7 May
2009
7 May
'09
1:42 a.m.
A very knowledgeable pro audio person just gave me a mini-course on how to
do basic sound setup for a mike, something I¹ve always wanted to know more
about. At many dances there is a sound person who will do this for you but
sometimes there isn¹t and this little bit of info may be of help. It
certainly demystified things for me. I wrote this up and then edited it a
bit more after getting his feedback. Others may have additional comments.
How to ³Ring Out a Channel² for a microphone
You overall goal is to adjust the sound coming out of the house speakers to
get as much volume as you can without any ringing¹ sound. Every room is
different in terms of what frequencies it absorbs and reflects, so the
necessary settings will differ from place to place. Different mikes will
also require different settings. The adjustment described below can be done
systematically and in just a few minutes.
1. Setting Initial Gain from the Mic (aka input level or ³trim²)
* Turn house volume (for your mike) completely down
usually the last knob or
slider
* Set all EQ controls to flat (middle position)
* Turn up Gain - usually the first control knob or slider for your microphone
channel¹ - while speaking into mike until you see levels on the meter or the
clipping light flashes. Adjust gain to just below clipping or 0db (same thing)
depending on what kind of feedback level meter or clipping light - is
available on the sound board.
2. Setting EQ (balancing the sound for the room by
getting rid of the
ringing)
* Turn up house volume on the mic channel until you
hear a ringing along with
your voice
* Reduce level on first EQ slider/dial (often labeled highs¹) to see if it
reduces or eliminates ringing. If it does, increase house volume again until
ringing is again apparent. If no change, reset to flat and go to next EQ
range.
* Reduce level on next EQ slider/dial to reduce/eliminate ringing. Increase
house volume again until ringing occurs.
* Repeat for each subsequent EQ range available on sound board some may just
have highs, mids and lows, others may have multiple mid-range adjustments. You
may not need to adjust all the EQ¹s, e.g. the low frequency in particular,
just keep running up the volume and adjusting out the rings until you have
plenty of volume. Your objective is to get as much volume as you need for the
performance without ringing.
3. Fine-tuning: If time permits after you¹ve rung out
the channel you can
then play with the EQ to adjust for sound quality. Keep talking into the mic
and make very subtle adjustments to the EQ until you get a smooth natural
sound.
Will Loving
Amehrst, MA
8 May
8 May
2:01 a.m.
Will wrote:
"Your overall goal is to adjust the sound coming out of the house speakers to
get as much volume as you can without any 'ringing' sound."
Thank you Will for this information. I
understand how this process would work for most
PA system setups at musical concerts and other
performances. It is certainly targeted at
minimizing feedback--a worthy goal in any situation.
I have concerns, however, if this is the best way
to set up a caller's mike. When I attend dances
I find that the caller's mike is often set up
with a lot of low frequency response and little
high frequency. I wonder if that may be because
the audio person has followed this very advice.
With little high frequency response the caller is
likely to have difficulty being understood
clearly because the highs are essential for
hearing the speech articulation sounds that help
us to distinguish between words. The words
"left" and "right," for example, will sound
almost identical when the high frequencies are removed.
A concert is a very different situation than a
social event. At a concert the fans already know
the words and those who don't can simply buy the
album and read the insert, (if that kind of thing
is important to them). The voice is really being
used as a musical instrument and clear
articulation is not vital. The context of words
in a song will often reveal the meaning without
being able to make out every word. In any case
there is no pressure to catch every word either sung or spoken.
Do you remember the sound of a PA system on a
military ship? You've heard it in movies. The
voice is transmitted through metal horns that are
very tinny, reproducing all of the high
frequencies with great effectiveness. This may
not sound soothing or melodious but in a critical
situation--where lives depend on instructions
being understood clearly--this setup is perfect
for cutting through the roar of the sea, the
engines, and the wind to make the message understandable.
At a contra dance we don't need the blare of a
ship's PA system, but the principle is an
important one. English is not a tonal language
and fricatives, stops, and glides are essential
for communication. We need to hear these speech
elements clearly, and they all occur in the higher frequencies.
Contra dances are social events. As such the PA
system is really there for reinforcement only and
high volume does not need to be the primary
goal. Perhaps our efforts would be better
directed at discussing the skills a caller uses
to earn and hold the attention of the hall so
that we can lower the overall volume. For many
dancers this would be greatly appreciated. It
would lower stress levels in the hall and
encourage a more sociable and gracious tone. I
find that at a lower volume I can crank up the
treble on my mike without feedback problems. It
is much easier to be understood at a lower volume
with the high frequencies emphasized.
Thank you Will for educating me on this
technique. I can see why it is done and I can
also see how it can create problems for a dance caller.
I would be very interested to hear what others think of all this.
Just a thought,
Greg
*********
At 06:42 PM 5/6/2009, Will wrote:
A very knowledgeable pro audio person just gave me a
mini-course on how to
do basic sound setup for a mike, something I¹ve always wanted to know more
about. At many dances there is a sound person who will do this for you but
sometimes there isn¹t and this little bit of info may be of help. It
certainly demystified things for me. I wrote this up and then edited it a
bit more after getting his feedback. Others may have additional comments.
How to ³Ring Out a Channel² for a microphone
You overall goal is to adjust the sound coming out of the house speakers to
get as much volume as you can without any ringing¹ sound. Every room is
different in terms of what frequencies it absorbs and reflects, so the
necessary settings will differ from place to place. Different mikes will
also require different settings. The adjustment described below can be done
systematically and in just a few minutes.
1. Setting Initial Gain from the Mic (aka input level or ³trim²)
* Turn house volume (for your mike)
completely down usually the last knob or
slider
* Set all EQ controls to flat (middle position)
* Turn up Gain - usually the first control
knob or slider for your microphone
channel¹ - while speaking into mike until
you see levels on the meter or the
clipping light flashes. Adjust gain to just
below clipping or 0db (same thing)
depending on what kind of feedback level meter
or clipping light - is
available on the sound board.
2. Setting EQ (balancing the sound for the room by
getting rid of the
ringing)
* Turn up house volume on the mic channel
until you hear a ringing along with
your voice
* Reduce level on first EQ slider/dial (often labeled highs¹) to see if it
reduces or eliminates ringing. If it does,
increase house volume again until
ringing is again apparent. If no change, reset to
flat and go to next EQ
range.
* Reduce level on next EQ slider/dial to reduce/eliminate ringing. Increase
house volume again until ringing occurs.
* Repeat for each subsequent EQ range
available on sound board some may just
have highs, mids and lows, others may have
multiple mid-range adjustments. You
may not need to adjust all the EQ¹s, e.g. the low
frequency in particular,
just keep running up the volume and adjusting out the rings until you have
plenty of volume. Your objective is to get as
much volume as you need for the
performance without ringing.
3.
Fine-tuning: If time permits after you¹ve rung out the channel you can
then play with the EQ to adjust for sound quality. Keep talking into the mic
and make very subtle adjustments to the EQ until you get a smooth natural
sound.
Will Loving
Amehrst, MA
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers 
2:50 a.m.
I totally agree with Greg on cutting the low frequencies. I also appreciate the info on
ringing out the room. I have wondered: do men need to hear higher frequencies and women
not so much?
Joe Micheals
Seattle
--- On Thu, 5/7/09, gregmck(a)earthlink.net <gregmck(a)earthlink.net> wrote:
From: gregmck(a)earthlink.net <gregmck(a)earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Callers] How to "Ring out a (microphone) channel"
To: "Caller's discussion list" <callers(a)sharedweight.net>
Date: Thursday, May 7, 2009, 7:01 PM
Will wrote:
"Your overall goal is to adjust the sound coming out of the house speakers
to
get as much volume as you can without any 'ringing' sound."
Thank you Will for this information. I understand how this process would work
for most PA system setups at musical concerts and other performances. It is
certainly targeted at minimizing feedback--a worthy goal in any situation.
I have concerns, however, if this is the best way to set up a caller's
mike. When I attend dances I find that the caller's mike is often set up
with a lot of low frequency response and little high frequency. I wonder if
that may be because the audio person has followed this very advice.
With little high frequency response the caller is likely to have difficulty
being understood clearly because the highs are essential for hearing the speech
articulation sounds that help us to distinguish between words. The words
"left" and "right," for example, will sound almost identical
when the high frequencies are removed.
A concert is a very different situation than a social event. At a concert the
fans already know the words and those who don't can simply buy the album and
read the insert, (if that kind of thing is important to them). The voice is
really being used as a musical instrument and clear articulation is not vital.
The context of words in a song will often reveal the meaning without being able
to make out every word. In any case there is no pressure to catch every word
either sung or spoken.
Do you remember the sound of a PA system on a military ship? You've heard
it in movies. The voice is transmitted through metal horns that are very tinny,
reproducing all of the high frequencies with great effectiveness. This may not
sound soothing or melodious but in a critical situation--where lives depend on
instructions being understood clearly--this setup is perfect for cutting through
the roar of the sea, the engines, and the wind to make the message
understandable.
At a contra dance we don't need the blare of a ship's PA system, but
the principle is an important one. English is not a tonal language and
fricatives, stops, and glides are essential for communication. We need to hear
these speech elements clearly, and they all occur in the higher frequencies.
Contra dances are social events. As such the PA system is really there for
reinforcement only and high volume does not need to be the primary goal.
Perhaps our efforts would be better directed at discussing the skills a caller
uses to earn and hold the attention of the hall so that we can lower the overall
volume. For many dancers this would be greatly appreciated. It would lower
stress levels in the hall and encourage a more sociable and gracious tone. I
find that at a lower volume I can crank up the treble on my mike without
feedback problems. It is much easier to be understood at a lower volume with
the high frequencies emphasized.
Thank you Will for educating me on this technique. I can see why it is done
and I can also see how it can create problems for a dance caller.
I would be very interested to hear what others think of all this.
Just a thought,
Greg
*********
At 06:42 PM 5/6/2009, Will wrote:
along with
mic
A very knowledgeable pro audio person just gave me a
mini-course on how to
do basic sound setup for a mike, something I¹ve always wanted to know
more
about. At many dances there is a sound person who will
do this for you but
sometimes there isn¹t and this little bit of info may be of help. It
certainly demystified things for me. I wrote this up and then edited it a
bit more after getting his feedback. Others may have additional comments.
How to ³Ring Out a Channel² for a microphone
You overall goal is to adjust the sound coming out of the house speakers
to
get as much volume as you can without any Œringing¹
sound. Every room is
different in terms of what frequencies it absorbs and reflects, so the
necessary settings will differ from place to place. Different mikes will
also require different settings. The adjustment described below can be
done
systematically and in just a few minutes.
1. Setting Initial Gain from the Mic (aka input level or ³trim²)
> * Turn house volume (for your mike) completely down usually the
last knob
or
> slider
> * Set all EQ controls to flat (middle position)
> * Turn up Gain - usually the first control knob or slider for your
microphone
> Œchannel¹ - while speaking into mike until you
see levels on the
meter or the
> clipping light flashes. Adjust gain to just below
clipping or 0db
(same thing)
> depending on what kind of feedback level meter
or clipping light -
is
available on
the sound board.
2. Setting EQ (balancing the sound for the room by getting rid of
the
ringing)
> * Turn up house volume on the mic channel until you hear a ringing > your voice
> * Reduce level on first EQ slider/dial (often labeled Œhighs¹) to
see if it
> reduces or eliminates ringing. If it does,
increase house volume
again until
> ringing is again apparent. If no change, reset to
flat and go to next
EQ
> range.
> * Reduce level on next EQ slider/dial to reduce/eliminate ringing.
Increase
> house volume again until ringing occurs.
> * Repeat for each subsequent EQ range available on sound board
some may
just
> have highs, mids and lows, others may have
multiple mid-range
adjustments. You
> may not need to adjust all the EQ¹s, e.g. the low
frequency in
particular,
> just keep running up the volume and adjusting out
the rings until you
have
> plenty of volume. Your objective is to get as
much volume as you need
for the
performance
without ringing.
3. Fine-tuning: If time permits after you¹ve rung out the channel
you can
then play with the EQ to adjust for sound quality. Keep talking into the and make very subtle adjustments to the EQ until you
get a smooth natural
sound.
Will Loving
Amehrst, MA
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
4:25 a.m.
It's been my experience with contra dance that, in general and with some
exceptions, I hear female caller's voices more easily than those of male
callers. I've always attributed this to the timbre of many men's voices
being closer to the background sound people talking and moving about.
However, as I've recently been learning more about sound management I've
realized that there are sometime other factors involved such as the sound
mix and the type of microphone used. In particular, I've discovered that the
Shure Beta 58A mic instead of the more common SM58 makes it easier for
people to hear my baritone voice.
Will
on 5/7/09 10:50 PM, joe micheals at joemicheals1(a)yahoo.com wrote:
I totally agree with Greg on cutting the low
frequencies. I also appreciate
the info on ringing out the room. I have wondered: do men need to hear
higher frequencies and women not so much?
Joe Micheals
Seattle
--
William M. Loving
Dedication Technologies, Inc.
7 Coach Lane
Amherst, MA 01002-3304 USA
will(a)dedicationtechnologies.com
Tel: +1 413 253-7223 (GMT 5)
Fax: +1 206 202-0476
4 a.m.
Speaking as a dance producer and sound mixer...
Everything is in proportion to the need of the moment and the current set-up.
It is worthwhile and fundamental to ring out a hall for rock concerts,
where the voice is often competing with extremely loud instruments,
and the producer/sound engineer needs to have as loud as possible
voice amplification, and feedback is a genuinely limiting factor in
voice amplification.
It is not so common that contra dance sound approaches the limits of
feed-back levels, hence adjusting for the hall, by ringing out the
channel may or may not be all that significant, and it can be that the
contribution of either the hall or the speakers toward emphasizing
some particular set of frequencies is less significant than figuring
out the relationship between the current caller's voice, microphone,
and sound system at hand.
And it can be quite useful to ring out channels for troublesome halls.
And even for non-troublesome halls. It matters in relation to many
other things too. Placement of the speakers, if they can be adjusted,
for example; also placement of the caller in relation to the speakers.
For Contra dance it may well be that adjustments made for a turned-up
channel and speaker system are helpful, but also may not be that
important. Further, it's an artistic and producer standard for the
music to be turned down in relation to the caller, when desirable, as
in a no-walk-through contra and for squares.
Can there be value in ringing out the hall and the caller's mike? Yes.
You can also end up with strange sounding vocals, because you may be
adjusting for a sound level you will never approach during the show.
Intelligibility, which can involve ringing out the channel, yet mostly
involves appropriately, as-needed reducing low-intelligibility
fundamentals, especially but by no means exclusively for male voices,
somewhere below about 700 or so hertz, and potentially slightly
boosting higher ranges, 1,500 hz to 4,000 or so, depending on the
voice, caller, hall, speaker location, monitor (if any), type of
speakers, the pointing of speakers, sound system, humidity, and so on.
The typical caller doesn't have a monitor, and the relationship with
the monitor is a primary starting point for feedback for musicians,
where ringing out the channel can really matter.
Caller technique, though, can have much more influence on intelligibility.
Does the caller have his mouth on the mic the whole time? Then the
bass-proximity effect of directional cardiod microphones will
emphasize the base end of the caller's voice, to great detriment of
intelligibility in higher frequencies, even if the caller's lows are
turned down radically.
If the same caller spoke from a foot away from the mic,
intelligibility can be improved many-fold, by reducing that
bass-proximity effect, and this alone can be far far more important
than adjusting the channel for the hall's reverberation on certain
frequencies, and a god deal quicker. Indeed, this could aid the caller
in challenging halls, if the sound person is not able to change the
difficulty, for whatever reason. Step back from the mic and speak up,
can be a useful strategy in such cases. (Recognizing the caller must
save her voice for the next performance too.)
Is the caller consistent in volume?
I can say that some callers are wildly inconsistent, by spurts loud,
and by spurts soft, or maybe they are punchy in voice, or perhaps
worse, loud on a walk through and soft when the music is played. A
punchy voice which is loud and soft from phrase to phrase is quite
challenging for a sound person to adjust for. If turned up, then the
loud is booming. If compressed, by the sound system to squash the loud
and bring the soft up in volume, then the vivaciousness of the voice
can be quite flattened.
Does the caller enunciate clearly, with verve, enthusiasm, melody and joy?
Are words well chosen, and few in number so that the audience hangs on
every sound, instead of ignoring the caller because he talks too much,
or a conversely a challenge to understand because only every 3rd word
"counts" informationally?
These non-sound amplification aspects of the caller performance too
can be more important than technical sound efforts.
Mark
On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 9:42 PM, Will Loving
<will(a)dedicationtechnologies.com> wrote:
A very knowledgeable pro audio person just gave me a
mini-course on how to
do basic sound setup for a mike, something I¹ve always wanted to know more
about. At many dances there is a sound person who will do this for you but
sometimes there isn¹t and this little bit of info may be of help. It
certainly demystified things for me. I wrote this up and then edited it a
bit more after getting his feedback. Others may have additional comments.
How to ³Ring Out a Channel² for a microphone
You overall goal is to adjust the sound coming out of the house speakers to
get as much volume as you can without any Œringing¹ sound. Every room is
different in terms of what frequencies it absorbs and reflects, so the
necessary settings will differ from place to place. Different mikes will
also require different settings. The adjustment described below can be done
systematically and in just a few minutes.
1. Setting Initial Gain from the Mic (aka input level or ³trim²)
* Turn house volume (for your mike) completely
down usually the last knob or
slider
* Set all EQ controls to flat (middle position)
* Turn up Gain - usually the first control knob or slider for your microphone
Œchannel¹ - while speaking into mike until you see levels on the meter or the
clipping light flashes. Adjust gain to just below clipping or 0db (same thing)
depending on what kind of feedback level meter or clipping light - is
available on the sound board.
2. Setting EQ (balancing the sound for the room by
getting rid of the
ringing)
* Turn up house volume on the mic channel until
you hear a ringing along with
your voice
* Reduce level on first EQ slider/dial (often labeled Œhighs¹) to see if it
reduces or eliminates ringing. If it does, increase house volume again until
ringing is again apparent. If no change, reset to flat and go to next EQ
range.
* Reduce level on next EQ slider/dial to reduce/eliminate ringing. Increase
house volume again until ringing occurs.
* Repeat for each subsequent EQ range available on sound board some may just
have highs, mids and lows, others may have multiple mid-range adjustments. You
may not need to adjust all the EQ¹s, e.g. the low frequency in particular,
just keep running up the volume and adjusting out the rings until you have
plenty of volume. Your objective is to get as much volume as you need for the
performance without ringing.
3. Fine-tuning: If time permits after you¹ve rung out
the channel you can
then play with the EQ to adjust for sound quality. Keep talking into the mic
and make very subtle adjustments to the EQ until you get a smooth natural
sound.
Will Loving
Amehrst, MA
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
Callers(a)sharedweight.net
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
5707
days inactive
5708
days old
contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
gregmck＠earthlink.net -
joe micheals -
Mark R Dobyns Jones -
Will Loving