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[Lyle Williams]

Lounge?

[Mike Caldwell]

I wonder if what they hear in the booth (up high in the back) is not what the audience hears, so I cut them a little slack.  But it's simply the worst sound I've ever heard at a venue like this and I wish I knew what was wrong.  But the director doesn't want any help anyway so I guess there's not much to do.

For some reason building designers stick the "sound booth" in the worst locations possible, up crazy high, out of any coverage from the main PA and only put in a 3 X 4 foot square window / hole into the room.
So that maybe part of what you are hearing, the operators have twisted the system EQ so it sounds some what ok to them and them only!

Systems in multi user environments like a school take a beating, lots of people turning knobs can not only lead to bad sound but damaged equipment.

Look at getting a qualified person in to go through the system, it's an older system but it should still sound far better than you described.

Also look at getting a snake cable to drop out the sound booth window and extend all the lines down to the floor level
for the next event.

[George Dougherty]

Fantastic, thanks very much!  I couldn't find much on them, and of course I don't know what drivers they are using, but it seems that they might be the primary culprit of the poor sound quality and it might be time for an updated system.

The picture was taken from the midpoint of the auditorium. I thought it a bit odd how they are arrayed, but what do I know.

I travel with a school assembly program during Jan/Feb and have used a number of in-house systems.
More often than not it's simply a state of disrepair and nobody knowledgeable on staff. I've offered to come back and test/repair systems here locally with so far no takers.

In several cases whole portions of the system were entirely inoperable. HF works on only  one side, LF is out on the other,.  Eequipment was pulled and during reconnection the wrong drivers were connected to the wrong amp outputs. I've found completely dead amps, or ones that visually "work" but have no output on further testing.

I do what I can in the time I have, but it's mostly an exercise in frustration and it's rare that I can do much besides patch around problems, treat the remaining gear gently and inform the instructor in charge of the venue.

[Don T. Williams]

I have to agree with most of the comments, especially "sound booth placement", lack of maintenance, and abuse from student operators.  I have seen a lot of systems damaged from cranking the hip hop to major concert levels on system that were adequate (and designed for) voice and low level music.

In multi-purpose facilities, the chear leaders and athletic teams want to "pump up" their performance by pumping up the volume at their practices on these perfectly adequate voice and announcement systems that were never intended to be high level EDM systems.  No wonder there damages and total failures.

The other item that was touched on was the acoustical environment.  Because most school administrators don't have a clue about acoustics, it not unusual for them to spend a lot of money on new sound equipment and nothing on acoustical treatment.  A million dollar sound system can still sound just as lousy in an acoustically horrible room. 

[Mike Caldwell]

I have to agree with most of the comments, especially "sound booth placement", lack of maintenance, and abuse from student operators.  I have seen a lot of systems damaged from cranking the hip hop to major concert levels on system that were adequate (and designed for) voice and low level music.

In multi-purpose facilities, the chear leaders and athletic teams want to "pump up" their performance by pumping up the volume at their practices on these perfectly adequate voice and announcement systems that were never intended to be high level EDM systems.  No wonder there damages and total failures.

The other item that was touched on was the acoustical environment.  Because most school administrators don't have a clue about acoustics, it not unusual for them to spend a lot of money on new sound equipment and nothing on acoustical treatment.  A million dollar sound system can still sound just as lousy in an acoustically horrible room. 

From the initial description of how the system sounds I would say there is serious damage to the woofers in the low/mid boxes......or the amp in unplugged and no one thought to plug it back in!

Churches run into about the same thing. Many times the system was/is fine for light music and spoken word but they update their service with full on praise band with out updating the system.

[Craig Smith]

Thanks, good comments.  This is in a dedicated auditorium.  I always just set up my own system; once I tried to use a school's system but too many speakers weren't functioning.

Interestingly there was a portable setup in the middle of the auditorium with a 32 channel Soundcraft GB2 and a couple racks of equipment.  Not sure what it was for or what it was hooked up to.

The most obvious problem was actually lack of high frequencies.  I'm itching to go in an see if I can figure out what's wrong but probably won't get that chance.  I'll probably just let the school know they should have the system checked.

[Craig Smith]

I went to two more shows and the sound quality was no better, although the levels were better.  The tech still struggled at times though. 

The GB2 in the middle was connected to a rack of wireless receivers, and then to a snake that went back to the main booth.  But none of it was turned on.

Regardless, I'm sure the director wanted freedom to talk to the techs so wouldn't have wanted to use that location anyway.

[ProSoundWeb Community]