OPINION
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FESTIVAL SOUND PART THREE: ACOUSTICAL ISSUES Paul Nicholson concludes his trilogy of live sound articles by explaining how mixing out in the open can often be trickier than indoor work when it comes to acoustics.
PAUL NICHOLSON
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ou may well disagree, but in my perfect world every concertgoer would have their own audio source and sound engineers would be able to provide a perfect mix. As I mentioned previously I believe that festival audiences will sooner rather than later be able to enjoy their own personalised sound field experience. Similarly, indoor audiences could also benefit from this technology, provided the audio industry is willing to make what would be a truly radical paradigm shift and offer consumers an alternative way of enjoying music without acoustical coloration or degradation. However, until then I believe we should take a serious look at improving the current norm. I don’t know about you, but as far as acoustics are concerned I find that outdoor shows and festivals can sometimes be even more of a challenge than indoor events. Here’s why. Let’s begin with the place where sound originates: the good old fashioned stage. I say old fashioned as it is just that: a simple 2,000-year-old concept of a raised platform that allows the performers to be seen by more than just the front row of an audience. So we have a platform, but as most outdoor shows are not in California we’ll also need a roof to protect the performers from El Niño or the great British summer. That makes two problems straight away: a reflective stage 12
surface and roof, both interacting acoustically. Beyond that, there’s the audience area, so topology and reflective surfaces come into the equation and add to the complexity of the acoustic issues. Naturally, there’s also the weather to contend with: wind shift, temperature fluctuations and humidity effects, etc. Then in my opinion maybe the worst problem of all for the sound engineer: the front-of-house tent. As you may be aware from my previous festival pieces I’m a huge fan of the silent stage, but this is still somewhat of a rarity when you look across the music industry. I think we can all agree that stages are far too loud in general and the artists are the root cause. The performer’s amplitude is then exacerbated as monitor engineers have to at least match the backline and drum levels, which simply adds to the overall gain issue problem. I worked at 15 festivals this year and the stage sound at every one was quite literally deafening with myriad reflections and an unnecessarily high SPL within the stage structure. So, the FOH engineer invariably has to contend with a loud incoherent stage sound, which can only degrade what comes out of the PA. Clarity has been sacrificed upon the altar of unnecessary volume.
Works a Treat So, what can be done apart from losing loudspeaker-based backline and monitoring? Well, only one of those festivals I worked on had a carpeted stage, which certainly helped, but not one had any roof treatments. Therefore, it’s clear to me that stage suppliers should look at these long-standing issues and provide simple cost-effective acoustic treatments as standard. Hard decking surfaces and shiny reflective stage roofs can be tamed dramatically with simple fixes. It’s obvious that everyone would be far more comfortable in a treated environment and could then turn down the volume. In general, not enough thought goes into festival arena design. Concessions, auxiliary stages, even trees all affect sound propagation. Pattern control and delay issues are always compromised when the sound field is cluttered with obstacles. Just a bit of extra thought regarding arena layouts would go a long way towards helping achieve better end results. My final bugbear is the FOH mix tent. Once you are inside the box you simply have to guess what it sounds like in the audience and make the necessary ‘blind’ adjustments. If I’m not mixing for the headliner and can’t access the front of the platform then I always set up my console
on the grass. I did this at Cropredy earlier in the year as I would have been stuck halfway back and unable to jump down from the platform and listen in free-field conditions. Luckily it was a dry day and SSE provided a small flight case to stand my desk on and dropped my Cat5 and power over the front of the platform. I was then right in the L-Acoustics K1 footprint and I had a truly wonderful time. A silent stage and no arena reflections iced the cake. As we all know, FOH tents also suffer from higher SPL inside than the immediate outside area, accentuated sub bass and – just like the stage – harmful reflections. Therefore, I think it’s about time the FOH tent had a big time makeover. It’s been extremely interesting discussing the future of festival sound over the last few issues, and just in case you’re wondering, I don’t like festivals, I simply love them. So let’s try to make them even better! Paul Nicholson has been a sound engineer and tour manager for 30 years and runs Salisbury-based Midas ProSound. He also worked at L-Acoustics UK from 1998 to 2008 and continues to specify and use festival systems on a regular basis.
December 2015
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