Audio issues plague Garth Brooks concert at Mercedes-Benz Stadium

[derekleffew]

http://www.cbs46.com/story/36591293...garth-brooks-concert-at-mercedes-benz-stadium

It's ALWAYS the venue's fault, right?

 

[MNicolai]

Ivan @ Danley posted this to Facebook:

For my Facebook audio friends.

The Garth Brooks show at the new Mercedes Benz stadiums DID NOT use any of the Danley house sound system.

The original plan (a couple of months ago) was to tie in and use the upper sections as delays (the lower sections would be turned off and sound for those areas would be from the center stage).

But this was scrapped by the production company and they provided ALL of the sound gear for the show.

None of the Danley products were used.

The original plan would have been much better, but they just HAD TO USE line arrays------------ because "everybody" knows that tour sound is better than installed sound. UH NO.

Oh well. Maybe someday the world will start to understand.

YES, this is a bad room acoustically. But if you listen to the house (Danley system) you will quickly realize that it is much better than what was provided.

Directivity IS your friend. Especially in places like this.

Also, much of the acoustic treatments have been put off until Phase 2, so at multiple points in time this fiasco was preventable.

 

[JohnD]

Then there is this thread at PS
http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,165156.0.html
Post # 33 by Tom Danley is worth a look see.

 

[cekren]

It sounds like the tour turned down the offer to utilize the house's Danley system that had been tuned and designed to adequately cover the space. Instead, they opted to use the tour's line-array rigs with multiple delay clusters. The original system for the space was a line array but Danley Sound Labs ended up getting the bid due to the fewer speakers required and vastly reduced acoustic treatment required to attain an adequate STIPA rating for intelligible spoken word in comparison.

Not to say the tour was "in the wrong" in this case - house systems are almost never used by tours as there is no way to know how up to the task the installed systems might be. And most of the time they're not. In many venues it's a much better idea to simply stick with what's on the trucks as the system engineers are familiar with the system and know its capabilities.

The thread JohnD linked to is very informative and has info straight from several Danley employees about where the failures in the space really occurred. It is an acoustical nightmare of a venue, especially at the lower frequencies.

 

[FMEng]

Acoustics are the last thing to be considered in the design, and the first thing to get cut when the budget gets tight.

A mentor of mine was an owner's rep for the design of a large gymnasium/auditorium back in the late 1960s. The budget was getting tight and they wanted to reduce the cost of the sound system. After listening to their request, he turned to the architect and asked if they had space and money for more restrooms? Looks of confusion spread around the table. My friend explained that if people could not properly hear the event, that their attention would turn to themselves, and many more people would make trips to the restrooms. His sound system budget was restored.