The article I read was about audio measurement. It's something I've never really thought about in great detail mainly because I've never done it before and don't really know or understand what goes into it. I know there is a purpose behind it and a very big purpose but I don't know how to go about finding the information needed and putting it to good use. Luckily I know in the future there is a class solely dedicated to teaching me just that information. However I wanted to learn a little bit more on my own and to see what other people had to say about what they do or why they do it. Now this article is based on one specific way of getting these measurements but it's the first time I've heard of doing it this way so I decided to give it a go and learn something new. It was a pretty basic article though interesting it didn't offer a whole lot of important information. It was good information just not as much as I had hoped. Did it help me expand on my knowledge of audio measurement? Yes it did and for that I am happy to have read it. The whole concept was focused around stereo micing techniques to get the measurement data and the difference between realism and accuracy. Now you would think that realism and accuracy would go hand in hand but when it comes to live sound that's not the case. Accuracy focuses on speaker response and getting it as flat as possible and measuring for that means that that is all you are focusing on and trying to get rid of anything not related to the loudspeaker. When it comes to realism you are measuring for what the audience will hear at a very specific spot in the crowd since it will change every time you move and sometimes it will drastically change. Now obviously you can't figure out what it will sound like for every possible location in the crowd but you can do a pretty good job if you break the area down into sections and generalize the sound for those different sections. The issue lies in what you are trying to achieve because you can't have accuracy with realism and you can't have realism with accuracy so you have to decide at the beginning what it is you are going for and kind of push the other one to the side. The other focus of this article was on doing everything in stereo since that is how we hear. There were lots of different techniques that could be used. The obvious stereo micing techniques of x/y or spaced out omni's. There was also mention of using a dummy head though it's expensive for something such as a theater it would be well worth it since the response of the room isn't going to change you might as well get it as perfect as possible. I think my favorite technique mention though was just to take foam earplugs and stick a little lavalier mic in it and then put them in your ear and record your data from there. It's cheap and effective since you are a human and you're trying to reproduce the best sound for a human. Overall I enjoyed this article and the information I got out of it, I definitely think I will be doing some more digging to get more in depth details on audio measurement and all that is behind it.

From House to Monitors

This was an extremely insightful article and very interesting to me. There was a lot of information on the difference between FOH and monitors but there was also a lot of information on just how to make monitors better. The first thing that caught my attention was when he mentioned there are artists out there who actually let you experiment with the sound through the wedges. I have been under the impression that it really doesn't matter what you think or what you want you do what the artist is looking for and then you stay in the shadows. Knowing that it's possible to actually have some input is something that I wouldn't have expected but is something that is really cool to me. Another thing that got my attention was using everything around you to make the mix the best it can be. Let backline do a lot of the loud stuff and use the monitors to fill in what backline doesn't do enough of. When the venue is big use the house speakers to control the low end on stage, it's going to be up there anyways just from the nature of subwoofers so why not use it to your advantage. It makes sense to follow all these steps but at the same time I think there are a lot of people out there who don't really think about using everything as one working unit. It seems there is more of a compete against type of mentality instead of a work together mentality. Knowing this information is definitely something that I will try to put into my practices as time goes on, even as soon as live labs. The bandwidth part was also very interesting to me. Saying that everything has to fit in a certain bandwidth but can cause a lot of problems depending on the size of the band. The solution he had was to make every instrument sound different. If you have 3 guitars don't let them all just sound like the same guitar do something to add some separation so everyone is aware of what's going on even with so many sounds coming at them at once. I've always been interested in monitors and reading about them more and more hasn't made me want to shy away from them yet. I think the pressure is enjoyable in a way and the constant attention to detail needed helps to not make the job seem monotonous over the years. I think this was a great article and definitely one that should be read if people want to be monitor engineers especially beginning monitor engineers.

Fixing the Low end

The article I read was from Pro Soundweb and it focused on fixing the issue with phase in your speaker system when it comes to putting subs in to get low end coverage. The article was extremely interesting and helpful in many ways. It helped explain phase in a basic simple way that I think would make sense to anyone whether they were into sound design or not. It was just so simple that the minute you read it it made sense to  you and having some illustrations to explain it as well definitely helps. The images they used to show how the sound is traveling in a space was extremely helpful and made everything seem a lot less complicated than trying to understand what they were explaining just in your head. I wasn't aware of the "power alley" issue that they were trying to address and I probably would have definitely set myself up for failure with my first gig by setting up my subs the way I've seen so many other people do it. It was interesting to think about all the shows I have been to and have just seen walls of subs with no change in angle and to think that there were so many people at that show who were getting screwed because the tech didn't want to pay attention to how his speakers work together. I definitely would have never thought that by changing the angle of your array you can drastically change how the audience hears the low end. When you think of a sub being omni-directional you think thats how it works and don't pay much attention to the fact that if you put more than one of them together things are going to change in a lot of ways and mostly not good ways. Yeah the people in the middle will think its the best bass they have ever heard but people on the outside will be wondering where the bass is the entire show and that's not doing your job correctly. You want everyone to leave the show feeling the same way and if you have drastic phase differences out in the audience people aren't going to feel the same way and you will have failed at producing a solid show for that night. I think this article has something for everyone to learn from whether you are just learning about sound design or have been on hundreds of shows and set up thousands of stages. The best thing about sound is there is always more to learn and more to take in especially when you can guarantee someone has been doing this longer than you have. This is an extremely interesting article and one that I have saved and will use in the future.

Moonlight

The moon the other night was extremely bright shining through my window. At first I thought it was the street light but realized my house isn't near a street light so that couldn't be it. I looked out the window and saw that the moon was right in front of my window. I sat there and stared for awhile amazed that the reflection of something so far away could still be so bright. Light does some incredible things.

Sunset

Growing up in California I have seen my fare share of incredible sunsets. That is something I didn't realize I would miss moving to Florida but after not seeing them very often I started to realize that I miss seeing them. Last night there was an incredible sunset and it made me extremely happy to just sit outside and stare at it. The colors that occur when the sun starts dipping below the horizon are unbelievable and still to this day blow me away that the sky can change so much like that.

Wave Particle Duality

It's always interesting to me when you look at light coming through a gap of some sort and you can see the beam up close but the further from the source it gets you can't really tell that it was beam and instead it just looks like light filling the room. This happens all over my house and now I have found myself verbally saying oh look at the wave particle duality that is occurring which always seems to give me some interesting looks.

Dark Night

The other day I was watching TV and a storm warning showed up in the bottom corner. I decided to go outside and see what was going on. It was about 9 at night so it was already pretty dark. When I went outside I could clearly see that the sky to the west was drastically darker than the sky on the east. It was very interesting to be able to see the different shades of darkness that the storm was creating in the already dark night sky.