Hi Nancy!
- BG> sound and the ambient reverb field of the environment. This
->BG> interface between the acoustics of the room and the
->BG> electroacoutsics  feeding it is crucial to the success of a
->BG> sound system, and it is largely  not even being addressed by
->BG> the majority of the "sound engineers" out there. Most rock or
->BG> other concert acts have no consideration of even coverage over
->BG> the entire room, even spectral distribution over the  seating
.
-> Reminds me of a "consulting" job a family-run country show wanted
-> done (at least the papa of the bunch) in PCB, Fl.  The ex and I went
-> in, during a slow night, (cause they didn't want to run the system on
-> an empty building - their sound "man" wasn't gonna be there any other
-> time except prior to and during a show.).  The night was a "slow"
-> one, and it didn't take long with two of us moving through the
-> seating (theatrical in an aluminum building with theatrical drape
-> everywhere to deaden the room.) They knew ahead of time there were
-> hot spots and dead spots in the room and wanted to know how to fix
-> them.
Ah yes, free consulting.. what a concept. So many times I've been stuck
in similar situations where they wanted a complete system design and
then expect to get it for free. Most of the time I have been directly
working with a contractor/dealer so we could "absorb" the consulting in
the profits. I even had one small hotel/convention center purchase a
system and when I came to install it, told me that they had shopped my
bid and gotten a better deal elsewhere (with a lot of corners cut), but
when it went to court, I knew I was out of luck when the judge knew him
personally.. small towns... You be amazed at the sloppy job this other
contractor did, maybe not though, come to think of it, I've seen so much
schlokky work done under the guise of "professional sound" over the
years.
-> No matter what we tried to do to convince them to move the speakers,
-> they couldn't seeit... but they knew they had a problem. (Go ->
-> figger).
They either became instant experts (isn't if funny how often THAT
happens, after all they know someone who owned a stereo system once)
->They even wanted an analysis of the mix itself - and when we told
->them there were problems but nothing that a good mix master couldn't
->fix, they didn't want to change the mix. I guess they figured we'd
->come in there and rant about how good everything was.
They were looking for validation that their sound system was primo. It
wasn't, they didn't want to hear about it apparently. Note how
they all of a sudden knew enough to reject any ideas you gave
them!
Regarding mixes, though, I've never heard of setting the knobs and
walking away from a serious mix, I'm constantly adjusting something to
tweak the mix correctly from an acoustical, sound system and most
importantly, musically valid mix.
-> Bottom line: when they wanted more information, we said, "let's
-> talk money!"  Then they didn't need any sound consulting
-> whatsoever. I guess they figured we'd do it for the admission
-> price for each person (3 of us).
That is a tough thing to do, having the value of your information
percieved and how your information compares in value what Joe Schmoe
from DJ Sound just told them. Sounds like you gave them a bunch of
consulting for free. Hopefully, they at least listend to the ideas
for future reference.
I've seldom been able to get paid just for my knowledge, hearing ability
and audio expertise. It's even harder when you are female to get that
"trust" level sufficient to be able to charge for what you're worth
(besides I can't work that cheap!). Fortunately, locally, I've
estabishled a good degree of credability with the the local theatre
folks with sound design, operation, and consulting. As an example, now
that the Sacramento Ballet can't afford a live orchestra any more (and
the Sacramento Symphony is becoming the Sacramento Symphathy and going
bankrupt), I do most of the editing of their program material, and am
hired as an "extra set of ears" when it comes to setup and alignment of
the sound system for the performances at the Community Center Theatre,
which is a very nice roughly 3000 seat "opera house" style venue
locally.
 I just talked with someone that works in a convention center about 100
miles north of here that had me come up and do what I could with their
equipment. The original contractor had sold them 4 of the large Altec
Multicell horns and had set them up in a very cockeyed fashion in the
1000 seat auditorium. I've always liked the Altec line, making
stuff that will last as long as the facility it is put in, but not
necessarily THE finest.
After viewing the room from the cluster for a while, and mulling it
over, we rearranged the horns, placing two of them side by side on the
bottom to splay across the front to mid seats on one of the
amplifiers, and took the other two horns and placed them on top of each
other and pointed them to a center point about 2/3s back of the room on
the other amplifier, readjusted the levels in the room, and over 12
years later, they are still using the same sound system and it is doing
the job for them (except for larger shows requiring more extensive and
specialized systems). While the horns were not really "ideal" for the
situation, they did work fairly well after we were done. I guess that it
is still doing the job after that long is proof. Everything else about
the installation was fine except for that electroacoustical interface..
matching the sound system to the room. Another system designed by a
techinician, rearranged by an engineer to work better, not ideally, but
better.
 Bonnie *:>
--- QScan/PCB v1.18b / 01-0249
---------------