Print

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

[Kurt Rivers]

Take a look at the pictures. The speakers are 4 Nexo PS15's. They can have a HF Horizontal spread of 55 to 100 degrees but I do not know what they are set at now. The coverage now seems ok but I think it could be improved. The area that needs coverage is about 50ft long by 75ft wide. In the pictures curtain to curtain is about 50ft. I was thinking of seeing if turning all of the speakers to 100deg. H then array them on each side in pairs. So at 50ft back the coverage would be around 32.5ft with leaving 65 total width in the back. Would this take away the sound in the front and need front fills? Or even a LCR system. Their are alot of speeches which the center would help. What do you think? ( yes I know thats a horrid FOH position.....  )

[Kurt Rivers]

Another pic.

[dpaton]

No, it doesn't. My shoot-from-the-hip response is get a D-9 and fix it with that.

Barring that, I think LCR might be the best way to go. Put the centers together and get the horns set up so there isn't any comb filtering audible in the seats. Usually a wide center aisle like that is wonderful, because a good setup will put all the hash into a narrow stripe there, and no one in the seats will hear it. Try to aim the outer speakers so that the patterns don't overlap too much with the center cluster. EASE might help with that.

You might also want to try and get a pair of little monitors for FOH. Having a non-room reference is a help from time-to-time.

Hmm..staring at the second picture a little more, you might be able to do the whole thing with 2 speakers, if you mount them in the center and get the horn angle right.

If it was my gig, I'd use different speakers and DSP, but somehow I doubt that's in the budget.

Front fill will always be necessary in a room like that. There's a reason most companies make 'downfill' boxes. With the mains mounted up that high, and the front row so close, there's no way you can get coverage to the front row from the mains without incurring a delay penalty or severely compromising your feedback margin. Use a couple of small front fills on the lip of the stage. it's quick and dirty and if you delay the mains to the backline on stage, (or to the podium as the case may be) no one will notice. I think a little delay would even help the system that's in there right now. a 1x2 delay line with independent adjustments would probably be great. Running a system like that in mono won't hurt.

More details about the gear would be helpful too.

Is the band on in-ears?

Is coverage the only problem, or is it the most annoying one?

Are you having gain-before-feedback (GBF) problems?

Is that really a regular 25" TV being used as a monitor?

-dave

[Kurt Rivers]

Here are the monitors:
Mon 1: 2 floors in the center
Mon 2: 2 floors one for keyboard/guitar and one for bass
Mon 3: 2 floors for backup vocals
Mon 4: 1 mono headphone mix for drummer (It's run unbalanced )

All are from aux 1-4 at FOH.

They are pretty cheap monitors..I think they're club style yamaha's and EV Eliminator's.

The FOH speakers run from a DriveRack260 to the nexo processor
It's all crest "pro series" I think amps.
I'm not really sure why they have the nexo and the dbx.


Yes, that tv was used as a monitor this week. They needed a monitor and I guess thats all that they could get. I'm going to hope we can get a lcd or something....

Their isn't many feedback problems unless somebody does something dumb.

What would be ideal I think would take the nexo's down and use them for monitors and get a crest XRM or something somewhat cheap for monitors and run a few IEM's for the vocals. Then ge a new house speaker system.

Everything but the amps / speaker dsp / speakers is old. The FOH console is a Soundtracs "Megas" 40ch. 6 aux. One of the wireless vocal channels went out a few weeks ago for no reason. Some solo buttons do not work. Some channels will only work in the L-R buss. It's about I think 10-15 years old. I'm thinking a Allen&Heath GL4000 or something like that would really help if I can get the money. This is actually a youth group setting. The rock band plays some tunes and then preaching. All of the intel lights need to go also. Their only problems for me.

Now..the main church has alot of money (they have 12 moving head lights which where around 5-10k a piece) and are also moving when they get the new church built (the one now only fits arouns 1,000 people the new one is about 4,000) Now the only people moving into the old church is the kids church. So I might be able to get some gear that they wont need but that wont be till a year or so.  So it might be possiable to get a very large budget but I have to talk to the pastors and such before I can find out.

They sound this sound system was professionally done also...  



 

[dpaton]

Kurt-

It sounds like the system is more or less in good shape, with the exception of the coverage issues. I'm guessing that the DBX handles the EQ, and the Nexo processor handles the XO for the biamped PS15s. Of course, that's just a guess. You can likely do better with the DR260 alone than the Nexo/260 combo unless something odd is going on. You should probably try and document the rack art some point in the very near future.

My proposal, if it was my gig, would look like this:
-Run the system in mono.
-Center fill gets delayed so that its sound arrives at the same time as the backline when standing in the lower edge of it's pattern.
-L&R speakers get the same treatment, but on seperate delays. The 260 program would probably look like the attached image



I dind't see any subs, so I didn't program for them. If so, the L&R speakers would share the same output, assuming they're spaced equally from the center cluster and the center of the proscenium. The subs would then get processed on one of the two remaining output channels.

-new console
-FX/wireless/outboard as required
-upgraded mic kit (personally I hate C1000s, especially as overheads)
-new cable looms
-misc. as required.
-new lights/controller

Just because the main church blew a ton on their lights doesn't necessarially mean they regard the sound budget as highly. I'm not sure how much you've chatted with them, but my experience says a church is much more likely to spend money on lights than sound. Only a few understand what it takes to let the word needs to be heard, and that cool swishy lights don't help that out.

If you can get a good budget, designing a really killer system for the kids would get a lot easier. Unfortunately, money still talks loudest in this business.

--dave

[Jim Cutshall]

The Nexo processor is doing the crossover, eq and time alignment for the box.  It also has sense leads to the amp to aid with speaker protection.  These are very nice units and I trust what comes out of them.

The Driverack is probably being used for room eq, delay, feedback filters,etc. Could also be being used for distribution purposes, etc.

The PS15 is a nice box if properly flown (aimed correctly, etc).  I would be tempted to rehang them as 2 clusters of 2.  Looking at your pictures, you may and may not need front fills in my opinion but nearfields for mix would be a plus as mentioned before.

FWIW,

Jim

[Kurt Rivers]

Thanks everybody for the info.

They're using these for wireless mics (2 of them) do you think they are pretty decent? They sound muddy sometimes but I think it's the console.

Do you mean array them in stereo like this?

[dpaton]

Stupid IE...I just lost a long post. Grr.

The short version-

Jim-
I'm aware of the function of the Nexo proc. Aside from the sense lines (which aren't truly necessary with good gain structure and limiter setup) the entire thing can be duplicated in the DR260 in a few minutes. No sense in having 2 boxes where one will do, in my opinion anyway. Factory processors do their job well, but a properly set up generic DSP will usually do just as well. Plus, why put the audio through 2 boxes when one will do?

Kurt-
I'm still going to push LCR. Doing a pair of clusters will get you the coverage, but there will be artifacts in the center where they overlap that I doubt will be confined to the aisle due to the wide angle they'll converge at. Mono is the way to go in this system unfortunately. I love stereo rigs, but in a room shaped like yours it's generally a lost cause. Any stereo coverage will leave out at least 1/3 of the audience, and probably more like 1/2. My experience is screaming mono.

The image you posted is kindof a thrid option, but since there is no lateral aisleway, you'll have to be very careful about the zone where the coverage patterns overlap. The delay between the speakers (which you would indeed need) will cause comb filtering there, and it's something of a trick to get it set so that it's not offensive.

The G2 wireless isn't anything to thumb your nose at. I have a hunch it's either EQ or the way the PA is set up. It would be really helpful to know what the 260 is doing, and what it's settings are to diagnose something like that. It would also be mic technique, the person's voice, or anything really. Have you tried dousing it with EQ? Does it only happen when someone uses a wireless? does it track to a particular channel? Are any of your reference CDs boomy? Have you checked to see if all the cables are in OK shape? Have you tested it with various mics with someone whose voice you know by heart? (I usually use a recording of my sister for that one) Is there a LPF that's not on that should be? There are a million answers to that particular squawk.

-dave

[Jim Cutshall]

Some installers don't want to take the time to "re-invent the wheel" so to speak.  With everything in the Nexo processor, they wouldn't have to redo everything in the DBX processor in this case.  Also they might be using the DBX for more than we know about (additional delays, whatever).  The cost of the driverack is cheap enough to do the work of additional delay units, eq, feedback elimination, etc without haveing to have a rack of multiple units that someone could have access to and change parameters on them.  You could cover everything with security covers or have 2 items in the rack, 1 you can't modify and 1 passworded so you can't get it.

I have done the same thing with the Nexo processors and a Shure P4800 unit.

Hope this clears things up.

Jim

[Jamie G]

We just did some tests on an install coming up. Its a gym that is 105ft x 70ft. The stage is going on one of the long walls.

1st test....We flew the speaker's as a spaced pair from Genie Supertowers. Placed about at each ft corner of the stage. Sounded ok for low levels (ok until you add live drums or run above 85db). Very messy as I expected since this doubles the reflections.

2nd test....We flew all 4 speakers in one cluster (center stage) and got very good results. We have a mid/high freq. reflection that is going to be taken care of with some acoustic treatment, but, it cleaned up the mess and you could run it about 100db and it still was intelligible (not that it will be run that hot).

This being said, especially with the floor you have, I would run a center cluster ONLY, don't tilt them down so much (keep the energy off the floor). Use front fill as needed, but, don't over kill it.