I know this is outside of the recording realm but I thought I would ask a few professionals. Last weekend I had to run sound for a roller derby event in rink sized arena. Unfortunately the two announcers do not use a booth as they are part of the show. Well I was getting way too much slap back from the walls and the floor so most of the commentary was a bit boomy and hard to understand.
I gave them one 57 w/windscreen and one 58. I cut some bass eq from the board and that helped a little. I was thinking about adding some gates so one mic could not pick up the others room sound. Will this help? Any other suggestions? I have a few more of these events coming up soon. Thanks
Live Sound Question
2I have used some expansion or gating on lecturn mics when in really live spaces (the Royal Exehibition Building, Melbourne - for instance). This can help a bit but it doesnt really address the issues directly, so its never going to 'solve' the problems. Bear in mind this could also serve to introduce more problems if the threshold is set badly or the speaker has poor mic technique (premature chopping of words/sentances). If the speakers are your typical 'sports commentators' who like to go from talking to yelling at a moments notice, compression will help more than gating.
Ultimately what you need to be concerened about is speaker location and orentation - makeing sure you've got as much sound going in the direction of people, and as little as possible going to hard walls and ceilings. Using speakers with appriopriate horn shapes will also help alot.
If you need to cover the entire rink, rather than a confined area, you will probably have more success with a system consisting of many speakers each covering a small area at low to moderate volume, rather than two or four speakers trying to blast sound everywhere. The latter will probably sound best with amplifiers set to 'off'.
If the system your using in permanetly installed at the rink, then your probably not going to have the liberty of positioning speakers exactly where you want or bringing in more. In which case do the best you can, and don't sweat the rest - it's not your fault.
RE: Eqing. Bass cutting is pretty much par for the course when amplifying live voice. But it is mid range frequencies that are most important to inteligibility, so pay attention to what the space is doing to these Fs and deal with any that are dominating.
Oh and remeber after a certainly point, making things louder is going to significantly hinder inteligibility.
Ultimately what you need to be concerened about is speaker location and orentation - makeing sure you've got as much sound going in the direction of people, and as little as possible going to hard walls and ceilings. Using speakers with appriopriate horn shapes will also help alot.
If you need to cover the entire rink, rather than a confined area, you will probably have more success with a system consisting of many speakers each covering a small area at low to moderate volume, rather than two or four speakers trying to blast sound everywhere. The latter will probably sound best with amplifiers set to 'off'.
If the system your using in permanetly installed at the rink, then your probably not going to have the liberty of positioning speakers exactly where you want or bringing in more. In which case do the best you can, and don't sweat the rest - it's not your fault.
RE: Eqing. Bass cutting is pretty much par for the course when amplifying live voice. But it is mid range frequencies that are most important to inteligibility, so pay attention to what the space is doing to these Fs and deal with any that are dominating.
Oh and remeber after a certainly point, making things louder is going to significantly hinder inteligibility.