Aardvarking?

B

Brandon Wright

Freshman
Sep 19, 2012
75
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8
This was a new one to me. FOH tech for a national A-list country artist wanted stereo subs so that he could aardvark them. Ok, sure, here are your sends. He then proceeded to go to the graphic on the left sub channel and boost and cut adjacent bands. Then, he went to the right and boosted the ones he had cut in the left and vice versa.

I understand what he was trying to do, bit it sure seems that with the fairly wide q of most graphics the net result would be pretty ugly. I might run a test with systune this week to see what the actual output of the graphic would look like, aside from a whole bunch of phase shift. Audibly, the bass and kick lacked definition throughout the entire set. Something that wasn't an issue while I mixed the opener.

I don't know, different strokes for different folks I guess. Your thoughts? Anyone else ever run into this?
 
Re: Aardvarking?

Brandon Wright said:
He then proceeded to go to the graphic on the left sub channel and boost and cut adjacent bands. Then, he went to the right and boosted the ones he had cut in the left and vice versa.

I understand what he was trying to do,
Click to expand...

You do?...

Well I do too, but why might you want to do that? Trying to get more audible separation between left and right?


Chris
 
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Re: Aardvarking?

Chris Nixon said:
You do?...

Well I do too, but why would why might you want to do that? Trying to get more audible separation between left and right?


Chris
Click to expand...

Well, "Ideally" with the two sides reproducing different frequencies there would be no pattern interaction, therefore, no nulls. That was his reasoning anyway.
 
I've heard this from a BE before. I did it in DSP to make him happy. There was bass everywhere, but it was very uneven in both frequency and level and there was 0 impact from the kick. Just a dull puh with a nearly silent p.

Sent from my neural implant
 
Re: Aardvarking?

Brandon Wright said:
Well, "Ideally" with the two sides reproducing different frequencies there would be no pattern interaction, therefore, no nulls. That was his reasoning anyway.
Click to expand...

Ah, cool. So was he running mono signal to them and splitting the subs into two groups or running stereo signal? Stereo would seem strange as you'd lose some content altogether on anything hard panned.

Is there a way to do this properly that works? Shedloads of steep crossover filters?

Chris
 
Re: Aardvarking?

Brandon Wright said:
Audibly, the bass and kick lacked definition throughout the entire set. Something that wasn't an issue while I mixed the opener.
Click to expand...

Yes, and he didn't have the well defined power alley you had. (Because he didn't have any well defined anything.)
So you only proved his point that he got rid of the power alley, and he is going to keep doing this ad infinitum.
(Until he finds another cure all that *squirrel* distracts him and he gloms on that.)
sigh There is so much disinformation out there. And hard enough to get good sound as it is.

Someone needs to do this with the whole graphic, not just the subs, to show him how messed up it is.
If I used graphic EQ's and stereo I would have to try that to see how bad it is.
 
Re: Aardvarking?

Ahhh, I remember the good ole' days when I saw something like this on the internets and could be sure it was a sexual reference and not another way to ruin perfectly good sound.
 
Re: Aardvarking?

Jack Arnott said:
Yes, and he didn't have the well defined power alley you had. (Because he didn't have any well defined anything.)
So you only proved his point that he got rid of the power alley, and he is going to keep doing this ad infinitum.
(Until he finds another cure all that *squirrel* distracts him and he gloms on that.)
sigh There is so much disinformation out there. And hard enough to get good sound as it is.

Someone needs to do this with the whole graphic, not just the subs, to show him how messed up it is.
If I used graphic EQ's and stereo I would have to try that to see how bad it is.
Click to expand...

Personally, I'm off of the LF evenness bandwagon. I want my subs to match the pattern of the main hangs throughout the crossover region. , and the best way I've found to do that is with a LR configuration. Now if you want to do a big steered center cluster for an 808 so be it, but my main subs are going to be LR stacks.
 
Re: Aardvarking?

dave rat does something similar
he uses stereo aux for subs
kick mics paned bass inputs paned
the kt 5 band perametric on the bottem left of his foh double wide is on subs with i belive diffrent cuts for l-r -3-6 db i think
not about getting the +3-6 db sum.... its fighting the null
 
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Re: Aardvarking?

Brandon Wright said:
Ok, so you have heard of Aardvarking. What is its correct implementation?
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It is supposed to be used with L/R subs, and Clair has a preset that works wonders. When it is done properly, the LF is spread out very nicely and no impact is lost. I was quite surprised the first few times I tried it. Unfortunately, all of the preset data is locked out and I have no idea(I'm obligated to say this) what's actually happening inside. :)



Evan
 
Re: Aardvarking?

Brandon Wright said:
Personally, I'm off of the LF evenness bandwagon. I want my subs to match the pattern of the main hangs throughout the crossover region. , and the best way I've found to do that is with a LR configuration. Now if you want to do a big steered center cluster for an 808 so be it, but my main subs are going to be LR stacks.
Click to expand...

...and that's an attitude that'll never get you hired on the big gigs. ;)

The client is always right, now matter how wrong they may be...


I actually get pretty bummed when I see L/R subs these days. There's so much that can be done, why not take advantage of it!



Evan
 
Re: Aardvarking?

Evan Kirkendall said:
The client is always right, now matter how wrong they may be...

I actually get pretty bummed when I see L/R subs these days. There's so much that can be done, why not take advantage of it!

Evan
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The answer to your question is in the first statement.

I can do several interesting things with subs but the "customer" (BE) has to want them or I'm stuck trying to justify to the BE *why* I'm not building simple L/R stacks of subs.
 
Re: Aardvarking?

Evan Kirkendall said:
It is supposed to be used with L/R subs, and Clair has a preset that works wonders. When it is done properly, the LF is spread out very nicely and no impact is lost. I was quite surprised the first few times I tried it. Unfortunately, all of the preset data is locked out and I have no idea(I'm obligated to say this) what's actually happening inside. :)

Evan
Click to expand...
Evan,

So Clair Brothers also has a preset called Aardvark?

The concept of boosting and pulling opposite adjacent bands was used in the late 1960's early 1970's for record albums originally mixed to mono "updated" to the new stereo standard with the words "mono reprocessed for stereo sound" prominently featured somewhere on the cover.
It "works wonders" in making instruments and voices change position as they play different notes.

Everything old is new again, how did the "not dumb" Clair Brothers "aardvark" preset get named, and how does it differ from the OP's form of "aardvarking"?

Oh, I forgot, you have no idea, but it "works wonders" ;^).

Art
 
Re: Aardvarking?

Art Welter said:
Evan,

So Clair Brothers also has a preset called Aardvark?

The concept of boosting and pulling opposite adjacent bands was used in the late 1960's early 1970's for record albums originally mixed to mono "updated" to the new stereo standard with the words "mono reprocessed for stereo sound" prominently featured somewhere on the cover.
It "works wonders" in making instruments and voices change position as they play different notes.

Everything old is new again, how did the "not dumb" Clair Brothers "aardvark" preset get named, and how does it differ from the OP's form of "aardvarking"?

Oh, I forgot, you have no idea, but it "works wonders" ;^).

Art
Click to expand...

There are multiple ways to create psuedo-stereo besides the crude GEQ slider games. Phase shift can be used to create a single comb or delay can be used to create multiple spaced combs. When properly done, these cancel each other out when recombined into mono for mono broadcast compatibility.

I never heard it called Aardvarking, but that's as good a name as any... :)

It will give some apparent width to an otherwise mono drum monitor mix.

JR
 
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