Four Subwoofers, Seven Setups For Live Sound | Groundstacked Edition

I just tried putting my two double 18's together in the middle at a three day outdoor battle of the bands. My boss was on site to help set up had reservations but let me try it. He was there until the main pa was up and running before he had to leave for his own three day show. I just saw the pics of his show and he did it too!!! LMAO!! Flat out admitted the coverage was WAY more even. Thank you so much for vids like these. Really helps to know what's going on instead of wondering who's "advice" is right lol. I FELT the pattern I expected too and it was perfect for the show. Cheers man!

So it would appear that placing subs side by side front middle, which I have been doing for 30+ years is the best all around procedure!

Wow thank you so much Michael! I'm 51 own a small upstaging company in MS and I have learned more watching your stuff the last few days than I have in years! So nice of you to do this- can't wait to learn about time alignment! It is crazy how some days just 2 18s can punch your gut and some set ups just cancel things out. I guess too much in the wrong alignment can really hurt you- can't wait until my next venue!

Thank you so much! I just deployed my first inline gradient cardioid sub array a few days ago and it was a trip to experience!! You’ve helped me so much and I’m always excited to see your new videos

I wonder if you might cover a raised sub (on a small stage - say 1 to 2 meters height) vs a sub on the floor and pro's and con's of each? - Also, how about a series on odd shaped rooms with small PA rigs - covering reflections from a bar, low ceiling, a dog leg "band in the corner" scenario & single small sub placement in the worst rooms? - You could start with 2 tops and 1 sub and then maybe talk about the best 'upgrades' for each to achieve the result in each room (e.g. wider horizontal pattern, raising tops an extra meter etc.) - Learning a lot from your content and I'm trying to apply it in my small scale world where I use my DB Ingenia IG3T's + DB subs. Thank you and please do keep up the good work.

Nice video, gave me a lot of input. But you may give some feedback on this: I think there is missing a key Setup which produces very good (maybe best) sound with limited space in front of stage. Just put 4 subs next to each other in front of the stage and face the outer towards the stage. Then invert these and put an 3ms delay on and you will get an pretty decent cardio array. Pros: -At 63 Hz: same pattern as setup 7, but needs at last 2m less space in front of stage -At 63 Hz: covers more space / goes deeper into the room than setup 6, but needs at last 2m less space -At 100Hz: much better pattern than setup 7, depth and width of the sound are nearly doubled -At 100Hz: deeper pattern than setup 6, bigger area is covered by sound -At 125Hz: even at this higher frequency you will get a pretty decent cover without the pattern falling apart Cons: --At 100Hz: setup 6 covers a wider area, just matters if the room has twice the width than depth When I was simulating this for several hours it blew my mind and at the first event it did again.

This was fantastic! Thank you. I would love to see the follow up video with the “other” 7 set ups. I will refer to this when planning out my shows to cover the audience. Great content!

Hello sir i am from india, i was searching about subwoofer arrangement and I found this video I can't understand English properly. but your graphs and presentation helped for understanding sub arrangements. Thenaks ❤❤❤

This is the video I was looking for. Thanks for sharing your knowledge

This isn’t in your playlist for low end. I looked everywhere to find this video again. Thank you for the info!

Great video Michael. What would be handy is to have all of these examples, complete with their 63hz responses and a brief "When to use" blurb on the tool kit, to refer to in the field. Again, huge thanks for the resources you are providing!

Hi, Im quite confused with the terminologies such us delay and polarity but overall, I get the general idea but I don't quite understand it. Appreciate your work! Excited to see your other video as well. I am a trainee on our small church learning the ropes hopefully I could learn from your teachings as well.

Hi Michael , great video as always! But let’s go 1 step further and use arc settings on ur evenly spaced center subs :P

I would love for you to do this same thing but just for a two set up. This was vary helpful.

Just a theoretical thought here: what about placing a delayed subwoofer on those alleys (about the "middle" or worst spot for most frequencies), just to fill in what's missing from the front subs. I was also thinking about the scale of all this, because the closer you get to the stage, the narrower the alleys. So, if the audience is close enough, this might be less noticable. Also, for seating audiences, and if that's an option, you could even place the chairs where the coverage will be, in this case that would mean making the sound alleys become "audience alleys" as well. That way, the coverage would be even, because in all problematic regions, there would be no audience. Just some thoughts. I know that in practical terms, things are usually not that easy to implement.

Great video!! Thank you Michael. For #6, how do you calculate the optimal grill to grill spacing between the subs?

I have 4 kw181s. We have always stacked two left and right with a top cabinet on each. Never been happy with the coverage. We are buying stands and going to move the 4 subs to the center. I like the center cube example in the video. My question is, what if the stage is not high enough, would 4 subs all in a row side by side be best for us. I dont ave any processing for delay and some of the other examples in the video. All I could is chamge the placement and the polarity, which I admit, I have never changed. I know there is no one fits all setup, but just a general rule of thumb.. so for example outside. TIA, geat info.

Great summary of Dave Rat's videos.

What would happen if you put a sub at each corner of the room?

It would be nice to see what a left/right flown pattern would look like. Also, what it would look like if subs were stereo and not mono.. I suspect there would be less comb filtering