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delay mains to backline


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it depends. it can solve some problems and introduce others. as a general rule, i dont do it unless there is a problem; if the PA is sufficiently loud enough to mask the backline then it is generally not an issue, and for me the biggest culprit is the snare drum, so if i start to hear a 'double snare drum' i might delay that or just lower it in the mix and add some reverb to it until its not a problem.

 

what problem are you having? if you do this' delay the mains' as a rule it will only fix the issue for certain areas while not fixing it for others.

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thanks. i havent been delaying the mains, and really no problems. someone had mentioned, or asked rather, if i was..like I'd been missing out on something. I always thought that under about 25ms sounds are perceived as one

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when i was teaching live sound we would often delay the mains as an experiment, but only with the students sufficiently advanced enough to deal with this. the results? in most settings - inconclusive. there were a couple times when it really made a big difference but mostly it didnt do much; most of the time it made no noticable difference. i'm talking 16 to 20 milliseconds, small rooms, low power systems. no fancy measurement systems were used, just a tape measure and ears.

 

the thing it worked best on in my opinion was drums - if you could get the delay just right the speakers would "dissapear" but only at FOH. to the left or right inbetween foh and stage it didnt help. think about a triangle....the time would be off if you change one leg of the triangle.

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the thing it worked best on in my opinion was drums - if you could get the delay just right the speakers would "dissapear" but only at FOH. to the left or right inbetween foh and stage it didnt help. think about a triangle....the time would be off if you change one leg of the triangle.

 

 

yea..

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yes, in spots and depending on ratio of volume between drums/PA

 

there is a room in town that has SRX tops bolted directly to the wall (hmmm) and a center cluster sub in front of the stage (17' in front of the stage). some brialliant individual decided that it would be best to delay the sub approx 17MS to align it with the tops. and it works, if you stand in front of the sub; move out of the front of the sub and it doesnt work.

 

there is no seating in front of the sub. i dont work there anymore, i interfered with their 'logic'.

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My understanding is, delaying to the backline affects the people crushed up against the stage the most. When timed properly, the sound for them from the backline appears to be coming from the backline rather than from PA stacks hard left and/or hard right.

 

Dennis

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people crushed up against the stage wont be hearing much stacks at all but they might be hearing the front fills.

 

 

I guess it depends how big the stage and stacks are. Front fills are going to be time aligned to the stacks so you have the same issue.

 

Dennis

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The only time I have used a delay is when we set a fill speaker back half way through a long bar setup because people the year before (it was an annual benefit we provided sound for) had complained about not hearing vocals and not hearing talking between songs or announcements from people not versed in using a mic :facepalm: .

 

But in general we dont set the mains far enough away from the band to make what I feel would be a noticable difference. Certainly not enough of a difference to justify the increased setup and configuration times. IMO.

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thanks. i havent been delaying the mains, and really no problems. someone had mentioned, or asked rather, if i was..like I'd been missing out on something. I always thought that under about 25ms sounds are perceived as one

 

 

To answer the OP's question, I started out as an FOH mixer in '92 and was not aware of delaying the mains to the backline until about '94. But after that, I used this method for most of my mixes. The main reason was that I was working with a big band, and much of the sound in most audience situations was a combination of the stage sound and the PA sound. The PA was mainly used to balance the sound with the acoustic output of the band. Some instruments got more PA than others.

 

What I found was that it made a pretty big difference to delay back to the drums. The best way I can describe it was "clarity". For bigger shows, outdoor stuff, etc. there was generally not a need for it since most of the audience heard most of the sound from the PA.

 

But when we used front fills - they were delayed in order to prevent people in the front from hearing sound "from the speakers" rather than from the stage.

 

But to address the precedence effect and the timings:

 

5 ms or less: people can sometimes perceive differences in timing for very percussive, transient sounds like xylophone, hi-hat, tom attack, piano.

 

10 ms or so - people can definitely perceive timing differences for percussive sounds. Guitar, sometimes horn attacks, etc.

 

15-20 ms - many types of attacks, like from horns, electric guitar, bass, vocals etc. will sound "smeared" and may even sound like distinct sources.

 

over 20 ms - most sounds are smeared and may appear as distinct sources.

 

over 25 ms - even "slow" attack sounds like strings can sound smeared or distinct.

 

The precedence or "Haas" effect is basically that whatever sound arrives to you first appears to you as the source. So if you hear the mix out of a speaker, the speaker appears to be the origination. So by delaying the mains, the sound will "appear" to come from the stage.

 

As others have pointed out, this approach can bring problems with it. For one thing, you can't align the sound from the speakers and the stage for every audience member or even every area of the audience.

 

However, by carefully considering things like speaker throw (see front fills above) and leaning in the direction of what "most" of the audience will hear, I've found that by aiming for the sound from the stage to arrive about 5ms early vs. the PA sound to the majority of the audience that IMO the sound is much better and the PA "disappears" which is very important for certain kinds of music.

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