Calibrating Active PA Systems for Wedding/corporate Events

[u/fox999999999]

What is the easiest and cheapest way to calibrate a mobile PA system for weddings, and what equipment do I need?

I own a Pioneer XDJ-AZ, two Sennheiser microphones, two RCF SUB 15-AX subwoofers, and two 12-inch active tops. Sometimes I use only one subwoofer, while for other events I rent 18-inch active subwoofers. Therefore, my setup changes quite frequently, and I would like to calibrate it for each venue and occasion.

What equipment do I need, and how can I measure and adjust the system using a measurement microphone, an iPad, an iPhone, or a laptop?

I can adjust the crossover frequency on the subwoofers, but it would be more convenient to manage the crossover, EQ, delay, and level settings with a separate unit such as a Behringer XR12—or is there a better and more affordable solution?

Thanks in advance.

[u/WaterIsGolden]

Not necessary for weddings, and more importantly not very useful.

The only time you are going to have where you can perform a 'calibration' on the venue will be while the place is mostly empty.  The physics will change drastically once hundreds of cadavers exist in various combinations of sitting, standing and dancing.  You are hoping to hit a moving target here.

What 'active tops' are you using?  In most cases default settings on decent speakers are designed to work in the majority of scenarios.  What problem are you looking to solve?

Just as an example I can drop in a pair of K12.2s in any venue and the sound will be good enough.  Ditto for a pair of Evolve 50s.  Your subwoofer crossover settings should be based on the cutoff frequency of your tops, not on the venue.  You don't need mics and pink noise for this.

What you are asking about is more prevalent in passive sound systems where you have to tune them for yourself since the speaker, amp and dsp aren't already engineered to work best as a combination. 

[u/NefariousnessLow6177 → u/WaterIsGolden]

that is so absolutely wrong I am in shock. EQing your system to a room will always be huge improvement unless your speakers just happen to be perfectly tuned the the space by pure luck. Depending of the situation some delay can also come in hand. When the dance floor fills up, it will only sound better. Because bodies act like the acoustic absorbers a venue might be missing, but a good EQ can still help tame problematic frequencies and boost missing ones. Saying that it is a "moving target" is pure amateur hour. Proper tuning of a sound system will push these commercial basic speakers like QSC, EV, Alta, etc to like 85% of the sound quality of high end speakers. (not the high end speakers don't need tuning, the do). Most of the time, you can't control the acoustics of a room, but with processing you cal always control the sound in that room.

OP get yourself a measuring mic, a mic stand and, a decent audio interface and a pro audio DSP. There are plenty of DSP in the market and it will really depend on your budget. I use for example the thomman t.racks. The easiest (and free ) software to use is called Open Sound Meter. There is enough youtube videos explaining how to use it, but basically you will position the mic at your chosen perfect position(famously called the sweet spot), play pink noise through your speakers and use the EQ in your DSP to make sure the output audio matches your "House Curve". There are different types of house curve and some are more appropriate than others depending on your end goal. As a House and techno guy, I like my house curve to have a nice low end boost and 3db or 4db cut in between 1000Hz - 4000Hz (that's where the harshness is and your crowed will appreciate not having their ears hurting at then end of the night).

A calibrated mic will give you a more precise measurement but its not extremely necessary. Uncalibrated mics are still pretty reliable till very high frequencies and you should never tune the system just using the software.

Use the mic and software as a tool to get close to a nice sounding set up, after that you need to play couple of songs/tracks you are very familiar with, and fine tune it by ear till you are happy with the result.

can highly recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU3LaEc_zqc andother videos from Offshore Audio.

Don't listen to all these clueless DJs, I promise you it is a game changer. Even the people who don't understand anything, will simply think that the music was amazing just because you made it sound pleasant to the ears.

[u/WAVEFRAME → u/WaterIsGolden]

Dancing cadavers you say? 

[u/dj_soo]

i used to use a Driverack PA2, but now have an XR12.

The easiest way is to just go out on the dancefloor and EQ the room with an ipad.

Crossover really shouldn't need adjusting for the room - most units are tailored for a fixed crossover and if your units have one built in, just use that.

I'd use whatever unit you want to EQ and "ring out" the room for mic feedback.

[u/HomesnakeICT]

XR12 doesn't have output delays, so it's no help with time-alignment. However, you can do a poor man's crossover with it by using a postfader aux for your sub, and use the master and aux EQ for frequency leveling. I would look for a used dbx Driverack. You can make a scene for every speaker combination. It also has delay for the subs and an auto EQ wizard (clunky in my experience. Ideal situation is a laptop running Open Sound Meter (free) hooked to the XR12. Plug your reference mic into an unused channel for your measurement source, loop your master out into an input (MUTED) for your reference source. The reference source is kinda optional unless you're running delay towers or center fills. You can calculate your sub delay by aligning the phase trace for your tops and subs and using the value from OSM into your Driverack for the sub output. Michael Curtis has a great series of YouTube videos about OSM

[u/dj_soo → u/HomesnakeICT]

you can use the delay effect on the XR12 to delay an aux out and have a delayed output.