Article

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The Timbral Effects Of Compression

An excerpt from Audio Production and Critical Listening: Technical Ear Training by Jason Corey.

 
In addition to being a utilitarian device for managing the dynamic range of recording media, dynamics processing has become a tool for altering the color and timbre of recorded sound.

When applied to a full mix, compression and limiting can help the elements of a mix coalesce.

The compressed musical parts will have what is known in auditory perception as common fate because their amplitude changes share some similarity.

When two or more elements (e.g., instruments) in a mix have synchronously changing amplitudes, the auditory system will tend to fuse these elements together perceptually.

The result is that dynamics processing can help blend elements of a mix together. In this section we will move beyond compression as a basic tool for maintaining consistent signal levels to compression as a tool to sculpt the timbre of a track.

Effect of Attack Time
With a compressor set to a long attack time — in the 100- millisecond range or greater — with a low threshold and high ratio we can hear the sound plunge down in level when the input signal goes above the threshold.

The audible effect of the sound being brought down at this rate is what is known as a pumping sound and can be most audible on sounds with a strong pulse where the signal clearly rises above the threshold and then drops below it, such as those produced by drums, other percussion instruments, and sometimes an upright acoustic bass.

If any lower-level sounds or background noise is present with the main sound being compressed, a modulated background sound will be heard. Sounds that are more constant in level such as distorted electric guitar will not exhibit such an audible pumping effect.

Effect of Release Time
Another related effect is present if a compressor is set to have a long release time, in the 100-millisecond range or greater. Listening again with a low threshold and high ratio, be attentive for the sound to come back up in level after a strong pulse.

The audible effect of the sound being brought back up in level after significant gain reduction is called breathing because it can sound like someone taking a breath.

As with the pumping effect, you may notice the effect most prominently on background sounds, hiss, or higher overtones that ring after a strong pulse.

Although compression tends to be explained as a process that it reduces the dynamic range of an audio signal, there are ways to use a compressor that can accentuate the difference between transient peak levels and any sustained resonance that may follow.

In essence, what can be achieved with compression can be similar to dynamic range expansion because peaks or strong pulses can be highlighted relative to quieter sounds that immediately follow them.

It may seem completely counterintuitive to try to think of compressors performing dynamic range expansion, but in the following section we will work through what happens when experimenting with various attack times.

Compression and Drums
A recording with a strong pulse, such as drums or percussion, with a regularly repeating transient will trigger gain reduction in a compressor and can serve as a useful type of sound to highlight the effect of a dynamics processing.

By processing a stereo mix of a full drum kit through a compressor at a fairly high ratio of 6:1, attack and release times can be adjusted to hear their effect on the sound of the drums.

On a typical recording of a snare drum that has not been compressed, there is a natural attack or onset, perhaps some sustain, and then a decay.

The compressor can influence all of these properties depending on how the parameters are set. The attack time has the greatest influence on the onset of the drum sound, allowing an engineer to reshape this particular feature of the sound.

Increasing the attack time from a very short time to a much longer time, the initial onset of each drum hit is audibly affected.

A very short attack time can remove the sense of a sharp onset. By increasing the attack time, the onset sound begins to gain prominence and may in fact be accentuated slightly when compared to the uncompressed version.

Let us explore the sonic effect on a drum kit when listening through a compressor with a low threshold, high ratio, and very short attack time (e.g., down to 0 milliseconds).

With such a short attack time, transients are immediately brought down in level, nearly at the rate at which the input level rises for each transient.

Where the rate of gain reduction nearly matches the rate at which a transient signal rises in level, a signal’s transient nature is significantly reduced.

So with very short attack times, transients are lost because the gain reduction is bringing a signal’s level down at nearly the same rate that the signal was originally rising up during a transient.

As a result, the initial attack of a transient signal is reduced to the level of the sustained or resonant part of the amplitude envelope. Very short attack times can be useful in some instances such as on limiters that are being used to avoid clipping.

For shaping drum and percussion sounds, short attack times are quite destructive and tend to take the life out of the original sounds.

Lengthening the attack time to just a few milliseconds, a clicking sound emerges at the onset of a transient. The click is produced by a few milliseconds of the original audio passing through as gain reduction occurs, and the timbre of the click is directly dependent on the length of the attack time. The abrupt gain reduction reshapes the attack of a drum hit.

By increasing the attack time further, the onset sound begins to gain prominence relative to sustain and decay portions of the sound, and it may be more accentuated than without processing.

When compressing low-frequency drums such as bass drum or kick drum, an increase in the attack time will increase the presence of low-frequency harmonics.

Because low frequencies have longer periods, a longer attack time will allow more cycles of a low-frequency sound to occur before gain reduction and therefore low-frequency content to be more audible on each rhythmic bass pulse.

The release time affects mostly the decay of the sound. The decay portion of the sound is that which becomes quieter after the loud onset.

If the release time is set long, then the compressor gain does not quickly return to unity after the signal level has fallen below the threshold (which happens during the decay).

With a long release time, the natural decay of the drum sound becomes significantly reduced.

When compressing a mix of an entire drum kit, it becomes more apparent that the attack time is affecting the spectral balance of the total sound.

Increasing the attack time from a very short value to something longer, increases the low-frequency energy coming from the bass drum.

As attack time is lengthened from near zero to several tens or hundreds of milliseconds, the spectral effect is similar to adding a low-shelf filter to the mix and increasing the low-frequency energy.

Compression and Vocals
Because vocal performances tend to have a wide dynamic range, engineers often find that some sort of dynamic range control helps them reach their artistic goals for a given recording.

Compression can be very useful in reducing the dynamic range and de-essing a vocal track.

Unfortunately, compression does not always work as transparently as desired, and artifacts from the automated gain control of a compressor sometimes come through.

A couple of simple tips can help reduce dynamic range without adding too many of the side effects that can detract from a performance:

• Use low ratios. The lower the ratio, the less gain reduction that will be applied. Ratios of 2:1 are a good place to start.   • Use more than one compressor in series. By chaining two or three compressors in series on a vocal, each set to a low ratio, each compressor can provide some gain reduction and the effect is more transparent than using a single compressor to do all of the gain reduction.

To help identify when compression is applied too aggressively, listen for changes in timbre while watching the gain reduction meter on our compressor.

If there is any change in timbre that is synchronized with gain reduction, the solution may be to lower the ratio or raise the threshold or both. Sometimes a track may sound slightly darker during extreme gain reduction, and it can be easier to identify synchronous changes when watching the gain reduction meter of a compressor.

A slight popping sound at the start of a word or phrase may indicate that the attack time is too slow.

Generally a very long attack time is not effective on a vocal since it has the effect of accentuating the attack of a vocal and can be distracting.

Compression of a vocal usually brings out lower-level detail in a vocal performance such as breaths and “ s ” sounds. A de-esser, which can reduce the “ s ” sound, is simply a compressor that has a high-pass filtered (around 5 kHz) version of the vocal as its side chain or key input. De-essers tend to work most effectively with very fast attack and release times.

To purchase Audio Production and Critical Listening: Technical Ear Training click on over to the Focal Press website.

Jason Corey is an Assistant Professor of audio engineering and performing arts technology at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance and an active member of the Audio Engineering Society.

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Tech Talk: Our Tech Guru Answers The Difficult Questions

Clearing up miscionceptions about constant directivity horns and doubling of distance

Question:
A while ago, I wondered what caused a Constant Directivity (CD) horn to exhibit a roll-off different from any other.

I made the assumption the phenomenon existed after seeing numerous processing products that include “CD horn compensation.”

I was told that no such thing existed, and that the roll-off exhibited was due to the break point associated with the diaphragm mass of the driver.

Could you please elaborate on what the truth is here? And what is this break point due to diaphragm mass? Does this exist?

Answer:
CD horns slot-load the driver at the horizontal break point of the horn. You can see it, if you look at the front of the horn into the bell. For most CD horns, this will be a vertical slot where the two sides of the horn bell meet.

This slot creates a diffractional effect that causes all the driver’s energy to radiate evenly between the horn walls, thus creating “constant directivity” from the lowest frequency. The horn loads the driver in the horizontal plane up to the frequency where the slot is wider than the wavelength.

This low-frequency loading point is evident in the vertical beam-width plot of the horn’s specifications. However, a driver’s total acoustic power output declines with increasing frequency, therefore the overall output level must decline as the frequency increases above the mid-band range where the driver is most efficient.

CD horn EQ boost is employed to counteract this phenomenon, producing a flatter response to the upper limit of the driver’s response.

Radial horns narrow in beam-width as frequency increases. Thus the lesser energy of the driver at higher frequencies still produces a flatter response on axis and needs no boost EQ.

CD horns were invented to counteract this narrowing of beam-width at high frequencies that the then-common radial horn exhibited. In order to maintain the flat on-axis response that everyone was used to, HF EQ boost was necessary.

The Diaphragm Break-Point phenomenon is more commonly known as the first break-up mode. The first break-up mode occurs when the wavelengths through the material of the diaphragm, not through air, become smaller than the diameter of the diaphragm.

This is not a roll-off of frequency response, but a deep notch in the higher frequencies usually followed by resonant peaks and more notches even higher in frequency. This notch can be 20dB deep, if your measurement system’s sample points are at the right frequencies.

A typical aluminum four-inch diaphragm will have this notch at a lower frequency than an aluminum three-inch diaphragm. Likewise, a titanium or beryllium diaphragm will have a higher first break-up mode than a similar diameter aluminum diaphragm.

This is because the speed of sound through those materials is faster than it is through aluminum. Paper cone speakers also have the same characteristics occurring at much lower frequencies. Break-up modes and resonances of 15-inch drivers show up, if the LPF of the crossover is removed.

Question:
I have been told that line arrays have a cylindrical wave front and their level attenuates at only 3dB per doubling of distance.

Is this true?

Answer:
First, let’s discuss the cylindrical wave front idea.

This is an idealized explanation for what happens with a straight line array, and does not accurately describe the more common curved-J arrays seen in concert pictures and advertisements.

If you ignore the small side lobes at the top and bottom of the array, which are an artifact of the individual speaker spacing and vertical coverage overlap, the coverage of a straight line array looks similar to one-quarter of a single layer of a round cake or can of tuna.

Geometrically, this approximates a cylindrical segment. The dispersion of a perfect point source is a spherical wave front. The cylindrical wave front dispersion pattern of a line array is not perfect, but is close enough to draw a comparison and is easy to visualize.

In fact, the vertical dispersion does vary with frequency and undulates with distance within this near-field effect. Undulates means that the level goes up and down, like an oscillation as the distance increases, though the overall level follows a -3dB slope as distance increases.

Now let’s look at the 3dB loss per doubling of distance. This effect is only true in the near field, where the height of the array is multiples of the wavelength.

The near field is the distance range where the level attenuates at roughly 3dB per doubling of distance. Where this effect no longer occurs, called the far field, is where the line array begins to look like a point source and the level drops at 6dB per doubling of distance like any radiant energy point source.

Derived by Mark Ureda for JBL, the formula for the division between the near field and far field, known as the critical distance, is:

 

This formula is in feet. Also, note that frequency is a part of the equation and that the higher the frequency, the greater the critical distance. For example, for an array 30 feet tall, 100Hz will have a near field that only extends 39 feet. However, the near field for 10,000Hz extends to 3,913 feet!

This means that there will be a lot more high frequency content than low at greater distances, which is somewhat compensated for by air attenuation. This also means that for very long wavelengths (very low frequencies), there is no near-field condition for an audience even a few feet away from the array.

Curved-J arrays exhibit this effect perfectly, where there is no splay between boxes, usually at the top of the array. Where the curve is greater at the bottom of the array, this effect is much weaker.

Now how are you going to tune this puppy by ear?

John Murray is a 30-year industry veteran who has worked for several leading manufacturers, and has also presented two published AES papers as well as chaired four SynAudCon workshops.

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Hartselle Church Congregants Rely On Iconyx

The Hartselle Church of Christ chose Iconyx to combat several unforseen challenges created by the pristine architecture of the church.

Hartselle Church of Christ which boasts beautiful, inspirational architecture featuring high ceilings and ornate brickwork, i’s an impressive looking sanctuary..

However, that same architecture created some unforeseen challenges. As Christopher Bragg, Senior Systems Engineer at Covington, GA-based Messenger Media Systems Inc., explains, the room’s acoustic signature did not lend itself to getting the message across to the congregation.

“It’s a very wide room, and very reflective,” says Bragg.

“As a traditional Church of Christ, their service is very much centered around the spoken word. And while those brick walls look great, they can create problems with intelligibility, making it difficult to clearly discern what’s being said.”

The reflective nature of the space called for a highly focused loudspeaker system that offered powerful beamwidth control, and Renkus-Heinz’s Iconyx digitally steerable array system fit the bill. “When I walked in the room, I knew immediately that Iconyx was the only option,” says Bragg.

A pair of Iconyx IC16/8-R loudspeakers are installed into custom soffits on either side of the proscenium. As Bragg explains, the Iconyx’s low-profile design also addressed the church’s concerns for minimal visibility.

“Aesthetics were of the utmost importance,” says Bragg. “They did not want to see the speakers.”

“We worked with the architect, and had them leave an opening in the brickwork on either side of the proscenium. The Iconyx fit in perfectly, and we put a bit of standard molding around it. It looks terrific.”

A pair of CFX81 compact 8-inch two-way loudspeakers, mounted behind a small façade, provide side fill, and two Sygma-Series SGX41 4-inch two-way boxes are installed at the rear wall for the sound booth.

“We’ve received lots of compliments on the sound quality,” he says. “The sound is clear, natural and articulate to every seat in the house.”

Renkus-Heinz’s Website

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Rechargeable Batteries - Why You’ve Been Burned

If the last rechargeable's you tried were a $10 K-Mart special maybe it's time to give serious batteries a chance.

 
One of the most fascinating topics I’ve ever written about has to be rechargeable batteries.

I’ve tweeted about and read countless comment threads on the topic and there seems to be three camps of people in the rechargeable battery debate.

The first group has used them for years, loves them and wouldn’t consider going back to alkaline batteries.

The second group has never used them, though most have heard the horror stories and are leery. The third group has tried them, and had bad experiences.

The phrase, “I’ve been burned too many times, I’ll never trust them,” has been thrown around dozens of times just in the last few weeks. This article is for the second and third groups.

If you’ve been burned, I’m going to explain why, and if you’ve heard the stories, I’ll show you how to avoid them.

By way of introduction, know that I have been using rechargeable batteries in wireless mics (and a lot of other stuff) for almost four years. I’ve tested them, and have gone through hundreds of services using rechargeable batteries without a problem.

Yes, hundreds of services. Far too many people have one bad experience, don’t investigate the cause and swear them off. The fact is, I’ve had just as many ProCells die on me at the wrong time as I have rechargeable cells–and in each case, it was always been my fault—I simply forgot to change them.

There are four things you need to know in order to get the most out of rechargeable batteries. Failing to understand and implement these things will guarantee bad experiences. However, trying to stretch a ProCell for 2 weekends worth of services is a bad idea, too.

Keep in mind that rechargeable batteries behave differently than alkalines. Expecting them to be the same will only frustrate you. However, follow these guidelines and you’ll have great success; and save a ton of money.

Use Good Batteries
This is one of the key factors in getting good results. A lot of people went down to K-Mart 10 years ago, picked up a $10 pack of four NiCd AAs and a charger, tried them in their mics and went down in flames. That explains 50% of the “bad experiences.”

To use rechargeable batteries in wireless mics, you need to use a more modern chemistry, Nickel Metal Hydride, or NiMh. The batteries need to be rated for at least 2000 mAh (I like 2500 and higher). mAh stands for milliamp hours and is provides a guide as to how much energy the battery can store.

If you pull open your junk drawer and find a bunch of 1300 mAh NiMh batteries that are 5+ years old, that may explain the other 50% of the “been burned” statements.

A ProCell is rated for somewhere around 1800 mAh. The modern, high quality batteries from Sanyo, Powerex and Ansmann (with ratings from 2700-2850 mAh) absolutely blow ProCells away; as I’ll show you in an upcoming series of test results.

Even a 4-year old Ansmann 2700 beats a ProCell by almost 4 hours. And these newer batteries are rated for between 500-1000 charge cycles. Figuring one or two cycles a weekend, that could easily mean 5 years or more on one set, provided they are taken care of.

If your experience with rechargeable batteries does not include these newer batteries, you simply don’t have enough experience to make an informed decision.

So good batteries are important, but there is another component.

Proper Charging
The second key component to proper use of NiMh batteries is the proper use of a good charger.

Using a cheap “rapid” charger will not fully charge the cells, will overheat them and shorten their life.

Modern, smart chargers are readily available, easily affordable and will charge the batteries at the correct rate to fully charge them, while avoiding over-heating.

They will then switch to a trickle charge mode to keep them at peak capacity.

So what is a “proper charge rate?” Most battery manufacturers recommend a charge rate that is between 0.5-1.0c. That is to say, the charge rate should be one half to full capacity of the battery.

So, if a battery is rated at 2000 mAh, the recommended charge rate would be 1000 mAh, and max charge rate 2000 mAh. A full charge will take from 1-2 hours at those rates, respectively.

If you have the time and want to extend the life of the cell, charge at .25c. Sanyo recommends a charge rate between 300-500 mAh for their Eneloops (rated at 2000 mAh). Charging at those rates will give you somewhere between 500-1000 cycles, according to Sanyo. The other batteries I tested have similar ratings.

Personally, I like chargers from BTI, Maha or Ansmann; especially the ones that have selectable “soft” charge rates. I buy enough batteries that I can spend 4 hours charging them, so I charge at 500 mAh. Once the batteries are well charged, it’s important to know how to utilize them properly. And that brings us to…

Proper Cycling of Batteries
To ensure good results (“good” defined as the mic not dying mid-service), it’s important to use the batteries properly. Fully charged batteries should always go straight from the charger to the mic. Once the charger is empty, it should be re-filled with another set of batteries.

When the service or event is ended, remove the batteries from the mics, and charge. If you have enough charging bays, you can simply alternate from one set to another. However you do it, you always want to go from charger to mic.

The reason is that NiMh batteries will self-discharge over a period of 30-60 days. So while you may not lose a lot of capacity from Sunday to Saturday, you’ll be down 10-20% or so. Why push it? Go straight from charger to mic, and charge immediately afterward. Keep a set on the charger all week and you’ll always have fully charged batteries to work with.

Some are concerned about the “memory effect,” the loss of capacity that happens when NiCd cells are recharged before being fully depleted. NiMh cells have no significant memory effect, so charge them when you’re done using them. Don’t stretch them farther than needed.

Good chargers include a refresh cycle that will fully discharge each cell, then fully charge it again. It’s a good practice to do this every 3-4 months. This procedure will prolong the battery’s life and ensure top performance.

Understanding Discharge Curves
Another main factor in the “I’ve been burned” phenomena is the different discharge curves between an alkaline and NiMh battery. An alkaline battery drops off in a pretty linear fashion.

A NiMh, on the other hand, quickly drops from full voltage to something less than that and holds there for a long time. When it drops off, it drops of the cliff very quickly.

Most battery meters in wireless mics are calibrated to the discharge curve of an alkaline battery. As the voltage drops off, the meter can predict approximately how long the battery is likely to last.

However, with a NiMh, the voltage holds, then falls off very quickly. This is why it’s not uncommon to see a NiMh battery go from 4 bars to 0 in 5 minutes. The meter has no idea how to know where the battery is.

Some newer mics have battery meters that can be switched between alkaline and NiMh (the Shure UHF-R does for sure), and those can be a help.

However, there’s still no substitute for doing some testing and finding out how long they last in your mics.

Once determined, you know how often you need to change them, regardless of meter reading.

For example, I know that the Powerex and Sanyo 2700 mAh batteries will run a good 12-14 hours in our mics. So, I can feel confident putting them in Saturday afternoon for rehearsal and letting them run through end of service (about 4.5 hours total).

I can then put in a fresh set Sunday morning and be fine through the end (about 5 hours total). I don’t expect to ever have one go down, unless it’s a fluke. But again, that happens with ProCells, too.

Those are some basic principles for the proper care and feeding of NiMh batteries.

If you haven’t tried them lately, you should really give them a chance.

Are you a fan of rechargeable batteries? Have you recently switched? Let me know in the comments below!

Mike Sessler is the Technical Director at Coast Hills Community Church in Aliso Viejo, CA. He has been involved in live production for over 20 years and is the author of the blog, Church Tech Arts . He also hosts a weekly podcast called Church Tech Weekly on the TechArtsNetwork.

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Harman Professional Appoints John Goodrich Global Sales Manager For Mass Communications

Goodrich to provide systems integrators and clients in the mass communications vertical market with specialized attention, support and programs.

Harman Professional has announced the appointment of John Goodrich to the newly created position of Global Sales Manager for Mass Communications. 

Goodrich joins Harman Professional from Altel Systems Group, where he was Vice President of Business Development, leading the development of integrated audio/visual and communication systems for the airport, mass transit, and hospitality industries. 

He previously held senior sales and business development roles at Meyer Sound Labs and Innovative Electronic Designs (IED). 

In his new role, he will report to Michael MacDonald, Harman Professional Executive Vice President of Marketing & Sales, and will be responsible for developing Harman Professional’s presence in the mass communications market.

According to Michael MacDonald, John Goodrich’s appointment marks an important strategic step by Harman Professional to grow its business and provide customers in a host of vertical markets with a higher expectation level for audio performance and integration. “In some verticals audio has been commoditized and as a result communication has suffered,” said MacDonald. 

“Harman Professional brings professional-grade systems that are proven at the highest performance level but designed to suit the needs of mass communication and other verticals.  John Goodrich is the person to bring these systems to market; to work with integration partners, end-users and our own product designers to ensure that we enable better sound in more places than ever before imaginable.”

“Harman Professional’s dual strength in systems integration and audio performance presents a compelling opportunity to integrators and their clients in mass communications,” said John Goodrich.

“I look forward to working with Harman’s design teams and with our customers to advancing public address audio for communication, entertainment and life safety in the domestic and international markets.”

Earlier this year at the 2010 InfoComm Expo, Harman Professional launched a partnership with information display and paging specialist Com-Net Software to launch a series of new communication technologies starting with the co-branded IDX Information Delivery Systems.

The IDX System couples Harman’s Crown CTs, BSS London and HiQnet technologies on the back end with Com-Net Software ECLIPSX Flight Information Display System or ECLIPSX Transit Information Display System at the front end.  The combined result is great sounding, highly reliable audio networks with application-engineered interface and control in a versatile, cost-efficient package.

“IDX is remarkable,” Goodrich said.  “I applaud Harman for not seeking to reinvent the wheel on the front-end software and interface but instead integrating a high-performing, back-end audio network with a proven mass communications system and interface from Com-Net.”

“Its is literally and comprehensively the best of both worlds and I am very excited to be involved!”

Harman Professional Website

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Tech Tip Of The Day: Recording Vocals

The information you need to have a successful vocal session.

 
This Tech Tip Of The Day come to you in editorial form because we wanted to tackle one of the more difficult recording issues faced by engineers, whether a seasoned pro or a project studio newbie, recording vocals.

This job requires musical knowledge, technical expertise, possession of (or at least an awareness of) microphones, preamps and mixers, and a solid grounding in the psychology of performance.

However, we’re going to leave most of the equipment-related information for another time. This time out we’re discussing some equally important details.

Before you ever hang a microphone or move a fader, you must know your vocalist! You need to have a handle on his/her musical characteristics (pitch, range and timbre), technological skills (microphone technique, use of processing gear) and psychological needs (does he/she work well under pressure or need special encouragement?).

Even if you are recording your own band, take time to re-think the vocalists’ roles and requirements. This can save you hours of frustration and tons of hard feelings as your recording progresses!

There are a number of steps you can take to attain this knowledge. First, find any opportunity you can to listen to the performer in advance. It’s particularly helpful to hear them doing the songs you plan to record!

If the performer has a previous CD or even a demo tape, borrow and copy it for study. Or go see the group perform live and take notes. Even in an acoustically challenged club you can learn a great deal.

Focus on the lead vocalist: what’s his/her range (lowest practical pitch to highest)? Does he/she strain to reach the song’s high notes? If so you might suggest a key change before recording.

Is he/she “eating” the mic - e.g., using the proximity effect to enhance bass response on low-to-midrange notes? This can be a difficult habit to change and may lead to some careful jockeying of the vocalist and the mic in the studio.

How does the lead vocal “sit” in the mix? Is it out in front of the band (the case with much pop material) or does it blend more like another instrument in the overall sound (often an element of hard rock, metal or post-punk)? Is this intentional or just a reflection of poor live mixing?

Once you’ve made these assessments you can move on to background vocals. Ask similar questions but keep one extra thing in mind: often background vocal recordings sound better when sung by the lead singer, “accompanying” him/herself.

Are the group’s background vocalists strong enough to stand up to repeated listening? If not, you may have to do some treacherous psychological maneuvering in the studio as you persuade members to reduce their roles in the recording for the sake of better sound.

You need a combination of musical and technological knowledge to continue your preparations. Make some preliminary notes to remember important points. For example, although no two people have exactly the same range, average sopranos rarely sing pitches below Middle C. Their harmonics are most prominent at frequency ranges in which many live vocal mics have a presence peak; you may have to use equalization to capture that timbre.

Altos often exploit their low registers using the mic’s proximity effect to capture “breathiness.” Tenors sometimes have wide-open upper ranges that can easily cause clipping. Basses, while rare (Frank Zappa was a bass), call for a full-bodied low midrange response that is near many studio mics’ bass rolloff frequencies. You might do best by leaving your mic’s rolloff switch off and using mix equalization to tune in vocal and tune out noise.

If all this seems like a lot of work, it is! However, you’ll find that careful preparation before a session can save time and reduce stress in the studio, allowing you to focus on more creative issues. And that can only help you get the best recording possible.

As always, we welcome input from the PSW community and would love to know your thoughts on recording vocals. Feel free to let us know in the comments below!

 
For more tech tips go to Sweetwater.com

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Yamaha Systems Selected By Taylors First Baptist Church

The yamaha system finished what was initially a partial upgrade, making the mix of their contemporary service complete.

Taylors First Baptist Church in Taylors, South Carolina was chartered and established in 1864.

The ‘u-shaped’ sanctuary seats approximately 2,100, and with two services on Sunday mornings, the church serves a congregation of 3,000.

Recently, Palmetto Sound Works of Spartanburg, S.C. was contracted to perform an upgrade to their existing audio system originally installed in 1995.

About four years ago, the audio contractor performed a partial upgrade that included a Yamaha M7CL-48 digital audio console.

This year, the complete upgrade includes a second M7CL-48 along with Yamaha Installation Series IF Speakers, PC amps, and a DME 64n processor.

“The major challenge to installing a new system was being able to evenly distribute audio to a ‘u-shaped’ room, said Ben Babb, Palmetto Sound Works.”

“The stage and podium area are in the center with the seating area wrapping around three sides. Over 60% of the main floor is covered with balcony.”

“Therefore, getting sound under the balconies was one concern, and installing a processor that would handle this variety of delay zones and equalizations was a major consideration in the project.”

Taylors First Baptist was also having problems with some of the ‘dying’ components in their existing speaker system. Babb said that after Palmetto demonstrated the Yamaha IF 2115’s, a combination of IF2115’s, IF2112’s, IF2205’s and IF2108’s speakers were chosen to cover seven delay zones.

Danley TH115’s are used as subwoofers because of their compact size and available space at the church. Yamaha PC2001n and PC9501n amplifiers power the system.

The Yamaha DME64n digital mix engine is controlling the majority of the audio system. The M7CL at the front of house position is equipped with ES100 and EX cards to allow digital EtherSound communication between the DME64n and two ES168 stage boxes.

The DME64n is handling the system processing for the array of speakers, the delay for the seven zones, presets for when the stage is extended to pageant-style and the center down fills have to be attenuated.

“Our congregation noticed an immediate difference in terms of clarity and volume, states Jesse Lee, Media Director.”

“With the old PA, mixing a contemporary style worship service was problematic to the point of being completely underwhelming to everyone in the room, including our musicians and vocalists!”

“Since the installation, the Yamaha system has been able to handle everything we’ve thrown at it beautifully, including a full band and orchestra, vocal team and choir all performing simultaneously.”

Yamaha Commercial Audio

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QSC Appoints Ray van Straten Director of Marketing Communications

20-Year industry veteran brings wealth of professional audio knowledge and sales experience to the position.

QSC Audio Products has announced that Ray van Straten has been appointed as the company’s new Director of Marketing Communications.

In this role, van Straten will be responsible for all day-to-day marketing communications activities as well as, the creation and development of all QSC branding, marketing collateral and communications initiatives.

“I am excited and honored to be entrusted with this responsibility,” states van Straten, QSC’s new Director of Marketing Communications.

“When you walk the corridors of QSC you see passion, pride and commitment to excellence in action across the entire organization. This is the QSC I know and consider it a privilege to be in a position to share this narrative with our global professional audio community. “

Over the last eight years, van Straten has served as QSC’s Retail Market Manager and more recently as the company’s Director of Entertainer Solutions where his responsibilities included developing and implementing sales and marketing initiatives for all QSC portable sound products.

Prior to joining QSC, van Straten served as the OEM Business Development Manager for Sonic Foundry (Sony Creative Software) and previously as the National Accounts Manager at Yamaha Corporation of America. An avid musician and composer, van Straten also currently serves on the Board of Directors for NAMM, the International Music Products Association.

“Ray’s enthusiasm for the QSC brand combined with his deep knowledge of QSC and the pro audio community makes him the perfect choice to lead our Marcom team,” states Gerry Tschetter, Vice-President of Marketing for QSC Audio Products.

“The insight and leadership he has provided for our portable sound products will be a welcome addition across our entire line of professional audio solutions.”

QSC Audio Website

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Guitar Center Professional Appoints Brad Lyons GC Pro Account Manager

An inductry veteran, Lyons joins GC Pro with over 20 years of experience.

Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro) has appointed industry veteran Brad Lyons as GC Pro Account Manager, based in the company’s Atlanta location.

In his new position, Lyons will draw on his extensive experience in pro audio sales and worship sound to help GC Pro expand its presence in the studio, live, post production and house-of-worship market sectors.

The announcement was made by Rick Plushner, GC Pro Director, and further underscores GC Pro’s ongoing commitment to the continuing growth of GC Pro as a turnkey supplier for professional end users.

Brad Lyons has over 20 years of experience using and selling professional audio equipment, and he most recently held the position of Senior Sales Engineer at Sweetwater Sound, where he was responsible for every aspect of audio sales and service, including touring sound systems, studio designs, wireless systems, instrument packages and more.

Over the years, he has received top sales awards from leading companies such as Presonus, Focusrite, DBX, Royer and others. Lyons has an active involvement in worship music, and has served as Audio/Media Coordinator and Production manager for the Unity Performing Arts Foundation and Broadcast Engineer for Blackhawk Ministries, both based in Fort Wayne.

He has also owned a high-end home audio and video production studio for many years.

“Brad comes to us as a solid veteran of the professional audio sales business. His ongoing work as a sound engineer in the recording and worship communities will enhance our ability to offer clients the finest in audio systems design and sales while keeping within the framework of their budgets.”

“He has extensive and diverse product knowledge across many manufacturers and product categories and deeply understands the marketplace. We’re very excited to have Brad as part of the GC Pro team,” said Rick Plushner.

“Over the years, I have witnessed GC Pro grow to become the turnkey supplier for all corners of the industry,” said Lyons, “GC Pro has a great reputation in the recording studio, post production, fixed installation, touring sound and house-of-worship sectors, and is rightly noted for its extremely knowledgeable sales and support staff that truly addresses the needs of their customers.”

“I am proud to be on board and look forward to serving GC Pro and its client base.”

Guitar Center Professional Website

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Monday, October 25, 2010

Carl Bader Of Aviom To Present On Two Panels At AES 2010

Company president and co-founder to provide insight into digital audio networking.

Aviom president and co-founder Carl Bader will be offering his expert advice on digital audio networks for live applications during two panels at AES 2010.

The first of these will be “Live Monitoring and Latency with Digital Audio Networks” taking place on Friday, November 5, from 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm.

Bader will be presenting real-world examples and discussing issues related to audio latency and digital networks, specifically when considering personal monitoring and traditional, speaker-based monitoring for live situations. Preferences and habits of performers and how these factor into technology decisions will also be presented.

In addition, Bader will be discussing audio networks for live sound applications during “Networked Audio for Live Sound,” taking place Sunday, November 8, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm.

This seminar will cover the different types of audio networks available and provide attendees with the tools necessary to make an informed decision as to whether digital audio networking makes sense for their live sound business.

“Aviom’s products are designed to address the challenges such as latency that are often associated with digital audio networks, providing sound professionals and musicians alike with systems that deliver high-fidelity digital audio, and that are intuitive to those familiar with analog systems,” said Bader.

“More and more users are transitioning to digital solutions and benefitting from the simplicity of setup that digital audio networking has to offer. I’m happy to be a part of these panels to help give audio professionals practical advice about how to use digital audio networks.”

Bader’s experience in live sound setups as well as product development for live sound provide him with the knowledge to offer opinions from both perspectives. Heavily involved in the MI market, and a drummer, Bader founded Aviom on the concept of the personal mixer.

Aviom Website

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Recording The “Brown Sugar” Sessions

Jimmy Johnson on recording the Rolling Stones.

If you’ve seen the Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter movie, you might recall Jimmy Johnson’s brief speaking role.

He was the one coaching Keith Richards on the proper Alabama pronunciation of “Y’all come back, y’hear.”

For three nights in December of 1969, the Stones cut basic tracks and live vocals for three songs: “You Gotta Move,” “Wild Horses” and “Brown Sugar.”

The sessions took place at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios-the “burlap palace” at 3614 Jackson Highway-a nondescript former casket factory which the four rhythm section members had purchased earlier that same year.

Prior to venturing out on their own, the foursome (Johnson, bassist David Hood, keyboardist Barry Beckett and drummer Roger Hawkins) had been the core players at Rick Hall’s Fame Studios, where their rhythm tracks laid the foundation for soul hits by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Arthur Conley and others.

Since early in his Fame days, Jimmy Johnson had switched roles back and forth, playing fatback rhythm guitar on some sessions, engineering others. His early engineering credits included “Sweet Soul Music” and “When a Man Loves a Woman.”

But when the Rolling Stones arrived-with little advance notice-Johnson was confronted with something quite other than the relatively low-volume, laid-back soul and pop sessions that were his usual fare.

On one hand, you could say the fledgling Muscle Shoals studio was ill-equipped for the task. On the other hand, you might say maybe this turned out to be a good thing. Let recording history be the judge.

In this interview, conducted in July, Johnson reconstructs (as best can be expected after 32 years) the night that gave us a rock song for the ages.

Let’s try to set the scene for those sessions, starting with the console you used.

When we did the Stones sessions, we had a Universal Audio console with tube modules, the one with the big rotary knobs, knobs as big as your hand. We had ten inputs.

There was some fixed EQ on it, a fixed low end at 100Hz, and you could go two clicks of boost at two and four dB, and you could roll back to minus three.

But that’s all it was. It also had an echo send on it. Back then, we were using a live chamber. It wasn’t until a year after that we got an EMT plate. Of course, we were uptown then!

Did you get the Universal modules new, or from another studio?

We bought all the modules new, and put it in our own little console frame. We had a cabinetmaker build us a console, the same as Rick did over at Fame, this was the same thing he had.

At the time, it was one of the best things you could get, depending on your budget, of course. Our budget wasn’t too big at the time.

And what kind of tape machines did you have?

We had a Scully eight track, a one-inch, and it was great. We had no noise reduction, though back then we cut a lot of stuff at 15ips. We just packed a lot of it on!

And the tape was very forgiving, so as a result it turned out well. We got a lot of saturation, and that kind of became part of the sound.

Back then…I don’t even remember any noise reduction at the time. I know there wasn’t any when we went up to Atlantic in ‘66. But there might have been some around that I didn’t know about.

Were you the only engineer on hand for the Stones sessions?

Yes, I did all those myself, along with my assistant, Larry Hamby. It was supposed to be Jimmy Miller, from what I understand, but he didn’t show up.

It was my intention to assist him when the whole thing started, because I heard they would be bringing their own people. As it was, he never made it down. So I became the unofficial-official engineer for all those sessions.

Did you cut all the basic tracks here?

They did some overdubbing later, of backgrounds, saxophone and acoustic guitar. But electric guitars, lead vocals, piano and even the percussion was done right there, Jagger did that. Mick Taylor was on those sessions, of course, and during “Wild Horses” Jim Dickinson showed up, from Memphis.

What happened is that their touring piano player, who was also their road manger, Ian Stewart, he played on “Brown Sugar” some, but during “Wild Horses” Jim Dickenson was out behind the where we put the guitar amps “Do you remember Paul Simon’s ‘Kodachrome’ where we went to double time and the tack piano comes in, the piano kind of goes crazy?

That was our tack piano, an old upright piano; we put tacks on the hammers so it sounded like a honky tonk. Anyway, Jim was back there just tiddling on it, playing along with what they had settled on as the groove, and Keith walked by and said, “Hey you need to play that!”

Let’s try to reconstruct how “Brown Sugar” was tracked. First, what mics did you have set up, starting with the drums?

We only had three mics on the drums. We ran a U47 up over the top up over the top, about nose high to the drummer. We had a high stand out in front, with the mic facing downward at the kit, from the bass drum in with a little boom that came over the snare.

So it gave a good overview of the whole kit, so you could play with a lot of dynamics and you could get an incredible sound. In fact, Charlie Watts wanted to buy that microphone! But of course, I wouldn’t sell it. He couldn’t get over the sound we were getting.

On the bass drum we used the E-V 666, a fantastic dynamic mic for the time. It was on a little stand looking to the backside of the drum. Then I had a hi-hat mic, which I think was another (E-V) RE-15, though it could have been a little (E-V) 635A, that remains in question.

The RE-15 was a better mic, had more response. We avoided using the 635A unless we had to. Actually, if not the RE-15 it might have been an SM57, more likely than the 635A.

And Charlie brought all his own drums?

Yes, he brought all of this own kit.

What guitar was Keith playing?

It was a Gibson, but not a Les Paul. Do you know that model that was right under the Les Paul, the solid body double cutaway-what is that?

Oh yeah, the SG. I think it was an SG, and as I recall it was black. I remember it had those sharp horns on the cutaways. That’s what he played most of the time he was here.

And Mick Taylor?

Taylor, to my recollection, was playing a Strat. And guess what we came up with for Bill Wyman? Do you remember those Plexiglas body basses that were around then?

I checked with David Hood later and he says it was a Dan Armstrong. So to the best of our recollection, that’s what it was. He played through David’s Fender Bassman setup, the tube head and separate box.

And the guitar amps?

Keith played a Fender Twin, and so did Mick Taylor, and they brought those in with them. The loudness on those tracks really came from Keith. I had it put in that back booth and shut the door on it.

So Mick’s was out in the room?

Yeah, it was out, set where I normally played. If you looked from the control room it was on the left side, about the middle, facing toward the front. You see, we had all these wonderful baffles, covered with burlap, with that pink insulation underneath.

We would corner off the sound with a couple of baffles up against each other. It would just knock the directness off, it took a lot of top end off.

So you could balance it out, but not stop leaking altogether.

Exactly, you couldn’t really snuff the sound out. It wasn’t as evident in the other mics, but it was there.

How did you mic the guitars?

On the guitar amplifiers, let’s see there were two different ones, on Mick’s I had a Shure SM-57, and then on the other I was using.. I might have been using an RE-15 on Keith. But I had a real problem with Keith because he was running a Fender Twin amp wide open, I mean that sucker was getting it.

I had a real problem with distortion going on, but I happened to remember that my maintenance guy, about a month before that, had left me a 20dB pad that he had made, a homemade pad, so I just stuck it in between. So I dropped that level before it hit the front of the Universal Audio and it saved the day.

Otherwise, I would have been hosed. I still thank God for that. I would have just been screwed. So on Keith’s amp, ‘oh no, I remember what was on his amp, an RCA 77DX, because I was having to get that level down any way I could, it was a ribbon mic.

With the pad and that RCA, I made it, just barely. A lot of that had to do with how it sounded, and I was always real pleased with that guitar sound.

I assume you close-miked the amps.

Yes, they were miked about two or three inches from the grille cloth, and with the Twins, we would get right in front of one of the two speakers. I’d make sure that both were working all right, and that one didn’t have a hole.

How about the piano mics?

On the piano I was using only one mic, not two, so I had to move it around to find the hot spot. I’m going to have to think on that one.

I think it was a U47, that was the other one, because three was all we had. And we used them all on every session. Jagger sang on a U47.

So the U47 on Jagger, that was a live vocal track? Or was it overdubbed?

I don’t think so, not unless he had to fix something in London. The only overdub I remember was the percussion that he did. He had mono earphones of course, and they were hearing what the board was hearing, they couldn’t get a separate mix.

Did you have a mic on the bass amp?

Yes, the bass guitar mic was an RCA 44. We didn’t have direct back in those days.

How much separation could you get in that studio?

Well, Keith’s guitar amp was in a booth, and Jagger was in the back of the room with baffles around him. There was some leakage going on, but you couldn’t tell because he was so close to the mic.

It was part of the sound. The drums did not have a booth, they were open, but with baffles. But there was a lot of leakage on the drums, cymbals and stuff, even though he didn’t play real hard.

Really? But there’s a lot of impact in the drums on that song, more than on most Stones tunes.

Yeah, it’s that mic and the way we set it. Even today, that would be a good way for a rock band to mic their drums, if they like some great live drumming sound. They would be surprised to find that sometimes less is more. I think it would blow them away.

And the sound of Keith’s guitar is so good, and I really attribute it to that RCA DX77 with the pad, going into that Universal Audio tube console which warmed it up, too. Pretty wild, huh.

Did you use any compression on those tracks?

None. At the time, I did not have a compressor in the building. It was a couple more years before we had compressors. The only outboard gear was that 20dB pad, that’s all I remember.

What about board EQ? Did you use much of that?

Mostly, on all sessions, I would use one click or two on the highs to air it out. It was set at around 3 or 4K, with two dB steps; you could go to two or four. We had 100Hz for the low end, and I guess around 3500 for the high.

I remember Barry Beckett saying he was sitting outside on the steps and could feel the building shaking.

Yeah, when they stated grooving around one in the morning, when I started the machines, it was an unbelievable thing; I have not experienced anything quite like that since.

If you compare Brown Sugar to other cuts done by Glyn Johns at about same time, most came out on Let It Bleed, you don’t get that kind of room sound. They have that clean separation, you don’t get the feeling of the whole room being pumped up by the music.

Right. You get the same thing from those old Motown records, cut at Hitsville USA in Detroit. When they moved to LA it all changed, they never had that wonderful sound again. I don’t understand how they could divorce it that way. But I love that sound, and the old Philly Studio, Sigma Sound and all the great records done by Gamble and Huff, God they were great!

Yeah, but up in Philly, they were probably saying, “How can we get that funky sound they have down there in Muscle Shoals?”

Oh, we didn’t even think about that. I suppose the grass is always greener somewhere else.

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Lab X Technologies Appoints Chuck Ruffino To Design & Development Team

Ruffino brings 20 years of design experience to the Lab X team.

Lab X Technologies recently hired Chuck Ruffino as an Embedded Digital Engineer In a move that addresses the increased demand for efficient and affordable networking via IEEE 802.1 Audio Video Bridging (AVB) solutions, leading design resource. 

With 20 years experience in the design/engineering field, Ruffino will help enhance the already skilled Lab X engineers’ development capabilities for hardware and gateway development.

“We are excited to begin drawing from Chuck’s experience and knowledge in the networking industry to continue augmenting our leading designs,” said Lee Minich, President, Lab X Technologies. 

“I am confident Chuck will help deliver our clients the next generation of elite networking solutions.”

Ruffino’s experience spans a great range over the past two decades.  Twenty years ago, he started as an Electrical Engineer with the Xerox Corporation, where he held various positions over 10 years, including his final position, Technical Specialist. 

He then became a Principal Engineer for Intrinsix Corporation for two years and moved to Vanteon Corporation for eight years, serving as its Chief Technology Officer, a position he held for two years. 

“While I was surrounded by the design and engineering element at my previous positions, I fell away from the hands-on design aspect,” said Ruffino. 

“At Lab X, I will be able to combine my passion for designing and producing as a technical lead, with client interface in a manager-type role.”

Since 1996, Lab X has been an engineering design partner for mainstream companies, saving them valuable time, money and resources with a dedicated and highly educated team of engineering specialists.

With its extensive experience in applying Ethernet AVB networking, the company works to design and/or perfect products and solutions, providing complete, turnkey, scalable engineering and design services for even the most complex projects.

“Lab X Technologies is on the leading edge of IEEE 802.1 Audio Video Bridging, driving the development and implementation of these industry standards.”

“I’m looking forward to working with this exceptional team at this fast-paced, high-energy company”.

Lab X Technologies Website

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Adamson Expands United States Represenative Network

Two additional firms added to the Adamson representative network.

Adamson Systems Engineering has announced the addition of several new companies as US representatives.

The first two are Meyer Marketing which covers all of Florida from two separate offices, one for Southern and one for Central/Northern Florida.

The second, is Marketing Concepts with headquarters in Dallas TX, serving TX excluding El Paso, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas from five strategically located field offices.

Meyer Marketing represents other high end sound products, among them Lab.gruppen, Middle Atlantic Products, RDL and Blue Microphones, as well as companies manufacturing DSP, conferencing, and acoustic materials. They recently expanded into video, but audio systems integration remains a major focus.

The immediate plans for the Adamson line is to demo products within their territory, offer support and information sharing tools such as their ‘Digibinder’, available for their dealer network on their website.

“We will continue to build upon the great name that Adamson has with even more exposure via our 25 years of successful growth in the Florida market.“ comments Vice President Larry Boscarino. The company also places efforts on local tradeshows, such as the recent AVI University Expo, the TRG Expo, The Walt Disney Tech Expo. Meyer Marketing’s largest portion of business is done with contractors and systems integrators for venues such as Houses of Worship, theme parks and cruise ships, although touring is also a high priority. 

Key personnel at Meyer Marketing include President Larry Meyer who is responsible for the day to day sales and growth of the company, in particular in the South Florida territory.

Vice President, Larry Boscarino’s responsibilities in the Central/ Northern territory includes theme parks such as Disney, Universal and Sea World, as well as the Full Sail Advisory Board & Middle Atlantic Products Rep Council. 

Meyer Marketing has received 52 Outstanding Achievement Awards from various manufacturers since the establishing of their company in 1985.

Marketing Concepts dwarfs the competition. With six offices spanning over four States, the company which was founded in 1984 has positioned itself as a leader representative of exclusive quality products that differ from the competition.

Marketing Concepts focus is technical based sales with unlimited pre and post sales support and partnering. As for reasons for partnering up with Adamson, the reputation of Adamson’s high end performance products sealed the deal, “Adamson is one of the great names in speakers, who hasn’t heard of them? ”  said San Antonio, TX based Partner & Sales Manager,  Michael Austin.

Marketing concepts is a one stop shop for practically all professional audio & lighting needs with companies such as Digico, Lab.gruppen, TC Electronic, and Blue Microphones on their Line card.

Adamson Systems Engineering Website

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Church Sound Files: Controlling Drum Sound On The Platform

Often time walling the musician off in a "fish bowl" isn't the only option.

A client of mine recently called asking for advice on controlling the stage volume (and in this case overall room volume). She told me that even with a shield around the drums it was just too loud. 

She went on to say she was considering using a “drum cave”. Immediately she had my attention as I had never heard of a drum cave. 

In my mind I could picture what one might look like, complete with the caveman on the drum throne.  I can refer to the drummer as a cave man as on a good day. Heck, I am one (a drummer that is). 

I refer to myself as a drummer and I often tell people, “I would call myself a percussionist but that would imply that I have talent”.

So, with the caveman image burned firmly in my mind, I had to ask, “What is a drum cave?” The client then went on to describe a room that the church was preparing to build on the back corner of the stage. 

After listening to what and how they were going to build this room, the only way I could describe it would be to compare it to a really small drum booth at a recording studio. Oh, and it also was to have a very low roof.

As I thought about her predicament regarding stage volume my mind drifted to what options exist.

1. Hot Rod Sticks 2. Drum Shield 3. Electronic Drums 4. The Drum Cave

Hot Rod Sticks
I have found that Hot Rod sticks can help tame the heavy handed drummer.  The biggest benefit I have experienced is their ability to tame the loud cymbal crashes. 

The best way to think about a Hot Rod stick is that it is between brushes and regular sticks. In general, drummers are receptive to using them because they have close to the same feel and bounce back of a regular stick. 

The potential drawback is that the tonality of the drum sound will be different, just as when a drummer hits the drum softer with regular sticks the tonality is different. 

I have also heard that some drummers have a hard time staying “in the groove” on the high hat. Even with Hot Rods it can still be too loud (particularly in small rooms)

Drum Shields
Many times I have walked into a small worship center that has placed the drums against the back wall of the stage with a Plexiglas shield around them.

Almost always the wall is constructed of drywall and the shield is using virtually no absorption.  The complaint is always “the drums are still too loud!”

To me it is obvious that the back wall is going to reflect the sound back out into the room, but not everyone understands that. 

The best Plexiglas shields have absorptive material on the front lower part of the shield and are then enclosed on the back side with absorptive panels

Electronic Drums
I have yet to meet a drummer who has said, “Awesome! Electronic drums I can’t wait to play!”

Even with the improvements in bounce back and feel a real drum is still feels different than an electric kit.

I have also seen and experienced well intentioned efforts that featured real cymbals and snare drum and electronic toms and kick.  I am always puzzled when I see that set up.

Why would you leave the loudest elements of a drum kit to saturate the stage with sound?

Electronic drums do offer the advantages of being able to choose different sounds or “patches” for each piece of the kit and some drummers do like to pick different sounds for a specific song or for different styles of music. 

Sometimes there is no other good option than electronic drums, but in my book let’s keep it real!

The Drum Cave
If your drummer won’t play on electronic drums and hot rod sticks with a Plexiglas shield are not working.  I suppose, theoretically, it is time to build your drum cave. 

When my client gave me the name “drum cave” I realized that I have seen variations of the “cave” all over the place.  Some of my favorites are what I call “The Glass House” or “All Plexiglas All the time” 

When I see this I always feel sorry for the drummer and I also hope that closed ear headphones are always used. If not, the drummer will most likely be deaf by next week! 

Another variation is the “Sweat Shop”. This usually consist of a well insulated booth with a small opening in the top.  The one major problem is that if there is no fan running, the drummer will pass out during the second song. 

I could go on with more variations but I think you’re probably getting the picture. 

What To Do?
A recent experience highlighted for me how sometimes experimenting and changing things can lead you to a better solution.  A church I that I was working with had gone to electronic drums when they were holding services in a gym. 

They had moved into a new 1200 seat fan shaped worship center and carried the electronic drums over to the new space while adding a real snare and cymbals. 

With the cymbals and snare introducing more stage volume they added a Plexiglas shield.  Still having trouble they asked me to come and work with them for at least a couple of months. 

The first thing that I did was have them change to an all acoustic kit and, explained that adding a few extra drums would not add that much additional volume on the stage. 

Immediately, I was the drummer’s hero. We found that with an acoustic kit the drummers played with considerably more finesse and dynamics.  After a few weeks of the acoustic kit, I proposed that we remove the shield.

Every one of the sound team members told me it couldn’t possibly work and complained so much that you would have thought I was talking heresy!

Primarily, I argued that most musicians enjoy the live feel and sound on stage and since the stage was almost 30’ deep and 60’ wide the musician could be spread out enough that the drums would not be too loud for anyone. 

With great fear and trepidation the sound team allowed me to remove the shield.  What happened next surprised everyone (even I was slightly surprised). The overall stage level actually decreased and the band played tighter than they ever had before.

Reflecting as to why the stage volume went down requires some logic. When the drums were more isolated behind the shield everyone was adding them into their personal monitor mix. So, rather than having one acoustic kit producing volume on the stage it was like having five kits on stage. 

The drummer also became more aware of the surroundings and played to match the volume of the other musicians on stage.  The reason all of this worked was that with a large room and large stage the drums did not overwhelm anyone. 

There was (there always is) one exception. One very heavy handed drummer had to switch to hot rod sticks when he realized that his cymbal work (it was more like cymbal walloping) was overwhelming the rest of the band (and annoying the front of house sound engineer). However, the shield remained off-stage.

I will close with this final though.  I asked my client how the “drum cave” came out for her. 

Her reply was, “with the big glass window in front, I now call it the fish bowl”.  Let’s hope the drummer doesn’t drown feeling isolated from everyone else. Rather, trying working with your musicians to come up with an amicable solution.

I bet you’ll be as surprised as I was!

Have you recently faced a challenging stage volume problem? Let me know in the comments below!

Gary Zandstra is a professional AV systems integrator with Parkway Electric and has been involved with sound at his church for more than 25 years.

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JBL VERTEC Line Arrays Amplify The Commonwealth Games Of India

Northwest Productions And Sound supplied dozen of Vertec arrays and over a hundred Crown amplifiers for the event.

Bringing together more than 50 nations from around the world, the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India opened its 12-day athletic competition with a large, multi-array JBL VERTEC line array system powered by Crown I-Tech HD amplifiers to support the opening ceremonies.

The system successfully filled the Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, occupied by more than 60,000 spectators and nearly 5,000 athletes. 

Audio production companies Norwest Productions (Australia) and Sound.com (India) collaborated to implement Auditoria’s sophisticated event system design in the field.

Scott Willsallen of Auditoria, having already completed major games ceremonies such as the Athens 2004 Olympics, Doha 2006 Asian Games and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games, was contracted by the organizing committee for the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games to design and manage the audio system for both the opening and closing ceremonies.

Twenty-five distributed JBL VERTEC arrays lined the stadium to ensure everyone from the floor seats to the upper levels fully enjoyed the entertainment, which included performances from traditional Nagada drummers, who drummed to the beat of the countdown to the official start of the event.

Eight of the arrays featured three JBL VT4889 fullsize line array elements and 17 contained three VT4888 midsize line array elements, with each also including a fullsize VERTEC arrayable subwoofer.

One hundred and two Crown amplifiers, including 92 I-Tech HD amplifiers, powered the JBL VERTEC rig.  Harman’s HiQnet™ System Architect system software was used for configuration, remote control and monitoring of the system.

Norwest (Sydney, Australia) teamed with a regional, Mumbai-based sound production company, Sound.com, to supply the entire audio package and crew for the Delhi games’ opening and closing ceremonies. 

“The VERTEC V4 DSP tunings are excellent. The only additional tuning we had to do was some minor notch filtering to tidy up the response in the venue,” stated Willsallen. “It was all very subtle filtering. If it came down to it, we could have run the show very successfully without any additional E.Q. filtering.”

On the field of play, 25 JBL SRX712M speakers were used for the performers’ monitor system, while 32 JBL CBT70J column speakers and JBL SRX718S subwoofers were used to ensure that athletes on the field could experience the event’s sound. On the main stage, JBL VRX915M monitor wedges were utilized for musical performances.

“Norwest Productions and Sound.com combined their resources and skills to deliver an excellent audio system, which met the performance requirements of my design and worked within the project budget,” said Willsallen.

JBL Website

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