Recording - November 2015 - 52

frequency you need to be for them to
drop off by 3dB). Don't even try to correct
more than two or three. If you have a
whole bunch of big ones all in a row, or
you have more than two or three really
significant ones, go back to Step 1.
There will probably be one big boundary
peak that is the result of the sound from the
rear of the speakers reflecting off the wall
behind them, and you can move that around
by moving the speakers forward and back.
If the speakers are too close to the side walls
or the ceiling, you can get additional boundary peaks from those as well.
You can correct for these peaks pretty
well with equalization, but as always, if
you can move the speakers so that you
don't need to EQ them out, it'll sound better than if you EQ them away. Sometimes
you can't make those go away by moving
speakers and you have to equalize them
out. If that's the case, you'll find that doing
so is a lot better than just ignoring them.

One remarkably useful tool is the
Behringer Ultracurve Pro DEQ2496. This
is a surprisingly powerful little box with
really quite good digital equalizers built
into it. It has both analog and digital I/O;
although the converters are nothing to
write home about, you don't have to use
them. You can feed the unit with a digital
AES/EBU signal from your workstation
and feed another digital signal out of it
into your choice of outboard converter.
The miracle of the digital world is that it is
very cheap and very easy to do the digital processing well; the hard part is the
conversion, and odds are you already
have good converters sitting around.
There are some DAW systems that allow
you to do the monitor EQ in software on the
system. This always gives me the willies,
because of the chance of any kind of software change possibly resetting things. But
you can try it just to decide for yourself if the
EQ is helping or hurting things.

Figure 1. A large, narrow peak (1) doesn't go away if you apply third-octave EQ to it.
You just push it down a bit and create dips (2 & 3) on either side of it. A third-octave
analyzer will show that you've fixed things, when you've actually made them worse!
6. ...and correct them!
So now you know what you need to
cut, and how much. Some programmable
monitoring systems will let you do this, or
you could use an analog parametric
equalizer for the purpose.
These days, the majority of people
would use a loudspeaker control system
like the BSS Omnidrive or the dbx
DriveRack. These are designed for PA systems and provide other functions like
crossover management, but they can
actually be a reasonable choice for a
monitoring chain if set up well.
52

RECORDING November 2015

7. Verify that you've actually improved
things.
After you have the EQ in there...
bypass it for a little bit. If you have several filters in there, bypass each one individually. Spend some time listening and
make sure that the EQ is actually helping
and not hurting.
It is very easy to tell when something is
making the signal different, but sometimes it can be very hard to tell if it is really helping matters. Too many people hear
something different and assume it must be
better. Often it isn't.

8. Listen to EDM artists... even if you
don't listen to EDM.
The people that make and listen to electronic dance music are obsessed with
bass, partly because it carries the rhythm
that makes people dance, partly because
with electronic instruments it's possible to
make deeper and more detailed bass
sounds than mechanically, and partly just
because they can. [Guilty-MM]
If you talk to these folks, they discuss
tonal qualities in the low end in ways that
people in other musical genres don't. Most
rock producers just want to make sure the
kick drum and the bass guitar don't step on
one another, but the EDM people have a
whole language to talk about the different
kinds of bass sounds. They don't even talk
about "bass" so much, but about three different ranges: The smack, the slap, and the
drop. The smack is the higher range of the
low frequencies, perhaps from 100 Hz to
140 Hz; the slap is the middle range
between 50-100 Hz; and the drop (which
is not the same as the "drop" transition in
a dubstep or Hip Hop track) lives at 50 Hz
and below.
A lot of listeners don't really distinguish
between these ranges. That's why consumer speaker manufacturers can get
away with making speakers that have a
big hump at 80 Hz and no response to
speak of below that point. Unskilled listeners remark on "how much bass they
have"-I guess they do kind of have a lot
of bass, it's just not the kind of bass that
you want!
Getting used to distinguishing between
real bass ranges-especially the drop,
which is below the lowest note of the
piano or bass guitar-is important.
Maybe you're working in a genre of
music where there's really nothing important down at those lowest frequencies;
you still need to be able to hear them, just
to make sure there's no subway noise or
weird breath rumble down there. Just
because you're not working with music
down there doesn't mean it's not important to have your monitor system accurate
in those ranges!
Conclusion
Room equalization can do harm, but it
can also do a little bit of good; in a wellset-up room, a little bit of good might be
just what you need. The key to making it
work is to not try and solve problems with
it that it can't fix, and sadly most acoustical problems are in that category. That's
not a reason to avoid EQ completely, but
it is a good reason to make sure all your
ducks are in a row with the rest of the
room before turning to EQ.
Scott Dorsey (dorsey@recordingmag.com) is
an audio engineer and gear design guru living and working in Williamsburg, VA.



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - November 2015

Contents
Recording - November 2015 - Intro
Recording - November 2015 - Cover1
Recording - November 2015 - Cover2
Recording - November 2015 - 1
Recording - November 2015 - 2
Recording - November 2015 - 3
Recording - November 2015 - 4
Recording - November 2015 - 5
Recording - November 2015 - Contents
Recording - November 2015 - 7
Recording - November 2015 - 8
Recording - November 2015 - 9
Recording - November 2015 - 10
Recording - November 2015 - 11
Recording - November 2015 - 12
Recording - November 2015 - 13
Recording - November 2015 - 14
Recording - November 2015 - 15
Recording - November 2015 - 16
Recording - November 2015 - 17
Recording - November 2015 - 18
Recording - November 2015 - 19
Recording - November 2015 - 20
Recording - November 2015 - 21
Recording - November 2015 - 22
Recording - November 2015 - 23
Recording - November 2015 - 24
Recording - November 2015 - 25
Recording - November 2015 - 26
Recording - November 2015 - 27
Recording - November 2015 - 28
Recording - November 2015 - 29
Recording - November 2015 - 30
Recording - November 2015 - 31
Recording - November 2015 - 32
Recording - November 2015 - 33
Recording - November 2015 - 34
Recording - November 2015 - 35
Recording - November 2015 - 36
Recording - November 2015 - 37
Recording - November 2015 - 38
Recording - November 2015 - 39
Recording - November 2015 - 40
Recording - November 2015 - 41
Recording - November 2015 - 42
Recording - November 2015 - 43
Recording - November 2015 - 44
Recording - November 2015 - 45
Recording - November 2015 - 46
Recording - November 2015 - 47
Recording - November 2015 - 48
Recording - November 2015 - 49
Recording - November 2015 - 50
Recording - November 2015 - 51
Recording - November 2015 - 52
Recording - November 2015 - 53
Recording - November 2015 - 54
Recording - November 2015 - 55
Recording - November 2015 - 56
Recording - November 2015 - 57
Recording - November 2015 - 58
Recording - November 2015 - 59
Recording - November 2015 - 60
Recording - November 2015 - 61
Recording - November 2015 - 62
Recording - November 2015 - 63
Recording - November 2015 - 64
Recording - November 2015 - 65
Recording - November 2015 - 66
Recording - November 2015 - 67
Recording - November 2015 - 68
Recording - November 2015 - 69
Recording - November 2015 - 70
Recording - November 2015 - 71
Recording - November 2015 - 72
Recording - November 2015 - Cover3
Recording - November 2015 - Cover4
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