I sometimes play in places where the acoustic conditions are poor, leading to poor sound, and preventing me to use loud levels,so the sound definition is kept to an acceptable quality.

I like places with wood walks and specially dislike large areas with large glass surfaces (great for the scenary, but...). So I ask you, experienced friends, what does your experience tell you about the possibility of compensating these bad acoustic conditions (speaker placement, use of effects...)?

Thanks in advance!

-- José.

[This message has been edited by matias (edited 04-19-2002).]

As a general rule, is a "live" room, with lots of glass, you should not boost the high end e.q. as much, since it tends to bounce off the hard surfaces very easily. Also effects can be lessened.
Conversely, in "dead" rooms, you must boost the high end, and increase overall volume. Since the sound doesn't bounce around as well, then more effects such as reverb and/or delay can create a livelier sound.
These are very general parameters and you must use your ears to tailor your sound to each individual venue.
DonM

Hi Don,
That was great advice!
I know you are right on this one!
Matias,
No two rooms are alike.
I would also suggest to you, if you have a
a song programed in your board, start it and take a walk around the room and check it out.
You can tell a lot if you get out there and hear what your croud hears!
All the best,
Nobby

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A few more "common sense" points.....
1) in a "bassy" room - put the speakers UP on sticks AWAY from corners and walls
2) in a "bright" room - put the speakers on the floor or in a corner to increase bass
3) Never, never OVERcompensate with volume. It will most often lead to feedback, or worse. Position speakers to get a good bounce, and try to cover the room with natural sound reflection whenever possible.
As a general rule - just try to make the immediate area by the music sound good. You can't cover the entire room without some area getting prefferential treatment. Try to achieve a balance, and give the rest of the room a place to have a "quiet zone".

Don, Nobby, Dave
Thanks for your great tips. I deduce I have been playing mostly in "dead" rooms, 'cause I'm used to compensate with the equalizer, and haven't found severe problems with increasing the volume. Where I have had trouble is getting a clean sound in places with huge glass surfaces, because of the numerous reflexions. First, the sound looses clarity, even in the neighbourhood of the area with the music, and second, just as Dave warned, there's a strong tendency to feedback, so I'm forced to reduce the volume. I guess it's better to renounce to reach the whole room and worry about a good sound near the music, right? Reducing gain in the high end frequencies seems a good idea and makes all sense. I'll try it the next time. Curiously I never felt the need of putting the speakers near corners to increase bass, maybe 'cause I bring a PA with a nice subwoofer.
Sometimes my ears sure indicate me that something is wrong, but I'm not always able to interpret what is wrong, neither to find the right action to undertake. Thanks again for your wise advice! :-)

-- José.

There are rooms in which no matter what you do it will not sound as good as you think it should.

Keep in mind the number of people in the room also have an effect on the accoustics. If you check sound before the guests arrive, you can expect it will need to be tweaked when the guests or patrons arrive.

Don, Uncle Dave and Nobby have covered the bases. You just make the best of any room you are given to work in.

Eddie

You're absolutely right, Eddie. Generally I need to add some reverb when the room is full of people, to make the overall sound more "live".

I normally play with the equalizer, with reverb and delay to reach the best possible sound. Am I forgeting any other important parameter?

I found an interesting set of technical essays that gives some theoretical background. Here's the link to one of them, "Acoustics for music"; in the bottom, there's
a yellow little animal :-) that links to the whole set of essays.
http://arts.ucsc.edu/ems/music/tech_background/TE-02/teces_02.html

Thanks, José.

All the advice above is fine - but you could just cheat! The Behringer "Feeback Destroyer Pro" is available in GB for 99 pounds. I've found a US ad at http://www.wcsound.com/PA_Gear/Processing/Behringer_Home/behringer_home.html

I tried to find a review but I've had a sudden attack of slow response and I gotta go!

I have good experiences using more then 1 set of speakers in large dead rooms.

I used a delay on the second set that i placed half way down the room.

(very dry, long hall type room)