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Author Topic: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.  (Read 22960 times)

Stan Chigintsev

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Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« on: February 27, 2014, 11:05:05 PM »

Hi guys! I need some advice here.

We will be providing sound for an event. Please see a rough sketch of the floor plan (sorry for this ugly sketch :-) ). This is going to be for speech only (no music). The room is EXTREMELY LIVE with concrete walls… Area to be covered is 140 by 80 ft, but actual length of the room is aprox 200 ft, however there’s a kind of a partial plastic wall beyond the 140 ft mark.  Blue dots are the columns. Red are speaker positions as I see them.

Whole area must be covered with speech clearly heard in any point of the room as seen on image. No seats, people will be walking around. MCs will be walking with wireless mics. There will be some stage surrounded by the columns, that’s why I want to place some of the speakers around that area specifically. Only pole-mounted speakers are available. 10 cabs total.

My questions are:
1. Would you agree with proposed speaker placement positions? How would you place them?
2. DO I NEED TO DELAY the group of cabs 5,6,7,8 against group 1,2,3,4 ?  Any other delay scenarios? Or no delay needed?

Thanks!
« Last Edit: March 01, 2014, 06:31:33 PM by Stan Chigintsev »
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John Halliburton

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Re: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2014, 11:24:17 PM »

Please clarify-The area defined by poles 5, 6,7, and 8 will be a stage?

If so, one pair of speakers at each corner, aimed out to maximize the coverage hopefully with no overlap.

What you show now is going to be a nightmare of interference.

Also, what kind of cabinets, and what kind of stands?

Best regards,

John
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Tim Perry

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Re: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2014, 11:27:03 PM »

What would make you think that 2 speakers in stands would be insufficient?
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Brad Weber

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Re: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2014, 08:48:29 AM »

Whole area must be covered with speech clearly heard in any point of the room as seen on image. No seats, people will be walking around. MCs will be walking with wireless mics.
So, you have to have sufficient level for people to clearly hear it everywhere but there could be open mics anywhere.  What kind of mics do you plan to use and are the MCs trained talkers that are willing to work with you?
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Stan Chigintsev

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Re: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« Reply #4 on: February 28, 2014, 09:01:56 AM »

Area by 5,6,7,8 will be some kind of an important spot that must be covered well. But the whole 140' by 80' room must be covered as well.

 There's a crazy natural reverb in the room with like 4 sec decay. As I saw the area I realized the key should be to have more speakers spread over the walls/corners to lessen the distance from a nearest cab to a listener in any position in the room and, therefore, to provide more of direct vs reflected sound. The longer the distance the more muddy sound will be - this is how I see that. Would you agree?

Speakers available are Peavey 115 and JBL JRX115. 10 total. Poles are regular poles not sure how to classify them. Sturdy. Can go quite high.  I don't know whether the three MCs are trained well. Customer provides them... Mics are wireless BETA 58s. MCs will likely be walking around the room while talking.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2014, 09:47:02 AM by Stan Chigintsev »
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2014, 11:26:25 AM »

Area by 5,6,7,8 will be some kind of an important spot that must be covered well. But the whole 140' by 80' room must be covered as well.

 There's a crazy natural reverb in the room with like 4 sec decay. As I saw the area I realized the key should be to have more speakers spread over the walls/corners to lessen the distance from a nearest cab to a listener in any position in the room and, therefore, to provide more of direct vs reflected sound. The longer the distance the more muddy sound will be - this is how I see that. Would you agree?

Speakers available are Peavey 115 and JBL JRX115. 10 total. Poles are regular poles not sure how to classify them. Sturdy. Can go quite high.  I don't know whether the three MCs are trained well. Customer provides them... Mics are wireless BETA 58s. MCs will likely be walking around the room while talking.

Stan...

The fewer speakers you can use, the clearer the overall sound in the room will be.  The long reverb time will be weighted towards the LF, so as this is a "voice only" application you should not be sending anything below 250hz out into the room.  If that sounds a bit "thin" for the voices, try lowering the high pass filtering until you find an acceptable middle ground.

Get the speakers up high and tilt them down 15 degrees.  You can buy tilters from Mike Pyle.  Look him up in the membership list here and give him a shout.  He'll get them to you ASAP.  Tilting the speakers down will direct more sound to the listeners and keep it from just bouncing around the room.

As to placement:  cabling and other logistic concerns such as tripod stand tripping hazards will come into play.  Bottom line is use as few as possible, get 'em up in the air, tilt them down, high-pass the vocal mics as high as needed.

   
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Bill McIntosh

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Re: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« Reply #6 on: February 28, 2014, 12:50:24 PM »

Stan...

Get the speakers up high and tilt them down 15 degrees. 


If the JRX are recent vintage, there is a second set of pole sockets that provide a tilt and keep the center of gravity over the stand center.

No experience with the Peaveys but I would check before ordering tilters.

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Stan Chigintsev

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Re: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2014, 02:08:26 PM »

Stan...

The fewer speakers you can use, the clearer the overall sound in the room will be.  The long reverb time will be weighted towards the LF, so as this is a "voice only" application you should not be sending anything below 250hz out into the room.  If that sounds a bit "thin" for the voices, try lowering the high pass filtering until you find an acceptable middle ground.

Get the speakers up high and tilt them down 15 degrees.  You can buy tilters from Mike Pyle.  Look him up in the membership list here and give him a shout.  He'll get them to you ASAP.  Tilting the speakers down will direct more sound to the listeners and keep it from just bouncing around the room.

As to placement:  cabling and other logistic concerns such as tripod stand tripping hazards will come into play.  Bottom line is use as few as possible, get 'em up in the air, tilt them down, high-pass the vocal mics as high as needed.

 

Hmm. I appreciate your advice! But do you really believe that one or two speakers at each corner will be enough? There will be like 90 feet (!) to a nearest speaker for a person standing in the middle of the room, and remember, the room is insanely "live". 

It's hard for me to comprehend this. Would you (or someone else) please explain the logic behind this?

We can deal with cabling issue... we may run some by ceiling...
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Brian Jojade

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Re: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« Reply #8 on: February 28, 2014, 03:09:54 PM »

Hmm. I appreciate your advice! But do you really believe that one or two speakers at each corner will be enough? There will be like 90 feet (!) to a nearest speaker for a person standing in the middle of the room, and remember, the room is insanely "live". 

It's hard for me to comprehend this. Would you (or someone else) please explain the logic behind this?

We can deal with cabling issue... we may run some by ceiling...

The logic is that the more speakers you have, the more echo points are created, and the more muddy the sound will be.  The problem is though, that the distance between the speaker and the listener will determine how loud it is.  When speaker placement can't be set so that the listeners are equidistant from the cabinet, the level differences can be an issue.  i.e., if you have a speaker on sticks at one end of the room, listeners will be a range of just a couple feet to 140 feet away.  The difference in level over that range will be over 36db.  Way too loud by the speaker will be nearly inaudible at the far end of the room.

Now, if you can position the speaker 20' in the air, the closest listener is now 20' away, and the furthest listener is still at about 140'  In this case, the difference from the front listener to the back listener would be about 15db. Not perfect, but a whole lot better.

Unfortunately, it's not always realistic to place a speaker such that it can equally cover the room, so multiple speakers get used.  The problem you run into there is that each speaker that's creating sound will reflect some of that sound about that room.  Each one will be at different angles, so your interference patterns will be all over the board.

If you can place speakers such that the sound that the listener hears directly from the speaker is significantly louder than any of the echoes and reflections from the other sources, the clarity can be improved.  Here, getting listeners as close to the speakers as possible is desirable. 
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Brian Jojade

Brad Weber

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Re: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« Reply #9 on: February 28, 2014, 04:00:59 PM »

I don't know whether the three MCs are trained well. Customer provides them... Mics are wireless BETA 58s. MCs will likely be walking around the room while talking.
Get them on headset mics if at all possible, otherwise you may end up with them trying to use the mic with it held at a distance. Think about the fact that you pick up around 21dB of additional gain before feedback by moving the mic from being 6" from their mouth to 1/2" from their mouth and almost 16dB going from 6" to 1", not to mention what may happen with live cardioid, handheld mics when they're not talking. 
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ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Need advice on speaker placement in a big live hall.
« Reply #9 on: February 28, 2014, 04:00:59 PM »


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