Logic Pro How can I suppress larsens when mixing with Logic ?

V

Vincent Kenis

Logician
Dear Xers & 9ers

I recorded a band live, unfortunately there was quite a lot of near-larsen ringing in the monitors on stage. When mixing I tried to fix the prob using the standard EQ, with mixed results: actually there seem to be more frequencies to suppress than there are bands available on the EQ, the frequency of some ringings is really hard to spot, and the end result sounds really weak. I heard about automatic detection of larsens in PAs and would like to know if something using the same principle (but "offline") in available in Logic X, and if not does it exist as a 3d party plug-in ?

In any case, I'd love to hear about any non-automated makeshift trick in 9 or X to cure the problem !

Thank you
 
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IMHO, you could attenuate it but your audio recording quality is going to suffer and heavily pay the price because the larsen will overlap with useful frequency ranges, therefore even with narrower Q's you are going to either kill your input signal quality or not remove enough of it.
If possible, next time position the vibrating elements and/or monitors differently so that the resonant parts don't vibrate enough to kill your recordings and make sure your levels are ok (ie not too high).
 
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Thank you, unfortunately there will be no "next time"... subsidiairy question: since there are not enough bands in the channel EQ plug-in to treat all larsen frequencies, would the audio suffer even more if I put 2 eq's in series to take care of the problem ?
 
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I had to google what Larsen frequencies are 🙂
It turns out that it's audio feedback and Larsen is the Danish guy who first explained why it occurs. It strange that in Denmark we call it feedback and other places it's known as Larsen ringing. I wonder why Danes don't call it something with Larsen 🙂
Anyway I agree with the other post. As narrow as possible and if one eq isn't enough then use 2 but of course only your ears can decide when to stop. And have a visual thing like the multimeter open so you can see where the problems are.
Also of course use automation to keep their ugly heads down. I doubt that you can get completely rid of it but depending on the type of music it can also send a signal of it being alive, kicking and dangerous. Not that great if it's a classical flute concert though. It's gonna take a lot of squealing to make that dangerous 🙂

It can only be a problem on a few tracks or what. If not it must have been hell for the band playing the gig.
 
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I use Izotope RX2 for this kind of surgery. I think there's a working demo of it. You can see the problem spots and then attenuate them or replace them.


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Thank you all, will check out Izotope !

Since these ringing tones are not funamentally different from the sound produced by naturally reverberating spaces, wouldn't it be possible to memorize the characteristics of the larsen ringing just like you record an impulse response, and then apply that "reverb" out of phase ? just thinking out loud...
 
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