Rock and Pop Venues: Acoustic and Architectural Design

Book cover of Rock and Pop Venues

Niels Werner Adelman-Larsen

Rock and Pop Venues

Acoustic and Architectural Design

2nd ed. 2021

Logo of the publisher

Niels Werner Adelman-Larsen

Flex Acoustics, Copenhagen, Denmark

ISBN 978-3-030-62319-7e-ISBN 978-3-030-62320-3

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62320-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

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Very useful book and clearly laid out. I recommend.

—Thomas Scelo, Acoustician

Excellent book, I used this as a reference for designing a very large show theatre in China, where the audience are on moving platforms. Definitely recommended reading. Many thanks!

—Kito Sousa Coutinho, Acoustician

Niels’ excellent book adds significantly to our Marshall Day library. There are many, many books written on the acoustics of classical music venues and also on recording studios etc. and as far as we are aware, this is the only one written specifically for amplified rock and pop venues. The text provides very helpful objective and subjective analysis of a number of venues. The importance of low frequency reverberation and design criteria align with our experience. We use this text during both our design work for amplified music venues but also in the training of our graduates.

—Christopher Day, Acoustician, Principal

For me, the acoustics of a room are of primary concern for a concert, secondary only to the quality of the musicians and their instruments. Amplified music is much harder to manage in spaces with longer reverberation times, especially at faster tempos and with denser instrumentation. The loss of definition in the bass frequencies really blurs the groove and feeling of music that depends on amplified bass and drums.

—Ben Surman, FOH Sound Engineer

The book was very helpful for me in the design of the Arena Petry in Brazil which holds several thousand audiences. Some issues arose when contractors wanted to change some building materials during the building stage; however due to the book we ended up with a much better RT curve compared to what was first planned for the benefit of musicians and audiences. Thanks!

—Juan Frias Pierrard, Acoustician

Acoustics are important within pop and rock venues to ensure a great experience for audiences and performers. This book fills an important gap of knowledge on the acoustics of venues. It will be of value to sound engineers as well as building owners and operators and building design professionals.

—Rob Harris, Acoustician

Niels’ efforts to gather and analyse data and make this available for others, is highly appreciated and will lead to better sounding concerts in future. The book presents among other things data on the acoustic qualities of many existing venues including information on the crucial low frequencies. This is important knowledge for future research, improvement of existing halls and design of new venues. Designing the acoustics for halls for amplified music takes some knowledge that was not written in books prior to this one.

—Martijn Vercammen, Acoustician

Everybody thinks they know about acoustics, very few people actually do. Books like this can and should make a difference, and will make the world a better sounding place. For anybody who cares about what they hear in a live setting, it’s essential reading.

—Simon Honywill, FOH Sound Engineer

Preface

My interest in acoustics for performance spaces originates from some 1200 concerts as a former jazz and tribute band rock drummer and a B.Sc. in mechanical engineering that I began right after finishing high school, with a thesis on acoustics in music studio control rooms. While still touring, performing about 80 concerts a year, I took a few courses in acoustics at the Technical University of Denmark. I was immediately drawn deeper into the field, and my master’s thesis is in many ways the basis of this book. Ironically, after defending my thesis, I got kicked out of the band. Then I began designing music halls rather than playing in them. This book, which I was asked to write in 2008, is dedicated to the memory of my engineer and freedom-fighter father, Knud W. Larsen (†2017), for passing on to me a sense of courageousness and curiosity, as well as to my musical mother Therese Adelman Larsen, who gave me the loving ballast needed to employ these attributes.

The 9½ week 2010 tour around Europe, during which the 55 music halls presented in Chap. 7 in this book were measured, was financed by d&b audiotechnik, Flex Acoustics, Oticon Fonden, Cowi Fonden, Brødrene Hartmanns Fond.

Apart from these companies and foundations, the author would like to thank (in random order) all the great people in the halls visited who opened their doors and made me feel welcome; Teis Schnipper, Leo L. Beranek, Marshall Long, and Michael Barron for inspiring research, illustrations etc., Bård Støfringsdal, Jens Jørgen Dammerud, Magne Skålevig, Rasmus Rosenberg, Christoph Baumann, Finn Jacobsen †, Hugo Fastl, Eric R. Thompson, Jan Voetmann, Jens Holger Rindel, Per Brüel †, Cheol-Ho Jeong, Jens Cubick, and Ando Randrianoelina for their direct and profound contributions. You have made this book better. Special thanks to the great crew at d&b audiotechnik. Many more, friends and family (you know who you are), have supported me during this time too—thank you!

Niels Werner Adelman-Larsen

Copenhagen, Denmark

Introduction

Please imagine an outdoor rock concert. Visualize a flat field, a stage with a band, a crowd listening to the music mainly coming from PA speakers placed at the stage front. That’s a rock concert without any room acoustics. Imagine then a huge box being placed around the whole event—a hall. Surely the whole atmosphere changes, but what effect should it have on the sound? Should the inside surfaces of the building reflect or absorb the sound? How much and at what frequencies?

What is good acoustics? The present book answers this question with regard to pop and rock music performances on the basis of the author’s research that has been conducted in the field. The knowledge gathered originates from studies based on interviews with some of the best professional musicians and sound engineers in Denmark.

Of course, such terminology as good acoustics makes sense only in referring to the use of a particular room. The acoustic demands of a room to be filled by children in a kindergarten must be very different from those favoring a musical choir. The noise aspect of room acoustics is employed in factories, offices, and institutions where the sound is regarded largely as unwanted or simply too loud and therefore to be attenuated by acoustic means. Other sounds, in other rooms, with other purposes, are indeed wanted and must be affected by the acoustics of the room in a positive and enhancing way. This desired sound contains a message that must come across to the listener. The room must therefore carry, or transfer, this message to the receiving persons, such as an audience, in a favorable way. But preferably, also the person sending the message, such as a speaker or a musician, should be content with the way the room affects the sound as he or she perceives it. A musician and his/her performance can certainly be negatively affected by undesirable acoustics as well as being inspired by suitable acoustics.

For pop and rock acoustics, in halls larger than club size, acoustic absorptive materials are not used to correct the sound level of the music. The level is predominantly controlled by the sound engineer sliding faders on the mixer boards. The frequency content of the music that meets the ears of the audience originates of course from the instruments, and is then controlled and enhanced by the sound engineer by electronic equalization means, etc. However, part of the sound perceived by the audience does not come directly from the loudspeakers, but has first bounced off surfaces in the room. Acoustic absorption should be employed predominantly to control the speed at which these sound reflections decay—the so called reverberation—of the room and to shape the frequency content of these reflections.

Pop and rock concerts are unique in that they depend heavily on amplification of the sound that the band produces. A significant ingredient in the music is often a highly amplified and well-articulated bass line supported by a more or less syncopated staccato bass drum rhythm. The precise timing of both, down to few hundredths of a second, is what professional orchestras depend on in order to make hard grooving music not only satisfactory to the orchestra itself but also, most notably, to the audience. Many other instruments are active in the bass frequency domain. The room’s acoustics should enable this message to be transmitted to the audience with a high degree of intelligibility. It is evident that if a hall allows the bass tones to last for a long time, then this rhythmic backbone of the type of music we are describing is easily lost. The starting and stopping of bass sounds is converted rather into a long, dull, legato continuum that can hardly be identified as rhythmic by performers or audience. What was expected to be a musical experience is transformed into sound with little sense, sometimes close to noise.

Unlike speech, the bass level at rock concerts cannot simply be turned down in the overall mix in the PA system in order to achieve intelligibility. Then it would no longer be perceived as a pop or rock concert. Loud bass sound is a prerequisite of amplified music. It is part of the excitement of the performance and simply sounds right. Since the low-frequency sound cannot really be aimed or directed at the audience like higher-frequency sound, and the audience does not absorb nearly as much bass as higher-pitched tones, the largest share of the audience will suffer from the legato-like bass sound if the reflected low-frequency sound is not well controlled and thus allowed to last too long. This undefined reverberant sound will partly shadow, or partially mask, the defined, direct bass and higher-frequency sound, significantly reducing the understanding of the content of the music. While the level of the direct loudspeaker-based sound decreases with distance, the reflected and later arriving sounds remain more or less constant throughout the venue. This is one reason why considerations regarding the shape of a room are critical in early phases of the design process of a pop and rock venue in order to achieve perfection.

On stage, the musicians use open monitor speakers and/or in-ear monitoring systems to hear themselves and their colleagues. The audience listens to the music mainly through a public address (PA) system operated by a sound engineer. These two sound systems depend on each other to some extend and on the acoustics in the two environments of stage and audience area.

So what are good acoustics for such concerts?—and according to whom? Who should determine this? The audience? The musicians? The sound engineer? Do the three groups agree on what kind of room acoustics they can accept and maybe even find recommendable? The sound engineers, for instance, of course want the audiences to get value for money and experience the incredible ambience and moods of a concert. They feel obligated to present the audience with a clean and transparent sound. This can lead them to ask for an acoustically very dead stage area that does not allow the unprocessed sound from instruments and monitor speakers to be reflected to the audience or to be picked up by irrelevant microphones on stage. However, this may contradict the needs of the musicians and the audience.

As we shall see, the investigations among people attending thousands of pop and rock performances have led us to understand that appropriate acoustics for pop and rock, rather than facilitate only a high-fidelity sound experience, also support the concert as a social event where people meet to obtain a sensation of being together and share an experience in sound. It is not only audiences, but also musicians who need to be involved and therefore to be in the same acoustic climate as their audience. The musicians, too, want to experience togetherness with their audience as long as they are able to clearly hear what music they are creating for themselves as individuals and as a group. And that cannot be obtained through use of monitors alone but also requires some reflections from stage surroundings as well as from the space of the audience.

Which acoustics will fulfill these different demands? And how are rock intelligibility and togetherness achieved at the same time? What effects must be avoided? Strangely, before the research paper Suitable reverberation times for halls for rock and pop music from 2010 by the author, no proper research had been carried out in the field. Yes, acoustics for pop and rock is regarded a science. It must, more specifically, be treated as the science of quantifying the fine sensations of people as encountered in the ecstatic moments at pop and rock concerts around the globe. And these sensations must, through an understanding of sound and general room acoustics, be translated into practical recommendations for the building of venues. That is precisely what this book does. The material in this book should be easily understood and is equally informative for sound engineers and rock aficionados as well as acoustic consultants and architects, who are often, at the end of the day, the ones responsible for the acoustics in new and renovated venues. There are chapters on the basics of sound and room acoustics, the actual recommendations resulting from research as well as specific comments on 20 rock venues and why they received the ratings they did from musicians and sound engineers. As further examples, 55 European venues, some of them world famous, from tiny basements to enormous arenas, are presented with acoustic measurement results, architectural drawings, and photos. With a couple of the basic guidelines from this book having made it into for instance the Norwegian Standard and the book itself onto the bookshelves of numerous acoustic consultancies, the book’s impact has quickly become significant. It is the hope of the author that it will lead to even better musical experiences.

Contents

1 Principles of Acoustics and Hearing 1

Sound Propagation 3

Sound in Rooms 5

Human Hearing 10

Acoustic Defects:​ Echo 13

Scattering 13

Acoustic Vocal Sound 14

Absorber Types 15

Audience Absorption 18

Air Absorption 19

Critical Distance and Level of Reverberation 20

Reverberation Time Design 21

Background Noise 23

Sound Levels and Amplified Events 23

2 Auditorium Acoustics:​ Terms, Language, and Concepts 27

Objective Parameters 32

EDT, Reverberation Time, Liveliness, and Reverberance 32

C 80 , D 50 , Early Reflections, Clarity, and Intimacy 33

LF, Envelopment, and Lateral Reflections 33

G, Strength, and Room Gain 34

Bass Ratio, Warmth, and Bass Response 35

ST, Support, and Ensemble 35

3 Reinforcement of Sound Sources 37

The Sound of a Rock Band 40

Providing Amplified Direct Sound from Loudspeakers 42

Single Point Sources 42

Virtual Point Sources 43

Directional Subwoofer Arrays 44

Split Mono Systems 46

Line Arrays 47

4 Assessments of 20 Halls 53

Amager Bio 54

Forbrændingen 57

Godset 61

Lille VEGA 64

Loppen 67

Magasinet 70

Palletten 73

Pumpehuset 76

Rytmeposten 79

Musikhuzet 82

Skråen 85

Slagelse Musikhus 88

Stars 91

Store VEGA 95

Sønderborghus 98

Tobakken 101

Torvehallerne 104

Train 107

Viften 110

Voxhall 113

5 Recommended Acoustics for Pop and Rock Music 117

The Basis of the Recommendations 119

Results of the Interviews 121

The First Page of the Questionnaire 121

PA System Versus Omnidirectional Source Measurements 122

General Ratings of the Halls 123

Musicians’ Preferences 124

Sound Engineers’ Preference 128

Debate 128

Spectral Analysis of the Survey Data 129

Recommended Reverberation Time for a Given Hall Volume 131

Investigation on Acceptable Reverberation Time at Various Frequency Bands in Halls That Present Amplified Music 133

The Use of Spectral Tolerances Around T30 in Pop and Rock Venues 136

Suitable Reverberation Times in Larger Halls and Arenas 139

6 Design Principles 141

Hall Size 143

Hall Shape 144

The Stage and Its Surroundings 145

Surface Materials 148

Balconies and Overhangs 149

Floor 150

Stage 150

Seating 151

Platforms 151

Sound Insulation 152

Interior Noise Sources 152

Multipurpose Halls 152

Music Schools 154

7 Gallery of Halls that Present Pop and Rock Music Concerts 157

Ancienne Belgique (AB) 157

Materials Used 162

Audience Area 162

Stage Area 162

State of Hall When Measured 163

L’Aeronef 164

Materials Used 167

Audience Area 167

Stage Area 167

State of Hall When Measured 167

Alcatraz 170

Materials Used 173

Audience Area 173

Stage Area 174

State When Measured 174

Apolo La [2] 177

Materials Used 179

Audience Area 179

Stage Area 179

State of Hall When Measured 179

Apolo 182

Materials Used 185

Audience Area 185

Stage Area 185

State of Hall When Measured 185

Astra 187

Materials Used 189

Audience Area 189

Stage Area 189

State of Hall When Measured 190

Bikini 192

Materials Used 195

Audience Area 195

Stage Area 195

State of Hall When Measured 195

Cavern 198

Materials Used 202

Audience Area 202

Stage Area 202

State of Hall When Measured 202

La Coopérative de Mai 204

Materials Used 207

Audience Area 207

Stage Area 207

State of Hall When Measured 207

Le Chabada 209

Materials Used 213

Audience Area 213

Stage Area 213

State of Hall When Measured 213

Cirkus 216

Materials Used 219

Audience Area 219

State of Hall When Measured 219

Le Confort Moderne 222

Materials Used 224

Audience Area 224

Stage Area 224

State of Hall When Measured 225

Debaser Medis 226

Materials Used 229

Audience Area 229

Stage Area 229

State of Hall When Measured 230

Elysée Montmartre 231

Materials Used 235

Audience Area 235

Stage Area 235

State of Hall When Measured 235

Festhalle 237

Materials Used 241

Audience Area 241

Stage Area 241

State of Hall When Measured 241

Forest National 244

Materials Used 248

Audience Area 248

State of Hall When Measured 248

Globen 249

Materials Used 252

Audience Area 252

Stage Area:​ NA 252

State of Hall When Measured 252

Grosse Freiheit 254

Materials Used 257

Audience Area 257

Stage Area 257

State of Hall When Measured 257

Hallenstadion 259

Materials Used 262

Audience Area 262

Stage Area 262

State of Hall When Measured 262

HMV Hammersmith Apollo 263

Materials Used 268

Audience Area 268

Stage Area 268

State of Hall When Measured 268

Heineken Music Hall 270

Materials Used 274

Audience Area 274

Stage Area 274

State of Hall When Measured 274

Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle 276

Materials Used 279

Audience Area 279

State of Hall When Measured 279

Jyske Bank BOXEN 280

Materials Used 284

Audience Area 284

State of Hall When Measured 284

Kaiser Keller 285

Materials Used 288

Audience Area 288

Stage Area 288

State of Hall When Measured 288

Live Music Club 290

Materials Used 293

Audience Area 293

Stage Area 293

State of Hall When Measured 294

LKA/​Langhorn 296

Materials Used 300

Audience Area 300

Stage area 300

State of Hall When Measured 300

Mediolanum Forum 302

Materials Used 306

Audience Area 306

State of Hall When Measured 306

Melkweg—The Max 307

Materials Used 310

Audience Area 310

Stage Area 310

State of Hall When Measured 310

MEN Arena 313

Materials Used 317

Audience Area 317

State of Hall When Measured 317

Nosturi 319

Materials Used 323

Audience Area 323

Stage Area 323

State of Hall When Measured 323

O2 Berlin 324

Materials Used 328

Audience Area 328

State of Hall When Measured 328

O2 World Hamburg 329

Materials Used 331

Audience Area 331

State of Hall When Measured 332

O2 London 333

Materials Used 336

Audience Area 336

State of Hall When Measured 336

O13 Tilburg 337

Materials Used 340

Audience Area 340

Stage Area 340

State of Hall When Measured 341

Olympia 343

Materials Used 347

Audience Area 347

Stage Area 347

State of Hall When Measured 347

Oslo Spektrum Arena 349

Materials Used 353

Audience Area 353

State When Measured 353

Palau Sant Jordi 354

Materials Used 358

Audience Area 358

State of Hall When Measured 358

Paradiso 359

Materials Used 364

Audience Area 364

Stage Area 364

State of Hall When Measured 364

Porsche Arena 367

Materials Used 370

Audience Area 370

State of Hall When Measured 370

Rote Fabrik, Aktionshalle 372

Materials Used 376

Audience Area 376

Stage Area 376

State of Hall When Measured 376

Rote Fabrik Clubraum 378

Materials used 381

Audience Area 381

Stage Area 381

State of Hall When Measured 381

Rockefeller 383

Materials Used 387

Audience Area 387

Stage Area 387

State of Hall When Measured 387

Rockhal 389

Materials Used 392

Audience Area 392

State of Hall When Measured 392

Razzmatazz 1 393

Materials Used 396

Audience Area 396

Stage Area 396

State of Hall When Measured 397

Razzmatazz 2 398

Materials Used 401

Audience Area 401

Stage Area 401

State of Hall When Measured 401

Sala Barcelona’92/​Sant Jordi Club 403

Materials Used 406

Audience Area 406

Stage Area 406

State of Hall When Measured 406

Scala 407

Materials Used 410

Audience Area 410

Stage Area 410

State of Hall When Measured 411

Tunnel 412

Materials Used 416

Audience Area 416

Stage Area 416

State of Hall When Measured 416

Vega 419

Materials Used 423

Audience Area 423

Stage Area 423

State of Hall When Measured 423

Wembley Arena 426

Materials Used 429

Audience Area 429

State of Hall When Measured 429

Werk 432

Materials Used 434

Audience Area 434

Stage Area 434

State of Hall When Measured 434

Zeche 436

Materials Used 439

Audience Area 439

Stage Area 439

State of Hall When Measured 439

Zeche Carl Kaue 441

Materials Used 443

Audience Area 443

Stage Area 444

State of Hall When Measured 444

Zénith Paris—La Villette 446

Materials Used 450

Audience Area 450

Stage Area 450

State of Hall When Measured 450

Zenith Strasbourg 452

Materials Used 455

Audience Area 455

State of Hall When Measured 455

Appendix A:​ Measurements of the 55 Venues Presented in the Gallery in Chapter 7 459

Appendix B 469

Appendix C 475

Appendix D:​ Two Sound Engineers’ Statements 479

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

N. W. Adelman-LarsenRock and Pop Venueshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62320-3_1

1. Principles of Acoustics and Hearing

Niels Werner Adelman-Larsen¹  

(1)

Flex Acoustics, Copenhagen, Denmark

Niels Werner Adelman-Larsen

Email: nwl@flexac.com

Abstract

What is a sound wave? A way to visualize one can be obtained by imagining the membrane of a loudspeaker that moves back and forth. Air molecules immediately next to the speaker will co-oscillate with the speaker. These air molecules will push and pull their neighbors, which in turn will push and pull their neighbors, and so on, forming a propagating longitudinal wave of oscillating molecules. This is in essence a sound wave: tiny pockets of air, oscillating around an equilibrium position, causing small air pressure variations imposed on the static air pressure. A sound wave travels with a speed of 343 m/s in air at 20 °C. Eventually the propagating wave of these air pressure oscillations will reach a person’s ear drum and cause that to vibrate creating a listening impression in the brain of the listener.

Keywords

Standing waveSound waveSound sourceSound pressure levelSound level

What is a sound wave? A way to visualize it can be obtained by imagining the membrane of a speaker that moves back and forth. Air molecules immediately next to the speaker will co-oscillate with the speaker. These air molecules will push and pull their neighbors, who in turn will push and pull their neighbors, and so on, forming a propagating longitudinal wave of oscillating molecules. This is in essence a sound wave: tiny pockets of air, oscillating around an equilibrium position, causing small air pressure variations imposed on the static air pressure. A sound wave travels with a speed of 343 m/s in air at 20 °C, whereas in solids and fluids the speed is faster, and the total distance through which a wave can travel is longer, mainly due to the higher density of molecules.

The magnitude of the wave determines the amplitude of the sound given by a pressure maximum and a pressure minimum, as graphically interpreted in Fig. 1.1. Because the human ear is capable of detecting sound levels ranging from 1 unit to sounds one million times louder, the decibel (dB) scale has been introduced. Named after Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922), the decibel is a logarithmic unit and overcomes thereby the handling of very large numbers. The decibel is used to measure sound levels and of course therefore also sound level differences.

Fig. 1.1

Graphic representation of a pure tone. One period equals the wavelength of the tone

The quietest sound that the human ear can detect is about 0 dB, and the least