How to Setup active crossover dbx 223XL into your PA system | DJ Setup | Live bands | Live events

hi guys uh welcome to my channel audio video me uh today in this video I'm going to show you how to set up an active crossover in your PA system uh also I'm going to explain what is an active crossover and what's the difference between active and passive crossover and uh what is the main purpose of using an active crossover in your PA system okay to start with the uh active crossovers are basically electronic uh pre-amplification uh filtration devices uh that sits between your mixing desk and your uh amplifiers uh the main purpose of uh using an active crossover or the main function of active crossover is to do the filtration of the frequencies and Route it to the proper speaker system they are destined for uh so for example uh it filters the lower end frequency quencies and Route it towards uh your base bins and uh filters the higher frequencies and send it to your tweeters and uh mid-range top speakers okay um uh what's the main difference between active and passive crossovers uh as I said uh active crossovers uh they are pre-amplification electronic filtration devices and uh passive crossovers they are post uh amplification uh electronic filtration devices and uh most of the time uh uh uh passive crossovers they are installed inside the speaker cabinets uh okay next I'm going to show you how to do the wiring and how to actually actually connect an active crossover uh within your PS system uh okay so just going to uh show you the back of my rack now okay guys uh this is the back of uh my rack and uh uh basically what you need to do is uh take a uh left output of your mixer and uh plug it in into uh input uh Channel One input one on your uh uh active crossover and uh right output uh from the Mi mixer and uh uh put it into input uh on uh Channel 2 uh on your uh active crossover uh now uh there are different types of active crossover uh I'm going I'm demonstrating this in uh stereo mode uh you can use it as three-way mono or four-way mono as well uh but for this demonstration I'm just using two-way stereo mode uh okay uh once you have uh connected uh uh xlr's output from your mixer left and right right to channel one and channel two inputs on your uh active crossover what you need to do is now uh Drive the uh upper speakers or tweeters uh from one amplifier and the base bins from uh another amplifier so basically you're going to need two amplifiers and this this can put this setup into uh buy amplification setup as well uh so next next what you need to do is uh for for your tops speakers so for your tweeters and the mid-range speaker what you need is take a output uh from uh channel one uh high output and plug it into the first amplifier which you're going to use for your main speakers uh and plug it in into uh channel one on your amplifier first amplifier then take another uh high output from your uh active crossover and plug it into channel two on your first amplifier repeat the same for uh uh your base bin so uh low output from your channel one goes into the uh Channel One input on your second amplifier and low output from your active crossover uh from your channel 2 goes into the channel 2 of your second speaker so as I said uh this is basically a bu amplification setup as well uh so this is the basic setup of uh uh an active crossover uh and and uh this demonstrates uh how you do the wiring now there is more to active crossover uh like if you can see or not uh there are few switches uh here uh uh it's called Uh uh X over frequency uh so basically I'll explain later on what it uh what that means there is uh uh another switch uh that is Stereo or mono uh so if I want to use my amplifi uh active crossover as uh studo mode then I you uh then I use this stereo switch if not then I just press it to use it in mono mode uh and this switch is low some so if you're using it in mono mod and you don't want to use or or if you're using like just only one sub uh and not two sub then you just press the low sum and uh it just basically disables the uh low output on channel 2 okay let's uh get back to the front of the rack and uh let's play some music uh to see the difference of uh adding an active crossover uh into your PS system okay all right let's check the front of the uh active crossover and uh what the knobs mean and uh I'll play some music uh to to uh demonstrate the difference uh between between different functions of the active crossover okay to start with I'm just going to zoom in a little bit on on the knobs of uh active crossover okay okay hopefully you guys can see it clearly okay uh so basically on the left hand side of this activ crossover uh is the main gain uh so it's the um signal coming in into channel one uh I can apply uh - 12 DB to plus 12 DB of gain so if I increase it let's play some music so if I increase it it's going to increase the overall uh signal uh volume on on my channel one which is my left uh uh Twitter and my uh left sub okay I'm just going to place it into nominal level let me just decrease the volume a bit okay now this second knob is the crossover frequency knob which is the most important uh knob uh on on an active crossover not determines at what frequency it's going to cross over uh so uh at the moment it is set up at about 100 Hertz uh because uh uh the way uh I'll I'll show you so here I'm playing the music uh now let me uh bring the volume down of my uh uh tops which are my mid-range speakers and my tweeters so I'm just going to bring that volume down okay probably you can hear the base now which is driven by the second uh um amplifier now as I said this frequency determines I'm just going to increase the volume a bit so you could hear it uh because I've got a small microphone Okay so so now this knob determines at uh what frequency it's going to cross over so if I increase this to like let's say about 240 HZ and let me do the same with the right channel [Music] sub you can probably hear I'm going to increase it to 350 HZ so after increasing uh the crossover frequency to 350 HZ you can you can see that you can hear that uh you can hear the lyrics which which is not what I want to achieve so what I want to achieve is a Bunchy base out of my Subs so I'm just going to uh decrease it to 100 Hertz and I'm just going to decrease this one as well to 100 [Music] htz okay as you can now hear that it's a it's only base coming out of my subs and I can't hear any uh mid-range notes coming out of my sub so at 100 HZ I want uh my active crossover to do the crossover so what that means that means that uh all the frequencies uh from 100 htz and below are uh sent to the subwoofers and uh all the above 100 uh 101 Hertz uh and above frequencies they go to the uh tweeters and uh the mid-range speakers uh okay what is the uh there is also another uh switch here uh which is basically a high pass filter um uh at 40 htz so if you don't want unwanted Rumble uh coming out of your base pins you can just switch this on uh so anything below 40 htz it's going to be basically disregarded by your uh active crossover and this is a low output gain is the gain that goes to the subwoofer and then next to it is the high output uh gain that goes to the uh tweeters and uh the mid-range speakers uh okay uh there is a knob uh called phase uh invert knob uh uh basically if there are any polarity issues U with the cabling in in yourp setup then you can press that button to address it and uh and uh uh this applies uh to your uh sub and this uh phase invert applies to your high uh okay as I said on the back I showed you there was a knob called uh uh X10 crossover basically what that does is if you can see uh this uh crossover frequency at the moment is 45 HZ to 960 HZ if you press that X10 uh knob on the back of active crossover it's just going to uh change the frequency range from uh uh 45 HZ to 450 HZ uh to uh 960 khz uh if you're going to press that uh but we are running it in uh stereo mode and uh I want to do the crossover frequency uh at 100 Herz or a little bit more or less so I'm I'm not going to use the x10 switch on the back uh okay uh let's play some music to hear some more difference okay okay so I'm just going to demonstrate you with another song uh uh so I'm just going to take the higher speakers the tweeters and the midrange speakers down and just going to increase the volume a bit so at the moment I'm doing the crossover at about uh 100 htz uh so anything uh starting 100 htz and Below uh they are going to my subwoofers and uh let me put the overall gain to nominal which is zero just do the crossover at 240 Herz as you can see that now you can hear uh the lyrics coming out of the sub wers which is which you don't want uh you want Punchy base coming out of the subwoofers so best is to leave the crossover frequency to 100 HZ as you can probably hear now that the only thing uh that goes to the subwoofers uh is the base uh now if I switch on the 40 htz on both channels so basically uh after pressing the 40 HZ low cat filter what I've done is I have applied uh a low coat high pass filter into channel one and channel 2 any frequencies uh starting 40 HZ and Below they're going to be dropped so they're not going to go to the subwoofers uh I'm just going to take this off at the moment [Music] and I'm just going to do the same uh with the subes so [Music] just going to zoom out a [Music] bit okay so now it's just going to increase the volume okay now I'm going to take the subwoofers [Music] down I my and now I'm going to put the sub whoopers again up floor Nothing is for anymore don't the world guys hope I've explained uh uh the main purpose of an active crossover uh in a PA system setup and uh but if you guys have any more questions uh then you can leave a comment and I'll get back to you um if you have liked this video uh then uh take on the like icon and I'll appreciate it I'll keep making more informative videos related to commercial and residential audio visuals okay bye-bye

Channel: AVME Videos

Views: 421,665

Keywords: Audio Crossover, Sound, Concert, Public Address System, Disc Jockey (Profession), dbx active crossover, live bands, live events, DJ, PA system, XLR, Ipod, Music, Bass, QSC amps, Live Event Support, Disco, Clubs, Night Clubs, Music Party

Id: 35ShkaBQQAI

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 02 2015