Impersonal Sound Systems

An electric guitar played through a guitar combo amp can sound just right. Yet, there are massive resonances, huge holes in the frequency response, and plenty of distortion. The guitar rig is a personalized sound system perfectly suited to that instrument.

The guitar amplifier and loudspeaker are simply part of the guitar. It’s an electro-magnetic version of the acoustic guitar’s resonating body. The solid body electric cannot function without it. However, playback a good recording of a guitar through the same rig, it sounds bad. Playback a whole band through the rig and it is absolutely awful. The amplifier may be state-of-the-art and connected to the best quality loudspeaker, but if they are used for playback, they can be outdone by a $39 stereo system.

The same situation exists in sound reinforcement systems. A system designed to suit a specific act, touring similar venues, can provide the best sound they have ever had. When the warmup act plays, everything seems to be wrong with the system’s sound. Of course, the first person to blame is their sound tech. He lacks the experience, chops, ears, connections, and paycheck of the headliner’s FOH star. He also may lack access to his choice of mics, input channels, mixing console format, signal processing, system voicing EQ, array orientation, rehearsal time and comfy chair. A touring rig can be a very personalized sound system, suited to the needs of the headliner in every possible way.

The touring rig may have been carefully selected to suit the nature of the headline act. The sound quality of the loudspeakers may provide the necessary sweet spot for the lead vocals, and the array may be configured to light up the seats where the most rabid fans will sit. A tour with an adequate budget will have access to the favorite mics, mixers and processing of the main act’s crew. The whole system is then tuned in rehearsals to give their audience their money’s worth. The tighter the tuning, the more likely it won’t suit any other act.

The opposite is true of rental sound systems and venue systems for one-nighters. These systems must provide a system that is flat, not tuned to a single performer or style of music. In order to achieve good results for every show, a very impersonal sound system must be achieved. Unfortunately, for those that have gained most of their experience with the personalized systems, this can be a difficult system to master. For those that are moving into a larger venue, it can be difficult to understand why the cool gear they saw at a recent concert isn’t the best thing for their venue. It sounded great in that concert and so why shouldn’t it sound as good in their venue?

With loudspeaker systems, it can be understood that the comb-filters produced by 20 similar loudspeakers become much wider and far more audible, when just three units are used. Those big line arrays are only as good as they are tall (it’s relative to wavelength) and don’t scale down easily. The long-throw box in the arena rig is just a little oversized for the soft-seater, nicely covering three seats wide by 30 rows deep. There are many pitfalls to emulating the big rig in the little venue.

It is often the mixing console that becomes a fixation of the upwardly mobile sound tech. If their venue just had that same mixing console as the latest tour they’ve just heard, then the magic would begin to happen. Of course, it isn’t often apparent that it took a few years of working with less complex consoles to really be ready to get signals poppin’ through a 52-channel desk with a 16 by 16 output matrix. When you have reached the level where you really need these complex little knob forests, then all of those facilities simply make sense to get the job done. However, if you are not quite ready, then you might find the signals go missing and the knobs begin to blur just when the show gets busy.

A venue that must cope with different sound techs on a regular basis, in addition to a wide range of performers and music styles, will find that less specialized components produce the best results. A venue sound system that suits this application is likely to have very flat frequency response, without any special voicing EQ (maybe a graph in the rack for the adventurous) and a mixing console that provides clarity instead of complexity. It takes plenty of training and experimentation to make use of more complicated mixers. This must be available to all the users of the system for the sophisticated console to be appropriate. Placing it into the wrong situation will push the complex task of providing high-quality sound reinforcement out of reach.

United Entertainment Media Inc.
460 Park Avenue South, 9th Floor
New York, NY, 10016
Ph. 212-378-0400
FAX 212-378-2160
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