Essential PA System Tuning

The issue is that the EQ settings should account for the occupancy of the venue. The acoustics differ significantly between an empty space and one filled with people. When you tune your PA system in an empty venue, it may sound good initially, but as the venue fills up, the sound quality often deteriorates. This happens because the initial measurements were taken in an empty space, which doesn't accurately reflect the conditions when the venue is full.

I'm more old school personally, the volume of the main foh is the benchmark to my way of sorting any venue, it is after all where the main action is focussed when the house has bums on seats, the 3 frequencies indeed do travel at their natural speeds so a simple adjustment to the frequency of each usually realigns any obvious latency issues, the science often gets in the way of the art too much these days and tends to make the process cluttered in my opinion, we use our foh only at room set intention and when it's kicking well in the main audience zone we then during our sound check slowly introduce our side fill and floor stage monitors to come into phase only with the foh from our stage listening as the players first, lots of players sound crap on stage to please the sound guy mainly, both are winners when the foh main is set correctly first, the fills elsewhere around the room if needed are only like monitors for the audience and not considered as able to replicate the main thrust of foh. The drums if conventional are the usual phase-setter and the amps by guitar/bass/keyboard etc are not set higher than the already noisey drummer and when it's right on stage for the players first, it's going to be easier for it to be replicated in the p.a. and stage monitors and audience fills if any are required to match, the mixer if right on foh it can supply a copy to the monitors and it's less fluffing around, the process works in reverse too if required by letting the players get themselves great on stage first then sorting the foh next the monitors next...room fills can be included if needed when those 3 are in phase effortlessly.

This is the best video I’ve seen yet on time alignment!! Cheers from AUSTRALIA 🇦🇺

I’ve been looking for a video on how to tune a system I’ve read books this by far is the best thing I’ve ever found for mixing a system

Another great video: keeping it simple keeps it clear!

Hey, can you try to cover some advanced topics such as: - Time aligning subs with mains with different crossover regions (ex. subs at 100hz, mains at 60hz). When to have different crossover regions and how to do it, especially when it comes to speakers being in time, but not in phase - Handling issues with low coherence due to room acoustics - Taking a trace on a windy day - Microphone position tricks such as measurement mic on the ground, and measurement mic at 45 deg - Handling reflections - Working with multiple microphones and how to use average - High shading

This is an area I have struggled to get my head around. I kinda get it, but this really made the penny drop! Thanks dude 🤘🔊🔊

I think there is a reason why the SMART is showing the phase reading topmost. If you adjust the eq without doing delay compensation first, your reading might be way off due to interference between multiple speakers. It's like miking a drum kit, first place the mics and make sure the phases are right, then get the eq sorted, otherwise you might be eq-ing the phase issues. Align time first, then eq multiple source systems.

rule #1 use your ears not your eyes I see so many people doing things like subs L-R of stage and then wondering why there are power alleys and valleys. speakers are not lights

Thank you for this amazing video! Great Tutorial! This is pure gold ❤

It's a basic process of 'triangulate' to find the optimum listening point to set any p.a. from or for the rest of the space, anything added beyond such is only replication of the ideal listening point which is the same distance directly in front of the p.a. enclosures being apart as foh. ...anything else is mere replication intent or additional monitors or 'fills' as you've referred to them as.

Very very well done!

Great video, but shouldn’t time/phase alignment come prior to EQ’ing to the target curve? For example: The bump in low end you just equalized could be due to the speakers misaligned. Fixing the alignment could result in a double increase/decrease of the level. Plus: Crossover points change with level and thus with EQ. Sure, you can only align the whole system at one listening point, but at least you can make sure it's properly aligned >somewhere.

Hello and thanks for the video.😊 I have a question about the monitor. How little / how much time do you spend tuning monitors?  Thanks in advance for your help and for sharing your knowledge🙏 🤓

It would've been good to get more information about system tuning when you're not using fills. I know you've got other videos that focus more on standard LR systems, so maybe just rename this video to highlight the difference? Great video though!

Is this video assuming the PA is operating in mono? Not sure I am fully understanding how the "giving each speaker custody of an area" concept would apply for a stereo system.

You remove the highs from the delay speakers (shelving) to give the impression the sound is coming from the main speakers ie the stage.

The slowest impulse device is time reference. Especially if you use horns subs. Delay the the tops and not vise verse. Weird way of working here...

Hi, thanks for your Video! It really made some things clear and helped me to understand the process :) However, I have a question: Are you doing the same to your Monitors at FOH so the sound you hear when mixing is the approximate sound in front of the Stage?

22:07 I believe there's s mistake here ("apply delay to mains first"), or creates confusion IMO. One doesn't need to apply delay to the mains, unless one is tuning the array of doing some sort of beam steering, and this stuff is often performed in the system processor. If that's the case then yes, correct. But for the purpose of alignment, mains are most of the times the point of reference, because most of the times subs and front fills are nearer to the audience, so those are the ones who need to have delay applied. Correct me if I'm wrong? If we are talking about flown subs then the conversation changes. Cool video, thanks 👍