Topics suggestions for advanced system tech and tuning class

Re: Topics suggestions for advanced system tech and tuning class

Jay, thanks for the kind words. I am encouraged to see a professional educator be supportive of the general methodology.

Jay Barracato said:
The big problem I have seen with step by step training is that if the students aren't forced to think about applying the knowledge to new situations during the class, they do not access that knowledge when faced with new situations.
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We want the attendees to have to think on their feet, and then have their thinking critiqued in a public setting of their peers. I feel both of these experiences are challenging and helpful.

By the way, I am not sure if you ever studied education in any formal way, or if you put together your framework from experience of what works when teaching; but if I were to translate your framework into modern education theory, it is very solid.
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I've never studied education formally, but there are a few circumstances in my life that inform my teaching approach:

1. As a 12th year in high school, my AP English literature teacher had all students in the class read every book, but then assign a more detailed report for each book to a small group of students. Those students then made a crib sheet and presentation for each book. At the end of the course, our entire class had read all the books, and had a notebook full of preparatory reminder material on each of the books for the AP exam.

2. In my undergraduate engineering writing class we had to make a video taped PowerPoint presentation in front of our classmates. We then analyzed the tapes of each presentation as a class collective. I aced my graduate school presentations class as a consequence of this undergraduate experience.

3. I've been a teaching assistant at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in engineering, and lectured some at the undergraduate level.

4. I've taught on a variety of topics related to professional audio, typically from memory using a whiteboard and responding to the specific requirements of the trainees. I've learned a fair amount about what works, and what doesn't, as a result.
 
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Sign up for measurement class updates

Greetings again,

For those who are interested in learning more about the advanced measurement seminar as it takes shape, I have created a page on my website where you can submit your email:

Click this link for the email sign up (This is the full url: http://www.passbandllc.com/seminar/)

Here you will find a small ajax form that submits your name and email to a mailchimp-based email list. Neither Bennett nor I will spam, sell, or otherwise abuse your contact information. You'll only receive infrequent emails from us as we firm up details for the advanced measurement seminar.

Once the details are set in stone, I'll set up a detailed page and link to the passband main page, but for now you'll have to use the direct link.

P.S. As a courtesy, I've included a sidebar on the page above with links to all the other training resources I mentioned earlier in this thread.
 
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Re: Sign up for measurement class updates

Hey Phil, and all,
First off what a great forum! Good to see so many "know on the internet" faces :) Hats off for wanting to make such a extensive seminar, it should be more than well come in our industry. I hope you will able to find a date soon, cause i will defenitly try to make it across the pond, to be in a room with speakers you, Brennet et all, and a measurement system. If there are anything i can help you guys with I would be more than happy to assist.
A few years back when smaart v5 was cracked and ended up on all sound techs computer, and about the same time the economy to a dump, we saw a unbelivable rise in pourly deployed systems in my country. run by inexperinced "cheap" techs, who die hard defended there "not so lucky" end results with bad measurements. So I was contacted by a few of the top touring techs here, if it was possible for them to learn more about measurement, so they had better defence against this new wave of people making there job harder. And also if there was any way possible, to try for the different system tech's to talk together and share experience cross rental houses. So a quite, long but fun journey began, first and foremost to get people to talk together and then to get training and share it as good as possible. So what we did was to spilt our effort so, some went to Smaart class, Sim, systune class, Meyer class, D&b class, L'arcoustics tranning etc and we then meet up and tried to share as much of the knowledge. While also pushing our self and as many others to take all the official training as possible. In that research about what people wanted to learn here is a few of the workshops we came up with and that we try to do a couple a year. Freely translated to english :

1. Fun fundamentals:
Very basic, measurement teori and pratical measurement. A brief introduction to Smaart and the various other measurement platforms.
For those that haven't measured speakers before and want to short introduction to what its all about.

2. Sub alignment.
We start with the basic L+R sub and then build from there. Testing different cardiod pattens and look at basic sub coverage prediction.

3. I get it, but never get to practice..
Bring your own measurement set up and practice. Get tip and tricks to optimize you set up and work flow. Try things on your own computer and body.

4. Delay og Fills.
The main system is good and dandy, but what about the rest. Looking at basic front fill systems. Looking at delay systems and balkony systems.

5. Linearrays ABC tuning metod.
Try Bob McCarthy' s metode of optimizing line source's in pratice http://bobmccarthy.wordpress.com/the-abcs-of-line-array-tuning/

6. Show me your toolbox.
The cost and amount of all the cool little gadgets and tools a system tech "should" bring to a gig is quite daunting, what is considered most brings and what are the best bang of the buck.

Oh well back to you guys. What the people, that i speak with that takes official smaart and other training, lacks, basically fall in to three catogories that you already got : 1 they fell competent, but lack to practice on there own, off show. 2: they miss a basic structured way of aproching using the measurement platform in the pratical world, this fall in the line of what Ivan talked about with Pat in the above. 3: they lack the symbiose between using LAC's and what they measure.
They best feedback I have gotten has been on Bob's class because he really points the way to get you started, other training are by nature very broard; it depends, it depends, it depends: yes true! but people actually do things and make it work, what? and why?
I love the idea about rotating between stations. In the last Smaart class I felt that if you have a system, not more that 5 people can operate its at a time 2 in the field with the mic and 1 at the Dsp/mixer, 2 at the measurement system, then rotate in turns so every one gets to do all. In the mean while the rest of the class could do other measurements. I would really like to se a station on how to verify you measurement setup, because that's the most common mistake i see at gigs.
oh well its getting late in Euroland hope you get to cook up an amazing seminar.
nite,
 
Re: Sign up for measurement class updates

Hey Guys,
Maybe something Fundamental Like "How to Listen" seriously I see many of the "mouse-mixers" jump straight in with plug-ins and fancy EQ without actually listening to what's actually happening.

my 2c

ferrit
 
Re: Collective learning and line array tweaks

Rasmus,

Maybe some day we'll be able to put together a global audio university week with most of the major training programs in one place. What you've put together is very cool and clever, and I hope the shared experience has helped your cadre of techs increase their business.

Guys of your experience are absolutely the sorts that will find this class enlightening. The way that Bennett and I look at line array tuning certainly starts as method which you'd find similar to Bob's ABC method, but we move beyond that to a more comprehensive, and I believe more powerful, methodology than Bob does.

I choose to say such a thing carefully, because Bob's teaching, book, and approach has been the most correct, high level course readily available to the industry, and I'd never want to trivialize that. If you can't afford, or otherwise justify, the class we want to put together, by all means go buy Bob's book, digest it slowly, and get 80% of the way there to what we do.

In the end we want the class structured in such a way where Bob would feel welcome to come, participate in our methodologies, and provide his insight on what he thinks to the collective attendees.

We'd like the class attendees' discussion to include both "I've never thought of that" and "I'm not so sure sure, and here's why:" Bennett and I have those discussions between ourselves, and we think they could be even more dynamic in the class setting.
 
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Re: Sign up for measurement class updates

Martyn ferrit Rowe said:
Hey Guys,
Maybe something Fundamental Like "How to Listen" seriously I see many of the "mouse-mixers" jump straight in with plug-ins and fancy EQ without actually listening to what's actually happening.

my 2c

ferrit
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ferrit,

Bennett and I have talked at length about such things when trying defining a class scope. We've come to a few guidelines that will shape the class:

1. While we will talk a LOT about loudspeakers and how they function, the class will not go into any detail about creating presets from scratch for a loudspeaker. If people like this class, perhaps we could do a different one later about making loudspeaker presets.
2. Measurement programs will have their internal knobs talked about only to the extent that those knobs effect the data collected.
3. We will specifically talk about aspects of tuning that are very hard to measure and/or set by only measurement, and we'll try to help the guys/girls whose ears have taken a beating over time use the software to fill the blanks as best as possible.
4. Source material selection for tuning will be discussed, and things to listen for in that material will be roundtabled as much as feasible.

As a good example of something that is very hard to set purely by measurement, the last system (re)tuning I undertook had the downfill under the two-box L/R clusters attenuated 0.2dB more than the downfill under the three-box center cluster. I set the downfill levels by ear, and both myself and the house audio engineer agreed the extra 0.2dB attenuation on the L/R downfills noticeably improved their subjective seamlessness to their respective clusters. This change in level would have been essentially impossible to define in your measurement system of choice.
 
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Re: Sign up for measurement class updates

Hey Phil,
That's exactly the point ! I just did two demo's back to back the first was with one of them golly-gee-wiz digital console's and quite frankly it was a distraction, the second was with a small analog console and the focus was on the speakers (the purpose of the demo).
Now if we could just get people to let go of their ipods "but I KNOW how it's supposed to sound...." pl-eease! :twisted:
I applaud your efforts in this endeavour and wish you every success, if there's anything I can help with please let me know.

warmest regards
ferrit
 
Re: Sign up for measurement class updates

Phil, Bennett,

As someone who is young in the industry and always looking to expand my knowledge bass, this is something that thoroughly excites me. Hopefully I'll be able to make it down for the event. I signed up for the updates, but I'm not sure if the form was submitted or not... so my apologies if you see it about 6 times. :p

My question is, and I may have missed it somewhere on here, is about how much you'd be wanting to charge for something like this. I'm a newlywed, so I have to plan ahead for things like this. ;) Looking forward to more info about it! Everyone's suggestions on items to cover have been spot on so far.
 
Re: Sign up for measurement class updates

John O'brien said:
My question is, and I may have missed it somewhere on here, is about how much you'd be wanting to charge for something like this. I'm a newlywed, so I have to plan ahead for things like this. ;) Looking forward to more info about it! Everyone's suggestions on items to cover have been spot on so far.
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Over the last decade or more, I have become a huge fan of classes. Yes they may appear to be expensive-if that is all you are looking at-price vs days.

But the knowledge I have gained from attending so many classes has become invaluable to me. It is not what it costs-but what you get out of it-that is the real value.

I remember one grounding class that was a 4 hour class and costs like $450. Pretty expensive for a class. HOWEVER (among the other things I took from the class) there was ONE basic principal I really latched onto.

Our installers follow a very basic set of rules regarding grounding, and tracing hums/buzzes is simply something we do not have to do anymore. Maybe 1 in a hundred jobs there is an issue-and it usually turns out not to be a wiring issue.

The time saved following that one basic rule has saved many hundreds of hours of buzz troubleshooting.

I would say that the $450 for the class was pretty cheap in that regards.

I am sure that Phil and Bennett will not have an overpriced class.

BTW a lot of the learning comes not from the class itself-but from the networking and talking with others in attendance (often about non class subjects) during breaks/meals etc.
 
Email list submission form problem update

Hello everyone,

I discovered that at some unknown time in the past 24 hours the email list signup javascript was disabled by the way my site handles caching. I believe the problem is now fixed, and will test throughout the day:

If you want to sign up for the email information about the advanced seminar, here is how to tell that your information is submitted properly:
1. You'll see green words at the top of the form after pressing the button confirming your submission
2. Then you'll receive a challenge email, generated by MailChimp, that says something to the effect of "click here if you intended to join this list"

If you don't see the green text, and then receive the challenge email, then your information did not get submitted.

Please PM here if you have any more problems with submission, as I may have found a bug in my page caching plugin.

And thanks to those of you who alerted me to the problem!
 
Re: Sign up for measurement class updates

John O'brien said:
Phil, Bennett,


As someone who is young in the industry and always looking to expand my knowledge bass, this is something that thoroughly excites me. Hopefully I'll be able to make it down for the event. I signed up for the updates, but I'm not sure if the form was submitted or not... so my apologies if you see it about 6 times. :p
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John,


Unfortunately my website caching munged the functionality of the mailchimp ajax form at some point in the past day, and your information was not submitted. I do apologize! Please see this post for more details. Everything seems to fixed now, and has passed multiple testings. I'll keep monitoring it.


My question is, and I may have missed it somewhere on here, is about how much you'd be wanting to charge for something like this. I'm a newlywed, so I have to plan ahead for things like this. Looking forward to more info about it! Everyone's suggestions on items to cover have been spot on so far.
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We cannot put a price down with certainty until we know what the venue fees will be. We are asking a lot of the preferred venue, namely complete access to their multi-million dollar AV installation for at least two contiguous days in the middle of week, all in a facility that sees over 8000 people through the doors every seven days.

Even with their in-house people being given the class, and also around to keep an eye on the installation, we are making a big request. There may be expenses for liability, facilities use, electricity, or to pay their security people for extended hours. I'm not far enough along with them for those gory details yet.

Also, we are asking the venue to let as be completely candid about the performance of their (large) investment. We want to make the class as helpful for as many platforms, and sound gear allegiances, as possible, so candor is a necessity. If attendees, or manufacturers, want to supply additional DSPs or loudspeakers to measure/fiddle with, we will encourage a limited amount of that, but expect us to speak the truth about what we think about any product: good, bad or ugly.

That said, I don't see how we could do the class for less than $250 per person per day, and I'd look for an alternative venue if it was to be more than $350 per person per day. We would have breakfast and lunch on site. So plan on $900 plus travel, hotels, and dinner. Atlanta is a cheap flight from almost anywhere, and there is a subway stop from the airport within half a mile of the venue. There are many hotels within a mile of the venue that range from moderate to almost NYC expensive.

The reality is that any renumeration that Bennett and I receive will not cover the man hour cost of time spent on the curriculum. We will have to teach the class multiple times to recoup that investment. Therefore we have a vested interest in the class going well and receiving as much positive word of mouth advertising as possible!

Also remember that if your measurement setup isn't already established, you have the upfront cost of purchasing SMAART/Systune/SpectraFoo/ARTA/etc., a measurement interface, a couple of measurement microphones, cabling, cases, other system tech bits, and either paid training or the school of hard knocks to become familiar with its operation. Most people end up at least a couple thousand US deep in the measuring rig before they would think about a class like this.

I hope this helps!
 
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Re: Sign up for measurement class updates

+1. Phil and I have no interest in having a class be more expensive than it needs to be. The price range Phil suggests is well in line with other industry training of this caliber, and dominated by facility costs. This is a small class on a very advanced set of topics that we will have to roll the curriculum for from scratch, and since we obviously can't ask the first group to pay for that we are not going to be making a very good hourly rate! That said, this set of topics are something that Phil and I feel we are uniquely situated to teach, and topics we would like to see better understood, so we couldn't be more excited about developing and presenting this course.

There will be a lot of new material, but Phil and I are nothing if not structured. The emphasis is on practical techniques that you can implement immediately, and a better understanding of the underlying systems. You will walk away with an excellent understanding of how to put this course's learning to work.
 
Re: Cluster and downfill levels

drew gandy said:
Ahh, that's an old monitor guy trick.
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Drew,

I have read this reply at least half a dozen times and each time I can only conclude that it is a non-sequitur from the reasons behind the cluster levels. The level of the L/R cluster downfills vs. the center downfill has only to do with the total energy effects of a cluster three boxes vs. two boxes.

In this case, first the center cluster was tuned, then an L/R cluster was tuned to match the tonality of the center cluster. Afterwards the center cluster was attenuated by ear to match the apparent level of the side cluster, which resulted on the order of 1.5dB attenuation to the center cluster.

After the above, the downfills were tuned under their respective clusters, phase aligned, and attenuated by ear to match their respective clusters. That the attenuation of the downfills ended up being so similar, but still slightly different, was largely a consequence of the attenuation that was first applied to the center cluster, otherwise the center cluster would have well outrun the downfill at the same attenuation point.
 
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Re: Cluster and downfill levels

Non-sequitur? Possibly, but I think Drew was alluding that 0.2dB was likely to be an inaudible difference, therefore akin to the monitor mixer's "touch the knob and smile".

I don't doubt that such a small difference was noticeable in the circumstance you describe, but for most portable live work, 0.2dB would be inconsequential.

Have fun, etc.

Tim Mc
 
Re: Cluster and downfill levels

I'm sorry Phil, my post was obtuse. I meant to challenge your example by way of undermining the value of the agreement you received with the house engineer. I meant to imply (and I now see that unfortunately after editing my post there were likely too few words to convey this) that the power of suggestion played a part in his agreement. The monitor guy trick is: when a talent asks for a change (almost invariably "more me") the monitor guy merely acts like he's turning a knob and then gives the thumbs up signal. The talent then offers a heartfelt thank you and everyone moves on happy. I think that 0.2 db of adjustment is well within the power of suggestion range and that, at least for me, left your anecdote with dull teeth. Another way you could interpret this is that I'm jealous of your (and the house guys) ears.;) That said, I completely agree that a 0.2db adjustment is much too granular for a typical sound guy measurement system to be helpful. I also think the 0.2db could be more noticeable in a studio environment than in a large venue. If you move a couple feet, in a venue, you're likely to hear changes of a few full decibels which is part of what makes me wonder about the audibility of a 0.2db change. I suppose, since I wasn't there, I'll have to take your word for it. Again, sorry to everyone for the OT.
 
Re: Cluster and downfill levels

drew gandy said:
The monitor guy trick is: when a talent asks for a change (almost invariably "more me") the monitor guy merely acts like he's turning a knob and then gives the thumbs up signal. The talent then offers a heartfelt thank you and everyone moves on happy. I think that 0.2 db of adjustment is well within the power of suggestion range and that, at least for me, left your anecdote with dull teeth.
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Drew,

I too have used the magic empty aux turn on gigs before, but this is not that circumstance. Rather this is a circumstance where both myself, and the venue engineer, iteratively listened, while walking the room, to the downfill level in 0.5dB increments near what we anticipated would be an appropriate volume. After mutually deciding that one additional 0.5dB step was too much, we split the difference between 0.5dB steps. It was only after the fact that we correlated this level to be 0.2dB below the center cluster downfill, as we consciously did not consult the center cluster processor settings in configuring the L/R arrays.

In a quality install setting a half dB step is generally audible, if not easily viewable in the measurement software. The ear is particularly acute to overall levels of sound sources.

I also think the 0.2db could be more noticeable in a studio environment than in a large venue.
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Absolutely. It would be very hard to repeatedly hear 0.2dB even in a well designed installation. Half a dB, though, is readily noticeable with careful, iterative listening on a good installation system. Half a dB is also readily perceivable in a loudspeaker voicing. In combat audio the audibility jump certainly spreads to a dB or more.

Hopefully that clarifies how we came to those levels.

I too apologize for this rabbit trail on what was supposed to be a thread on things people wanted to see in the curriculum, which is something that Bennett and I still want to hear your feedback on as we continue our development of that curriculum.
 
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Re: Cluster and downfill levels

Phil Graham said:
Drew,

I too have used the magic empty aux turn on gigs before, but this is not that circumstance. Rather this is a circumstance where both myself, and the venue engineer, iteratively listened, while walking the room, to the downfill level in 0.5dB increments near what we anticipated would be an appropriate volume. After mutually deciding that one additional 0.5dB step was too much, we split the difference between 0.5dB steps. It was only after the fact that we correlated this level to be 0.2dB below the center cluster downfill, as we consciously did not consult the center cluster processor settings in configuring the L/R arrays.

In a quality install setting a half dB step is generally audible, if not easily viewable in the measurement software. The ear is particularly acute to overall levels of sound sources.



Absolutely. It would be very hard to repeatedly hear 0.2dB even in a well designed installation. Half a dB, though, is readily noticeable with careful, iterative listening on a good installation system. Half a dB is also readily perceivable in a loudspeaker voicing. In combat audio the audibility jump certainly spreads to a dB or more.

Hopefully that clarifies how we came to those levels.

I too apologize for this rabbit trail on what was supposed to be a thread on things people wanted to see in the curriculum, which is something that Bennett and I still want to hear your feedback on as we continue our development of that curriculum.
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I jsut want to add my 0.02 to the "situation".

In the final phases of alignment, I often find myself making very small changes to level.

HOWEVER-what i have noted quite a few times is that when I change program material, sometimes those levels go the other way.

It is really hard to put a finger on, but which one is "right". You could argue that the ear is the final judge (and I agree), but when different source material "makes the ear" choose different things-it gets a bit harder to determine the best setting.

In a large system it is all about compromise-and how that compromise is made-is sometimes hard to define.

And I will throw this into the whole equation. Let's say I do an alignment on a system.

Then I walk away and forget what I did and the DSP is wiped clean.

I do another alignment. Will it be exactly the same-especially down to 0.2dB? I bet not. I bet the levels will be different, the delay times will be different, the q of the filters will be different, the depth and freq of the filters will be different and so forth.

Will they be close-I certainly hope so-but they will probably not be exact. So which one is "right".

Do the same thing for mixing a band (OK lets say multitracks so the source does not change). Do a mix- walk away and reset the console. Now come back and do another mix. Will it be the same-no. Hopefully close- but not exactly the same. Did I need a dip at 259Hz or 264Hz? -4 or -4.5dB? So which one is "right".

It about about being "right" at that particular time. OR move to a different listening position and tell me what you would change? Which seat is "right"?

If there were a straightforward answer-then it would be lot easier to do all of "this"-but there is a good bit of "wiggle room" in some circumstances. Your opinon vs mine.

Of course there is the old saying "You people that think you know everything-really do annoy those of us that do".
 
Scheduling Update

This is a few days late, we'd promised to have more news on Halloween but discussions between Phil and I have gone longer than that.

The good news is we have a venue that seems appropriate. Unfortunately, both Phil and I have too much on our plates right now to commit to this course in mid winter. We both remain very interested in it, and in fact have already developed portions of the curriculum, but it will have to wait until things have calmed down a little. That could be next fall, but I don't want to get your hopes up. Floating this idea around there has already been significant interest in the course from other venues, from colleges to large sound companies. That gives us an even better reason to put together a truly exceptional course on arrays and measurement.

Further bulletins as events warrant.
 
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