unknown Groups are a good way to easily control the volume of a group of microphones. Every mixer is slightly different, so check your owner's manual to see how your mixer works. Some sound mixers are equipped with a matrix section. This section adds additional outputs to your mixer. A matrix could be used to feed the mix to under balcony speakers. 00;49;10;23 - 00;49;32;11 Unknown Front fill speakers. Dressing room in green. Room feeds and assisted listening feeds. You also should have flashing lights that tell you about how loud your sources are. These are called meters. It's okay for meters to occasionally bounce into the red a little bit. Just don't let them stay there. 00;49;32;13 - 00;50;01;13 Unknown The electrical signal is very smart now, but not very strong. Even though the signal is very smart with all the processing, it has gone through. It's too weak to get to the audience's ears. The electrical signal needs to go through some kind of engine. Next. And the engine in an audio system is called the amplifier. An amplifier takes the smart processed signal and boosts the strength of the signal. 00;50;01;15 - 00;50;23;26 Unknown We can send this muscled up electrical signal to a bunch of different places, depending on where we routed them in the input and routing sections. Remember, every speaker has to be connected to an amplifier, or the signal will be too weak to move air and create sound. 00;50;23;28 - 00;50;43;21 Unknown We need to turn the stronger signal back into vibrating air so the audience and actors can hear what we want them to hear. This is where we feed the amplified electrical signal into speakers, which vibrate and turn the electrical signal back into sound that the audience, and possibly the actors can hear. Let's review where speakers are commonly placed. 00;50;43;23 - 00;51;12;12 Unknown Main speakers are used in the auditorium for vocal reinforcement. Sound effects like thunder or a plane flying overhead, and incidental music. Monitor speakers, which are usually wedge shaped. Speakers located on the apron downstage so singers can hear themselves. The musicians sound effects and incidental music. Backstage monitor speakers can also be used in dressing rooms, green room, lobby, and the control booth. 00;51;12;15 - 00;51;44;24 Unknown Effects. Speakers or speakers placed near radios on stage fences throwing behind doors for doorbells. Make sure you're packed and ready for your audio trip. Compare a fresh battery in your wireless mic to having a full tank of gas in your car. All your mics need to be connected to different channels, etc. as you get on the road. Think of the vertical set of knobs and sliders in the input section of your mixer as your highway to the audience or actors. 00;51;44;27 - 00;52;11;12 Unknown You can detour on and off the highway and keep whatever you've picked up when you get back on the highway. Using the different knobs and sliders, you can also get off the highway and go someplace special for your ox controls. Tomorrow you may get off the same highway and go somewhere else and stay there, or send signal to an effects speaker later in the play through an ox knob and routing section of your mixer. 00;52;11;14 - 00;52;37;18 Unknown Remember, though, each channel can only control one source. Now that you have all your mix CD players, keyboards, etc. hooked up into individual channels and have decided where you want the sound to end up, you pass through the output section. Here you can control the master level of each ox channel, the detours, each main channel, and can even group mikes together to operate several mikes with just one fader. 00;52;37;26 - 00;52;50;28 Unknown Lest the signal gets muscled up by the amplifiers and is turned back into the vibrating air by the speakers, and the audience hears the vibrating air as sound. 00;52;51;00 - 00;53;13;07 Unknown There is a lot of preparation to go on a road trip, and a lot of preparation is necessary. Getting ready to run audio for a show. Here is a step by step checklist. First, make sure all your gain volume and master faders are turned totally off. Then turn on your console and processing gear. Next, you may have one switch that powers up all of your equipment. 00;53;13;09 - 00;53;37;22 Unknown If not, first power up your mixer, then power up your signal processors. And finally your amplifiers. After powering up your system, it's always a good idea to check that your system is functioning properly. Check that all input channels are muted and move your master faders to unity. Unmute and play your CD player or sound effects playback system with some familiar music. 00;53;37;25 - 00;54;05;15 Unknown If your room sounds funny, go to the later section on tuning your space. After making sure everything is operating okay. Turn your master faders back all the way down. After establishing that everything is in good working order, begin to check microphones. First, make sure all the wireless mikes are set correctly. Plug in all your mics. Put batteries in the wireless belt packs and turn them on at the belt. 00;54;05;15 - 00;54;28;18 Unknown Pack. Make sure the battery is installed correctly with the positive and negative signs matching. If the belt packs don't have a battery level indicator, put a piece of masking tape on each battery and at the end of each rehearsal, put a hash mark on the tape. For each hour the battery was in use. You will know how many hours are on a particular battery. 00;54;28;19 - 00;55;01;20 Unknown That way, always use fresh batteries for each performance. You can save and use performance batteries for rehearsals of your next show. For most permanent installations, most mixers have the wireless belt packs and receivers labeled to a corresponding channel. For example, belt pack number one is the belt pack for receiver one, and that is plugged into channel one. Belt pack two is in channel two, and so on. 00;55;01;23 - 00;55;33;02 Unknown Your labeling may be different as long as you know which channel controls which wireless mic. Next, mount the mics and belt packs on the actors. Sure makes pouches for their wireless mics. Or your costume department can make these using wide elastic, Velcro and muslin pouches. Make sure you use surgical grade tape to mount lavalier mics. The last thing you need is your actors breaking out and allergic reactions to gaff tape. 00;55;33;04 - 00;56;03;00 Unknown Mount a lob over the actor's ear, sticking down about an inch or two. Don't tape over the mic itself. Tape over the cable if you're using headset mics. It will have a mount built into it. This sure mic hooks over the actor's ear. Other mics may have a slightly different mounting system. For both of these, you need to leave enough slack in the cable so the actors can move their heads freely. 00;56;03;03 - 00;56;32;04 Unknown Before you bury the belt packs under costumes, you need to set the frequencies and levels of the belt packs. We're going to demonstrate using this. Sure. You PR system, you may be operating a different brand, but the same basic principles apply. Make sure the belt, pack and receiver are set to the same group and channel. Like this. Next, we need to check the signal level of the belt pack to the receiver. 00;56;32;06 - 00;56;57;24 Unknown Have your actor run their lines from the play. Or better yet, sing a song. If the show is a musical. Pay special attention to the meters on that receiver. If the red LED light is blinking often, you will want to bring the gain down on the belt pack like this. On the other side, if your actor is only lighting up 1 or 2 green lights, you will want to increase the gain. 00;56;57;26 - 00;57;26;22 Unknown Like this. You will need to repeat this process for each actor. After this process is complete, it's important to label each belt pack with the actors name to ensure each actor gets the same belt pack. Every rehearsal and performance. If your wireless receiver has an output gain, NAB that is one more chance to boost or cut back the signal entering the mixer. 00;57;26;25 - 00;57;52;01 Unknown Now we're going to send the mic signal to the mixer. Here are where your settings should be. Your master faders should all be at zero. All the EQ levels should be at 12:00 or straight up and down. All of the orcs, nobs, and Orcs Master should be all the way off. The pan knob should be at 12:00. Group Masters should all be at zero. 00;57;52;04 - 00;58;19;01 Unknown All the mute button should be up and not pressed. Next, adjust the input gain on your mixer. Make sure all your faders are still down at this point. Press the button on your first actor's channel. Have your actors speak or sing again and check the left and right LED lights. Other mixers have a designated flow meter section. Adjust the input gain so the meters are close to zero without getting into the red. 00;58;19;01 - 00;58;43;28 Unknown Too often. Repeat this process for every other actor and other sources. Turn your master faders left and right up to 0 or -5. Now have each individual actor speak their lines or sing as you bring up the master fader for each individual channel so the actor can be clearly heard, and then write down that level. Repeat that process for each actor and source. 00;58;44;00 - 00;59;07;13 Unknown Your fader may or may not end up at zero or unity, depending on your system. When an actor has a solo in a musical, you may need to move the fader up a little for the solo and back down again after the solo. That is called writing gain or writing the Fader. If you want to use the group master faders to control multiple mics at the same time, group your mics. 00;59;07;13 - 00;59;36;03 Unknown By doing this. Say you want to put the urchins and little shop into group two. Press the Group one to button down and turn the pan knob to the right. Now you can control all three of their mics with one fader. The group to master fader. Different mixers will have different procedures, so look at your manual to see how your mixer functions. 00;59;36;06 - 00;59;56;23 Unknown If an actor's voice accidentally goes out to the audience when he is saying something backstage, his confidence in the A1 will be lost and it'll start turning off the belt pack when he exits. He'll eventually forget to turn it back on and will be without a mic. Also, make your wireless mic test the first thing the actors do when they enter the building. 00;59;56;25 - 01;00;21;13 Unknown I'd recommend at least 60 minutes before the house opens to allow for problems and troubleshooting. Shut down the system in reverse order of how you got it running. Channel and master faders should be pulled down first and leave the gains where they are for the next performance. Then turn off the amps, battery packs, and signal processing. Collect all belt packs and mics and remove all batteries. 01;00;21;15 - 01;00;42;06 Unknown Unplug all wired mikes, intercom headsets and other audio gear and return everything to storage. Make sure the audio crew head and stage manager get any notes about repairs immediately after the show. 01;00;42;08 - 01;01;04;27 Unknown In this section, I would like to discuss how I typically tune a PA system when I'm using an analog mixer. The process is similar when you have a digital mixer, but a digital mixer has a lot of the tools used built into the mixer for you. But once you understand the terminology and how to manipulate the acoustics of a room, you'll better understand how to troubleshoot EQ problems. 01;01;04;29 - 01;01;28;01 Unknown When your theater was built. The sound system should have been professionally tuned by the company that installed the system. But things can happen over the years if your theater has been rendered to outside groups. Those groups may have thought they knew better than the professionals who installed the system, and they may have changed your IQ or many other settings. 01;01;28;03 - 01;01;56;19 Unknown Earlier, we took a really close look at the EQ section of your mixer. We showed how each individual channel can be adjusted to fine tune each actor's voice. Because this actor's voice now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York has very different qualities than this actor's voice. Hath he set bounds between herself and me on other sources like drums, bass and flute? 01;01;56;22 - 01;02;20;23 Unknown We'll need different settings to sound their best. We compared adjusting the individual channel controls to checking the oil and gas levels, tire pressure, and tuning up the engines of individual vehicles. Before we start a road trip. Now we're going to make sure the audio highway itself is in good shape. What in the world do I mean by the audio highway itself? 01;02;20;26 - 01;03;01;23 Unknown Well, every performance space has different acoustical properties. Not every theater has the outstanding acoustics of the studio performing Arts center we looked at earlier. The design of that space and the state of the art audio equipment there. It's like driving a super car on a brand new highway designed by the best engineers available. The acoustics of a smaller, well-designed auditorium that was built for instrumental and vocal concerts may be good, but will definitely be different from the two hill doing sound reinforcement in here is like driving a reliable car down a well-maintained four lane highway. 01;03;01;25 - 01;03;25;08 Unknown A care, a torium or multi-purpose room will present different challenges because acoustics may have not been the top priority of the architects when the space was built. Getting good sound from spaces like these may be like driving a 25 year old car down a two lane road with some potholes, bumpy pavement and signs that are hard to read. 01;03;25;10 - 01;03;53;10 Unknown But every audience deserves to hear the best sound we give them, no matter what space they're in. Let's join David in one of those spaces to explain how a graphic EQ works, and then we'll come back here to learn how to tune an entire room. Up till now, we've covered all the basic components of a sound system. We've talked about mix amps, speakers, mixers, and playback devices. 01;03;53;12 - 01;04;15;27 Unknown Now, I'd like to spend a few moments talking about some other pieces of gear that will make mixing your show a lot easier, as well as adding some cool special effects. This group of equipment falls under the heading of signal processing, also sometimes referred to as outboard gear. Earlier, we discussed the frequency range and listened to a few sounds that might be passing through your mixer during a show. 01;04;16;00 - 01;04;35;01 Unknown Now I want to show you why that is important. Information to have when you are ringing out or tuning up your system again. In your theater, most of your systems will be stationary and tuned by a professional engineer when they are installed. To buy yourself some insurance. Write down all of the settings, particularly on the equalizer, which I'll get to in just a second. 01;04;35;03 - 01;05;01;28 Unknown That way, if someone decides to move some controls, you'll know where the correct settings were. The first one of these pieces of gear you would want to get into would be an equalizer. Equalizer generally fall into two categories parametric and graphic. Since most parametric equalizers are found in recording studios, we'll focus on graphic equalizers. They are really pretty simple to operate if you think of them as a fancy tone control. 01;05;02;01 - 01;05;24;17 Unknown Just as on your home sound system where you have bass and treble tone controls, a graphic does essentially the same thing. But rather than having just two bands like your home system, some have over 31 bands, giving you an incredible amount of control over the tonal quality of your sound. A graphic like this, model 1231 has 31 bands of frequency adjustment. 01;05;24;20 - 01;05;49;08 Unknown In this setup, you see that there are actually two x in one here, so you can use one for each channel. If you are running your system in stereo. You can hear the effect this piece of gear has on my microphone. Audio. As I make adjustments to this EQ check one two. Check one two. Check one two. Check one two. 01;05;49;11 - 01;06;12;08 Unknown Check one two. For the most part, these x are used to help the sound system compensate for the strengths and weaknesses of the room's acoustics. In other words, if the room you are in tends to eat up the high sounds, you'll want to boost those a bit. But if the room is very alive, you might need to cut them back a little since they are bouncing all over and could potentially cause feedback. 01;06;12;10 - 01;06;37;26 Unknown If it sounds too boomy. You might try cutting back at some of the low mid frequencies on your graphic equalizer. Somewhere between 100 and 250. If it sounds like a telephone, maybe try cutting 800 or 1 K if your voice sounds tinny. You might try cutting back in the range of two k to 4k, and if you're having a problem with S, is sounding harsh or starting to feed back. 01;06;37;28 - 01;06;58;27 Unknown Try cutting around six, 3 or 8 K. Also, be sure to make these adjustments on both sides of the equalizer. you've only fixed half the problem. Remember that every room is different. So while we're trying to give you a good starting point, it will take some experimentation on your part to find the problem frequencies in your room. 01;06;58;29 - 01;07;31;29 Unknown You just heard how much difference changing the EQ on my voice can make, but a graphic equalizer isn't usually used on individual voices. It is used to adjust for strengths and weaknesses of an entire performance space, and can make that space sound the best it can. Whether you're in the two hill, the space I was just in, or a gym, a torium, I'm going to give you some tips to tune a portable system in different spaces and help you get your installed system to sound better, especially if it has been messed with after it was installed. 01;07;32;01 - 01;07;58;06 Unknown The most important part of tuning your sound system is getting the proper balance between your bass, mid and high frequencies. First, and then turning to your overall EQ. Let's assume your speakers are placed in the proper position. Everything is wired correctly, and you're ready to fire up your system. The first thing I do is run pink noise at a low level through the system, to ensure all speakers and components are working properly. 01;07;58;09 - 01;08;23;12 Unknown Here is what pink noise sounds like. Pink noise is all frequencies in the full range of human hearing at an equal level. Some mixers have a pink noise generator built in, but if your mixer does not, an easy solution is to download a sample of pink noise from the internet on your playback source, or you can burn it on to a CD. 01;08;23;14 - 01;08;46;26 Unknown Set your cue to zero on your playback channels and play that through your system. After checking that all the speakers are working properly, the next thing to do is play a song off of a CD that is very familiar to you. And yes, I said CD. MP3's just do not sound as good and you will not get an accurate picture of what's really going on frequency wise. 01;08;46;28 - 01;09;13;11 Unknown MP3's compress the sound to make information small enough to store on extremely small devices like a smartphone, and therefore you do not get accurate highs and lows. But let me explain what I mean by a familiar song. I have a few songs that I've listened to a million times on my home stereo, and really good quality headphones, and in my car, I use these songs to tune any sound system I come across. 01;09;13;13 - 01;09;39;28 Unknown Using these familiar songs allows me to automatically have in my mind what the song should sound like sonically. So when I hear them through the PA system, I can hear what adjustments need to be made. I can tell if the system has too much or not enough bass, or too much highs or midrange frequencies. My goal is to try and make the PA system sound like a high end home stereo, or like it sounds in a good set of headphones. 01;09;40;01 - 01;10;03;03 Unknown Now I realize this takes a bit of ear training, but just a few simple things can get you on the right track. For example, listening to the bass guitar on the track in your car or home stereo, can you hear every note clearly? Chances are, the answer is yes. Now, when listening through your sound system, you're tuning, can you hear the bass the same way? 01;10;03;05 - 01;10;31;14 Unknown If it is unclear or muddy, chances are you have too much overall low end in your entire system and need to back it off a little. The same applies to the vocals in the track. If you play the track in your PA system and the vocals are unclear, you may need a bit more overall high frequencies. Again, the main goal is to try to get the PA system to sound like a big stereo, as opposed to sounding like what we traditionally think of as a public address system. 01;10;31;16 - 01;10;57;11 Unknown There are two ways to tune your room, depending on what kind of equipment you have. The first thing to do is look at your rack of equipment. Almost every permanently installed system will have a graphic equalizers like we just saw David speaking into and changing the EQ. If you don't have 1 or 2, if you're running a stereo, you need to get one period. 01;10;57;13 - 01;11;36;04 Unknown Next, if you have a piece of equipment that looks like this, you have an active crossover. This is a sign of a high quality, more expensive system. Active or electronic crossovers. Divide the mixed signal into two, three, or more frequency ranges and that split happens in the rack back at the mixing console. On this JBL active crossover, you can split the signal coming out of your mixer into different frequency ranges high, mid, and low to send each driver in the speaker enclosure. 01;11;36;07 - 01;12;02;09 Unknown This is the type of system used in large state of the art systems, like the two hill performing Arts Center, but it's expensive to do since you need separate power amps for each range. And if you're running in stereo, double that. If you don't have an active crossover and multiple amps for each frequency range, you probably have passive crossovers built into your speakers. 01;12;02;11 - 01;12;38;02 Unknown Passive crossovers are located inside speakers and split the muscled up, amplified mixed signal in the high, mid, and low frequencies, which are then sent to the correct speakers. This type of crossover and speaker works great for small to medium sized theaters, and is a lot cheaper to install and maintain. The reason I'm pointing out the difference between active and passive crossover systems is that if you don't have an active crossover system, the crossover references in the very next part won't apply to you tuning your room. 01;12;38;08 - 01;13;04;09 Unknown So let's show you the entire process. Start by turning up the CD with your familiar song. Does it sound close to how you remember it sounding in your car or headphones? If not, why, for example, does it have too much bass? Does it sound muddy or distorted? If you answered yes, then go to your crossover and turn the low frequencies down until it sounds close to what you remember. 01;13;04;12 - 01;13;31;06 Unknown If the bass sounds thin and not bass enough, turn up the low frequencies. Remember what an active crossover does. It separates different frequencies to send them to different speakers. Use the same procedure to adjust the mids and highs. Once you get the level set on the crossover, which is sounding pretty close to your mental picture of what it should sound like, then and only then should you turn to your graphic EQ. 01;13;31;09 - 01;13;50;16 Unknown I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people cutting all the lows or boosting highs on their graphic, when what they should really be doing is adjusting the overall level on a specific frequency band by using the crossover. Another sure sign is when you look at the sound board and look at the EQ on each channel. 01;13;50;19 - 01;14;11;09 Unknown Are you cutting the lows on everything? If yes, then it's probably safe to say that you have too much overall lows in your system, and you need to turn down the lows on your crossover. And again, the same applies to the mid and high frequency bands. Now what do you do if your system has passive crossovers built into your speakers? 01;14;11;11 - 01;14;32;01 Unknown Then you have to EQ your entire room using your graphic equalizers. Basically use the same procedure that we just discussed, but the place you'll go to EQ your room is your left and right graphic equalizers, because you work with what you have. You will find that when your system is tuned properly, you will be using the EQ on your soundboard. 01;14;32;06 - 01;14;36;11 Unknown To sweeten things up a bit. Not fix problems in sound system.
