Subwoofer Setup plus speakers

Struggling with options and setup best practice…. Have read thread after thread and especially enjoyed Drews Marks and Danny’s progress over the years… have gained ideas and things to try but head is tired and just want to setup and be done because its the best….!!! Ahaha,….

I’ve now got 4 pairs of presonus Eris 8 to handle as front group this has helped with cohesion and spread of load… albeit have been reading about better to be in pairs of 3 or 5 etc not to sure about that one i guess i can easily take one out or add extra and test

Through advice and info here i now have a 2.1 setup where i send the whole pedal division to that subwoofer and speakers combo. This way the speakers get the top end and harmonics that i had previously been missing out on due to sending 16 and 32 stops to the sub on its own. This way also only takes up one output pair from the usb audio device rather then 2.

Sending all manual divisions in the “close” recording to the front group and pedal division to the 2.1 gives a clean sound…. Adding in the front recording/perspective to the appropriate groups and pedal then starts to muddy things up again and i can see that another separate group for “front” perhaps would be handy…. So I bought another subwoofer just a little on special presonus 10 - its surprisingly good for the size and handles things quite nicely - I’ve created another 2.1 setup for the front pedal to go to and this cleans up some things i didn’t like - sub doesn’t have to try to do both the close and front samples….

For fun with just close perspective I sent the new sub the 10 2/3 stop so that the main sub didn’t have to do it and instantly noticed more clarity so that’s fun have a sub for most stops and another for some specialty stops to take the pressure away….

Of course with this setup still no rear samples are getting any bass with the rear speakers not at all replicating anything low down probably 100hz if they are lucky…. And can’t as sending the duplicate rear to the sub sounds all the stops through the speakers connected…..

So what is better from your experience? Keep going down this path of another sub and make the rear 2.1 ??

Tonight I tried putting the presonus sub onto channels 1/2 and no speakers connected to it and then connected my 12” sub to the output of the presonus 10 (the 12 is just a HT home made plate amp job that’s very musical) but no xlr or balanced input so im having to use a DI for that in reverse so that it can accept a balanced input with the unbalanced going to the sub…. This way I’ve created the sub in master output and ticked all the boxes that way everything is being sent to the sub as well - rear now gets some action along with close and front including the manuals etc…. I then realised that the pedal division wasn’t getting anywhere so routed the pedal to a spare set of behringer 2031a but how do you relieve them of all the super low….? The behringer doesn’t have a cut so they are getting hammered with all the pedal division……room and bass reduction switches are on them but no 80/100hz switching shelf so to speak….like the presonus have.

How have you setup the pedal division what works best?
How to configure….?

I have a spare extra set of speakers now that i could have 2 stereo pairs for the pedal - so is it as easy as create a 2 Pair group and send both speaker pairs additionally to the 2 subs

Speakers available right now:
4 stereo pairs studio monitors presonus 8
1 stereo pair studio monitors behringer 2031a
2 stereo pair small pa speakers currently rear and 1 pair from 2.1 setup
1 extra pair for fun of pa speakers but prefer to keep handy for travelling pa work but can use for fun or testing an idea before getting extra studio monitors….
2 subs 1 with balanced in and output with crossover to go to speakers 80hz and above…

How best to configure this and what upgrade path best when speakers and sub on special again…. Everything very expensive here in Australia we are talking $900 a pair for the studio monitors even the behringer not that they are available or made anymore? Haven’t see any for years and $749 for the 10” sub normal price sometimes can get $100 off the studio monitors sometimes 200 with super sales etc

Apologies for the long post and covering so much…. Having read so much for days now mind is blown and i don’t think some of my musings have been covered so wanted to ask some experts….the head hurts with so many ways of configuring and have tried a few just don’t know what’s best way to do it or way forward….

With Adat i have 18 channels balanced available in 48khz otherwise 14 with 96khz with 2 extra going out via digital coaxial for zoom/mix down to the mixer…

Regards,
Matt

I'd use the Hauptwerk routing to mix down all the channels to two stereo outputs for the subs (you don't really need more than one though for a home situation). If you don't have a low pass filter/sub amplifier than buy one, they are available. Most multi channel sets are designed to have all channels played if you are only using stereo.

Then I would either have all channels going to the front speakers in stereo, or all but the rear, and distribute the pipes between the four speakers each using one of the routing algorithms. If you leave out the rear, I'd put the 2031a's behind you and send the rear to them.

It's better to send all your audio to two good speakers for the purpose than to use all available channels and monitors then it doesn't sound good because of a mismatch between the audio and the speaker, or because they are imbalanced. It's tempting to divide according to ranks, etc., but the problem is if the speakers are different then you might have to voice the ranks for the room and the speakers. I suppose if you love tweaking and voicing you can do this, but I'd rather just play. The simpler the configuration the better, that way it will be easier to adapt all your organs to it, and you can spend less time tinkering and more time playing. That's my opinion though!

With so many speakers at your disposal then i would use one speaker pair and if your playing space can accommodate this, use them as side speakers at 3 and 9 clock and send the most distant front perspective off 8 channel sets to these speakers. This combined with the rear speakers will add a lot to the overall sound field, creating a much better sense off the real space.

Regards Jan

Jan,

Are you saying use 1 pair to send close to in normal front stereo position

Then 2 more stereo pairs 1 each at 3 and 9 o’clock these are to be sent close as well all 3 then in a group?

Then the 4 stereo pairs at front in a group to be sent the wet front perspective of whole organ inc pedal? and rear is rear…

Is that correct?

Then I suppose just a mix down master to the sub/sof all 3 perspectives…

Thankyou!

The behringer doesn’t have a cut so they are getting hammered with all the pedal division……room and bass reduction switches are on them but no 80/100hz switching shelf so to speak….like the presonus have.

How have you setup the pedal division what works best?
How to configure….?

Hello Matt:

To help out the Behringer's woofer from being over tasked by a low fundamental pitch, your audio interface might have a built in EQ. This is the easiest solution to reduce those frequencies in the main speakers, making the sub pull its weight so to speak. The 2031A is rated at 50Hz on its low end but it has a 8.75 driver and lots of power and from my experience they can dip much lower than that. If you don't have an EQ you can invest in a physical one. They are very cheap on the used market . Finally, you could use the HW Bass Split feature that will allow you to split the last x notes of rank to go to elsewhere. In this case the subwoofer only or maybe to a more hefty speaker pair that can handle it. You'd have to experiment where the best split point would be. The objective is to play a descending chromatic run and barely notice that you've split between the Berrys and Sub or Berrys and the bigger speaker pair.

Danny B.

Thankyou I have made some progress and placed all presonus on top of each other in left and right stacks... raised the 2031a in height and this has definitely helped with the sound... Also moved all the presonus onto the motu via adat... they all now sound cohesive and good...

I think the the presonus 10 sub actually goes lower then the 12" sub i have so i've put the presonus and behringer 212a back into a 2.1 config for the close samples, then added the 12" to a master group that handles rear and front perspectives of the sampleset.... with front pedal going to the 2 behringer 2031a

This is starting to sound the best i've had - I lke Jan's idea so one day space permitting will attempt that for fun!!!

Currently just using the default algorithm for the 8 presonus.... this of course doesn't i don't think help with soft stops like strings to be on total separate speakers so that they can beat naturally in the air... so might try taking those off the group and send the "off in tune" stops to separate speakers....!?

Hallo Matt

In my system i separated al the perpectives and send them to their own speakers and i positioned these speakers in my room roughly at the comparable place where the mics are situated in 8 channel recordings.
These 8 channel sets contain a lot off spatial information in each perspective which will be degraded when you mix for instance all 3 front perspectives off 8 channel sets through the same front speaker pair. Mixing perspectives through one speaker pair never convinced me.
When you place however the speakers at roughly the same position as the recording mics then you recreate the soundfield off the church at a natural way and will experience a good copy off the recorded soundfield.
Using 8 channel sets this way made me a fan off these sets while i was in my old setup not realy a fan off these sets.

Regards Jan