The best thing about the 4th of July, aside from celebrating American independence, is that you can make lots of noise in a suburban neighborhood and the cops don't come. This block party has been going on for 40+ years and I first provided sound, such as it was, in about 1976.
I got to try out the new toys, which are still somewhat under development as a system. No live band this year, just playback and announcing.
Some observations:
The end-fire sub array used 4.5 ft and 4 ms so as to put the null at 63 Hz. I measured the frequency response at ground level at both 40 ft in front of and behind the array and achieved a difference of 16 dB at 63 Hz.
The SH-46s were flown at 13 ft separated by ~25 ft using 10 deg of down-tilt and toed-in 20 deg, so that the outer speaker pointed straight down the street. I came up with this using Danley's 3-D modeling tool but would be interested what more experienced folks would have done under these circumstances. The street is 30 ft wide and most of the people were between 30 and 200 ft out.
The Lectrosonics HM transmitter easily reached the 630 ft to the far end of the block. It was fun seeing how many words I could get out before hearing myself. The pro voice-over guy who led the kid's games and did most of the announcing didn't seem to have any trouble speaking over the delay.
The attached SM-58 was at grave risk from ejecta during the game of Chubby Bunny (pictured) where the object is to put as many marshmallows as possible in your mouth, without swallowing, while saying "chubby bunny" 3 times. It and the transmitter survived a 3 ft fall onto the concrete with no damage -- thank you Shure, Lectro, and the limiters.
During the fireworks, which are lit off every year by an honest-to-God rocket scientist, I played Tchaikovsky's 1812 Marche Slave (American cheese supplied by a Russian, at its best). The TH-118s seemed to like the cannon shots. A good time was had by all, except maybe a few dogs.
Happy Fourth,
--Frank
I got to try out the new toys, which are still somewhat under development as a system. No live band this year, just playback and announcing.
Some observations:
The end-fire sub array used 4.5 ft and 4 ms so as to put the null at 63 Hz. I measured the frequency response at ground level at both 40 ft in front of and behind the array and achieved a difference of 16 dB at 63 Hz.
The SH-46s were flown at 13 ft separated by ~25 ft using 10 deg of down-tilt and toed-in 20 deg, so that the outer speaker pointed straight down the street. I came up with this using Danley's 3-D modeling tool but would be interested what more experienced folks would have done under these circumstances. The street is 30 ft wide and most of the people were between 30 and 200 ft out.
The Lectrosonics HM transmitter easily reached the 630 ft to the far end of the block. It was fun seeing how many words I could get out before hearing myself. The pro voice-over guy who led the kid's games and did most of the announcing didn't seem to have any trouble speaking over the delay.
The attached SM-58 was at grave risk from ejecta during the game of Chubby Bunny (pictured) where the object is to put as many marshmallows as possible in your mouth, without swallowing, while saying "chubby bunny" 3 times. It and the transmitter survived a 3 ft fall onto the concrete with no damage -- thank you Shure, Lectro, and the limiters.
During the fireworks, which are lit off every year by an honest-to-God rocket scientist, I played Tchaikovsky's 1812 Marche Slave (American cheese supplied by a Russian, at its best). The TH-118s seemed to like the cannon shots. A good time was had by all, except maybe a few dogs.
Happy Fourth,
--Frank
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