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[g'bye, Dick Rees]

Who builds the stage at the top of the hill with the audience area sloping AWAY from it?

Major fail.

[Tim McCulloch]

Hi Conrad-

Thanks for the pictures.  I really didn't have a good conception of what you needed to cover.  Are these pictures from the Karama Mission?

It looks like the audience is almost 180°...  How big?  100m x 150m ?  You're covering a lot of folks with 2 QRX/side.

To make a lighting analogy, a short stack of line array elements is a spotlight and you need a floodlight.  Do you have other gigs (or prospects) where this 'spotlight' might be a good thing?

Buy what gives you the most flexibility or gives you a competitive advantage over other providers.  Both need to make you a profit and a return on your investment.

[Evan Hunter]

Honestly Pick up some good ol Turbo Flashlights and some subs for that gig.... I looked up the line array in question. Its either not the same sound bridge company Ive seen in local stores or they have stepped up their game. The sound bridge I knew was VERY cheap budget stuff.


I like the idea of more QRX, if you can deploy them correctly.

[Conrad Muzoora]

Hi Conrad-

Thanks for the pictures.  I really didn't have a good conception of what you needed to cover.  Are these pictures from the Karama Mission?

It looks like the audience is almost 180°...  How big?  100m x 150m ?  You're covering a lot of folks with 2 QRX/side.

To make a lighting analogy, a short stack of line array elements is a spotlight and you need a floodlight.  Do you have other gigs (or prospects) where this 'spotlight' might be a good thing?

Buy what gives you the most flexibility or gives you a competitive advantage over other providers.  Both need to make you a profit and a return on your investment.

You a re right on spot Tim,
This is the Karama mission in Uganda. Attracts folks of close to 80k but on a very tiny budget. The qrx 115 did pretty well compared to what they have used in the previous years. I was able to cover close to 80% of them with intelligible sound for the speech. These are mostly prayer festivals and they usually cover an area of about 180° around the stage and can reach as far as 200m in front of the stage. This year, it was 4 days long and i had them move the stage to the top of the hill as opposed to down in the valley as was done in the previous years and i think the height advantage helped!

I like the idea of more qrx because i have had great success with them for such low budget applications and will also be useful in other applications like small weddings and small DJ stuff.

Can i get educated on how to deploy 4 per side? How do i orient the horns in the boxes. Would this formation result in some useful summation that would give me a little more spl? I was thinking in the direction of setting up the new 4 qrxs at let say 100m and delay them appropriately with my dbx 260 wouldn't this work better?

Am getting asked to do more and more "mission impossible" kind of stuff at really low budgets that's why i was asking for guidance.

Conrad

[Luke Geis]

4 per side may not be the idea? At 90deg a box you should have 180deg of supposed coverage. If they are 60deg boxes then 2 will provide 120deg of supposed coverage. One poster recommended flying two over two. I think he meant one pair upside up and the other pair upside down on top of the first pair. This will place the horns closer together and achieve some coupling. This works to a degree, but only in the frequencies that are produced in the horn. The other drivers don't couple as well and won't really help much. I think this is a more destructive way to do it. I would plan on using a delay line. Another set of 4 speakers placed in the crowed and timed to the stage will add volume to the back of the area with the same coverage. The only down side is running cables on the ground where people are walking, or sitting. It's not an easy task. You need more volume over a longer distance more than a wider area. You have the coverage needed for the width I think. What you don't have is enough to get you to the back of the listening area.

[Ray Aberle]

*snip*
Am getting asked to do more and more "mission impossible" kind of stuff at really low budgets that's why i was asking for guidance.
Conrad

Oh, such a long, slippery slope, "give us more for the same (or less) money" can be! And that's where it gets challenging-- can you justify (or afford) to invest more money when the end client is trying to ask you to do more for the same amount of money? Or will there be a corresponding increase in the event budget when you increase the packages provided?

One of my long term clients (since 2007) is a parade here in Seattle. We started with Mackie SRM450s covering two viewing stands on their parade route. Over the years I changed the gear but still pretty much used the same level of gear, getting the same coverage... Changed 450s to 1521s one year, mixed in my EAW LA212 wedges another year... Same number of speakers, though. Last two years, we moved to fully flown speakers-- JBL VRX932s and AR4892s, flown from Genie ST24 tower lifts. Much better coverage, and quadrupled the linear coverage of the parade route (and this year we added a third viewing stand!), but the budget went up about 3x! But, I have other events that I am providing much better equipment and services, but cannot raise prices in fear of losing the gig. So, I have to manage their expectations properly. "For this amount, you will get XX services, but for this EXTRA amount, I can do YYY service!" In other words, "You can reduce the rate by this much, but you will lose these services."

Luke certainly makes a good suggestion-- adding delay stacks out in the audience. Properly delayed, it will really improve your coverage! Cable protection is important, and an investment in cable ramps from Checkers may well be worth it. I paid $130 each for a pile of them last summer, and they can be rented out for $10/each/day very easily. So, income from cross-rentals can help ease the purchase cost there.

Ray

[Tim McCulloch]

Luke certainly makes a good suggestion-- adding delay stacks out in the audience. Properly delayed, it will really improve your coverage! Cable protection is important, and an investment in cable ramps from Checkers may well be worth it. I paid $130 each for a pile of them last summer, and they can be rented out for $10/each/day very easily. So, income from cross-rentals can help ease the purchase cost there.

Ray

Ray, note that Conrad is in Uganda, and in this case doing church work for very little money.  I bet he does better on a wedding DJ gig than he makes for a 3 day pray-fest.

I had a very different picture in my mind until he posted actual photos.  Most of my preconceived suggestions never left my head...

[Conrad Muzoora]

Thanks everyone. As usual, this was very helpful. I won't be throwing away any hard earned money for some useless line array.

Am positive that a line of properly delayed more 4 qrxs should do the job fine and still earn me money for many other applications. Its a wonder what these little boxes have been able to do for me. They are no comparison to any of the 212 or 215 full range Chinese trash boxes that my competitors have in town!

Does anyone have any support for 4 qrx 212/75 or 153/75? As i said i have enough subs, will have a total of 6 qrx 218s and a bunch of other stuff. The trouble i have with the 212/153 is the weight and the fact that they cant be used for the regular "speaker on stick" kind of work, but if they are what i need to do this kind of work i will consider them.

Conrad
www.kooleventug.com

[Mark McFarlane]

.... This year, it was 4 days long and i had them move the stage to the top of the hill as opposed to down in the valley as was done in the previous years and i think the height advantage helped...

Hi Conrad, I am curious why you put the stage at the top of the hill. This is the opposite of most setups I've seen, typically the audience is on the slope looking down on the stage.  Better visuals and I thought typically better acoustics.  What was the problem you were trying to solve?

I like the idea of delays for a crowd this big. Considering your location, you may be able to get someone to shallowly trench your speaker cables cheaply, or even  for free if there are volunteers for this event.

[Conrad Muzoora]

Hi Conrad, I am curious why you put the stage at the top of the hill. This is the opposite of most setups I've seen, typically the audience is on the slope looking down on the stage.  Better visuals and I thought typically better acoustics.  What was the problem you were trying to solve?

I like the idea of delays for a crowd this big. Considering your location, you may be able to get someone to shallowly trench your speaker cables cheaply, or even  for free if there are volunteers for this event.

Hi Mark,
Thanks for your input. I understand the reasoning behind the stage issue. The previous stage was down in the valley, better visual but without a good sound system and a good way to fly them, i guessed the best way to get the speakers over people's heads (And the tarpaulin tents) was to get the stage higher up! At this function, hearing is 100x more important than sight and i had to make the best out of what i had.

I can surely get volunteers to dig trenches for the cable runs to the delay stacks.

Conrad

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