AUDIO
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT / ROOM TUNING BASICS , PART 2 | Jeff Hawley
In last month ’ s ‘ Audio with Jeff Hawley ’ article , we presented more questions than answers about what any given acoustic space should sound like . As readers of this column know , this is not an unexpected outcome — one of our goals is to get the philosophical and technical wheels spinning around the big questions of mixing and optimizing audio in contemporary worship spaces . Sometimes we uncover interesting insights from these new questions that inevitably arise .
The key question we are still dealing with here is whether we are aiming to model or create some sort of ‘ fix ’ for our physical space that gets us back to ‘ zero ’ or whether we want to build in some sort of a ‘ sound ’ to a room . Rather than directly answer this question in Part 1 of the ‘ Room for Improvement ’ series of articles , the somewhat related concept of the RIAA equalization curve prompted us to ponder whether certain sonic environments might trigger more favorable responses than others .
We ended up with two sorts of questions at the end of the day . “ Is a more ‘ correct ’ room EQ more likely to improve speech intelligibility ?” Sure . This seems to be fairly straightforward — it is generally advisable to EQ our way out of issues where the design of a room accentuates and attenuates frequencies across the spectrum that interfere with the overall clarity of the sound sources .
But what about this question ? “ Is a more ‘ dry ’ acoustic space more likely to elicit feelings of cheer and inspiration and numinous ‘ spiritual ’ engagement than a ‘ wet ’ acoustic space ?” Let ’ s move from the EQ and frequency side of things just a bit and look at how reverberation and the ‘ dryness ’ or ‘ wetness ’ of an acoustic space relate to room tuning ( treatment ) and the overall sonic experience of congregants .
REVERBERATION BASICS
As Levy ( Construction Calculations Manual , 2012 ) notes , “ In an enclosed space , a sound source stops emitting energy , and it takes some time for the sound to become inaudible . This prolongation of the sound in the room caused by continued multiple reflections is called reverberation .” A ‘ live ’ or ‘ wet ’ acoustic space is one in which “ sound continues to reflect or reverberate ” in a very noticeable manner . Imagine a snare drum whacked nice and hard with a rimshot in a large gymnasium or on the stage of Carnegie Hall . The crack of the snare may only last a fraction of a second , but its reverberation will endure for perhaps a few seconds . Now take the same snare into a treated enclosed recording studio vocal booth and give it a crack . The reverberation time would be only a fraction of the gymnasium time and might not be perceptible at all .
88 January 2024 Subscribe for Free ...