People attend concerts to enjoy music and watch their
favourite performer but the work involved behind the
scenes is a well-thought out process involving so
many people. There is intensive planning done, setup
itself takes a long time and then the soundcheck,
which is the finale for the setup. You normally would
find a stage crew which takes care of backline gear
(heard of roadies?), system technicians who setup
and tune systems, rigging crew- the folks who operate
hydraulics to stack up line arrays or the speakers.
The soundcheck is for the performers to get familiar
with the stage sound/environment and their monitor
feeds and the overall sound in the venue, this is
also the time where the FOH engineer gets the overall
balance right.
If
you are new to sound reinforcement and are still
not sure what exactly is sound reinforcement, well
it can be defined as a process of reinforcing the
sound on stage to a larger audience, a process which
involves power amplifiers and loudspeakers primarily.
Even your home system can be considered as a sound
reinforcing system but in this case you are only
amplifying your CD through those hi-fi speakers.
In the case of live sound reinforcement, the systems
involved, like a mixing console or mixer, (which
you probably would have heard of or seen), power
amplifiers (those huge stacks if you've ever wandered
back stage), and those speakers either placed in
clusters besides the stage or more commonly today-
line arrays- are all reinforcing the band's sound
or artist's for the audience.
A lot
has happened in the past decade, the major factor
being the incorporation of digital gear in live sound
reinforcement. About five years ago many live sound
companies were still relying on analog systems, which
meant lots of copper all over the place (remember
the multi-core?), well it doesn't mean that copper
is no longer used, optical systems have just made
setup and breakdown much more easier with the benefits
of digital technology. Also, optical systems networked
through which broadcast or mobile units could trap
into and take a feed. Imagine running mulitple copper
snakes to these various units?
There
are professional companies that are offering live
sound solutions for big events; running shows with
intelligent lights, line arrays, digital consoles
and recording solutions. The people involved too are
trained professionals especially for speaker management
systems, system design experts, etc. The presence
of a computer in controlling sound reinforcement components
is getting more popular, line array- aligning and
dispersion patterns are controlled by these various
software, digital speaker management systems that
offer an array of critical outboard gear, all in one
unit.
pic source: gtaust.com
Becasue there is a need for
'quality hearing', there is also a rapid rise in companies
offering even sleeker and excellent systems. House
of worship is a big area where these manufacturers
are targetting, event management companies that cater
to established and popular music bands is another
vast area which brings in a lot of money.
There
are professional companies that are offering live
sound solutions for big events; running shows with
intelligent lights, line arrays, digital consoles
and recording solutions. The people involved too are
trained professionals especially for speaker management
systems, system design experts, etc. The presence
of a computer in controlling sound reinforcement components
is getting more popular, line array- aligning and
dispersion patterns are controlled by these various
software, digital speaker management systems that
offer an array of critical outboard gear, all in one
unit.
