Fantastic! PS. Smaller stages would be great as well. Most of us do not have the opportunity to work arenas. 😊 Something like 200 to 2000 people. Marry xmas! ⭐️
For smaller wide-coverage applications, make a center cluster and call it a day. If the venue is narrow and doesn't have audience to the side, a simple line along the front of the stage will do great. Both of these setups have straight-forward cadioid implementations, if you need to reduce on-stage sound.
An absolutely excellent series on sub woofer arrays Dave. I work smaller stages with 4 to eight total subs but this answers a lot of the issues I've faced in the past, thanks.
Thanks for sharing the results of all your experimentations. I was especially interested (surprised) to see the differences between physical and digital positioning.
Dave, I love the progression! Thank you so much for putting all the dedication into your work, it's clear that it's years of experimentation and experience on display here. Cheers!
These have been invaluable, very interested in the endfire arc array, will draw it up for my setup and test it for sure! Controlling the overall angle will be interesting to account for different hall sizes too.
Hey! Thank you very much for this invaluable transmission of knowledge! How about an appendix /"fourth" video showing the different setups PER frequency? Like showing a sequence of all the 80 Hz for each arrangement?
Great stuff, as always Dave. I’ve been trying to follow along with your deployments using MAPP XT so that, or MAPP 3D, would get my vote if you are going to demo a software tool for us. Also a second vote for what to do with 4 - 6 double 18s and smaller stages. Thanks for all your work sharing your knowledge with us in 2022.
i feel bad watching this series w/ the lame motive of learning what seats to buy at the next concert :) thank you mr Dave for the time and dedication. happy holidays to everyone
Thank you so much for Sharing your knowledge. My best effort was using 2 x 18 inch Ev horn subs in the centre with two EV 18 inch ported subs they went down to 30 Hz, where are the horns starting to fade around 50 Hz. Ported sub were made by myself using 1 inch MDF with a crazy amount of bracing really big boxes that would not be good for mobile applications. Using a Dbx processor there was a fair amount of phase adjustment and EQ mostly on the down level side ,so no boosts above 3 db.. room was for about 200 people. Crown and three used for the base and Bryston amps for the top
This is exactly what I was looking for. I have a outdoor Stadium (4000pax) where Beachvolleyball is played in the infield. And a VIP Area where the Stage would be on Gigs. I will try to simulate the EndFire Arc for the Setup and look if i can get good results
This series has been extremely helpful in how I think about designing systems, you make everything make so much sense! One thing I noticed throughout this series was that you never mentioned anything about, say, a line of 2 or 4 dual 18” boxes along the front and center of the stage. I would guess it would just widen the coverage some? Or would it cause more weird cancellation?
Great stuff so far Dave. One question in the digital arc setup in front of the stage which sub cabinets to you align your tops to? The center at zero delay of the ones nearer to tops which would have delays set on them?
Great question. Easy answer is you want to align to the acoustic center. Calculating that is cumbersome but in Soundvision (and probably most other sub prediction software), you can click on a surface while in delay mode and it will tell you the arrival times of any arrays that are active. There is an acoustic way to do it as well.
Hi Dave, Fantastic videos! What would the outcome be if one were to build a cardioid setup with an Asymmetric number of boxes front to rear? For example a stack of 3x dual 18" subs in front and a 1x dual 18" box standing upright or 2x dual 18" boxes behind the main stack setup in a cardioid or endfire configuration? Thanks
Thanks for these insights. I tried them with small Subs. And what to say: They really work out! Next will be with a bigger setup in a real live situation. Will those setup work with cardioid cabinets as well? I am thinking of d&b J- Subs or SL-Subs.
Fabulous series! For the 3 dual 18” spaced w/end fire arc, what are your thoughts on an identical mono cluster placed in the center? Would it provide additional coverage down the center, or throw the balance off I wonder… Thanks, Dave!
@@DaveRat I've been waiting 15 years to see them, was hoping to be able to guess where I should try and stand to balance sound and stage visibility; it's been a long time coming!
Mono subs are fine for home hifi and tiny gigs. For larger gigs, mono subs and the lack of knowledge and skill to mix stereo subs is a significant limitation and degrades the possible quality outcomes achievable
Completely awesome, man. Have you experimentet with all subs to the one side of the stage? Of course with a lot of subs, this will spread them out a lot, defeating the purpose of having them all be as close to the same point in space, but having 2x18 together vs. 1x18 pr. side, I’m curious what that gives concerning power alley and fingering.
Thanks so much for these videos Dave, I’ve learned so much! I’d love to hear your opinion on what you’d do in a smaller indoor venue, where you don’t want to get anywhere near 270° coverage. I.e. what is the most effective way to minimize the nodes when you don’t need to maximize horizontal coverage?
Yes and no. Subs of similar design or subs from a company like L-Acoustics where the subs all have similar phase response, all good. If the subs are different and used together, spacing the differing types from each other is advised
I have some questions: Is it normal to run concert PA systems subs in mono? -And what about the high end? I can't remember going to concerts with stereo sound. Also: What would happen if you made a cardioid base + endfire arc setup? Or even better.. constructed some sort of lid on top of the subs, to create a huge horn. Stage floor (4 inches thick slabs), on top of the endfire arc subs. Also part 2: can you share the Mapp XT project files from this video?
There is no norm for concerts regarding mono or stereo subs or mains. My opinion is that mono is a bummer for mains and subs people that mix in mono just lack the knowledge to improve their craft or are limited by budget or the gear that is in place As far as what would happen, I will do more videos on differing setups.
Interesting stuff 👍. On another topic, I've recently acquired an innovaSon Sy48 . Are you familiar with this console? What can you tell me about it. I know it's an old unit but I love the layout
Would increasing the number of vortex or arc sub arrays work? Center stage one array firing straight down the middle and an array halfway between the centre and the L/R arrays angled 22.5° outward.
The two main sources, arcs or vortex plus adding some center subs to fill in and give more coverage control is what I did. I will cover all this and more in upcoming vids and on the member side I am releasing sub comparison files and such
Just thinking out loud....if you mix slightly different signals for left and right channels, that reduces the comb filtering we see in the center...but the directivity of the system stays the same? As in the directivity is an attribute of the 4 speaker array, and it doesn't need to directly interact with the opposite array to get that cancellation on stage?
Yes, you can get rid of coverage problems by mixing left and right independently of eachother, and the low end is no exception. It's not friendly to your overall channel count of course, and it's a bit of a workflow challenge depending on the mixing gear you have. Most digital boards will let you link channels, but, few will let you link faders without linking all other channel attributes. If you've got DCA's, that's a good way around that problem. Toss the kick/bass on their own DCA's run them on two channels each panned hard left/right. EQ each side independently of the other to create phase differences, delay left on the kick, delay right on the bass, play with the timing until it sounds right and you're getting the coverage you need. It's very much one of those things where you have to walk around and use your ears, but man, you can really make some magic happen with sub-optimal setups this way.
I don't see why you don't delay the subs as a parabola in the opposite direction, at least a little. I don't think you would loose much bass around the edges of the dance floor and it should fire hard into the mass of the party people who will also soak / saturate much of it up. Once the floor is heaving i imagine it to be the best way to fire the sound. you can fill in the outer parts with outer fill out subs more like the way you have the overall arc or the endfire so basically your type of arc on the outer edges and the opposite in the centre stage area, a parabola concentrating the mass of power into the party people and really unnoticeable holes if the place is heaving. Think that could also work well on stage.
I recommend downloading soundvision, it's free and will allow you to test and see what happens. Low frequencies are very messy, you can't just point them like a flashlight without creating very complex large direction arrays that waste a lot of energy. It is very easy to create lots of subs in the middle and quite challenging to get the subs to cover wide areas while maintaining quality sound with even coverage. If it was easy, there would be no need for this and all the other vids I and others do on the subject. That said, it's fun to design and understand and I recommend taking a dive into the adventure
Get trained with any major manufacturer that offers training. Make friends in the industry that knows your work ethic and skills, have them refer you gigs
What are your thoughts on a single dual 18” sub (in our case, a Danley DBH-218) flown in the center of a room and delayed to the tops? I recently got hired at a new church as a Tech Director, and I thought that setup was just dumb. The auditorium is a similar size to a basketball gym, with the stage being on the longer sideline side, so we need wide coverage rather than long throw. I suggested we move it down under the stage in line with the tops, and even buying a second box. Any thoughts on that?
Would love to see if AI or a human can design a more efficient and practical setup. And yes, A I could help with sub designs. This one was simple and symmetrical with an ideal answer. But some setups get very complex and no ideal result
One common setup that's used for things like the super bowl and other sporting events is to have 4 line array boxes on carts that are angled upward and roll out onto the field. For super bowl they roll out a a bunch of these cars all the way around and shoot music up into the stands for the halftime show and then roll them back away afterwards
I am stuck sound friends/strangers. A venue I took over as resident does not want to spend anything, which is almost understandable, until you hear how properly dogshit the yamaha DSX15 is as a sub. I have done what I can orienting speakers correctly and so on, I even jumped headfirst into the world of DMX to better light the venue. But unless i buy new subs myself I am stuck with 2 x Yamaha DSX15 mk1 which are basically a 70hz tone generator, and an alto something 18. I am aware the 18 will phase with the 15s, but here's what is getting me down as something i thought i understood roughly. When i took over, the room was the same, but the subs were just the two shitty yamahas, with their horizontal front baffles, not sure if this matters, cause the subs are located under the stage, however the stage is only tall enough to put the subs on their side, so the baffles are now vertical. Does this matter? anyway, one was right by the stage left wall, one was 2/3 of the room over from there. There was no bass in the room. I have since moved them and ratchet strapped them together which seems like it has coupled the cabs, but not in a desirable way, 70hz has learnt to moonwalk. I am not a complete dunce, I am on a journey trying to better myself with the end result being that the world sounds better. Younger me built a folded horn 15 which i have kicking about. I am tempted to drop the kappalite 15LF from that and see what happens, but the amount of time and effort that will take, I could just build a new enclosure for these rinky dink yamahas. and I don't know how much into that plan i am either. If it works, then bazinga. Am i right in thinking 2 single 15s strapped together is better than 1 15in enclosure, but no where near as good as a single 2x15? I feel like these cabinets have coupled but the kind of couple you'd find trying to work out who is the baby daddy. There is nothing harmonious here. (Long thin 120 cap venue with. high ceiling. I care more than most of the people that come to listen. )
@@DaveRat Hi Dave, amazing series ; about this question of a double vs 2 singles, I never managed to get the same response from multiple L-Acoustcs SB18 (single 18) vs 1 SB28 (double-18") no matter the setup, I'd love to get your take on that. Cheers !
Hmmm well the SB18 is a band pass enclosure and the sb28 is a ported enclosure. So 2 SB18 will not sound the same as an sb28. That said, the interaction patterns will be similar once the response is eq'ed to be as close as can be. It's 2 separate things. 1) the output and response 2) the interactions between spaced sources
Set your subs volume to half and use a tone generator to fix them with a graphic eq. Make sure the dsp functions are set to "off" and the LPF is set to 120 Start sweeping up from 30hz slowly and listen to what the subs do. You'll likely have points where it gets much louder all of a sudden. Note those frequencies because they may come and go. Use a graphic eq and turn down the frequencies that sound noticeably louder. Then, repeat the process again this time looking for holes, aka where it sounds quieter all of a sudden, boost that up until it's even. Make sure you walk around the audience area while doing this and try to average things out. It will likely be different depending on where you are in the room. With your subs, don't try to boost anything under 40hz or over 120hz much, you'll just make extra heat and waste power. When you're done, you'll probably find that you have less power overall, but, the response is much more even. You can function like that until you can afford better subs that can handle more power if need be. Make sure you set them back to concert volume when you're done and make sure the HPF on your tops is also set to 120hz. You may want to repeat the same process on your tops, but from 80-200hz to make sure things are crossing over cleanly with your full system turned on. Also, to answer your question directly, no, it doesn't matter if they're sideways or not, subs don't really have a pattern, you can think of them as omni sources most of the time. In a small room, keeping your subs centered will always be beneficial and strapping them together won't cause issues. Oh, and If you don't have a tone generator, a phone app and a 1/8in to stereo XLR adapter will work fine.
@@jttech44 thanks for taking the time to write this. All of the above I have already done. I am good at my job just being self taught means I might be missing some things every now and again. But it cheers me up knowing I did roughly everything already in the exact order you mentioned. Cognitive bias dopamine hit. Peculiarly, when I got there the subs were crossed over at 100hz. The tops are ~60 at -10 but useful down to about 90. And a few different venues I’ve been to tend to cross over at around 100. This feels like a home cinema kind of situation where the tops are capable of doing everything you want them to do except for explosions and gunfire, I used to set my home cinema up for 80hz crossover but then the main speakers I was using had passive radiators and could easily achieve a musical 30hz. So I used them for music and turned the sub on for gaming/movies. (KEF cadenza. Beautiful speakers.) Anyway. A few venues I’ve without asking changed the crossover point either up from 100 or down from 140 to get it around the 160 mark, but, I’ll often low pass the subs lower than I hi pass the tops by a few eq points to kind of scoop that shitty bit out that room depending doesn’t sound very good. All I am after is knowledge. And you have all provided me with loads. So thank you. I certainly don’t know everything but I know I am on the right path, and that is enough for now. 🙏
