Welcome to Tech Tips. The first in an ongoing series of Blogs that will endeavour to share with you tips and tidbits of audio wisdom that I have collected through the years of doing sound and teaching audio workshops. Please understand that it is not through my Guru like knowledge of sound that I can share these tips with you, but rather, the sobering fact that I am sure I have made every mistake possible through the years and truly wish to help you all avoid to some degree, the frustrations of technology. If in some small way I can do this..... mission accomplished. I hope you will enjoy reading the Tech Tips Blogs as much as I enjoy creating them for you. Having said that, we kick of this new feature with Tech Tip numero uno.

"Don't Break The Rules"

In my many years of teaching people to make the most of their sound equipment and demonstrating proper audio (microphone) technique I have come to observe that many peoples audio woe’s are a result of not applying, or for that matter even knowing the 3 basic rules of sound systems. Rules ? What rules ? Well sound is science and subject to laws just like the rest of the world and the universe. Ohm’s law is quick to come to mind and no electronics student worth his solder would not know or understand it.

So …….. what are the three basic rules of sound systems anyway?

1 Keep the distance between speakers and microphones as great as possible
2 Keep microphones pointed away from loudspeakers
3 Keep the distance from sound source to microphone as small as possible

Whenever you hear feedback, it is likely because someone has ignored one or all three of these rules. As with most rules, these can be bent a little but generally speaking the best sound results from using the rules to your advantage. Sometime when you are at a concert, pay attention to how the professionals do it and you will realize that they are quite aware of and understand how to use the rules to their advantage.

Take care and see you in a few days
Tom