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Thoughts on DSP and Equalisers

wunderkind

wunderkind

Active Member
How do you feel about DSPs and EQ when it comes to audio and 'musical truth'?

Do you use them to help compensate for the lack of lows/highs?

I used to run them. But lately have kinda veered away preferring no EQ altogether. Am I missing something by going flat EQ?
 
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There are three general schools of thought:

-No (well, minimal as possible) alteration of the signal. Play it as it comes.
-Use EQ or whatever to attain flat as possible in-room response.
-Use EQ or whatever to attain the sound as you like it; bass at +11 if that's your desire.

It's up to you decide which of these is right for you.
 
whoaru99 said:
There are three general schools of thought:

-No (well, minimal as possible) alteration of the signal. Play it as it comes.
-Use EQ or whatever to attain flat as possible in-room response.
-Use EQ or whatever to attain the sound as you like it; bass at +11 if that's your desire.

It's up to you decide which of these is right for you.
Click to expand...

I go with number three. I don't give a rats ass how the music is supposed to sound. I want it to sound the way I like. As a retired soundman, nothing would make me happier than if music was available multi-track so I could remix it all to my tastes. Kick drum would kill you in every song if I had my way:banana:
 
I flop around between all three to some degree, but not too radical in the case of #3.

A good chunk of my 2-ch stuff doesn't have tone controls; just preamp with volume and source, power amp, speakers.

My current HT processor has Audyssey and I let that do its thing. I'm satisfied with the result it gives.

The sound reinforcement stuff in the garage is set up though the crossover/speaker processor/DSP, with the crossovers and parametric tuning recommendations per JBL. Depending on the situation I may add or cut a little here and there with tone controls.
 
whoaru99 said:
I flop around between all three to some degree, but not too radical in the case of #3.

A good chunk of my 2-ch stuff doesn't have tone controls; just preamp with volume and source, power amp, speakers.

My current HT processor has Audyssey and I let that do its thing. I'm satisfied with the result it gives.

The sound reinforcement stuff in the garage is set up though the crossover/speaker processor/DSP, with the crossovers and parametric tuning recommendations per JBL. Depending on the situation I may add or cut a little here and there with tone controls.
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Are you using a Driverack in the garage?
 
Driverack pa, I love the thing. There is nothing like pressing a button and getting your speakers perfectly tuned to your room. good stuff
 
jeremyjustic said:
Driverack pa, I love the thing. There is nothing like pressing a button and getting your speakers perfectly tuned to your room. good stuff
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Now imagine a band playing in different venues and the poor soundman having to make quick adjustments on the fly. I worked with a band using their gear with a Driverack PA. I hated it. Give my a discreet xover, 1/3 octave eq and my ears. I'll get the sound I want much quicker every time. If it's a house pa that's going to be set up and tweaked one time and left alone, then I can see it.

I should add that except for a few digital effects processors, I ran an entirely analog rig. You couldn't pay me enough to learn to use a digital board where you have to dig thru menus to make an adjustment that would have a dedicated knob on an analog board (or in the processor rack).
 
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blackburb said:
Now imagine a band playing in different venues and the poor soundman having to make quick adjustments on the fly. I worked with a band using their gear with a Driverack PA. I hated it. Give my a discreet xover, 1/3 octave eq and my ears. I'll get the sound I want much quicker every time. If it's a house pa that's going to be set up and tweaked one time and left alone, then I can see it.

I should add that except for a few digital effects processors, I ran an entirely analog rig. You couldn't pay me enough to learn to use a digital board where you have to dig thru menus to make an adjustment that would have a dedicated knob on an analog board.
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I hear you but for those of us that dont have 20 years experience mixing live bands and just want our home set ups to sound great then products like the driverack or the Behringer are awesome.
 
Generally I'd think you wouldn't try to EQ the venue with something like the Driverack or the DCX2496. That's your speaker processor and once you get the speaker x-overs and tunings dialed in for what they are that really shouldn't change much, if any.

The system EQ, such as your 1/3 octave type of deal, is where you'd try to tune the system to the venue. Granted some of the speaker processors have auto EQ and such, but you're not going to stop the show part way though to load a new curve or re-run the EQ. So, your on the fly venue twiddling is done outside that, IMO.

Then, you have the channel strip adjustments on the board where you'd tweak the channel for interaction of the voice and mic, or the particular instrument input, etc.
 
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I would not be without room correction of some kind - been using it for 6 or 7 years now, with a variety of gear. For me, it's mandatory.
 
I have a 5 band eq on my amp, i use it a little bit, mainly if I switch type of music. I slightly increase my mids and highs because I like it, and usually deflate my bass when listening to rock, and folk type music, but then turn the bass up when I listen to EDM and newer type music.

I play with it a bit and just generally use it to make the music to my likings
 
You should use acoustical methods to improve around in your room, after that you can tune a little with DSP in parametric equalizer mode. Try not to exceed +3/-6 dB correction and keep number of filters to a minimum. You can use RoomEQ Wizard to design filters, and always validate results. It takes some practice to know how to adjust calculated filters for best perceived sound.
 
I found it was better to take the months to find loudspeakers that did everything I wanted without problems. For every tune you like EQ'ed one way, there are hundreds that sound like crap with the same EQ. Every time you switch an EQ into the path you can hear it, even when set to flat and zero gain. If you can't hear that, then you've got the wrong speakers. The two speakers I really liked were the KEF 104aB's and the Ditton 662's. Couldn't afford the Dittons. Couldn't afford the Quad ESL's either, and even though they were 'bass shy' compared to the others, BOY they sounded great.
 
i use EQ (both digital and analog) on every system, as i like scooped mids. i do not use effects, other than a bit of echo to liven up the audio coming outta my TV.
 
Over the years have found that with certain setups without equalization the music lacks. In our case with bi-amped speaker stacks most music is run with the Eq out of the loop.Every once in a while will tweak a band or two just because.
Personally believe it is all about having the right speakers in the right environment to hear all you can hear.
 
FONSguy said:
I found it was better to take the months to find loudspeakers that did everything I wanted without problems. For every tune you like EQ'ed one way, there are hundreds that sound like crap with the same EQ. Every time you switch an EQ into the path you can hear it, even when set to flat and zero gain. If you can't hear that, then you've got the wrong speakers. The two speakers I really liked were the KEF 104aB's and the Ditton 662's. Couldn't afford the Dittons. Couldn't afford the Quad ESL's either, and even though they were 'bass shy' compared to the others, BOY they sounded great.
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That's somewhat true. In my system, I have an outboard eq on my front channels set with a reference cd to the basic sound I prefer. My avr has two custom user eq modes (you can eq each channel individually). I've adjusted those so that for 95% of my listening, I can just choose one or the other and get pretty close to what I like. Also having sub level control in the avr, I can quickly pump up the bass when needed.

One of the most annoying things about most new car stereos is that they don't have dedicated bass & treble controls. You have to dive into a menu to make adjustment. When playing mp3s in the car, I'm constantly fiddling with tone controls to try to get all the songs sounding the way I like.
 
FONSguy said:
I found it was better to take the months to find loudspeakers that did everything I wanted without problems. For every tune you like EQ'ed one way, there are hundreds that sound like crap with the same EQ. Every time you switch an EQ into the path you can hear it, even when set to flat and zero gain. If you can't hear that, then you've got the wrong speakers. The two speakers I really liked were the KEF 104aB's and the Ditton 662's. Couldn't afford the Dittons. Couldn't afford the Quad ESL's either, and even though they were 'bass shy' compared to the others, BOY they sounded great.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much my attitude concerning speakers. IMO once you find the right ones all the speaker swapping becomes a thing of the past.

whoaru99 said:
There are three general schools of thought:

-No (well, minimal as possible) alteration of the signal. Play it as it comes.
-Use EQ or whatever to attain flat as possible in-room response.
-Use EQ or whatever to attain the sound as you like it; bass at +11 if that's your desire.

It's up to you decide which of these is right for you.
Click to expand...

I'm solidly with option number two. I've treated my dedicated room and tweaked my system as much as possible. The bass still wasn't right. A DSP running only below 85Hz greatly ameliorated the bass problems.

All in all I would prefer having no Eq at all. However, the improvement with it is easily heard.
 
I used EQ and like one of the posters above mentioned some settings work for certain songs and genre however it mush up others. In the end, I decided to set everything to flat and let the sound come out of the speakers as close to original intent as possible.
 
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