I ignore nonsense no matter how many times people tell me.
I know what will solve our problem. I understand compression and AGC.
I have done audio for over 50 years even if aimed more at studio environment, and not at the level you and some others have live. But I do know what the problem is. And I do know what the cure could be.
Unless I wasted ten years at the uni , counting my graduate work, then I am not changing my belief on anything without proof.
I know it will work for us. Some of you people here may say it won’t. But nobody has anything to back up their claims except their egos.
Sound deployment and operators have no control over the performers.
They can help a little with faders but they can not fix the problem fully nor cleanly.
And there is the risk of feedback if they raise the low speakers up enough and then they start yelling.
Are all of our volounteers top rate A1s? Of course not. But they are solid A1s and A2s.
They make mistakes but that is not the cause of the excessive DR the orators have.
The biggest problem I see is they get distracted by the show and miss a slide change in time to sync with the music/words.
But they are neither the cause nor the cure for the DR problems.
I know what will solve our problem. I understand compression and AGC.
I have done audio for over 50 years even if aimed more at studio environment, and not at the level you and some others have live. But I do know what the problem is. And I do know what the cure could be.
There is huge difference in what you can get away with in the studio that will not work in live sound.
100% of the people who responded when you first posted this all said it will not fix your problem, and there were a lot of people who responded!
I do not say it solves all our problems. But AGC & Upwards compression would definitely solve our biggest problem.
Well other than operator screwups. And that is not my concern, nor would I try to fix those myself.
Nobody ever gave me a reason why it would not work.
I get assertions from some folks who apparently think they know more than I do.
We are a middling sized church and do not host the type of events as you may be used to.
Except for being live with no retakes we are not much different than recording in a studio.
You could really think of us as a large studio and not be wrong.
In fact we do record it live every Sunday. I have even tweaked such recordings in a DAW to make them better.
Still waiting for someone to give me facts or evidence, not opinions, as to why AGC & UPwards compression would not fix our DR problems.
You must have a very short memory, go back and re-read all the post in that original thread!
At one point you had mentioned turning the mic level caused feedback, why would think have something automatically increase the level would not do the same thing. In a studio
ok that could in a live sound system not so much.
Speaking of the sound system that sounds like it has issues of it’s own (based on various things you said at times) in addition to the operators you have never ever (even though it was asked many times) told us what the main system consisted of, how it was configured or posted a picture or two of it.
Just saying some good solid system set up may take care of some of your problems.
I ignore nonsense no matter how many times people tell me.
you ignore anything… but you comment on everything and producing some nonsense as well
you were not able to read the headings or the posts in many cases or ignored everything written in threads to get your personal thing going…
and with that statement I’m not telling you that I’m free of mistakes
I have done audio for over 50 years even if aimed more at studio environment, and not at the level you and some others have live. But I do know what the problem is. And I do know what the cure could be.
that’s exactly what is nobody believe you anymore, to much unqualified comments
Are all of our volounteers top rate A1s? Of course not. But they are solid A1s and A2s.
nobody outside your small universe is knowing what you are talking about
Did you ever think about other countries or culture?
ok
so back to your initial problem with to dynamic speakers…
no technical solution will ever come over your problem in total
this is a human and mental problem of the speakers in the first place
But AGC & Upwards compression would definitely solve our biggest problem.
I repeat… no it will not
automatic gain control will even all signals even the very low signals and in many cases this leads to feedback in most live environments
to get a save operating range you have to restrict the level changes and that leads to results that will not compensate very dynamic speech
upward compression will raise your ambience noise floor and will introduce feedback very quickly
btw… wich device would you suggest for upward compression?
and wich for AGC?
Still waiting for someone to give me facts or evidence, not opinions, as to why AGC & UPwards compression would not fix our DR problems.
YOU IGNORED ALL THE FACTS ALREADY
you will not find a technical solution in the QU series or in any other console in this price range
I can provide you a solution for your problems but this has nothing to do with free advice’s in A&H support forum
it will cost money
first of all I have to say sorry to all who are not directly involved in what is coming now…
In case anyone is wondering, for what it’s worth that thread got a little heated and some of the post have had sections deleted or the entire post deleted.
You have not shown me any facts that are true which would change my mind.
Moving a mike into a standing wave is far different than what I suggest doing for lowering DR.
Upwards compression can NOT cause feedback!
You do not understand either feedback or upward compression. Maybe both.
I agree that there may not be an answer with the Qu.
Unless I can get them to use a couple of more channels and do it correctly with what Qu does provide.
You can have the last wordS.
There is no point for me to keep trying to have a sensible discussion with you.
You do not understand what upwards compression does and why it cannot cause feedback.
Regular compression with gain added back can cause problems.
Raising low levels while pushing high levels down can not.
AMM is auto mike mixing for use with a number of mikes typically in a meeting where various people will talk randomly.
We use it for multiple singers up front and the choir for when not all are always singing at the same time…
I have not studied AMM in detail yet to know how it works.
I have studied upwards compression.
Raising low levels while pushing high levels down can not.
this is not exactly the definition of upward compression
upward compression is raising low levels, that’s it
the problem is that the ambient noise level will increased as well
can you give us the name of a device that is doing upward compression?
Please?
Technical discussion and debate = good.
Any personal comments that could cause offence = bad.
Please let’s not let this thread go the same way as the other one did!
A quick comment on the original post.
There is no ‘correct’ order for EQ and Compression (as mentioned in the article), though with the fixed architecture in the Qu we had to decide one way or the other.
EQ first is almost always considered more useful in a live situation where EQ is often used to ‘fix’ signals then a compressor brings the ‘fixed’ signal to a good place in the mix regarding dynamics.
With a compressor first and without sidechain/filter, especially with something like voice with quick bursts all over the frequency range, the compressor would be reacting to frequencies you might then want to remove with the EQ. This can sound very weird/fun/wrong/bad.
As mentioned in another post, there are also the tap-offs for monitoring to consider, as these signals include all processing pre-tap-off and it is far more common to send only EQ’d signal to monitors than to send only compressed signal.
Andy Johns was a fantastic studio engineer so I imagine he’s talking about the benefits of EQ’ing compressed sound when mixing in a studio (though I could be wrong).
Sound is always sound whether live/studio/other, so sure, the theory applies, but in the same way as you don’t see LDC’s and pop-shields being used on stage for vocals, the best option for one aspect is not always the best for the whole situation.
I’d therefore suggest this topic has a lot to do with practical application vs theory and that all knock-on effects must be considered (along with how the majority of engineers use the desk of course).
It cannot be a case of ‘X sounds better that Y, so it must be changed’.
If using the Qu for mix downs in a studio btw, it’s very easy to apply compression before sending signals out to the Qu. You can also experiment within the Qu by use of a group to get EQ>Comp>EQ>Comp.
I would have to look at the Qu itself again.
I know they use it with all the choir mikes.
Did not verify they use it with other singers along with the choir.
Do not think they used it with just singers using the hand held RF mikes.
With more channels I could do UPwards compression correctly by applying to two channels with different amounts then feeding them into the LR. It is normally the pastor which is speaking that is the problem with voice intelligibility. I computed for our background noise level (HVAC etc) what level and DR would make him most understandable. But without the upwards compression we can never achieve that goal.
I would agree with you a priori. At least until I take time to study the details deeper.
I could envision situations where EQ after is more useful other than upwards compression.
But if you know you need upwards compression then EQ should come afterwards not before.
Another experiment for the next time you are working with the Qu and have somebody speaking quietly, or if you have access to the mixer and can play back a recording to have a play.
Send the microphone to two groups instead of the LR mix. I’ll call them group A: clean, and group B: ‘extra’ signal.
You can then heavily compress group B and blend it in with group A for straightforward parallel compression.
To go a step further, you could reduce or even remove the compression on group B and make use of the ducker triggered by the vocal input instead.
In this way, the level of group B will only be added in when the vocal input is quiet.
When the vocal input is loud enough, the extra signal will not be added to the mix and you will preserve dynamics in the ‘now-you’re-speaking-loud-enough’ range.
By playing with the depth, threshold and envelope you should be able to get a similar effect to an upwards compressor.
Though not ideal, it might give an idea about whether the noise floor and possible feedback/ringing that’s been mentioned would cause an issue.
Thanks for the idea. That would certainly be another way to do the same thing.
I am not sure if we have any unused groups. I will check the Qu tonight.
I think I might be able to find a couple of channel strips, or a mix pair, I could use but would have to check the block diagram to see if that could be done.
There is no noise problem with the electronics. The SNR is good.
Our main noise is HVAC and we need to be higher than that with our LR SPL output.
I think I might be able to find a couple of channel strips, or a mix pair, I could use but would have to check the block diagram to see if that could be done.
For a single input a Y cable could be used to split that input source into two separate input channels for parallel processing.
If you use groups be sure to un-assign any channels assigned to a group from the LR mix.
That is if the group is assigned to the LR mix.
If you do not un-assign a channel from the LR mix while it is assigned to group that is feeding the LR mix you will get some phase issues from the combining of the direct channel to the LR mix and the group combining together in the LR mix due to the very slight latency difference in the two signal paths.
All told someone actually running the sound making needed adjustments based on the person speaking at a given moment is the soultion, it’s why they call it “running sound”.