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How to Tune a PA System for Live Sound

Every venue is different. Some are gorgeous concert halls with ornate architecture and elaborate acoustical considerations. Others are dingy bars with a half-working PA and literally no acoustic treatment whatsoever.

Either way, the show must go on and it’s your job to make it sound as good as possible.

Now, if you’re mixing a show in a one thousand capacity concert hall, you’re most likely using a state-of-the-art digital console with full parametric EQs to fine tune your mix. The room itself has probably already been tuned by a trained acoustician as well. We should all be so lucky.

Unfortunately, most of your first gigs will be in small spaces with minimal acoustic treatment, a bargain analog console, and a rack of graphic equalizers.

The key to a good sounding show is a good sounding room, but if you don’t have one of those, you can try to fix a not-so-good sounding room by using a graphic EQ to “tune” the PA system.

This is an excerpt from How to Tune a PA System for Live Sound, originally published by The Pro Audio Files. Read the full version here.

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