Hello Everyone,

I primarily perform school assemblies. Anyone who does school assemblies knows that you are always in different performing situations. Here is my question.

Alot of times, I'm in gymnasiums with terrible acoustics and the sound is very "BOOMY" .. that's the only way I know to describe it. I try to make sure my speakers ar placed correctly but it doesn't seem to help much. Is there anything I can do to cut down on this? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Rob

Rob, As far as placement of your speakers, make sure they are fairly wide apart and angle them in towards the center of the gym. This will help eliminate slap back against the back wall. If they can be mounted higher and aimed down towards the audience, this will help too.

One thing to remember; it will sound different when it is full versus when it is empty.

Lastly, when you hear it being "Boomy", where are you standing? If you are on "stage" you will only hear mostly the lows and virtually no highs thus it will always sound terrible and "boomy." Make sure you can get a good idea of how it sounds when the gym is full and from the center of the house.

Hope that helps.

Kevin,
Thanks for the advice. I use a fender passport 150 and my speakers are mounted on stands so that elevates the speakers to about 8-9 ft. I guess that does make sense about where I'm standing v.s. what the audience hears.

I don't know if you remember me ... but I think we met a few months ago at your church there in Indianapolis. Good to hear from you again.

Talk soon,
Rob

I used to perform in a lot of Gyms also.

The best thing I ever did for my sound system was to buy a 32 band Real Time Analyzer (RTA) with a pink noise generator and a 32 band EV equlizer (EQ).

This will allow you to quickly adjust your system to the room you are in. The RTA has red, yellow and green lights. You just adjust your EQ to where the lights are green on the RTA and you’re done.

My wireless Lav sounds as good and robust as any handheld. Very seldom do I get any feedback and if I do I can quickly tell which frequency it is and eliminate it with the EQ.

In another thread, http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=63972&forum=11&25, I mentioned the concept of an acoustical equivalent to "critial mass", specifically with regard to feedback.

Well, this concept also applies to the intelligibility of speech in a given venue. The more reverberant (bouncy) a room's sound is, the lower its intelligibility. (Actually, the room itself isn't intelligible, it's your words which are intelligible, but the literary shortcut works nicely.)

You're NEVER gonna get rid of that boomy sound, and I know you said you're placing your speakers correctly, but I just want to be sure. Make sure the people who need to hear the PA are within the "radiating pattern" of the PA's "high-frequency driver" (probably a "horn"). The people right in front of the stage may not need to hear the PA. Also, make sure the speakers are high-enough off the ground so that everyone who needs to hear the PA can literally see the high-frequency drivers.

I can also give a very basic description of a MUCH more technical (not to mention expensive) possibility for reducing the boomy sound in a particularly reverberant room, if that interests anyone. As always, I can make the description relatively "lay", but remember that this is an advanced technique, and not do-able by anyone but real audio professionals. If this interests anyone, please just post here, and I'll prepare something.

Cheers from Toronto!