Re: Frequency Response/Contour EQ in full range systems.
Jay, in my experience nobody wants to mix on a flat PA. Also in my experience, only measurement folks understand that the PA is not flat. At almost every level of the industry.
Actually given the acoustic nature of bluegrass, I am looking for a flatter response than most techs down low, but like you, I also like a fairly strong roll off up high. Somehow, not needing +16 db under 100 has translated to not needing anything under 100 (if you were to go back and hunt some of my posts from 5 years ago, I bet you could find me saying the same basic thing).
I also found it humorous that I think I fit Tim's description of a mixer, but he attibutes that to studio folks, something I have had minimal experience with.
Anyways, the nicer the voicing of a PA, the less eq I find I use in general. My basic philosophy is put a good sounding mic on a good sounding source and let it rip. Drastic eq needs seem to me to be treating a symptom not the basic problem, but that is another thread I have been considering.
At one festival this summer we were the first band to take the stage with IEMS. When we started there was a bad buildup of 600ish under the tent over the stage caused by the FOH stacks which were outside but next to the tent. I would guess it had not been noticed before because the loudness of the stage monitors had been covering it up. I ended up cutting 600, 315, and 125 which seemed to be natural resonance frequencies of the stage and tent. Both of the bands following me had techs with them that I know. After each band the system tech would re"flatten" the house graph, only to have the next tech cut the exact same things.
I guess going back to flat is better than the usual festival setting where everything gets hacked further and further as the show goes on (I am usually the one trying to slide frequencies back in at that point), but in this case it was especially crazy as it was a two set a day festival, and all three of us went through the same thing twice.
On the other hand, there is a company that provides for a lot of festivals around the area, that provides the EASIEST rig to walkup and mix on that I have ever encountered. While I only had 2 sets on their stage this summer at one festival, I was also a guest of other bands at two other festivals. I have heard this rig in several different locations, with a variety of local problems/constraints to overcome, and it consistantly sounds good to me. While mixing on it, I never even looked at the system eqs, and only made a couple of really minor changes to channel eqs. The bulk of my mixing was setting my dynamics and the relative levels of effects that I wanted. After that the show was truely just riding a couple of vocal faders as the lead singer switches between songs. Since it was digital, I had even less to do the second set.
So I guess it goes back to perception and taste. In the first example, the system engineer was chasing his perception of flat (he did have a measuring system at FOH, but did not account for the buildup and bleed back through the mics under the tent on stage) regardless of the end result, while in the second example, because the system engineer's taste matched my own, I never even thought about how the system was tuned.
No doubt about which system was easier to work with. Also breaking with my traditional of keeping all the names out of where I have been and who I have worked with, system 2 (the easy one) was Jason M from Southard.
