Threads

Stories that cross the eras

Each thread follows one problem of live sound from its first documented solutions to today.

• Hearing the stageA history of monitoringFor most of the 1960s, performers heard themselves through their own amplifiers and the back of the PA. Monitoring became its own discipline in about fifteen years, then moved into the ear.
• Cutting the cableWireless microphones and spectrumWireless freed performers from the cable in the 1950s and has been fighting for spectrum ever since.
• Taming the roomFeedback, equalisation and measurementBetween the 1950s and the 1990s, tuning a sound system moved from ears and notch filters to transfer-function measurement.
• Sound in spaceThe long road to immersive reinforcementToday’s object-based systems answer a question first asked in 1881: can sound come from where the performer is?
• How loud is too loudSound levels at live eventsAs systems grew more powerful, audience exposure and neighbourhood noise became design constraints alongside coverage.