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>>>..what settings constitute a "flat" sound?...>>>

Every place you play has its own acoustic properties, depending on its size, shape, materials, etc. These factors may emphasize one frequency or diminish another frequency. It you were to see this on an ocilloscope you would see a spike or a dip in the readout. The engineers job is to adjust the sound so that the spike or dip is gone. This condition is called 'flat' because that's what it looks like on the scope.

The term is also used by extension to refer to a similar adjusting process that recording engineers perform in the studio.


Douglas Wolfe
Sacramento

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