Sunday, September 28, 2014

Forest Hills Stadium experimenting with sound blankets

From DNA Info:

Organizers of a summer outdoor concert series at Forest Hills Stadium said they are experimenting with ways to reduce noise from future performances after receiving complaints from community members.

They have been testing sound blankets, typically used at airports and construction sites, on the fence surrounding the stadium, said Jon McMillan, one of the organizers. They were also considering placing them at the top of the venue.

McMillan said that the group is trying to figure out whether covering large portions the fence with sound blankets is feasible and how to include entrances to the stadium into their sound mitigation plan.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Simple Solution, Turn it down

Jq said...

bringing back concerts has turned out to be a bad idea.and that replacements show ended at 10pM?Good thing I didn't waste my money.

Anonymous said...

I agree with A1: just turn the volume down.

Every year there are concerts of all kinds held in Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center. None of them are loud enough to disrupt the neighborhood. Heck, you can barely hear that there's even a concert going on if you cross 62 Street.

Anonymous said...

They'll probably need a sound blanket on the roof too. Oh wait, there is none.

Anonymous said...

"Turn it down"

I'm the same Anon that went to the 'Mats concert, yeah not that simple when you can barely hear the openers who stayed within the limit.

Also the 10 PM thing wasn't that crazy, it was annoying in that they did like a four song double encore the week before in Minnesota, and here in NY they only got to do one before having to say "We aren't allowed to do anymore". Like Crappy said, 10 PM is when the law kicks in for nighttime noise. It's bad enough they got fined 3 grand for playing 'over the limit'. But hell, I was very happy when Tommy Stinson said " How ya doing Queens?" What can you do?

Anyway, I'd rather see this than have bands play lower because they really weren't that loud. Youtube is full of videos of the concert and you can judge for yourself.

Anonymous said...

It makes no difference what the sound is. The old Jewish people in that area will still complain. To add, the rich Asian school kids study-study-study till the time they go to bed. They are learning machines, any noise -disruptions and the parents go berserk.
Mobs of freaks and hip-hop urban dwellers invading a hard working class white neighborhood isn't going to fly also. In large groups they get real brazen and nasty, especially when they see nice cars and property people work hard for.

Anonymous said...

The millionaire residents living across from Central Park don't complain about concerts blaring through their penthouse windows, so why are Forest Hills residents complaining about a dinky little concert in a small stadium?

Anonymous said...

"The millionaire residents living across from Central Park don't complain about concerts blaring through their penthouse windows, so why are Forest Hills residents complaining about a dinky little concert in a small stadium?"

Actually, they did complain. This resulted in the speakers at SummerStage being re-hung to aim the sound away from the facing est. It also resulted in stricter hour/level controls.

I don't live on Fifth, but close enough to hear what the complaints were about.

Right to the west of S-S is the Naumberg Band shell which faces west. It too had noise complaints regarding Central Park West residents and today only serves minimally amp'ed events.

Even back in the days of the Shaffer Music festival in the Wollman rink in the 1960's encountered noise complaints...and P.A. systems were not nearly as loud as today.

I think the 10:00 cutoff for loud events is reasonable

Anonymous said...

Here's an idea-- don't have concerts there. Play tennis in the tennis stadium, or tear the eyesore down.

Joe said...

"P.A. systems were not nearly as loud as today"

True the Beatles a Shea stadium used 6 or so Sure vocal master columns tilted back on 2X4s. These were powered by six 50 watt 6L6 tube amp blocks made by Executone in LIC. You couldn't even hear them, my uncle Joe was one of the sound engineers.
Today's average industry standard EAW speaker is full range cranking out around 1200 watts and they stack arrays of them. Todays speaker cone efficiency is also triple due to technology in the cones voice coils and magnets.

The system at Jones beach is around 50,000 acoustical watts. Outdoor you need 5X the power you need indoor to carry low frequency's to get that in the gut "feel the music"
Without it you don't have a rock concert and may a well be spinning mastered CD "program music" that's been compressed & squeezed down to RIAA & broadcast standards --why bother ?
To add no amount of these blankets will stop low frequency's and mechanical vibration from resonating shitty modern windows and el'cheapo modern construction.

Its construction and architectural standards that need fixing but that NEVER WILL HAPPEN because the developers, politicians and judges are all together with hands in each others laps. The whole filthy whore political system needs to be flushed down the toilet and start over.
Unfortunately THIS ALSO will never happen due to hordes of sheeple voters these progressive democrats keep spoonfed and gifted with free stuff & special protection's.

Anonymous said...

Five or six concerts a year, all ending by 10pm, at a venue that was holding concerts way before any of the current neighbors moved in?

Simple solution: deal with it. You chose to live in a city, not rural North Carolina.

Anonymous said...

"True the Beatles a Shea stadium used 6 or so Sure vocal master columns tilted back on 2X4s. These were powered by six 50 watt 6L6 tube amp blocks made by Executone in LIC"

I was too young to have been there but always assumed the speakers were Bozak CM109 -or similar. Even back then, there were more powerful rigs than the V-M system you describe. I knew the late Sid Bernstein and asked him about the setup, but he didn't know the details.

Given the per-pubescent female shrieking, I doubt anything existed that could do battle with it.

Joe said...

Executone had all the contracts for Shea, I do think the mixer or chained "mixers" were Bozaks. The Executone guy in charge of Shea "Neuymann" (spelling?) lived on Stolkholm street but he's also long gone. (my uncle Joe passed in 1968 when he was stabbed at the Delalb & Central ave station wile going fishing one morning)
His friend Neuymann had given me one of those 6L6 chassis when Shea was upgraded with these huge transistor solid state "bricks"
Sadly the "Beatles brick" with its original "RCA" round logo 6L6 tubes was stolen out of Roxie studios on Review ave. Anyway they were approx 19x7 inch gold colored steel chassis with rack ears and slotted screw terminal boards for connections. Some of those bricks were also loaded with KT88s at some point for more power. That wont do much good (power wise) without upping the plate voltage, output transformer and feedback circuitry to keep them clean and linear. That's when Executone started building 2N3055 silicon transistor amplifiers. That what I remember from Mr.Neumann RIP telling me.