Three Tips to save Time in Sound System Tuning

There are a million things to do in live sound system setup. Who has time for system tuning? I know. I get it. Sound system tuning can take a long time. But here's the thing: you don't have to fix all the problems, only the most important ones. Here are three tips to help you do that.

1. Triage

Triage is the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses in order to prioritize treatment when caring for a large number of patients. It's also a great word to describe what we do, because in the rooms that we work in, the sound system (our patient) suffers from many wounds. Some of them are life-threatening, some of them are not. Live sound is a war zone and we have to figure out which of our patient's wounds to heal first, to keep it alive.

And of course, we have a limited amount of time, because the show will start whether we have healed all of the wounds or not. So the way you save time in sound system tuning is by picking the biggest problems and attacking those first. While I don't know exactly what those will be in your room, I can tell you that they most often lie with speaker position and aim.

2. Map microphone positions

Get the venue and system layout the night before. Go through and mark all of your microphone positions with names like OnAxA (on-axis to the A speaker), XAB (acoustic crossover point between speaker A and speaker B), VTopB (vertical top of coverage for speaker B), etc. Include actions you want to take at each position: set level, delay, EQ, etc. If I skip this preparation step, it is almost guaranteed that I will take the right measurement in the wrong position and have to go back and do it again. Or worse, not realize it until the show starts.

3. Use multiple microphones

Another idea, if you have the resources, is to use multiple microphones. That will speed things up. Personally, I'm saving my money to get a multiple wireless microphone measurement rig. Lou, one of my students, turned me onto the Line6 XD-V75 and TX-3 microphone from Mel labs, which seem like a good combo. Look for an article from me on this in the future.

One other idea for you: if you can do some of the verification steps like polarity check ahead of time, at the shop, that will save you time.

Further questions?

Click here to download my new eBook, 105 Questions about Sound System Tuning, free until November 20th. It's everything you wanted to know about live sound system setup, but were afraid to ask.

This article is brought to you by Nathan Lively from Sound Design Live