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[jabney (john abney)]

  Hello all. I was hoping that some of you experienced sound guys could help me.

  Last Saturday night we played a “ballroom” at a local VFW hall. Rectangular room, cinder block walls, stage set in the middle of one of the long walls with a huge mirror covering the facing wall! Needless to say, it was an audio nightmare. ...

As far as a sound wave is concerned, there shouldn't be a big difference between bouncing off a mirror and bouncing off a hard painted concrete-block wall (at least at the frequencies a typical VFW-hall patron can still hear).

The Peavey Classic 30 and the Fender Bassmans I've heard are big sounding amps. Pointing them toward you from the sides of the stage should help (you'll probably want to mic' them).

Treating the wall behind the stage with a heavy fabric hanging or such may help more than you might think. Plus, you can advertise the band on it.

Subwoofers could allow you to turn down the overall volume, while still sounding louder.

Pointing the mains outwards a little might help more than pointing them inwards.

'Ringing out' the room when nobody is there would let you try different configurations.

best,

john

[John Hiemburg]

It's a VFW.  Try having them give free beer to all women over 200 pounds.  Seat them in front of the mirror......

Comment of the day award! You win 100 internets!

[Bob Leonard]

Thanks for responding. I've got to look into getting some tilters for my stands. We use backing tracks, so vocals only isn't possible.

  Maybe I'll try Bob Leonard's method of placing the mains behind the band. The weirdest thing was that the bounced sound actually made the tracks sound off-key. Never had that happen before.

Bob,
Doing that will put all of the sound behind you and in this instance you might find it to be a more enjoyable experience. We have a club that we like to play on occasion and the room is pretty much exactly the same. Huge mirrors on a wall 40' in front of us. We also experience the out of tune phenom as well. The cure was tilting the amps, smaller amps, and aiming FOH outwards towards the outside edges of the giant slap your face mirror. After doing that we were told we had found the best mix ever heard in that particular club. Anyway, if you do try this be sure the FOH cabinets are as far to the outside of the stage as possible. Try it at home in the basement, and if it works there go for it.
 
Good luck.     

[Bob Burke]

  Thanks Bob. I didn't have much time to ring out the system, and I found myself having to decide whether to aim the mains in or out. Of course, I chose the wrong direction! I will try pointing them outward next time.

  The out of tune phenom was weird, though. I'm used to the natural reverb from sound bouncing off of a wall, but this was the verb and out of tune as well. Never experienced that before. Makes it challenging to sing in tune.
 

  I tried to access the PM's you sent me on the old forum so I could remember how you do the rear main thingy, but I guess it's finally closed.


Regards,


Bob

[Bob Burke]

As far as a sound wave is concerned, there shouldn't be a big difference between bouncing off a mirror and bouncing off a hard painted concrete-block wall (at least at the frequencies a typical VFW-hall patron can still hear).

The Peavey Classic 30 and the Fender Bassmans I've heard are big sounding amps. Pointing them toward you from the sides of the stage should help (you'll probably want to mic' them).

Treating the wall behind the stage with a heavy fabric hanging or such may help more than you might think. Plus, you can advertise the band on it.

Subwoofers could allow you to turn down the overall volume, while still sounding louder.

Pointing the mains outwards a little might help more than pointing them inwards.

'Ringing out' the room when nobody is there would let you try different configurations.

best,

john

  Thanks John. We are going to reposition the amps the next time we play there. I have subs on the wish list, but paying gigs are getting scarce these days, and so is bread. I'm a bit leery of putting the bass through these little S115V's.



Regards,


Bob

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