Advice for a new school hall

[Sparker8888]

Hi,

I am the ICT network manager of a large junior school and as part of my' anything-with-a-plug' remit I have been asked to re-equip our upper school hall. Last year, for our lower school hall, I bought a Behringer PMP 1000 with some passive wharfedale Triton 12" speakers and put up a motorised screen and large projector for AV etc amd this has worked well and looks a lot better than the bedsheet attached to the curtains we used to use

.

In the other school hall I have a room about the size of a basketball court which is used for sports and school productions and concerts as well as presentations etc. I will measure up properly but I guess the room is 25' wide by 40' long with 18' ceiling.

I need to permanently mount projector and screen plus a lighting bar, lights and lighting deck which are already owned but only brought out for productions so cannot advise on brand. Apparently the deck is 'fiendishly complicated' which probably means has more than an on button! I also need to buy a new PA and sound mixing desk which will need USB out so we can record CDs of performances.

 

Finally I would like to add some kind of hi-res Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera video to record productions - ideally 2 per hall so we can edit between feeds but this will be a job for next year.( still appreciate any recomendations though)

 

What I would like is advice on a deck plus speakers and microphones. The set up in the lower school is good but lacks USB out plus the speakers will be in the way so I was thinking surface mount might work?

I would be grateful for the benefit of your experience and have about £1000-1500 to spend on PA and sound recording. Not much but better than nothing....

 

 

Any advice?

[paulears]

Hi - we're not that familiar with the term deck, so when you say you have a lighting deck, do you want to buy another? Plus speakers and microphones?

 

I don't think we have anywhere enough info, and it's a bit confusing.

 

What exactly do you need us to advise on? PA and sound recording equipment is going to be budget end for your budget. Surface mounting speakers? As in on wall brackets, or fitted into a cavity wall, or??

 

I'm assuming you are planning to just record onto a PC? Some mixers do have not just USB, but the ability to output to a USB stick - but it depends so much on what you want it all to do. Size, in terms of inputs is also important - ability to mix how many sources? Speakers need amps, or be active types - all this is going to push the budget. You'll get a pair of plastic box active speakers and a mixer for your money - is this the kind of thing you mean?

 

Are you ok with mounting the lighting bar and other kit?

[ojc123]

It might be worth becoming part of the School Theatre Support Group (on this forum pinned at the top of the Next Generation). It's got people who work in schools and know how crazy it is to get stuff to happen in Schools and how people end up doing jobs where they are a bit out of their comfort zone. There's lots of technical help in the rest of the forum but we get the School thing better. Paulears has a background in education and is sympathetic (up to a point) with the stuff we have to put up with.

[Mushypeas]

For that sort of budget, I'd look at the Yamaha MG166CXUSB roughly 350 quid. It's no Allen And Heath but it works.

[OllieH]

It seems like you have a multitude of jobs to complete on a tight budget. It's a common situation in schools, but it does make your post a little difficult to decipher.

 

Lighting deck, I presume you mean lighting desk? If you're intending to replace the present one with something more intuitive, it would be helpful to know what you use at the moment. In addition to this, the specification of a desk varies greatly dependent on: what equipment you're using it with, how the equipment is supposed to act/behave and who will be using it. OK - so we've got who will be using it, teacher and students. Let's generalise and say these are non-competent people. What equipment does your rig consist of at present and what is its usual application - e.g. meetings/conferences or live music/dance/rock concerts?

[Junior8]

Call in a selection of specialist firms and ask them for schemes and to quote for their recommendations - then look for the common ground and differences in consultation with those whose opinion you trust before making any descisions.

 

It's an old style suggestion I know but it has its merits...

[Sparker8888]

Hi All , sorry if it was a bit vague but didn't want to write an essay...

What I am asking for help with is the PA speakers and microphones and that is what the budget is for.

 

The lighting is already purchased but is stored somewhere and only brought out for performances so the lighting bar is to enable it to be permanently deployed but until I actually get chance to see it I will treat it as a future project.(deputy head described it as a lighting deck or perhaps I misheard) so will no doubt be back asking about that but for now it is not relevant.

 

As Junior 8 suggested I have spoken to quite a few people and had a range of responses:

 

Surface mounted speakers

It seems that surface mount speakers ( as in inset into the false ceiling) are not as good as speaker cabinets on the wall ( which have the disadvantage of being targets for basket balls) do you agree?

 

Microphones

Numerous web pages talk about using condenser microphones configured for ORTF but when I went in a shop they seemed to think a pair of shotgun mics would do the job better (Rode NTG-1) . I was considering using an architectural winch to lower the ORTF frame when required so it could hide from basket balls the rest of the time but fitting shotguns high up might also work

 

Recording

I intend to use a PC (I know something about them at least) and understand that USB is the way to go but does it out put on two channels or more? and does that matter?

 

Usage

Aside from regular presentations both external and internal the children also do an annual show and this year it is the Tempest ( in 4 weeks!!) but normally it is a musical. There is no proper stage just a small platform that is assembled to give some height ( about a foot) Generally the equipment will be operated by teachers of limited technical ability so simplicity is important, rather than advanced technical features.

 

Installation

Will probably be me - pretty competent with a drill and the walls are solid enough but need to know where to put stuff.

The intention is to house it all in a cupboard at the rear of the hall on slide out drawers and run the wires in the false ceiling.

 

The school is also being rebuilt so I am pretty busy completely replacing the entire IT infrastructure, servers, structured cabling, wifi etc plus chairing the PTA and building a new school pool so your help here is really appreciated - normally I would love getting into this in detail but I have 4 weeks and very little time so many thanks for helping me out and sharing your experience.

[paulears]

Ceiling speakers are fine for background music, announcements, fire warnings but are a total no-no for what you're planning.

They have to be light to fit in a panel, they can't be directed towards the audience and away from the microphones - so feedback is grim. The small size means they are normally a single driver - so top end and bottom end are limited. Add a big magnet for power handling and the weight is too much. Full range PA cabinets, even cheap disco type ones are very heavy. Few have simple hanging systems.

 

So it's going to be wall mount for all practical purposes. Stands work if you want temporary.

 

You have to choose between passive traditional cabinets and separate amplifiers or similar looking cabinets with built in amps. These are becoming more popular and you just feed them line level audio and mains power. For permanent installs, you normally need to have a power feed to these that has a remote switch - otherwise you can't turn them off! Loads of people plan their system so the speakers can use a handy power point - but then if somebody removes the mixer, the speakers burst into crackles and hums because their inputs are always working - and somebody has to find a step ladder to pull the plugs out.

 

As for the USB - I've got a few mixers with USB facilities and I never use them. Most, as you mention, are basically just the stereo output of the mixer - the PC picks them up as a generic audio device, usually treating them as an external sound card. Even the crude free software provided with the PCs is fine for recording and playback. You can get mixers with each channel available as a firewire stream - not seen any USB ones yet - but I'm sure somebody makes one at less than a Midas Venice price - which can manage 64 outputs on a Firewire.

 

The reason for USB, for me, not being very useful, is that on the music recording computers I have, they already have good quality, pro audio interfaces on them, so I tend to go in and out that way. If you only have the dreadful ins and outs provided by the sound card then USB is sensible. Probably worth pointing out that the USB that comes out of a Peavey mixer I have refuses to work on my dell laptop. No idea why, it works on other equipment - but my Dell simply won't recognise it. Multi track facilities via USB would be handy for some purposes - if you are using Cubase, for example, being able to send stuff back to the mixer for monitoring is very handy - also very useful to be able to route a particular input to an aux and then send that separately to the software for recording - but my Peavey can't do it, so I tend to use the older Soundcraft with the four groups and a couple of auxes via the Tascam interface I use, permanently wired. For just recording stereo to make CDs or whatever, the extra expense of multi-channel USB or Firewire is pointless, I suspect.

 

Onto mics - ORTF? Blimey - I suspect running before walking is the case here. What exactly are you wanting to do with microphones?

 

If you have an orchestra on stage and want to record it then technique wise it's completely different than if you want to amplify a choir of iffy singers for a performance. Please speak to people who have done it - here, or local to you. Sure, you will get different equipment opinions, that's normal - but you need basics first.

 

For a recording - many schools who do A Level Music Technology have been recording 'ambient music' as part of their exam system for years, and pretty well a crossed pair is by far the best technique to get a decent stereo recording from er, average, sources.

 

Being honest, ORTF and X/Y are the most common because they tend to just produce good stereo field, and decent mono compatibility and don't need ultra careful set-up. Things like the Rode NT4 have a fixed pair of mics in one housing - If you use two identical condensers, then you have the choice of mounting them on a T bar and with them swung out from each other, wider than 100 degrees or so to each other, you have a near ORTF pair, swung in to 90 degrees and crossed so the elements are as co-incident as you can manage and you have X/Y. In a perfect room, the two techniques sound slightly different. In a typical school type room, I doubt anybody could hear the difference in a blind test!

 

For amplifying performers, then we always get into trouble. Some people hang their spurs on short shotgun mics across the stage front edge - depending on width, 2,3 or maybe 5 seem common advice. You probably need to also budget on some isolation mounts otherwise clumpy feet make horrible noises - AKG have some quite good ones. Other people extol the virtues of boundary mics (I'm personally in this camp). Others are very happy with overhead mics. For each success there are more failures mainly due to local circumstances, and it's experience that helps avoid these. What all of these techniques demonstrate, over and over again is that if the need is to make a few weak kids heard over much louder ones, then you're stuffed. Without individual mics and an experienced operator, all you will do with any of these techniques is make it a bit, not a lot, louder. The balance is usually just the same (or even worse!)If you want control and volume - then lots of radios and BIGGER expense and operators who really are good - is the only viable solution.

 

If the teachers using it are unskilled, then avoid radio systems and complication. You'll have to explain that it is simply impossible to artificially make Emma on the back row audible when John at the front is singing out of tune with gusto! If they're doing the tempest - then some mics on the stage area edge that can have their levels fixed in the rehearsal so feedback isn't going to happen, is the best you will manage - but it won't be loud, far from it. Just a little louder. Try to up the volume and you'll need somebody with experience to ride the faders and keep it a smidge from bursting into feedback. Not fun!

 

The reality is that if you don't have a technician who can work this for you, then it's going to be difficult. Set and forget PA systems are always ineffective, if they are to be 'press this switch to turn the PA on' style. It is not realistic, at ANY budget to get good performance from a non-operator controlled system.

[fennell-p]

I'm not sure I can top the technical manual you have just recieved!! But as for your future project of lighting, getting people in to price it up is good, as you can play them off against eachother to keep costs down.

 

Make sure you are not trying to put all your lights in the one position (I.e on a long bar square in front of the stage.) If you have more than 6 lights then make provisions for having them in the ceiling at the sides, or on stands on the floor, or even provide plug sockets to allow floor lights to be run onto stage. Flexibility is a wonderful thing if you have some keen Y11's wanting to experiment with different effects.

[paulears]

Sadly getting three quotes - the usual solution to all these school jobs rarely produces the best solution, merely the cheapest. Somebody will quote for good quality, long lifespan product, another quotes for imported equipment at a much lower cost, than looks lovely for a while until the paint starts to peel off as the poor quality metal corodes - or the lead screw to adjust focus bends with a little too much student power. Rapidly a bunch of junk builds up in the corner because there are no spares. The Fresnels that looked excellent value have barn doors that move in the breeze and the flood to spot adjustment is never quite enough. One quote is fifty quid more, but you know the supplier, they're just up the road and are the obvious source - except the bean counters make you buy from somebody miles away who simply send you boxes in the post, instead of delivering them and making sure you know how to work them.

 

You also need to appreciate that suppliers are NOT educationalists - they can recommend products that will be good in a pro theatre environment, but totally hopeless for students. Others will design a system for how 'they' would set up the room.

 

I've been to many schools with excellent designs for drama spaces, and then seen the lighting desk behind the window at the performing end of the room - not the audience end, because that end of the room is darkest - because the other end, where the designer assumed the performing area would be never asked the school what they planned to do in the room, or how many people were going to use it - and for very good reasons they needed to work the other way around. All the lighting positions were round the wrong way. Would you have an extension to your house designed and kitted out by somebody who owned a furniture shop? You'd get either what they like, or whet they think you would like. I saw a college with a long thin room, like a wide corridor. They said they wanted a space to use as a dark room at a meeting - it was written down as dart room - hence the shape and nice large windows!

 

What (in my opinion) should happen is that either hopefully informed staff write a proposed shopping list, perhaps with acceptable options, and then give this documents to the supplier to price up.

So it would be a bit like a rider.

 

12 Fresnels with barndoors - 650-1.2KW, ADB, Selecon, XXX would be acceptable - please check with us if other brands are suggested to check they will be acceptable

DMX lighting control with theatre stack capability - Zero 88, Chamsys, ADB - please check with us if other brands are suggested to check they will be acceptable.

 

Free standing support system for lighting to allow flexibility. Must be safe for use with younger children.

 

 

 

Then, you'll get some useful quotes to balance up. If they suggest alternatives, get them to explain why they think they are suitable?

 

If on the other hand, you just turn the project over to somebody else, you get what you deserve. Their idea of what YOU want.

[fennell-p]

Sadly getting three quotes - the usual solution to all these school jobs rarely produces the best solution, merely the cheapest.

 

If on the other hand, you just turn the project over to somebody else, you get what you deserve. Their idea of what YOU want.

 

I hear you man, I know the feeling well. I would hope our hero in this thread can recognise reliablilty, and that his finance department are persuaded as such.

 

The most important part is sitting down over a long lunch with a few people, noting down what needs doing, and then typing up a clear specifcation of what you need to happen, that way any contractor is required to make less decisions for you and is more likely to query before doing something you might not want.

 

Good luck.