Aux fed sub - one or two lines in?

[stevegarris]

it is not suitable for the OP's PRX712s which don't (and you mention setting your tops to full range which would be wrong for all the reasons Greg stated). Used with an external active crossover it would work but that defeats the biggest advantage of the DL1608.

I will suggest the OP tries it both ways. I have the PRX615's, and after comparing, they sounded much better in the full range mode.

I do you HPF's aggressively on the vocal, guitar and some drum channels.

[sam.spoons]

It's always going to be a subjective decision, I feel I get more headroom on my tops if HPF'd but if you HPF the vox and guitar mics at 160Hz ish you won't be getting too much LF mush in the subs anyway.

I did an outdoor gig last year and didn't have a windshield for the drum overhead so had loads of rumble from it, HPF at around 160 sorted it nicely with minimal impact on the sound.

[websterama]

Thanks for sticking with me. As I configure this I keep coming up with other questions. Sorry.
Should the aux send for the sub be pre or post fader?
I use pre-dsp for vocal monitors up front, pre-fader for the monitor the drummer uses, but not sure what the sub should get.
Also, what's your POV on the input presets? Any good?
Since I'm a rank amateur at this, anything that gets me 80% of the way in one click is good news.
Looking at the presets they each seem to include the adjustments I would expect logically, even if the specific levels and tweaks are up for debate.

Lastly, the room they are playing tonight has a lot of awful echo. Hard surfaces and super high vaulted ceilings.
I'm planning on aiming my tops down a bit angling them in to help a bit. But wondering if there's anything else you'd suggest doing to the main out eq to combat it. Assume I shouldn't use any reverb since the room provides its own. But wasn't sure if the new output delay feature in 2.1 would be of any use here.

Thanks again for all your counsel.

[Wynnd]

All open monitors, ie floor monitors, should be pre-fader.  All FOH should be post fader.  That way if you change the fader, the Front of House speakers respond.  Monitors being pre-fader and possibly post eq are that way because if you increase the fader level for a singer to get their voice louder in the audience, you don't want the monitor level of that mic increasing because it might feedback.  Subs are FOH speakers and need to vary with the fader.  (Am I over explaining this?)  All of this pretty much goes out the door with a low volume band.  (The kind that places its FOH speakers in the backline.)   But why would you even bother with monitors with the speakers in the backline?  (Rhetorical question.  We never did.)

[Wynnd]

Natural echo?  Reduce the bass output.  Ask your bassist to back off on the low end.  (Might sound a bit tinny, but that might be better than having those frequencies bouncing around.)  There are some RTA apps for smart phones.  Using them you should be able to identify the frequencies that are problems.  These are frequencies to drop using the 31 band EQ on any output.  (Pretty sharp cuts available there.  Don't be afraid to drop them the whole way down.  You might need that level of cut.)  If you can find about 5 of those not adjacent to each other, that might be as good as you can get.  I would make sure that those cuts were applied to any FOH speakers including the subs.  This doesn't sound like the best time to use subs for a first time.  You are right about not adding any reverb.  It would just muddy the sound.  Might want to cluster the subs to help keep those sounds on the dance floor.  (Tilted tripod mounted speakers are a good idea.)  Also, keep the volume down.  These are the situations where restraint is a very good idea.  Go for what sounds good in the audience and not what sounds good onstage.  Good luck.  You've been asking the right questions, so you're thinking in the right direction.

[stevegarris]

I think Wynnd answered everything the same as I would have.

Regarding the channel presets, I've used them a couple of times, mostly on drum channels, and they're not a bad starting point. Just be careful because some of those presets add a lot of high frequencies, which could cause feedback.

The loud, ambient room is the most challenging. Are you sure you want to make this your first time running an aux sub mix? You will need to flip to that page at just about every (low-frequency instrument) adjustment.

Typical low frequency cuts on my PRX system are at 160, sometimes 80, and when there's a lot of stage volume coming at me I often put a "smily face" in the low-mid frequencies, 125 to 400.

I agree that when using the 31 band you can filter all the way down, if needed. I have not yet used the parametric on the outputs.

Start by tuning your system with some known recorded music. Set the levels first by using the volume knobs on the back of the speakers (with a flat EQ on the main outs). See if you can get several recorded songs to sound good, not too much bass, and as little EQ filtering as possible (but use them as needed).

[sam.spoons]

+1 to all above but especially to playing quietly, volume is your biggest enemy in a very echoey room.

The presets mostly work ok for me as a good starting point, a few, mostly minor, tweaks and they can sound very good.

[websterama]

Thanks for all your help!
Show went well, and they sounded great, despite the challenging environment and the fact that this was a live test of some of the gear for the first time.
The key piece of advice that served me really well was keeping volume on stage as low as possible.
That way the primary source for the crowd was up front, aimed away from the ceiling and and overcame the reflected junk.
You could actually hear all the elements in the mix, whereas other shows I've seen at this place were all guitar and drums with no vocals, keys etc..
If anything, I kept the guitars a little too low, but I got no complaints from the crowd.
Main thing was the singer sounded great, strong and clear in the mix, and she's somewhat on the quiet side normally so that was a primary concern.
And no feedback issues.

The two things that surprised me that I need to dig into are:

The kick drum didn't have a lot of presence in the subwoofer.
Maybe my mic position was bad (AKGD112 just in front of port), or it's a quirk of the Yamaha kit my daughter uses.
But it didn't seem to move a lot of air in the sub. The line in from the bass-amp sounded great on it though, so I know the sub was working.
Perhaps her kick just doesn't generate frequencies quite low enough for this sub?

And there was a ton of bleed from the snare into the kick mic. Frankly there was a lot of bleed between the drum mics in general.
I was using the drum presets from Master Fader, and had hopes the gates would help more than they did.

Live and learn.
Thanks again for all your help!

[RoadRanger]

There's a joke on another forum about a guy that left a D112 in plain sight on his back seat and some mean SOB broke a window and left a second one next to it .

[websterama]

Lol. I know there are wildly differing opinions on them, some people love them and obviously others, not so much.
But i've used it before in other PA situations with different results. And I've gotten great recordings from it.
So not sure if that's the issue or there is some complicating factor.

Open to replacing it with something else if consensus is that it's just a bad design for live stuff, but given how many owners there are out there and it's decent review scores, I can't imagine it's totally without redeeming qualities.

[RoadRanger]

I don't mind the D112 myself, for live use many favor the Audix D6 for it's built-in EQ for kick. What did you have the D112 HPF'd at?

[websterama]

I didn't actually, now that I look at it.
I used the "kick" preset within Master Fader which looks like it boosts 50hz a little and cuts between 100-400hz and then slightly boosts 2.9khz along with applying 2:1 compression and setting up a gate at -32.5db
Maybe I shouldn't rely on the preset in this case.

[stevegarris]

You most certainly need to learn how to use the gate. The preset will get you started, but the final setting will keep the other drums out of that mic.

I don't use a compressor on the kick. I use the D112 with excellent results, but I also really like the Audix D6.

[websterama]

Ok, when I've recorded at home in our basement studio I've messed around with the gate until I can keep the other drums out but I didn't do that in this case at the live show.
I'lll definitely experiment with that. What I found that worked when recording was to set the gate at the level where only the single drum gets through, but then back it off a bit, because in every instance where I was completely rejecting other drums I was also losing part of the desired signal. So a few notches below complete rejection of unwanted drums seemed to be the best compromise I could achieve.
I'll see what I can do with the settings on the 1608 to achieve the same outcome.

And on the two condenser mics I'm using overhead, do I want a good general sound of the whole kit, or try to isolate out just the cymbals?
I'm using tom mics, so don't need the overheads for those.
But from what I've read, it's better to get the whole kit vs. just the high end on those mics. But maybe that's for recording, not live performances.

Thanks again for the advice.

[Tbranella]

Thanks for all your help!
Show went well, and they sounded great, despite the challenging environment and the fact that this was a live test of some of the gear for the first time.
The key piece of advice that served me really well was keeping volume on stage as low as possible.
That way the primary source for the crowd was up front, aimed away from the ceiling and and overcame the reflected junk.
You could actually hear all the elements in the mix, whereas other shows I've seen at this place were all guitar and drums with no vocals, keys etc..
If anything, I kept the guitars a little too low, but I got no complaints from the crowd.
Main thing was the singer sounded great, strong and clear in the mix, and she's somewhat on the quiet side normally so that was a primary concern.
And no feedback issues.

The two things that surprised me that I need to dig into are:

The kick drum didn't have a lot of presence in the subwoofer.
Maybe my mic position was bad (AKGD112 just in front of port), or it's a quirk of the Yamaha kit my daughter uses.
But it didn't seem to move a lot of air in the sub. The line in from the bass-amp sounded great on it though, so I know the sub was working.
Perhaps her kick just doesn't generate frequencies quite low enough for this sub?

And there was a ton of bleed from the snare into the kick mic. Frankly there was a lot of bleed between the drum mics in general.
I was using the drum presets from Master Fader, and had hopes the gates would help more than they did.

Live and learn.
Thanks again for all your help!

shove that mic all the way into the kick drum..