PreSonus is the only digital mixer in it's class which comes along with a SMAART software.....Not all digital mixers are the same
What is Smaart?
Working with Rational Acoustics, PreSonus has streamlined Smaart’s powerful Response™ and Locator™ modules to make it easy to view your P.A. system’s frequency response. Now you have all the information necessary to adjust your sound system using the parametric EQs that are available on the Fat Channel in StudioLive-series mixers. Additionally, Smaart’s Spectra’s™ RTA and Spectrograph can be viewed on top of each output’s graphic EQ so you can analyze your mix or quickly ring out your floor monitors.
Although much simpler and easier to use than the full version of Smaart, VSL’s Smaart implementation is very much the real thing, built with the same technology that is trusted by acousticians and live-sound engineers the world over.
The room is not always your friend.
Deal with it.
In many live environments, the room has not been designed to maximize the listening experience. Sure, you might mix a show in a concert hall with awesome acoustics, but more often, you’re making do in a basement club with a low ceiling and brick walls or in an old warehouse or barn—or perhaps you’re fighting the nightmare acoustics of a sports arena.
In general, the size, construction, and reflectivity of a room are primary factors that significantly affect a sound system’s performance.
Size Matters
The size of the room directly impacts how well certain frequencies will be reproduced. If you measure a room on its diagonal, you will discover how well that room will be able to sustain low frequencies. For example, a 50 Hz wave is about 22.6 feet long. So a room that is 45 feet on the diagonal is going to regenerate low frequencies more effectively than a room that is 15 feet on the diagonal.
When a room’s width or length correlates directly to the size of a waveform at a specific frequency, a standing wave can occur where the initial sound and the reflected sound begin to reinforce each other.
Let’s say we have a long, narrow room where the distance from one side to the other is 22.6 feet. When a 50 Hz wave bounces off the wall, the reflective wave travels right back along the same path and bounces off the other wall and cycle repeats. In a room such as this, 50 Hz reproduces very well—maybe even a little too well. So your mix will have a heavier low-end.
Surfaces and Construction Materials
A room’s construction, including furnishings, also can have a dramatic impact on its sonic signature.
Although we might not think of it often, low-frequency waves are powerful enough to cause the walls, ceiling, and even the floor to flex and move. This is called diaphragmatic action, and it dissipates energy and strips away the low-end definition. So if you’re in an old cotton mill, and the walls and floor are made of thick concrete that don’t vibrate much, the bass response is going to be much more powerful than if you’ve set up a show in an old warehouse where the walls are made of barge board and tin.
Another way a room interacts with sound waves is through reflectivity. Some of this is fairly obvious: soft surfaces like curtains and carpeting absorb more high frequencies, while hard surfaces reflect, which can emphasize the highs. Parallel walls, odd-shaped cubbyholes, and balconies all affect the room’s acoustics.
Reflections can be good and bad. Consider the effect of a cathedral’s reflections on a choir or a piano; this type of reverberation (reverb) is quite desirable. But not all reverb is good reverb.
Reflections can also cause comb filtering. For example, if a speaker is placed near a reflective surface (say, a concrete or painted sheetrock wall), the direct sound coming from the speaker and the reflected sound coming from the wall can arrive at the listener’s ears out of phase with each other. This creates cancellation and reinforcement, sometimes at hard-to-predict frequencies.
The good news is that you can measure what a room does to a sound system, and you can optimize the system to improve its output in that venue. That’s not to say you can make your system sound as good in Madison Square Garden as it would in the superb acoustics of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw; but you can make it sound a lot better with the right tools, good ears, and some experience.
System optimization and alignment are the processes of minimizing the room’s effect on your speaker’s ability to reproduce sound. System alignment creates the best possible environment for your mix—even if the room isn’t the best possible environment for listening to music. This offers several benefits.
Smaart Measurement Technology and the StudioLive mixer provide the crucial tools that can help you solve these issues. With Smaart, you can really put StudioLive's graphic and parametric EQs to work improving the sound of your P.A.
Precisely identify nasty feedback frequencies. Get your loudspeakers to play nicer with the room they're in — all without having a degree in acoustical engineering. VSL’s Smaart implementation is accessible and intuitive, so that inexperienced users can make basic adjustments to the system, and experienced users can adjust the system quickly and precisely.