Front of house mixing question

[talldude42]

I know its just been a day since my original post but I came back, after reading every ones comments which I greatly appreciate the input, with an update.
I was scheduled to play bass for a change on the team for this weeks service and we had rehearsal last night. One of the guitar / bass players who was originally scheduled for guitar this weekend was switch and is now shadowing for the sound board... This guy doesnt even know what the knobs on his bass do... So I stroked my long beard a few times with my eyes closed to grasp that idea. The worship director idea was to get me a back up so I would have a chance to play which I admit is a nice thought.
That immediately turned in to the discussion That brought up this whole post of the speaker changes and outsourced influences yada yada. Well I lost... They already placed the order for the equipment and have scheduled the outsource people to come in and set it all up. And this other sound guy they had shadowing the board wasnt even in the room for 90% of the rehearsal.
The director did say she was fine with me recording the tracks from service and running through the board to set up how i want or what sounds good to me and we would review it, but the point was to try and see if we could avoid the costs of speakers and outsourced setup. I was pretty disappointed leaving rehearsal last night after that.

Part of that is just myself. I like challenges. I dont mind being the guy that people are able to come to for fixing issues, and this all being music related and technical just got me excited. I still do not think adding these additional subs to the room are going to work in their favor. I think its going to over power and will need to be reduced to the point it makes then not worth the cost and effort. Not to mention the possible complaints from people trying to pray at the alter. But I dont know all the exact plan and speaker placement. I just spit balling here but i bet this is going to be in the five figures for sure.

Thanks again for all the help. I will continue to work on this with your suggestions and update back as I go!

 

[FullumMusic]

I still do not think adding these additional subs to the room are going to work in their favor.

My expert opinion agrees with you.

But it is what it is and hopefully the people who set it all up can help getting the PA to a sort of "equilibrium" so that you're not fighting the previous guy's mess of a setup.

Of course "Set it all up" can mean different things to different people. There's a good chance "Set it all up" means "plug in the new speakers to the current system", and not "plug in the new speakers to the current system and then rework the entire system, channel by channel during sound-check to make sure it's all sounding good." Those are two very different things. Someone like a pastor or venue owner might say "set it all up" thinking they mean "come fix everything", while the installation techs understand it to mean "just set up the things you bought from us into your PA." There's a good chance you'll still have to go through and undo the mess of EQ and compression on all the channels in the board.

Anyway, however it works out, I hope you can get it decent sounding enough for your own happiness and ear.

 

[Wasnex]

The director did say she was fine with me recording the tracks from service and running through the board to set up how i want or what sounds good to me and we would review it, but the point was to try and see if we could avoid the costs of speakers and outsourced setup. I was pretty disappointed leaving rehearsal last night after that.

The powers that be have different priorities. Since they are the decision makers they get tp choose what they (think they) want. The reality is they are probably not going to get what they expect.

Something we have not addressed. If I understand, you have flown arrays and the plan is to put the subs on the floor. This is not an unusual configuration, but it has some inherent problems because sound does not travel instantaneously from one point to another and SPL drops by 6dB for each doubling of distance.

An active crossover will cut the subs off and bring in the mid/highs at a certain frequency. The transition actually occurs across a range of frequencies. In this crossover range, the sound from the subs and mid/high cabs will tend to fight to some degree. How much they fight depends on how the system is configured and how well it is tuned.

A big part of the alignment involves setting different parameters so sound from the subs and mid/high cabs arrives at the listener's ears at pretty much the same phase angle. If the subs are placed right next to the mid/high cabs, resolving the phase variance may involve selecting complementary crossover filters and applying a small amount of delay... usually to the mid/high cabs. Since the cabs are stacked right next to each other, you can walk around and the phase errors remain small.

If you place the subs and mid/highs at drastically different positions in the hall, then the phase errors between them will change significantly as you move around. Usually, the tuning is done to minimize phase errors and provide balanced sound in the premium seats that are directly in front of the array. If you are on the floor and close to the subs, you will hear the subs first and they will be much louder than the mid/high cabs that are elevated over you.

Let's assume the mid/high cabs are up in the air 10m over your head and the subs are 2m in front of you. We generally measure SPL at 1m for speaker specs. Let's say we want 100dB at an audience point that is 25m directly in front of the speaker plane at floor level.
In order to achieve good phase alignment at your position, the subs will require about 23 ms of delay. In order to achieve good phase alignment at the 25m mark in the audience, the subs will require about 5 ms of delay.

We also need to consider how changes in distance between the listener and each cab impact tonal balance and SPL at the two listening positions. To achieve flat response and 100dB at the 25m point in the audience, the required SPL at 1m directly in front of each cab is about 128.5dB for the mid/high cabs and 128dB for the subs. At your 2m position, you will hear about 108 dB from the mid/high cabs and about 122 dB from the subs.

I still do not think adding these additional subs to the room are going to work in their favor. I think its going to over power and will need to be reduced to the point it makes then not worth the cost and effort.

How well the subs work and what sort of problems they cause, depends on the quality of the gear, the quality of the system tune, and the choices made by whoever happens to be mixing. I would say the subs in properly tuned system make any poor choices made by audio techs more consequential.

Unless the volume of mixes is rather high, I agree the sub are probably not going to be worth the squeeze. I rarely mixed on subs for this exact reason. On some tours I took subs with me. At the end of sound check I normally run the volume up a bit as a final confirmation that I have sufficient gain before feedback dialed into the system. At my normal mix level, I frequently wind up pulling the bass totally out of the subs (I.E. primum non nocere). However at 10dB over my normal mix level, the subs make a pretty big improvement.

 

[steve_ss]

I remember church service with a nice older woman (OK, I was 6, she could have been 35, anyway) trying to play an out of tune piano in the corner of the sanctuary while we sang hymns. Oh well. Never give up, never surrender. Please keep us informed about the "pro" set-up.

 

[BrotherRay]

As a fellow bass player with some audio experience, I feel your pain. You might have to explain "if you put subs on the floor, you might end up hearing bass before you hear anything else. It could end up sounding really weird.". Properly explained, especially coming from a bass player they might get the picture, just try to use no technical terms at all. It's hard to explain to non technical people the issues the main cluster in the ceiling and subs on the floor can cause.
Just my 2¢ worth, recently we have installed a Wing just for our on line stream, and I sometimes run that and have freedom to make some changes, but as several folks have suggested, it was set up by our main engineer, who had decades of experience. FOH and Monitor World is handled by an Allen & Heath D Live. I've run monitors, but never FOH.
Several years ago our decades old EAWs were replaced at my fairly large church with Danleys, and the main cluster AND the subs are flown! At a non-denominational charismatic mostly black church, subs are mandatory and the Danleys got the subs out of the front row's chest. If you are fortunate, the subs you are getting can be flown, which will prevent a lot of those phase and distance issues.
By the way, what kind of system is in your church? What do they have in there? How big is the room?

 

[Mike Caldwell]

I know its just been a day since my original post but I came back, after reading every ones comments which I greatly appreciate the input, with an update.
I was scheduled to play bass for a change on the team for this weeks service and we had rehearsal last night. One of the guitar / bass players who was originally scheduled for guitar this weekend was switch and is now shadowing for the sound board... This guy doesnt even know what the knobs on his bass do... So I stroked my long beard a few times with my eyes closed to grasp that idea. The worship director idea was to get me a back up so I would have a chance to play which I admit is a nice thought.
That immediately turned in to the discussion That brought up this whole post of the speaker changes and outsourced influences yada yada. Well I lost... They already placed the order for the equipment and have scheduled the outsource people to come in and set it all up. And this other sound guy they had shadowing the board wasnt even in the room for 90% of the rehearsal.
The director did say she was fine with me recording the tracks from service and running through the board to set up how i want or what sounds good to me and we would review it, but the point was to try and see if we could avoid the costs of speakers and outsourced setup. I was pretty disappointed leaving rehearsal last night after that.

Part of that is just myself. I like challenges. I dont mind being the guy that people are able to come to for fixing issues, and this all being music related and technical just got me excited. I still do not think adding these additional subs to the room are going to work in their favor. I think its going to over power and will need to be reduced to the point it makes then not worth the cost and effort. Not to mention the possible complaints from people trying to pray at the alter. But I dont know all the exact plan and speaker placement. I just spit balling here but i bet this is going to be in the five figures for sure.

Thanks again for all the help. I will continue to work on this with your suggestions and update back as I go!

As mentioned, what the "set up" includes will be a big factor.

While your existing speakers may indeed need to be upgrade my gut feeling is that the new speakers ect, purchase happened in the thinking that new equipment would magically fix all the sound problems.

 

[talldude42]

As mentioned, what the "set up" includes will be a big factor.

While your existing speakers may indeed need to be upgrade my gut feeling is that the new speakers ect, purchase happened in the thinking that new equipment would magically fix all the sound problems.

I meant to get some picture of the center room but we had a meeting after service and it slipped my mind soo ill do it this up coming weekend. Along with get the list of what i can on the current set up.

Its all IEM on the platform, no amps or floor monitors. And without the IEM there is definitely so latency of the sound coming back to me on the platform, but when youre in front of the speakers there is no problem.

Yes I have a feeling that they are expecting something just because a different churches sounds one way and this is what they have so now I want it kind of thing. But hey i could be entirely wrong and starting from scratch and bringing everything around so the current set up is fine tuned and 100% still my warrant so upgrade. I would at least like to be given the chase to put some time in and try some things out and try to save the congregation some money to put elsewhere that I think would be more important.

 

[Mike Caldwell]

I meant to get some picture of the center room but we had a meeting after service and it slipped my mind soo ill do it this up coming weekend. Along with get the list of what i can on the current set up.

Its all IEM on the platform, no amps or floor monitors. And without the IEM there is definitely so latency of the sound coming back to me on the platform, but when youre in front of the speakers there is no problem.

Yes I have a feeling that they are expecting something just because a different churches sounds one way and this is what they have so now I want it kind of thing. But hey i could be entirely wrong and starting from scratch and bringing everything around so the current set up is fine tuned and 100% still my warrant so upgrade. I would at least like to be given the chase to put some time in and try some things out and try to save the congregation some money to put elsewhere that I think would be more important.

Yea there's a good chance a complete system "clean up" minus new equipment would still be big improvement.

Nothing against you but they need to realize the person / people who operate a sound is the biggest factor on how it's going to sound.

 

[talldude42]

There is one thing that would be really nice to have... A Stage Snake. We had an outdoor worship night and baptism event to wrap up our community outreach week. I set up the sound system on the stage and I think we used ever XLR cable we had just to run everything from the side of the stage to about 50ft to the 4o'clock position in front of the stage. Used the Berhinger x32 with 12 inputs from the stage.

What would you guys recommend a digital or analog snake? Wouldnt be used very often. I dont have much experience with a digital snake, especially for outdoor use. The band I play with outside of church used one a couple times indoors in a small setting but I didnt really have much to do with it.

 

[Wasnex]

There is one thing that would be really nice to have... A Stage Snake. We had an outdoor worship night and baptism event to wrap up our community outreach week. I set up the sound system on the stage and I think we used ever XLR cable we had just to run everything from the side of the stage to about 50ft to the 4o'clock position in front of the stage. Used the Berhinger x32 with 12 inputs from the stage.

What would you guys recommend a digital or analog snake? Wouldnt be used very often. I dont have much experience with a digital snake, especially for outdoor use. The band I play with outside of church used one a couple times indoors in a small setting but I didnt really have much to do with it.

Since usage will infrequent...I recommend analog. It's plug in play and most likely will cost less.

Digital could be beneficial if you anticipate running two boards. For example one for monitors and one for FOH. AFAIK with the X series, the I/P on one mixer can actually serve as your stage box. So you just need to run the digital cable (NCAT5E-50M $489) between them and properly configure everything to work. AFAIK, one of the mixers controls the head amps; the other mixer has digital trim. (I haven't actually done this myself--this is what I remember reading)

 

[Mike Caldwell]

Set the X32 up side of stage and mix remotely using an iPad.

 

[s0c9]

As a fellow bass player with some audio experience, I feel your pain. You might have to explain "if you put subs on the floor, you might end up hearing bass before you hear anything else. It could end up sounding really weird.". Properly explained, especially coming from a bass player they might get the picture, just try to use no technical terms at all. It's hard to explain to non technical people the issues the main cluster in the ceiling and subs on the floor can cause.
Just my 2¢ worth, recently we have installed a Wing just for our on line stream, and I sometimes run that and have freedom to make some changes, but as several folks have suggested, it was set up by our main engineer, who had decades of experience. FOH and Monitor World is handled by an Allen & Heath D Live. I've run monitors, but never FOH.
Several years ago our decades old EAWs were replaced at my fairly large church with Danleys, and the main cluster AND the subs are flown! At a non-denominational charismatic mostly black church, subs are mandatory and the Danleys got the subs out of the front row's chest. If you are fortunate, the subs you are getting can be flown, which will prevent a lot of those phase and distance issues.
By the way, what kind of system is in your church? What do they have in there? How big is the room?

The small independent Soundco I freelance for has a set of Danley's we often use for larger Festival gigs - along with awesome McCauley subs (16,000w) that requires 6 guys to move them!
For smaller gigs we use RCF's and QSC/Mackie subs.
Outdoors we try to to the "bass alley" thing by stacking the subs in the middle of the stage.
One config is 4 x RCF's (2 stacked per side) one top of a sub and 2 subs in the middle. Subs are all 1,000w+

 

[hbabels]

Set the X32 up side of stage and mix remotely using an iPad.

Mixing only with an iPad sucks & it can have reliability issues, when the crowd shows up. iPads are great additions to mixers but weak replacements.

 

[s0c9]

Mixing only with an iPad sucks & it can have reliability issues, when the crowd shows up. iPads are great additions to mixers but weak replacements.

That's a matter of opinion. It's no different than anything else live audio.
Know your gear, how it works and be prepared. For example, don't use 2.4G for mixing!

The only gigs I've mixed on a console over the last couple of yrs have been fixed church installations. Rest are iPad on a variety of mixers!

 

[Wasnex]

Mixing only with an iPad sucks & it can have reliability issues, when the crowd shows up. iPads are great additions to mixers but weak replacements.

I don't totally disagree. The reliability issues can be largely mitigated. For someone who only occasionally needs a snake, it could be a better choice to go wireless and use tablet or iPad. Using a tablet or iPad is also beneficial for situations where it's undesirable to place a snake and mixing station out in the audience area. The snake is a tripping hazard and the audio station may take up too much valuable seating area.

Let's keep in mind that Behringer XR series rack based mixers are pretty popular...and these mixers do not have a hardware mixer control surface.

 

[hbabels]

I don't totally disagree. The reliability issues can be largely mitigated. For someone who only occasionally needs a snake, it could be a better choice to go wireless and use tablet or iPad. Using a tablet or iPad is also beneficial for situations where it's undesirable to place a snake and mixing station out in the audience area. The snake is a tripping hazard and the audio station may take up too much valuable seating area.

Let's keep in mind that Behringer XR series rack based mixers are pretty popular...and these mixers do not have a hardware mixer control surface.

True, & I've mixed whole shows that way it's just really really not my fav way to do it and there are some big limitations sometimes. It can be a solution depending on circumstances though.

 

[hbabels]

That's a matter of opinion. It's no different than anything else live audio.
Know your gear, how it works and be prepared. For example, don't use 2.4G for mixing!

The only gigs I've mixed on a console over the last couple of yrs have been fixed church installations. Rest are iPad on a variety of mixers!

I hear you but with the best knowledge of the gear tablet mixing is still way more limiting and failure / glitch prone than the hardware. Also depends on how involved a mix is. If it's on the simpler side a tablet works better if it's really interactive like some bands I work for while it can be done it's awful & slow by comparison. There's also personal preferences involved too.
I think it's great for IEM's to control on stage but personally I'm not a fan for FOH except as a supplement to the desk.

It's all compromises though sometimes the trade offs are worth it.

 

[Mike Caldwell]

Acoustics and sound system design are significant limit factors. Worship halls are often huge spaces designed to create visual grandeur with very little consideration for acoustics. This frequently results in a very challenging acoustic environment for live sound. In order to have good sound you need both a suitable system that is properly aimed and tuned, and a suitable acoustic environment. However if the acoustics are bad enough, it doesn't matter how big the system is or how well it is tuned, truly good sound is impossible. This situation is more common than people probably realize...you simply do the best you can. IMHO you need to be objective enough to realize it's not great.

I missed that the first time through, yes very much so!!
I measured a room that was approaching a 6 sec. RT60 in the mid band frequencies, only so much can be done in that case.

I would like to see some picts of "talldude's" room.

 

[talldude42]

Got some pictures of our service hall, speakers and the amps. I paced the distance and its approx. 110ft from front of platform to back wall, and 300ft wide wall to wall, and guessing that the ceiling is probably 40ft up.
The first image the red arrows indicate speakers and the blue arrows indicate the subs. The speakers are hung in a manner that matches the radius of the seating arrangement.

The gray boxes on the walls are "sound absorbing panels". which im pretty sure were made in house but look and feel nice. There is some matting in the ceiling infront of the platform above the speaker area but thats it for the ceiling.

During my learning process of how everything is ran I found that the had the volume on the amplifier for the subs only about a quarter turn up. So they made the executive decision to just crank it all the way up for service, and it did make a big difference in the overall low end in the room obviously. Which then did require some more EQ shaping and compression for the bass and kick drum, even the low end for spotify needed to come down a little bit.

I dont have any information yet on what speakers they are, no hand that information off head, but they are going to look it up.
I also didnt get a firm yes when i asked again if they already bought the subs. She kinda beat around the bush, so Im guessing they didnt actually write the check yet.

I proposed a few things thanks to all your inputs:
-Once a month do an individual speaker sound check.
-Instead of having a blanket preset for the service, and snaps of the individuals settings that will be on the team that week. Specific instruments/ musicians & vocalists, specific pastors yada yada...
-Since we are short handed in this area and they have the computer running the online sound in another room, set up similar to the above for the online sound. I thought about sending a post mix or copy of the main output from the board to the and using that for online sound and skip having to mix again in protools but it sounded like in the head phones if you mix for quality in the room, the mix that came out in the headphones if you solo the main mix, could be mixed better for the online. So if we had specific people set up for the inputs already that were mixed appropriately with a final mix set up for the online broadcast. That way we can just tweak volume to taste and be good.
* Or move the online mixing and set up capability to the sound booth rather than the production room, which is right behind the sound booth but ins an enclosed room.

 

[Mike Caldwell]

The square'ish shaped speakers at the stage are EAW QX series, they make different models with different patterns but they all look about the same, the rest of the system is most likely EAW as well. They also have the proper EAW processors. There are a dozen different ways to put a system in that room but with everything working as it should that speaker system would not be the weak link.

You may want to re balance the system and bring the subs back down some at the amp rather than with the EQ. Did you turn up the LF levels on any of the amps? It looks like the most the speakers are ran in bi-amp mode based on the LF and HF labels on the amps?

By chance is the system set up with aux fed subs?

Don't take this wrong but given what looks like a fairly big production with the size of the room, sound, lights and video you/they should look at bringing a seasoned pro to go through the system and maybe bring them on staff!
I'm seeing a somewhat big work load for a rotating volunteer staff.