Print

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

[Jonathan Talassazan]

Hi All

First time poster here and looking to gain some knowledge.

To provide a bit of background about my events I mainly do high-end weddings with guest counts of 350+. Typically for events of 500+ guests I outsource my sound and rent 2 JBL VRX's with a sound engineer to handle everything. The setup I own and used at most of my events that are about 350-400 guests is 2 KW152 and 2 KS118 subs. It works great and I have never had a problem of not having enough sound.

Recently I've been curious if my setup as is can handle crowds of 600 guests. Most of the DJ's in my sphere that do the same type of events use 2 KLA12 subs and 2 KW181 subs on each side of the stage and they have no problem handling large crowds of 600 guests. The question is how does my setup compare vs theirs. Do I need more sound?

The venue for the event is roughly 1200sqft with a dancefloor size of about 48'x40'

[Thomas Le]

600 people? Unless those tops were danley or something similar.... yeah the KW isn't going to cut it.

[Dan Richardson]

Tent? Ballroom?

Personally, I'd consider your system overkill, but I don't know your audience or your peers.

[John L Nobile]

I don't see you playing to 600 people like it was a concert. I see you providing music for the dance floor. The rest of the people probably have a lot of catching up to do and don't want to have to yell to communicate. I don't see any problems with your system for that scenario. If it is a live band with 600 ppl, then it's not enough.

[Jeff Lelko]

As an owner/user of the QSC HPR152i I can say that you'll generally be fine here.  As John mentions if you're planning on amplifying a live band to rock concert levels you'll need more rig for the gig, but for generic DJ work what you have is fine.  The KLA rig isn't anything special.  If anything I'd consider adding another pair of subs if you find your low end to be lacking, otherwise you should be good to go.  Hope this helps!

[Jonathan Talassazan]

Ballroom

Tent? Ballroom?

Personally, I'd consider your system overkill, but I don't know your audience or your peers.

[Jonathan Talassazan]

Thank you!
We do typically have live musicians playing along side the DJ. So a typical setup would be DJ + 2 percussion players and a sax.

I don't see you playing to 600 people like it was a concert. I see you providing music for the dance floor. The rest of the people probably have a lot of catching up to do and don't want to have to yell to communicate. I don't see any problems with your system for that scenario. If it is a live band with 600 ppl, then it's not enough.

[Tim Weaver]

For what its worth I've done live bands at private parties with a pair of single 18's and a pair of 10"/1" tops. Not just once. This was my go-to rig for these events.

98 percent of the people there are not intereted in the band. You really only need to cover the dance floor.

[Doug Fowler]

As an owner/user of the QSC HPR152i I can say that you'll generally be fine here.  As John mentions if you're planning on amplifying a live band to rock concert levels you'll need more rig for the gig, but for generic DJ work what you have is fine.  The KLA rig isn't anything special.  If anything I'd consider adding another pair of subs if you find your low end to be lacking, otherwise you should be good to go.  Hope this helps!

Yeah, some extra subbage would be helpful.  It’s playback, obviously a far cry from mixing a band.

[Matt Vivlamore]

Weddings are interesting... many clients want it thumping on the dance floor but be able to talk to their guest and friends at the back of the room.

But the KW152 and KS118 is going to be weak, i doubt you have enough power out of the tops for speeches.

When I was doing the wedding/corporate band scene, I was running a JBL SRX722/SRX727 combo and then moved to a Fulcrum FA22ac over pair SRX718s.  The events we did with my system ranged from 75 to 600; any event over 600, sound was hired in.

[Helge A Bentsen]

Isn't this a typical "it depends"?
I did my sisters wedding a few years ago in a 250 cap room, one EAW NT26 over a Yamaha active 18" a side, plenty of volume for the dj (and the old folks).
In two weeks time I'm doing a birthday party for some friends in the same room, it's 2x KF750 over 2x dual 18" a side....

I always ask people what they expect the system to do in advance for this type of gigs and try to spec accordingly.
If they expect a live band and wish to talk at the same time in the back, I might say "no, thanks" to a gig if it's a uphill struggle to provide that service.

[Mike Caldwell]

As has been mentioned in a few post already, most people will not care about the dance music
as they want to talk and socialize, except maybe the first dance of the evening.
What just about all of the people there will want to hear clearly is the introductions, toast, ect.

Maybe think about putting up some smaller fill speakers 3/4 to 2/3rd towards the back of the room with only the spoken word parts of the evening fed to those.
The system at the dance floor would have both the spoken word and music inputs.

Doing that would help provide the coverage of what just about everyone will want to hear.

[Tim McCulloch]

I suspect there are some "cultural expectations" that Jonathan's clients may have.  What is suitable for an "old people (guests) wedding" may not be enough for younger people or folks coming from traditions with more raucous festivities.

That said, audio is about coverage and intelligibility for the speeches, toasts, and general wedding adulation, and keeping the recreational dance music more localized to permit folks to socialize.

It's not useful to think of the number of attendees (it's not like they each "take" some SPL out of a pool and leave less for others), but in terms of the *areas to be covered* and at what SPL is appropriate for each zone.

[Brian Jojade]

At a wedding, the most common thing I see overlooked is the ability of making clear announcements that can be heard clearly at every seat.

Generally speaking, the dance floor needs to be the power center and guests like to be able to back away from that.  The problem arrises though that if you design your system that way, when announcements need to be made, they too are centered around the dance floor.

With that design, just cranking things up for announcements means blasting out those in front with the hopes that those in back can hear.

I've found fill speakers that are only used for announcements are the easiest solution to the problem.  Now you can speak and are heard in every corner, but the music can stay in the concentrated area where it's wanted.

[Tim McCulloch]

At a wedding, the most common thing I see overlooked is the ability of making clear announcements that can be heard clearly at every seat.

Generally speaking, the dance floor needs to be the power center and guests like to be able to back away from that.  The problem arrises though that if you design your system that way, when announcements need to be made, they too are centered around the dance floor.

With that design, just cranking things up for announcements means blasting out those in front with the hopes that those in back can hear.

I've found fill speakers that are only used for announcements are the easiest solution to the problem.  Now you can speak and are heard in every corner, but the music can stay in the concentrated area where it's wanted.

^^^ This.

Can be as simple as using an AUX mix for the fills, using a matrix mix, or even clever left/right assignments and panning.  But spot on about keeping the "entertainment" in one acoustic place so the rest of the guests who wish to converse can easily do so.

[ProSoundWeb Community]