10EaZy used at live concerts
Using 10EaZy at venues and outdoor festivals provides a unique way of combining useful information about sound levels to the engineer and at the same time ensure compliance to local dB regulations while logging reliable measurement values to a file.
With dynamic types of music, like rock’n’roll or pop, 10EaZy is very intuitive, and enables the sound engineer to utilize the stated dB limit without violating it.
The Leq history graph of 10EaZy
A very common problem when dealing with time averaged dB limits, called Leq values, is that these measurements are heavily influenced, not only by the current sound level, but also the sound level from 5 or 10 minutes ago.
This is because the Leq values are calculated as an average of a given period of time, typically in the range of 15 to 60 minutes. So if the sound engineer plays really loud in a specific song this level will determine the Leq value for a sustained period of time as lower dB values does not count as much in the average as high values.
Because of this, reducing the sound level is not instantly reflected in the Leq value.
With conventional sound level meters this creates two very common scenarios.
- Upon starting the concert, the sound engineer has no way of knowing what his Leq value will be in the future thus no way of knowing if he will eventually violate a limit.
- Once the concert is on its way the sound engineer may suddenly realize that he or she, is going to violate the limit because the level has been too loud. However once this is realized it is usually too late, as the inertia of the time averaged measurement will result in little or no reduction in the Leq value. Either the sound engineer will have to reduce the level dramatically or the limit will be violated. This situation is very inconvenient and will ruin the concert experience for the sound engineer, the organizers, and last but not least the audience. All of this just because of lack of valid information from the sound level measurement system.
10EaZy is designed to avoid this situation!
With the MAM, the sound engineer is constantly informed about the current sound levels impact on the Leq value. He can then mix the show focusing on quality of sound instead of worrying about a dB limit. Very often the sound engineer knows the band playing, and as such the dynamic of their performance.
10EaZy offers a “bank account” approach, in which some “dB money” is put into the account, and then the sound engineer withdraws them at a rate proportional to the sound level he is playing at. It is thus possible for the sound engineer to withdraw money at a rate which is higher than the income, equalling playing louder than the average dB limit, but this will only be allowed for a limited period of time after which he will need to withdraw at a rate lower than the income.
This analogy is very intuitively displayed by the MAM and at the same time a graph on the 10EaZy user interface clearly displays the history of “withdrawing”. 10EaZy is unique in providing the sound engineer with the information he always needed to stay within the limit. Organizers using 10EaZy at a festival or venue will ensure that the sound engineer gets the required information enabling him to stay within the given dB limit, removing the excuse of being too loud because “he didn’t know”, all in all giving peace of mind to the organizer, a better experience to the audience and a healthier work environment to the employees of the venue.
10EaZy is all ready making the daily life easier for venue and festival operators around Europe. Satisfied customers include the Paleo Festival in Nyon, Switzerland and the Roskilde Festval.