How to Stop Feedback on Your Allen & Heath SQ Console

You hear that little ring starting to hang around in the microphone. It hasn't taken off yet, but it's right on the edge.

That's the moment we wanna catch.

When you're dealing with feedback on your SQ console, you've got tools on board that can help you get out of that pinch. But before we start grabbing EQ bands, we need to hear what's happening—and make sure we're fixing the problem without taking the life out of the microphone.

First, hear it before it takes off

You need to train yourself to hear those little squeaks and squeals before they take off. I had a professor call it “taking off like a big dog.” We wanna hear it early so we can ease it back at the first sign of trouble.

The first way to get rid of feedback is to pull down the microphone's fader a little bit, if you can.

Sometimes it's in a monitor wedge. You can't always quickly pull down the right fader, and with a lot of inputs on stage, you may not know exactly where it's coming from. But when you find it and turn it down, you've found the limit of your gain before feedback with that mic, speaker placement, and EQ.

Now, what if you need a little more level?

Find the frequency that wants to ring

We wanna notch out the frequency that's going to feed back first with our equalizer.

In the demonstration, I watch the EQ screen and the RTA—the real-time analyzer—to find the frequency that's hanging around. I'm looking for that little bump that keeps ringing, so I can turn it down very narrowly.

And just so we're clear: my demonstration setup is deliberately a little stupid. I've got a microphone pointed straight at a studio monitor. That lets me show you what's happening, but studio monitors can overload and break from feedback. This is a demonstration of the problem, not a setup to copy.

Make a narrow cut on the PEQ

So this is what we're gonna do.

1. Go back to the PEQ. In this example, I use the high-frequency band and leave it on Peak.
2. Narrow the bandwidth. I make it as narrow as I can: one-ninth of an octave in this demonstration.
3. Set the frequency. Put it right where that ringing showed up on the RTA.
4. Turn that band down. Watch and listen to what happens as the cut reaches the problem frequency.

In the video, I put the frequency right where that bump is, turn it down, and the feedback goes away just like that.

That gives me more room before that frequency wants to feed back again. It doesn't mean I can keep turning the microphone up forever. As I push it further, another frequency can start to ring.

Don't use your EQ to turn everything down

Here's where we can get ourselves into trouble.

We hear feedback around one frequency, so we cut it. We turn the microphone up some more, hear another frequency, and cut that one too. Pretty soon, look at the yellow line: it's below zero all the way across.

When we've pulled down all the frequencies with EQ and pushed them all back up with the fader, we're working against ourselves. That's not the greatest way to audio engineer. We'll just say it that way.

And if we cut too much in the high mids—especially if we cut too wide—things start to sound distant and far away.

So leave as much as you can. Use narrow filters for the problem frequencies, and remember that mic placement and speaker placement are part of this too. EQ isn't the only tool we have.

At your next soundcheck

Listen for the little ring before it takes off. Find the microphone. Ease it back. If you need more level, identify the problem frequency and make a narrow cut while listening to the result.

We're trying to get the microphone loud enough to do its job while keeping it sounding like itself. Save this walkthrough for your next soundcheck, and use the demonstration to get familiar with what you're looking for on the screen.

Watch the full walkthrough

Wanna see the whole process on the console? Watch the full video, How To Remove Feedback for Sound At Church, and follow along as I find the ringing frequency, make the cut, and talk through the other things that affect gain before feedback.

Keep building your church sound skills

And if you wanna get more comfortable with your whole sound system, come join me inside Attaway Audio Academy. We'll work through the skills that help you get consistent, enjoyable mixes, so you can walk into your next soundcheck with a clearer idea of what to listen for and what to do next.

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