Sound Reflection

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Mike Burke

Mike Burke

The DJ Dude
Dec 29, 2016
82
42
Colonial Beach Virginia
www.michaelburkeentertainment.com
I DJ'd at a very popular location last night over in my old town . A very beautiful and posh location, the hall was great, awesome size, awesome staff awesome floor... but I did have a little bit of difficulty with sound reflection. The sound kept bouncing back at me and it was a little "off -putting." Aside from getting Aurelex baffles and putting up things to stop bouncing the beats off the walls what could be suggested to help lessen that effect?
 
Line array speakers (or lots of money on a ton of rack mounted gear that will break your back and your bank.)
 
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Volume, equalization and positioning. Keeping the volume down helps .. but will usually require more speakers or as Cap said, a linear array setup where physics helps carry the sound further at lower volumes. EQing out certain reverberant frequencies can help, but for me the biggest factor is positioning.

Keep speakers away from back walls if you're getting reflections there (especially glass windows) .. and toe in speakers so they aren't covering the side walls .. sometimes you need to put the speaker closer to the outside wall and angle it in so the distribution cone stays in the room.
 
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"The ideal place to put a speakers for a hall is in the top corner pointed down at an angle. This generally requires hanging them, though, so if you don't own the hall you are stuck with stands." That's why they place speakers like that in large concert halls. Read this - Sound Reflection

speaker tilter.jpg
I put my stands as high as possible and use these to aim the speakers right at the dance floor.
 
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Used a similar style speaker tilter. Works great IF the speakers are not heavy or if you have a second person along to help with the lifting. Unfortunately, I didn't have a pair of the speaker stands that one can raise easily due to the compressed air...although I did have a pair of crank stands. One still had to lift the speaker to the starting height. Getting them up high and angled down on to the crowd really does help with the echo or slap-back.
 
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These were hung in corners, it was the house system, about 20 feet up. I only hooked up my board and my laptop, so in this instance 1/2 the equipment wasn't mine. I didn't have that much control over it. I would have thought with as many weddings as this place does that if they were going to have a system like that, they would have figured this out by now.
 
What speakers do they have in this place and what mixing board are they using?
 
Maybe the first link I posted wasn't good enough. Here's another addressing the "too reverberant" problem - How to Configure Your PA System | Articles | PreSonus

What both are trying to convey is the importance of the dancers hearing most of the sound coming directly from the speakers, while minimizing the reflected sound coming from the surrounding surfaces. There is a time delay (basically an echo) between the direct and reflected sound, since they travel different distances, which makes it less intelligible. IMHO, the easiest way for a mobile DJ to correct this (mid and high frequencies) is to use directional speakers properly aimed at the dance floor.

Low frequencies, which are omni-directional and subject to standing waves in an enclosed space, require that the subs be located separate from the mid/high speakers - ideally next to a wall or more than 8' from a wall - and in a position so that a standing wave null does not fall on the dance floor. Only through shear luck will this sub(s) location not require electrical delay on either the tops or the subs, so that everything comes together at the right time on the dance floor. Remember, we are talking BIG rooms here.

Now, what was that question about the mixing board?
 
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If you're using a house system and have no ability to influence how the sound is set up... there isn't much you can do.
 
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