I've often tried to convince people that "subs sound better from a single point" but I get a lot of pushback from everyone, clients, bosses, etc. The amount of people that think "No, it needs to be left and right, we've always done it that way, so it must be the correct way" is mind boggling. When you do it and it sounds good, they have no complaints, but getting them to even let you try that is sometimes so much of a torture that I just give up and go with their flow. And yes, you can show the clients the plots, but their eyes just glaze over and then they say, "Let's just do it the way we always have, this isn't the show to do any experiments" or something idiotic like that. And then they proceed to tell you a long story about how PSAV fucked up one of their shows in Cleveland or Miami, or something like that. So much of our industry is filled with people who are so terrified of failure and gun-shy about anything new, it's very disheartening.
I was on a team providing a sound system for a salsa dancing festival in a hotel ballroom. They wanted speakers at each corner of the dance floor, facing in. We pushed back and said it'd be better to have all speakers facing the same direction so you wouldn't get the same phase cancellation or apparent delays. Not that it matters as much for dance music, since dancers are going to be too busy dancing to notice... But the organizer of the festival said every time he's ever seen speakers set up for DJ on a dance floor, they were on the corners facing in, and if it's wrong, why would they do that? Said one of the less-diplomatic people on the crew, "Because they didn't know any better." He wasn't wrong. But ultimately, since perfect sound quality wasn't crucial here, I said we'd put the speakers at the corners of the dance floor. The music was loud, people had a great time spinning around the dance floor, and so everything went fine.
people are pathological, they thinks if looks good sounds good, big equal louder, etc. yeah I agree is so difficult to get them out off their wrong ideas. 🤦♂️ but u and I we keep trying. 🙌
Thank you for the awesome content. I only do small parties but love to get the basics right! I am going to experiment with this to keep the dancefloor in front of dj clear and the link between audience and dj as easy as possible. Going to try normal and 180° flipped too. Next gig is a very narrow room 5m x 12m so going to be interesting!
Nice design! I do similar setups quite regularly for corporate shows. Depending on the backdrop, I sometimes also put a point source on top of the sub stack for some HF on stage for the playback sources.
I like that idea. Subs behind with a point source on top with only playback routed to it. As mentioned above, getting the delay to all sound natural l though. I’ll try to use this and plow through coworker comments of ‘no way man, we’re not doing that’.
@@DallasSoundGuys Of course, how good this works depends on the position of the mains relative to the subs and the audience, as Michael explained in the video. It's always a compromise, just a different one.
That's a great pro tip! On this one I had some LED in the way for HF coverage, but will definitely keep that in mind for future gigs. My foldback speakers were on the downstage edge pointed back, but if the stage is super deep it could be nice having that lone speaker upstage to help with clarity for presenters.
Glad to hear verification of this. I've done it a few times, but started worrying about now having to push the mains back in time. What is the tuning for setups like this? What did you do? Is pushing the PA back proper? how much can you get away with?
wonderful. however, does this system not increase the delay between the main system and the subs that are behind? If yes how do you compensate them in this case. Thanks in advance
Seems like a great idea! My experience has been that, more often than not, there's a floor-to-ceiling LED wall or projection screen at center stage that would interfere. In that case, I'm wondering of a center cluster of subs in front of the stage might sound better than having them on both sides. I probably wouldn't do cardioid configuration because it's primarily for playback (walk-in/out, video playback, etc.), so there isn't usually an open mic while the subs are active. There is, however, the small army of production personnel behind the stage to consider. Another consideration is that real estate in front of the stage, or the lack thereof, might prevent a center cluster arrangement. I routinely low-cut vocal mics to keep them out of the subs and avoid muddiness in the mics.
I'm wondering if you could have gotten even more energy and better results, if you would have turned the subs 180° to have them face the wall. Although it might have looked weird, you would mitigate almost all cancelation through reflections from the wall, as the speaker is the closest you could get to the wall. I have seen some videos on this concept and would love your take on it. (Probably something, most prediction softwares can't really simulate?)
Love that you brought this up, Matthias. I almost ended up doing that as I'm familiar with the detriments of SBIR. The only reason I didn't do it was because where I placed my subs was the only point backstage where folks would be crossing from one side to the other and the gap was pretty narrow. I didn't want my cabling/DSP switches to be exposed in such a high traffic area, so I chose to keep my subs facing forward and keep the switches guarded. If I had more real estate I totally would have flipped them around to avoid any rear reflections!
@@MichaelCurtisAudio Thank you very much for your response. Yes, practical reasons like that are often the most influential decision makers in certain setups. But great to know that my thought process seems to be in the right direction 🙂
Either load them directly into the boundary, or even split the difference if need be, ... ie., facing sideways adjacent to the boundary. It can be a beautiful thing ... boundary loaded as well executed as possible. Clean efficient wave-launch, absent destructive nulling. Headroom Near ideal summation/propagation Bonus; it'll maximally pressure load every modal peak front-to-back, and really thump those attendees along the rear wall! Many would likely enjoy that ... some may not.
How would you do this on stage with piano/insturment mics? and does it add low end into your vocal mics? I have a sub I want to install at the back of the stage but I wonder if it would feedback into our mics on stage. Thanks! Just Subscribed
@@MichaelCurtisAudio Thanks so much for your answer! What would you do then with one sub then? We have two speakers dead center on the stage very front, and two tweeter speakers on the sides up way high. I think most do not want that sub on the floor right in front of the stage in front of those stage speakers, but where would you put a sub? We have an old building with Noah's ark wood natural acoustics. Merged church trying to balance the old with the new. Thanks!
In car audio standing waves are a huge problem. I have always wondered wouldn't it be better to have subs at the rear of building/stage. And yes yes it would relative to issues around mic feed back. Or band runs all iem and drums are high end roland electric so I believe we can improve our sound even more will be doing some testing at a venue soon. Our stage setup is only 6m wide x 4m ish. So nothing big but still should improve.
This also works in narrower rooms by using a 4 box delayed arc behind the stage. The only thing I dont like about this method is in smaller venues if you delay the main pa to align with the subs there is a noticeable delay for people in the front rows - they hear the presenters voice naturally and then the pa later.
Very informative. Im interested in what the recommendation would look like for an even smaller setup, like a single main speaker left and right and single sub. Think typical small band setup. Im wondering of moving the sub rearward of the mains would help, so long as it avoids feedback trajectories
Great video!! When you say you are running the subs from an aux so there is no chance of feedback, what do you mean? Could you explain that more please?
Hey Michael! This is off topic of this video but the thought popped up while watching. I’ve had a couple A 1s prefer to aim their RTA mic pointing straight up to the ceiling. I understand they are Omni directional. But, is there a benefit to this that I’m missing?
On this particular gig I did not delay the PA since it would have made the front rows feel awkward with the PA arriving too late behind the presenter's voice. The subs weren't too far behind and I honestly didn't notice any artifacts.
There is snobbery in the guitar world, for sure. I’m guilty of this; I just can’t pick up a PRS!!!! My early 80’s Studio Lord 450 LP is one of my favourites. Jazz/blues or rock….its as good as any contemporary Gibbo, but with more character. And sustain for days!
So basically, subs behind the stage is only viable when there is not much low frequency sources on stage? Because they would blast interefere with the microphones on stage
I've often tried to convince people that "subs sound better from a single point" but I get a lot of pushback from everyone, clients, bosses, etc. The amount of people that think "No, it needs to be left and right, we've always done it that way, so it must be the correct way" is mind boggling. When you do it and it sounds good, they have no complaints, but getting them to even let you try that is sometimes so much of a torture that I just give up and go with their flow. And yes, you can show the clients the plots, but their eyes just glaze over and then they say, "Let's just do it the way we always have, this isn't the show to do any experiments" or something idiotic like that. And then they proceed to tell you a long story about how PSAV fucked up one of their shows in Cleveland or Miami, or something like that. So much of our industry is filled with people who are so terrified of failure and gun-shy about anything new, it's very disheartening.
I was on a team providing a sound system for a salsa dancing festival in a hotel ballroom. They wanted speakers at each corner of the dance floor, facing in. We pushed back and said it'd be better to have all speakers facing the same direction so you wouldn't get the same phase cancellation or apparent delays. Not that it matters as much for dance music, since dancers are going to be too busy dancing to notice... But the organizer of the festival said every time he's ever seen speakers set up for DJ on a dance floor, they were on the corners facing in, and if it's wrong, why would they do that? Said one of the less-diplomatic people on the crew, "Because they didn't know any better." He wasn't wrong. But ultimately, since perfect sound quality wasn't crucial here, I said we'd put the speakers at the corners of the dance floor. The music was loud, people had a great time spinning around the dance floor, and so everything went fine.
people are pathological, they thinks if looks good sounds good, big equal louder, etc. yeah I agree is so difficult to get them out off their wrong ideas. 🤦♂️ but u and I we keep trying. 🙌
Watching your videos has backed my instinctual choices with science. Thanks for doing the leg work with the graphs. It is a big help.
Thank you for the awesome content. I only do small parties but love to get the basics right! I am going to experiment with this to keep the dancefloor in front of dj clear and the link between audience and dj as easy as possible. Going to try normal and 180° flipped too. Next gig is a very narrow room 5m x 12m so going to be interesting!
1:04 my heart stopped for a moment (x
Did a simular thing at a venue with very wide grandstands. Worked very well.
Nice design! I do similar setups quite regularly for corporate shows. Depending on the backdrop, I sometimes also put a point source on top of the sub stack for some HF on stage for the playback sources.
I like that idea. Subs behind with a point source on top with only playback routed to it. As mentioned above, getting the delay to all sound natural l though. I’ll try to use this and plow through coworker comments of ‘no way man, we’re not doing that’.
@@DallasSoundGuys Of course, how good this works depends on the position of the mains relative to the subs and the audience, as Michael explained in the video. It's always a compromise, just a different one.
That's a great pro tip! On this one I had some LED in the way for HF coverage, but will definitely keep that in mind for future gigs. My foldback speakers were on the downstage edge pointed back, but if the stage is super deep it could be nice having that lone speaker upstage to help with clarity for presenters.
Michael thank you for the great description of your set up here man! I have been digging deeper into sound knowledge and you have been a great teacher
Glad to hear verification of this. I've done it a few times, but started worrying about now having to push the mains back in time. What is the tuning for setups like this? What did you do? Is pushing the PA back proper? how much can you get away with?
Very informative I learn a lot from your videos 👍
Curious -- how did you compensate for the physical delay created by the subs being so far back? I can think of a couple ideas, but none seem ideal.
wonderful. however, does this system not increase the delay between the main system and the subs that are behind? If yes how do you compensate them in this case. Thanks in advance
Seems like a great idea! My experience has been that, more often than not, there's a floor-to-ceiling LED wall or projection screen at center stage that would interfere. In that case, I'm wondering of a center cluster of subs in front of the stage might sound better than having them on both sides. I probably wouldn't do cardioid configuration because it's primarily for playback (walk-in/out, video playback, etc.), so there isn't usually an open mic while the subs are active. There is, however, the small army of production personnel behind the stage to consider. Another consideration is that real estate in front of the stage, or the lack thereof, might prevent a center cluster arrangement. I routinely low-cut vocal mics to keep them out of the subs and avoid muddiness in the mics.
I'm wondering if you could have gotten even more energy and better results, if you would have turned the subs 180° to have them face the wall. Although it might have looked weird, you would mitigate almost all cancelation through reflections from the wall, as the speaker is the closest you could get to the wall.
I have seen some videos on this concept and would love your take on it. (Probably something, most prediction softwares can't really simulate?)
Love that you brought this up, Matthias. I almost ended up doing that as I'm familiar with the detriments of SBIR.
The only reason I didn't do it was because where I placed my subs was the only point backstage where folks would be crossing from one side to the other and the gap was pretty narrow. I didn't want my cabling/DSP switches to be exposed in such a high traffic area, so I chose to keep my subs facing forward and keep the switches guarded. If I had more real estate I totally would have flipped them around to avoid any rear reflections!
@@MichaelCurtisAudio Thank you very much for your response. Yes, practical reasons like that are often the most influential decision makers in certain setups. But great to know that my thought process seems to be in the right direction 🙂
Either load them directly into the boundary, or even split the difference if need be, ... ie., facing sideways adjacent to the boundary.
It can be a beautiful thing ... boundary loaded as well executed as possible.
Clean efficient wave-launch, absent destructive nulling.
Headroom
Near ideal summation/propagation
Bonus; it'll maximally pressure load every modal peak front-to-back, and really thump those attendees along the rear wall!
Many would likely enjoy that
... some may not.
How would you do this on stage with piano/insturment mics? and does it add low end into your vocal mics? I have a sub I want to install at the back of the stage but I wonder if it would feedback into our mics on stage. Thanks! Just Subscribed
Thanks for the question, Jared! I think you would end up getting too much feedback into the on-stage microphones if the sub was upstage.
@@MichaelCurtisAudio Thanks so much for your answer! What would you do then with one sub then? We have two speakers dead center on the stage very front, and two tweeter speakers on the sides up way high. I think most do not want that sub on the floor right in front of the stage in front of those stage speakers, but where would you put a sub? We have an old building with Noah's ark wood natural acoustics. Merged church trying to balance the old with the new.
Thanks!
Good idea!
In car audio standing waves are a huge problem. I have always wondered wouldn't it be better to have subs at the rear of building/stage. And yes yes it would relative to issues around mic feed back. Or band runs all iem and drums are high end roland electric so I believe we can improve our sound even more will be doing some testing at a venue soon. Our stage setup is only 6m wide x 4m ish. So nothing big but still should improve.
Great technique!
This also works in narrower rooms by using a 4 box delayed arc behind the stage. The only thing I dont like about this method is in smaller venues if you delay the main pa to align with the subs there is a noticeable delay for people in the front rows - they hear the presenters voice naturally and then the pa later.
Yup, that's why I chose not to delay the PA to match the LF wavefront.
@@MichaelCurtisAudio At what point would you say the mismatch would become noticeable to most people?
Very informative. Im interested in what the recommendation would look like for an even smaller setup, like a single main speaker left and right and single sub. Think typical small band setup. Im wondering of moving the sub rearward of the mains would help, so long as it avoids feedback trajectories
Great video!! When you say you are running the subs from an aux so there is no chance of feedback, what do you mean? Could you explain that more please?
Idk if your nda expired by now, but was this the sparktech summit?
What type of individual sub configuration do you need to do for this type of array? Is there any settings that need to be changed per unit?
I got so really odd looks when I did this year's ago
Way to still make it happen!
Hey Michael! This is off topic of this video but the thought popped up while watching. I’ve had a couple A 1s prefer to aim their RTA mic pointing straight up to the ceiling. I understand they are Omni directional. But, is there a benefit to this that I’m missing?
Have you thought about turning the subs around so they face the wall at the distance of the acoustic center of the subs?
I actually did just that on a recent show in the same room with the same PA setup. Worked like a charm!
Do you delay the Main PA or just let it have a different time arrival?
On this particular gig I did not delay the PA since it would have made the front rows feel awkward with the PA arriving too late behind the presenter's voice. The subs weren't too far behind and I honestly didn't notice any artifacts.
@@MichaelCurtisAudio how many meters away were the subs from the PAs?
Fantastic, Im just a mobil DJ but always try to hide the speakers, a big clusters or stack of speakers has nothing nice to look at..👍
Sound System culture would feel otherwise.
There is snobbery in the guitar world, for sure. I’m guilty of this; I just can’t pick up a PRS!!!!
My early 80’s Studio Lord 450 LP is one of my favourites. Jazz/blues or rock….its as good as any contemporary Gibbo, but with more character. And sustain for days!
Do you have any tutorial on the basics of using this software for sound design. If not, would you mind doing one for us.
Yup! - ruclips.net/video/La_7mnu3Hr0/видео.html
yes!
So basically, subs behind the stage is only viable when there is not much low frequency sources on stage? Because they would blast interefere with the microphones on stage
Exactly. So choose when to deploy this array carefully!
Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave
i do this all the time... I love this way of deploying Subs,,... I do 99% Corporate with no bands