› Forums › Music › Sound Engineering › Beach party
- This topic has 10 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated August 24, 2011 at 10:58 am by yogayoghurtandyogi.
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April 19, 2011 at 6:03 pm #1050747
Heya folk!
Firstly, what a great wee corner of the web you have. I never knew there was so much to creating great sound! I had a go at reading the stickied how-tos and it was a touch dizzying :crazy:
So. I’m organising a mini beach festival for my gfs birthday in May. Big fire, glow sticks, glow in the dark face paint, fire twirlers, herbal supplements; the works. Problem is we wont have a power source. So, my fellow party people how do I go about this?
How much power do I need from a speaker if I want it to be really damn loud 5 m away (on an empty beach in summer in Scotland – dunno if this changes acoustics) and still easily loud enough to dance to at about 20m? How do I connect a laptap to a big speaker? Can I run all this off a generator?
Thanks for any help guys!
April 19, 2011 at 11:49 pm #1238497all depends on how many people are gonna be there really as if there’s loads of people infront of the speakers then it needs to be louder as they will “soak up” some of the sound. Btw the power comes from the amp – the speaker just has a rating of how much power it can handle eg. 1Kw etc.
I’d probably say if you got a few people going about 1Kw is the minimum you’ll want … alltho you may get away with 500W-1Kw if you’re not really fussed on it being propper propper loud (if people are gonna actualy be dancing against the speakers then you’ll probably want more – if people are gonna be chilling talknig relaxing and listening to music at the same time there’s no need for massive amounts of power going to the speakers tbh).
You’ll want a diesel DC (?) generator to power the music equipment afaik.
Connecting a laptop to the speakers @ very minimum you’ll want an external sound card/interface, amp and speakers with correct wires, but you’re best off using an EQ and limiter to make it sound better (EQ) and protect the speakers (limiter) alltho you may be able to use a software EQ if it’s not too important to you and if you make sure you don’t turn it up too loud and have sudden changes of volume then you shouldn’t dmg the speakers (allways best to turn the speakers on last making sure the amp is turned all the way down to 0 and turn them off first).
April 22, 2011 at 9:17 am #1238500Really appreciated man. Gonna be a belter! Anyone in the Dundee/ Aberdeen area that fanciues coming along just give me a shout.
August 23, 2011 at 1:40 pm #1238501diesel dc generator should be able to generate enough power for your speakers, amp and computer. I’m not sure about lighting though. Im actually trying to do the same thing myself and would need some basic lighting but was thinking of going with fire torches.
August 23, 2011 at 4:19 pm #1238494@Bobamuntung 431334 wrote:
Heya folk!
Firstly, what a great wee corner of the web you have. I never knew there was so much to creating great sound! I had a go at reading the stickied how-tos and it was a touch dizzying :crazy:
So. I’m organising a mini beach festival for my gfs birthday in May. Big fire, glow sticks, glow in the dark face paint, fire twirlers, herbal supplements; the works. Problem is we wont have a power source. So, my fellow party people how do I go about this?
How much power do I need from a speaker if I want it to be really damn loud 5 m away (on an empty beach in summer in Scotland – dunno if this changes acoustics) and still easily loud enough to dance to at about 20m? How do I connect a laptap to a big speaker? Can I run all this off a generator?
Thanks for any help guys!
What’s your budget for the sound system? Would you consider having a whipround (say, get everyone to chip in a fiver so you can hire something proper)?
Any decent PA hire company should be happy to answer your questions, and they will suggest a suitable system for you to hire (maybe a generator too if you’re lucky, otherwise get this from HSS or somewhere). Just be aware that if you hire a system and it comes back damaged or full of beach sand then you’ll get fined for it.
August 23, 2011 at 5:44 pm #1238495@yogayoghurtandyogi 448600 wrote:
diesel dc generator should be able to generate enough power for your speakers, amp and computer. I’m not sure about lighting though. Im actually trying to do the same thing myself and would need some basic lighting but was thinking of going with fire torches.
A diesel generator can generate enough juice for a large festival stage if it’s powerful enough – you need to do a calculation of how much power your equipment will use (easy enough if you can add up – just look at amp spec sheets) and choose a generator that will easily accommodate this. Also you’ll get a funny look if you try hire a ‘DC’ generator – you need AC.
Modern LED lighting fixtures draw negligible power compared with the soundsystem (watts, rather than 1000s of watts) and are really cheap (about £60 for a LED par can – Asian electronics companies are churning out loads of them at the moment as the cheap ones are just a circuit with no expensive optics etc). They also do lots of cool things like change colour in time to the music and have master/slave DMX modes to sync a string of them together. There’s definitely something to be said for having loads of fire torches on a beach though…
August 23, 2011 at 7:34 pm #1238498I read somewhere once that you need a DC genny as you’ll get interfearance or some problems with the sound if you’re using a AC genny as it wount be stable enough to put out a constant current. Might be confusing 2 bits of seperate info there tho as i know cheese knows exactly what he’s talking about and has said AC.
August 23, 2011 at 7:38 pm #1238493Not really – you just need a decent diesel genny – if you are concerned about the stability of the output then hire a different one… you can also hire an RCD/surge protector if you are nervous
AND YOU MUST EARTH THE GENNYAugust 23, 2011 at 8:13 pm #1238496@DaftFader 448653 wrote:
I read somewhere once that you need a DC genny as you’ll get interfearance or some problems with the sound if you’re using a AC genny as it wount be stable enough to put out a constant current. Might be confusing 2 bits of seperate info there tho as i know cheese knows exactly what he’s talking about and has said AC.
Maybe you’re confusing petrol vs diesel with AC vs DC? DC generators do exist for specialist applications, but if you’re using it as a mains replacement you’ll need a generator that supplies 240V AC (any generator you get from the hire shop will do this), as that’s what your amp, mixer, lights etc run on.
And just to second what Raj says about earthing it – I did a job a few weeks ago where the site power supply hadn’t been earthed properly – I was getting all kinds of shit coming out of the speakers (and if you’re unlucky your DJ might get a little shock off the decks each time he touches them!). A quick venture outside with a hammer to drive the earth spike in properly sorted it out.
Edit: Oh, and not to mention the obvious safety implications of not having an earth.
August 23, 2011 at 8:21 pm #1238499yeah probbaly am confusing the petoral and diesel thing then as i was wondering how it would work considering mains is AC and all music equip would normaly be AC or AC to DC with a transformer in the plug’s wire.
August 24, 2011 at 10:58 am #1238492I have only ever seen one DC generator set (other than small ones with 12V charging outputs) and that was in the basement of a Telephone Exchange in about 1987.
It generated about 50-60V DC at hundreds of amps (probably about 200A), was supplied by a large tank of red diesel, and was intended to power the Telephone Exchange and keep the batteries charged if the mains was lost. The engine in it was the same kind used in British Rail diesel locomotives of that era – it was too big even to put into a large truck. I wish I had a photo of it but in those days it was against the law to photograph it anyway due to security reasons. Incidentally the “Danger” sign warning that it starts automatically was written in that same double line font in the Royal Mail logo as BT was part of the Post Office when it was installed.
The main thing with gensets is to get enough power – its when they are overloaded and the voltage drops that problems occur with equipment, the better diesel gensets avoid this issue. A lot of rigs round here seem to put up a huge stack and try and run it with a couple of low power gensets and then wonder why it keeps cutting out…
Another reason earthing is increasingly important is that a lot of equipment has a mains filter in to pass European power quality regs – if there isn’t a decent earth then some of the mains current will go through this filter and end up on the metal frame of the equipment which is why people get a tingle from it…
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