Just wondering but are there any SR companies that do just sound for raves? It's what I have started doing and when I talk to other local "real" sound companies they always wonder why they don't need to bring any mics and stuff. So, if anyone out there does sound espicially for raves, I would like to talk.


Reply posted by Bob Ellis on January 04, 2002

I don't do just raves and I'm not really a 'company'. But I do a regular 'rave' type thingy and have done several others. Not big but OK for clubs with up to 200 people. So......
The sound graph that i find works may seem a little wierd but this is what these guys want. And if that's what they want then that's what they get and they love it. It goes something like this.... discernable feel from 30hz (doesn't have to be much), coming up and flattening out at 40hz till about 70hz, 70hz on up a bump starts with about plus 6 dbs (very approx feel figures here) at about 90hz to 100hz then slowly trail off down to about 120hz then the rest flat and clear up to what ever you system will do (16khz?).

Just an observation on what works for my customers. Maybe it'll be different for you. I just get the impression that a lot of people think that raves are looking for sub bass when in my experience they aren't especially. Sub bass is good but they seem to want plenty of good old fashioned bass IMHO. Whatever, they don't want it flat though.

cheers
Bob Ellis


Reply posted by Jeff Tucker on January 04, 2002

There aren't any that "specialize" in that area of the business around here... though I know a guy that has some gear specifically for when he does a rave.

I always saw them as "easy $$$", if you have enough gear to run at those kind of levels for 12 hours. I can tell you it's hell on the low end boxes. And there was always a fight about who was going to do the gig. Nobody enjoys cleaning puke off of cables and scraping suckers off the subs. Lots of orange juice on the floor.... yuk.

I guess if you wanna play, you gotta pay.

Jeff


Reply posted by Jason Kelly on January 04, 2002

Well I have done quite a few raves and dance events and find them a very mixed bag. I do find there a lot of DJ's that have a terrible attitude and technique. But there are others who really know what they are doing, both technically and artistically. Yes in many ways you do just babysit the system. But the system really has to be designed and put together very well. Or you will end up with a lot of blown drivers.

One big mistake is to just put a lot of sub bass into the system. Although this is a good start (I generally work on a 1 high to 1 sub rule) it is easy to forget that a lot of dance music has all the punch in the 150-170hz range. That is way out of the sub band. That is why Turbo is very respected by rave people, it is a very powerful and tight system in that range.

Raves can be a very frustrating experience for engineers that generally do live work. Try to think of DJ's as the vocalists in bands. They can be a pain, but if you win their respect they will generally listen to your input on the technical side. Also always give them over powerful monitors, they love that.

good luck,

Jason Kelly


Reply posted by Jens Droessler on January 05, 2002

A sound provider here in Germany specialised on raves puts down 125Hz till max minus (-12dB on normal eqs...) and 160Hz half way down. Now all songs sound equal in the low freq range.... They put at least 8 lf horns per side. Their output is hitting like a hammer.... I saw people almost fainting (at least they couldn't respond) due to heavy lf levels. I had to be there one time they had 10 horns. I had to be there to check the location for the next days live show where I did sound. I had to use something to protect my ears, so I can't say anything about their sound in mid/hi-range, but lf caused vision distortions in my case (at 5 to 10m from stack)...... I think that’s heavy SPL for a small beer tent..


Reply posted by MIKE on January 04, 2002

Hi there,

I´ve been doing a lot of raves last year. Including the Mayday in Dortmund. It´s not always that you don´t need mic´s. We needed some because we had live percussion on the set! Well it´s been very interesting, the hours are many, but still it´s paying off if you are doing it with enough material!

Greetings
Mike


Reply posted by Jon Martin on January 04, 2002

I think, as M has pointed out, that Rave and Dance music IS a very lucrative venture that providers should pay more attention to. I have worked on Rave gigs that rival or surpass (on the -Off-Topic end- ) of any Big Rock Show. I think what gets all of us is; There is NOTHING to mix.

For us true " Mixers" it just becomes Babysitting.-No more-No less-.
Watch as DJ -insert silly name here-, probably Gemini or Rane or my favorite " DJ SnoCone" red lights their mixer, and you, as the poor sap who has to sit there all night and listen to the " Dynamics" of said DJ, have to keep going up on stage and telling DJ 'whoever' to back it down.......Now repete this process 30 times. In the words of the auspicious M " Do you see a pattern developing here?"

I've sat, for hour on end watching these "Raver Kidz", with the 30 second attention spans,you couldn't squeeze a thought in between their neurons. I swear if another punk ass raver comes up to me,as I'm leering at them, and asks me " If I have a 'Blowie'" I'm gonna snap.

What ever happened to : "Hey, wanna smoke a J and get some coffee, perhaps come up with a new type of crossover or something?”

Triple-J


Reply posted by Bink on January 04, 2002

Obviously what the live sound provider needs is a fool-the-eye DJ mixer that maxes out at unity and provides many pretty bars of red LED at that level. No distortion. A mixer that is made this way wouldn't ever sell, though, so you would have to de-tune them on your own. How could you ever tweak enough of them to match the make and model of all those horrible DJ mixers on the market?

A lot of DJs seem to need to hear the forced fuzz tone of sytem overload. They would be able to tell that your punk-ass DJ mixer was tampered with. In that case you could run their monitor send through a distortion device like an overdriven tube amp or something.

-Bink

P.S. Was helping set up a rave and my friend the gear provider just said to the first DJ "Turn your mixer up all the way full EQ full faders full bars" and left his gear tuned to that level of output. No more useless pleading and begging as you babysit.

(Editor’s note: Now THAT’s funny! – C.K.)


Reply posted by Tim Duffin on January 10, 2002

That is exactly how to take the control of the DJ out of the picture-- if you have a pioneer mixer with separate final output gain, just crank everything all the way up and turn down the final gain-- the DJ has no choice but to turn it down. And by the way, the nifty flashing red lights look cool to most djs. And for smart ass DJ's, I put the mixer and tables in a coffin and push down the flap which conceals the rear of the mixer and the final gain output so they cant see it. And if they really piss me off, I just drive a sheetrock screw through the flap into the frame of the coffin so that they can't simply lift up the flap and crank it up again!!!