Print

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

[Jean-Pierre Coetzee]

If you were to build a venue from scratch with only ONE thing in mind - Sound Quality.

What would the dimensions be? What kind of material would be used? What are some of the best practices / worst things that have happened in venues you already work with? I know cancelations happen with different lengths of different stuff, so I'm just curious what the ideal dimensions of things are? Has this ever been done before? Like is there a perfect sounding room?

Not actually doing any of this, just curious since cancelations seem to be the biggest problem with indoor sound systems.

Josh Billings

Hire an acoustician, an architect, a structural engineer, a general contractor with experience in live sound and Merlijn van Veen or any of the great system designers in the world.

Tell them to design a building together with the acoustician and Merlin(or whoever) having the last say. You will get a great room that sounds good and is going to sound good. Also you will be broke.

You will get a room with the best possible sound

[John Halliburton]

Had to look it up as I spent 2 years in Evanston in a graduate program 92-94, but from a quick Google Amazingrace was long gone before then. We used to play at The Keg, and they put the stage in for our band. We weren't great, but it was fun.  Mackie 1202, 4 vocal mics, DX7 and rack guitar preamp, into an Alesis RA300 power amp into 2 Cerwin Vega 15" speakers...

Yeah, Amazingrace was long gone.  I lived one block over from there for a couple of years.  Legendary folk/jazz mostly club. The only show I saw there though was Steve Goodman in July of 1977.

Space, a great venue north of there on Chicago Avenue at Dempster St., has stated that Amazingrace was one of their inspirations.

Best regards,

John

Best regards,

John

[Rick Powell]

Yeah, Amazingrace was long gone.  I lived one block over from there for a couple of years.  Legendary folk/jazz mostly club. The only show I saw there though was Steve Goodman in July of 1977.

Space, a great venue north of there on Chicago Avenue at Dempster St., has stated that Amazingrace was one of their inspirations.

Best regards,

John

Best regards,

John

I saw the Pat Metheny Group there in the late 70s and the whole experience was awesome. I think the place was closed within a year or so of that show.

[Randy Pence]

A venue I used to work at which used to be an indoor pool had roughly golden ratio dimensions and sounded (and looked) much better than one would have expected, given that the reflective surfaces were still there. It did have some treatment from the pool days, but If I could build my own room, I'd start with similar

[Ivan Beaver]

There is an old concept dating back to the Greeks that is still applied today - the “Phi” golden acoustic ratio of width 1.6 times the height of the room and the length 2.6 times the height.

The nice thing about "standards" is that there are so many to choose from.

If you look around, you will find a good number of "golden ratios" for rooms.  Each one claiming that theirs is "better".

The big thing is to avoid is easy multiples of the same number on different walls.

[Mark Cadwallader]

I'd start with a serious study of La Scalla and the other great opera venues in the world.

[John L Nobile]

It all depends on the style of music. We have a room at the resort that sounds great with an orchestra or big horn band but horrible with anything that's amplified.

I think that whatever room you design, you'll need a lot of budget for adjustable acoustic systems. One size will not fit all.

[Mike Caldwell]

It all depends on the style of music. We have a room at the resort that sounds great with an orchestra or big horn band but horrible with anything that's amplified.

I think that whatever room you design, you'll need a lot of budget for adjustable acoustic systems. One size will not fit all.

Unfortunately is seems like most rooms are still only designed for orchestra or acoustic choir concerts in mind but in reality that type of concert only amounts to maybe 20% of the rooms use.

I was just working in a gymnasium today that makes your average gymnasiums sound good, it's hard to understand and carry on a conversation someone 20 feet away. If I heard it once I heard it a hundred times people saying "what" as they were talking to one another.

I have a job coming up in vintage ballroom with two large ornate domes in the ceiling. Everyone talks about how great the room looks and the great "acoustics".....that brings me back to my theory that when someone says a room has great acoustics I take that to mean the room has 30 sec R60 with some flutter echo thrown in for good measure.

[Bill Hornibrook]

Not actually doing any of this, just curious since cancelations seem to be the biggest problem with indoor sound systems.

Josh Billings

I would actually place things such as too many highly reflective surfaces and poor bar placement in relation to the stage much higher than room cancellations.

Current room I'm involved in measures almost exactly 4000 square feet with a drop ceiling of acoustic tile. This ceiling is way too mundane and dull for many rooms, but the acoustics in there are among the best I've encountered for a room this size.   

Unfortunately they blew it with the bar - which is in front of the stage on the opposite wall and directly in the crosshairs of the mains. They didn't get it all right.

[Richard Turner]

For a mid level size eg 7500 seat venue

I'd focus on the back end of the building a lot too. 2 level  Loading docks, for road tractors, another self leveling dock for cube van, if possible space to run a 15 passenger van plus 20' pup trailer indoors for winter gigs. that way forklift time is minimal and can just focus on unstacking things rather than having to unload then unstack

Somewhat standardized fly points with motors.

Reasonably up to date house lighting and controls

Enough space and load rating in the roofline to tuck house gear out of the way for touring shows

Space enough and wireless enough to roll the opening act stage out of the way on platforms rather than needing an army of stage hands.


Scaleable audience space, Eg the Tuesday show at 800 tickets just n the bowl still looks as good as the packed to the rafters night. One local 1200 seater does this, the balcony seating doesn't open for sale until 90% of the lower level is sold.

Most of all the room has to be versatile. Equally adept at having the kids show of a man in a costume to backing tracks on Sunday afternoon , Jazz on Thursday and pop music on Friday

Bar and food service is a key as well. There has to be a balance, Ideally a restaurant would be attached to the venue with a catering service able to handle the food and beverage needs beyond rink fries and whatever beer pays to have itself on tap.

[ProSoundWeb Community]