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Author Topic: Booth design  (Read 3463 times)

jcims

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Booth design
« on: October 06, 2004, 12:53:01 PM »

Hi,

I've been doing sound for a small church in Ohio for the last five years.  After reading this board i've realized that i've been struggling with many issues needlessly, as i've found many relevant suggestions for issues i've come across.  Anyway, the five years comes from the amount of time since our new building (with a real sound system) was opened.  The building is multipurpose (a gym with a stage, basically...the floor is carpeted at least Smile),  so you can imagine some of the issues i've had with sound reinforcment.

Anyway, to get to the point, all of our mixing equipment, playback & recording gear, etc. has been housed in an oak rolltop desk on our balcony (centered across the main sanctuary from the stage) since day one.  At the beginning of this year we started a fund drive to raise money for video capability, and as part of that budget i put in some funds for construction of a booth in which to store the existing and new equipment.

The funds are coming around and i'm actually a little behind trying to get a design for the booth put together (yes i know this is backwards, but it is what it is  Rolling Eyes ).  I've got a rough idea what i want, but wanted to ask you folks if there are any documents/resources for booth design, or if you just have any recommendations for me to consider...I know it's a very open ended question, but i don't really have a whole lot of specific issues i'm dealing with at this point.

A few topics i had thought about

- power conditioning - we have a sequencer and conditioner, but i'm addinga  UPS for the PC (video).  should i add UPS capacity for any of the audio equipment (it's a rural location, power does go out from time to time)

- ventilation - should i put some fans in here to move air in/out of the booth?

- security - any ideas on how to lock the booth?  i can lock the doors, but if they can swing a leg over the wall, it doesn't do any good.  is there any way to 'cover' an open booth securely?

- racks - i'd like to put all of our playback/recording/processing equipment into a rack, but i'd like it to be elevated a bit, possibly angled back to ease access during a service..

if anyone has photos of booths that they love, i'd love to see them.

thanks!!!!

Bob

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Bob Rich
Calvary Baptist Church
Marysville, Ohio

nak

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Re: Booth design
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2004, 03:38:51 PM »

1. You are doing a production any time you operate the equipment
therefore setting up the booth needs to be efficient for the operator

put all your decks in the same spot
cd,cassette,burning,recording,etc.

the sound operator operates sound not video. 1 thing at a time please.

all the vcrs/dvd players, computers, anything visual is in the same spot. You should a connection from the computer and the media players.

some big churches will have a room in back of the sound booth that takes care of what goes on the screen.

i hope this helps, just remember this is all a production, this is how the pros do it.

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Nathan A Kinkel
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i0ushephf

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Mixing console on the balcony.
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2004, 05:29:44 PM »

That's what we have. Our mixer is at the balcony, and i'm not too happy with that solution. What if the church is just filled to the first floor? Depending on how the acoustics works, the sound is not going to be the same at mixing posision as it is downstairs. Just a thought.
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jcims

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Re: Booth design
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2004, 01:36:18 AM »

Thanks for the tips, nak.  I had pretty much planned on two folks running the show once we add video.  I have my hands full as it is keeping the sound right for a group of volunteer singers/musicians...i'd hate to add paging through a song on the screen to that (i could barely do that with full concentration Smile )

i0ushephf, i don't like having the board where it is either, but it's about the best place given the size of the church.  Right now the desk is behind an, uh, elbow-high glass wall, so i can't do any mixing while sitting...just jockey tapes/cd's etc.  I spend most of the service standing, hunched over the board, cranking my head hard left (the board is at a 90 degree angle to the stage)...i'll be happy to just stay seated and be able to have the board and the stage in the same line of sight. Smile

one thing i had been thinking of is to put some 1/8" phono jacks on the outside of the booth so folks with camcorders and such on the balcony could get a line to the mixer rather than using the camera mic.  any thoughts on that?
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Bob Rich
Calvary Baptist Church
Marysville, Ohio

Dave Mallon

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Re: Booth design
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2004, 08:05:51 AM »

jcims wrote on Thu, 07 October 2004 06:36


One thing i had been thinking of is to put some 1/8" phono jacks on the outside of the booth so folks with camcorders and such on the balcony could get a line to the mixer rather than using the camera mic.  any thoughts on that?


Do you get people wanting to do that often?

Really??

My thoughts on that would be:

i. If they have a non-pro camera, it generally wouldn't be worth it, the quality of their recording wouldn't be too great anyhow.

ii.  What feed would you send them?  An aux, matrix, LR feed?  Depending on the size of the room, the "live" sound could be hugely different form the signal you're sending out of the desk (taking into account Drums, amps, spillage from monitors etc.) They may be better off with a recording from their integrated mics.

iii. Depending on how big the room is, there might be time alignment issues (I've seen a few videos done this way, with a feed from FOH, and the speech is out of synch.  It REALLY gets on my nerves...)

If you can think of a really good reason, then great!  if not, I wouldn't bother.

Anyone else got any thoughts?

Keep us informed...

Dave M.
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jcims

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Re: Booth design
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2004, 08:36:57 AM »

I've done it for my own recordings, and it has worked out fairly well.  On one occasion I offered the unused line to a guy that was taping an event (can't remember what it was) and he snapped it up.  I don't recall anyone ever asking, though.

So far we've just used an LR feed for this purpose.  In almost every case, it's a group of kids singing off of a tape or CD (seems to be about the only thing folks are interested in taping), so the only real stage volume is coming from the kids and the monitors.  If there are lots of little ones up front, the feed sound isn't quite as, uh, wide, as the live sound.  But if it's just a few, the clarity of the feed is a major benefit.  If the vocals are really timid, i can run it through an aux and crank up that channel without getting into a feedback situation (which seems to be my number one problem when running these events).  The problem with the integrated mics is we're about as far from the stage as you can get in our facility, and the sound gets pretty muddy.

In the event we have a band or something loud on the stage, i'd agree that the feed is way off from the live sound and probably not worth it.

Thanks!!!

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Bob Rich
Calvary Baptist Church
Marysville, Ohio

breese

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Re: Mixing console on the balcony.
« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2004, 10:31:42 AM »

Quote:

i0ushephf       
That's what we have. Our mixer is at the balcony, and i'm not too happy with that solution. What if the church is just filled to the first floor? Depending on how the acoustics works, the sound is not going to be the same at mixing posision as it is downstairs.


This is why it is important that the mixer walk the room. In our situation the A/V booth is in the balcony. The balcony is served by different speakers. We know there is a difference in what we hear and what the people on the floor are hearing. We compensate for it in the mix and know that certain things sound a little different in the booth than they do on the floor.

Brian
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nak

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Re: Booth design
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2004, 01:02:09 PM »

thats a good idea about the 1/8" jacks if you have enough outputs on the board or have alot of splitters.

just remember that the mix won't be the same so you might have to add another guy for recording

nathan
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Nathan A Kinkel
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john abney

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Re: Booth design
« Reply #8 on: October 09, 2004, 11:48:10 AM »

Re: 1/8th inch jacks:

Nooooooooooo!

1/4" would be OK, but the 1/8" format is fiddly, prone to crackles if the plug is jarred (good luck not jarring one at least once during a recording session) and good 1/8" to 1/8" cables are less common than 1/8" to 1/4". One virtuous thing though, soldering 1/8" stuff is a true exercise in patience Smile

On the other hand, if you had one each of XLR, 1/4", & RCA, then adding 1/8" would be a logical extension.
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Re: Booth design
« Reply #8 on: October 09, 2004, 11:48:10 AM »


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