Ampzilla, VMPS and Live Music at January CES

PLMONROE · « **Reply #80 on:** 4 Jan 2009, 04:46 pm »

Hope there is not a major fault near Vegas. That might trigger a major quake!

Brian Cheney · « **Reply #81 on:** 4 Jan 2009, 06:17 pm »

Stacked VSS's it is! I figured out two VSS stacked is the exact equivalent of one VLA tower from the standpoint of internal volume, air mass moved and frequency extension, so we will be giving up nothing.

With two days to go and our last piano rehearsal scheduled today, I look back on 8 months of planning and preparation. It's been quite an undertaking, but the real joy has been working with the musicians and volunteers who make it all possible. My hat is off to all of you and I know we will have a lot of fun. With careful setup, we should also make a very good impression on the audio press and public.

Hugh · « **Reply #82 on:** 4 Jan 2009, 07:17 pm »

Big B,

Good luck.

Looking forward to seeing You and hopefully John on Saturday.

seadogs1 · « **Reply #83 on:** 4 Jan 2009, 10:35 pm »

What anti slip devices? how are the subs stacked ie one on top of another, on end on top of one another? Which direction are the subs positioned as regard to the main drivers and the passive units? What is the advantage to stacking the subs?

John Casler · « **Reply #84 on:** 4 Jan 2009, 10:48 pm »

Quote from: Brian Cheney on 4 Jan 2009, 06:17 pm

Stacked VSS's it is! I figured out two VSS stacked is the exact equivalent of one VLA tower from the standpoint of internal volume, air mass moved and frequency extension, so we will be giving up nothing.

It does take up more "real estate", but can certainly provide a significant "foundation" to the music.

While we wouldn't want to use it in the Ballroom, they can also be stacked in opposition (one firing front, one firing back) for all the dipole bass lovers.

John Casler · « **Reply #85 on:** 4 Jan 2009, 11:01 pm »

Quote from: seadogs1 on 4 Jan 2009, 10:35 pm

What anti slip devices? how are the subs stacked ie one on top of another, on end on top of one another? Which direction are the subs positioned as regard to the main drivers and the passive units? What is the advantage to stacking the subs?

Generally you would use, those non-slip rubber squares to increase mechanical friction and also not "mar" the finish of the bottom sub.

Since I haven't tried it with these yet, it might also require soemthing stronger like a bracket and screws, although the drivers will be firing in "perfect" unison, so they will not be moving in opposition to each other.

If you set them up as a dipole, (anti-phase but opposing directions) then that energy would also be a consideration.

Another option is setting them up to fire in bipole (in-phase but opposing directions)config. This would likely require the greatest consideration to mechanically coupling the two, due to opposing physical forces. (I hope I thought that through correctly)

The mind boggles....

Interesting possibilities. Stacking just causes a lot more air to be moved (double the cone area) and improves the size of the wave launch area.

Imagine a spherical bubble of energy radiating from a single sub, and the the "increased" radiation sphere from increasing the height. Bass radiates Spherically.

Brian Cheney · « **Reply #86 on:** 5 Jan 2009, 01:27 am »

Bass below 80Hz is omnidirectional, or as John says spherical. Stacking also helps break down the floor to ceiling room mode into two smaller components.

There is also Earl Geddes' multi crossfiring sub setup we may experiment with.

Lots of possibilities, a 3 hour time window to make decisions.

seadogs1 · « **Reply #87 on:** 5 Jan 2009, 02:14 am »

Brian, please let us know which configuration works best for you.

Brian Cheney · « **Reply #88 on:** 5 Jan 2009, 04:15 am »

Will do.

We have seats left at this time for all performances so if you are in LV for CES, drop by the Zeus Ballroom of the Alexis Park between noon and 5pm.

Housteau · « **Reply #89 on:** 5 Jan 2009, 02:18 pm »

It is amazing to me that 8 months of planning is all coming down to a window of just 3 hours to make it right, and from a completely empty and unfamiliar room. I think of all the time it often takes me just to tweak things here and there from a room I know so well. This should be quite a valuable learning experience. I had better not blink too often.

Brian Cheney · « **Reply #90 on:** 5 Jan 2009, 07:53 pm »

There will be a piano runthrough Tuesday evening (we get access to the ballroom at noon that day) with me and Lesley. The only full rehearsal we get is for 3 hours Wednesday afternoon when all the musicians (including the professional union bass and sax/clarinet players) will be on hand both for rehearsal and sound checks. After that, performances and playback.

A very narrow window with many variables to take care of.

Brax · « **Reply #91 on:** 8 Jan 2009, 10:39 pm »

Any news from the show???????????

Early B. · « **Reply #92 on:** 11 Jan 2009, 07:17 pm »

Quote from: Brax on 8 Jan 2009, 10:39 pm

Any news from the show???????????

Yeah. C'mon, fellas. Tell us somethin'. We're dying to know how it turned out.

John Casler · « **Reply #93 on:** 11 Jan 2009, 10:38 pm »

Hi Guys,

I just got back in, but the show will still be going until 5:00 today.

A few quick comments.

1) The attendance at the show was slow and low. But that said most every live performance was SRO.

2) The Live versus Recorded was quite interesting and getting it set up provided some very interesting psychoacoustic and recording challenges.

3) Brian must pay people to come in and tell us that nothing else touches the sound, because it was said quite often.

4) When I heard that we were going to use two pair of VSS SUBS I posted about the three possible configs = monopole, bipole, and dipole. In this size room and placement we tried all three with the "dipole" offering the best overall bass (but not the deepest)

5) The performers were FAR AND AWAY better than I expected. Leslie Olsher was polished and incredible, the musicicans were unbelievable for the limited amount of practice together (even Brian as a percussionist) but the real surprise was Jeanine Del Carlo daughter of my client (and RM40 owner) Opera Great Jon Del Carlo. This young lady had something special that I got hooked on when watching American Idol last year. She had "IT". She wrote, composed arranged ans sang her own music to make it even more impressive.

6) I have some video footage, but if I post it to YouTube you will only be able to get an "idea" of the set up, since the audio on video cameras "SUCKS".

7) We had two guest artists who I will list later.

Brian has a "new career" in "stand up" which can be seen too.

9) It is always great to see all the VMPS'ers show up. Most of them post here, but a special thanks goes out to Dave Housteau and Paul Monroe who came to contribute time and effort.

10) Lots of reviewers who will likely post the "ups and downs" of attempting a Live versus RECORDED effort.

11) I have a feeling that we were the biggest attraction of the THE SHOW in that we had "mostly" full seating performances and when I made a quick "walkabout" on Sat afternoon there were very few people around, while we had people milling about between performances.

I'll try and post a bit of the video I have but PLEASE realize that it will NOT be an example of anything sonically, since it is from a Camcorder and the mike is not going to give you any idea.

Housteau · « **Reply #94 on:** 12 Jan 2009, 03:33 pm »

Wow, what an experience. It was so truly amazing to be there to see and hear such a transformation from a completely empty space to one fully alive with great sounding music. However, it was a process and a progression. It did not happen right away. Time was just one of our enemies we did battle with by not having enough of it, and with so much to do to even attempt to get things right on the first day. Saturday was my last full day there and it was by far the peak of all the efforts of the previous days. I am sure that Brian will have a lot to say about the specifics of the day to day, and since this was his party, I will wait until then to chime back in on the details and the posting of some pictures.

One of the best aspects for me was just being there as a part of something like this and meeting such a great group of people. It was not just the chance to meet many legends and larger than life individuals of the industry and discuss shop, it was also an opportunity to put a face to so many I only knew from forums such as this, and audio reviews I had read over the years. Last and certainly not least, it was a chance to have FUN, and Brian's party was a lot of fun for us involved and those that came for the performances.

John Casler · « **Reply #95 on:** 13 Jan 2009, 01:05 am »

OK, here is the first video.

Now let me again preface this with the fact that this is only to give you an idea of what happened and the room/set up.

There is no way a video recorder would be able to give you an indication of the "AUDIO", however I might mention that I was a the very rear of the room and you will notice that even "on the back wall" the sound didn't "load up".

Bass was rather good and not bloated even in that position.

So check out the Orchestra (and in particular the Cymbal Playing Percussionist)

Regrettably, I had to cut the peice in 1/2 to get the live versus recorded portion. The Rhapsody itself was at least 9 minutes in length and so this it half LIVE and then half RECORDED.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNhdC-oi-g4

John Casler · « **Reply #96 on:** 13 Jan 2009, 01:14 am »

Here is Jeanine Del Carlo singing her own work. She was far better than the video displays. She had a very soulful and engaging stage presense.

Jon Del Carlo (her father) must be very proud, and happy she inherited some of the "vocal" genes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ax8Gk7ZAQs&feature=channel_page

More is coming but it takes some time to load them to the Hard Drive, convert them to Video Files and then upload to YouTube.

John Casler · « **Reply #97 on:** 13 Jan 2009, 01:23 am »

Here is a Video of Leslie Olsher singing her version of "Loving You".

She has a very trained and great vocal talent.

You'll notice that the vocals in the live are not as clear and balanced as in the recorded portion.

Listen to the individual instuments (if you can hear them on this recording) in the actual recording, you have a "perfect soundstage" with the singer and all the instruments in the right positions.

In fact the ONLY mikes used in the whole room are in front of the singer.

And they were SO SENSITIVE that they picked up Brian's brushed Cymbal playing all the way to the front of the room with excellent detail. It was hard to beleive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyUp7DVQLAs

dubravko · « **Reply #98 on:** 13 Jan 2009, 05:19 pm »

For me, videos are quite fascinating as they are, since they do show the amount of effort and enthusiasm taken for such event. Doing such a thing at the show is quite something, congratulations to all who were involved, especially Brian. Lucky those who were able to attend...

Brian Cheney · « **Reply #99 on:** 14 Jan 2009, 12:13 am »

OK, we're back.

Post mortems will go on for weeks, mostly because there were so many lessons learned which need to be passed along.

Brief summary:

Tuesday: arrival and piano runthrough.

Wednesday: furious setup, rehearsals all afternoon. Unable to get loudspeaker demo up and working, put off until next day (big, BIG mistake).

Thursday, first day of show. Sound on playback sucks. Bloated, veiled, and gummy. So many things wrong I hardly know where to start. Consequence of not getting loudspeaker setup done the day before.

Friday: many changes, better sound.

Saturday: complete re-equalization of the system, better still.

Sunday morning: touchup EQ at 284Hz (boost of .3dB) transforms the sound gloriously. Almost no difference any more between live sound and playback. A triumph.

More later.