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[JamesJudson]

Intelligibility for Western speech is about high-frequency content - when you are in a bad/reverberant room the lower/mid frequencies will muddy things up, and what sounds full up front will be mud in the back - for Western speech this does not work.

Try thinning out the mic quite a bit and it will be clearer in the back.

I once was mixing in a church that was an architect's dream, 167ft vaulted ceilings with all marble, tile, and glass. It was a nightmare for sound reinforcement and had 320 degrees of seating. For spoken word, I REALLY thinned out the mic. In the very front it was somewhat radio-like (and not in a good way), however in the back it was readily intelligible, and I was approached by several people who sat in the back and was informed they had never heard things so clearly. Audio is a game of compromises, and that is one I am willing to make.

For delays a few thoughts:

1. In general every time you double distance you half your volume.
2. Your delays should be time aligned to your mains (rather than simply volume matched) - you will want some measurement software for this so you can get a transfer function going - SMAART is usually what I use, but that is not inexpensive.
3. Your delays don't need to be fullrange, you may just want them adding that top-end back in - If you focus on top I would recommend doing EQ rather than a pass filter as EQ will affect the phase less and will make matching them up with the mains easier.

hey Matthias, I appreciate you taking time to answer my question. But it doesn't fully explain it. My main question is what should be the SPL level from main and delays in relation to each other.

[Mike Caldwell]

Don't worry so much about SPL numbers, since the delay is from the DBX 360 I'm guessing that output is just an extension of the main mix.
Set the level of the delay fills so that when they are on you don't really outwardly notice they are on but when you mute the delay zone feed you can tell that they are off.
Easy to do when using the DBX360 app to control the DSP remotely, you can be in the delay zone while you make adjustments.

As Kevin said, a metronome click is too easy to be a click off, by ear random tapping on a mic is better.

[Matthias McCready]

Also guys I heard many engineers say gain before feedback is independent of mic's sensitivity. But when I use Shure sm58 (cardiod) I found that GBF is more than when I DPA Gooseneck (hyper cardiod) why is that I don't understand.

I think you mean: "Gain before feedback is independent of the source" - different mics will absolutely have different points at which they feedback, feedback is dependent on the mics frequency response, the pickup pattern, and its location compared to the speakers (lets not forget the speakers pattern).

So in a given place in a room, a specific microphone will have a specific amount it can be gained up before feedback can occur, that could +4dB or it could be plus +50dB - whatever that level of gain that can be added it is independent of the person speaking or singing.

My main question is what should be the SPL level from main and delays in relation to each other.

While there are different methodologies how I typically set delays are:

1) I find the delay where the coverage of the delay starts, I place my mic there, and find the delay of the main - that is your time to set the delay speaker to.

2) After I find that time alignment for most situations I often move the delay speakers delay 1-2ms back - this will make the focus on the main speaker at the front of the room, rather than the delay/fill near you.

3) For level I usually set it so that the fill adds clarity and so it is not super noticeable that "I am walking in front of a speaker" I like to keep delays as natural as possible - When I walk from the custody of the mains into the fill, if it is noticeably louder it is too loud. Note if you do the delay trick from step 2 you can have the fill be slightly louder than without as our brain and ears are more sensitive to timing than they are to volume.

[ProSoundWeb Community]