Audio Info & Education

The first consideration when preparing for a live gig is having the correct setup for the task at hand for a smooth running gig. It is important to get a rundown of what you are going to need for almost any gig. You would rather have too much than not enough. Remember, every gig is different and equipment will vary but the following is what you will need for every gig:

Americans are still reeling from the latest economic crisis to hit our country in fall 2008. Although experts keep stating we have moved beyond the recession, we can still see its lingering effects in our communities. At the peak of the economic downturn, there were a lot of lost jobs along with families losing their homes and this is a situation no one would like to have repeated in the future.

Landing your first tour can be exciting, but it can also be fairly stressful if you don’t know what to expect. There is a lot to consider, including equipment hauling, transportation, and even communicating with different venues. One of the first things you should do is consider what issues will arise. The more you tour, the easier it will get and you will become accustomed to what the demands of being on the road are. In an effort to ensure you are well prepared, here are some tips that will help you survive your first tour and get you well on the way to becoming a professional at touring.

In the days of hardware based electronic crossovers, it was necessary to send your bi-amp signals to separate power amps and then connect to your speaker's high frequency and low frequency drivers with separate cables or a custom wired cable. This made for a larger truck pack having more cables per speaker and a greater number of connection points between the board, crossover, power amps and speakers.

This video offers advice that will be invaluable for first time ear monitor users as well as current users. Included in the video are tips on mixing, obtaining the optimal signal strength and how to deal with the isolated feeling of wearing earbud monitors on stage. 

While reading through a professional audio forum online, a question was brought up by someone regarding the bass response of his system. He was having problems with very little bass down the middle of the room, but still had bass on the sides. On one side of the stage, he had to put the subwoofer behind the main speakers, but he had delayed the rest of the system to compensate. He was unsure if the small delay was causing the low bass in the middle issue. His system was comprised of very high quality components with the proper amplifiers and loudspeaker processors, although no Carvin Audio products.

Subwoofers are a critical component to a great sounding live show. Experimenting with the placement of your subwoofers can have a profound effect on the coverage of low frequencies to your audience. We are going to examine a real world subwoofer application where the setup consisted of 16 TRx3218 dual 18” subwoofers distributed across the stage in 4 clusters each containing 4 subs. The software model below shows the coverage of the distributed clusters vs. a stereo setup with equal number of subs per side of the stage.

When considering where and how to deploy your subwoofers there are many factors to consider. For many of the smaller systems or for events where the logistics prevent hanging the main P.A. system, the only obvious choice is to ground stack the system. Since most people would end up stacking the main speakers on top of the subwoofers on either side of the stage, the system technician needs to understand the interference that the subwoofers will have with each other.