Hi Folks,
Update –
Summer 2017 a couple nice, new 12″ and horn, self-powered main speakers were donated.
From the dancer view, the left speaker is up high and aimed near the center/rear of hall.
The right speaker is lower, rotated in a bit to cover the front/center, and is at lower volume than the left speaker.
Both speakers are tilted down a bit.
Here’s a pic:
Speakers at CAS
For this very reflective venue, this placement seems to give acceptable intelligibility and dance floor coverage.
In addition to the donated main speakers and stands, there are new monitors, digital mixer, mics, stands, cables, direct boxes, extension cords, a UPS for the digital mixer and a few other bits.
A very nice Grand Piano was donated to the venue.
With all the hard surfaces, acoustics are still a challenge.
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FIRST POST:
Audio for a new dance, from the beginning:
The Asheville Monday Night Dance has moved to a new location at:
The Center for Art and Spirit at St. George’s Parish Hall
One School Road, Asheville, NC 28806
http://www.centerartspirit.org/map–contact-info.html
The first dance in the new location will be January 2nd, 2017.
Come on out and dance!
LiveEdge Audio is managing audio for this series.
With a nice, hardwood dance floor, and mostly hard surfaces for the walls and ceiling,
venue acoustics are lively, and Caller intelligibility may be a bit of a challenge.
Overall, the maximum dance floor space is 35′ wide x 43′ long.
The stage area is a nice 16″ above the dance floor.
First things first:
On a recent afternoon a crew met and carried in audio test equipment.
This was for some VERY basic testing. (Yay crew!)
Two speakers were used for initial testing.
Speech intelligibility metering was done at:
a front corner, front-center, center, and back/center of hall.
A) The first test was with a speaker in both of the front corners.
Fair intelligibility overall, except poor at the front center of the hall.
B) The second test was with speakers spaced about 20′ apart.
Poor intelligibility overall, except fair at front corner and center.
The picture above is this test scenario.
C) Single speaker in center.
Best intelligibility overall, though only fair at front corners.
(A fourth scenario will be tested:
The EV ELX15 boxes in the corners will be used to cover most of the hall,
with a small center-fill speaker at the front/center of the hall.)
For the first dance, A Danley SM60F will be in the center of the hall,
on the stage, covering most of the venue.
The SM60F is a pretty high intelligibility speaker, with
pattern control that goes a couple octaves lower than
many common speakers used at Contra dances.
It will be mounted in a yoke, allowing the speaker to be
optimally tilted for dance floor coverage, while minimizing spill to the ceiling.
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com
An EV ELX15 will cover each front corner, running at fairly low volume.
These will be mounted on customized tilters that maintain the
speaker’s weight center over the center of the speaker stand,
while aiming sound down on the dancers.
For one of these speakers, the low frequencies
will be boosted to give a little bit of low end oomph.
The dance floor will accommodate a little over 100 dancers, so
a small blessing is that the noise of the dancers on the floor
will be less than a large hall that can fit over 250 dancers!
Long-term, the Asheville Monday Night Dance Management
would like to help the Church install a useful audio system.
If you have a donation, even a mic cable or SM58 microphone,
we would be happy to have them!
Updates to this post will come as we test various speaker configurations with actual dances.
Thanks to Meredith, Manager of the Asheville Monday Night Dance,
and all the volunteers making this dance happen!
Good health, Weogo