Designing your own LCS/ Constellation type system

[macsound]

I've always wanted to do something simple that was inspired by an electronic Allen Organ, having effect speakers. For the organ, they were usually placed at the ceiling facing any direction but down and depending on how expensive the organ was determined how many channels of output you got.

In live sound, I've always been somewhat annoyed with how reverb or other "acoustical" effects sounded when you could visualize the speaker pattern, that is, when you could determine where the sound and the reverb were coming from. Depending on the space, equipment and tuning, and where you're standing, the speakers can disappear which also makes the reverb and effects sound more like they're more environmental and less fake.

In this vein, I've been interested in starting with smaller cabinets in the rear or rear sides of a room that have well EQ'd effects pumped through, of course based on the mix.
Then I thought, what would it be like to engineer a small scale LCS type system that was simple. Couple of room mics over the stage that would be heavily compressed based on a sidechained reference mic further back in the room, with a few surround and pendant speakers.

Anyone ever messed with LCS/ Constellation and or live sound's effects through surround or distributed effect channels? Unfortunately I've only experienced, but never was able to get involved in constellation.

 

[RonHebbard]

I've always wanted to do something simple that was inspired by an electronic Allen Organ, having effect speakers. For the organ, they were usually placed at the ceiling facing any direction but down and depending on how expensive the organ was determined how many channels of output you got.

In live sound, I've always been somewhat annoyed with how reverb or other "acoustical" effects sounded when you could visualize the speaker pattern, that is, when you could determine where the sound and the reverb were coming from. Depending on the space, equipment and tuning, and where you're standing, the speakers can disappear which also makes the reverb and effects sound more like they're more environmental and less fake.

In this vein, I've been interested in starting with smaller cabinets in the rear or rear sides of a room that have well EQ'd effects pumped through, of course based on the mix.
Then I thought, what would it be like to engineer a small scale LCS type system that was simple. Couple of room mics over the stage that would be heavily compressed based on a sidechained reference mic further back in the room, with a few surround and pendant speakers.

Anyone ever messed with LCS/ Constellation and or live sound's effects through surround or distributed effect channels? Unfortunately I've only experienced, but never was able to get involved in constellation.

@macsound Drill down Mr. and Mrs. Meyer's site for any of their major installations then contact their current installation's owner operators. Optimistically you'll be able to reach an operator and / or designer who's lived with the system for a decade or more.

I've only been personally involved with the installation of one such system, approximately ten years ago, and VERY peripherally with one more four to five years ago. If necessary, I may be able to conjure links to the most recent installation courtesy of Mr. and Mrs, Google. If I find anything useful, I'll edit and add a link or two.
@macsound Here's a link to a major installation less than 10 miles from my retirement abode. A close friend was involved with the inspection, commissioning and testing of the installation. He'd probably allow me to put you in e-touch if deemed necessary.
Spend a few minutes reading the Google link and see if it intrigues you at all.
https://www.google.com/search?sourc...hUKEwi--fT7u_PnAhWkiOAKHeoCDJ4Q4dUDCAg&uact=5

Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[themuzicman]

I've used Constellation (existed in rooms that had it installed is the better way to put it), LCS (SpaceMapping is the feature you're looking at), Astro Spatial Sara, and a few other plugins that mimic Spacemapping.

You can pick up used Matrix3 frames pretty cheap. Constellation is a whole other deal, but Spacemapping is pretty nifty. Check out MIAP, it's a Max patch that has the barycentric panning system from Spacemapping. Route a few mics into it with a verb you like and I'm sure you could do something really cool. I've never used it, but it seems really cool at least. Astro Spatial has a handful of fun presets once you build your space that mimic other types of rooms. When you find something that works it's great, but you need to contend with a frustrating UI and a buggy interface.

 

[AlexDavila]

A word of caution before going the LCS route and buying cheap Matrix3 frames: Meyer recently pulled down the LCS forum they’d been hosting for years and information about those those systems is otherwise hard to come by. I recently starting working for an org that uses it in multiple locations and it’s made my attempts to learn more about our systems that much harder. It’s not impossible to navigate or anything, but there are a number of gremlins in LCS that can be challenging to engineer around without leveraging the community, at least in my experience.

Good luck!

 

[macsound]

I guess I wasn't trying to actually build a real LCS system, just make something similar completely from scratch using either internal or outboard effects units and small distributed speakers.