Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

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Nick Latkowski

Freshman
Jul 17, 2013
60
0
0
28
Pittsburgh
Have a block of 12 shows I'm doing this summer for the company I work for. I did the shows last year as well. I'm givin 4 Double 18" subs for the 3,500 cap venue. Last year, they were insufficient, and pushed to their absolute limit. Got new amps that are a little more powerful this year to replace the internal ones. Was just curious to know if anyone's got any processing tips/tricks that may help the situation out. Also, to help from blowing the subs with the new amps. All processing sadly does have to be done through the board. No rack gear is sent out for the shows, or ever :frown:. I do have a copy of Smaart v7 if that helps at all.

Equipment:
1: Behringer X32
12: TVI C210 Line Array
6: Crown XTI 2002 (Line Array)
4: TVI C218 Subs
2: Crest CC5500 (Subs)
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Nick Latkowski said:
Have a block of 12 shows I'm doing this summer for the company I work for. I did the shows last year as well. I'm givin 4 Double 18" subs for the 3,500 cap venue. Last year, they were insufficient, and pushed to their absolute limit. Got new amps that are a little more powerful this year to replace the internal ones. Was just curious to know if anyone's got any processing tips/tricks that may help the situation out. Also, to help from blowing the subs with the new amps. All processing sadly does have to be done through the board. No rack gear is sent out for the shows, or ever :frown:. I do have a copy of Smaart v7 if that helps at all.

Equipment:
1: Behringer X32
12: TVI C210 Line Array
6: Crown XTI 2002 (Line Array)
4: TVI C218 Subs
2: Crest CC5500 (Subs)
Click to expand...

The best processing you need to get 4 TVI dual 18" to cover 3,500 people is your local reconer's credit card processing.

Aligning your tops and subs via smaart may give you a bit more output. Really you probably need more or better subs.
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

If it's not enough, there isn't much magic that can be done to make it enough. Adjusting the placement of the cabinets can make a bit of a difference, but for a capacity of 3500, that's a TINY amount of sub. Slightly bigger amps won't give you that much more output, and if oversized will cause blown speakers. Instead of different amps, more cabinets should have been assigned to the event.
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Tom Manchester said:
The best processing you need to get 4 TVI dual 18" to cover 3,500 people is your local reconer's credit card processing.

Really you probably need more or better subs.
Click to expand...

More: Not my decision.
Better: Also not my decision.

Also, I said its a 3500 cap place. Not that theres 3500 people there. :lol:
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Brian jojade said:
If it's not enough, there isn't much magic that can be done to make it enough. Adjusting the placement of the cabinets can make a bit of a difference, but for a capacity of 3500, that's a TINY amount of sub. Slightly bigger amps won't give you that much more output, and if oversized will cause blown speakers. Instead of different amps, more cabinets should have been assigned to the event.
Click to expand...

Yea. I pretty much figured that. Just never know what others may have to say. The problems with this setup are none of my decision. Just my problem to deal with. It'll be interesting to see what the 1 national act that comes through ends up having to say about it. But hey, watching the speakers blow out of the front of the cabinet on fire could add a nice effect to the show.:lol: On a serious note though, Our equipment not meeting the rider requirements is also not my decision/problem. Well it is my problem I guess......
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Put them all together in the middle and bring the highpass up as high as you can without affecting the sound too noticeably. If the national act found out in advance that their requirements weren't being met could the situation be changed?

Chris
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Chris Nixon said:
Put them all together in the middle and bring the highpass up as high as you can without affecting the sound too noticeably. If the national act found out in advance that their requirements weren't being met could the situation be changed?

Chris
Click to expand...
Haven't seen their rider yet. But probably not. The owner doesn't change his equipment deployment for much.
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Using a "bigger amp" may not be a good idea.

How accurate are the wattage specs on the subs vs the Crest amps?

Do you trust them to be correct?

What makes you feel a bigger amp will help? THe difference between 1800 and 1400 watts is 1dB. I challenge you to hear that difference in a live band situation.

There may be other differences between the amps-but who knows untill they are tested in the same manner.

Remember that twice the power is a just barely noticeable increase in level-WITH A LOT more increase in heat to the loudspeakers.

If it were me-I would stick with the current amps-especially since they did not blow up the speakers last year.

It may not be your decision to use more gear (think TWICE the number of subs to start to make a noticable difference. 1 or 2 more is not really going to change anything), but are they requiring you to make it louder? If so-then somebody needs to make a decision-on gear and money.

Having a copy of Smaart does not do any good-unless you know how to use it and understand what it is telling you and know how to make the proper adjustments on the crossover. Is the issue time? or response?-or polarity?-or ? or eq? etc. Using the wrong one to try and fix a problem may make other areas worse.

I doubt the mains will go low enough to help out the subs-the best you could do would be to get a decent alignment to help the sound quality in the crossover region.

The simple answer is more gear-whether it is your decision or not-that needs to be brought to the attention of the "decision makers".

The only way to properly set the processing to HELP prevent tearing them up is to have a GOOD knowledge of the ACTUAL power capacity/freq response etc.

Those do not come from the spec sheets and have to be measured. THEN you can start to think about what to do with the processing.

The important things that should come first are: exactly where is the power compression of woofers? And what test stimulus are you using to test that with? THe old standards (IEC/AES etc) have a low freq that is rolled off. In my opinion this does not represent what is happening in much of todays modern music.

You need to know where the native response of the woofers start to roll off-and place a highpass filter so as to not allow anything to go below that.

Note: the freq of rolloff and the freq of the filter are NOT the same. The best way is to measure the response-with a highpass (I recommend 24dB BUtterworth) at 20Hz. Save the trace-then raise the filter freq until the low end just starts to decrease.

That is a good STARTING point. Depending on musical style-it may need to be higher or could be lowered and a boost put in-but NOT if the system is being pushed hard-like in your case.

The simple answer is you are going to be hard pressed to get a noticeable difference in output by simply aligning them.

Sorry.
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Ivan Beaver said:
Using a "bigger amp" may not be a good idea.

How accurat... hard pressed to get a noticeable difference in output by simply aligning them.

Sorry.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ivan. Again, It really isn't my decision. I have brought it up before with no luck. The main reason for the new amps was there is a safety that cuts off the internal amps to keep them from overheating, or blowing. (its most likely there for a reason :roll:) The owner noticed it, and thought lets just buy different amps. That'll solve the problem and they'll kick more. When the reality of it is, as you pretty much said... They won't kick more to an audible difference, and it'll probably just create more problems. and expenses. He won't supply the resources to safe guard the subs either. All processing for the entire system is done through the board. The only external processing is done by the XTI's for the Bi-Amp on the line array.
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

There is of course one trick that can help when the subs are inadequate, and that is Maxxbass. Processing after the crossover and utilizing the most sensitive bandwidth of the sub that is normally above the crossoverpoint can give you quite a few extra dB and might or might not work depending on what kind of music is being played. It might also sound awful :)~:-)~:smile:
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Per Søvik said:
There is of course one trick that can help when the subs are inadequate, and that is Maxxbass. Processing after the crossover and utilizing the most sensitive bandwidth of the sub that is normally above the crossoverpoint can give you quite a few extra dB and might or might not work depending on what kind of music is being played. It might also sound awful :)~:-)~:smile:
Click to expand...

Yep. If you don't have enough rig for the gig, there are a few psychoacoustic tricks that can be played, mostly revolving around getting more of the energy into the passbands where the rig is efficient. Maxxbass is one such method, although you can certainly play some games with the more conventional tools (EQ, dynamics control).
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Is lack of bass going to cause financial issues, or will no one else even notice? If the former- you need more, better subs. If the latter- raise HPF, lower LPF, cluster them together, aux fed, and make sure the checks clear.


Typed on a virtual keyboard.
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Nick Latkowski said:
Got new amps that are a little more powerful this year to replace the internal ones. All processing sadly does have to be done through the board. No rack gear is sent out for the shows, or ever
Click to expand...


So you have a powered speaker and you pulled the amp to run with an external amp.

So how are you going to set hi/low cross over setting on the Subs if you don't have any processing?
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

You can't polish a turd (no matter what Myth Busters thinks).

You didn't make the purchase decision so I can't blame you, but this "thinking" is exactly my objection to shit like the TVI "arrays." I've spent vast Quixiotian effort in convincing a number of system buyers that "cheap" doesn't mean "right" unless cheap is the sole and final factor, in which case they should be buying a conventional rig rather than a lyin' array (thanks, Ivan). What makes the TVI and similar products a lie is the lack of manufacturer data needed to do some kind of coverage predictions and the foolish belief on the part of owners that conflate "vertical" with "line", or that think simply because it looks like a line array, it will perform like "real" products from real manufacturers.

Sorry to be harsh, Nick, but this is based on my experience both in our shop and observing the systems purchased by others.
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Chris Nixon said:
Put them all together in the middle and bring the highpass up as high as you can without affecting the sound too noticeably. If the national act found out in advance that their requirements weren't being met could the situation be changed?

Chris
Click to expand...
What he said, and.... Does the room/venue have any corners. Placing the subs together and at room boundaries will add acoustic gain. Placing the subs at a wall floor boundary buys you some, placing in an actual corner even more.

Human hearing is not flat down at low frequency so the amps and speakers are working very hard to be heard. Human hearing is better the closer to midrange we get, so rolling off the very low end, even if the speakers can go down that low, will reduce how much heat they are dissipating so you can hit them harder up a little higher. Since not a lot of music is actually going on down there... you will lose some impact but perhaps less than you might think.

I am not a fan of added distortion (muckbass), but in extreme cases it might add to the perception of more bass (or sound like a distorted low end).

JR
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Per Søvik said:
There is of course one trick that can help when the subs are inadequate, and that is Maxxbass. Processing after the crossover and utilizing the most sensitive bandwidth of the sub that is normally above the crossoverpoint can give you quite a few extra dB and might or might not work depending on what kind of music is being played. It might also sound awful :)~:-)~:smile:
Click to expand...
This would be my advice...if you can find a Maxxbass unit!! I have 3....
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

You could always mix based on the system you have, not the system you want.

The rig is the rig is the rig, at some point you just have to move on and do what you can. Personally, I feel little inclination to try and work around someone else's inability to spec an appropriate system. Trust me, what you are going to encounter when you try to improve things is not gratitude...
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Tim McCulloch said:
You can't polish a turd (no matter what Myth Busters thinks).

.
Click to expand...
The thing that most people MISSED with that mithbusters episode was that SOME (not most) turds can be polished.

You have to have enough of the right "stuff" in order to be able to polish it. Most turds don't have enough of the right stuff to work with.

At least that is what I took away from that episode.
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Nick Latkowski said:
Thanks Ivan. Again, It really isn't my decision. I have brought it up before with no luck. The main reason for the new amps was there is a safety that cuts off the internal amps to keep them from overheating, or blowing. (its most likely there for a reason :roll:) The owner noticed it, and thought lets just buy different amps. That'll solve the problem and they'll kick more. When the reality of it is, as you pretty much said... They won't kick more to an audible difference, and it'll probably just create more problems. and expenses. He won't supply the resources to safe guard the subs either. All processing for the entire system is done through the board. The only external processing is done by the XTI's for the Bi-Amp on the line array.
Click to expand...
Well since it was your bosses idea to use the external amps-I guess he is going to pay for the repairs.

Without A LOT more detailed testing of what the drivers can take-I still say it is a bad idea.

The protection is there for a reason. Just like a fuse. If the fuse keeps blowing-then putting in a larger one is NOT a good idea. Unless you want to pay more for the repair.

But hey-it's not my money.
 
Re: Inadequate Sub Power For a Venue... Tips/Tricks/Help

Tim McCulloch said:
You can't polish a turd (no matter what Myth Busters thinks).

You didn't make the purchase decision so I can't blame you, but this "thinking" is exactly my objection to shit like the TVI "arrays." I've spent vast Quixiotian effort in convincing a number of system buyers that "cheap" doesn't mean "right" unless cheap is the sole and final factor, in which case they should be buying a conventional rig rather than a lyin' array (thanks, Ivan). What makes the TVI and similar products a lie is the lack of manufacturer data needed to do some kind of coverage predictions and the foolish belief on the part of owners that conflate "vertical" with "line", or that think simply because it looks like a line array, it will perform like "real" products from real manufacturers.

Sorry to be harsh, Nick, but this is based on my experience both in our shop and observing the systems purchased by others.
Click to expand...

I have a lot against the TVI Arrays too. And the cheapness in general that seems to happen at that company. I just don't complain because at 17 years old, I'm happy to have a job doing what I like/want to do, on the level I do it at. But I'm not gonna go into a rant about that place on here. I don't take it as harsh at all either. Really only posted this to see if there may be something to save me a little. Never know when someone may know something I don't.

Jay Barracato said:
You could always mix based on the system you have, not the system you want.

The rig is the rig is the rig, at some point you just have to move on and do what you can. Personally, I feel little inclination to try and work around someone else's inability to spec an appropriate system. Trust me, what you are going to encounter when you try to improve things is not gratitude...
Click to expand...

For the spec an apropriate system, trust me. The amount was the least of my worries. I spent last year working on the deployment. http://soundforums.net/junior-varsity/7846-line-array-setup-angle.html

Ivan Beaver said:
Well since it was your bosses idea to use the external amps-I guess he is going to pay for the repairs.

Without A LOT more detailed testing of what the drivers can take-I still say it is a bad idea.

The protection is there for a reason. Just like a fuse. If the fuse keeps blowing-then putting in a larger one is NOT a good idea. Unless you want to pay more for the repair.

But hey-it's not my money.
Click to expand...

As far as Him paying for repairs, it could cost me my job, as he obviously doesn't have the understanding that he needs on this stuff. Even if the band brings an engineer that destroys everything, well my ass is still on the line I suppose because I "Let" it happen, by not having the proper tools to work with. And I understand what you mean. Ive been trying to explain why the 50A breakers to the 20A plugs on our "Distros" are a bad idea for the last couple years.:roll:

Matt Vivlamore said:
So you have a powered speaker and you pulled the amp to run with an external amp.

So how are you going to set hi/low cross over setting on the Subs if you don't have any processing?
Click to expand...

Left the amp in the cabinet. It has an NL2 on the back and an option to run active, or passive. For the crossover......................... I just take a 31 band, and the parametric on the output on the board and turn them basically into into one 30dB crossover. Its about all I can do with it. The x32 doesnt have an adequate crossover built in.
 
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