When setup is important?

Jay Barracato

Jay Barracato

Graduate Student
Jan 11, 2011
1,528
5
38
Solomons MD
I have been working regularly in a large bar/small club (i.e. 500 capacity). Our meat and potatoes is rock bands. The system is 2 QRX 212 per side (biamped) with 2 SRX 728's on the floor. The rig is certainly adequate to the room. Over the 6 months I have been in there on a regular basis I have been able to tune the rig to my own taste. Despite a corner stage, feedback is rarely a problem.

The one problem that remains is part of the "hear with your eyes or hear with your ears" debate. When I walked in the first thing I noticed was the two QRX were hung with no splay at all. Aaaargghh, comb filter hell was my first thought.

Over time, it became clear that while I could hear it (if I really tried), it certainly wasn't bothering anyone else.

In fact, I have had a steady stream of bands telling me that the room is easily the best sounding they play regularly.

After spraining my shoulder patting myself on the back, I started to think. Is the fact that this room sounds good really based on what we have or is it a comment on how bad other rooms in the area sound? And even if we are at the top of the sound quality heap, shouldn't we continue to strive for better?

I think it was Ivan who had commented that even if the average person doesn't hear the problems, they will notice when it gets better.

The case in point: Saturday night I had a band with members I used to do a lot of shows with into the room. Suddenly, what were slight background problems with the vocal clarity for the other bands were now glaringly front and center. Still, many people stopped by to tell me how good they sounded. If those fans care enough to be thankful for good, isn't it worth it to strive for great?
 
Re: When setup is important?

it should be pretty easy to turn off two of the four speakers and see how it goes? do you ever get an act in that doesn't need the extra volume?

Jason
 
Re: When setup is important?

Of course I believe you should make any adjustments necessary for improvement. I have experienced a similar situation where a local club has my same rig (EAW KF650 over SB750) and while theirs is not deployed correctly I have to admit it sounds very good.
if yours is an install maybe its a big hassle to tweak the position of the tops? If not, how difficult would it be to try it?
 
Re: When setup is important?

The speakers are dead hung from the eyebolts. Changing the aiming of the hang would involve adding some sort of array bar. If you know me by now, you know I will want to do a bunch of modeling based on the space before moving anything.

The overall question was more philophical then looking for a solution to a specific problem. For the specific problem, as the owner makes money doing live music, he has already said he is willing to invest more shoring up the weak points of the system.

In a way, this goes along with Tim's blog and the diminishing point of improvement with additional money/effort. I think the difference is, unlike higher dollar consoles, here the major investment has been made in the speakers and amps, and it just needs the minor investment in rigging and aiming.
 
Re: When setup is important?

Nay, I find myself in similar situations often. I am always the 'perfectionist' to many people and the word is rarely used in a positive sense. I have come to a point for non-install gigs that a clear point of diminishing return is helpful when evaluating how much to value what may be gained. Yes I could do this or that but if the budget is not paying for the time and labor I call it there. I know I can do better but the value would be subjective to most. On an install if small changes make my long term sanity a bit more stable, I have been known to obsess and spend a lot of time for my own satisfaction. I know that someone will notice sooner or later!
I attended a showast week that had the most pronounced and apparent case of comb filtering I have ever heard. That was the lemon. I made some lemonade by taking the opportunity to walk some band members around the room and bring the physics that were in play to their attention. As I always say, they did not know the difference but when given a demonstration they could personally experience, they noticed what was happening.
 
Re: When setup is important?

Jay Barracato said:
The speakers are dead hung from the eyebolts. Changing the aiming of the hang would involve adding some sort of array bar. If you know me by now, you know I will want to do a bunch of modeling based on the space before moving anything.
Click to expand...

Since the pattern overlap doesn't appear to be an issue, the next question would be "can I improve the coverage by splaying the speakers or will it just dump energy on surfaces where it will cause more problems?" Keeping energy off of walls is probably more important than the combing I would guess. If re-aming the boxes away from each other helps coverage of the venue compared to the present setup , you can kill two birds with one stone by reducing comb filtering at the same time.
 
Re: When setup is important?

Greg Cameron said:
Since the pattern overlap doesn't appear to be an issue, the next question would be "can I improve the coverage by splaying the speakers or will it just dump energy on surfaces where it will cause more problems?" Keeping energy off of walls is probably more important than the combing I would guess. If re-aming the boxes away from each other helps coverage of the venue compared to the present setup , you can kill two birds with one stone by reducing comb filtering at the same time.
Click to expand...

I think some extra splay would be helpful, as well as introducing about 15 degrees more downtilt. I would like to investigate bumper bars like I seem to remember you using a couple years ago in a club.

But it still comes down to being able to put evidence of improvements in front of the guy with the wallet.
 
Re: When setup is important?

Jay Barracato said:
I think some extra splay would be helpful, as well as introducing about 15 degrees more downtilt. I would like to investigate bumper bars like I seem to remember you using a couple years ago in a club.

But it still comes down to being able to put evidence of improvements in front of the guy with the wallet.
Click to expand...

Careful on the "down-tilt" for cabinets that already have a 10 degree downward angle on the HF horn. You might well "lose" the rear of the room.
 
Re: When setup is important?

Jay Barracato said:
I think some extra splay would be helpful, as well as introducing about 15 degrees more downtilt. I would like to investigate bumper bars like I seem to remember you using a couple years ago in a club.
Click to expand...

The bumpers I have were designed by Dave Rat specifically for the Rat Trap 5s and were certified by ATM. You Might check with Polar Focus and ATM, both make dual box fly bars. Polar Focus might already have one specific to your EV models since I believe they OEM for EV.

ATM:

Two Way Array

Polar Focus:

Polar Focus® Audio Rigging speaker rigging line array rigging
 
Re: When setup is important?

Dick Rees said:
Careful on the "down-tilt" for cabinets that already have a 10 degree downward angle on the HF horn. You might well "lose" the rear of the room.
Click to expand...

I can cover the back of the room with delays. Currently I am missing some of the front of the dance floor right at the stage. The delays are already in place, they dont have anything for front fills. SInce the bands biggest fans are likely to be at the front, I would rather cover that well. I have finally convinced the owner that we don't need full frontal assault all the way to the back of the room, and having a quieter area actually means some customers might stay in the building when they would otherwise be driven out by the volume.
 
Re: When setup is important?

Greg Cameron said:
The bumpers I have were designed by Dave Rat specifically for the Rat Trap 5s and were certified by ATM. You Might check with Polar Focus and ATM, both make dual box fly bars. Polar Focus might already have one specific to your EV models since I believe they OEM for EV.

ATM:

Two Way Array

Polar Focus:

Polar Focus® Audio Rigging speaker rigging line array rigging
Click to expand...

I have been going back through both websites for the last week or so. The polar focus looks simpler but with so many missing photos on the website, I am not really sure what a complete system looks like.

I really like the ATM faspak bars but, of course, the EV ones are missing from that website as well.
 
Re: When setup is important?

Jay Barracato said:
I can cover the back of the room with delays. Currently I am missing some of the front of the dance floor right at the stage. The delays are already in place, they dont have anything for front fills. SInce the bands biggest fans are likely to be at the front, I would rather cover that well. I have finally convinced the owner that we don't need full frontal assault all the way to the back of the room, and having a quieter area actually means some customers might stay in the building when they would otherwise be driven out by the volume.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I kind of figured that something like that wouldn't get past you.
 
Re: When setup is important?

Dick Rees said:
Yeah, I kind of figured that something like that wouldn't get past you.
Click to expand...

Many poor installations come from someone missing the obvious...

So there is nothing wrong with making sure.

Anyways, I like to fall back on Tim Mc's truism: "Point the speakers where the people are".
 
Re: When setup is important?

This is the coverage per box.

Nominal Coverage Angle
Horizontal (-6 dB) .............................................................. 75°
Vertical (-6 dB) ........................................................ +15°/-35°

Do you really need more then 75° wide?

As I said in a post about the Qrx-212 in the other forum (that you replied to) the best I have ever had them sound was when I flat fronted them and put the vocals only in one per side and the instruments in the other.

I talked to EV recently and the splay would have to be very wide between the 2 boxes as to not interfere with each other.

What DSP are you using to configure the settings for these boxes? EV has come out with some new settings for their DSP. It sounds very interesting.
 
Re: When setup is important?

Kevin Maxwell said:
This is the coverage per box.

Nominal Coverage Angle
Horizontal (-6 dB) .............................................................. 75°
Vertical (-6 dB) ........................................................ +15°/-35°

Do you really need more then 75° wide?

As I said in a post about the Qrx-212 in the other forum (that you replied to) the best I have ever had them sound was when I flat fronted them and put the vocals only in one per side and the instruments in the other.



I talked to EV recently and the splay would have to be very wide between the 2 boxes as to not interfere with each other.

What DSP are you using to configure the settings for these boxes? EV has come out with some new settings for their DSP. It sounds very interesting.
Click to expand...

The system has a Driverack PA (not my choice) which limits what I can do with any parallel processing such as dual PA, and since it is an installed system, I would not move to any configuration where someone other than me has to do anything other than push the main fader up.

The LF crossover is roll my own, and the HF crossover is based on the EV recommendations. The system eq is roll my own. The limiters are set fairly conservatively, but I have never even gotten close to engaging the limiters in the drive rack.

As I said, I would not be making any changes without some modeling, but my real inclination would be to go to one per side at the stage, with good downtilt to cover the dance floor in front of the stage,and then move the second pair out about 50 feet as a second line of delays. There are still the existing delays all the way in the back in the pool room.

Although we continue to miss the point of my post. I have no doubt that if I sit down with the proper tools that I can figure out how to best use the equipment that they have, in this particular room. The question remains "should I".
 
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Re: When setup is important?

Jay Barracato said:
The system has a Driverack PA (not my choice) which limits what I can do with any parallel processing such as dual PA, and since it is an installed system, I would not move to any configuration where someone other than me has to do anything other than push the main fader up.

The LF crossover is roll my own, and the HF crossover is based on the EV recommendations. The system eq is roll my own. The limiters are set fairly conservatively, but I have never even gotten close to engaging the limiters in the drive rack.

As I said, I would not be making any changes without some modeling, but my real inclination would be to go to one per side at the stage, with good downtilt to cover the dance floor in front of the stage,and then move the second pair out about 50 feet as a second line of delays. There are still the existing delays all the way in the back in the pool room.

Although we continue to miss the point of my post. I have no doubt that if I sit down with the proper tools that I can figure out how to best use the equipment that they have, in this particular room. The question remains "should I".
Click to expand...

I don’t know how tall your ceiling is but if you do move a pair out for delay you might want to then rotate the horns and hang them sideways. It should be very easy to tilt them with the way the tracks are on the top and bottom. They wont be as intrusive hung that way.

And if the owner is willing to “shore up the weak points” then you might want to look at a new DSP. I went from a DR260 to a DR4800 and I really could tell the difference. But in your case I would look into the EV DSP and see how much that might help with the new tunings and filters.
 
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Re: When setup is important?

Jay Barracato said:
I think it was Ivan who had commented that even if the average person doesn't hear the problems, they will notice when it gets better.
Click to expand...
Yes I have said that many times. The people who "dis" combfiltering-are simply nieve.

It is not this big "Ugly twisted" type of sound. But rather a "dull-not as clear" type of sound.

You mostly don't realize it when it is happening, but you instantly realize how much better it sounds without the combfiltering.

As I used to say-"back in the 'ol days-combfiltering was never an issue. I didn't know what it was-so it was not a problem" HA-HA.

It is not like the sound is not listenable-in fact we hear combfiltering with even a single driver speaker all the time. Any reflection introduces combfiltering.

Combfiltering is not only because of 2 different loudspeakers are covering the same area-but also happens within a single cabinet. If 2 adjacent passbands arrive at the listeners ear at different times (even small parts of a ms apart-depending on freq) you will have combfiltering.

It is kinda like those Clariton commericals in which they pull the "veil" off of the screen and it looks clearer. It is not that it looked that bad before-just better without it.

HOWEVER-If a single cabinet will not get loud enough-then it doesn't matter how good or better it sounds. It needs to be loud enough for the situation at hand.

And we as an industry have just "gotten used to it", but that does not mean it is right.

It is real easy to play with on a digital console that has delay on the inputs. Just assign a single input jack to 2 channels-and put a little delay on JUST ONE of them-say 1ms.

Now set the gain/trim the same and turn up both channels equally (assigned to a single output) and listen. Headphones are a good way-that way you eliminate any possible combfiltering in your playback sytem (reflections or combfiltering within your playback speakers)

This is as bad as it can ever be. If you reduce the level of one channel-you will hear it get clearer-and when one channel is completely off-it is clearest.
 
Re: When setup is important?

Just my 2c, but I think a lot of you guys are over thinking the coverage specs. The cabinet is a front loaded 2x12 with a not that big horn. 75x50 at what frequency? The 12's will have some natural directivity at the upper frequencies, but it's not 75x55 at any frequency. There's a lot to be gleaned from these conversations, but if you are going to just be a neck up protractor engineer, you better understand all of the physics, not just the spec sheet.

There are a lot of bad sounding rooms because of under splaying, but there are also a lot of bad sounding rooms because of over splaying. EQ can't fix either scenario.

Is there really no way to test playing the speakers differently, even just as a test on a dark day, without buying a rigging package that will cost much more than the cabinets? We haven't seen any pictures of the room yet, but you can get a lot done with grade 8 eye bolts and steel rope. I'd buy a real processor way before I bought a super expensive rig bar that will only serve one purpose and won't be any use when they change out the cabinets.

thomas d.
 
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