Audio Tools

[C. Andrew Dunning]

Greetings!

I have a few questions:

Do any of you know of any audio tools for Vectorworks? I'm not necessarily meaning symbols - but PIOs and/or scripts. I'm curious to know what's out there - even if its proprietary and will never see use outside of a given organization.

If such animals don't exist, do any of you feel there is a need for them? If so, what would that need be? Would it be a single tool or a collection?

Make sense?

Thanks!

[James Russell]

It would be rather cool to import speakers into designs and be able to view outputs, approximate ranges, overlaps, and test Db levels at any place upon your drawing.

I think it would have to be a series of tools, to map coverage and for different tests/views.

Cool idea, as for the need unsure, I'd definitely play with it though.

J

Edited February 9, 2010 by James Russell

[C. Andrew Dunning]

James -

Overlaps, general coverage, and general cabinet geometry are probably not out of the question.

Ranges and level estimates, though - a whole other animal. Most of the manufacturers have highly-specific proprietary software for determining those things - software that takes into account such things as different configurations and the interraction between the cabinets.

Knowing that...would a more general tool (or, set of tools) be useful?

[Fergy]

I actually use this all the time, so it would be helpful to have PIO that I can use for just about any speaker. I wind up creating a duplicate custom symbol with a "coverage angle" class, as well as a "coverage distance arc" so that I can see quickly how my coverage is on arrays. It's been quite handy solving some strange venue hangs that I've had to do. Obviously it doesn't do a lot for tilted arrays, but in the quick 2D view it lets me see what I need to do before I drop into the array designer software to determine levels.

Keep 'em coming, just started using your screen tool in 2010 and love using it so much more than all of my custom screen symbols.

[michaelk]

Andrew

That's an exciting idea. I'm interested to see what you will do with it. (You can count me in as a customer)

For single speakers in less complicated environments, a visual representation of the coverage pattern and an inverse square law calculation on a grid pattern would be very helpful.

But when calculating line arrays and creating acoustic models of rooms, there seems to be a lot of proprietary hoops to jump through.

My workflow w/ audio professionals usually goes like this:

1. Take my drawing of the room, stage, seating, and rigging as a starting point into some other audio software to make an acoustic model of the room and calculate ideal speaker placement and line array configuration. I've seen them do this. It makes pretty colors and graphs. But I don't know what it really means.

2. That software kicks out a dwg of the arrays (showing the angle of each speaker in the array), coordinates for their placement, and angles of the arrays off centerline. Depending on the manufacturer of the PA, it might be a 2D and/or 3D. If 3D, it is sometimes a motley collection of mesh objects or 3D polys that make the VW run slowly. So I substitute my own symbols and create the arrays. Put them into the drawing where...

3. They block sightlines and obstruct video screens. Move them to a more suitable position and go back to step 1. Replace arrays w/ new arrays calculated to cover from the new positions. Repeat as necessary.

If there was a way that step 2 could happen inside VW, that would be helpful. I could see it working really well for individual speakers in theatrical applications, but arrays seem much more complicated.

As far as I can tell (by watching other people work - don't know this for sure)

a) the array calculators are all proprietary

b) the speaker projection patterns are not simple ovals.

c) some sort of physics voodoo happens in arrays. The total is different from the sum of the parts.

d) sound modeling software calculates bounce off of surfaces. Something VW can do when rendering light, but not when calculating foot candles, the lighting analog to this.. Until speakers get shutters, this seems more important w/ sound.

Good luck w/ this. I'm ready w/ my credit card....

michaelk

[Jonathan K]

As far as I can tell (by watching other people work - don't know this for sure)

a) the array calculators are all proprietary

b) the speaker projection patterns are not simple ovals.

c) some sort of physics voodoo happens in arrays. The total is different from the sum of the parts.

d) sound modeling software calculates bounce off of surfaces. Something VW can do when rendering light, but not when calculating foot candles, the lighting analog to this.. Until speakers get shutters, this seems more important w/ sound.

Gentlemen,

Array calculators are proprietary. Some as simple as a spreadsheet (JBL) and some as complicated as Soundvision (L'Acoustics).

Speaker polar patterns are not simple ovals.

Physics voodoo is more commonly referred too as coupling and happens with all speakers, not just line array.

Sound modeling software does indeed calculate reflection... and a LOT more. It also relies on having accurate surface data. For instance a cinder block gymnasium sounds a lot different than a wooden concert hall.

That being said. I would love to get my hands on a simple array tool that would give me reasonable representations the physical layout of an array. Something that I could "plug" various array data into, select a speaker box and place it into a drawing. Getting both horizontal and vertical polar response data (coverage)(similar to the "cone" in VS-4) would be icing on the cake.

One of the simpler calculators around is the VERTEC Line Array Calculator. It's really just a fancy spreadsheet. Maybe you could look at that just to get some ideas.

http://www.jblpro.com/catalog/general/technicallibrary.aspx

You might also have a look at EASE. http://www.easefocus.com/

Sign me up as interested.

[C. Andrew Dunning]

Interesting thoughts, so far.

I hadn't known about EASE. Pretty cool. For $3900, it should be!

I think that if I or anyone in the VW world pursues this, the intent shouldn't be to replicate EASE or any of the manufacturers' software - unless that person has a great deal of technical knowledge and a TON of time.

I think that those of you who have responded so far understood the intent of my original post: to see what exists in the VW world and to guage interest in a SIMPLE audio tool - one that could be used to place individual speakers or build clusters/arrays based on known spec.

Thanks!

[C. Andrew Dunning]

For any of you who were following this thread, we have now released an initial pair of tools to begin meeting the need for Vectorworks audio tools.

I've posted an announcement in the 3rd-Party section @ http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=137435#Post137435. The moderators in that area have opened up that thread for discussion, so this dialog can continue there.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

[Jonathan K]

Hey Andy,

The other forum is kind of locked up still so I will post here.

Finally had some time to sit down and take a hard look at this today. Looks great!

Here is a little feedback from adding some line array to a working plot.

Maybe I am missing a step but whats the procedure for building an array with variable box angles? Rather than tilt difference (which seems to yield a constant curvature array) it would be a bit smoother to have individual hanging angles for each box and the top box to the fly bracket. Then using the Top Tilt attribute to refer to the hanging angle for the fly bracket.

When editing an array after inserting boxes the only way I could get the boxes to update was to delete them, make the changes in the OIP and insert them again from the array tool. I am guessing that is what the Update button was for but does not seem to work for me.

Last thing I noticed was from a side view with dispersion active the lines seem a bit odd. There is a center line that runs 90 degrees out of the face of the box, which is kinda nice. However changing the vertical coverage in the OIP only changes the top dispersion line when it really should split the difference between the top and bottom dispersion lines. IN fact, I don't even see a bottom dispersion line.

I will be in the office the remainder of the week (more or less) if you want to chat.

Awesome for 1.0!!

/cheers

Jon

[C. Andrew Dunning]

Maybe I am missing a step but whats the procedure for building an array with variable box angles? Rather than tilt difference (which seems to yield a constant curvature array)...

Resurrecting an old thread...

Jon -

If you're still interested, you might want to revisit http://www.landrudesign.com/AudioToolSet.htm, as we've addressed this deficiency.

I'll make a more "official" release announcement once the dust settles around here a little more. I'll try to create a quick demo movie, as well.

Have a good one!