fishyswishy said:
ok heres what im looking to do- i am planning on setting up a
system with 2 font channels and 2 rear channels. the front 2 will be used for somewhere around 12 body mics, mics for the pit(Using to process the pit), 2 hanging mics and 3 floor mics and for any sound effects comming from numerous playback units ie-CD,Mini,Tape,
Mp3. i plan on using the rear channels for mostly ambient noise from the skid row(Little shop) for playing things like kids playing in the street cars and such. for my
system i will be mixing the pit, hanging and floor mics into one
mackie 12
channel 2 bus
mixer. the
mixer will then run into 2 channels on a 16
channel mackie 4 bus
mixer. I will have 2 channels on the second board for sound effects. For processing i have a old rane 2
channel 16 octive EQ and a behringer digital eq with delay, compression, expander, FBD, and annalysis
in one unit. i also have a berhinger virtulizer pro which can act as 2 processors. i have a somewhere around 3,000 to spend if needed. any help would be great thanks
Hiya,
Ok here are a few things to consider about this so far, and hopefully this will hep you figure out how best to do this. First--how deep is your room from where you have the
stage edge to where you rear speakers will be placed? Also--how many people during a show are you trying to
cover? Reason for this is as follows: Using the rear speakers for ambient noise
etc is fine but you want to make sure you are not blasting the people in the rear to get the same sound to the folks in the front. Cause the folks in the rear will loose the vocals from the front if the SPL is too high from the rear--and vica versa--you dont' want to kill the folks in the front rows with the vocals just to get the levels to the back of the room. Do you have speakers that are flown or suspended in some way---or is this a "speakers on a stick" type of thing where the
system is not permanent and is on tripods? The Higher up you can get the speakers the better your coverage areas for front projection. Side and rear--those can be placed lower
IMO. Is this your
house system you are augmenting?? Or is this the whole
system cause there is no other sound
system?
I would suggest, Think "distribution" of speakers to various areas that do different things. Ambient noise should be just that--ambient and to do this the best way without blasting would need you do to a
bit of change in your set up. I'll give you an example...in a
hall that is 55' accross (wide) with a
stage at one end, and say 100' deep to accommodate the seating, and is RAKED upwards, you would need to space out speakers in the middle areas to get the folks in the middle, and you would be best to use "delay" times from a
processor to time these speakers out to each other--regardless of what you are playing back
thru them, or things can get disorienting. Also consider if you will that the more speakers you add--the less hard "volume" you will need out of them to achieve the results you want. In a 50'x100' I would do a Left a Right and a Center fill from the front, Then every 35-40feet down the aisles I would have "fills" on a time delay that shoot sideways or slightly back to "fill in" the sound to the farther seats. This would allow me to use lesser overall volume and fill the room a whole lot more evenly with the sounds so all can hear well and no one person is getting blasted or uncomfortable. Keep in mind--doing this you can STILL do your surround sound, just you need to time delay and "fill" in the sound with your fill speakers. While you probably cannot do a center fill far back--I hope you are getting the idea here.
Think of it like this as I try to do my
ASCII art<g>...
_____________________________________<--stage
edge
XX.......................xx.........................XX <--main speakers & ctr fill
-
-
-
-
x (
speaker)......................................... x (
speaker)
-
- AUDIENCE AREA
-
-
x (
speaker).......................................... x (
speaker)
-
-
-------------------------------------------------------- <-back of
hall
The first set of speakers on the
stage is on one mix and gets vocals, a snidge of the band to fill in, and a smidge of ambiance--so the folks in the front get the ambient noise. The speakers mid way back are on a second mix to get the ambiant noise, a
bit of the band and a
bit of the vocals to fill, The rear speakers get the vocals, the ambient noise and a smidge of the band. You adjust the blends of each so you get the
effect you desire, but overall its to fill the room. If you have an
effect that ONLY goes to the LEFT side--then you zone out your speakers instead to be LEFT zone 1, 2 and 3, and zone RIGHT 1, 2 and 3 and the center fill is a mix on its own. If left and rights dont' matter--then just do zone 1
stage, zone 2 fills and zone 3 rear. Either way--to do this where your sound doesn't turn into mush you need to delay the times in milliseconds to each of the zones depending on the distance from the first
speaker to the next. If you want the calculating formula to do this (based on sound speed and distance travelled) I will post that--or you can do it the old fashioned way and listen. Delaying the sound allows the time from the front speakers to hit the area of the second or the rear speakers to all be in the same "time" and thus all is heard without the natural delay and decays playing in havoc to your sound--so all the sound is heard at once and without any delay or cancellations or disorientations to the audience who may hear one
speaker area and then get a disorienting "
reflection" or delay sound from behind them.
A good Digital signal
processor, or digital EQ will be able to do things like this. The Ashely Protea series of EQ and
System processing is a good user friendly
system to do things like this. Keep in mind each of these speakers or zones is an amp
channel of its own--so calculate how many zones you want and will need. Does this help you figure out some of what you wish to do???
Let me know and I will gladly assist more.
-wolf