new to the forum and speakers and all that - theatre sound?

[RBIngraham]

Hello group,

I work mostly in theatre sound doing audio for musical theatre. I have looked aroung a bit in the forum for info pertaining to my application but didn't find much. Of course I probably have read less than .1% of the info in the forums as well before I just broke down and wote this post.

Anyway in the shows I work on I'm using tiny lav mics hidden in the hair line or attached to actors ears. So obviously I get no where near the gain before feedback that you get with a typical hand helds and instrument mics. So for me pattern control is very important on speaker cabinets. I poked around the web site but I saw very little polar pattern information on the speakers. Is there anything available in that regard to the various models? Most of the bigger houses I work in have conventional horn loaded 2 or 3 way speakers. The bigger houses where more gain is needed have 3 ways so we get better parttern control and get pretty loud volumes out of tiny lav mics strapped to an actors body. In smaller venues I'm using more your typical 2 way 12" or 15" speaker. Think EX SX300 or a Mackie SRM450. The bigger venues have anything from Community 3 way boxes to really nice sounding d&b speakers. And some of them still have old Appogee AE4s or AE5s.

So my questions are basically:

Are there any polar plots avaialble for the speakers plans?

And if anyone has suggestions as to what speakers might be good for my type of work that would be great as well. Keeping in mind that at least for the first round I was hoping to keep the build difficulty to a minumum. For example, what's an equivelant replacement for something like a SX200 or Mackie SRM450?

Thanks in advance,

Richard Ingraham

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Are there any polar plots avaialble for the speakers plans?

No, only axial and 45 degree SPL charts. But being horn loaded all of our tops have pattern control that no direct radiators can approach, and when multiple tops are vertically arrayed it's even better.

For example, what's an equivelant replacement for something like a SX200 or Mackie SRM450?

Even our smallest least sophisticated cab, the Jack 110, is considerably better than either.

[DJPhatman]

Will this be a permanent install, or mobil? How big is the auditorium? How many people in the audience? All spoken word, or will there be music added?

I'm thinking some TLAH Pros may work well in this situation, if there is no/very little music piped through them. A little pricey to build with Beta 8s, but add some subs and the WOW factor goes way up. All this assumes permanent install, audience size of 250 or under.

[Sydney]

Trying to read between the lines here, but it sounds like you are not looking for wide dispersion.
I do S&L for stage dance performance, but this does not involve miked actors/performers in motion.
In the past where have your cabs been positioned?

[RBIngraham]

Will this be a permanent install, or mobile? How big is the auditorium? How many people in the audience? All spoken word, or will there be music added?

I'm thinking some TLAH Pros may work well in this situation, if there is no/very little music piped through them. A little pricey to build with Beta 8s, but add some subs and the WOW factor goes way up. All this assumes permanent install, audience size of 250 or under.

Well I'm sure at first this will not be for permanent install until I get good enough and maybe some theatres pay me to build speakers for them.

Also I should have noted that just about anything I might build would need to be able to have rigging points installed so I can fly the cabinets. Before you say anything... yes I know what I'm doing.. I've been rigging speakers of all shapes and sizes for many years. So I will be sure to build anything with appropriate bracing so it's not going to fall down, or if I did it won't go in the air.

Most of the venues I work in are probably in the 400 to 500 seat range. But I fully expect I'm not going to cover that with 1 or even 2 speakers. Most places I work we don't fly things in clusters either. Theatre is often a much more distributed system, with maybe a center cluster, and left and right pairs of speakers, plus subs, plus front fills, plus side fill monitors for the actors that also double as sound effects speakers and maybe even surround systems. But very often I will have many speakers covering many different zones of the audience. This is usually to get better gain out of tiny lav mics, but also to make things sound as natural as possible, so the sound is not pulling your attention from the actors on stage to large speakers stacks at the sides of the stage. Also visuals as king in theatre so I have to be as discrete as possible with the number and size of speakers.

Having said that, some of the venues I work in are also very small. Less than 100 seats. (once you go over 100 seats a professional actors contract gets more expensive, so there are many theatre companies that will only sell 99 tickets or less even if they maybe have 120 seats.. LOL) Anyway in those venues, many small speakers are the typical answer. With something even as small as an SX200 from EV being a big speaker in such venues. So that TLAH or the Center Channel version might work in those types of venues as often those smaller venues are playback only, very little reinforcement.


Anyway thanks for the quick help so far and I look forward to any further ideas.

I'm think right now I'll just order plans for the Jack and the Omni 12 and maybe the Omni 12 PA top. Those seem like the right balance of construction difficulty and size at least to start off with.

Thanks everyone,

Richard

[RBIngraham]

Trying to read between the lines here, but it sounds like you are not looking for wide dispersion.
I do S&L for stage dance performance, but this does not involve miked actors/performers in motion.
In the past where have your cabs been positioned?

There is no one answer I can give. I work in all different kinds of venues, some prosceniums. Some Thrust where there is audience on three sides of the stage, some small studio theatres where all the seating is flexible and it moved for every show, according to the needs of the show.

For Proscenium houses, if the venue is very wide I will usually have a L-C-R set up. The Center is used primarily for vocal reinforcement only. The L-R is used primarily for music reinforcement and vocal effects, etc... I say primarily as I almost always have a system DSP/Matrix that distributes my mixes among many speakers. So a Left Right Orchestra Mix might go mostly to the L-R in the house, but also to L/R monitors in the wings of the stage for the actors to hear. And the vocals will go mostly to the Center, but also a bit to the L-R as the center cluster might roll off too steeply in the high end to cover the far left and far right side of the house.

If the venue is very wide my "center" might actually be 3 or 4 or more spaced out speakers that cover the "center" of each seating section. So there is no center cluster, but a distributed line of speakers that serve to "center" the image of the vocals to the stage for each section of seating in the house.

Then I might have a row of tiny speakers along the lip of the stage. This is usually smaller stuff, like 6" or 8" two way speakers just to pull the image of the vocals down to the stage for the first 2 to 4 rows of seats.

For tiny venues of less than 100 seats, it's often hung by the needs of the show. Sometimes it's just 2 speakers and powered sub. For shows where all I need is some transition music and such and then a phone rings. But for example I just did this show that I wrote an article about.

http://www.rbicompaudio.20m.com/article ... ad/ED.html

Even though it's only 84 seats, I have 11 speakers in the theatre.

Now to start out with I'm not trying to replace all of this stuff. Maybe eventually I will. I guess right now I'd like to start out by building something similar in size and weight to a SX300 or SRM450. Those are some models of speakers I work with a lot. This is all just an experiment at the moment. If it works well.. now then I might just start to really assemble and design a complete sound system for a particular venue. But I am not going to bite off more than I can chew just yet. LOL.

Thanks!

Richard

[Tom Smit]

I'm think right now I'll just order plans for the Jack and the Omni 12 and maybe the Omni 12 PA top. Those seem like the right balance of construction difficulty and size at least to start off with.
Thanks everyone,
Richard

If you are going to order that many plans, maybe you should order the CD with all the plans. Then when you have a desire to build some subs, you will already have the plans.

[RBIngraham]

I'm think right now I'll just order plans for the Jack and the Omni 12 and maybe the Omni 12 PA top. Those seem like the right balance of construction difficulty and size at least to start off with.
Thanks everyone,
Richard

If you are going to order that many plans, maybe you should order the CD with all the plans. Then when you have a desire to build some subs, you will already have the plans.

Yea you are probably right.. but alas.. it's too late.

Thanks,

Richard

[gdougherty]

I'm think right now I'll just order plans for the Jack and the Omni 12 and maybe the Omni 12 PA top. Those seem like the right balance of construction difficulty and size at least to start off with.
Thanks everyone,
Richard

If you are going to order that many plans, maybe you should order the CD with all the plans. Then when you have a desire to build some subs, you will already have the plans.

Yea you are probably right.. but alas.. it's too late.

Thanks,

Richard

Nah, not too late. Just let Bill know you want the CD and pay the difference. Good to see you over here RB.
Few things for you. There are multiple HF options in Bill's designs. That gives you some flexibility and capabilities you won't get with other speakers. The arrayed piezos will give you super tight vertical dispersion. When I say super tight, I mean tight, 10 degrees if not less. That's really nice to keep things off the floor and ceiling, it can also be a limitation in some situations when you'd like broader coverage. The melded arrays really do perform as advertised. They'd work beautifully as center speakers, especially if placed forward of the stage. Depending on the width of the theater, one should be plenty. I've been out at some festivals lately and the stacks there remind me just how spoiled I am with the wide dispersion I get out of the melded arrays. As awesome as the wide coverage is for outdoor gigs, they're sometimes problematic indoors. If they're not forward of the stage you'll have slightly more feedback issues because they really cover wide. Straight arrays or the DIY horn option will work better when you want tighter horizontal coverage. For your small theaters the Jacks may be a good option if you don't need or want subs. They'll cover full-range pretty well and at volumes that will be plenty for a small theater. Depending on your HF selection you may need multiples anyway. If you want subs for sound effects and music, definitely go with the OT12's. The OT's will get you more headroom over the jack due to their huge sensitivity advantage.

[bitSmasher]

Another vote for buying the CD, purely for curiosity - as you read more you'll want to check out other plans so you might as well get them all in one go.