21 articles
Live Sound Lessons.
Live sound tutorials: PA tuning, line arrays, mixing and stage monitoring.
Everything About the Line Array
Becoming a Live Sound Engineer
Double Subwoofer Ring: Circular Array Configuration, Chapter II
General goal of the project. The main goal is to make available and introduce to experts and others interested in the industry an innovative way of tackling a show on a circular…
Double Subwoofer Ring: Circular Array Configurations, Part I
Since the early days of live sound, thousands of shows have been staged, large and small, and what they all have in common is that they rely on sound systems capable of amplifying…
Acoustic Prediction Software
These programs let you view, and in some cases hear, acoustic simulations of a given sound system in any venue. Today there are numerous computer programs capable of predicting…
Measurement Software and Sound System Tuning
Today, no mid-size or large event goes ahead without acoustic measurement software to tune the P.A. system correctly. We say software because, apart from the dedicated SIM3…
The Concept of Acoustic Phase in Live Sound
Most of the acoustic phenomena we observe as audience members or suffer as engineers are related to acoustic phase. Remember that in previous articles we saw that the operating…
Using Filters: Butterworth, Linkwitz-Riley and Bessel
When we talk about filters in audio, they are more important than they might seem at first; there are even sound engineers who don't use them in 90% of cases, but it is necessary…
Acoustic Cancellations: Placement and Control to Avoid Them
There is an acoustic phenomenon that has been present at every live concert since the beginning of live music: acoustic cancellations. So many people leaving a concert make wildly…
Subwoofer Arrays
In this article we will look at the different ways of placing subwoofers in a live sound setup. By subwoofers we mean the loudspeakers that handle the lowest part of the audio…
Processing Dynamics
We lay out the purpose and the role that those machines in charge of dynamic processing of audio signals, known as dynamics processors, can, or rather should, fulfill. Before…
Power Amplifiers
This is the link in the audio chain we pay the least attention to, and yet it is still one of the most important. The power amplifier is what delivers the energy the loudspeakers…
Line Arrays: How They Work
Line arrays are specifically designed so that when we assemble several units, the whole behaves as a single sound source. This is what sets them apart from conventional systems.
Sound Reinforcement Systems
To understand how sound reinforcement systems work, meaning what we call sound reinforcement systems or P.A. (Public Address) systems, we need to recall some basic theoretical…
Audio Level Meters and Prevention: Definition, Features, Operation and Applications
The future will always be tomorrow; perhaps that is why it is hard or impossible to define exactly how far we will go—or, as the popular saying goes, where we are headed. What we…
Sound Measurements
We know that sound can be heard, although each person hears it differently depending on where they are in a venue, and it also varies a great deal with the response of each…
Constructive and Destructive Interference
Being in one position or another in a concert audience means the sound each listener perceives will be different. This phenomenon is unavoidable and is a consequence, among other…
Loudspeaker Arrays and Configurations for Live Sound
Although most medium and large events today use line arrays, we must not forget that they are not always the ideal system for every case. Using a line array requires more advanced…
Power Amps: The Muscle of the Audio System
The primary job of any power amplifier is to boost the signals it receives at its input from a preamp to the level needed to drive the speaker or speakers connected to its output…