Karaoke Forums

I have a new 3 night/week gig starting this Thursday night.

The bar has asked us to use their sound system and has committed to making upgrades/updates based on our recommendations.

Today, my KJ and I are going over with a mixer a karaoke PC to get wired into audio/video and start moving things around.

Currently they have 4 active Behringer 15" PA's hanging from the rafters in an odd configuration. We are going to be remounting them to get what we hop is better sound coverage of the bar.

I will try to get some before/after shots to show what we are having to do.

Here is the current and proposed layout -

Current


Proposed


The reason for the layout is to prevent too much sound from coming into the bar area. There is a wall with doorways and a large cut out which help filter some of the sound, but they still want those patrons to have conversations without having to yell.

Here is a picture of the bar area from the singer's perspective.


Will have my laptop with me so I can check for suggestions if anyone has any.

-Chris

_________________
-Chris

Chris, are the speakers labelled "floor" floor monitors, or just speakers on the floor? If they are speakers on the floor or on floor stands they look like they are your biggest problem since they point right into the bar. However, since they are active you can turn them down as needed. Why not fly them from the left and right corners (immediate r & l of stage) aimed down at the area in front of the stage? I have had my best luck at producing "even" sound by flying my speakers with the center line of the horn aimed at about 4 feet off the ground at the opposite side of the room from the speaker. The higher you fly them the better you are, up to about 15 feet high.

Brian tried this idea and I believe it worked quite well for him. His speakers are QSC's and I think they have a conical horn pattern so he can fly his horizontal or vertical .... I believe that yours will have to fly vertically for dispersion. As I'm sure you are well aware that it is the horn dispersion that is most critical.

Without getting into the specifics of your layout -- I'm not the best with diagrams... the best suggestion I've read on sound is to set them up so the sound crosses about 2/3rds of the way from the back wall. That kind of setup creates a natural fade and reduces stray reflections back to the area where you have your microphones.

Using that information you could set the speakers up so that the bar area is only being hit by one speaker's output which creates an easier environment for people to order drinks, but allows you to keep a nice energy on the dance floor which is getting hit by both speakers if you have room for such a thing...

I did a rather bizarre looking setup the other night in a very small club that took advantage of that idea and it worked beautifully and got all kinds of complements on the sound... Made me feel good because the guy who played there before me had all kinds of issues with the low ceilings and lots of brick and glass.

Basically we had speakers close to the corners of the room, one pointed back towards the singer area from about 20 feet off to the right side of me (so we could really hear the main mix well) and the other about 20 feet to the left angled towards the door so as to create a crossing pattern right in the center of the dance floor and no speaker pointed directly at the bar...

It looks crazy, but it worked great and we had no feedback all night.

I rarely have issues with feedback except at one location where the singers feel it is necessary to point the mic at one of the speakers. I swear I think they know what will happen and do it on purpose to piss me off.

We have actually gotten compliments on the sound so far while making tweaks each of the first 3 nights. I have decided I am a fan of the BBE Max-X2 Sonic Maximizer they have on-site as it has really helped us with configuring the sound. We can also play the sound louder than either of the two previous KJ's did without interfering with the bar.

I am still not completely satisfied with the sound, but the option is to replace all the PA's with what I normally use which would be a hefty chunk of change. For now we are going to continue to work with the hardware they have and talk to the venue about what upgrades they might be willing to make.

-Chris

_________________
-Chris

I have 2 x BBE 882i's for sale if you are interested.