Comments on: Seeing Sound Waves

By: Kaleena

Kaleena — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:08:34 +0000

Yeah–thanks rfl717 and John Huntington. I look at your article right after I posted, but didn’t get a chance re-comment (until now)

How cool! I had no idea that the sound was delayed for the peops in the back. Thanks for teaching me something cool!

By: John Huntington

John Huntington — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:03:57 +0000

@Kaleena–It looks like rfl717 beat me to it, but I do explain exactly what you are talking about on my web entry where I posted the video, you can see it here at:
http://www.controlgeek.net/blog/2009/1/21/seeing-sound-waves.html

By: rfl717

rfl717 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:13:47 +0000

Kaleena, read the article at the link. Sound designers actually set the speakers up to have a delay that matches the sound coming from the stage so the people in the back don’t hear an echo.

By: Mimi

Mimi — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:04:26 +0000

Nope. Not the wave. I was there. I was wayyyyyy back by the Washington Monument, and I can attest to the fact that although there were many sets of speakers, it was clear we were hearing the concert at a delay. We could see it on a few different Jumbotrons, too, and the video on some was ahead of what we could hear in real life. I totally thought about this very phenomena as I was gleefully throwing my hands in the air during “Shout,” and I’m tickled to see proof of it. (This is the “We Are One” Inaugural Concert, by the way – the one they showed free on HBO.)

By: Kaleena

Kaleena — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:08:58 +0000

Cool! except for a venue that large wouldn’t they have multiple sets of speakers? (And they do–I saw them on the video.) In which case the the sound would traveling through cables which is much faster than traveling through air…

Maybe they’re just doing the wave…

By: Umandsf

Umandsf — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:52:18 +0000

SCIENCE!!!