Hi Tim!
First off, that was a wonderful response to my post about sound system
installation at venues for concerts. Nice to see that there are a few
really experienced people participating in here. You made some very
valid points in your response that need to be addressed.
Some of my comments are addressed from the point of view of what would
be done in permenant installations, where you have all the time in the
world to accomplish that perfect alignment of all components to the
room and engineers have tweaked everything to death.
>> ...that take time alignment of the drivers out of the picture,
>> which is only one of many things involved in aligning a sound system.
> Ever see the gunsight that clips into the E-Track on a Flashlight
> system?  That kinda takes care of physical dispertion alignment
> in a big way, there...
Yes, that is a nice way to ballpark array alignment. What does this have
to do with time alignment, which is different than taking a little time
to get alignment.
Time alignment of drivers is usually not a problem with today's rigging
and speaker systems that are self contained full range units already in
alignment and designed to work in the arrayed configuration. Most of the
currently touring systems have some "down angle" systems for the frontal
seats, but seldom do I see a difference between "mid distance" and "far
throw" array components in most of the shows that come to our largest
venues which should allow more appropriate SPLs fed to each section of
the house. Using seperate control of amps on each section of coverage
helps for quick alignment in venues, which, as you know, is usually
done.
-> Even the finest sound system in a football stadium will still sound
-> like a football stadium.
You're right.  And there's a point of diminishing returns that can be
reached rather quickly in those environments.
That's why some attention to getting dispersion of sound only to the
seating areas is so important in such places and why control over the
array(s)is so important.
-> Most rock or other concert acts have no consideration of even
-> coverage over the entire room, even spectral distribution over the
-> seating areas.
Right again.  SPL is the _major_ consideration in rock concerts - all
that has to be done is to get a lot of volume to most of the arena, with
frequency response being a secondary consideration (unfortunately).
We're speaking of highly portable, road-rugged systems, designed to do
a down-and-dirty job in as efficient a manner as possible.  And, of
course, the "football arena" reasoning comes into the picture as well.
>> It's the seeming lack of REAL engineering that goes into the design
>> and installation of some of these systems...
> I'll tell Roy Clair & M.L. Procise you said that.  }:->  They'll look
> you up next time they're in Sacramento...
Great!! Haha! I don't proclaim to know more than they do about the
business that they excel at, but I may have a few fine points to
discuss with them that could enhance their efforts.
-> ...but excellent sound takes that extra effort, experience,
-> engineering and tweaking USING TEST EQUIPMENT EXTENSIVELY.
> use of the word "extensively" concerns me greatly.  In today's one
> nighter concert world, and with Teamster, IATSE, and IBEW calls to be
> considered, the labor "fat" needs to be trimmed everywhere possible.
> If an engineer/operator/whatever is holding up the entire production
> crew and union call whilst tweaking a system at 105db, then you've got
> major problems on your hands with the promoter. There comes a time
> during setup when you've got to call it quits.The lighting crew can't
> focus their 600+ cans while pink noise (or worse, a Yanni CD) is
> blasting out from the mains, the ushers and decorators can't hear
> themselves think while they prepare the venue, the video people can't
> communicate effectively while tweeking their ten Barcos, etc.etc.etc.
All valid points and very true. Typical IATSE calls that I have worked
cuts most of the workforce after the initial 4 hour call and usually,
the sound crew has been given an hour to fiddle and tweak the sound
system. It is the efficiency in using the available time for tweaking
the environment that I question on EVERY call I've been on. Since I
don't believe that the majority of the mixers that work the shows
actually have a clue on how to use most of the test equipment out there
(real time analysis, TEF, SIMII etc), they waste most of that audio
tweaking time seasoning to taste, which also is important somewhere in
the equation, but after real testing has been done.
There are much more expediant ways of adjusting a sound system than to
have someone walk the room with an SPL meter while hitting the room with
140dB while making almost obscene jestures at who ever is tweaking
things. One easy way that comes to mind is to take an hour of that
expensive IATSE labor to run out cables and calibrated mics to
representative locations for testing purposes in an automated testing
setup that will allow you to have access to many views of the room
simultaniously, and with some of the existing and new equipment out
there such as some of the Crown TEF software for making inverse EQs that
can communicate with parametric EQ units and such, can help take the
majority of the drudery out of basic system alignments and
inconsistancies from night to night. I would love to design such a
system for your buddies!
> There's lots to be said for expediency.  "Close Gets It!" applies
> heavily in the modern concert world, where folks have to realize that
> there's lots more than _sound_ involved in a production.  The tickets
> aren't being sold to folks coming to "hear" the band; those ticket
> buyers are looking to "experience" the band.  I guarantee you that
> absolutely _no_ major concert artist would perform with a half-setup
> sound system - but I also guarantee you that doors would be held for
> a half-setup light rig as well.  Same goes for video.
I agree, and as it is said in theatre, "The show must go on!". And so it
does.. In the highly competitive world of concert sound, closer is what
gets the gigs. Even George Lucas admits that half of his movies is
sound. Don't you think that hearing the band is at least that amount if
not much more, after all, what sold this audience on that band in the
first place?
As an aside, isn't it interesting that much of the audience wants to
hear the same performance as the record down to the tiniest nuances
exactly? I prefer to hear how the song has matured since it "went into
the can".
> And that's where the plug-n-play systems come into the picture.  Speed
> is everything, and if the system can be made mostly pure in a 1/2hour,
> without compromising more than 2% of the seats, well, then, that's
> good enough for the evening, thank you very much.  And don't be too
> concerned about every last single member of the audience - you can't
> please all of the people all of the time, but you _can_ please most of
> the people most of the time.
Ah yes,"The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few!"-StarTrek
But what if you can make 10 times the amount of alignment in the same
amount of time, don't you believe this is worth that extra effort. Heck,
with the amount of redundancy in equipment and total expense to package
a tour, wouldn't this be worth having such a test system go out with a
show tour.
> The 2% rule is applied _heavily_ in the midwest, where Contemporary
> Group, one of the nation's largest concert promoters, came up with
> that theory. The reasoning is simple: of your audience, less than 2%
> of them should have a major problem with any aspect of the production.
> And in a worst case scenario at a shed, 2% of 25,000 is 500 people.
At today's ticket prices, thats $10k-$15k or more in revenue that you
might not have thinking about coming back to another show run by that
promoter.
> I don't think it's even possible for an engineer or a system to piss
> off 500 folks, even out of 25,000, without destroying the system, or
> being called on the carpet by the promoter or the road manager.
The one time I ever had the chance to see Frank Zappa live, I couldn't
a word of what he said intelligably, and I was some kind of pissed. If
you can take steps to reduce that "2% rule" to a lower level, it could
be the competitive edge that gets you more work as a sound system
company. The additional expense of the test setup and a qualified
engineer to run it could be well worth the effort.
> Catchya...
Very thought provoking comments, Tim. I haven't had to work so hard in
a long time to clarify points in defense of such a good reply to my
ranting and raving! I'm looking forward to your response on this.
Bonnie *:>
bonnie.goodwin@juno.com
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