How else will you learn what will and won't work unless tried. Set it up in the parking lot at your shop and have at it.
Another gem of wisdom. Really.
I think there is far, far too little experimentation these days. If whatever you want to learn about does not require a live band or very high SPL, these is no reason to not set up some gear, run some pink noise and then move stuff around, apply delay or EQ or both, and hear how things interact. You can spend a few months doing this at home or around your shop, or you can spend YEARS trying to figure it out at gigs.
But in true experiment fashion, you need to start with a hypothesis, figure out what you need to do to test it, and then document the test and see how the results jive up with the hypo. Take notes and pictures/screen grabs and save them all. I wish I'd had today's "phones that take pictures and record audio" back when I was figuring out what "time blind" *really meant* regarding real time analyzers...
This can be as simple as "I want my voice to come out of the speakers" that when broken down becomes a comprehensive exploration of setting up an entire system, one bit at a time, to exploring how time/distance/frequency are different ways of describing the same thing (and hence that they inherently interact in the real acoustic world).
And one more plug for "push it til it dies". At the Lounge level there isn't much money to pay for sudden, at the gig failures. I think controlled failure is better and cheaper in the long run.
The secret to not blowing up your rig at the gig? Set it up somewhere and SLOWLY bring up levels, and push it as hard as you can until it either scares you, the police arrive, or something stops working. What, if anything, failed? What did it sound like before something failed or you bailed? Could this be prevented by different processing, better ventilation, or will it simply require less level? You've found the choke point on your current set up. If it sounds good and gets loud enough without changing anything, you've done well; if not, you have to decide what capital improvements need to be made, or reevaluate your expectations. The point is, only break one thing... unless you can afford to find out what dies next and how much more it takes to make that happen. Note that signal content has a huge impact on this kind of testing. If you're a DJ, use your typical program material; if you do live sound you'll need some uncompressed recordings of a band, preferably live recordings. If you're into hopefully-repeatable results, you'll use pink noise. All are valid for experimental purposes but I think the experiment should initially focus on the typical use of the system.
Enlightenment on the installment plan....
Have fun, good luck.
Tim Mc
