Acoustical Reviews
This section of our site was created to be informative. After doing an event in a room, we give it a rating from 1-10 for both Live Sound and for DJ Service. Some rooms may not have both ratings. The views expressed on this page are only for your reference. Your experiences will probably differ some depending on the type of equipment, engineering skill, amount of people, size of band (if doing live sound), talent of band (if doing live sound), genre of music, time of day, temperature, humidity, etc. There are a lot of different variables, and we do try to convey most of them in our comments. If you have anything you would like to add to this list, send it to us! 
LocationLive Sound RatingDJ RatingComments
Space & Rocket Center´s Aviation Challenge Tent, Huntsville, AL 16This was probably the worst room I have ever run sound in. The acoustic are horrible. I would never recommend live music here. While playing music off a CD, it sounded ok, so it would probably be fine to have a DJ here. But for live sound, it is really boomey and way too live sounding. It has a lot of reflections at around 700 Hz and up between 3-5 kHz. We were here during the winter so they had all the sides of this tent covered with clear plastic which made the acoustics worse... without those, it might be somewhat better. Stay away from this tent with live bands!!!!
The Broiler57This is a very neat looking room, but the acoustics are not that great. The wall behind the stage where the bands play is rippled sheet metal (like what sheds are made out of). The ripples do help diffuse the sound, but the smooth surface of the metal reflects it all too well. So what you get is a strange, scattered sound off the stage mixed in with your speaker´s sound. The less stage monitors, the better. You really need to keep stage volume down in this place. The ceiling is about 30´ high and is made out of the same rippled sheet metal. 1kHz and 4kHz are very prominent in this room, so pulling them back on the main EQ & monitor EQs helps even out the sound and eliminate feedback. While playing music off a cd, the sound was not bad
The Arbor Room at The Botanical Gardens, Huntsville, Alabama47The room is a very difficult room for live sound. It is extremely resonant from 60 – 80 Hz, at 250 Hz, and 400-500 Hz. Mainly at 250 Hz though. DJing in this room is not quite as bad. But not recommended for live sound. First off, less is more! It does not have to be loud to sound good and for everyone to have a good time. I kept it at about 15% of my total power (about 90 dB, 15 meters back)… the people in the back of the room were able to talk to each other just fine. But most people were having a great time dancing! If you totally cut out 250 Hz on your main eq, and then take out about 3 dB from 400 – 550 Hz, it will help out a lot. It may also help to boost about 3 dB between 6 – 8 KHz to add some definition because the room itself amplifies all the low and low-mid frequencies! After the last time I was in here, I got several compliments on the sound. Band leader Jack Robbins, told me that it was the best he had ever heard the band, or any band for that matter, in that room. I also used an exciter on the vocals a little more then usual to help enhance the vocals. I used large (Mackie SA1232) speakers with a pair of smaller speakers (Mackie SRM450) stacked on top which was total overkill for the room, but the key was running it as low as possible. This worked out a lot better then just small speakers (which I have also tried in this room on another occasion). They do have a large garage door for loading which is very nice!
Von Braun Center North Hall, Huntsville, Alabama89This room is a pretty decent room for live sound and great for DJing. The VBC is always very accommodating. Power is never a problem here. If only using 1/3 of the North Hall, it is recommended to have the band play long-wise into the hall so that the band is facing the wall furthest away. If you don’t set up this way, the wall that the band will be facing will be a lot closer and the slap-back echo off the wall will drive everyone nuts. On the other hand, if you are in 2/3 of the hall, it is almost square so it really does not matter how it is setup. If you are in the whole hall, then it is recommended to face the CLOSER wall unless you want to setup a whole lot more equipment to cover all the dead area. It is much easier to play facing the closer wall. It is not too close for slap-back to be a big problem, and it is a lot easier to fill the majority of the room with sound this way. Unless you have a line-array, speakers disperse better in a horizontal pattern, so it is easier to cover wide then it is to cover deep. 150 – 200 Hz seemed to be a little resonant when playing into the whole hall, so I backed them out about 6 dB.
The Huntsville Depot Railroad Roundhouse25It has been a couple months since we have worked in this room, but I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and post of review on it. The railroad roundhouse is a very odd room. It has about 40’ ceilings and it’s a very odd arch shape (about like the shape of half a donut). DJing in this room is not so bad. But because of its massive size, there is a ton of reverb. Music sounds decent, but any announcements are hard to understand. Live sound in this room is a very bad idea. The only way it seems to sound good it to keep the overall volume as low as possible because the louder it is, the louder the echo is. It is very resonate between 150 – 250 Hz. It is difficult to get the volume low enough to sound good if the bands have a live drummer. If the drummer can play quiet, it will help a lot because they set the limit on how low you can get the overall volume; otherwise all you hear is the drums! We did an auction in this room on time and you could hardly hear what they were saying, especially with how fast they talk. EQing out all the low-mids helped clear it up, but it was still not easy to understand them from the back of the room. I do not recommend live music or speech in this room. If it is not too hot outside, they can open up one entire wall (the glass wall) to the outside and this helps out a lot with the acoustics.
The VBC Playhouse88The room is pretty good acoustically (mostly dead in the mid and high reflections). We have worked it a few times doing Jim Parker´s Acoustic Songwriter´s Showcase and we were using about 60% of the round (the room can be setup with seats going all the way around the room in a in-the-round configuration.) In this configuration we flew 3 SRM450s above the stage. The only complaint is that it does get boomy (240, 120, 60 Hz) in the seats that are high up near the ceiling. Also, where they have the sound booth setup is also near the top in a little hole in the wall and it is also boomy. This room has a great lighting & fly setup.
Space & Rocket Center Marriott Grand Ballroom78This room is a very nice room for any kind of formal event (similar style to the VBC North Hall just not quite as big; less than 1/2 the size.) I rate the room a 7 for bands because they usually always setup the stage along the side wall so that it is facing the opposite wall that is the shortest distance away and because of this you get a pretty loud slap back which causes both major phase cancellation and is just irritating while trying to mix. If you can get them to setup the stage so that it is facing longwise into the room, it would help a lot. Acoustically it is pretty decent, and it does have carpeted floors. Load in and out is easy from the back of the building.
Grissom High School Cafeteria 67This room is not your average room. It is in the shape of an octagon. We setup for a battle of the bands on the stage for this event. The only problem that we encountered is a lot of reflection off the wall behind the stage which is only about 10´ deep. Monitors took a lot of EQing to eliminate feedback, mainly in the 1-2 kHz area for the Mackie SRM450 monitors we use. SM58 microphones were used. The main mix turned out decent. The room carries bass & low-mids well. The low ceilings probably help the acoustics. Not a bad room for live sound and it’s a pretty good room for a DJ setup.



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