Best Place For Best Sound

[danbailey80]

I wondered what everyone's recommendations are for places to hear the best sound at the main stages. This usually involves more volume but also clarity etc. 

I'll start by saying centre right, in front of right speaker at Glade. 

 

[SwedgeAntilles]

I've watched CHVRCHES, The Chems and LCD all from the right hand side of the Other and not had any issues, watched Liam dead centre but towards the back and the sound was awful. 

Edited January 4, 2020 by SwedgeAntilles

[Tommy Dickfingers]

You want to be stood in front of the PA as it’s those lads responsibility to make it sound good and have the tools to adapt it. If you can’t get centre in front of PA try and be as close to a speaker somewhere else as you can. 
 

Bad sound fucks me off like no other but I really feel people over complicate it. 

[jparx]

39 minutes ago, SwedgeAntilles said:

I've watched CHVRCHES, The Chems and LCD all from the right hand side of the Other and not had any issues, watched Liam dead centre but towards the back and the sound was awful. 

I've had the same experience of this with the Other. Further back in the centre seems the worst spot. Front left and right always seem to serve me well. Front left for Tame Impala was one of the best sounding shows ive experienced at Glastonbury.

[bexj]

The sound on the other stage can be shocking, depending on which way/how strong the wind is blowing. But I've generally found that sometimes the sound is better either right at the back or right at the front, there seems to be a dead zone around the mixing desk. 

Pyramid, sound i think is pretty good anywhere except right infront of one of the big front speakers. 

WH pretty good anywhere 

[Ayrshire Chris]

29 minutes ago, jparx said:

I've had the same experience of this with the Other. Further back in the centre seems the worst spot. Front left and right always seem to serve me well. Front left for Tame Impala was one of the best sounding shows ive experienced at Glastonbury.

Same for us. Towards the rear of the other  was for me pretty poor for tame impala. Moved forward and towards the left and the improvement was dramatic. Also visually it was a lot better closer to the stage,  the screen images were better there. It was very similar for Christine and the queens 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Ayrshire Chris

[stuartbert two hats]

43 minutes ago, bexj said:

The sound on the other stage can be shocking, depending on which way/how strong the wind is blowing. But I've generally found that sometimes the sound is better either right at the back or right at the front, there seems to be a dead zone around the mixing desk. 

Pyramid, sound i think is pretty good anywhere except right infront of one of the big front speakers. 

WH pretty good anywhere 

Woah, woah, wish, hold your horses!

From 2019 onwards, WH has vastly increased the parts of the arena where it sounds good, but it's still not everywhere you can see the band. Time was it would sound awful if you were much behind the mixing tower. Now it sounds fantastic on the benches at the back, but you do still need to make sure you're actually "in the arena".

I saw Lizzo from the right hand side, near the food stalls and whilst it didn't sound as bad as it used to when you were further back, it was clearly lacking some oomph. Given that I know how the records sound and I know what that system can do when you're in the right place, I'm reasonably confident that it was down to my position. Lizzo's charisma made up for it, but the sound wasn't great.

The rig they have in WH is very good, but is tuned to aggressively cut off the sound when you're elsewhere in the festival. This is great for sound bleed and off-site dB levels, but does mean you have to be careful about where you stand. The recent repeaters were as much about being able to better control the arena perimeter as they were about pushing out more sound. For a field the size of WH, it would have been easy to fill the whole arena with a single set of speakers, but you would be able to hear it at The Glade (this indeed was the case in festivals gone by).

I would advise to be the other side of the path, rather than chilling out at a food stall.

[Badlands]

18 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Woah, woah, wish, hold your horses!

From 2019 onwards, WH has vastly increased the parts of the arena where it sounds good, but it's still not everywhere you can see the band. Time was it would sound awful if you were much behind the mixing tower. Now it sounds fantastic on the benches at the back, but you do still need to make sure you're actually "in the arena".

I saw Lizzo from the right hand side, near the food stalls and whilst it didn't sound as bad as it used to when you were further back, it was clearly lacking some oomph. Given that I know how the records sound and I know what that system can do when you're in the right place, I'm reasonably confident that it was down to my position. Lizzo's charisma made up for it, but the sound wasn't great.

The rig they have in WH is very good, but is tuned to aggressively cut off the sound when you're elsewhere in the festival. This is great for sound bleed and off-site dB levels, but does mean you have to be careful about where you stand. The recent repeaters were as much about being able to better control the arena perimeter as they were about pushing out more sound. For a field the size of WH, it would have been easy to fill the whole arena with a single set of speakers, but you would be able to hear it at The Glade (this indeed was the case in festivals gone by).

I would advise to be the other side of the path, rather than chilling out at a food stall.

Had numerous issues last year at WH. We were just in front of the repeaters for both Lizzo and Hopkins and found the sound very weak both times. We were able to move on at Hopkins as the crowd was small, slightly took the shine off Lizzo though.

[stuartbert two hats]

58 minutes ago, Badlands said:

Had numerous issues last year at WH. We were just in front of the repeaters for both Lizzo and Hopkins and found the sound very weak both times. We were able to move on at Hopkins as the crowd was small, slightly took the shine off Lizzo though.

That's interesting. I can confirm Hopkins did not have weak sound further forwards - I was about 2/3 of the way from stage to mixing tower and it was the most hi-fi thing I've ever heard at Glastonbury.

Also, further back from the repeaters, on the benches, The Comet Is Coming sounded very full.  

Perhaps getting a little further back front the repeaters is a good strategy? I guess we'll find out in July when everyone reports back.

[Badlands]

2 hours ago, stuartbert two hats said:

That's interesting. I can confirm Hopkins did not have weak sound further forwards - I was about 2/3 of the way from stage to mixing tower and it was the most hi-fi thing I've ever heard at Glastonbury.

Also, further back from the repeaters, on the benches, The Comet Is Coming sounded very full.  

Perhaps getting a little further back front the repeaters is a good strategy? I guess we'll find out in July when everyone reports back.

My thoughts were we weren't close enough to get the full experience of the speakers at the front, and as we were in front of the repeaters - weren't getting them either.

I was subject to the same sort of pocket for the Stones in 2013 - 140,000 people having the time of their lives and me scratching my head thinking why it wasn't loud enough.

[DJL]

I have had some mixed experiences of sound at West Holts over the years and I rarely go too close to the front. Jacksons sounded particularly terrible and  Avalanchees weren’t great. Justice and Lizzie sounded pretty decent. Jurassic 5, Chic and Hot Chip all sounded immense. 

How much of this was down to the act/where I was standing/the wind/how sober I was etc. I have no idea.

[Crazyfool01]

I’ve always been sound no matter where I’ve stood 

[stuartbert two hats]

I've decided not to have any fun at the next festival, I'm just going to walk around the WH arena listening to the bass response. Then I'll report back here.

[Crazyfool01]

9 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

I've decided not to have any fun at the next festival, I'm just going to walk around the WH arena listening to the bass response. Then I'll report back here.

id expect nothing less from you  

[musky]

In general for outdoor gigs the best sound is going to be right in front of a speaker stack, as close as you can get to it. All the main stages use line arrays which have excellent horizontal dispersion, but they do have their limitations in that respect. At 90 degrees off axis you are looking at about a 6dB drop in volume (which is around 75% of volume), but that increases to about 10dB at 120 degrees - that's half the volume. Any further off axis and you can forget about any kind of balanced sound. When you bear in mind that bass frequencies are affected by going off axis far less, you'll realise that you'll increasingly find you can hear the bottom end at the expense of the top. For the most balanced sound stay within around 30 degrees of the speaker's axis. Distance is important as you lose 6dB every time you double the distance from the speakers. That means that the volume you hear at 20m from the speakers is less than half than you'll get at 5m. At 40m away it's getting close to a quarter of the volume. And the closer you are to the speakers the less affected you will be by any wind. tl;dr - stay in front of the speakers, as close as you can get.

Edited January 4, 2020 by musky

[stuartbert two hats]

12 minutes ago, musky said:

In general for outdoor gigs the best sound is going to be right in front of a speaker stack, as close as you can get to it. All the main stages use line arrays which have excellent horizontal dispersion, but they do have their limitations in that respect. At 90 degrees off axis you are looking at about a 6dB drop in volume (which is around 75% of volume), but that increases to about 10dB at 120 degrees - that's half the volume. Any further off axis and you can forget about any kind of balanced sound. When you bear in mind that bass frequencies are affected by going off axis far less, you'll realise that you'll increasingly find you can hear the bottom end at the expense of the top. For the most balanced sound stay within around 30 degrees of the speaker's axis. Distance is important as you lose 6dB every time you double the distance from the speakers. That means that the volume you hear at 20m from the speakers is less than half than you'll get at 5m. At 40m away it's getting close to a quarter of the volume. And the closer you are to the speakers the less affected you will be by any wind. tl;dr - stay in front of the speakers, as close as you can get.

This is the kind of post we should have more of.  Data heavy ones.

[MrZigster]

Please don't start me off about the sound at Liam being ruined by sound bleed from the generic DJs at The Village Green bar again .

[Bisque]

Has anyone have more info on the Martin, Funktion One or others the festival uses.

I read this one year they used Funktion’s on the main stage once & reverted back to Martin’s again the year after.

https://www.funktion-one.com/dl/files/365.pdf

[musky]

47 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

This is the kind of post we should have more of.  Data heavy ones.

One for the inner geek in all of us.

[musky]

26 minutes ago, Bisque said:

Has anyone have more info on the Martin, Funktion One or others the festival uses.

I read this one year they used Funktion’s on the main stage once & reverted back to Martin’s again the year after.

https://www.funktion-one.com/dl/files/365.pdf

There’s more info on this thread. 

 

[musky]

On 1/4/2020 at 8:16 PM, stuartbert two hats said:

This is the kind of post we should have more of.  Data heavy ones.

Oh, and I just noticed that in the Martin press release they mentioned that that both the Park and the JP have now placed their subs at the side of the stage. That’s going to throw some phase issues into the mix. It’s only going to affect some bass frequencies, but picking a spot dead centre between the speakers would eliminate this. 

Just a shame I wasn’t there last year to hear it for myself. 

Edited January 5, 2020 by musky

[SwedgeAntilles]

12 hours ago, musky said:

In general for outdoor gigs the best sound is going to be right in front of a speaker stack, as close as you can get to it. All the main stages use line arrays which have excellent horizontal dispersion, but they do have their limitations in that respect. At 90 degrees off axis you are looking at about a 6dB drop in volume (which is around 75% of volume), but that increases to about 10dB at 120 degrees - that's half the volume. Any further off axis and you can forget about any kind of balanced sound. When you bear in mind that bass frequencies are affected by going off axis far less, you'll realise that you'll increasingly find you can hear the bottom end at the expense of the top. For the most balanced sound stay within around 30 degrees of the speaker's axis. Distance is important as you lose 6dB every time you double the distance from the speakers. That means that the volume you hear at 20m from the speakers is less than half than you'll get at 5m. At 40m away it's getting close to a quarter of the volume. And the closer you are to the speakers the less affected you will be by any wind. tl;dr - stay in front of the speakers, as close as you can get.

This content

[Crazyfool01]

12 hours ago, musky said:

In general for outdoor gigs the best sound is going to be right in front of a speaker stack, as close as you can get to it. All the main stages use line arrays which have excellent horizontal dispersion, but they do have their limitations in that respect. At 90 degrees off axis you are looking at about a 6dB drop in volume (which is around 75% of volume), but that increases to about 10dB at 120 degrees - that's half the volume. Any further off axis and you can forget about any kind of balanced sound. When you bear in mind that bass frequencies are affected by going off axis far less, you'll realise that you'll increasingly find you can hear the bottom end at the expense of the top. For the most balanced sound stay within around 30 degrees of the speaker's axis. Distance is important as you lose 6dB every time you double the distance from the speakers. That means that the volume you hear at 20m from the speakers is less than half than you'll get at 5m. At 40m away it's getting close to a quarter of the volume. And the closer you are to the speakers the less affected you will be by any wind. tl;dr - stay in front of the speakers, as close as you can get.

id love to see this in some kind of picture  

[Tommy Dickfingers]

Surely it’s common sense if the sound is coming out of some speakers on the left and some speakers on the right, you stand in between those speakers as centrally as possible facing them as close to said speakers the louder. 
You can literally see and hear the source of the sound!

We were in quite a big group for Radiohead at Pyramid the other year and stood close to one of the repeaters at the back. Half of our group decided it couldn’t possibly sound as good as closer to the stage and got caught between the PA and repeaters. They all came back after the gig saying the sound was shit. 

[Ayrshire Chris]

On 1/4/2020 at 8:03 PM, musky said:

In general for outdoor gigs the best sound is going to be right in front of a speaker stack, as close as you can get to it. All the main stages use line arrays which have excellent horizontal dispersion, but they do have their limitations in that respect. At 90 degrees off axis you are looking at about a 6dB drop in volume (which is around 75% of volume), but that increases to about 10dB at 120 degrees - that's half the volume. Any further off axis and you can forget about any kind of balanced sound. When you bear in mind that bass frequencies are affected by going off axis far less, you'll realise that you'll increasingly find you can hear the bottom end at the expense of the top. For the most balanced sound stay within around 30 degrees of the speaker's axis. Distance is important as you lose 6dB every time you double the distance from the speakers. That means that the volume you hear at 20m from the speakers is less than half than you'll get at 5m. At 40m away it's getting close to a quarter of the volume. And the closer you are to the speakers the less affected you will be by any wind. tl;dr - stay in front of the speakers, as close as you can get.

Excellent advice, especially the bit about bass frequencies which I have noticed but always blamed ageing! Also your post explains why the sound quality is poor in the pyramid urinals and queue for the ice cream van!