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[Kevin Ballard]

In Short,

you need to absorb the reverberation and aim the speakers at the ears of the public, anything that misses the bodies directly will contribute to the horrible reverb and lack of intelligibility.

Cheapest anti reverb fix....Bodies, then balloons and lots of them, fill a net and suspend them. Maybe roll out a carpet on the floor before putting in the chairs. After that it can start to get expensive and requires professional consultation. How important is the message?

[Tom Reid]

Kevin Ballard wrote on Mon, 09 May 2005 04:34

In Short, you need to absorb the reverberation and aim the speakers at the ears of the public, anything that misses the bodies directly will contribute to the horrible reverb and lack of intelligibility. Cheapest anti reverb fix....Bodies, then balloons and lots of them, fill a net and suspend them. Maybe roll out a carpet on the floor before putting in the chairs. After that it can start to get expensive and requires professional consultation. How important is the message?

Yeah, I forgot about the fishnet thing.
Been a long time since I've been in a gym.
I seem to remember a parachute hanging in our HS gym.
I guess this would fall under fishnets full of baloons.

[Tim McCulloch]

Mayo-

Dude, every gym sucks for our acoustic use.  They were designed to not only be cheap, but reflect the crowd resonse to motivate the gladiators... er, athletes.

So far the best general advice is:  aim the PA at the People.  Not the walls, not the ceiling, and minimize the floor.

The 90 degree pattern is probably the -10dB point, so you'll want to confirm aim with your ears...  I'd take your top boxes and move them as far off-stage as I could, and aim them so the edge of the off stage side of the horn pattern is just off the side wall, and point them down about 10-15 degrees (depends on things....), maybe more if you don't have to hit the back of gym...

This wont be pleasing stereo by a long shot... but you create 2 zones of MONO over which you have significant control, much more than you'd have if just stacked the PA at the corners of the stage.  In fact, the venerable (and crusty) Old Sound Man addressed the issue of "dual zoned mono" and I think that article is still on the PSW site....

Anyway, the Mantra is "PA to da People."  We're sound guys.. we don't do walls, ceilings, or floors

You've gotten some good advice about treatments for walls, but I have some safety advice... You need to make sure that ANY wall treatment meets fire code.  A possible solution is to rent (to evaluate) 16' pipe and drape, and order velour or something similar.  You can experiment with placement (proximity to walls, etc.) and see if it helps.  The 'balloons in a net' technique creates some diffusion, but it still fairly reflective, esp at high freqs.  The main benefit of this treatment is that it reduces the cubic volume of the room and helps randomize existing relfections.  It is fairly cheap.

Is this for a facility in which you are the sole occupants, or do you have to be 'in and out' every time?

HTH

Tim Mc

[RobertOziemkowski]

Tim McCulloch wrote on Mon, 09 May 2005 23:28

I'd take your top boxes and move them as far off-stage as I could, and aim them so the edge of the off stage side of the horn pattern is just off the side wall, and point them down about 10-15 degrees (depends on things....), maybe more if you don't have to hit the back of gym... Mc

Power to the People!

[John Halliburton]

In Chicago, nothing quite beats the "toilet bowl" sound like the Cultural Center rotunda-dome, terrazo, marble, acoustic music act on the floor.  Haven't played there in many years, so maybe they've changed the acoustic situation.

John

[Gareth Marsh]

I gotta second the aiming at the audience approach. When we have been setting up in a gym when its empty and we play a CD or something you hear each note 3 or 4 notes sometimes, but once we get like 300-600 people in there it settles down surprisingly well, its great to see the look on the performers faces if they have been there during sound check when they hear the difference!

[Dave Unger]

I did sound in a gym the other day with EAW 761s and a 4K and can tell you that good gear will not solve anything.   The speakers were flown and aimed at the near field.   We pulled out a lot of 315 and some 100 but it didn't really help.  I've heard three different PAs in this particular room and all of them made a boomy mess.
As above aim at the audience and curtains curtains curtains.  At least one behind the stage (flown from the beams on a pipe?)  preferably one on each wall.  And carpet.  All fireproof.

I once did sound for an acoustic bluegrass band in a hockey arena.  The band was miced only.  With condensers.  Not one pickup on stage.  People kept coming up to me and asking me to turn the reverb off.  The sound was bouncing around like mad and the monitor guy had a heck of a time.  

[Harold Mayo]

we are in and out every weekend.  Mobile church, not much trailer space left

Right now the mains are about 8' off the stage on sticks.

I was thinking of starting out small on the velour, maybe 1 panel wide, 40' long.

Adding carpet to the floor is a great idea, it would improve the atmosphere too, but at this point, until we can get more bodies to help out, its just not feasible   The same goes for carpeting the stage....we have discussed it many times before.

I wish would could go w/ the ballon or parchute idea, but I also need to light the stage.   The ceiling of the guy isn't flat, its a 1:2 pitch on it, so the high point is 26' in from of the stage (back wall is 70', gym width is 60', high point is about 38', low point is about 20').

[Reynante M. Marasigan]

thanks guys...its always a nightmare for me whenever we did a gig on our city gym, but i guess i have to live with it until such i could get the proper gears...hehehe...