Speaker Delay

Shawn Morton

Freshman
May 16, 2017
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Hello Forum,

I'm wondering if anyone can share information on creating a delay for a group of speakers in a basic PA system. When providing PA for audiences of 500-1000 indoors and outdoors, music and announcing, I've always clustered my speakers in one location in hopes of avoiding any loss of quality from conflicting speakers.

More recently I've had setups where having a group of speakers closer to the audience would be beneficial, while also having a separate group further back. I know little to nothing about delay processors, and haven't had much luck general internet research so far.

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a brand, model name etc of a delay unit(s), and any inherent knowledge of setting up and operating.

Thank-you in advance for any help!
 
What mixer do you use?

Delay in principle isn’t hard.
Sound travels at around 1ft each millisecond.
So, a starting setting for delay speakers can be done by simply measuring how far they are in front of the mains and use that number of ms.
Then, with some sound playing (or sometimes I use a handheld wireless mic), walk toward the stage and listen for the transition from delay speakers to the mains.
Adjust the delay setting a few ms at a time until you don’t notice the transition.
Of course, it cannot be correct everywhere but get it right for the most you can.


 
If you're using a digital mixing console many of those have a delay function built in to the outputs. If you're still using an analog mixer and need a separate delay unit to drive the delay speakers I'd suggest something line an Ashly Protea 4.24 EQ that has graphic EQ, delay and high pass filters all in one, pretty much everything needed to implement a delay drive. It's standard to use mid / high speakers for delay as its the articulation that need support in delay applications and high pass filters are handy in that case.
 
A friend gave me a Shark DSP 110 as a present years ago. It looks like the one you linked to. It worked fine. I didn’t use it too much because I had other ways to accomplish the same thing. Like the built in delays in the digital mixer. The unit I have gets very warm during use. And the processing is slow enough (propagation delay) that without any delay dialed in it was already 14ms delay from the unit. So that is equal to about 14feet.

Before I had Smaart (the audio analysis software) I liked to use a device that made a sharp noise that I would have someone at a mic making the noise with. I use a clicker or cricket device. Like one of these see link CLICKER.

I have also use a recording with a noise looped but the problem with that was if it was the same noise over and over you could get to the point that you didn’t know which repeat you were hearing.
 
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