Configuration for concert in tent

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LI_Slim

LI_Slim

voice in the wilderness
I am performing in and setting up a concert which will be outdoors in an enclosed tent. The tent will be about 30' x 30' and there will be about 50-70 people sitting in chairs. The performances will be solo acoustic guitar or electronic keyboard and vocal. I have an appropriate powered mixer with two speakers and monitor.

I was thinking that acoustically, it might be best to set up the stage in a corner, creating in effect a diamond-shaped space instead of a square one, and setting up the chairs in arcs instead of straight rows. I figure the speakers (on stands) will be on either side of the stage.

What do you think?
 
It's likely that the tent will absorb most of the ambient sound, so I'd probably use some reverb in the mix to compensate.

I'd be tempted to situate the speakers so that you covered the seating area appropriately - near the act and pointed towards the audience in two halves.

Don't assume you will get any reflections, because you probably won't. The audience dampen the frequency response further.
 
Thanks -- good advice.

Does anyone have any comments of the "diamond versus square" issue?
 
It's ingenious. I would not discount reflections, though. A 30' x 30' tent is small enough so the proximity of the mics to the speakers might be a problem. A traditional setup might allow you to separate them more to avoid feedback.

Are there complete walls to the tent or will one or more of them be open?

I've done this a few times in a traditional setup and I've found my preamp trims creep up and up - until I have them way too high and the mics distort as soon as somebody starts letting loose. I learned the hard way to keep gain moderate until the end of the chain.

Are you using the Mackie head's EQ to dial in the system? Are you doing monitors or leaving them out (I avoid them if possible).

What are you using for mics and how many mics will be live at once (maximum)? Two or three = fine. Six is a handful.

Any amps on stage?
 
You WILL get reflections in that tent! Beware. It will not be the "dead" acoustic environment like being totally outdoors.

But, you will mostly be getting fairly high mids to high frequency reflections, NOT low mids and lows like you would in a "room", thus, where you set up in the room is of little consequence. Do whatever looks the best and creates the best flow of people in and out and has good sight lines.

Ed
 
Treeline said:
It's ingenious. I would not discount reflections, though. A 30' x 30' tent is small enough so the proximity of the mics to the speakers might be a problem. A traditional setup might allow you to separate them more to avoid feedback.

Are there complete walls to the tent or will one or more of them be open?

I've done this a few times in a traditional setup and I've found my preamp trims creep up and up - until I have them way too high and the mics distort as soon as somebody starts letting loose. I learned the hard way to keep gain moderate until the end of the chain.

Are you using the Mackie head's EQ to dial in the system? Are you doing monitors or leaving them out (I avoid them if possible).

What are you using for mics and how many mics will be live at once (maximum)? Two or three = fine. Six is a handful.


Any amps on stage?
Click to expand...

All three acts are solo acts, so there will only be one mic at a time; possibly two if we have a chance to work out a harmony beforehand.

I am using the Mackie 406M, although I might put the guitar through my new Mackie DFX-6 first so I can have more distinct EQ and/or effects on it. No amps.

I plan to use a monitor. I'd rather make sure I can hear myself, and with the main speakers forward of the mic feedback should be no problem.

Your comment about mic distortion is interesting. It seems to me that as long as the gain is properly set and then not touched, increasing the volume(s) should not be a problem.

Tent walls will probably be closed, unless it's an unusually warm night.

We might end up going to a 30 x 50 tent. It looks like we'll have about 70 people, so the 30 x 30 might be a tad cramped. What do you think? I suppose I could still use the "diamond" set up, although it'd just be a trapezoid set up, or perhaps a parallelogram.
 
sonusman said:
You WILL get reflections in that tent! Beware. It will not be the "dead" acoustic environment like being totally outdoors.

But, you will mostly be getting fairly high mids to high frequency reflections, NOT low mids and lows like you would in a "room", thus, where you set up in the room is of little consequence. Do whatever looks the best and creates the best flow of people in and out and has good sight lines.

Ed
Click to expand...

Hi Ed.

Does this mean that I should EQ differently than I would in a similarly sized room? For example, with this type of set up, I usually cut the vocals a little at 500 and 1k and boost a little at 4k. Should I try cutting at 2k also and leaving 4k neutral?
 
I'd go for the larger tent if I could. Use the extra space to give a little more distance between stage mics and the cabs, and not just for seating. You should be fine with your system. I bet it will sound prime!:D
 
Tent gigs suck, always (I do about 10-15 a year).

You should not get much reflection from the tent walls, as they are so flexible. You can, however, get reflections from surrounding structures, so watch for that. The biggest question is where are you getting power. If you have a generator, that is always great, but I hope you don't have to take a power run from a nearby building.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light said:
Tent gigs suck, always (I do about 10-15 a year).

You should not get much reflection from the tent walls, as they are so flexible. You can, however, get reflections from surrounding structures, so watch for that. The biggest question is where are you getting power. If you have a generator, that is always great, but I hope you don't have to take a power run from a nearby building.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Click to expand...

What's wrong with taking the power from a nearby building? As long as we have a heavy duty extension cord, that would seem to me to be better than a generator.
 
I prefer power from a building or a light pole tap; it's really just a question of extremes. If you run seven or eight hundred feet of heavy duty extension cord, you have voltage line losses and the quality of what you are feeding the equipment can be poor. A generator can be a big improvement.

On the other hand, if it is a concert on a green outside a college building, you're close to reliable power and should use it. Try to get the venue to show you where the power is coming from and what else is on the circuit. Your rig will not create much of a draw, but it's possible to pile up the amps and so forth to do a number on the incoming power and your equipment can suffer as a result.
 
LI_Slim said:
Hi Ed.

Does this mean that I should EQ differently than I would in a similarly sized room? For example, with this type of set up, I usually cut the vocals a little at 500 and 1k and boost a little at 4k. Should I try cutting at 2k also and leaving 4k neutral?
Click to expand...

You again WILL get reflections from the tent walls. When you get in there, clap your hands once. You will hear it big as shit!

EQ to make things sound good.

Ed
 
sonusman said:


EQ to make things sound good.

Ed
Click to expand...

Damn, do you have to overwhelm me with all that professional technical jargon?:D


Still, there are EQ strategies to consider in situations. I doubt you start from scratch setting each slider to 0 and experimenting up and down with each one (?)
 
I certainly don't.

In your situation, since you will only have voice and acoustic guitar, I would plug in a mic, stand about where the center of the audience will be, and eq to make it sound good. Obviously, each artist that performs will have a different sound, and that is what the channel eq's are for, to make more "general" adjustments.

If it were a full band, I would be playing a CD that I am very familiar with the sound of and eq to taste, keeping in mind that if the PA isn't going to be loud enough to totally drown out the bands stage sound, that you will not need too much power in the lower mids and you will get a lot of those frequencies from the stage sounds, and the monitors on stage too.

As far as what to actually cut on the eq, if I know the sound system, I will know a couple or few frequencies that will need to possibly be cut. But each gig is different, and I try to use my ears. So really, it is just a matter of using the eq to balance the system to sound good for that day, or even time of the day, because later in the day, you might have lower temperatures and higher humidity, which would mean that high frequencies will travel farther, etc...........

Good luck with the gig.

Ed
 
Treeline said:
I prefer power from a building or a light pole tap; it's really just a question of extremes. If you run seven or eight hundred feet of heavy duty extension cord, you have voltage line losses and the quality of what you are feeding the equipment can be poor. A generator can be a big improvement.
Click to expand...


The problem with a buildings power service is that you never know what else is plugged into the circuit. If you use a generator, you know exactly what is on the service. Much less chance of noise from something else on the service.

Of course, the shows I do are on a much larger scale. There is quite a different set of standards when you are doing a show with a $25,000 a day audio rental. At that point, I can spend a couple hundred a day on clean power.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
That makes sense!

The stuff I do (what there is of it) is much more like what Slim's talking about. I'd give yourself plenty of time before the concert because if you're like me, you'll end up detailing the hell out of things. So go with it - just add a little extra time.

My EQ strategy is simple - like bondo is simple: I figure the maximum number of mics that will be live at any time, set them up in a logical sequence, and crank up the system, adding one at a time into it until I find the feedback threshold without any sound. I EQ to get more gain in an empty room until I figure I've done as well as I can. That's my floor. As soon as I get sound on the stage, and people in the audience, I have more headroom because the waves being generated are varied and the people begin to absorb standing waves. So I'm not too far off when it comes time to do a sound check with the performers.

The flip side is when I get a full band on stage, none of this means much and I have to do the flying faders dance anyway. But it's a start and at least the room is EQ'd somewhat. During the performance, I try to have any mic not in active use cut at least a little, and I'm making myself pay attention to the problem of creeping trim levels.

With one or two mics, you should have really good, manageable sound. Don't stress on it - be proud of it!
 
Looks like my "diamond" idea would cause more complications than it's worth. I'll probably go with something like this:
 

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Take care to note that in live sound, "coupling" of the low frequencies happens at what would normally be the listening position in a studio setup.

Try to move your speakers far enough apart so that the distance between them is the same as a spot behind all audience members from each speaker. This will make the coupling happen behind the audience, and will make the mix more even across the "front" of the audience.

You would not believe how often I have gone to outdoor festivals where the sound system company didn't take this into account. What happens is that you get this huge bass in the center of the audience area, and very little bass out on the "wings" of the audience. :( When I have to mix in this situation, I have to figure out where I want the bass to sound right. If people are not flocking to the front of the stage, then I make the "wings" have enough bass. But if people are in front of the stage, the "wings" will have very aneamic low end. I don't like that at all (either way), but I can not very well require the sound contractor to setup their subs in a proper manner 10 minutes before I mix eh? LOL

If you are using a full range speaker setup, then you will have to use distance between the boxes to move the coupling farther back. If you have seperate subs, you can often solve this problem by facing the subs out towards the wings of the audience. Outside, subs become far more "directional" than they are inside.

Have fun at the gig.

Ed
 
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