Equalizer jimmy rigged?

[elhewman]

Sorry for the long winded question. After just finding out my church does indeed have an equalizer (Yamaha Q 2031 B), I got exited about trying to notch out some problem frequencies I am hearing in the mix. Both on the mains and the stage monitors. I found masking tape labels describing which EQ channel was main and which one was stage. Turns out that the only effect The EQ had was to drummers headset(He complained and looked confused as I messed with EQ parameters)
Looking at the back of the rack, I don't remember all the connections. But what I thought was a little weird was that the output of Channel (A) EQ went to the Ground of the one of the 2 power amp. The output of CH (B) was labeled "to mixer" and was not connected to any of the 2 power amps.

Also, there Is there signal chain I should be thinking about before I try to fix the issue. Perhaps...Mixer- Equalizer - Power Amps- Stage box?

Thanks for your Help. I would love some more control on the sound!

PS: Here is my most of the set up since some of you asked.
Mixer: Yamaha MG 32 14 FX
Main monitors: Thump TH 15 A,
Stage monitors: Carvin somethings?
Power amps: Carvin DCM 600 and Crest Audio LA 901
Equalizer: Yamaha Q203 1B

[Rickcperry]

How many mix channels do you have for stage monitors?

If I were limited, I would send the Aux channel into the 'A' side of the EQ and then out of the 'A' side of EQ into the monitor amp. (I am assuming the speakers have passive crossovers)

Then I would take the MONO output of the board (or just use the left channel and pan everything to the left) and send it to the 'B' side of the EQ and out of the 'B' side of EQ into the power amp. If you have a crossover, send the EQ BEFORE the crossover, never EQ after the crossover (phase problems) and then into the poweramp.

The left side of the EQ would be your wedge monitor EQ and the right side of the EQ would be your mains EQ.

In the Ideal world, you would want an EQ on each wedge mix as well as an EQ on each of the channels L/R of the mixer, before the crossover.
Hope this helps...
Rick

[wogster]

Originally Posted by elhewman

Sorry for the long winded question. After just finding out my church does indeed have an equalizer (Yamaha Q 2031 B), I got exited about trying to notch out some problem frequencies I am hearing in the mix. Both on the mains and the stage monitors. I found masking tape labels describing which EQ channel was main and which one was stage. Turns out that the only effect The EQ had was to drummers headset(He complained and looked confused as I messed with EQ parameters)
Looking at the back of the rack, I don't remember all the connections. But what I thought was a little weird was that the output of Channel (A) EQ went to the Ground of the one of the 2 power amp. The output of CH (B) was labeled "to mixer" and was not connected to any of the 2 power amps.

Also, there Is there signal chain I should be thinking about before I try to fix the issue. Perhaps...Mixer- Equalizer - Power Amps- Stage box?

Thanks for your Help. I would love some more control on the sound!

PS: Here is my most of the set up since some of you asked.
Mixer: Yamaha MG 32 14 FX
Main monitors: Thump TH 15 A,
Stage monitors: Carvin somethings?
Power amps: Carvin DCM 600 and Crest Audio LA 901
Equalizer: Yamaha Q203 1B

Lots of systems were set up properly at some point in time, then someone who didn't know what they were doing, got ahold of it, and "fixed" itso that it does not work properly now.

From the mixing board, you feed into the EQ, then into any post processing like a compressor/limiter/gate or a DSP, then into the power amps and then to the speakers. Used balanced connections (XLR connectors) whenever equipment has them as an option. If your in a mono setup which it sounds like you are, it's common to feed the board into one channel of the EQ, with the monitors on the other channel. Beware the pseudo stereo setup, where you have two channels out on the board, into the EQ, into the signal processor that feeds into a Y cable on the amp.... I've seen this, in fact my church is set up this way, I just have not gotten around to fixing it yet....

[Brad Weber]

Sounds like you may have the common situation where over the years the system has been modified and 'improved' with no documentations of what was done. To avoid ending up with a similar situation will likely take knowing more about how the system is, can be and should be configured.

You apparently have a mixer with stereo, a summed mono and four Aux outputs. You have a two channel, 225W/channel into 8 Ohm amplifier and a two channel, 125W/channel into 8 Ohm amplifier. You have multiple, likely two, powered main speakers. Some number of unknown monitor speakers. And a two channel, one-third octave equalizer. We do not know what wiring exists or how what is there is wired.

So seven potential mixer outputs, two channels of equalization, four channels of amplification and two powered and some unknown number of likely unpowered speakers (and perhaps more or less connections for them than there are actual speakers). Oh yeah, and a "drummer's headset" thrown in there somehow. There are no obvious relationships and we don't know what relationships are possible with the existing wiring and cabling.

We could all offer guesses as to what might be best to do, but with the information available they are simply guesses as we don't know what is needed or possible.

That's a long winded way of saying that you might want to first try to document what you have in terms of not just equipment but also cabling and how everything is connected.

[wogster]

Originally Posted by Brad Weber

Sounds like you may have the common situation where over the years the system has been modified and 'improved' with no documentations of what was done. To avoid ending up with a similar situation will likely take knowing more about how the system is, can be and should be configured.

You apparently have a mixer with stereo, a summed mono and four Aux outputs. You have a two channel, 225W/channel into 8 Ohm amplifier and a two channel, 125W/channel into 8 Ohm amplifier. You have multiple, likely two, powered main speakers. Some number of unknown monitor speakers. And a two channel, one-third octave equalizer. We do not know what wiring exists or how what is there is wired.

So seven potential mixer outputs, two channels of equalization, four channels of amplification and two powered and some unknown number of likely unpowered speakers (and perhaps more or less connections for them than there are actual speakers). Oh yeah, and a "drummer's headset" thrown in there somehow. There are no obvious relationships and we don't know what relationships are possible with the existing wiring and cabling.

We could all offer guesses as to what might be best to do, but with the information available they are simply guesses as we don't know what is needed or possible.

That's a long winded way of saying that you might want to first try to document what you have in terms of not just equipment but also cabling and how everything is connected.

+1 You need to find the outputs on the mixer, then follow the cables, of course this doesn't work if you have a bundle of cables that go through a hole in the floor that are not labelled.... In that case you may need to disconnect cables one at a time and see what stops working.... In order to keep the equipment safe, you need to power down, disconnect a cable, power up, then label that cable then repeat until everything under there is labelled. Best thing to label with, get a sheet of permanent address labels, write the label text at least twice and then wrap the label around the cable. Label BOTH ends. For example Speaker North Main Left -> Amp 4 you would mark Speaker North Main Left at the amplifier end, and Amp 4 at the speaker end. You will appreciate this, when 4 years down the road, the speaker poops out, and your trying to figure out which amp it's hooked to.