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[Goerge Thomas]

Just a small rant for a moment ladies and gents.

I am in grad school as a younger fellow in Ohio and tend to go to all the shows I can when I am free from work as a weekend warrior and school. This means dubstep and  general electronic music and rap and hip hop offending in particular....

For some reason in the past two years there has been a huge emergence of shows now all using line arrays even when not needed.
In the past I would see outdoor rock shows with huge trap systems that sounded... fantastic. Tran Siberian orchestra used to use the X array system and that blew my mind. I have seen a few great sounding shows with line arrays such as Muse and Dave Matthews band SO don't get me wrong as both can sound great and both can sound awful!

But having seen artists like T-pain and skrillex and sugar ray through 12-16 a side hang of line arrays for a show with ~3,000 people covering an area about 150 wide and 250 deep outside has me wondering what the hell they were thinking?

In each of these shows the same damn problems come up.
Vocals always sound like distorted shit and bass is just terribly lacking, they usually have 6-8 ground stacked subs a side and for electronic and rap shows.. they always are lacking and I can hear the systems max out and distort bass as well, almost always distorted as if they are maxing the systems out... Never sure if the boxes are out of headroom or the amps or the processing sucks. I try my best to peer at the gear used without getting in anyone's way. Seems like always enough power from the venues provided, enough amp power to power a small stadium and high quality boxes... It boggles my mind that I see smaller trap systems sound louder and clearer with less amp power at shows quite often compared to these de-facto line arrays cropping up everywhere now.

It's terribly apparent when the talent goes from singing to trying to speak normally to the crowd while the band plays or when you have a lot of LFE effects in music like synths.

It's strange because instruments tend to sound fine by themselves during sound checks I come early for so I doubt the *mix* is at fault, I know that when I run large shows with trap systems I will often use a dual PA setup with 4 50 degree boxes a side stacked with 2 50 degrees boxes on top and 2 on bottom PER side for 100 degrees per side in two levels as my trap boxes cannot handle being maxed out with instruments AND vocals combined through one single box. only one or the other at extremely high levels for outdoor shows.

I know the providers are not the same companies per show as I always ask who is providing the gear and the companies are never the same nor the same engineers or venues... this seems to be pretty widespread. Poorly deployed, over driven and ill fitted for the application line array systems.

Anyone else seen this crop up a lot in the past few years?
 
Sorry for the rant, as a weekend guy with modest gear it's driving me nuts how bad systems at shows have been sounding lately across the board unless they are A list $60 per ticket or higher acts

[George Dougherty]

Just a small rant for a moment ladies and gents.

I am in grad school as a younger fellow in Ohio and tend to go to all the shows I can when I am free from work as a weekend warrior and school. This means dubstep and  general electronic music and rap and hip hop offending in particular....

For some reason in the past two years there has been a huge emergence of shows now all using line arrays even when not needed.
In the past I would see outdoor rock shows with huge trap systems that sounded... fantastic. Tran Siberian orchestra used to use the X array system and that blew my mind. I have seen a few great sounding shows with line arrays such as Muse and Dave Matthews band SO don't get me wrong as both can sound great and both can sound awful!

But having seen artists like T-pain and skrillex and sugar ray through 12-16 a side hang of line arrays for a show with ~3,000 people covering an area about 150 wide and 250 deep outside has me wondering what the hell they were thinking?

In each of these shows the same damn problems come up.
Vocals always sound like distorted shit and bass is just terribly lacking, they usually have 6-8 ground stacked subs a side and for electronic and rap shows.. they always are lacking and I can hear the systems max out and distort bass as well, almost always distorted as if they are maxing the systems out... Never sure if the boxes are out of headroom or the amps or the processing sucks. I try my best to peer at the gear used without getting in anyone's way. Seems like always enough power from the venues provided, enough amp power to power a small stadium and high quality boxes... It boggles my mind that I see smaller trap systems sound louder and clearer with less amp power at shows quite often compared to these de-facto line arrays cropping up everywhere now.

It's terribly apparent when the talent goes from singing to trying to speak normally to the crowd while the band plays or when you have a lot of LFE effects in music like synths.

It's strange because instruments tend to sound fine by themselves during sound checks I come early for so I doubt the *mix* is at fault, I know that when I run large shows with trap systems I will often use a dual PA setup with 4 50 degree boxes a side stacked with 2 50 degrees boxes on top and 2 on bottom PER side for 100 degrees per side in two levels as my trap boxes cannot handle being maxed out with instruments AND vocals combined through one single box. only one or the other at extremely high levels for outdoor shows.

I know the providers are not the same companies per show as I always ask who is providing the gear and the companies are never the same nor the same engineers or venues... this seems to be pretty widespread. Poorly deployed, over driven and ill fitted for the application line array systems.

Anyone else seen this crop up a lot in the past few years?
 
Sorry for the rant, as a weekend guy with modest gear it's driving me nuts how bad systems at shows have been sounding lately across the board unless they are A list $60 per ticket or higher acts

All kinds of problems possible, though with 12-16 box per side hangs I'd tend to not throw the blame on the system unless they're just driving it past its capability.  Dubstep and much of the modern electronic music is going to challenge and beat your typical concert subs into the ground though.  What works for rock is often severely underpowered for those kinds of gigs.  Most subs run out of excursion real fast when you're covering 30-40Hz and need it strong to reliably reproduce the content.

It's also very possible that solo instruments during checks are fine and then the summed levels on the console are clipping groups or the outputs.  While it'd be a wonderful world if every show at that level had a truly competent engineer at the helm, it's not always the case.  Economy is tight, budgets are tight and production costs are being shaved wherever they can.

[RYAN LOUDMUSIC JENKINS]

What were the rigs?

I have worked with most of the top edm djs including skrillex a couple times.  His music has always been very clean.   I can tell you that I wouldn't want to try to throw 250' with my rig.  That's a lotto ask of a trap rig. I generally bring 6-8 subs per side.  With 3000 people I would definitely expect to be at or close to the limiters.  The system tech needs to keep the rig out of the red.  Skrillex's tour manager / tech likes to keep it clean too, he really cares about good sound.

[Goerge Thomas]

I would never want to throw that far either with my stuff, but then again I am guessing these shows have been under funded and these companies are simply not bringing enough rig for the gig...

So far the main offenders are Vertec hangs and Soundbridge hangs that I have seen driven by Crest and Camco amps respetively

The skrillex concert in particular was lacking in bass and I could tell that system was being pushed too hard for what the material was and I was so disappointed. Personally for EDM shows I always have an insane sub to top ratio so you can feel for lower material all over the venue and not just upfront. Clients always are willing to shell out more for this when I warn them

The last good show I saw on a line array system was an outdoor concert in a field with a 20 a side hang of the newer EV X line stuff with some EAW horn loaded subs unsure of what kind exactly with 16 center clustered. That system was run well and sounded incredible for an unreal amount of people.

[Tim Weaver]

So far the main offenders are Vertec hangs and Soundbridge hangs that I have seen driven by Crest and Camco amps respetively

Well there's your answer. Soundbridge is crap, and so is Vertec when not used with iTech's.


I would imagine that a large part of your problem is the music genre. EDM, Dubstep, Rap, and Hip Hop are the absolute worst offenders when it comes to overdriven DJ's, and mic-cupping MC's.

After that, the budget for PA is typically lower for these events compared to more mainstream music. This invites the anklebiters with their half-assed rigs to come out and play.

You said your self that Muse and Dave Matthews sounded fine. They had a bigger budget for PA. And they have more give-a-shit than any rap act I've ever worked with too.

The skrillex concert in particular was lacking in bass

I would imagine that they used all the low-end that was available to them at the time. They were not willing to compromise sound quality for volume. That's a good thing.

[Tim McCulloch]

Well there's your answer. Soundbridge is crap, and so is Vertec when not used with iTech's.


I would imagine that a large part of your problem is the music genre. EDM, Dubstep, Rap, and Hip Hop are the absolute worst offenders when it comes to overdriven DJ's, and mic-cupping MC's.

After that, the budget for PA is typically lower for these events compared to more mainstream music. This invites the anklebiters with their half-assed rigs to come out and play.

You said your self that Muse and Dave Matthews sounded fine. They had a bigger budget for PA. And they have more give-a-shit than any rap act I've ever worked with too.

I would imagine that they used all the low-end that was available to them at the time. They were not willing to compromise sound quality for volume. That's a good thing.

Really, I-Techs are the secret to VerTec happiness?  While I agree they work nicely together (the Harman Mothership has seen to that), I don't think I-Techs are the only route.  That said, using I-Techs makes it harder to screw up.  Most of the bad-sounding VerTec I've heard is because the vendor didn't do a thorough job of designing the array in LAC...  or they use the same inter-box angles for a given trim height, regardless of audience/venue geometry.

I don't know what Muse does, but DMB carries production 99% of the time.

[Tim Weaver]

Really, I-Techs are the secret to VerTec happiness?

Yes.

I am loving black-box processing more and more these days. Not only is it reassuring to me when I'm on the road as a band engineer, but also when I'm system-teching. It means there is less for me to screw up, which means shorter set up time, more consistent results, and less stress.

[Tim McCulloch]

Yes.

I am loving black-box processing more and more these days. Not only is it reassuring to me when I'm on the road as a band engineer, but also when I'm system-teching. It means there is less for me to screw up, which means shorter set up time, more consistent results, and less stress.

As the system engineer for a VerTec shop, I agree about black box settings.  I was under the impression that V4 presets for other processors were also locked...

I understand there are VerTec owners out there still using earlier versions of processing because in advancing, we get asked what version we're using.  Oy.

[Tim Weaver]

As the system engineer for a VerTec shop, I agree about black box settings.  I was under the impression that V4 presets for other processors were also locked...

I understand there are VerTec owners out there still using earlier versions of processing because in advancing, we get asked what version we're using.  Oy.

I regularly run into places using crossover-du-jour to run Vertecs. It always sounds like crap. People always think they can "do better".

[Ray Aberle]

I regularly run into places using crossover-du-jour to run Vertecs. It always sounds like crap. People always think they can "do better".

I know someone locally who builds all of his own speakers. (This is for the EDM community, and local events only, so no riders to worry about.) He is absolutely convinced that he builds better speakers then, say, EAW or JBL, because he "cares more about it," or something like that. I remain convinced that he'd be hard pressed to design a better speaker then, oh, the people who do it professionally all the time.

Again, though, he's not worrying about meeting riders, so he does OK. That, and he only charges like $400/night for his system. *shrugs*

Ray