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[George Reiswig]

This is why I love PSW. Thanks, all!

[Tim Weaver]

Getting down in the weeds this far with delay is not really worth it IMO. It doesn't make enough of a difference to warrant the extra work every day.


As far as panning goes, if it's a 5 piece kit I pan the rack toms about 50/60 percent, and the the same with the OH's, then the Bomb Tom™ gets panned center. If it's a 4 piece kit I don't pan the toms, but do hard pan the overheads.



What I suggest instead of delaying channels for some arbitrary alignment, you do this: Make sure your OH's are equidistant from the snare. I compress them and then use them a lot in the mix. It sounds great, and adds that amount of polish on a drum sound. Compressed OH's and non-compressed shells is the move.....

[Frank Koenig]

I’ll add that if you’re going for this level of precision in lining up the arrivals you should verify the delay through the whole system from mic to speaker, which can be more than the couple ms in the mixer. If the speaker processor uses some “non-causal” FIR filtering to clean up the phase, for example, that can add several more ms. You might find that you have all the delay you want without explicitly adding any.

--Frank

[Jeff M Hague]

I'm assuming this is kind of a Sound 101 level of question, so I'll put it here.

First, on the topic of delays on a channel. Not as an effect, but as a "correction:"
Suppose you have an outdoor stage, 40' wide, where the mains are set off to the ends and 5' in front of the stage. Then you have the drummer set up 15' back from the center of the stage front, and he's got a blistering snare. If you wanted to align the acoustic signal of the snare hit with when it comes out of the speakers, you've got some choices to make:
1. You could align as though you want it to correspond with when it reaches the front of the stage, so basically correct for 20' of difference between the snare and the theoretical line connecting the two speakers, 5' in front of the stage.
2. You could look at the hypotenuse instead, which would be as though the listeners were all pretty well looking at the stage from off to the side, or their view of the snare was obstructed by the speaker on their side. That delay would be more like 28'.
3. You could split that difference, or
4. You could ignore the theoretical problem and not delay it at all.

What is considered "best practice" in a situation like this?

Now for the panning question:

How do you experts pan your drums, if at all? Kick, snare and hi-hat centered, then maybe a wide pan that follows the visual (from the audience's POV) of the toms to get a bit of stereo? Or...?

I dont go so far as delaying individual channels and only for bigger shows will I delay the mains to the backline. If that can even be done - depends on if there is any offset between bass rig / kick / guitar rigs, etc. Not that I dont think those kinds of things are useful. I just try not to overcomplicate things if the return is minimal.
As far as panning kick center, snare 20% right, lo-tom 60% left, mid-tom center, hi-tom 60% right, ride 75% left, hats 75% right, overheads 100% left / right (if I'm using them). That's POV of the audience and assumes a 5 piece kit. I pan toms the same if it's a 4 piece and similar for a 6 piece - 20% left / right for the mid toms.
I have never bought in to the argument that most of the audience on the left wont hear things panned right - 45+ years of listening has proven that to be wrong until you get in to the 5,000 + plus attendees shows which I rarely do. Even then, with the clarity and precision of the big boy line arrays today, panning is probably still noticable and useful in much bigger situations.

[John Schalk]

For what your talking about the delay is applied to the entire main output mix, maybe about 18ms in your case.

What about for systems where the subs are being fed from a different bus than the main L+R, do you add the "back line" delay to the subs too?

As to Frank's comment about measuring the full system's inherent latency; that is something that I need to do.  The portable stages that our town has are only 14' deep so the snare drum is maybe 10' back from the downstage edge.  My speakers are usually not more than 2' in front of the stage lip, so that's a maximum distance of 12' or 12ms of delay.  After subtracting a few ms for the inherent latency in the system, is the remaining <10ms of delay noticeable?

[Dave Garoutte]

What about for systems where the subs are being fed from a different bus than the main L+R, do you add the "back line" delay to the subs too?

As to Frank's comment about measuring the full system's inherent latency; that is something that I need to do.  The portable stages that our town has are only 14' deep so the snare drum is maybe 10' back from the downstage edge.  My speakers are usually not more than 2' in front of the stage lip, so that's a maximum distance of 12' or 12ms of delay.  After subtracting a few ms for the inherent latency in the system, is the remaining <10ms of delay noticeable?

Yes.  It's surprising how noticeably tighter the hits are when you A/B it (I have done).  If the drums are audible acoustically with the PA, it can help.  If the PA is the only thing being heard, then it probably is moot.

[Scott Bolt]

That should be take away 1ms or 2 to account for the delay that the processing will add.

Delaying the mains to the backline can really help to tighten everything up. At least it has worked great for me. I also am careful to do the best as I can to time align the Front Fills to the house system and put in them only what will be missing in that area.

Thank you for the correction .

You are, of course, correct.  I should have said subtract 1 or 2 mSec for digital mixer processing delay (which is like delay that we didn't ask for but get anyway).

[Scott Helmke]

I don't pan drums, or really anything.  Somebody on one side or the other gets a shitty mix when I do.

And it's not just volume levels.  Time is a much bigger factor at a live show than in your living room. If the stage is 30' wide, and the speakers are slightly outside of that, then somebody on the left side is going to be hearing the right side 30mS delayed.

[Helge A Bentsen]

Back in the days of analog signal paths, delaying the PA to the backline could be an issue.
Today, a lot of systems are pre-aligned. Just think about it, we have a digital console adding 1-4ms(depending on age and brand) connected to DSP/amplifier packages adding 2.5-7.5ms (depending on age, processing and brand), so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
In fact, your PA could already be behind the direct sound.

[Chris Hindle]

In fact, your PA could already be behind the direct sound.

That's OK. Just tell the guitarist do delay his playing 3 or 4 MS.....   
Chris.

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