I'm looking for a bit of know how on metering SPL at gigs. I currently have a basic portable meter but we are looking for a system where we can have microphones at various points above the crowd (preferably wireless and battery powered) with readout screens with long and short term averages on screens at the mixing desk (in dBA and dBC). Is there anything commercially available like this?
that would be cool...but given previous past experience with just how loud rowdy crowds can be, how would separate crowd noise from PA SPL?
Of course I don't know what you are trying to do, but when I monitor sound levels it is sound of the music, and it doesn't matter how loud it is up above the crowd, it matters WITHIN the crowd.
Hey, that's a DIYaudio, why go commercials?
Use ESP8266 with mics from ~18650 accus, ESPHome and Home assistant on the Raspberry and Home assistant companion on your phone. Add dedicated WiFi through listening zone.
Then just tune "integration" functions and mics gain.
It will be even more usable if you add integral long-term speaker power and speaker basket temperature monitoring.
ESPHome — ESPHome
Home Assistant - Apps on Google Play
This is a good point and for me where operator skill comes in, if dB readings are high but you can't hear the music then it needs to be turned up unless there is an overriding reason it can't be. What we are trying to avoid is volume creep up during an event, there is a temptation to turn it up to add impact and forget to turn down again leading to continual increase. We may also need to present data to festival organizers etc. of our current dance floor SPL as we will be provided a limit for this to avoid excessive leakage to other stages.
I do quite like the idea of a homemade solution as it would be easy enough to do with digital MEMS mics and ESP platform considering that the averaging an be done by each node and so very little information actually needs to be transmitted. I'm quite short of time though so if there is something that can just be bought that does the job and is not crazy expensive that would be great.
Smaart V8 does exactly what you want to do:
Smaart v8
I didn't read the manual (don't want to get tempted to upgrade from V6..), but looks like at least 6 mic locations are supported on one screen.
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Ah yes that looks like what I have seen at large gigs before, thanks.
Also found this stuff from the SMAART page that seems to be calibrated mic hardware:
10EaZy PRODUCTS — 10EaZy
(not cheap though...)
Also found this stuff from the SMAART page that seems to be calibrated mic hardware:
10EaZy PRODUCTS — 10EaZy
(not cheap though...)
