If there's one thing that became clear at the AES Convention in New York last month, it's that live sound has rapidly made its way from the "Big Bang," or "Shotgun" theory, to what we at FOH call the "Sniper" approach.
It wasn't so long ago that the goal in delivering audio to large audiences essentially boiled down to "let's make it loud and hope for the best." During the formative days of live sound, that approach may have been acceptable, but these days–in spite of the fact that many people do a majority of music-listening in their cars or via MP3 players with limited fidelity–your average consumer expects more from a live show. People are plunking down top dollar to see concerts, and in addition to the visual aspect, the sound had better be good even at "cheap seats" that often sell in the vicinity of $100. With surround-sound theatre systems and plenty of video games found in homes across the country, we need to give people a reason to come out and play with us, or we'll all be out of work. Of course, audio manufacturers have always pursued the art of creating tools that enable us to meet that challenge more effectively. It started with power amplifiers that simultaneously married increased output with reduced weight, and then quickly progressed to system processors combining crossover, limiting, time-delay functions and graphic and parametric EQ in a single box with memory slots for storage and recall of your favorite configurations. Digital consoles give us the ability to reconfigure an entire console at the push of a button while offering more onboard DSP than we could carry in a rack without a backache. (As a quick side note, there was not one large-format analog console introduced at this year's AES.) Several years ago, the line array became all the rage and–though a line array may not be the correct solution for every venue–generally helped elevate the quality of our shows a notch or two.
But something really interesting happened roughly two years ago when Lake introduced their SmaartLive Controller for the Lake Contour: We started paying closer attention to the way our P.A. systems sound in areas other than just the mix position. As obvious as this may be, it's a major breakthrough because no engineer can possibly walk a room and make adjustments at Front of House while listening to the results under the balcony. Sure, you can get an assistant to help out, but let's face it: When your arse is on the line, do you want to trust any ears other than your own? I thought not. The ability to adjust the parameters of a P.A. system remotely while walking the room and listening to the results is huge, taking us across that dangerous bridge between "I think this will sound good " and "I know this sounds good."
Tools such as the line array and the remote-controlled speaker processor are not shotguns; they are sniper weapons designed as elegant, precise solutions to given problems. The struggle with live sound has always been consistency. How do you make every section of a hockey arena receive the same audio balance (read: mix) as what you are hearing at FOH? You have to listen from each section of the venue while making adjustments to the part of the array that covers that area. Otherwise, you're wasting your time, although running back and forth to FOH makes for good exercise.
The next generation of sniper tools revealed itself at the AES, and they may partly be trickling down from technology developed for the home theatre. The problem with home theatre is that guys want 5.1 (or 7.1, or whatever the latest rage is this week) regardless of the mess it makes on the living room floor. Their wives, on the other hand, don't want all this crap lying on the floor regardless of how cool the second Die Hard sounds in 7.1. Sometimes, running wires under the carpet is OK, and other times it's not. I tend to trip over lumps in the carpet. So, along comes a major home audio manufacturer who figures out a way to produce a single-speaker surround system (sounds kinda like jumbo shrimp). One box sits underneath your television, and inside this box are several dozen drivers. Careful aiming of these drivers combined with some slick psycho-acoustic DSP techniques makes you think you're listening to a discrete 5.1 system, but you don't have a mess in the room and wires all over the floor, making the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) much higher.
So what does this have to do with pro audio? Think about our ultimate goal in live sound: You want each and every audience member to hear the same mix that you hear at FOH regardless of where they are seated. You don't want them hearing speakers that are aimed at other parts of the room, and you don't want them hearing a ton of reflections from every boundary in the room. To accomplish this, you can either give every audience member a pair of headphones (I swear I'm gonna pull this off someday) or create a speaker array that features very carefully controlled dispersion. This requires sniper tools because the brute force approach of a shotgun isn't going to cut it. In the coming months, we'll be looking closely at these tools, how they work and how they can make your life easier. Until then, keep your ears open.
Steve "Woody" La Cerra is the FOH engineer and tour manager for Blue Öyster Cult. He can be reached via e-mail at Woody@fohonline.com.
