Live PA sound

[MIKE900]

I'm playing in a band gigging weekly, reasonably happy with our sound although vocals don't always cut through fantastic. Before getting bogged down with eq, turn backline down etc, I just wanted to check that our crossover setting is about right. We use Pa for:- 2 male vox, kick and snare (sometimes toms if bigger venue). We currently have the crossover set at 125hz on both amps, is this about right or should it be tweaked? Listed equipment below, any comments much appreciated.

 

Soundcraft EFX8 desk

Yamaha 3500S amp (to 12" Wharefdale's with 300W celestion drivers)

Yamaha 5000S amp (to 18" subs JBL JRX)

Beringer FBQ6200 ultragraph pro eq (Ch1 to FOH, CH2 to foldback)

[Bobbsy]

For 18 inch subs (and tops with 12 inch bass drivers) 125Hz sounds a bit high. I'd try going down to the 80-100Hz range and a fairly steep filter slope.

 

Edited to add: Just checked the JBL page HERE and they seem to agree with me.

 

Bob

[MIKE900]

Thanks, can you explain steep filter slope?

 

 

[Bobbsy]

That's just how fast the filters in your cross over roll off. The JBL suggestion on the page I linked to is that your crossover should roll off at 24dB per octave. This means that, if you set your crossover to 80Hz, by 160Hz the levels are 24dB down.

 

Bob

[MIKE900]

Thanks for that. Do you think that bringing the xover down to about 80/100Hz should help with vocals cutting through a bit more too?

[jmaudio]

Thanks for that. Do you think that bringing the xover down to about 80/100Hz should help with vocals cutting through a bit more too?

 

 

Hard to say for certain - your problem may lie elsewhere, effects, compression etc. But there's a good chance that asking a bit less of your tops will give the vocals a bit more space, making them sound clearer.

Try it and report back!

 

J

 

 

[Bobbsy]

...except that by moving the crossover frequency down, we're actually putting a bit MORE onto the tops.

 

However, depending on the filter slope of the crossover, it's entirely possible that the subs were still putting out meaningful levels up to nearly 200Hz which is getting into the vocal range...and 18 inch subs are darn woolly trying to do vocals. So, from that point of view it might help too.

 

As you say, try it and see!

[MIKE900]

Thanks for all the comments. Set xover to 100Hz and we had a much better sound, vox seemed to cut through much cleaner as well.

 

Thanks to all

 

Mike