In this series of articles, it is intended to set out the basics of what is required to build and operate a sound system. This is an article from Issue One written by Peter Youll, and since then he has broken down the basics in each magazine.
Before we get started it's important to stress something. Building and running a sound system is more than just a hobby. It is infectious and becomes a whole way of life. It is important to impress on anyone thinking of starting on this journey the financial cost; prepare to spend all your spare cash (and most of your not-so-spare cash) on the sound.
Before you start building up your own sound it’s a really good idea to get involved with an existing local sound system. This will let you get a feel for what’s involved and see whether it’s for you.
Most sound systems will be grateful for an extra pair of hands (especially at the end of the night) and it’s the perfect opportunity to learn the basics in the most hands-on way possible. Despite the previous paragraph, try not to be put off - building and running a sound is incredibly rewarding and there’s nothing quite like seeing a club full of people skanking out to something you’ve built. It's hard work but nothing good comes for free.
Now that the warning is out of the way, we can get down to business. Assuming we are starting with a pile of cash and a blank space, it's essential to first decide what it is you want to do.
There are unlimited different ways in which to build a sound system so to avoid wasting your money and ruining your reputation before you begin it is well worth making a few key decisions.
Firstly, decide what genre of music you intend to play. Different genres of music require differing approaches to sound systems due to the type of sounds you are trying to reproduce. For example, house and techno music tends not to have a huge amount of sub-bass but is predominantly driven by the kick drum. It is therefore no good building a big stack of subs which will be doing next to nothing when playing your preferred genre. Reggae and dub, on the other hand, is very focused on a heavy bassline and you will therefore need a big pile of subs to make sure the crowd gets the sound (and feeling) they came for.
Secondly, it is worth considering where you are going to be using your sound system - you don’t need a festival-sized sound system if you’re in the back room of a pub, and similarly, you can’t expect to power a festival on a couple of cheap speakers on poles. It’s often best to adopt a modular approach to your sound system, at least in the beginning, as this will let you start small and grow rather than having to continually sell and start fresh. Building or buying the right things at the start means that in the future you can just add more of the same as the venues you are playing at also grow.
So, now that we have decided on our intended genre and venue we can start thinking about the actual hardware of the sound system. Typically, a sound system will be built up from several different types of speakers. This is because different speaker designs reproduce different parts of the audio spectrum best. For example, typically, for sub-bass an 18-inch speaker cone (also known as a driver) is selected. This is because a bass note has a low frequency (number of oscillations per second (Hz) and a long wavelength. A large driver is therefore required to push and pull a lot of air and the cone must travel a long way in and out to reproduce the sound.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, high notes have a high frequency and short wavelength and as a result, a much smaller driver can reproduce the sound. A bass driver is typically too slow to accurately reproduce high-frequency sounds and a small speaker generally cannot move enough air to produce the bass notes - it’s a case of getting the right tool for the job.
There are several ways to split the audio spectrum across your speakers but in general, people tend to use either 3, 4 or 5 types of speaker to create the sound.
For example, a 5-way sound system might have what are often referred to as subs, kick bins, mids, tops and tweeters. In this example configuration, the ‘subs’ would tend to
play 30 Hz - 100 Hz I.e. the eye rattling sub bass, the ‘kick bins’ might play 100 Hz - 250Hz I.e. the upper bass notes and importantly the kick drum, then ‘mids’ might cover 250 Hz - 1,500Hz which deals with lower frequencies from guitars, pianos and vocals, tops could then cover 1,500Hz - 7,000Hz to produce higher vocal notes, guitar sounds, synths etc. The tweeters would then be left to cover 7,000Hz - 20,000Hz which is typically the hi-hats.
Splitting the sound system into 5 ways allows each speaker to reproduce a smaller band of the audio spectrum and therefore be designed to play its part better. The downside to operating in this manner is that the sound system is more complex, requiring more speakers and equipment, costing more and taking up more space.
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