Highly impressed by these systems this year and I just wanted to share.
L-Acoustics, Meyer Sound and Ultrasound thank you so much for your expertise and attention to detail, absolute professionals.
Here are a couple of videos worth sharing, the scope of these systems is mind blowing.
L-Acoustics
Hollywood Bowl Sound & Calibration Case Study (L-Acoustics Tools) - YouTube
Ultrasound
UltraSound and Dead & Company Tour Prep - YouTube
L-Acoustics, Meyer Sound and Ultrasound thank you so much for your expertise and attention to detail, absolute professionals.
Here are a couple of videos worth sharing, the scope of these systems is mind blowing.
L-Acoustics
Hollywood Bowl Sound & Calibration Case Study (L-Acoustics Tools) - YouTube
Ultrasound
UltraSound and Dead & Company Tour Prep - YouTube
The trucking thing is a serious issue that the industry needs to tackle. Things are way better than they were, at least on the PA front, but the fact that a major label artist tour can approach 30 trucks per date, with two sets on the road to allow for leapfrogging venues en route is just insanity.
Thats a spicy target +12.5dB (and it looks like the holywood bowl tuning is more like +15dB) at 40Hz but does correlate with what I end up running for recorded music playback in a club.
My home target is:
20 8.829695786
25 8.829695786
30 8.829695786
35 8.018092456
40 7.315049674
45 6.694921991
50 6.140198876
55 5.63839078
60 5.18027588
65 4.758851024
70 4.368672551
75 4.005425082
80 3.7
100 2.5
125 1.3
160 0.6
200 0.2
250 0
1000 -1
32000 -6
My home target is:
20 8.829695786
25 8.829695786
30 8.829695786
35 8.018092456
40 7.315049674
45 6.694921991
50 6.140198876
55 5.63839078
60 5.18027588
65 4.758851024
70 4.368672551
75 4.005425082
80 3.7
100 2.5
125 1.3
160 0.6
200 0.2
250 0
1000 -1
32000 -6
Attachments
It’s pretty close to the equal loudness contour shape for a 90-100 phon level, as I see it. Depending on the content, I’d like a system with the capability for much more spectral tilt; at least headroom-wise, so that when a newer act comes on with plenty of keys and synth I don’t find myself slamming the limiters for the entire set.
If the show is going to be mostly electronic-based acts, my system designs tend toward a 3-40 dB ‘max SPL’ target difference for subs versus mains. Neither should hit thermal or power limiters any time over a 16-hour run. I like headroom!
It’ll be interesting to see if they revisit the Bowl with a flown sub array, after so much good research into that from the French corner.
If the show is going to be mostly electronic-based acts, my system designs tend toward a 3-40 dB ‘max SPL’ target difference for subs versus mains. Neither should hit thermal or power limiters any time over a 16-hour run. I like headroom!
It’ll be interesting to see if they revisit the Bowl with a flown sub array, after so much good research into that from the French corner.
Kyle, what kind of audience SPL do you like to be able to achieve for an electronic act from the subs?
Did you do the system for Hidden in Salford? I feel the suspended wooden floor there helps with bass perception.
I noticed later on in the video the target was different in that the upwards tilt moved to 400Hz. I attached my target as an image.
Did you do the system for Hidden in Salford? I feel the suspended wooden floor there helps with bass perception.
I noticed later on in the video the target was different in that the upwards tilt moved to 400Hz. I attached my target as an image.
Attachments
Well please bear in mind that this isn’t all used, but we did a 5000 capacity show at Victoria Warehouse earlier this year. I designed the system to be able to do 130 dBC slow at FOH, which was 30 metres back from the stage. There was about 9 dB of headroom left at that point.
The show itself ran closer to 115 dBC peak at that location, and it was plenty loud enough. With ground-stacked subs, it isn’t safe or fair to subject the front row to more than that. This was a spaced array of 18x TH118XL, which I developed in finite difference time domain models of the venue (with walls!) to have the lowest tonal and spatial variance possible rather than brute SPL.
I did another show at the end of summer which was outdoors in a 360 degree setup. 3000 capacity but way larger area. 14 subs in a three-deep offset hybrid gradient 360 degree array, and that was closer to 120 dBC at FOH some 18 metres away. Again, it would have been nice to fly the subs for more consistent level front to back.
I don't tend to use a target curve myself. There are too many variables in a venue to make it trustworthy. I'd rather spend the time chasing down aiming and alignment issues than making a curve for something that worked in one place with a different RT, structural makeup, content and such.
And yeah, Hidden is one of ours. None of our Void setups use the factory settings, especially the subs. The wooden floor is actually a curse in there, and the subs have always been on a poured concrete and steel pad at the front to decouple them as best we can.
I haven’t been back there much since the redo though.
The real star of the show at that venue is the BC412 in my opinion. Four 12” in a 4ft square slab, just plonk it wherever and point it at the crowd.
The show itself ran closer to 115 dBC peak at that location, and it was plenty loud enough. With ground-stacked subs, it isn’t safe or fair to subject the front row to more than that. This was a spaced array of 18x TH118XL, which I developed in finite difference time domain models of the venue (with walls!) to have the lowest tonal and spatial variance possible rather than brute SPL.
I did another show at the end of summer which was outdoors in a 360 degree setup. 3000 capacity but way larger area. 14 subs in a three-deep offset hybrid gradient 360 degree array, and that was closer to 120 dBC at FOH some 18 metres away. Again, it would have been nice to fly the subs for more consistent level front to back.
I don't tend to use a target curve myself. There are too many variables in a venue to make it trustworthy. I'd rather spend the time chasing down aiming and alignment issues than making a curve for something that worked in one place with a different RT, structural makeup, content and such.
And yeah, Hidden is one of ours. None of our Void setups use the factory settings, especially the subs. The wooden floor is actually a curse in there, and the subs have always been on a poured concrete and steel pad at the front to decouple them as best we can.
I haven’t been back there much since the redo though.
The real star of the show at that venue is the BC412 in my opinion. Four 12” in a 4ft square slab, just plonk it wherever and point it at the crowd.
In the book "Sound Systems: Design and Optimization: Modern Techniques and Tools for Sound System Design and Alignment" which I recently got Bob McCarthy discuss spectral tilt in system EQ. He views it as a kind of 'distance to speaker' parameter as its analogous to the HF absorption that you would get with distance. He specifies a broad range of 6dB - 24dB and states that the required tilt depends on the reverberation time (as another factor affecting perceived depth) and the desired 'distance' from the speakers. Seems an interesting idea I should probably program in a few different DSP presets next time I EQ a system to see what the effect is. I use flexible floating point processing so I should probably be EQing the system flat and then adding contour EQ on top to make all this easier.
I'm only small scale we currently have 10*18" reflex subs and a couple of 16kW amps. We always have enough sub for the size of gig we are doing (reaching 120dBc slow at FOH for one act) but there often isn't enough space to construct arrays more complicated than a line of subs in front of the stage. Problems we do have are keeping sub levels down on stage an avoiding bleed to other stages at festivals. Longer term we plan to move to 12*skrams and some crowd barrier so we can do things like gradient arrays and cardoid arrays.
I remember the sub been pretty great in Hidden so you must be getting it right. I didn't actually see what the subs where but the tops where white void horns in the room I was in. The BC412 specs are pretty mental!
I'm only small scale we currently have 10*18" reflex subs and a couple of 16kW amps. We always have enough sub for the size of gig we are doing (reaching 120dBc slow at FOH for one act) but there often isn't enough space to construct arrays more complicated than a line of subs in front of the stage. Problems we do have are keeping sub levels down on stage an avoiding bleed to other stages at festivals. Longer term we plan to move to 12*skrams and some crowd barrier so we can do things like gradient arrays and cardoid arrays.
I remember the sub been pretty great in Hidden so you must be getting it right. I didn't actually see what the subs where but the tops where white void horns in the room I was in. The BC412 specs are pretty mental!
Not picking on you specifically, but it's very common (normal!) for a listener to "blame" a certain sound quality onto whichever component they happen to be interested in. Often, it's the loudspeakers which are complained about, even though there are many other components which are earlier in the sound chain and system setup.
