A hardware graphic EQ visualizer?

[Holiday]

As I now DJ with earplugs I am always looking for ways to improve my mixes taking into consideration I'm not always hearing what the audience hears. I was thinking if there was a hardware graphic EQ visualizer I could plug in the out of a mixer I can see where in the spectrum things are running hot (I do a lot of EQ mixing in transitions). Is there such a thing, on the cheap?

Also has anyone run an EQ after mixer pre speakers? For example if the room is really boomy and you want to trim the overall bass to suit and still keep your mixer EQ at 0.

[deevey]

Depends what you mean cheap.

Behringers' Ultracurve shows a live spectrum and does a whole lot more (EQ/Compression/Limiting/feedback elimination/programmable) etc for under $300 brand new which is pretty darn cheap for what it does.

Yes you'd run the outputs from the mixer > EQ/Processor chain into the speakers or amp.

Nothing is going to sound good though unless you EQ everything first by standing in the middle of the room with the music playing and trim everything pre-gig, without your earplugs. After that you should not need any visual on how to trim your mixer EQ.

Using your ears and pulling the sub down a few notches on a regular 15 band EQ is far easier than trying to EQ by eye, you get to know what the offending frequencies are pretty fast.

[bc6]

I think there was a mapping that Ian Goldman mapped an F1 to be a level dont know how well It might work as a spectrum analyzer though.

[Holiday]

The Ultacurve is an interesting piece of kit and the price seems right though the display is a bit small. I guess an alternative would be a low CPU EQ and/or Frequency Visualizer that sits between Traktor and the audio interface or perhaps loops back around. I guess what I'd like is a spectrum analyzer for Traktor like the one in Ableton Live. Idea is for example when i am swapping bass I can see if the energy is doubling up at any point in the transition. Again, the reason for the visual is because I DJ with earplugs.

Also I suppose any outboard EQ could fix up a bit the sound in the bar I've been DJing. Once the room and speaker dynamics are figured out.