Why Technically Correct Isn’t Always Best
I’ve learned many lessons in my time. However, one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned over the past couple of years is the significance of approaching your work with intent. In some instances, it’s creating a mix that tries to evoke a feeling from the audience. Other times, it may be a system designed to redirect energy to ensure artists are comfortable on stage and able to bring their best performance every night.
The Art of the Systems Engineer
Yet, approaching the work — knowing the overarching intent — and then using the data that way defines the art of the systems engineer. With the benefits of technology in our current toolset, we can approach our work with greater precision and ambition than ever before. I can build my day in 3D prediction software and compare virtual measurements to measurements from the field taken using Rational Acoustics’ Smaart software. While my job as a systems engineer primarily revolves around reading data, understanding mechanical design and system optimization techniques, it’s easy to mistake (or dismiss) this work as entirely science. However, upon working with a new front of house engineer, I had the pleasure of shifting our conversations to discuss the differences between a technically correct system to one that felt the way he wanted to feel as he mixed.
Music = Emotion, Not Data
Through a North American tour I did last year, I was reminded that music often aims to evoke emotion. Our goal was to have a tonally consistent system that gave each seat in the house the same show and create a show that sounded wonderful and made the audience feel something. To tap into this idea and avoid getting so caught up in the data that I missed the overall intent, I had to evolve my viewpoint of what I thought a system’s job was, other than to sound as close to the same everywhere as possible.
While I am committed to ensuring that every seat has an enjoyable experience and a tonally consistent show, at what point do we begin to consider the audience’s right to choose their own experience? At a rock concert, the audience in the pit may be looking for a more visceral experience, while the people in the last row may feel uncomfortable if they are physically far away from the stage and the sound doesn’t match what they see.
Like it or not, most people have a way they expect something to sound based on a preconceived notion or simply because of the way our brains work. Matching and acknowledging these expectations is one reason a measurably “correct” system isn’t always the best. For example, I did a tour early this past year where I had flown mains and sides, but only ground subs, with the front fills living on top of the subs. When I measured and tuned the front fills to match the flown arrays, they felt quiet and dark, because they were competing with the subs they were sitting on, so I ended up putting a little extra level into them. This resulted in the mix being tonally balanced in the front rows.
Through this process, I realized that a technically correct system can be tonally consistent across the entire coverage area, but tonal consistency isn’t the only benchmark for a system. It can be a primary objective without accomplishing the entirety of the goal of the mixer. A system’s tonality can be considered an art. I often chat with system engineers, and we talk to each other in terms that often sound like, “the mixer is the pilot, I’m the mechanic,” or “It’s my job to hand over a blank canvas so the engineer can paint whatever they perceive to be their interpretation of the artist’s sound.”
Bringing Art into a “Correct” System
Perhaps it comes from being a monitor engineer for a few years, but lately, I have asked engineers how they would like a system to feel. Once we get to the point where proper tuning and a high-quality system design can produce the same show in every seat, you can move on to the point where you can bring the art into the technically correct system. I treat this dialog as a way to find what an engineer is looking for without a target curve or other “target” I’ve been provided. I start with a standard system frequency response and then adjust it, based on the impact or how the energy in the room feels when the music gets turned up.
I keep finding myself in conversations where the goal is perfection, and we’re “chasing the last 1%” of a show. It’s that feeling in your chest when the subs hit just right; it’s the translation of emotion when there is an acoustic moment in a song. We get to start hunting and looking for the best tool for the job, or at least to get the most out of the tools we’re using by playing into their strengths.
Bold Assumptions
When measuring a system and looking at magnitude data as a benchmark of its tonality, we are making a bold assumption: a system is, to an extent, linear. The whole purpose of data is to act as a tool for system engineers to make informed decisions. I can look at a transfer function measurement (which, in its most simplistic terms, is a measurement that compares a system’s input to its output). In the context of a touring line array system, this often gives engineers an idea of the characteristics or behavior of a system.
When we begin to drive harder, mix louder or even measure quieter, realizing that while a system can look great on paper, it’s certainly possible that what you see isn’t always what you get.
And this is the art of data.
Sam Boone is a touring systems engineer and was the recipient of the NextGen honor at the Parnelli Awards in January 2024.
