Speaker managment

[mip]

Any tips on using sac with two masters. one to tops (2x15 +horn) and one to subs(2x18). (monitor mixer subs is not our thing)
The lack of punch on subs is our main consern.
Idea is to feed only kick and 5-string bass to subs.
Bass would be cut below lowest B 30Hz but what about kick drum?
The idea is to have good puch from the kick drum.
And is the sacs low cut enough to do this or should i use some plugin to lowcut?
At the time we have DB TECHNOLOGIES ASX 18 crossover at 100Hz but waht to get rid of it. Problem was for example the vocals were cut from 130Hz but still came from subs.


We have one laptop and would like to use smaart with it.
What is the best usb audio interface and measurement mic to do that?
We want allso use the system to tune wedges.

Hopefully someone has good practical tips and not 300 pages of theory.

[davidss1]

keep in mind that most low cut filters are only 12db per octave, not a complete "stop"
using a sub feed is a great idea for "cleaning" the content delivered, u should notice a large difference.
there are many budget interfaces and mics available behringer and superlux come to mind.
if u plan to use a small mixer to do routing/mic pre/phantom power for smaart, u can get by with a super simple interface like the behriger UCA series that are 2 line level in and out only and dirt cheap.

[TomyN]

Hi,

use SAC to route only the bass and the kick and the other signals that might need lows as well to the sub-woofer.
There are some X-over plugins available, which you might use to low-pass the subs. I'd use the build - in low-cut for the tops, because they basicly work as full range speakers, so a steep cut-off is not needed here (but this may vary according to the speakers used, the type of music played and the location).

For dual-FFT you can use nearly any USB I/O interface, which comes with phantom-power and the possibility to route the mic-input to a certain output.

:cool: <Advertisement> Save some money by choosing SATlive as the software </advertisement>
and invest in a better I/O interface, like the UA-25 or some of the new m-audio parts.
For basic measurements you can use one of the cheaper measurement mics available on the market.
Those mics have two things that you should consider:
1) They can not stand a higher soundpressure (130 dB and above).
2) They have a high(large?) distribution of the frequency response, both on high and low end. This is not so critical, because thoses areas of frequency are not intended to be flat anyway. So both are adjusted 'by taste', normaly using a boost at the low and a roll off a the high-frequency area.

To overcome those problems you need to spent a lot more money for the mic.

See http://www.take-sat.de/download/timealignmentE.pdf for how to adjust the delay between top and sub.

Tomy

[mip]

keep in mind that most low cut filters are only 12db per octave, not a complete "stop"
using a sub feed is a great idea for "cleaning" the content delivered, u should notice a large difference.
there are many budget interfaces and mics available behringer and superlux come to mind.
if u plan to use a small mixer to do routing/mic pre/phantom power for smaart, u can get by with a super simple interface like the behriger UCA series that are 2 line level in and out only and dirt cheap.

Do you know any low cut filter vst plugin that would be remotable in sac?
How do you connect the mixer with uca?
Do you input measurement mic and pan left and mono feed pan right and then feen it to smaart via uca?

[davidss1]

Do you know any low cut filter vst plugin that would be remotable in sac?
How do you connect the mixer with uca?
Do you input measurement mic and pan left and mono feed pan right and then feen it to smaart via uca?

the small mixer i use has 2 aux sends, so i route mic to one and smaart output to the other and feed them into the uca,, and feed the signal to the speakers from its main outs

[Andy Hamm]

http://www.sawstudiouser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14967

That is info on a LR VST you can use to replace your current crossover.

[AntonZ]

Do you know any low cut filter vst plugin that would be remotable in sac?

Why would a crossover plugin need to be remotable? Once it is set for a system, I would typically not touch crossover settings, at least not as often as to need remote control.

[Brent Evans]

Why would a crossover plugin need to be remotable? Once it is set for a system, I would typically not touch crossover settings, at least not as often as to need remote control.

What if you want to run headless?

:D

[Donnie Frank]

Any tips on using sac with two masters. one to tops (2x15 +horn) and one to subs(2x18). (monitor mixer subs is not our thing)
The lack of punch on subs is our main consern.
Idea is to feed only kick and 5-string bass to subs.
Bass would be cut below lowest B 30Hz but what about kick drum?
The idea is to have good puch from the kick drum.
And is the sacs low cut enough to do this or should i use some plugin to lowcut?
At the time we have DB TECHNOLOGIES ASX 18 crossover at 100Hz but waht to get rid of it. Problem was for example the vocals were cut from 130Hz but still came from subs.


We have one laptop and would like to use smaart with it.
What is the best usb audio interface and measurement mic to do that?
We want allso use the system to tune wedges.

Hopefully someone has good practical tips and not 300 pages of theory.

A sub-woofer console (monitor console 10 on my SAC system) and Dual Linkwitz/Riley plugin set at 24dB/Oct is what I use. Band pass the subs 33Hz-100Hz and high-pass the mains @ 100Hz (some crossover at 120Hz). Some don't like the idea of having separate master volume controls for subs vs. mains (I personally don't mind...not a big deal to manage IMHO). But for my money it offers a quick, easy solution. Plus you can use your control surface to manage the subs. It's pretty slick.

http://drummerdonnie.com/temp/SAC/SubWooferConsole.jpg

[AntonZ]

What if you want to run headless?

:D

Use keyboard/mouse for once to set up and tune the system. After that is done, store the settings, save presets. I don't know if others fiddle around a lot with crossover settings - for me this is typically set and forget.

[Steve Christiano]

Hi,
I'm using the Dual Linkwitz Riley Plug in to replace my mains crossover to great effect. It is simple, sounds good and is remote-able. It's also free.:) I like to remote the crossover to hear it's effects on the room from FOH.

I use SMAART with a Presonus USB interface but any good interface with min 2 inputs will do. Because of the way SMAART processes signals, the quality of the interface does not have a big effect on the quality of the measurement. It says so right in the manual! :) You will want phantom power for the measurement mic however and the inputs should be able to take a line level input. Be careful, just because there is a 1/4" jack doesn't mean it will take line level. Inexpensive interfaces sometimes only work with mic and guitar (instrument) levels.

There has been a LOT of discussion about the way to implement aux fed subs. While I have learned some good information from these kinds of discussions (there are a lot of very smart and experienced folks on this forum) I haven't seen the one I use.

I like to use the XY surround pan controls. While I only use stereo (and often mono) FOH systems, that panel also has controls to send the source to sub and center outputs. I just turn up the sub output on the channels I want to go to the subs. Voila' ! In the output section I assign out 1 to LR (push the button) for the highs and out 2 to subs. I insert the Dual L.R. plug in and the native EQ plug in into those outputs and I'm done. I also latch the out 1 & 2 together so the mains volume for highs and subs go up and down together (temp override with the Alt key) to make it easier. A bonus is that when, occasionally, i want to create a side fill, delay stack or second audio zone all i need to do is assign an output to a physical out and turn on the LR button to get the whole mix. I don't have to activate it on every channel. Simple. Keep in mind with this method you don't need to assign each input to an output individually. Also frees up the aux's for other things.

Hope this helps and thanks to everyone for sharing your knowledge.

[Jeff Scott]

I use SMAART with a Presonus USB interface but any good interface with min 2 inputs will do.



Hey Steve...are you running SMAART simultaneously on your SAC Host..along with SAC , or do you have a separate laptop on which you are running SMAART.?

[gdougherty]

I'll drop this for Christian's benefit on the LR filter. He did a fantastic job on it and while he makes the plugins freely available, they are in reality donation-ware. I worked with him on developing the plugin (he wrote the plug, I put in the requests and refined the manual) and he made it even better with the visual graph after we had concluded initial development.

Sending him at least $20 for such an incredibly useful tool that's nicely performant is more than fair, IMO. There's nothing else out there that works nearly as well for a simple to use crossover setup within SAC. I also use it as a lightweight steeper low-cut filter on monitors in addition to Bob's 7-band EQ.

[Steve Christiano]

Your right, the LR plug-in is well worth $20.

As far as SMAART goes I do not run it on the host. I leave the host as monitor world and use a wired or wireless remote at FOH. Right now I run SMAART on a separate laptop but I plan to run it on the remote at FOH eventually. My host is rather weak so I try to keep it as clean and lean as possible.

BTW, for those who like the Presonus Studiolive 24.4.2, they are integrating SMAART into it here soon. Just heard from NAMM....