How to EQ a Room

Step-by-Step Guide

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   Step 1: Place a dynamic microphone with a cardioid pattern at the center of the stage and point it toward where a person would speak or perform.

   The fader setting on the Main Out needs to be at
   -10 or 0dB., Turn it down until the sound stops., A real-time analyzer will show you which frequency is ringing, but it isn’t the most accurate reading.
   
   If you have a multimeter with frequency, plug it into the Headset Out and use the Pre-Fade Listen (PFL) Output as a signal.
   
   The better reading you get, the more accurate your adjustments when you want to properly EQ a room. ,,, If you hit the EQ’s bottom before this happens, there’s a problem with the room itself or with the system design. ,,
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   Step 2: Ask anyone making noise on the stage to leave so they don’t corrupt the EQ process.

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   Step 3: Set all of the microphone’s EQ channels on the mixing board to flat.

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   Step 4: Bypass the compressor-limiters

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   Step 5: feedback destroyers and other similar processors so you get a clean signal.

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   Step 6: Move the microphone and instrument channels in the monitor(s) to about where they need to be for the performance.

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   Step 7: Adjust the Main House EQ so it’s set to the Center position.

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   Step 8: Turn the mixer’s Input Gain to “Off” and the channel fader to 0dB or -10dB.

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   Step 9: Raise the Input Gain slowly until you hear a ringing noise from the speaker system.

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    Step 10: Manipulate the channel fader to cause the speaker system to ring at a low

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    Step 11: nearly steady tone.

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    Step 12: Decrease the ringing by -3dB on its frequency

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    Step 13: which should eliminate the ringing sound.

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    Step 14: Raise the fader once the ringing stops.

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    Step 15: Repeat these steps for each slider until several of the frequencies rise at once or until one of the frequencies hits -12dB.

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    Step 16: Turn the master monitor volume back to your preferred level for the performance.

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    Step 17: Ask someone to stand at the microphone(s) and instrument(s) and check them so you can adjust the levels of each individual input.

Detailed Guide

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