advice for an RLA inspired system |
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budney
Registered User Joined: 24 July 2017 Status: Offline Points: 43 |
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I remember seeing a video of him explaining what was going on in that room. Wasn't it something crazy like 8 stacks, with extra lenses around the room too? It was a shame I couldn't understand what was being said, I was very interested in seeing what his thought processes were. Once I met a very capable engineer who knew his stuff, but refused to ever do a 4 point system. Comb filtering, laws of physics, blah blah etc etc. He knew an awful lot of theory and could do lots of fancy things with all his software, but unfortunately there is no calculation for vibe! He insisted on running them like delay stacks as you would for a gig, so everyone has to face the same way = bad dancefloor vibes. I think being able to hear everything in the room, albeit maybe not exactly the same everywhere, is much more important than being able to hear it exactly the same in only parts of the room. I do agree with you that additional fills may help in certain areas, I will have to figure that out when the time comes. Thats one reason why I bought more 2 inch drivers than I need for just the lenses, in case extra is needed. Perhaps some smaller like the 2390 could work for centre fills
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Racks&Stacks
Registered User Joined: 10 February 2006 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 204 |
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Yes, the install was insane. Laurin is quite approachable, so shoot him a message, as he is also very passionate about rla style stuff. He is also very busy, so don't be surprised if takes a lil time for a response. That room would have sounded better with half the shit in there. I'm not sure what the original motives of the preceding club and sound engineer were. While Pioneer was keen to produce a nice video about the install, the club went bankrupt and I don't know if pioneer got their money. Those extra lenses could be the ticket if you toe in the stacks appropriately. As untrue as it is to the original rla approach, delaying the center/side fills just enough can make them "disappear" and create the impression that hte sound is only coming from the stacks, but with fewer or no holes. While factually correct that 4 point sound does smear the sound a bit with additional arrivals to the same listening spot, sound engineering is a game of compromises. Most setups do not have tops flown high enough to have the same spl from back to front, so in the interest of approaching uniform loudness on the dancefloor, I can live with a couple extra arrivals, especially as these are of course social environments and everyone facing the same direction is a terrible vibe. For concerts it is another story, but there is zero reason to look towards a dance music dj
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budney
Registered User Joined: 24 July 2017 Status: Offline Points: 43 |
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It did look more like a Pioneer showroom than an actual club...not surprised that it went bankrupt. Ive spoken to him a few times, but he didn't have much time to spare and only told me that the 4520 and the Waldorf are different, one is not better than the other. Not quite the in depth analysis I was hoping for! I know he has the measurements from a genuine RLA Waldorf, but again no one seems to want to share. Also a secret seems to be how to have subs in a 4 point system. Most people say and I agree with them that the subs should all really be at one place, technically it's correct but I find that sometimes its completely bass in your face at one end of the room and not that much in the other. Blitz club for instance, from the pictures seems to have subs in each stack around the room, but then how do you account for the cancellations that would occur with that setup. Prized secret apparently. Is it just a case of offsetting and angling them slightly so they aren't all directly firing into one point in the middle? When you say flown high enough, how high is enough? You mean high enough to have a great enough angle so that the tops aren't firing to the other side of the room? Looking on youtube I found that Brian Wilson did some installs in the UK, in Nottingham and London in the late 90s. I was not aware of any other kind of RLA style sound system in the UK other than the Phazon installs in Ministry of Sound, Cream/Nation and Sankeys. I remember seeing an old RLA brochure that had a London club listed but I can't remember what the club was called. I doubt any of them used the Waldorf though, and most of them were tailored to the 90s rave sound rather than the 70s/80s disco sound. I've tried to speak to Brian quite a bit but still can't seem to find any contact details for him.
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Daniel S
Registered User Joined: 08 January 2013 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 160 |
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I think the London nightclub with the RLA system would have been Regine's, the London branch of a chain of nightclubs in a handful of major cities around the World in the late 70s. It was more like a Studio 54 kind of Place but I don't think any of their clubs made as much impact as Studio. There's a mentioning of it in an old Billboard issue from 1978: https://books.google.se/books?id=kyQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT62&lpg=PT62#v=onepage&q=richard%20long&f=false Those old billboard issues have a quite a lot of info on disco and nightclub history in them if you search the google archived issues and Richard Long is mentioned quite a few times. |
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Distortion is evil
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Racks&Stacks
Registered User Joined: 10 February 2006 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 204 |
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While distributed bass does suffer from cancellations, putting walls around a room also creates issues for monoblocks. At one club I worked at, we tried putting all the subs (8) along a wall and it was actually distributing them (4, 2, 2) which made for the most even response in the room. I've almost always distributed subs where I could. Perhaps I've jsut been lucky with placements, but any holes were tolerable and the sweet spot seemed larger. Sound reinforcement is full of compromises. Subwoofers, even horns, arent directional enough that slight angular offsetting is going to do much, and delaying would only shift where cancellations take place. I have gotten better bass delaying one side so that the largest null zone was off the dancefloor. Probably screwed up other alignments, but that was a long time ago. I've worked in a number of old school nyc stack rooms, and I dont think any stack subs were delayed, but that might not have been the case with additional subs Sound loses 6 dB per doubling of distance, so the higher you can get the tops, the closer the volume will be from near the speaker to far away. 4pt setups complicate this, as do the typically relatively lower ceilings where dance clubs tend to be built. Further complicating the issue is the reverberant field, but acoustic treatment and speakers with better directionality help simplify. I worked with Brian from 00-02. Great console builder. Phazon also did Home in London, but I don't know what was in that room. Try reaching Brian with https://www.facebook.com/B.W.Productions
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toastyghost
The 10,000 Points Club Joined: 09 January 2007 Location: Manchester Status: Offline Points: 10920 |
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Home was JBL HLA 14” lows, and mids to highs with Bertha and Levan horns in four point. It’s the exact same system that ended up in Sankeys Soap despite their oft repeated claims that it was fully custom built for them. Mostly run from JBL MPX and some Crown VLZ.
God knows where it ended up, the original subs rotted to nothing over the years and the tops got flogged off to clear long overdue debts after Sankeys closed in it’s most recent incarnation. After sitting in a container for bloody ages. |
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Bams
Young Croc Joined: 08 April 2009 Status: Offline Points: 622 |
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Stumbled on this post while procrastinating..... any progress on it? still bummed i had to sell the rig i mention earlier but slowly getting back in the game. can use some motivation. :)
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cravings
Old Croc Joined: 30 January 2007 Location: Ireland Status: Online Points: 7441 |
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good to see you back man.
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Bams
Young Croc Joined: 08 April 2009 Status: Offline Points: 622 |
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Oh my... i must have accidentally divided by Zero..
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concept-10
Young Croc Joined: 17 May 2016 Status: Offline Points: 1292 |
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What has this got to do with an RLA inspired sound system?
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Elliot Thompson
Old Croc Joined: 02 April 2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 5172 |
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The dbx 100/500 was very popular in a lot of clubs in NYC in the mid 1970's - early 1980's.
The main difference in sound between the older dbx sub harmonic synthesizers and the newer versions is how the processor interacted with the bass notes. The older versions offered more sustainability in the notes whereas, as the newer versions (post 100/500 models) react more on the impulse. One could look at it as comparing an A-2 to an A-2 Sharp. The change in character may have been due to the hatred many had for Disco Music in which, dbx had to adapt their sub harmonic synthesizer processor to more mainstream music (Rock) to keep up with times.
There is really no need to build a sub harmonic synthesizer unless you are going all analogue (no digital processing whatsoever) for there are many VST plug-ins that can give you a close enough behavioural pattern of the old dbx 100/500.
Bear in mind all dbx hardware sub harmonic synthesizers offered a high pass filter (some steeper than others) below 20 Hz with a lot of distortion (added purposely) to give one the perception of sub-low bass.
Best Regards, |
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Elliot Thompson
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Elliot Thompson
Old Croc Joined: 02 April 2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 5172 |
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You may have had luck on your side when you seen it for that price. Rare Vintage dbx equipment as with any other type of vintage audio equipment increases in value as time moves on.
The 120A/120XP alters all frequencies ranging from 110 Hz - 26 Hz. dbx claims the other frequencies are untouched but, that is not the case.
All you need is a live VST Host. It is not as complicated as you make it to be. VST Hosts have been around for nearly 20 years. Unless you must use analogue processing from start to finish, you can use a live VST host. The majority of the Professional Audio Industry uses computers for some means of audio implementation.
The majority of people I've read perusing RLA System never heard a RLA System. The dbx sub harmonic synthesizer like the Bertha was used solely as a special effect. So you heard the processor/box once in blue moon. The bulk of the sound came from the boxes sitting above the Bertha. I can assure you the Waldorf never had the dbx sub harmonic synthesizer running through it. Best Regards,
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Elliot Thompson
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