Why Music Festivals Sound Better Than Ever | WIRED

Is the sample miniature speakers are series parallel connected?

Cant deny line array does sound good and has taken over most corporate gigs nowadays, however there is something about a good old fashioned point source that is so much better, here in the UK there are hundreds of handmade point source systems with ridiculous bass sections and formidable top speakers, party's are setup where the crowds can stand right next to the system (in some cases inside the bass bins lol) also nowadays we have digital processors and multi channel amps that can be used to make a point source system sound pretty accurate on a large scale.


people do want to see the speakers and many people are still all about the point source and the wall of sound !

Great

Love Dave test rat

One more thing left is to shorten indoor arena reverb by 2 seconds and it will sound good hahaha. Yesterday I heard the concert in Czech Republic in O2 Arena and despite everything was covered top notch (top sound guys, DiGiCo mixers FOH and monitors, in-ears only, L-Acoustics line arrays all over..) I didnt hear anything cause of the reverb of the hall..

I will take the 90 Clair S4 cabinets any day

Thanks to the VDOSC L Acoustics...😊

I wanna know the explanation about his broken arm - I’m hoping it’s a cool story - LOL !

Thank you for this, sound system version of David Guetta

He was a sound guy, always ready to amp up the mood.

couldn't focus to the subject as his head was fogged 😂

"If we can make the sound system invisible, we will have won"
I think the Jamaican sound system culture would like a word with you.

Hence the success of the Bose L1 line array portable PA systems over the past 20 years. I will never go back to dragging around hundreds of pounds of PA gear to my gigs.

Been watching Dave's channel for a few years and never seen him do that demo. So simple and yet so clear of an explanation!

The Ratster...I use to watch his videos all the time when I did small events. I've used small line array QSC and RCF and DAS..

I was at the US festival, all 3-4 days and was at Cochella….US fez sounded to this day much clearer and more sonic….Digital arrays lol for the kids

sound engineers spend over 20K in gear, and charge 400 a night or less... so messed up, we need to get paid more than the band! we make the show happen and sound good without any problems!

Lisa!

i like the industrial look of giant speakers and giant truss and screens so big youre gaming on 84K pixels

I still love my EV 360’s since 2006 !

He fails to adequately explain point source. Point source is when you tilt speakers in respect to each other such that a single speaker covers a certain area. These speakers are placed and tilted such that you can draw orthogonal lines directly through its back and all these lines would meet somewhere in the back. This intersection would then be the POINT in point source. This is a very common philosophy used by Funktion One and Danley (Who does full-sized single box point source speakers)

Danley Sound Labs has entered the chat...

Love Dave Rat's content on his channel and he's probably right about arrays but Danely Sound Lab's single point-source horns are the best PA's I've ever heard, I felt like I was in the studio listening to monitors

So simple yet brilliant

Wow! What a man! Legendary!

I haven't been to any festival where I didn't need earplugs, sound was always junk. Concerts too. The only bands that had good sound were The Darkness, ZZ Top, Guano Apes.

People nowadays go to festivals and care about „the sound“ 😂

How does this change in a large amphitheater, like red rocks, where your audience is vertical as well?

Line arrays.

I’d also like to hear him really go into detail about the difference in all the big dogs. D&B, L’Acoustics, Adamson, Meyer, JBL(VTX), Clair Brothers, and EAW Anya. Also how good are the powersoft 30 inch subs.

Danley and KV2 have something to say about line arrays being the end all be all. Quasi arrays like a Dynacord Cobra are also a great compromise when you don’t need mega output in med to small venues.

Not in the UK.... festivals are terrible for sound quality

What can you say about Metallica set up with the M72 tour , I not a musician or knows anything about speakers but it sounded bad when we saw the concert in Los Angeles?

it's easy to play prerecorded material loud. minimal skill needed.

well I had this theory before that bass mid and treble/tweeters should be wired on different amplifiers and different positions and boxes; like it was in the 80's disco system but you had everything in the same box (bass speaker botton, mid speaker in the mid and tweeter on top), but there it's a signal delay on large spaces and you will have the cave effect (echo) and that can be fixed by apps now and to syncronize it and tell the system which speakers to get the signal first.....

Problem nowadays: There are so many audio engineers for festivals out there who are not able to configure the audio equipment in the right way. They have no clue what they are doing so the music sounds awful. It often gets worse at indoor concerts.

Too bad new indoor theaters are using Line Arrays, likely because of this hype. What is good for outdoor is definitely not good for indoor. In Austin we have 2 new theaters where sound coverage is not clear. Speech unintelligible. No fills being used for balcony or mezzanine. Its a disappointment.

I love speakers and I wanna see big speakers

Audio on this video is awful, however

i have a Festivals speaker aka my dual 18inch subwoofer at my house no cap lmao

As a half deaf boomer or more accurately a Jones, I can attest, modern line array is just nuts. I was there at a lot of state of the art systems back in 70s . Wish I could still hear like i once could in my dog ear level days to really appreciate how awesome it is now.

Psytrance - uptempo GO GO GO !!!

Dave Rat = KING

Interesting and good knowledge information but most people will be satisfied as long as they can feel the bass :)

The "point source" examples WIRED and Dave used weren't anywhere remotely close to a true point source. They also neglected to point out the painfully obvious drawbacks of large format line arrays. Love Dave, but this one is rough.

The Grateful Dead once had an innovative sound system that had each instrument's output going into a large vertical stack behind them, very much like an early prototype of a Vertical Line Array.

Don't forget about the Rodeo Houston deployment

its interesting he says if the sound system was invisible they would win, but i think many rock fans would respectfully disagree. the stacks of amps is a visual thing that adds to the vibe of the show and the look of the stage for some bands. (think Classic Rock bands)