Sound Reinforcement Problem at Cal Tech's Beckman Auditorium

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Last night my wife and I attended a concert of The Persuasions at the
Beckman Auditorium at Cal Tech in Pasadena. The sound was horrid.

Basically, the sound reinforcement level was set so high that whenever
the vocalists hit a crescendo, it sounded like the system was
clipping. The sound was pretty good at moderate levels, but on the
peaks it was really bad. Also, although we were seated front-center of
the balcony, most of the sound appeared to be coming from the right
side speaker.

In speaking to the sound tech, he assured me that the system was not
clipping. I asked why it sounded so bad. He first babbled about a
"comb filter" that could make the sound appear to come from different
directions in different places in the room. (What is he talking
about?)I told him I know that reverse phasing on one of the speakers
could cause the sound to wander, and he acknowledged that was
possible.

At this point another member of the audience seated nearby commented
to me, "I don't understand what you are saying, but I agree with you
(the sound is terrible).

The tech then said that well the Beckman is really a lecture hall, not
a musical performance hall. That makes some sense, but it still
sounded good at moderate levels so I think the system was just turned
up too darn high and unbalanced to the right.

I gave up taking with the tech shortly thereafter and returned to my
seat. The sound appeared to improve a little after my discussion with
the tech, but still seemed to clip occasionally. He did get it
centered better also. There were probably 600 in the audience and four
on the stage (one of the normal five out sick), and I felt that the
tech did a gross disservice to all of those persons.

Any comments or advice? I intent to write a letter to the manager of
the Beckman, but want to consult the "Pros" and be sure to get my
technical facts straight first.

Thanks for any advice,

-Harry

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Harry" <hef2k@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Last night my wife and I attended a concert of The Persuasions at the
> Beckman Auditorium at Cal Tech in Pasadena. The sound was horrid.
snip
> Basically, the sound reinforcement level was set so high that whenever
> the vocalists hit a crescendo, it sounded like the system was
> clipping.
snip
> At this point another member of the audience seated nearby commented
> to me, "I don't understand what you are saying, but I agree with you
> (the sound is terrible).
snip
> sounded good at moderate levels so I think the system was just turned
> up too darn high and unbalanced to the right.
snip
> Any comments or advice? I intent to write a letter to the manager of
> the Beckman, but want to consult the "Pros" and be sure to get my
> technical facts straight first.

You need to complain. We need audience members to complain in writing about
excessive sound levels and bad overall sound when they occur.

Bias alert: this is one of my pet peeves.

In my opinion: The room doesn't need SR to 110dB SPL. Drums don't need SR in
small venues. Never. Many older audience members are actually driven out of
the room or turn their hearing aids off to avoid unpleasantness.

Anecdote: one night we (the student sound crew & I) actually had audience
members stop by and comment on the high quality of sound for the choral
groups that evening. The young fellow running the board (I ran the
recordings) admitted to me he forgot to bring up the choral mic faders
during the show. They only had the reinforcement of the choral shell. I told
him he made the right SR choice for that evening. It's supposed to be sound
REINFORCEMENT not sound BLAST 'EM OUT OF THE ROOM!

bobs

Bob Smith
BS Studios
we organize chaos
http://www.bsstudios.com

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

> Don't worry about the technical facts. Just say that it sounded bad
> and that it was too loud. You don't mention it, but I bet you a nickel
> that the kick drum was louder than the vocals, right? That's very
> fashionable today.


I Though the Persuasions were a legendary A Cappella group?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Dorsey" <kludge@panix.com>
Newsgroups: rec.audio.pro
Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: Sound Reinforcement Problem at Cal Tech's Beckman Auditorium

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

>You need to complain. We need audience members to complain in writing about
>excessive sound levels and bad overall sound when they occur.
>

I agree completely.


..>In my opinion: The room doesn't need SR to 110dB SPL. Drums don't need SR in
>small venues. Never. Many older audience members are actually driven out of
>the room or turn their hearing aids off to avoid unpleasantness.


IMO..if the bass player has an amp..the drums should be in the system. Often I
hear mixes that are very loud and blaring yet you can't hear half the
instruments.
This is due to an unbalanced system ..IMO. Solid low frequency reinforcement is
not unpleasant and will not sound that way to even hearing impaired listeners.
The problem is that most mixers don't realize that a balanced mix..what we are
used to hearing on normal home stereos, car stereos, home theater..is very
heavy in sub and low frequencies and not so much in mid/high frequences. Also,
ALL the sound is coming from the speakers and not all over the room at
diffeernt arrival times so to sound
"familiar" this must be done as much as possible in a live mix. I do a lot of
smaller club mixing and all the instruments being in the system is necessary to
approach hifi sound for all listeners. Don't get me wrong..I am easily offended
by blaring, peircing mixes..not what I am talking about. I will be writing a
series of columns on my ideas on redefining club sound in the enar future and a
lot of it is dealing with system/room balance and mix techniques that I have
found to work VERY well in small rooms.


John A. Chiara
SOS Recording Studio
Live Sound Inc.
Albany, NY
www.sosrecording.net
518-449-1637

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

<< All the sound coming from the right side speaker is probably typical. In
most of these halls, you can't get stereo imaging and the only real solution
is to run the house mono. >>

There's no reason most live music shouldn't be mixed in mono, but it IS
possible to achieve discernable left/right separation anywhere within the
direct field, even to the right of the house right stack or left of the house
left stack.

<<>In speaking to the sound tech, he assured me that the system was not
>clipping. I asked why it sounded so bad. He first babbled about a
>"comb filter" that could make the sound appear to come from different
>directions in different places in the room. (What is he talking
>about?)>>

He's trying to come up with any explanation other than the correct one, which
is that he did a lame mix job.

<<He's talking about the fact that you're hearing a lot of reflections from
different places, and that a lot of the sound you're hearing is not direct
sound from the speakers. Comb filtering is a side-effect of this, caused
by frequencies that are emphasized and de-emphasized when signals coming
from different directions sum together, and it's the reason that the frequency
response in the room changes radically when you move from one seat to
another.>>

Beckman, IIRC, is a circular structure, so obviously there isn't a snowball's
chance in hell of getting good acoustical response in there, amplified or not.

Scott Fraser

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Eric K. Weber <eric-nospam@webermusic.com> wrote:
>Just curios, what would be the result if the OSHA inspectors were informed
>of the excessive levels, and staff failing to wear ear plugs?

I have never had any luck going this route, but I think the more people
that do, the more OSHA is apt to actually start looking into it.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On 2004-12-05 kludge@panix.com(ScottDorsey) said:
>too loud. You don't mention it, but I bet you a nickel that the
>kick drum was louder than the vocals, right? That's very
>fashionable today.

Hey now we're supposed to get with the program. US old farts gotta
learn that kick drum is the featured instrument!!!

Just walked away from a weekender band a few weeks ago that have an
amateur sound guy that gets an even cut of hte money. Can understand
that, he's got some nice gear but he doesn't know excrement from
shinola about how to use it. WHen he's got the subs pumping like
those you hear in some of these inner city rapmobiles he thinks he's
got it happening. THen he can't figure out why the low frequency
rumble all night long.
I think another poster said it best. COmplain in writing to the
venue's management.


Richard Webb,
Electric SPider Productions, New Orleans, La.
REplace anything before the @ symbol with elspider for real email

--



Great audio is never heard by the average person,
But bad audio is heard by everyone.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <znr1102355436k@trad>, Mike Rivers <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote:
>In article <cp1ttb$842$1@panix2.panix.com> kludge@panix.com writes:
>
>> The OSHA limits are flexible and based on exposure time. You can listen to
>> one level for a few minutes a day, and another level for an hour a day, and
>> another level all day long.
>
>The "O" in OSHA stands for "Occupational" and unless they've changed
>the rules (or communities with noise ordinances have adopted OSHA
>standards) OSHA can't do anything for the person who attends a
>concert, only the people who work at the venue.

Right, but it's an in. Certainly the stage levels at just about every rock
concert out there exceed the OSHA standards for noise exposure. The performers
therefore are breaking the rules.

>Kind of silly actually, considering how many laws we have that protect
>us from doing things that would harm ourselves.

A lot of those are violated at rock concerts too.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Thanks, everyone, for all the responses that really helped me
understand what was going on and also encouraging me to write and
complain. I'm doing that shortly, and as suggested will keep it
non-technical, focusing on the high level.

It surprised me that one response was from a fellow who is actually
familiar with the Beckman. What are the chances...?

But that made me think that I should have included this information in
my original post about the Beckman from
http://fob.caltech.edu/tech-info/beckman.shtml
so folks would have better understood the situation. On the left of the
page there is a link for the technically inclined that give details of
the sound equipment in the auditorium:

Building Shape: Circular with conical shaped roof
Seating Capacity: 1150 (850 main floor, 300 balcony)
Dimensions: 60 feet high, 120 feet in diameter

So I'm sure that the Beckman is indeed an acoustic nightmare, but the
fact remains that the sound was just fine to my old ears when it was
moderate, but pretty horrid when it was breaking up every few seconds
because the tech had the level too high.

And, yes, the Persuasions is a classic acapello vocal group, so no
drums. I suppose that seriously dates me.

But I should tell you about the time my then-19 daughter took me to a
Steve Vai concert in Boston in the club district. I had this mental
image going in of a lone acoustical guitarist sitting on a stool in
sort of a coffee house environment <wry grin>....

Thanks again for everyones' kind assistance here, and I'll let you know
if anything ever comes of the complaint.

-Harry

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Thanks to all for your great replies.

I'm working on my written complaint now, and as suggested will keep it
simple and just comment on the terrible sound quality and that I just
feel that the level was too darn high to the point that the sound was
breaking up every few seconds. I'll mention that the sound was fine
during the quieter passages to defuse any suspicion that I am just
being overcritical of a tough sound reinforcement situation (a round
hall).

And yes, the Persuasions are indeed a legacy acapella group.

They were great -- oops, does that date me?
Thanks again, all-

-Harry