Using the Bink Audio Test CD

Tracks 1-2: Track Identification. These tracks will help you confirm the correc
t Left and Right patching and routing through your system. Track 2 has (in order
) Left only, then Right only, then both Left and Right together (Center), then L
eft and Right with inverted polarity (Surround.) If your system has a polarity p
roblem somewhere between Left and Right then the "Center" sample will sound unlo
calized or absent and the "Surround" sample will seem punchy and centered. In a
mono PA "Surround" should disappear completely.
Track 3: Dual Tone 700/1000. You can send these tones panned to extreme Left and
Right to a broadcast or recording feed to set levels and to verify Left and Rig
ht channels. Left = Lower frequency = 700 Hz.
Tracks 4-5: 700 & 1000. These are level-setting tones useful for channel gain po
ts, compressor and limiter levels, feeds to external mixers, etc. 1kHz is the de
facto standard of broadcast audio level setting -- your satellite and mobile re
cording techs will expect to see 1kHz coming from your mixer. You still need to
chat with them to define whether you are sending them A) the absolute ceiling le
vel beyond which you'll never go or B) some idea of unity level or 0dB which inc
ludes a certain amount of headroom for peaks in the program. You should loop or
repeat Track 5 if you need to send 1k tone for longer than one minute. You can a
lso listen for crosstalk in your gear using these tones. For instance, check to
see if your Aux sends leak some of this tone through when you assign the CD play
er to the main bus or the PFL bus.
Track 6: Log Tone Sweep. This track is very useful for listening to your speaker
systems in order to catch any peaks or valleys in the response. You will hear a
brief dip or jump in SPL where the response isn t ideal. Outdoors the response cu
rve you hear will be mostly speaker- and array-related. Indoors you will also ge
t a lot of room response characteristics coloring the pure sound of the sweep. K
nowing your own personal hearing curve will help you translate the sound of this
track into beneficial system adjustments. A note: Listen for swishing and swirl
ing sounds mixed in with the pure tone sweep to see if your CD player is poorly
made or if something in your sound system generates harmonic distortion. Before
critical listening please ask others in the venue to be quiet as this track more
than any other makes people want to joke around by whistling or singing along -
- it reminds many people of a cartoon where something is going to blow up..! But
the high frequencies are rolled off at a gentle and constant rate to keep them
from taking anyone's head off. This track is meant to be played at a constant fa
der level from start to finish.
Track 7: Linear Tone Sweep. This track is like Track 6 but is for fine-tuning th
e HF response of your sound system. You can hear more clearly how your various h
igher bandpasses work individually and how they blend together. Due to its linea
r contour, this sweep goes quickly from 20 Hz to 2k and moves much more slowly f
rom 2k to 20k. Using this track with people around will not make you any new fri
ends
Tracks 8-10: LF Warbles. These up-and-down sweeps are for confirming your subwo
ofers smooth transition to your LF drivers. Pick the warble which is centered clo
sest to your subwoofer crossover point. Playing this track will help you hear th
ings like bandpasses out-of-polarity, SPL gaps between bandpasses, SPL peaks fro
m overlapping bandpasses (very common) and room response quirks. Check to see if
there is a sense of motion (a seeming change in location) from low to high and
back as the sound shifts from sub to LF. You are looking for a solid wall of war
ble, not shifting localization.
Tracks 11-44: Pure sine wave tones. These tracks include those centered on the I
SO frequencies found on 1/3-octave graphic EQs. (1kHz is missing in this sequenc
e since it is available at Track 5.) You might find these tones useful for ear t
raining so that you can spot feedback frequencies more quickly during gigs. Have
your tech friends quiz you as they play a track back. You can also use these to
nes to check driver polarity within a bandpass. Pick a frequency close to the mi
ddle of a bandpass (far from crossover points) and move your ear from a line thr
ough the center of one driver to the center of another driver in the same bandpa
ss. If there is a level dip between them then you have a polarity problem. Sever
al extra non-ISO frequencies are added in the lower ranges to help you understan
d the performance limits of your LF drivers and your subwoofers. The lowest few
tones can help you determine the proper level of subwoofer HPF -- that is, wheth
er you have enough 'low-cut' to keep your amps from overheating and to save your
sub drivers from overexcursion. Very few live sound systems will yield any meas
urable SPL from the highest tone, 20kHz.
Tracks 45-47: Piano, Drums. These soulless instrumental tracks (no Grammy in sig
ht) are presented dry (no effects) and can serve as a reality check for system c
onfirmation.
Track 48: Metronome 120bpm. You can use this track after setting delay times to
confirm that the main system meshes neatly with the delay system(s). Of course,
if your delay is off by exactly 1/2 second, this track won't help you at all...
Track 49: Crest Wave. This sound is a jarring mix of 100 Hz, 200, 300, 400 etc.
tones continuing up the scale in 100 Hz steps to 1k, then in 500 Hz steps to 10k
, then in 1kHz steps to 20k. Like white noise it can be used to set levels on ge
ar not including speakers. Even though there is no DC offset, the energy of this
complex wave touches the positive digital ceiling but only gets ~ 1/3rd of way
down to the digital negative limit. Peak amplitude is 0dB. Average RMS power is
-16.13 dB. This track can damage speakers if played too loudly.
Tracks 50-51: DC Offset. These tracks look like flat lines on a graph; they are
not sound waves at all. The Left channel is positive and the Right channel is ne
gative. If added together and turned into mono they will cancel completely. If y
ou pick just one channel these tracks are useful in discovering whether your amp
s can amplify DC or if they are sufficiently protected by high-pass filters. Tra
ck 51 is especially dangerous as it is full range -- the levels hit the digital
ceiling and floor! The track ramps in from idle taking 2 seconds, lasts 20 secon
ds at full, then ramps back down to idle in 2 seconds. If you bypass all the HPF
in your system and feed DC offset straight to your sub amps, you will usually s
ee the drivers move outward if they are fed the Left channel and inward if they
are fed the Right channel. Some systems are wired differently due to crossover c
haracteristics... Certainly check to see if all the drivers are moving the same
direction.
Track 52: 1000 Hz Reversed Polarity. This track is helpful in determining whethe
r your panning is perfectly centered. A centered pan pot combined with identical
channel trims and fader levels will result in complete cancellation of this ton
e. Normal low-level distortion and hiss will let a wee bit of 1000 Hz through bu
t in any case you can center your pan knob by noting the lowest level of audible
1k tone as you turn it.
Track 53: 1000 Hz Very Low Level. This tone is buried 60 dB down from the digita
l ceiling and is usually heard amid system hiss. You can use it to check system
linearity before your quieter gigs and on the feeds to recorders.
Tracks 54-55: Square Waves. Watch out for these tracks! Turn your amps off first
! Square waves are sometimes used in destructive testing at audio R&D labs... Do
n't run them at high volumes if at all. The most vulnerable part of your system
are the HF drivers which can fry with square waves! These tracks are useful in s
etting CD input trims. If your channel input doesn't distort from Track 55 (whic
h slams in at 3 dB above digital ceiling!), it won't distort from nearly any com
mercially available CD out there. You can also listen for crosstalk on other cha
nnels -- it comes through most severely with square waves in neighboring channel
s. It is not ever necessary to send square waves out to amps and speakers in a n
ormal live sound setup situation.
Track 56: White noise: This track has equal energy at every Hz. It can be used t
o calibrate levels of various pieces of gear not including speakers. It sounds m
uch too bright for use as a main EQ setting tool and can damage HF drivers. This
track has an average RMS power of -9.03 dB and a peak amplitude of -2.57 dB.
Track 57: 440 Hz sine 20 minutes. You can use this tone and a cheap piezo tweete
r to adjust the gain stages of all the pieces of gear up to but not including th
e crossover. Run the 440 into a mixer and out of a line level output into the pi
ezo tweeter. Turn up the input trim and the faders until you hear distortion art
ifacts (mainly 1320 Hz and higher) start to become audible in the piezo. Back th
e trim down a bit: you've just determined the ceiling beyond which this piece of
gear goes into distortion (despite what the red overload LEDs are reading.) Con
tinue through your various devices, hooking the piezo up to each output under te
st, and listen for high-frequency artifacts coming out of the piezo, ignoring th
e red LEDs. Align all your gear to distort simultaneously and you will benefit f
rom lower system hiss and greater total dynamic range. Warning: some CD players
add a little too much harmonic distortion to their output. First thing to do is
listen to your CD player's output straight into the piezo...
Track 58: Pink noise 20 minutes. Double Mono - same signal on both Left and Righ
t. This track allows you to set system EQ controls while using a high-quality om
nidirectional test microphone and a software audio analyzer tool like SmaartLive
, SIMM or SpectraFoo. Some experienced techs can EQ by ear with pink noise. You
can also use pink with audio analysis programs to set delay times. And pink nois
e is helpful in setting bandpass levels on crossovers. This track has these powe
r characteristics: Average RMS Power= -12.2dB. Max RMS Power= -8.77. Min RMS Pow
er= -14.9dB. Peak Amplitude= -1.65dB
Track 59: Silence. You can use this track (along with the commands Stop and Paus
e) to discover whether your CD player is adding small amounts of noise to your t
est tracks. Some cheaper CD players add a low-level, chirpy digital whine while
playing which will make your test results less precise. Others have excessive ha
rmonic distortion -- you might need to play a tone into a computer analysis tool
or 440 Hz into a piezo tweeter to discover this fault.