In a recent post on this blog, I discussed what I refer to as The Magnitude Fallacy, which describes the human tendency to focus disproportionately on All The Small Things. In the weeks since, I’ve come to realize that this concept also readily describes my views on the general state of sound system engineering. Lately, …
Those studying the third edition of Bob “6o6” McCarthy’s system design treatise, Sound Systems: Design and Optimization, are introduced to a mechanism coined the Lateral Aspect Ratio. The basic idea is as follows: The coverage angle of a loudspeaker is traditionally defined as the point as which, moving axially away from the on-axis reference, the high …
Humans are worriers. It’s what we do. Some more than others, of course – my late Italian grandmother could have won an Olympic gold medal in it – but there are legitimate scientific underpinnings to this. Statistically speaking, humans are not good at estimating probabilities or risk. In his book Innumeracy, author John Allen Paulos …
“Where do I put the mic?” is probably the single most frequently asked question whenever system alignment topics are discussed. Ask fifteen sound engineers and you’ll get twenty opinions – here we will instead explore a reductionist approach to the question. A measurement microphone can be considered a test probe – its job is to …
Note: this is an updated and expanded version of a much older post. It also appears in this same form on ProSoundWeb. There’s a running joke in the system optimization community: “How much time does it take to tune a sound system?” The answer (“as much time as you have”) is often all too true …
I’ll be honest, I’m pretty jaded when it comes to DSPs (a technically-not-super-accurate blanket term that we often use as a catch-all for system processors, matrix mixers, and the like). FOH control racks in the live / touring world continue to be dominated by the venerable Lake with some Meyer Galileo thrown in for good …
I spent some time today playing with both of these tools designed to allow you to measure In Ear Monitors with an audio analyzer. In this post I’ll be discussing the Audix TM2 and the SLS-Audio MiEMi. Here are my comments on both – please note, this is not intended to be an exhaustive or official review, just …
Rather than deal with the legal and logistical challenges of short-range FM transmission, many drive-in concert events in the U.S. are simply opting to fly PA. My friend and touring mix engineer Fletcher McDermott recently reached out to me as he was preparing to mix a drive-in concert, wondering if I was aware of any …
When I was in high school, I was a member of the Cross Country team. What I found very appealing about that sport was that it wasn’t just about competition with other runners – it was also about competition with yourself – pushing yourself to always improve upon your best results. I feel some of …
The wonderful silver lining of our present situation is that the internet is being flooded with all sorts of seminars, online classes, training videos, and the like. I’ve got a bunch of stuff bookmarked to dive into and it feels a bit like trying to drink from a firehouse. However, I’ve stumbled across a few …