need your help and advice, sound system sa church.

[ghostalker]

Introduction:
Simple lang ang setup namin sa church and medyo masikip ang budget. Basic monitoring system ang gamit namin and wala din po expert sa amin. Dun dumating ako sa church naka setup na siya ng ganito:

Vocals -> Mixer going (via main out) A) Power amp then goes to PA speakers
                               (via monitor out)  B) Amp for monitor speakers


Issues:
• sabi nung isang guy na temporary nag ma-mange ng mixers eh kapag tinataasan niya ang volume ng monitors eh nagfeedback daw.
• medyo ngongo yung tunog sa monitors
(my personal opinion: siguro dahil sa inferior yung mics? )

here goes my 1st question:
• doon po ba sa monitor out ng mixer and dumman siya sa EQ and/or FX modules ng mixer?

Nagkaroon ng ilang updates, naka LIne na lahat ng instruments
• acoustic guitar -> direct to sub mixer*
• 2 electric guitar (route: guitars -> effects -> amp (line out) -> sub mixer*)
• drums (mic'd) -> sub mixer*
• Bass guitar (route: bass guitar -> amp (line out) -> sub mixer*)
• Keyboard -> direct to sub mixer*

sub mixer* - this mixer goes to channel 1 and channel 2 sa main mixer.

OLD position ng PA speakers

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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
                    • • • • • • • •

^^^
^^^

  *                              *

legend
x - pa speakers
= - stage area
• - congregation area
^ - mixers, main amp etc.
+ - floor monitors
* - speakers din mahina volume nito (sa surround daw nkalagay pa sensya na newbie lang kami po)


Problem:
Malakas volume sa front, hindi masyado sa likod. In other words eh Hindi balance
Lalo na pag tugtugan from stage going to 1/3 ng congregation medyo malakas. Sa gitna medyo ok lang, tapos sa likod eh medyo mahina na.

Temporary Solution dun sa medyo ngongo na monitors and para medyo dinig sa likod yung tunog....
NEW position ng PA speakers
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 ====+========+=====

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
                   • • • • • • • •
x                            x
^^^
^^^

  *                              *


Mas ok, pero meron konti pa problem.
• Kadalasan eh we cannot hear keyboard and acoustic properly ganun din sa vocals. Sa congregation area eh sakto na raw yung balance ng sound, so monitors na lang ang problem.

here goes my Question #2
• dun sa existing floor monitor, pede ba kami mag route ng signal do some DIY earphone monitor system?
• we have some ideas na po, pero kung gusto sana namin malaman kung ok po ba or delikado.

Here is the temporary plan

FLoor monitor -> around 3 meters cable parallel sa speaker ng monitor (it goes dun sa likod ng drums) -> then split namin sa 2 area, 1st area magkakaroon ng Female jacks for earphone para sa Acoustic guitarist, sa bassist and sa akin (E. gutar #1)  then 2nd dun sa kabilang gilid (drummer, keyboardist, E. guitar #2)

[BAMF]

I already posted a reply but it got lost and didn't post (sigh)

Baka marami na ding nag reply. Anyway, let me attempt to reconstruct my thoughts.

First things first.

1. Garbage in, garbage out. Don't attempt to judge your sound system using inferior sounding sources. Ngongo your mike, ngongo your sound. Buy or rent good mikes first before attempting to troubleshoot your sound system. Or maybe, plug an ipod into the line in of the PA first then do your listening test on some music that you know what sound it should be like.

2. How big is your church ? If its a rectangular or squarish hall, then you got a rather typical scenario. If your church has high ceilings and worse, a dome, that's when things get really hairy and interesting .

3. Keep your speakers as far away as possible from the walls or corners. Reverberations and bass accentuation happens when the speakers are near hard surfaces.

4. If your guitar and bass amps are to hit the public directly from its own speakers, elevate them, otherwise reverberations from the floor may muck up your sound.

5. Try to test the acoustics of the venue when there are people (and preferably typical capacity) around. The venue's acoustical response varies very differently if its empty than when there are people.

6. In a typical, relatively large Catholic church, there are 2 common approaches(afaik) to sound reinforcement. One is to use a central speaker array located at the ceiling, pointing down at the crowd. This constitutes a "point source" and will solve some of the reverberation problems. The second approach is to place many satelite speakers across the church, set at low volumes each. This will ensure that the crowd will absorb the reverberations by acting as dampeners. The low volumes per speaker will ensure that reverberations will be kept to a minimum. Hence if you church has a high ceiling and putting several satellite speakers is out of the question budget wise, you might want to "hang" your 2 PA speakers from the ceiling using steel brackets.

7. Look into purchasing a BBE Sonic Maximizer. This increases intelligibility by adjusting the phase of the sound, delaying the bass so that it arrives "everywhere" in time with the treble. High frequencies propagate slower than low frequencies.

Fix the more urgent problems first, then worry about the knick-knacks of how to route your signal.
 

[BAMF]

As for your comment on malakas sa harap, okay lang sa gitna and mahina sa likod, here's your answer.

Sound follows the inverse square law. Parang light. It will weaken in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. So say if you're 1 foot away from the sound source, it will weaken by 6dB for every doubling of the distance. For instance if you're at 1 foot then move to 2 feet, the sound will weaken four times from its level at 1 foot away. So talagang ganun and drastic talaga ang pag-hina nyan as you move away from the sound source.

So your goal is to have a sound source that is equidistant from the crowd. This might mean hanging your speakers on top of your congregation .

Or that could mean, you should buy an additional pair of speakers and gang that to your system para you have more sound sources to service the middle and far back audiences. Kawawa naman ang nasa harap if you had to adjust the sound so that you will be heard all the way to the rear.

And when you consider that people are actually sound dampers, meaning they absorb sound, kawawa na talaga ang mga nasa harap sa lakas ng sound system if you have to raise the levels to be heard at the back.

So there. Either elevate your speakers so they can "look down" on the people at the back, or add more speakers then set all of them to lower volumes to distribute the sound.

[ghostalker]

I already posted a reply but it got lost and didn't post (sigh)

Baka marami na ding nag reply. Anyway, let me attempt to reconstruct my thoughts.

First things first.

1. Garbage in, garbage out.
Will do some test again this coming saturday and Sunday.


2. How big is your church ? If its a rectangular or squarish hall, ...
Rectangular around 12-15 ft height ng ceiling

3. Keep your speakers as far away as possible from the walls or corners. Reverberations and bass accentuation happens when the speakers are near hard surfaces.
Noted

4. If your guitar and bass amps are to hit the public directly from its own speakers, elevate them, otherwise reverberations from the floor may muck up your sound.
Could you explain this more sir?

5. Try to test the acoustics of the venue when there are people ...
Noted

6. Hence if you church has a high ceiling and putting several satellite speakers is out of the question budget wise, you might want to "hang" your 2 PA speakers from the ceiling using steel brackets.
Hindi naman kasing laki ng sa Catholic church po yung sa amin. Pag-aralan po namin yang hanging speakers.

7. Look into purchasing a BBE Sonic Maximizer. This increases intelligibility by adjusting the phase of the sound, delaying the bass so that it arrives "everywhere" in time with the treble. High frequencies propagate slower than low frequencies.
Where do we put this? 
Pede na ba ito? http://www.bbesound.com/products/sonic-maximizers/vg360.htm


Fix the more urgent problems first, then worry about the knick-knacks of how to route your signal.
 

Sir bamf thanks sa very helpful and wonderful reply.

[ghostalker]

As for your comment on malakas sa harap, okay lang sa gitna and mahina sa likod, here's your answer.

Sound follows the inverse square law. Parang light. It will weaken in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. So say if you're 1 foot away from the sound source, it will weaken by 6dB for every doubling of the distance. For instance if you're at 1 foot then move to 2 feet, the sound will weaken four times from its level at 1 foot away. So talagang ganun and drastic talaga ang pag-hina nyan as you move away from the sound source.

So your goal is to have a sound source that is equidistant from the crowd. This might mean hanging your speakers on top of your congregation .

Or that could mean, you should buy an additional pair of speakers and gang that to your system para you have more sound sources to service the middle and far back audiences. Kawawa naman ang nasa harap if you had to adjust the sound so that you will be heard all the way to the rear.

And when you consider that people are actually sound dampers, meaning they absorb sound, kawawa na talaga ang mga nasa harap sa lakas ng sound system if you have to raise the levels to be heard at the back.

So there. Either elevate your speakers so they can "look down" on the people at the back, or add more speakers then set all of them to lower volumes to distribute the sound.

awesome idea!

God Bless po.