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[Hugh]

It is imperative to understand the importance of an acceptable, dependable Dynamic range in the initial Pre-amp setting. Ideally, when working with session ready pros, a set and leave it protocol is best however that is not an everyday project studio or church A/V reality. A more realistic expectation of the overwhelming majority of amateur performers is for an erratic dynamic range in both directions. To this end only when assignment of appropriate, conservative compression thresh & make up gain at the pre-amp stage enables set and leave it protocols when working with performers without session ready skills.
Hugh

[volounteer]

@Hugh

It is quite common in churches for that wide DR to be deliberate.
Unfortuntely schools teach that or they pick it up from older folks when they start orating.
Too bad they dont realize that it makes it harder for people to understand them.
And similar to too many garage bands thing louder is better , church talkers seem to think longer is better.

[Hugh]

volounteer brings up a very important point: The DR for a single voice oration needs to be much much wider than for a lead singer in a loud R&R praise band. This is why I always spend a lot of time carefully assessing the specific needs of every channel pre-amp DR. If you do not get this right it will be an up-hill fight managing the balance of your gain structure.
Hugh

[Mike C]

Depending on how dynamic the presenter get during their speech and or how their mic technique or lack of changes during the speech you may need to ride the input gain some.

That’s why it’s called “running” sound!

[volounteer]

@MikeC

When the orators slowly change we do ride the faders.

But we have some that switch back an forth very quickly.
Ride the faders on them and you will likely have them way up when they start to yell again and feedback erupts.

10dB is plenty of DR for the listener.
What we need is to find a way to compress the bleep out of an 80dB range talker, maybe even higher than 80 when they wander from the pulpit and whisper.

We do heavy compression on the loud parts which helps with feedback problems.
What we really need to do is add UPcompression to the softer parts so we can guarantee that is at the minimum level that maximizes intelligibility at 15dB SNR over background noise and control the DR to ensure we do not have other problems.

It may come down to the honchos deciding what sounds ‘good’ versus the audience and what they say is intelligible.
‘Clean’ sound that is way too low to be understood is worthless.

Or it may be that the dealer just does what they think is good and we get stuck with that , which while good, may not be what we really need.

[Mike C]

@volounteer

When I reference “input gain” I and talking about the input pre amp level.

Depending on how excited the person speaking get and where the pre amp gain started
at you sometimes need to reduce gain at the pre amp.

A sound system should not start feedback just because someone starts speaking louder, that’s a good sign your system is not set up correctly and most likely never has been.

[volounteer]

@MikeC

That never happens that way.

We can ride the faders for the loud talkers.
It is the wide DR and those who switch loud/soft fast and frequently that are the problem.

I have changed the input gain with the screen when they passed a mike around the audience.
But then each person tended to have one narrow range of speaking.
With some very soft holding the mike at their waist. Some at normal level with mike at their mouth.
I recall that it varied at least 60 dB to make sure they all got heard.

But again, some were typically low DR people with a fixed level they talk at or held the mike wrong but fixed.

The problem is a few talkers at the podium with very wide DR which seems intentional and changes a lot and too quickly to follow with the faders or the screen knob.

The audience often complains they cant hear but if we bring up the low levels enough then the high levels cause feedback even though we have compressed them a lot.

*WE* need upwards compression aka new york or parallel compression even if that is not the solution for others.

Maybe after the new acoustical treatments and the dealer rerings the room out we might have enough GBF to just raise the gain while keeping the heavy compression.

[Mike C]

@volounteer

I’m not getting into that pointless discussion with you again!!!!!!!!!

Maybe someone else will pick the slack for me.

[volounteer]

@MikeC

It is only pointless because some folks they know better than the guy with the problem.
If you have a different solution that would actually work for us the I do want to hear it.

So far all I see is nonsense like teach them how to talk, turn off the hvac to eliminate BG noise, yada yada.
All well and good in theory but not all all practical for us doing the job.

I suffer with the problem along with the rest of the audience.
Hopefully some of the coming changes will alleviate the problems we have.
We got a new capsule for the lapel mike and that made a big difference with feedback issues.
But the other changes are still about a month away to put in acoustic panels and rering the room EQ.
(I consider it a success that I talked them into fixing that much. )
(The acoustic panels were the MD’s idea and the lapel mike was the dealers)
(I had the A1 on board to try the NY compression but he has not followed through, preferring to tweak EQs himself to ‘improve’ the sound.)

I know the upcoming changes will make improvements. I do not know if it will be sufficient to fix the problem I see.

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