Lumbar Array?
- Thread starter Andrew Broughton
- Start date
Re: Lumbar Array?
I'd be interested to know if there really is/was an audience of 3500+ for something this experimental. Maybe there's nothing else going on in Belgrade.
I'd bet whoever is busking the ticket line is at least as interesting...
I'd be interested to know if there really is/was an audience of 3500+ for something this experimental. Maybe there's nothing else going on in Belgrade.
I'd bet whoever is busking the ticket line is at least as interesting...
Re: Lumbar Array?
Lol! I was actually thinking of that when I saw the pictures of this rig.
Lol! I was actually thinking of that when I saw the pictures of this rig.
Re: Lumbar Array?
Reading Andrew's post, along with the main arrays it seems like they are also using 54 speakers on the side walls, some ceiling speakers and some stage speakers, including those behind the risers, all driven by a delay matrix through a PM5D, to try to augment the natural room acoustics and in particular the width of the space and thus absence of early lateral reflections. It would be interesting to know what other processing may be involved and how well all that effort seems to work.
Reading Andrew's post, along with the main arrays it seems like they are also using 54 speakers on the side walls, some ceiling speakers and some stage speakers, including those behind the risers, all driven by a delay matrix through a PM5D, to try to augment the natural room acoustics and in particular the width of the space and thus absence of early lateral reflections. It would be interesting to know what other processing may be involved and how well all that effort seems to work.
Re: Lumbar Array?
I have actually done the same thing-but on a smaller scale. My boss referred to it as "BVERB" for Beaver Reverb.
I was not trying to fool European acousticians-but rather just some "southern Baptists".
The first time I did it was in the choir room of a 2500 seat Sanctuary. The choir room was laid out exactly like the main room and directly behind it.
I used TEF and took polar ETCs of the main room . The polar ETC allows you to see the level-time-freq response-elevation and azmith of each reflection.
I then designed a system (speakers/amps etc) to simulate the larger reflections in the room-as heard from the choir risers.
I used a Yamaha 01V96 as my main "engine" with some outboard outputs (to give me the extra outs I needed). I think I used 8 mics spaced around the choir (not as typical choir amplification mics) but rather as mics to pickup the sound-and drive them into the "reflection speakers".
I was very pleased with the results. Since I could walk from one room to the other (across a hall) it was real easy to go into the main room and clap/yell/play instruments etc and then walk into the choir room and do the same and see how close it sounded.
It turned out better than I had hoped for.
I would not compare it to a real enhancement system-but the price tag had at least 1 zero removed from it.
I have actually done the same thing-but on a smaller scale. My boss referred to it as "BVERB" for Beaver Reverb.
I was not trying to fool European acousticians-but rather just some "southern Baptists".
The first time I did it was in the choir room of a 2500 seat Sanctuary. The choir room was laid out exactly like the main room and directly behind it.
I used TEF and took polar ETCs of the main room . The polar ETC allows you to see the level-time-freq response-elevation and azmith of each reflection.
I then designed a system (speakers/amps etc) to simulate the larger reflections in the room-as heard from the choir risers.
I used a Yamaha 01V96 as my main "engine" with some outboard outputs (to give me the extra outs I needed). I think I used 8 mics spaced around the choir (not as typical choir amplification mics) but rather as mics to pickup the sound-and drive them into the "reflection speakers".
I was very pleased with the results. Since I could walk from one room to the other (across a hall) it was real easy to go into the main room and clap/yell/play instruments etc and then walk into the choir room and do the same and see how close it sounded.
It turned out better than I had hoped for.
I would not compare it to a real enhancement system-but the price tag had at least 1 zero removed from it.
Re: Lumbar Array?
Ivan, what you describe almost sounds to me like a poor-mans variable acoustics system.
Ivan, what you describe almost sounds to me like a poor-mans variable acoustics system.
Re: Lumbar Array?
It is NOT something you do when under a time crunch. I had a couple of days to do it.
I even made up some "fun" presets for the choir when they wanted to pretend they were in a large reverberant space-but in reality they were in a small dead space.
I did this a couple of other times in other spaces. The smallest was a high school auditorium. It can be quite effective.
That is EXACTLY what it was. I had 4 effects engines so I used the shorter reverbs for the close reflections and the longer reverbs for the later reflections.
It is NOT something you do when under a time crunch. I had a couple of days to do it.
I even made up some "fun" presets for the choir when they wanted to pretend they were in a large reverberant space-but in reality they were in a small dead space.
I did this a couple of other times in other spaces. The smallest was a high school auditorium. It can be quite effective.
Re: Lumbar Array?
Which is perfectly adequate for 99% of these applications anyway. So many rooms have systems capable of drying out a room, but is never used in that capacity.I would not compare it to a real enhancement system-but the price tag had at least 1 zero removed from it.
Re: Lumbar Array?
What system is used to "dry out" a room-other than acoustical treatment-which I have found most rooms lacking in (not all)
Re: Lumbar Array?
To be fair to most of these applications, most places that have them have the sense to activate the "speech" program when appropriate even if some leave the "acoustic music" setting on all the time because the choirmaster really like the sound.
It gets interesting when the system is set for dry, and you move in a mains rig that the system wasn't designed for and your virtual room starts clipping :blush:
Active noise-cancelling systems, a few churches has got them. A $300.000 job that is very often used solely to provide more, not less.
To be fair to most of these applications, most places that have them have the sense to activate the "speech" program when appropriate even if some leave the "acoustic music" setting on all the time because the choirmaster really like the sound.
It gets interesting when the system is set for dry, and you move in a mains rig that the system wasn't designed for and your virtual room starts clipping :blush:
Re: Lumbar Array?
Do you have any links-as I have never heard of these type systems. However I am not as involved in the install side of the business as I used to be. But none of the people I deal with have mentioned it-and I have not seen it in any publications that I "loosely/quickly" read.
Re: Lumbar Array?
When I start looking for it, it isn't there, so maybe I dreamed it all :?~:-?~:???:
However, when the system was installed in our church, a Meyer system based around a LX 300, the company acoustician ( Startseite | MediasPro ) was talking about a layer of cancellation of the whole room, to which a virtual space was to be overlaid. As the only problem area was some slap-back from under a balcony in the main seating area, I believe they ended up with only providing some cancellation for that part, but the concept as described was to actively reduce early reflections in the entire room.
Supposedly there are at least a church in Germany and one in Italy with more advanced systems where the goal from the outset was mainly to reduce the reverberation in cavernous structures, more or less the opposite of our church where the sound just gets reflected upwards between tall parallel brick walls and there is a lack of reverb. The other (cheaper) systems I've heard in a couple of churches and theatres are simply the add reverb type that you describe, where "dry" is "off".
I have come to realize that a few installations that was referred to as noise cancelling in their publicised plans (airports, foyers, hallways) are actually noise-masking installs with no active cancellation.
If I'm not very much mistaken, John Meyer have been involved with some projects and installations where the idea has been to build a more or less complete virtual acoustic environment, and I think I heard a story about a shopping centre that was to receive a major installation a few years back.
Edit: http://www.meyersound.com/products/constellation/
When I start looking for it, it isn't there, so maybe I dreamed it all :?~:-?~:???:
However, when the system was installed in our church, a Meyer system based around a LX 300, the company acoustician ( Startseite | MediasPro ) was talking about a layer of cancellation of the whole room, to which a virtual space was to be overlaid. As the only problem area was some slap-back from under a balcony in the main seating area, I believe they ended up with only providing some cancellation for that part, but the concept as described was to actively reduce early reflections in the entire room.
Supposedly there are at least a church in Germany and one in Italy with more advanced systems where the goal from the outset was mainly to reduce the reverberation in cavernous structures, more or less the opposite of our church where the sound just gets reflected upwards between tall parallel brick walls and there is a lack of reverb. The other (cheaper) systems I've heard in a couple of churches and theatres are simply the add reverb type that you describe, where "dry" is "off".
I have come to realize that a few installations that was referred to as noise cancelling in their publicised plans (airports, foyers, hallways) are actually noise-masking installs with no active cancellation.
If I'm not very much mistaken, John Meyer have been involved with some projects and installations where the idea has been to build a more or less complete virtual acoustic environment, and I think I heard a story about a shopping centre that was to receive a major installation a few years back.
Edit: http://www.meyersound.com/products/constellation/
Last edited:
Re: Lumbar Array?
The Constellation system was the variable acoustics system that I alluded to earlier. The trainer at my D-Mitri class back in April is one of their Constellation installers.
From everything that I know about it, all it does is increase the reverb time in the space. The most "dry" setting that you can make with it is off, and then you just have the room as it is naturally.
The Constellation system was the variable acoustics system that I alluded to earlier. The trainer at my D-Mitri class back in April is one of their Constellation installers.
From everything that I know about it, all it does is increase the reverb time in the space. The most "dry" setting that you can make with it is off, and then you just have the room as it is naturally.
Re: Lumbar Array?
HOWEVER they can only be done generally in one location or one direction. This is because the path lengths will be different at different seats.
I knew a sound guy once who said he could cancel out the rear wall reflection using a digital delay. And he could-to a certain extent-it was reduced a good bit.
Basically he would adjust a digital delay (that had the whole mix on it) and invert the polarity-to the signal arrival from the back wall to FOH.
THE PROBLEM was that it only worked at FOH (and other seats that had the same physical distances. All the other seats got worse.
So it depends on what you are trying to do and what is most important.
It is one thing to add reverb to a space. That is pretty easy and there are a number of systems out there that work quite well.
But taking it away is one I have never heard of. I would think there would be a HUGE market for that (MUCH MUCH greater than the ones that add reverb to a room).
There have been various noise cancelling projects done over the years. Tom Danley has been involved in several of these. But they have all been low freq. It gets WAAAYYYY harder as you go up in freq.
HOWEVER they can only be done generally in one location or one direction. This is because the path lengths will be different at different seats.
I knew a sound guy once who said he could cancel out the rear wall reflection using a digital delay. And he could-to a certain extent-it was reduced a good bit.
Basically he would adjust a digital delay (that had the whole mix on it) and invert the polarity-to the signal arrival from the back wall to FOH.
THE PROBLEM was that it only worked at FOH (and other seats that had the same physical distances. All the other seats got worse.
So it depends on what you are trying to do and what is most important.
It is one thing to add reverb to a space. That is pretty easy and there are a number of systems out there that work quite well.
But taking it away is one I have never heard of. I would think there would be a HUGE market for that (MUCH MUCH greater than the ones that add reverb to a room).
Re: Lumbar Array?
I participated on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Danish National Opera this summer.
They have an electronic organ that is set up with something like 164 L'Acoustic speakers in the back corners of the main stage - all facing into the corners.
Apparantly, it's only after doing this, the organ "sounds right" in the house!
I participated on a behind-the-scenes tour of the Danish National Opera this summer.
They have an electronic organ that is set up with something like 164 L'Acoustic speakers in the back corners of the main stage - all facing into the corners.
Apparantly, it's only after doing this, the organ "sounds right" in the house!
Re: Lumbar Array?
Part of the "organ experience" is being surrounded by sound-hitting you from all directions.
Everything that we "go for" in terms of sound system design is COMPLETELY OPPOSITE to what you want with an organ system. You WANT multiple time arrivals-no localization and so forth.
So all the rules get thrown out. If you look at a typical electronic organ speaker setup, the speakers are facing all kinds of different ways-nothing coupled and such.
What they were trying to accomplish was having a very diffuse sound-as a large pipe organ would have (that has pipes in the front and rear of the room) and is located in a reverberant room in which the sound is bouncing around all over the space.
Part of the "organ experience" is being surrounded by sound-hitting you from all directions.
Everything that we "go for" in terms of sound system design is COMPLETELY OPPOSITE to what you want with an organ system. You WANT multiple time arrivals-no localization and so forth.
So all the rules get thrown out. If you look at a typical electronic organ speaker setup, the speakers are facing all kinds of different ways-nothing coupled and such.
Re: Lumbar Array?
The orchestra and choir set up look as if this could be a presentation of Igor Stravinsky's "Les Noces" (4 soloists, choir, 4 pianos, and percussions), coincidently i will be working in that venue in the spring......
Ray
The orchestra and choir set up look as if this could be a presentation of Igor Stravinsky's "Les Noces" (4 soloists, choir, 4 pianos, and percussions), coincidently i will be working in that venue in the spring......
Ray
Re: Lumbar Array?
I like his work in the development of the helicopter better.
What?
Oh...
Never mind.
I like his work in the development of the helicopter better.
What?
Oh...
Never mind.
