DJin-Surround speakers (HELP!)

[Derpologist]

Ok so I have a bit of a dilemma. Im a 14 year old kid who is obsessed with technology and, yes, I am in the process of beginning to work for my state at my school fixing things. I have nearly replaced the technology person who works there lol. I have been DJing dances at our school for a little while now, and they always are really good, but this next one (February 27th), me and another friend (who is basically an exact copy of me) want to pull out all the stops.

 

Let me give a brief background.

 

Most dances that are run by the student council, we hire a DJ for about 500$ for the two hours that he plays crappy music for us. Katy perry-Ewwww But for dances run by the music or sports boosters, me and either Dylaan, or Bwrick (both friends), DJ and we use our music teacher's PA system. Its an all-in-one thing with two speakers and they detach from the board. It works fine for most dances. But fine wont cut it when well pull out all the stops.

 

Now my dad. He's addicted to the grateful dead, and loves his bluegrass. His initials are PA, so its only appropriate that he has the PA system for the two bands that he is in. Its a great system, the board is designed by mackie, and the speakers are Penley and Yamaha. Its sounds amazing, but its old. Now on to our idea.

 

The gym that we use is about 21 meters long and about 14 wide (thats numbers from the running test that we do every year). Usually, the door that you walk in is facing the DJ, his table, and the speakers. The sound quality is pretty bad when you first walk in, but as you get closer to the DJ, it improves until you hit 'the barrier' beyond that the sound is like Linus watching an Asus board catch fire. Ewww.

 

Only a few people go up there, and their ears are broken anyway. Our idea is to, instead of two speakers in the front, as usual, is to do one in every corner, and if possible, one in the front of the DJ table, for those people that love to dance in the lights that we use. This would create almost, a circle of sound, whereas no matter where you turn, the sound is always there, which would make for maximum awesomeness and trip ball-ness.

 

Now, my dads system is modern-ish, and has L/R connections for the speakers, which is what we need. A few songs have notes that pan from left to right, and this got Dylaan and I thinking. What if we could, on a few monstercat-ish songs put the sound from speaker to speaker, in a circular pattern, kind of like a tornado of sound. This has, in the 21 years our school has been around, never been done, and would be so cool. Don't you agree?

 

So this is where the community, you guys come in. We need your help trying to figure out how to do this. We have all the gear, but we just need to figure out how, because this is truly a difficult task to do.

 

Note: We will be using my laptop, a Macbook Pro, so unless I can dual-boot soon (Hopefully) then only mac osx programs will work. I will use USB with a pre that I have to connect to the board via XLR. I have all the cables, and the board has 8 XLR inputs, so I would say we're all set. Spotify will be our program of choice, since I already own a premium account. Thanks for any help I can get. I

[Derpologist]

Ugh I don't know why the RETURN button isnt showing up... @LinusTech did someone flag my enter key for something like they did the forum a short while ago. lel

[TheHolyCawCaw]

Oh god please us some space between the text I am gonna die

[Derpologist]

Oh god please us some space between the text I am gonna die

There, im sorry, I wrote them in the OP, but it didnt show for some reason. **Fixed**

[ShearMe]

You'd need quadraphonic music if you wanted a "tornado of sound", so at best with normal music you'll still just get left and right. Most large venues like dances only use mono so no matter what speaker you're standing next to, you get the full content of the song. Additionally, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be going full-stop for the speakers, because you'll still have them in a gym of all places, where all the surfaces are flat, hard, and parallel (echo chamber plz). Just get some simple PA speakers with an amp built in, and chain XLR cables together.

[creatip123]

$500 for 2 hours of DJ-ing? Damn....

 

For the panning, you'd need to re-master the tracks to pan to 4 speakers. Problem is, I've never seen a DJ mixer with more than 2 channels output, so I don't know if it's do-able or not in context of live mixing. If it's already mixed, as in you do all the mixing at home, and just play the CD/thumb drive live, then it's do-able. 

[mr moose]

O.K, without seeing (more importantly hearing) the room it is going to be hard to give advice.  However this is the best I got on such little information:

 

1.  With 4 speakers and only two channels, put the left in opposing corners and the rights in the other two opposing corners. This will allow people to hear both left and right regardless of where they walk in the room.

 

2.  Solid walls and ceiling are your enemy, reflected sound will bounce all over the place and really muddy it up.  If possibly try using an eq to remove frequencies that are more likely to resonate.

 

What is the height of the hall? assuming 5M the room modes should all be below 300Hz. which means a muddy low end and an echoey/reverberant top end.

[Lutkeveld]

@mrmoose69 you can't EQ room modes.

 

@Derpologist Google 'subwoofer arrays' and get an idea how placement influences sound.

[Derpologist]

@mrmoose69 you can't EQ room modes.

 

@Derpologist Google 'subwoofer arrays' and get an idea how placement influences sound.

The system that I'll be using has different room modes which adjust.

[Derpologist]

O.K, without seeing (more importantly hearing) the room it is going to be hard to give advice.  However this is the best I got on such little information:

 

1.  With 4 speakers and only two channels, put the left in opposing corners and the rights in the other two opposing corners. This will allow people to hear both left and right regardless of where they walk in the room.

 

2.  Solid walls and ceiling are your enemy, reflected sound will bounce all over the place and really muddy it up.  If possibly try using an eq to remove frequencies that are more likely to resonate.

 

What is the height of the hall? assuming 5M the room modes should all be below 300Hz. which means a muddy low end and an echoey/reverberant top end.

Thanks for the advice-I will try this.

The good part is the dance starts at 7 PM, and I get out of school at 2 PM, so thats a plus, which will give Dylaan and I plenty of time to get it just right

[Derpologist]

You'd need quadraphonic music if you wanted a "tornado of sound", so at best with normal music you'll still just get left and right. Most large venues like dances only use mono so no matter what speaker you're standing next to, you get the full content of the song. Additionally, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be going full-stop for the speakers, because you'll still have them in a gym of all places, where all the surfaces are flat, hard, and parallel (echo chamber plz). Just get some simple PA speakers with an amp built in, and chain XLR cables together.

Where exactly do I get quadrophonic music? Keep in mind, the people that will be attending the dance have a very very limited musical spectrum, so nothing too crazy, as much as I would love to make them all trip balls with monstercat or fill up the entire two hours with EDM...

[Derpologist]

Honestly, our main goal is to just be able to make sound come from all directions. 

I think this can be done with what I have now...Will do some experimenting in my basement today before the big game...

[mr moose]

@mrmoose69 you can't EQ room modes.

 

@Derpologist Google 'subwoofer arrays' and get an idea how placement influences sound.

 

How did you get that out of what I said?

 

There are only 3 ways to deal with room modes, Room treatment and sub placement/control are expensive and it appears the OP doesn't have funds to run out and buy either, so the last option is to try and reduce the exciting frequencies with an eq.  I mentioned this because without knowing the exact condition of the room and not having time/equipment to explain/take proper measurements and design a system, an EQ would be the easiest to setup on the fly.

 

 

Honestly, our main goal is to just be able to make sound come from all directions. 

I think this can be done with what I have now...Will do some experimenting in my basement today before the big game...

 

Also remember that the sound will change when the hall starts to fill with people too.  So what it sounds like empty will be different than when full.

[Lutkeveld]

@mrmoose69, I assumed you were talking about the Schrodinger frequency. All the peaks and dips are location dependent and thus can't be 'removed'. 

 

@Derpologist What equipment do you have? How many subs/tops and which type?

[Derpologist]

How did you get that out of what I said?

 

There are only 3 ways to deal with room modes, Room treatment and sub placement/control are expensive and it appears the OP doesn't have funds to run out and buy either, so the last option is to try and reduce the exciting frequencies with an eq.  I mentioned this because without knowing the exact condition of the room and not having time/equipment to explain/take proper measurements and design a system, an EQ would be the easiest to setup on the fly.

 

 

 

Also remember that the sound will change when the hall starts to fill with people too.  So what it sounds like empty will be different than when full.

yes, from past experiences the sound becomes a little more 'muffled' and less echo-ey.

I think what I may do, is talk to the coordinator, she previously said that there was some money around, so maybe for our school district its time to do it right the first time, and buy different parts and 'build our own' similar to what my dad did when he made his setup...after all, I only have a few more months left in this school and then four at the high school, and thats it, so they can't be relying on me the whole time...

[Derpologist]

@mrmoose69, I assumed you were talking about the Schrodinger frequency. All the peaks and dips are location dependent and thus can't be 'removed'. 

 

@Derpologist What equipment do you have? How many subs/tops and which type?

Well we aren't quite sure yet. 

If we use my dads setup: A mackie mixer which is powerful enough for two Yamaha subs with tweeters built in, two Penley monitors (basically the same as the Yamaha's just smaller) and one large thing, that I have no idea what it is, nor my dad, but it has a dual woofer and dual tweeter thing in it, and its huge. 

All about dat bassssss

[Derpologist]

I can't wait to play Surface by Aero Chord on this thing...

[Derpologist]

Ok so I have sent a link to this post to the coordinator of the dance...

Now we just gotta see if we should use my dads setup if he lets me, or get a new one for our school district...

[ShearMe]

Where exactly do I get quadrophonic music?

 

That's the thing, I don't even know.

[Derpologist]

That's the thing, I don't even know.

My dad said that he remembers when it was invented, and it was 'all the rage' but now nobody has that crazy of a setup...

Except me...

[ShearMe]

My dad said that he remembers when it was invented, and it was 'all the rage' but now nobody has that crazy of a setup...

Except me...

 

They used to make receivers with dual headphone jacks that you could use with quadraphonic headphones. You can still find the hardware on eBay, but I have no idea where to get the music.

[mr moose]

you'll have to go back tot he 70's for quadrophonic music:

 

Pink floyd, ZZ top, Deep Purple and Elvis come to mind,  but I'm not too sure you young fella's would enjoy that at a school social.