Fighting Stage Noise

Hello All!

I wanted to talk a little today about stage noise and in ear monitors, why they are important, who should use them, and the dangers involved.

In my opinion, stage noise should be reduced as much as possible all the time... What do I mean by this?  I mean that if you can find a way to lower the amount of sound coming from the stage, assuming the talent is quality, your overall sound should be better.

A couple of ways to do this...

1) Get in ear monitors... They cut several dB of sound coming from your stage via wedge monitors, and could eliminate several issues regarding frequency cancellation, phasing issues, and help in eliminating feedback.

2) Either move your guitar amps off stage in isolation cabinets, or play through a pre-amp and monitor through your in ears...

3) If your drummer will do it, play with an electric kit. (This is better when you have multiple drummers such as in a volunteer band at a church)

***Note... This does not matter as much on a large stage where the main level is much greater than the level on stage, but still is a good idea.***

Why They Are Important:

The idea of eliminating stage noise should be important because your front of house engineer has to battle your stage sound with the main mix for the entire performance.

A friend of mine used to run sound at a bar, and would consistently get complaints that the electric guitar or the drums were to loud... He would tell them that the loud instrument was not even coming through the mains and there was nothing he could do... Unfortunately, often times this makes the engineer look bad when in reality it is the band causing the issue because the guitarist needs to 'feel' his sound. (I can make fun of guitarists because I am one...LOL)

The other issue would be, as mentioned earlier, the possibility of creating frequency cancellation. unintended phasing of your sound, or feedback.  This can cause you not get the sound you are looking for in a mix easily.  There are ways to do this, but it can get difficult.

By getting rid of wedge monitors, you can potentially get rid of several dB allowing your main mix to become much greater than your stage noise allowing your front of house engineer to have a much easier time during the performance.

In my next post, I am going to explain frequency cancellation, and other aspects that cause the sound to be degraded.

Who Should Use Them:

It seems that most believe that only bands that have huge recording contracts, or mega churches are supposed to use technology such as in ear monitors.  This could not be further from the truth.  In ear monitors are actually probably better suited to small venues due to the stage volume issue.

There also seems to be this idea that in ear monitors have to be wireless... as it turns out, there are several options that allow you to have a simple wired setup for very minimal cost!

Dangers Involved:

People often times associate in ear monitors with hearing conservation... This is and isn't true... With proper management, in ear monitors can be very beneficial to maintaining your hearing.  However if played to loud in your ear, you will suffer sever damage to your hearing...

There are however a couple ways you could help yourself.

1) Get a quality pair of in ears.  You can either get a custom set made by a certified company with ear molds done by an audiologist, or you can get a quality set from Shure or another similar company... Do Not use iPod buds or something similar.  You want the isolation provided by a quality set of in ears so you can set your monitors at a relatively low level!

2) Learn how to play at a lower level... It takes a little while to get used to it, but it is well worth saving your hearing.

There is often also a feeling of isolation for people when the first start using them.  When you first start out, this is true.  You can quickly get used to the feeling and will soon appreciate the ability you have to hear!  If you are really passionate about feeling like you are a part of the room, put up a few microphones to capture the audience and run them back through your in ears.

I hope this helps a little!

Thanks!

Tom Noble

The Father of Modern Architectural Acoustics

Hello,

I wanted to jump right in and start with a little history lesson in acoustics!

Acoustics have been around for a very long time, but there was one guy in particular that most call the father of modern architectural acoustics.  His name was Wallace Clement Sabine.

In as easy and simple terms as I can make it, he figured out this idea of giving a number to reverberation and how to quantify absorption into a coefficient.

Ill start out by explaining his way of measuring reverberation in a room.  

In 1895 Sabine was at Harvard working in the physics department. The University had built the Fogg Lecture Hall not too long before, and quickly found out that the room was unusable and classified impossible to fix by senior members of the department.  When the room was partially empty, the students were not able to understand the professor. Eventually, the problem landed on Sabine's lap.

Conducting several tests using nothing more than a portable pipe organ, trained listeners, and a stopwatch, he played the pipe organ at a controlled level and stopped it immediately.  His trained listeners then told him when the sound became inaudible.  Without getting real deep into the topic, the difference was about 60 decibels (dB).  This is where the term RT60 comes from.  It was the amount of time it took sound to decay 60 dB.

Fogg Lecture Hall took approximately 5.5 seconds to decay 60 dB.  After doing the same experiment on several other lecture halls, and concert halls he came to the conclusion that a good concert hall had a reverb time (RT60) of approximately 2-2.25 seconds, and a good lecture hall had an RT60 of 1 second.

Now, on to his work on absorption.

During his many studies on the Fogg Lecture Hall, Sabine figured out that by adding seat cushions to the chairs in the room, he could reduce the RT60.  He determined that by adding 6 seat cushions to the room, it was equivalent to 1 person.

Eventually he wanted to be able to put a number to absorption.  By creating a number system, he was able to define how effective a material was at absorbing sound.  The scale developed is between 0.0-1.0 sabines.  1.0 was defined as 1 square foot of open window, meaning everything that hits that one square foot of open window is 'absorbed'.

Along with his discoveries at Fogg, he also developed several concert and lecture halls including Symphony Hall in Boston (considered by many to be one of the best sounding halls).  He also started Riverbank Labs in Geneva, Illinois.  Riverbank is a leader in providing acoustic data for product currently used by many major companies.

The life of Wallace Clement Sabine is a fascinating one and he provides much insight into the world of acoustics! I hope you enjoyed this bit of history about Sabine!

Until next time!

Tom Noble

Advanced Acoustic Solutions

Hello,

Welcome to the official Advanced Acoustic Solutions blog!  We are here to provide you with fun information, product reviews, dispel certain rumors in the audio world, and much more! 

Right now, I want to start off by telling you a little about who we are and why we started this business.

We are a small company that is owned and operated by our three co-founders.  The three co-founders are Tom Noble, Rob Noble, and Scott Henson.  Each of us have our specialties, but we also all have the ability to help out in any area of our business.  

We mainly focus on audio, video, and acoustics, but we are not limited to these specific topics.  We are also all able to assist you in almost anything technical including computer networking.  

We believe that you are more than just another job or a number on a page.  We like to take time and meet with you to understand what your business or church needs.  We want to create a relationship with you that will allow you to feel comfortable with us and our services.  

The business was started because we felt there was a need for our ideas in this industry.  Each of the co-founders actually did all these things as hobbies for many years before this business started.  We spent countless hours together looking in to new product and cool unique ways to solve any problem we were presented with.  

In short, we started this business because we absolutely love what we do! We want to help you reach a solution while staying in budget.

So, this is a look into who we are and why we started this business.  

Check back with us periodically to see new posts!

Tom