Hi Fritzj

Thanks for that, really useful and interesting.   As you suspected the SPAN routing was actually fairly elementary. 

If anyone's interested, you just press the button marked "routing" that actually look like it's a drop down box and then set the input routing channels as A,B,C,D etc.   Then you can just send an insert from any track to one of the 3 inputs on the instance of SPAN you have loaded. You can then compare it against the original track SPAN is loaded on by choosing the corresponding "underlay group" button. Or you can compare and select it against any of the other groups if you have tracks routed to them. 

you can actually see what tracks are filling up the frequencies without having to check one track at a time?

First - as CJ notes - the primary goal is train your ears to identify issues/solutions.  Use these analyzers as learning tools as you experiment but make surethey don't become permanent crutches.
 
Second - I used to think I wanted to do what you are asking.  In the end, I put the analyzers across the Master Bus and then solo/group tracks that I want to analyze.  For example, I work on my kick + bass EQs this way - so that I can see (as well as hear) the bass and kick don't clobber each other too much.  I'll then add in the rest of the lower-frequency instruments (using track Solo buttons) to check.
Having four track lines showing simultaneously wasn't fun for me.  In the end, I was interested in the SOUND primarily, but visually, as long as the overall curve was fine, I was fine .
 
Be interested in hearing back on what you try and learn since you're a fresh pair of eyes (and ears ) in this area.

Span is so useful for those resonant frequencies that you want to track down and kill, mutilate or just lower their levels. Depending on your mood that day.

Middleman


Span is so useful for those resonant frequencies that you want to track down and kill, mutilate or just lower their levels. Depending on your mood that day.

That is funny! :)
 

mike_mccue


""SPAN supports multi-channel analysis and can be set to display spectrums from two different channels or channel groups at the same time.  Spectrum's color can be chosen to taste."

And indeed SPAN does have 4 input channels that you can choose as inserts. Presumably you should be able to display different channels by choosing group buttons or choosing a group to underlay.  I say "presumably" as unfortunately I can't seem to get this to work and there doesn't seem to be any documentation about it.  Does anyone know how to set up this function or does it not work? "

Yes, it is a fantastic feature.

best regards,
mike

Thanks Mike I had not checked for a while but version 2.1 certainly does.
 
After your ears and a reasonably well conditioned mixing space I can highly recommend Span to give a fair visual view of what is going on.

For what it's worth, we are being taught at college that analyzers are better for live sound to get a good freq response in what ever venue is being set up, as for in the box, i'm with every one else on using your ears, peace

SPAN, unfortunately does not support overlays from other SPAN instances the way GlissEQ does. GlissEQ is SPAN's elder sibling: SPAN is actually GlissEQ with the equalizer functionality stripped out.

Another SPAN tip: version 2 offers a "Master" mode, which gives an averaged output that works better (IMO) for fitting parts together spectrally.

I actually prefer the older version (1.9.1) of SPAN, if you can find a copy of that. I use it far more often than the newer version (2.1).

[EDIT] Hey, wookie, can you elaborate on "...version 2.1 certainly does"? I was not aware that he'd put that feature into SPAN. When asked about it in the past, Aleksy has said it's too cool a feature to give away for free.

[EDIT #2]I did a little research and it does appear that you can show multiple displays but it's not as convenient as with GlissEQ. Apparently you have to kludge it using its multiple-input feature.

Another nice option in the span is when you hold down the ctrl key and the left mouse key you get  a light coloured green type triangular  line that you can move about and it shows you the exact frequency and db up in the right hand corner.

[EDIT] Hey, Wookiee, can you elaborate on "...version 2.1 certainly does"? I was not aware that he'd put that feature into SPAN. When asked about it in the past, Aleksy has said it's too cool a feature to give away for free.
 
 [EDIT #2]I did a little research and it does appear that you can show multiple displays but it's not as convenient as with GlissEQ. Apparently you have to kludge it using its multiple-input feature.

 
My bad the comment was based on about 15mins with it at that point it looked good then having posted it became apparent that the multi display one does have to "kludge" it.
 
Have you got somewhere we can get 1.9.1 I only have 1.8?

Chregg


For what it's worth, we are being taught at college that analyzers are better for live sound to get a good freq response in what ever venue is being set up, as for in the box, i'm with every one else on using your ears, peace

 
Back in my band days.... that is exactly what we did. We found a really great room, set up the PA and adjusted the speakers EQs while monitoring with an analyzer until the speakers were flat (used pink noise as the signal). Then we mixed the best live sound we could get followed by marking all the board and outboard settings.
 
After that we only had to run the analyzer, flatten the speakers for the club room we were playing and no mixing (or minimal) was required. Saved a huge amount of time.