Another Walkin Music Q (Dealing with heavy curtain)

[Jack Ondracek]

Actually, you might find that keeping the levels low and leaving EQ alone might be exactly what you need.

Unless you're trying to present some kind of playlist you want to draw attention to, it's really just atmospheric noise.

While muted by the curtain, the music will bring up ambient levels so people aren't self conscious about their conversation, which also isn't drowned out by excessively high mid-range and highs. It's like what you hear at malls... musical noise without a lot of detail... not distracting and easy to talk over.

Me? I'd feed mono through the center speaker and call it good. The real show comes after you pull the curtain anyway.

No subs or vocals, either.

Not very exciting, but a whole lot more comfort-friendly than being bombarded by car, toothpaste and condom ads.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Actually, you might find that keeping the levels low and leaving EQ alone might be exactly what you need.

Unless you're trying to present some kind of playlist you want to draw attention to, it's really just atmospheric noise.

While muted by the curtain, the music will bring up ambient levels so people aren't self conscious about their conversation, which also isn't drowned out by excessively high mid-range and highs. It's like what you hear at malls... musical noise without a lot of detail... not distracting and easy to talk over.

Me? I'd feed mono through the center speaker and call it good. The real show comes after you pull the curtain anyway.

No subs or vocals, either.

Not very exciting, but a whole lot more comfort-friendly than being bombarded by car, toothpaste and condom ads.

Music is of course very subjective and risky depending on curation quality. What you describe is easily the safest (but also the least fun). I should have led with the fact that we are a classics/rep house mostly. We take the safer approaches for festivals and contemporary film... but we give ourselves more room to have fun with walkin vibes in the summer and holiday series, which range from quiet classical/instrumental... all the way up to "might as well hire a DJ, cause it's a party". I even made them sit in silence and listen to themselves only one film (Jeanne Dielman). It's very film/event/audience dependent. My four approaching films with the curtain closed are more in the "it's a party" end of the spectrum... double layer curtain subduing "Musack" on the other end of the spectrum is basically a non issue.

An extreme example, we had "Selena" recently, and booked a locally famous cover band for a walkin live set played at concert volumes. When our audio engineer left the desk to help them strike for the last 20 min, he put my playlist on at the same concert volumes!! LOL. Unexpected, I never play them that loud, even when I'm trying to have fun with it, but it made sense to keep the same energy level.

But agree in principle with your center only approach, if the Neo6 or L+R surrounds aren't adding anything or are disconnected from the muffled fronts... perhaps best to just go front only and try to tweak things there to get the HF back. If still using Neo6, maybe taper or leave the sub out cause it will punch through and leave the rest in the dust.

Will anyone notice real differences? Probably not. As it is the Ushers are the only ones who get to hear the whole intent of the playlists... but they enjoy em. One even told me she tries to get an auditorium assignment just to hear what music the film inspired that day. All I know is I get plenty of reports about inquiries and compliments on the walkin music. Opinion, but it does seem to be "adding" value to the experience when well curated and played at a level people can actually tune into it.

Anything I manage to improve is also a lesson I can apply to when the intro presentation takes place in front of the same curtain. But notably mic coming from anywhere but the stage would sound dumb AF, so probably just EQ/level improvements in that situation.

[Marco Giustini]

I don't think intermission background music from surrounds is distracting or anything - in fact, I feel it gives the best coverage at the lowest volume because, as said, you don't want that to be too loud.
My intermission music used to be from surrounds only when the CP500 allowed that to do so.
It also gives a separation between intermission and when the show restarts as the sound comes from a different place!

I also set the microphone from surrounds - prevents feedback since the person speaking in the mike is going to be in front of the stage speakers.

Even in a rush, Ryan, tweaking the EQ a few dB's is the quickest approach IMHO. It doesn't have to be an accurate EQ

[Christos Gartaganis]

You could buy a good quality second hand equalizer from eBay and connect it between your audio player output and the AP20 Non Sync input. This will improve the quality of your music playback in a simple and cost effective way. There are several good quality second hand equalizers available on eBay for $100 or less. I would go for the dbx 231 or equivalent.

[Marcel Birgelen]

But why would you even want to do that?! Why add another device? You have an AP20... It has been mentioned before, but just create a new EQ set and optimize it for this specific scenario.

[Christos Gartaganis]

But why would you even want to do that?! Why add another device? You have an AP20... It has been mentioned before, but just create a new EQ set and optimize it for this specific scenario.

This was just an alternative proposal in case Ryan preferred a simple and cost effective solution without messing around with the AP20 settings

[Carsten Kurz]

Ryan mentioned that walkin music is delivered from a spotify app - doesn't that app offer an integrated graphic EQ?

[Ryan Gallagher]

Ryan mentioned that walkin music is delivered from a spotify app - doesn't that app offer an integrated graphic EQ?

I did not mention that in this thread, but it does. Which is an option if you are only doing stereo. But if using Neo6 those adjustments would apply to all non-screen channels too, not the desired result here necessarily, since I was considering leaving Neo6 an option.

There is also the caveat that switching between curtain vs no-curtain modes is harder to juggle (same with the hardware EQ idea unless it has a bypass mode button). Those simple fixes would be very valid if curtain was an every show need, and walkin atmosphere was a fixed quantity, which it is not for us.

An old hardware EQ is also harder to dial while sitting in the house of course, lots of trips or buddy system required.

A tweaked format/EQ on the AP20 sounds like our best implementation given the variability. I’ve got the booth set where one can “upgrade” to hdmi/neo6 and deal with it’s sync gotchyas, but my less familiar operators can stick with the known past practice of stereo non-sync. For that reason I’m hopeful the curtain closed solution becomes a non-sync one, so others can use it more effectively for now.

HDMI methods will get more reliable if we ever replace the extron that used to switch ahead of the AP20. But probably no changes there until the rennovation.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I don't think intermission background music from surrounds is distracting or anything - in fact, I feel it gives the best coverage at the lowest volume because, as said, you don't want that to be too loud.
My intermission music used to be from surrounds only when the CP500 allowed that to do so.
It also gives a separation between intermission and when the show restarts as the sound comes from a different place!

I also set the microphone from surrounds - prevents feedback since the person speaking in the mike is going to be in front of the stage speakers.

Even in a rush, Ryan, tweaking the EQ a few dB's is the quickest approach IMHO. It doesn't have to be an accurate EQ

L+R Music routed to Lss+Rss ONLY is certainly a variant to give a listen to for curtain shows. It was one of my original instincts. Will test that variant too. I think the AP20 lets me do that version.

We've never struggled with feedback on the front channels, our L+C+R are about 5ft above head height. (But we also have them going through a small mixer which helps). I might have too much live event instincts/purism to consider letting intro mic come from the surrounds only, but it is an option.

[Ryan Gallagher]

So I just spent about an hour navigating menus and trying variants (Those menus do get annoying, even on a reasonably fast tablet). For this stretch of curtain shows I settled on (in a separate Format and Profile) disabling Neo6, and routing a copy of L+R into Ls+Rs, I basically had to bring L,R,C output gain up to 0.0 to even get close to being able to hear the mains behind the curtain from middle of the house... and poke output channel delays a touch. Very non permanent solution... a one off attempt. The downside of this method is your format channel levels are not so useful, if you move L or R everything moves.

I did try a variant with Neo6 still enabled and just boosting L,C,R and a half hearted attempt manipulating a Curtain EQ starting from our 5.1 EQ, but I don't even have a decent RTA on my phone, and i'm out of my depth being able to adjust by ear at this level of granularity with a Curtain in the way. If I had a bank of knobs maybe, but not with the AP20 clunky interface. If I get another chance I might try the Spotify EQ curve method, and just know that FLAT Is what we restore to, that method would also require ditching Neo6 to avoid EQing surrounds all wacky. The effort was a slight subjective improvement, but the copy into surrounds method just sounded better overall, that curtain really kills music.

I did not repeat the process with a non-sync format tonight, though if I did that would enable me to use the high/mid/low trim pots on the mixer. hmmm. What I made tonight only improves hdmi walkin music format, not our intro speaker format.

It will be a whole project some day to dig out Smart tools and give it an honest go EQing for the curtain situation. Mostly just as an excuse to learn more.

I also found a decent free RTA for my phone after I got home. "Sonic Tools".