Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Scott Holtzman]

Can you replace the HF drivers in the maint. budget then get the system balanced out?  I agree that maint. and the new system are two different events and processes.  Current system has to be maintained until the day it ia decommissioned

[Lee Douglas]

Prevailing opinion among sound professionals places the above statement on the oxymoron scale somewhere between "military intelligence" and "political integrity".

Except in this case where Tim's local music store does have a legitimate installation/pro systems division.  Tim, give Dave Kenagy a call at Hoffman's.

Added: I missed your reply prior to this.  It looks like you already know them.

[Jonathan Johnson]

The front two of the three Fraziers definitely have blown HF drivers.  I'm probably going to bypass them for now since they are just adding mud to the sound.  I'm approaching this project for now as if we are not buying anything new, although the pastor has said that he wants to get a new system at some point.

Can you replace the HF drivers in the maint. budget then get the system balanced out?  I agree that maint. and the new system are two different events and processes.  Current system has to be maintained until the day it ia decommissioned

I have to agree with Scott. If it's going to be many months before you see a replacement, you need to look at repairing the current system. It's going to give you the best bang-for-the-buck in the short term, and it's the responsible thing to do. People need to hear the message now, not nine months from now.

Getting what you currently have working in the best manner possible may change the scope of replacement. You may find that the system works pretty good; that only certain portions need upgraded.

Your speakers need to be properly time-aligned (maybe they are). This means that the rear center speaker at a minimum needs to be on a delay; possibly the others but without the benefit of being boots-on-ground, no one can tell you how or by how much. Without the delay, the sound will be horribly muddled.

[Jonathan Johnson]

The priority in improving a sound system should generally be as follows:

• Repair. Fix anything that is broken, unless the cost of repair exceeds the value of the equipment. Remember that part of the value of equipment is its utility. Replacing or upgrading equipment can involves a significant amount of labor and education, and that has a cost. It may cost $100 to fix an item that's only worth $50, but if replacement costs $500 repair might still be the better deal. On the other hand, it may be worthwhile to replace a faulty piece of equipment if that equipment is incapable of meeting your needs. For example, if you have a 16 channel mixer with a bad channel, but you really need a 32 channel mixer, you might as well go ahead and replace it. But that really falls under the last point, because you've identified that it doesn't meet your needs.
• Retune. Determine if any component can be adjusted, reaimed, repositioned, realigned, or connected in a a different manner to optimize the operation of the system. A perfectly functional device that is misapplied is wasted.
• Remove. Get rid of the stuff you will never use -- space is valuable and unused equipment in your rack creates confusion. Get rid of dead/decommissioned cabling wherever possible.
• Upgrade. Identify those components that do not meet your needs and cannot be repurposed or retuned to meet your needs. Find the replacement product that WILL meet your needs now and for the foreseeable future. This is the last step, because until you do all the other stuff you don't really know what you need to upgrade.

I've found that it's much easier to proceed with a project if you have a clear plan before you ask for the budget. People are much more willing to donate to a cause if they know that their money will be used wisely, and if you have a clear plan they can more easily judge your wisdom.

Setting the budget before developing the plan almost always leads to disappointment.

[Kent Thompson]

About the angle of the Peavey speakers. Looking at where they are placed it appears they were angled inward sharply to avoid reflecting sound off of the stain glass windows on the wall which will cause muddiness. You should check into the dispersion pattern of them to see if this is so. It may be that the way they were angled was the lesser of two evils.

[Jonathan Johnson]

I don't think the FOH Peaveys are doing you any favors. If you can get to a point where you have just a center cluster (and, due to the length of the room, maybe a second, delayed rear fill such as the "center of room" Frazier), you will probably get better sound. Of course, this is predicated on coverage angles of the speakers, ensuring that the seats are well covered, and the stage and walls are not.

I suspect the Peaveys were installed the way they were to provide front fill, since the area in the front likely doesn't receive good coverage from the center front Frazier. In such an install, it would be best if the coverage of the Peaveys did not overlap either with each other or with the center front Frazier. In reality, this is almost impossible to achieve, and the varying distances from the listener to each of the three speakers will create unintelligible muddiness with weird constructive and destructive interference. And, as you found out, the coverage range of those speakers extends onto the stage, which results in feedback issues -- and aiming them outward may cause them to reflect off the walls or merge with the Frazier coverage, creating even more undesirable effects.

Based on your description -- pan left to both Peaveys, pan right to the Fraziers -- I don't think that this was intended to be a stereo setup. Wired properly (assuming the speaker coverage was good), the single mono output from the mixer would be split to both the Peaveys and the Fraziers. You would adjust the relative volume levels on the amplifiers rather than the mixer; there isn't much good reason to change that balance while live mixing. Or maybe it was wired properly at one point, and somewhere along the line someone was juggling cables and got it all messed up. I don't think you need a stereo setup; stereo doesn't work all that great in an auditorium since different seats receive different coverage from the left and right speakers. Stereo works great at home, because you only have to please one listener and it's easy to tune for the best seat in the house when there's only one.

While a single speaker in the front (i.e., the front Frazier) may not provide proper coverage, using several speakers in a center cluster you would be able to cover all the necessary areas. Even though the coverage areas may overlap slightly, because the speakers are physically close together (and providing they are physically positioned to align their drivers) they will effectively be time-aligned to the listener, reducing interference between them.

[Tim Barber]

Based on your description -- pan left to both Peaveys, pan right to the Fraziers -- I don't think that this was intended to be a stereo setup.

No, it's a straight mono setup.  I was told by one of the church members who was there before the split, that formerly they would use the FOH speakers for the band and then switch to the center speakers for the spoken word...which makes absolutely no sense to me.

Wired properly (assuming the speaker coverage was good), the single mono output from the mixer would be split to both the Peaveys and the Fraziers. You would adjust the relative volume levels on the amplifiers rather than the mixer; there isn't much good reason to change that balance while live mixing.

Exactly what I was thinking of trying to do eventually.  I'm glad for the confirmation.

[Tim Barber]

Your speakers need to be properly time-aligned (maybe they are). This means that the rear center speaker at a minimum needs to be on a delay; possibly the others but without the benefit of being boots-on-ground, no one can tell you how or by how much. Without the delay, the sound will be horribly muddled.

The center and rear Fraziers are on a 35ms and 69ms delay, respectively, and to my ear it sounds about right.  I'm not hearing any staggered attacks on percussive sounds.

I'm back from today's adventures with the following developments:

1. I turned off the malfunctioning Fraziers.  I think the Fraziers are probably better speakers than the Peaveys based on how the working one sounds, but with the HF blown they are just pumping mud.  The sound cleaned up with the bad ones off.  I think repairing them is going to be one of the main things I recommend.

2. I bypassed the Sabine ADF-4000 and immediately got a lot of life back in the sound that had been missing.  Maybe I won't need it for feedback suppression, since it's not a rock band playing anymore.  We are rarely hitting over 85db in a typical service.

3. One of our singers was there today and I had her do some acappella stuff on her mic at a fairly hot level while I walked the room.  I was actually pleasantly surprised with the how even the coverage seemed, even without the 2 Fraziers.  There were not a lot of obvious hot or dead zones.

4. I've got talk radio playing on three input channels, two vocal mics and a guitar DI.  Grrr.  Tomorrow I will try to troubleshoot that a little.  Does anyone have a favorite trick for RF?  Swapping cords, trying different stage inputs and cleaning contacts is about all I know to try.

[Mac Kerr]

4. I've got talk radio playing on three input channels, two vocal mics and a guitar DI.  Grrr.  Tomorrow I will try to troubleshoot that a little.  Does anyone have a favorite trick for RF?  Swapping cords, trying different stage inputs and cleaning contacts is about all I know to try.

What is plugged into the lines with the talk radio? If it is nothing, try plugging in a mic. If you have a mic plugged in, try shortening the path between the mic and mixer by using a short mic cable to plug the mic straight into the console, then add back cable till you get the radio back.

Mac

[Jerome Malsack]

I would question cable/s and connections. 

Look for a cable tester.  Behringer CT-100 is inexpensive but can be used to ensure the wires are 1 to 1, 2 to 2 and 3 to 3.  It can be used to send a test signal to the mixer.

There are various cable testers available in various price ranges. 

Do you have any guitars or instruments that have 1/4 plugs that connect into XLR ?
Are they all plugged in when testing and getting the radio?  are they connected or laying out ?

Unplug the DI and the two vocal mic's.  The cables between the mics and the connection at the wall/floor may be questionable ?   The DI might have the 1/4 unbalanced TS  Tip Sleeve guitar card still plugged in and not connected to anything. 

[ProSoundWeb Community]