#dynamicshowproduction

We reached out to John Stojevich of Dynamic Show Productions and asked him to do a short piece for us here at Acoustic Engineer Pro’s. John Stojevich has been a live audio engineer for the past 17 years working in a variety of differing applications. Over the years he has worked for many artists and performers, corporate clientele, theatrical performances, houses of worship, clubs/venues, and a variety of concerts and festivals.  Some of the artists he has worked for include: Martina McBride, Uncle Kracker, Tantric, Saving Abel, Mya, MN Orchestra, Delfeayo Marsalis and Romantica.  Some of the corporate clientele he has worked for include Target, Health Partners and Procter & Gamble.  His experiences in working with these and other artists range from operating as FOH technician, monitor technician, RF technician and system tech.  In March of 2012, John established Dynamic Show Productions, a full event production house, proving event production for corporate, concert and touring clientele.

  We are pleased to share his piece with our community:

  Acoustics…Good or Bad?

Authored by:

John Stojevich

CEO/Project Manager/Audio Engineer

Dynamic Show Productions

  Acoustics are defined as: “a science that deals with the production, control, transmission, reception and effects of sound.”  When stated like this, it makes acoustics sound very much like what a Public Address (PA) system is, except that acoustics can either be naturally or artificially created.  For example look at Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado or The Gorge in Washington.  Both a PA system and acoustics direct an auditory signal at an intended listener.  Just as we judge a speaker to be deemed “good” or “bad”, can there be a decisive definition of what is considered to be “good” and “bad” acoustics?  Or can acoustics simply be looked at as enhancing or projecting sound and/or deadening or diffusing sound? 

I believe that there is not a definitive answer to establish a space as acoustically good or acoustically bad.  Saying that would be similar to stating that “rock music is the only good music and all other music is bad.”  What you perceive to be “bad” acoustics for your intended purpose in mixing a rock group may be considered “good” acoustics by an orchestra or choir.  As live audio engineers, we need to learn to fully understand what our purpose is in mixing live sound and how acoustics affect what we do and/or don’t do.

If we are challenged by a space, are acoustics really what is at fault?  I feel like there has been an on going battle between live audio engineers and acoustical engineers to blame each other for things not sounding correct in a live environment.  If the acoustics of a space are excited “incorrectly”, the PA is to blame; if a space does not work well with the PA, acoustics are to blame.  Understanding that in any given situation there is going to be challenges and using the thought of adding more acoustic treatment to the space is not always the answer, just as adding more PA to a space is not always the answer.  When understanding what the intention of the space is, there is a properly executed quantity and type of acoustic treatment and PA to make a space acoustically pleasing and sonically balanced.

I feel that acoustics get a bad reputation in that they are always looked at as the enemy of live audio engineers.  But, how can a naturally occurring element, which makes sound possible, be an enemy to live sound?  What acoustics mean to live sound is not how do we overcome them, but how does this affect what the PA is doing in this environment?  How can it be looked at to benefit the sound as opposed to being a detriment?  What I mean by this is how can you use the acoustics to benefit the tonal quality and/or sound pressure level of the space?  If the room has a great build up of low end, find a speaker that has a reduction in that area or EQ that out and allow the room to fill out the rest of the spectrum.  If the room is very reflective, focus your PA to its intended listener to reduce the amount of excitement that can occur.  Maybe it means that you design a more distributed system so you can turn down each speaker set and not push the primary PA. 

Acoustics offer many potential challenges to live audio engineers depending on what we are trying to accomplish.  One solution for these potential challenges is to utilize some degree of acoustic treatment in an attempt to eliminate or reduce these challenges.  Beyond taming certain excited frequencies, what is acoustic treatment meant to do or actually doing to the space?  Is acoustic treatment meant to allow the listener to hear things as they naturally occur?  If so, would the absence of acoustic treatment then make things sound unnatural?  Hearing sound as it naturally exists has become a dying concept in today’s society.  We, as consumers, have come to rely on speakers to “perfectly” reinforce what occurs “naturally” in music or speech.  Consider an electric guitar; when you listen to that guitar amplified through it’s associated guitar cabinet, is that what an electric guitar actually sounds like?  No.  The sound has been colored by the choice in pickups, cabling, amplifier, cabinet and speakers.  So, if the intent of your mix is to reproduce what occurs naturally, the sound is already no longer “natural” before it even reaches the microphone, let alone how it sounds in the room.  So much music today is created on electrical instruments, without a speaker the sound does not even exist!  So, how can we judge a sound in an acoustic environment when that sound does not even exist?

So what is it then that we want to hear?  Is it sound as it naturally happens or is it the affected sound happening in nature?  Don’t imperfect acoustics actually provide us with a more “natural” sound anyways?  The standard stereo PA configuration already has a flaw in how it represents sound.  How is reproducing sound in defined sources considered to be “natural”?  Nowhere in nature does one sound emanate from multiple sources simultaneously; and conversely, nowhere in nature do multiple sounds emanate from one source simultaneously.  If we listen to a drum set being played acoustically we hear the direct sound of the drums, the reflections from the ceiling, walls, floor and all associated delays that end up making not only the image but the tonal spectrum of that drum set.  So if we try to mix a performance in the mono domain or even a stereo domain, we are automatically defining sound as not happening naturally, so why do acoustics matter anyway?  If “natural” or “organic” is what you are striving for, utilizing the full stereo spectrum a PA has in creating an image that is asymmetrical is actually a more “natural” way to hear the music.