BillFitzmaurice.info

Bill,

How do you determine suggested audience size? Is there a specific formula for space, SPL, and bodies? I have always been conservative with my set of four Dr200s, thinking that I shouldn't go over about 500 seat rooms with them. I found out tonight that I can pretty easily handle 1800-2000 at over 100db in the back of a 100' wide by 175' deep seating area (with the right subs in place, of course), and not really strain anything. In fact, I had to turn down from sound check for it to be comfortable.

I imagine you probably want to err on the conservative side, but for those (like me) who don't require extreme SPL levels, these can go way farther than the suggested audience sizes.

BE

I think the issue with covering a crowd of that size is that while you have the power to get it to the back,you end up overdoing things up front, meaning you have to add more cabs in order to sufficiently powershade things

BrentEvans wrote:Bill,

How do you determine suggested audience size? Is there a specific formula for space, SPL, and bodies?

I figure the likely depth of the area to be covered by persons per square meter, the maximum SPL that might be desired, then how many cabs it would take to reach those levels comfortably. More cabs is always better than not enough.

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote: the maximum SPL that might be desired,

Perhaps that might be a good piece of information to include on the front page. I can see needing way more than I have if I was going to be doing 120db at the back... but realistically, how many of us actually do that?

Bill's estimates of crowd sizes are waaaay optimistic. I did a free party the other week.. At the end there were about 5 of us left, yet I was still being asked to turn it up!! Maybe 1 t30 and an Otop per person would be far closer to the mark

Do you mean optimistic, or conservative?

When I started out in engineering, people were using the words optimistic, pessimistic and conservative. I had, and sometimes still have difficulty with these words.

EDIT: I think I've finally got it - half an hour later. It's a joke!

escapemcp wrote:Bill's estimates of crowd sizes are waaaay optimistic. I did a free party the other week.. At the end there were about 5 of us left, yet I was still being asked to turn it up!! Maybe 1 t30 and an Otop per person would be far closer to the mark

I figure this is down to both ear fatigue as your ears try and gain down the sound over a long period of time and also because Bill's cab just sound so bloody clean, there's no distortion and people equate that with loud unfortunately!

88h88 wrote:

escapemcp wrote:Bill's estimates of crowd sizes are waaaay optimistic. I did a free party the other week.. At the end there were about 5 of us left, yet I was still being asked to turn it up!! Maybe 1 t30 and an Otop per person would be far closer to the mark

I figure this is down to both ear fatigue as your ears try and gain down the sound over a long period of time and also because Bill's cab just sound so bloody clean, there's no distortion and people equate that with loud unfortunately!

Nope, we just like it loud & it doesn't really matter how many people are there!!! My T30 and OT12 combo is good for small free parties, but will I need a bigger rig for the bigger events ... the problem with a bigger rig is finding somewhere to hold the party without disturbing anyone (disturbing the neighbours=a visit from the police). Even with my rig, we still have a hard time to find anywhere far enough away from houses that it doesn't disturb anyone. This island is just too bloody crowded - it's very difficult to find somewhere that is just half a mile away from any property, let along the mile that I ideally aim for Oh how I look at those pics of people testing rigs in the desert with envy!!

I had to look up power shading this morning, and found the definition of near field and far field to be quite interesting, with the realisation as to why it's the bass that travels the furthest.

http://www.peavey.com/support/technotes ... hading.cfm

I also checked out pistonic. My band name of the week is 'Pistonic and the power shaders'.

Charles Jenkinson wrote:I had to look up power shading this morning, and found the definition of near field and far field to be quite interesting, with the realisation as to why it's the bass that travels the furthest.

http://www.peavey.com/support/technotes ... hading.cfm

Don't put a lot of stock in that document, there are many inaccuracies, if not downright errors. The facts about line arrays were known in 2001, but apparently not yet by Peavey. Power shading isn't at all a difficult concept. The speakers at the top of an array have further to reach, so they need less power than those at the bottom of the array.

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote:

Charles Jenkinson wrote:I had to look up power shading this morning, and found the definition of near field and far field to be quite interesting, with the realisation as to why it's the bass that travels the furthest.

http://www.peavey.com/support/technotes ... hading.cfm

Don't put a lot of stock in that document, there are many inaccuracies, if not downright errors. The facts about line arrays were known in 2001, but apparently not yet by Peavey. Power shading isn't at all a difficult concept. The speakers at the top of an array have further to reach, so they need less power than those at the bottom of the array.

don't you mean more power?

Disco-inferno wrote:

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote:

Charles Jenkinson wrote:I had to look up power shading this morning, and found the definition of near field and far field to be quite interesting, with the realisation as to why it's the bass that travels the furthest.

http://www.peavey.com/support/technotes ... hading.cfm

Don't put a lot of stock in that document, there are many inaccuracies, if not downright errors. The facts about line arrays were known in 2001, but apparently not yet by Peavey. Power shading isn't at all a difficult concept. The speakers at the top of an array have further to reach, so they need less power than those at the bottom of the array.

don't you mean more power?

+1

escapemcp wrote:

88h88 wrote:

escapemcp wrote:Bill's estimates of crowd sizes are waaaay optimistic. I did a free party the other week.. At the end there were about 5 of us left, yet I was still being asked to turn it up!! Maybe 1 t30 and an Otop per person would be far closer to the mark

I figure this is down to both ear fatigue as your ears try and gain down the sound over a long period of time and also because Bill's cab just sound so bloody clean, there's no distortion and people equate that with loud unfortunately!

Nope, we just like it loud & it doesn't really matter how many people are there!!! My T30 and OT12 combo is good for small free parties, but will I need a bigger rig for the bigger events ... the problem with a bigger rig is finding somewhere to hold the party without disturbing anyone (disturbing the neighbours=a visit from the police). Even with my rig, we still have a hard time to find anywhere far enough away from houses that it doesn't disturb anyone. This island is just too bloody crowded - it's very difficult to find somewhere that is just half a mile away from any property, let along the mile that I ideally aim for Oh how I look at those pics of people testing rigs in the desert with envy!!

I disagree. I've hosted many national acts on 2 omnitops, 4 t48s. Including brits Hatcha, Youngsta, Tunnidge, and others (Truth, Goth Trad, Antiserum x2, Seven with 4 OT, 6t48) there was as many as 250 at many of these shows, and the otops did the trick EASILY for 150 or more (240 person venue, quite packed), properly powered, eqd, and hipassed. with 4 ot12s, I keep the volume about the same, although the sound is a bit *tighter*. Since this was all bass music, obviously more subs are better, which is why I have 6 now. lol

I've never gotten my OT12's even close to breaking a sweat...indoors or out. I'm in the ballpark of 90 dB A weighted on the dance floor and they're barely lighting up the amp, so they're doing fine, but do I plan to add two more straight arrays and maybe two more subs at some in the future. That will still all fit in my trailer.

For "adults" (e.g. weddings, professional dance competitions), I find the suggested audience sizes to be low by a factor of 2-3x.

For "teenagers" I try to bring enough rig to meet the "suggested" numbers....and then I just don't use it.

--Stan Graves