empeg sound

This is a project I've been working on for a few weeks and I thought it was about time I shared it with the BBS community. This step-by-step guide will walk you through all the things you need to do to get the best possilbe sound out of your empeg. We've spent so much time and money on our empegs, it's shame that most of us don't get the best sound out of it! This is a small way I can help repay all the help that all of you have given me over the years.

• Introduction
• Your MP3s
• Speaker Connections
• Amp Gain
• Phase Test
• Balance Control
• Time Alignment
• Parametric EQ
• Goodies

Disclaimer: The site is still a work in progress, so please be kind with your comments and suggestions. I still need to get the sound files ready for the Parametric EQ section, so that section isn't quite finished yet, but I've been dragging my feet getting this done, so I figured that a knowing a bunch of people were looking at it would help modivate me!

Suggestions are very welcome and I'm open to discussion is anyone disagrees with my process. One suggestion I've gotten was to include a Printer Friendly version, so that is in the works, but I want to wait until the site is more or less done before I spend time on that.

I'm sorry about the long URL too... if anyone wants to pay for a dedicated domain name and hosting, feel free!

Awesome, it's always good to have (reasonably) all the info in one spot. I'll be all over that guide when I do my next install.

Great stuff, Brad. Thanks for your hard work.

Wow! This looks great Brad. Very handy to have all this info as it applies to the empeg in one place. I may have to finally buy that SPL meter...

-Mike

Looks awesome, but the red-on-brown links hurt my eyes

Awesome...

Quote:
Bass and Treble Controls Neato, but should you use it with an adjusted EQ?

Having Bass/Treble is useful even when you have a good EQ as it allows you to adjust for badly mastered tracks. The current Bass/Treble implementation will usurp the top 2 bands of EQ, so ideally you don't use those two bands in your EQ.

Quote:
Looks awesome, but the red-on-brown links hurt my eyes

Yeah, I agree with you on that. Unless I get the tutorial hosted on its own site, I need to make it integrate into my site, and that means red links... And I used brown because I was fond of that jazzy graphic... maybe I'll use an empeg, ltd. color scheme down the road.

Quote:
The current Bass/Treble implementation will usurp the top 2 bands of EQ

I agree that Bass and Treble is good to have, I am just not sure how to go about it if you have the EQ setup...

Are the top two bands 1 and 2? (50Hz and 100Hz)? If that's so, I might rewrite the Parametric EQ so that those bands are not used. But then we'll need to find which frequencies should be used...

Does the Bass and Treble hack steal the bands and disregard what values were there previously? Or does it add/subtract to what it finds? Could we use the Bass and Treble bands for the EQ and the HiJack Bass/Treble?

Edit: A little more clarity!

No, bands 9 and 10.

Band 9 is used for bass. Band 10 for treble. Both work identically, just using different frequencies...I'll illustrate using the bass;

If bass is set to zero, the underlying EQ setting is applied. So if you never use hijack's bass setting, EQ band 9 is always active. When you adjust the bass, EQ band 9 gets reprogrammed with the frequency, Q and appropriate dB setting to approximate the desired bass setting. When you reset the bass to zero again, the original EQ band 9 settings get reprogrammed. Thus, if you have a valid band 9 EQ, it will be active as long as bass isn't. The same goes for band 10 and treble respectively.

So it's possible to use 10 bands of EQ - but advised to make bands 9 and 10 the least important bands if you want to use bass and/or treble.

Pretty significant update to the Parametric EQ page made. It's not "done" yet and the sound files aren't quite ready yet, but at least you can see where I am going with it...

To be clear, none of the EQ bands need to be in order. That is, band 1 might tweak 1000Hz frequencies, band 2 5000Hz, and band 3 100Hz. Of course, they are set up in order by default, but you can change them all you like.

I discovered that while playing around... What's scarey is that you can set all of them to the same frequency!

Eesh. That can't work too well. Either that, or you could set the Qs differently to get really weird graphs.

Great resource!

Nit: "Next" link on Speaker Connection page says 'Amp Gain', but brings you to the Phase Test page.

Impressive!!! Thanks!!!

I think it is great that you mention the basic steps first. Something easily forgotten, but very important to tuning the system.

One recommendation that I can think of. On the EQ page, you have positive EQs. To avoid clipping / distortion, you probably should have all your EQ adjustments negative. A thought.

Fixed. thanks.

Quote:
On the EQ page, you have positive EQs. To avoid clipping / distortion, you probably should have all your EQ adjustments negative. A thought.

That's a very important point. That's why I have a range from -5 to +6dB. I even included a step to make sure that your "target dB" is in the middle so you evenly add or subtract to get there. Is there some way I can make it easier to read (less bolding?) because I did do a mix of add and subtract.

Thanks Michael. That's obviously a 3.00alpha only thing, but I think I can either slip it into the MP3 page (maybe renamed "Music Files") or as a link... Thanks!

I just had this thought while brushing my teeth :

I havn't yet taken into consideration the frequency responce of the SPL meter (an important step). I'm sure the SPL meter automatically adjusts for a flat curve, but I doubt that it goes from 20Hz to 20kHz. The default empeg bands range from 50Hz to 18kHz. If those two outer bands are no detectable by the SPL meter, mayb we can remove them and then slide them all down "to the left" to free up bands 9 and 10?

I'm off to work now, so I don't have time to look into the specs of the meter, but they are available online if anyone wants to check while I'm away. Otherwise, I'll do it when I get home.

IIRC, the meters are usually flat to about 10KHz, have a little peak about 12 KHz and then start to roll off from then. They nearly always come with a frequency response graph.

That was Richard Scarry.

Dude, most impressive! Kudos on the entire site. Detailed and nicely done.
I’ve only skimmed through it but plan on visiting again soon when I have the time.

I think I made my parents read 'What Do People Do All Day?' about 5,000 times.

Bio link.

THANKS! I just got new amps, speakers and subs and am tuning now. This will really help.

Here is a link to a spl chart someone used with his radio shack SPL. SPL Link
Apparently he added or subtracted the appropriate numbers from his readings to compensate for the SPL's response.
Not sure if it helps you.

That's great! Most microphones you buy include a frequency response graph, but the SPL meter does not. He mentions the cost as being $35 which makes me think he is referring to the analouge display model (I used the digital one, and that seems to be the more common). I'll try to contact him. I assume the pickups are the same, I'm just wondering if they built the response curve into the unit (or the compensation rather).

One thing they are hinting at is using tones that are at every 1/3 octave. That is what I intend as my "Advanced Parametric EQ" tutorial. You will actually actually draw a graph from your readings and then choose your frequency points (instead of using the default ones).

Thank you for that very nice write up. Im sure my settings where WAY off and sound horrible in comparison to how it COULD sound. Ill be finding out real soon now Thanks!

Hey, thanks a lot. Once we get this parametric EQ thing nailed down, it'll go live!