ProSoundWeb Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: What would it look like in Ease?  (Read 3948 times)

Kevin Maxwell

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1792
  • USA SW CT 46miles from MidTown Manhattan ATCF
What would it look like in Ease?
« on: May 10, 2015, 11:45:26 AM »

What would it look like in Ease?

Can Ease show what it would look like to put 5 speakers evenly spaced outdoors each of them 50 feet apart all facing straight out and shooting about 300feet? And then change the spacing to spkr1 – 60’ – spkr2 – 80’ – spkr3 - 56’ – spkr4 – 70’ - spkr5. The speakers will be EV Zx3 60 degree boxes. This is for announcements only at an Arbor Day type of festival.

Does anyone with ease have some time to show me what this would look like? I am curious to see what the prediction is.

We have done this event before, but they are changing the layout. And we have done this basic setup before in this same place for a Scottish Games announce system. And it worked fine. The one big difference is for the Arbor Day event the announcer is always in the middle of the field. But that’s the way we have done if for them before. We don’t really have many other options based on the layout of the park (big old house) and wiring it all up with minimizing trip hazards and with what they are willing to pay for this. They have been happy in the past so we can’t up sell them. I mention this all for the people that will say it won’t work or we should do it another way.

For the Arbor Day festival we use a Shure UHF-R hand held mic with a SM87 capsule with the RF power level at the highest setting. The receiver has 2 spaced directional antennas aimed to the middle of the field where the announce tent is. We show the announcer that is needs to be lips to the grill and how the delay of their voice returning to them might throw them off. We tell them to not speak too fast. They turn on the mic to make an announcement and then turn it off again. 
Logged

Ivan Beaver

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9534
  • Atlanta GA
Re: What would it look like in Ease?
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2015, 12:13:18 PM »

There are a number of important piece of information you have not provided.  Things like "how high the speakers are" and what the specific audience area is make a big difference.

You said 300' deep-but how close is the closest listener position of interest?  How wide is the total area?

Models can be very useful, but ONLY if the proper data is put into them and the user knows what type of answers he is looking to get out of what the model can provide.

It could "look like" all kinds of different things

There is no single answer and lots of complicated variables.

You can do all sorts of averaging to make things look smoother or worse.  And I know for a fact that some of the data that is provided has been "adjusted" to make it look better in the model than it actually does in real life.  No I will not give any examples.

Also there is no "simple answer".  You can look at individual freq coverages (you could end up with a whole lot of different plots there, or you an average through a range of freq (but then you would not see any nasty "standouts".

You can look at a lot of things other than simple freq response.

Depending on the particular "answer" you want, somebody could easily spend a day or more coming up with all sorts of data that really doesn't matter.

For this particular type of thing-often an "experience with the product and shoot from the hip" type approach, along with what CAN be done (not SHOULD) gives the best result.

Sorry-I know you are looking a simple answer-but there are no "simple answers" at least that give useable results.

There are "partial answers", that may or may not give you what you are looking for.
Logged
A complex question is easily answered by a simple-easy to understand WRONG answer!

Ivan Beaver
Danley Sound Labs

PHYSICS- NOT FADS!

Robert Piascik

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 733
  • Westerville, OH (near Columbus)
Re: What would it look like in Ease?
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2015, 12:27:59 PM »

I have tried a very similar set up with passive EAW LA215 supplied with plenty of power. Speakers were on tripods above audience heads about 50' apart. Set up was good to about 50' out, 100' was iffy, beyond that was inadequate. 300' is a football field. YMMV
Logged
Pi Entertainment Services
Midas M32R / MR18
Behringer X32R
Danley SH50 / SM80 / TH118 / TH115
Fulcrum Acoustic fa22ac
RCF NX 12SMA
Yamaha DSR112 / DZR10
Powersoft X4 / M50Q
Crown iT8k

Kevin Maxwell

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1792
  • USA SW CT 46miles from MidTown Manhattan ATCF
Re: What would it look like in Ease?
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2015, 12:46:51 PM »

There are a number of important piece of information you have not provided.  Things like "how high the speakers are" and what the specific audience area is make a big difference.

You said 300' deep-but how close is the closest listener position of interest?  How wide is the total area?

Models can be very useful, but ONLY if the proper data is put into them and the user knows what type of answers he is looking to get out of what the model can provide.

It could "look like" all kinds of different things

There is no single answer and lots of complicated variables.

You can do all sorts of averaging to make things look smoother or worse.  And I know for a fact that some of the data that is provided has been "adjusted" to make it look better in the model than it actually does in real life.  No I will not give any examples.

Also there is no "simple answer".  You can look at individual freq coverages (you could end up with a whole lot of different plots there, or you an average through a range of freq (but then you would not see any nasty "standouts".

You can look at a lot of things other than simple freq response.

Depending on the particular "answer" you want, somebody could easily spend a day or more coming up with all sorts of data that really doesn't matter.

For this particular type of thing-often an "experience with the product and shoot from the hip" type approach, along with what CAN be done (not SHOULD) gives the best result.

Sorry-I know you are looking a simple answer-but there are no "simple answers" at least that give useable results.

There are "partial answers", that may or may not give you what you are looking for.

I understand what you are saying. I didn’t give a width (because I was curios as to how it would look like it would fall of over the width) and I probably should have. The coverage area is about 350 feet wide with the important part of the coverage in the middle. I mentioned that it was for announcing only to indicate that the frequencies of importance are the standard speaking vocal range.

The speakers are on tripods the bottoms will be at about 6’ off the ground but the terrain puts that at about 12 feet above the heads of the attendees. This will be a VERY dispersed crowd. And we have done this with intelligibility at over 300’ in the past at this location. It is generally a very quiet setting except when they fire up some of the big machines to demonstrate them. But they are at the very far house right of this setup past the 200 foot mark from center.

One of the reasons for my curiosity was when we used to do ACS Relay for Life events on football fields type of areas it seemed that when we did evenly spaced set ups like this it seemed like it reached the far end of the field very well, combining very cohesively. And I was wondering if the uneven spacing would make much of a difference. The uneven spacing is based on good places to physically place the speakers.   

I am not looking for anyone to spend more then a few minutes of their time if anything can even be done in that short amount of time. 
Logged

Kevin Maxwell

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1792
  • USA SW CT 46miles from MidTown Manhattan ATCF
Re: What would it look like in Ease?
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2015, 01:01:43 PM »

I have tried a very similar set up with passive EAW LA215 supplied with plenty of power. Speakers were on tripods above audience heads about 50' apart. Set up was good to about 50' out, 100' was iffy, beyond that was inadequate. 300' is a football field. YMMV

I have not played with that particular EAW speaker and I had to look it up to see how it is configured. I am not a fan of any speaker that is a horn and a 15”. It always sounds to me like there is something not right in the vocal range. Also the 90x90 coverage of the “Wave G Plate” tm, to me isn’t as beneficial as a 60dgree horn for covering longer distances.

I am in no way picking on your speaker I am picking on all speakers. I will also add that I have heard very few speakers in my lifetime that I really liked the sound of. I am always hearing the shortcomings of them all. And the longer I have to live with them the more I hear that I don’t like. Even though I have had people in the audience come up to me and say that they really like the sound and would like to know what the speakers are because they sound so great they want to buy them for their stereo at home. And then a long conversation ensues where I have to tell them why that won’t work.

And I put EAW speakers in my church years ago. That church has since (recently) been torn down and rebuilt.
Logged

Ade Stuart

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 119
Re: What would it look like in Ease?
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2015, 05:10:36 PM »

What would it look like in Ease?


You can try it for yourself with EASE Online http://www.ada-acousticdesign.de/set_en/setsoft4.html
Logged

Luke Geis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2356
    • Owner of Endever Music Production's
Re: What would it look like in Ease?
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2015, 10:25:53 PM »

I can tell you it won't look pretty. Speakers in that situation need to be within 25' of each other to behave to some degree. You will hear delay and it will be annoying.
Logged
I don't understand how you can't hear yourself

RYAN LOUDMUSIC JENKINS

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 609
    • Az Concert Sound Solutions
Re: What would it look like in Ease?
« Reply #7 on: May 12, 2015, 07:34:55 AM »

What the human mind hears and what the fancy modeling software looks like are usually quite different for these applications.

The biggest problem you're going to have is the speakers on tripods.  People will get pissed if it's blasting in their faces and will unplug them.  You need the speakers 10-15' high, at least.

I just provided for an events the covered 18.5 acres.  We get our speakers about 15 feet in the air.  Use could hear everything very well in every square inch of the area.  Some places sounded a little bit better, other places may have been a bit louder or quieter, keep in mind, it for announcements.  You really only need fidelity to maybe 8Khz or so.

A properly deployed speakers with the correct design will cover 300' plus without issue.  I prefer wide coverage boxes for these applications.  90-100 degrees.  Also benefitial to have boxes with hf devices the have a downward bias.  You're wasting energy with a box that sends half the signal into space.
Logged

Mike Hedden

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 63
Re: What would it look like in Ease?
« Reply #8 on: May 12, 2015, 09:12:09 AM »

What would it look like in Ease?

Can Ease show what it would look like to put 5 speakers evenly spaced outdoors each of them 50 feet apart all facing straight out and shooting about 300feet? And then change the spacing to spkr1 – 60’ – spkr2 – 80’ – spkr3 - 56’ – spkr4 – 70’ - spkr5. The speakers will be EV Zx3 60 degree boxes. This is for announcements only at an Arbor Day type of festival.

Does anyone with ease have some time to show me what this would look like? I am curious to see what the prediction is.

We have done this event before, but they are changing the layout. And we have done this basic setup before in this same place for a Scottish Games announce system. And it worked fine. The one big difference is for the Arbor Day event the announcer is always in the middle of the field. But that’s the way we have done if for them before. We don’t really have many other options based on the layout of the park (big old house) and wiring it all up with minimizing trip hazards and with what they are willing to pay for this. They have been happy in the past so we can’t up sell them. I mention this all for the people that will say it won’t work or we should do it another way.

For the Arbor Day festival we use a Shure UHF-R hand held mic with a SM87 capsule with the RF power level at the highest setting. The receiver has 2 spaced directional antennas aimed to the middle of the field where the announce tent is. We show the announcer that is needs to be lips to the grill and how the delay of their voice returning to them might throw them off. We tell them to not speak too fast. They turn on the mic to make an announcement and then turn it off again.

Download our Direct program. http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/support/ddt-files/  There's training videos here http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley-u/training-videos/  I use EASE almost every day as well as Direct.  Direct is much easier to use, faster rendering, and graphically looks fantastic.  Its also free!   You can also look all the way down to 20Hz if need be.  The data base is all Danley but you should be able to find a similar pattern to get the idea.

Thanks

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs, Inc.
Logged

TJ (Tom) Cornish

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4317
  • St. Paul, MN
Re: What would it look like in Ease?
« Reply #9 on: May 12, 2015, 09:29:24 AM »

What would it look like in Ease?

Can Ease show what it would look like to put 5 speakers evenly spaced outdoors each of them 50 feet apart all facing straight out and shooting about 300feet? And then change the spacing to spkr1 – 60’ – spkr2 – 80’ – spkr3 - 56’ – spkr4 – 70’ - spkr5. The speakers will be EV Zx3 60 degree boxes. This is for announcements only at an Arbor Day type of festival.

Does anyone with ease have some time to show me what this would look like? I am curious to see what the prediction is.

We have done this event before, but they are changing the layout. And we have done this basic setup before in this same place for a Scottish Games announce system. And it worked fine. The one big difference is for the Arbor Day event the announcer is always in the middle of the field. But that’s the way we have done if for them before. We don’t really have many other options based on the layout of the park (big old house) and wiring it all up with minimizing trip hazards and with what they are willing to pay for this. They have been happy in the past so we can’t up sell them. I mention this all for the people that will say it won’t work or we should do it another way.

For the Arbor Day festival we use a Shure UHF-R hand held mic with a SM87 capsule with the RF power level at the highest setting. The receiver has 2 spaced directional antennas aimed to the middle of the field where the announce tent is. We show the announcer that is needs to be lips to the grill and how the delay of their voice returning to them might throw them off. We tell them to not speak too fast. They turn on the mic to make an announcement and then turn it off again.
There are some good thoughts in the thread so far.

- Height is your friend, both for not killing people close to the speaker, as well as projection. 12-15' is MUCH better than 6-8'.
- In a situation as you describe, you won't have comb filtering problems, but you may have multiple arrival problems.  The best design is one radiating point and delay rings from there. 
- The distance that can be covered depends on speaker volume, ambient noise, and wind.  Mackie SRM-450s when cranked up can be heard 400' away, but at that volume they are unpleasant for the first 50' or so.  Crowd noise makes this worse, as does wind.  150' - 200' is a more reasonable expectation.  The good news is the more crowd noise and wind there is, the less speaker interaction will be noticeable.

Covering large areas outside is difficult.  The best designs are permanent arrays on tall poles - 25' or so, every 150' - 200', arranged so that they appear to radiate from a specific point.  This means using delays to equalize time arrival, and never pointing speakers toward each other. 

If the client is happy with what's been done before and you don't make it worse this time, it sounds like you will be fine.
Logged

ProSoundWeb Community

Re: What would it look like in Ease?
« Reply #9 on: May 12, 2015, 09:29:24 AM »


Pages: [1]   Go Up
 



Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.043 seconds with 25 queries.