How to ring out monitors at outside events.

J

Jimmy Hardin

Junior
Jan 29, 2013
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Hey Guys, This last weekend I did a 2 day festival and I didn't ring out the monitors because it was a outside event , I was by a road with heavy traffic and generators going and I was thinking that my RTA meter would pick up all of the noise so i just didn't do it. So it gave me a idea for this post , I can ring out monitors on the inside shows really well, but on the outside events that's where i have the question. How do you do it. Is there something that i can get to go on my system that the rta meter would read nothing but the feedback and not the outside things that are around it? How do some of you guys do it?
 
My suggestion would be to learn frequency recognition by ear, then apply that knowledge to your practice. You don't want to be left hanging some day when your rta malfunctions and you have no idea how to do your job. There are plenty of apps available to train your ears to recognize frequencies, both as oscillations and as how they pertain to music and other sources. You can never teach yourself too much.
 
Bob Urtz said:
My suggestion would be to learn frequency recognition by ear, then apply that knowledge to your practice. You don't want to be left hanging some day when your rta malfunctions and you have no idea how to do your job. There are plenty of apps available to train your ears to recognize frequencies, both as oscillations and as how they pertain to music and other sources. You can never teach yourself too much.
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Do you know what app's that i can get?
 
Rafi Singer said:
Eventually, you'll be able to ID the frequencies without external tech.
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Provided your in a position to actually hear them.

I love having smaart on my cue bus and one of the biggest things is when I am running monitors from FOH.

In addition it provides a degree of exactness few "by the ear" people will match.

I just love having a musician who doesn't know me calling out "cut 1000" from stage, when I can see that it is actually 972 that is taking off. I can also see the width needed.

Yes, some old school guys are really good at identifying the frequency close enough to then sweep for it with a parametric, but anyone who thinks they can do better with an ear and a 32 band eq then I can do with a parametric and the measuring system is fooling themselves.


Sent from my XT1254

 
1 - Put a sample vocal mic in front of a monitor as its likely to be for the show
2 - Put on your headphones at the console and cue up the monitor send
3 - Push up the gain to just start some feedback then pull the fader down enough to stop it
4 - take a guess at what frequency fed back and push up that slider on the graphic
5 - if that creates feedback higher or lower than the first tone heard move to the next slider and try again
6 - keep zeroing in the original feedback tone until you find the slider that most quickly recreates that particular feedback and pull that slider down to -6 db
7 - bring the master gain up again and keep repeating the process until you have brought no more than six graphic EQ sliders down
8 - go back to the stage and check the mic to be sure it still sounds good.
9 - repeat as needed to get the level you need until you reach half the sliders on the graphic - any more than that and something else is wrong.

RTA's are for sissies. More importantly this process means you train your ears to recognize frequencies during the show. Unless monitors need kick drum and bass guitar be quick to throw away anything under 120 hz and over 10khz. It'll make life easier and sound cleaner onstage. If you're afraid of blowing up a monitor with this technique put a compressor inline set at 20:1 compression ratio with a threshold low enuf to squash just about anything. Feedback will happen long before burnout.
 
Riley Casey said:
1 - Put a sample vocal mic in front of a monitor as its likely to be for the show
2 - Put on your headphones at the console and cue up the monitor send
3 - Push up the gain to just start some feedback then pull the fader down enough to stop it
4 - take a guess at what frequency fed back and push up that slider on the graphic
5 - if that creates feedback higher or lower than the first tone heard move to the next slider and try again
6 - keep zeroing in the original feedback tone until you find the slider that most quickly recreates that particular feedback and pull that slider down to -6 db
7 - bring the master gain up again and keep repeating the process until you have brought no more than six graphic EQ sliders down
8 - go back to the stage and check the mic to be sure it still sounds good.
9 - repeat as needed to get the level you need until you reach half the sliders on the graphic - any more than that and something else is wrong.
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Don't forget the good ol' cup the mic and move it around to be sure.

 
Do you guys actually ring out monitors?

I quit doing it years ago when I noticed that musicians usually were more happy with their stage sound when I didn't have time to ring out the mons. Nowadays I just EQ them if it feeds back or I hear that something sounds iffy.
 
Helge Dr. Bentsen said:
Do you guys actually ring out monitors?

I quit doing it years ago when I noticed that musicians usually were more happy with their stage sound when I didn't have time to ring out the mons. Nowadays I just EQ them if it feeds back or I hear that something sounds iffy.
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As a general practice I haven't rung out a monitor since going digital 2 years ago. Once in a while I'll hit a highly reflective stage setup where I do find a ring when setting monitor levels and I will ring it out, but usually proper mic & monitor placement keep me out of trouble.
 
Scott Harris said:
As a general practice I haven't rung out a monitor since going digital 2 years ago. Once in a while I'll hit a highly reflective stage setup where I do find a ring when setting monitor levels and I will ring it out, but usually proper mic & monitor placement keep me out of trouble.
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Once you're fortunate enough to have very good quality equipment, I find significantly less time needs to be spent on EQ and ringing out. I'm lucky enough to work regularly with equipment that you can literally plug in, have good sound come out, and let that be the end of the story. In fact, even most mid-grade equipment lines these days work pretty well without ringing out.
 
Riley Casey said:
1 - Put a sample vocal mic in front of a monitor as its likely to be for the show
2 - Put on your headphones at the console and cue up the monitor send.
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The problem is that without a head in front of the mic, reflections are different and so the feedback frequencies.
Also it can differ when a room is filled with people...
Mostly I search for problematic frequencies with a tablet with myself in front of the mic, Put some very small cuts for remembering these frequencies, trying to have mostly a nice sounding monitor. Gaining the mixing console that on the 0dB fader level it doesn't ring. It surprises me very often how much gain I can add during performance, much more compared to lonely me in front of the mic.
 
Max Warasila said:
Once you're fortunate enough to have very good quality equipment, I find significantly less time needs to be spent on EQ and ringing out. I'm lucky enough to work regularly with equipment that you can literally plug in, have good sound come out, and let that be the end of the story. In fact, even most mid-grade equipment lines these days work pretty well without ringing out.
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+1. With good gear, it magically works with very little effort. I know that I can drop a monitor on the stage and be fairly confident that I can get enough gain out of it that it will work without even touching the EQ. With crappy mics and monitors, it could be a challenge to get any usable level before feedback would occur. The key is that the system is flat at all volume levels. Some speakers will have frequency responses that vary dramatically depending on how hard you push the speaker. If you EQ it to be flat at a high volume, it might sound horrible at the volume that you use it at. The better the gear, the less this is a problem.
 
I have not had to ring out monitors in close to 10 years. Most of the equipment I use has no major frequency peaks. Decent well placed microphones with attention to the rejection pattern as well as cutting everything you don't want amplified in the mix with band pass filters and channel EQ is most of it. I still have an RTA on all of the monitor outputs but have not had to rely on that in a very long time. Pretty lights though.
As far as frequency identification, there is a program called simple feedback finder that I used to practice with: sft.sourceforge.net
 
I never ring-out my monitors......outdoor / indoor venues. I have been using the same monitor cabs/amps for years and receive compliments every time. I haven't changed their EQ settings in years. Maybe I just know my gear....

The only time that I have ever heard ringing was this past May when I was mixing www.theremains.com Excellent musicians, nice guys, but well-along in years. The keyboard player wanted his voice in his monitor mix incredibly loud as he was hard of hearing. Due to the stage setup I actually put his monitor wedge on a bar stool about four feet away from his head.....thus I had to adjust things.
 
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