Theory and Practice

I recently did a small tour around a bunch of churches which included a choir that was mic'd via 14 large diaphragm condensers. It also included a very well-known artist leading the choir who wanted to hear the choir in her side-fill monitors.

We got a couple of letters regarding last month's "Theory and Practice" column. So we are all on the same page, the purpose of that article was to impart a basic understanding of what digital audio is comprised of for the guys who are not interested in all of the formulas and math.

It's been a while since I've heard someone go on a rant about "how much better analog sounds than digital." But recently at a gig, this great pastime was re-visited and made me think about writing why, and possibly how, to keep the "sonic" quality up in the digital world.

Have you ever heard the saying, "Ask 100 engineers that question, and you'll get 100 different answers?" That can be said about how stage monitors are selected and placed. Whether it be wide dispersion, narrow dispersion, horns in, horns out, wedge angles, horn throat sizes – the list goes on and on. There are hundreds of products out there and just as many ways to achieve the same goal.

Time alignment is a very important yet often overlooked aspect of system setup and tuning. A correctly time-aligned system has many benefits, including more even coverage where two sound sources overlap and a more even response across acoustical crossover points. It can give the cheapest of systems a couple decibels more in the area where engineers tend to like them most: bass frequencies. So let's take a look at subwoofer time alignment.

Here's another informative column by Mark Amundson, reprinted from the Aug. 2009 issue of FOH. -ed.

Being in the live sound business, and especially towards the ankle-biting side, I get a lot questions of how much audio power or amperes of loading a typical circuit can handle before tripping the circuit breaker.

Here’s another favorite column written by Mark Amundson (1960-2009) for the Jan. 2008 issue of FOH. —ed.

Yeah, we all have a techno-ignorant past that we have to bear, especially when it comes to speaker cables. I remember when speaker cable for the P.A. system was that clear plastic stuff with copper and nickel/copper wires inside that we bought innocently at some retail store.

Mark Amundson had a gift for making technical details understandable to newbies without ever making the vets feel like they were being talked down to. His untimely death has left us with two holes to fill —one in our hearts, as we lost not only a writer but a dear friend, and another in the pages of FOH. Mark knew as well as anyone in this business that the show must go on, and we are just beginning the process of trying to find someone both willing and able to fill Mark’s very large shoes. For the next few issues, in a sort of tribute, we will re-run some of Mark’s own favorite columns. This one first appeared in FOH, Nov. 2007—ed.

Being in the live sound business, and especially towards the ankle-biting side, I get a lot questions of how much audio power or amperes of loading a typical circuit can handle before tripping the circuit breaker.