I worked on a reggae festival 12 years ago where I fell asleep at the console and destroyed some subwoofers. I fell asleep because I just wasn't prepared for such a long day and didn't have anyone to take over for me. I'm still not completely clear on how the subs were destroyed, but I think it was a combination of improper limiter settings and over driving them on accident because I was mixing from a power valley and some issues with the crossover alignment. To avoid repeating this mistake, … [Read more...]
Does every output in the signal chain need a high-pass filter?
For the first 8 years of my career as a live sound engineer I thought that the more high-pass filters I used, the better protected I would be. More is better, right? I would put a high-pass filter on my console outputs, on my DSP, and on the speakers if they had built in processing. I didn't realize it at the time, but the result was a super steep roll-off into a gap crossover. All I knew was that it sounded strange, but at least I was playing it safe. Why is this happening? The … [Read more...]
MYTH: FIR filters always add a lot of delay and are impractical for live sound
FACT: FIR filters have an arbitrary amount of delay based on their design, making their application flexible and practical. In this interview with Michael John from Eclipse Audio we dispel FIR filter myths and discuss what live sound engineers need to know about their application in the field. Nathan So, I definitely want to talk to you about FIR Designer and filters and stuff, but first: when you are doing listening tests, what's one of your go-to reference tracks? Michael I tend … [Read more...]