A Lesson In Anatomy For Musicians
OK class. Listen up. For years, nay decades, I have witnessed a bizarre phenomenon at band rehearsals. Well, to be honest, I have witnessed many bizarre phenomenon at band rehearsals but this missive will deal with just one: Amplifier Placement.
Figure 1:
OK then. Let me illustrate. In Figure 2 I have drawn a detailed and scientifically accurate representation of the sound-waves emitted from amplifiers A1 ('....') and A2 (',,,,'):
Figure 2:
Now, this would be fine if musicians were insects, who can have their ears practically anywhere, even on their knees (see http://tinyurl.com/cn5ws). But musicians, at least rock musicians, are nothing but mammals (that's why they do it like they do on the Discovery Channel) and so have their ears located on their heads rather than their knees.
I heard that as a joke some students at MIT or CalTech cross-wired the thermostats from two adjoining rooms. When one room got warm the people turned down their thermostat, which cooled the adjoining room. The people in the adjoining room then turned up the heat, which heated the already warm room, and so on. Ha Ha.
A similar situation is happening at our rehearsal: Musician M2 is hearing more of M1 because M1's amp is sending its sound at M2's head, so M2 turns up his amp. Now M1 is getting blasted by M2's amp so he turns up. And so on. Ha Ha.
Applying a complicated, non-linear finite element acoustic modelling analysis to this problem has provided the solution illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3:
In fact, they may even turn down so they can hear the other musician. Ha Ha.
Figure 1:
In Figure 1 we see two musicians (M1 and M2) facing each other at a band rehearsal, playing through their amplifiers (A1 and A2) which they have placed behind them. Can anyone see the problem here? No?
0 0
-\_ _/-
| |
| |
|-\ / \ / \ /-|
|__\ | \ / | /__|
A1 M1 M2 A2
OK then. Let me illustrate. In Figure 2 I have drawn a detailed and scientifically accurate representation of the sound-waves emitted from amplifiers A1 ('....') and A2 (',,,,'):
Figure 2:
We can follow the path of the sound-waves from A1 ('....') as they move through the air striking the knee of M1 (the musician creating the sound), continuing their path upwards and striking the head of M2 (the other musician). Likewise, the sound-waves from A2 strike the knee of M2 and continue on to strike the head of M1.
0,,,,, .....0
-\_ ,,,,, ...... _/-
| ......,,,,,, |
| ... ,,, |
|-\ ../ \. ,/ \,, /-|
|__\ | \ / | /__|
A1 M1 M2 A2
Now, this would be fine if musicians were insects, who can have their ears practically anywhere, even on their knees (see http://tinyurl.com/cn5ws). But musicians, at least rock musicians, are nothing but mammals (that's why they do it like they do on the Discovery Channel) and so have their ears located on their heads rather than their knees.
I heard that as a joke some students at MIT or CalTech cross-wired the thermostats from two adjoining rooms. When one room got warm the people turned down their thermostat, which cooled the adjoining room. The people in the adjoining room then turned up the heat, which heated the already warm room, and so on. Ha Ha.
A similar situation is happening at our rehearsal: Musician M2 is hearing more of M1 because M1's amp is sending its sound at M2's head, so M2 turns up his amp. Now M1 is getting blasted by M2's amp so he turns up. And so on. Ha Ha.
Applying a complicated, non-linear finite element acoustic modelling analysis to this problem has provided the solution illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3:
In this configuration the amplifier A1 emitting sound from musician M1 is placed in front and facing M1, and likewise the amplifier A2 emitting sound from musician M2 is placed in front and facing M1. Now each musician is hearing more of themselves and so will be less likely to keep turning up.
0 0
-\_. ,_/-
| . , |
| . , |
/ \ . /-| |-\ , / | \ /__| |__\ / |
M1 A1 A2 M2
In fact, they may even turn down so they can hear the other musician. Ha Ha.
posted by Blogarhythm @ 9:39 PM
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