Point them in the direction of wherever the clearest sound is originating. If that's above you, so be it. From the second row there may be secondary fill speakers directed toward that area, so look and listen for them and determine if directing toward those rather than the main PA array is the better bet. Those fills if present might be placed low across the front of the stage, off to either side angled inward, above facing down, or incorporated into the hanging PA itself.
Great advice - thanks Lee.
So, I did what I highly recommend all tapers do—I followed Lee's advice.
I didn't record the opening act Sabaton, but I used their sound to try and figure out where the sound was coming from. It wasn't very obvious, actually. As I suspected, the speaker arrays were almost directly above my head and off to the sides—so not much of a factor. There were wedge and side stage monitors, but all of the band members had IEMs, so I am not sure how much those monitors factored into the on-stage sound. Although, I suspect there were other speakers on the stage; but they just weren't visible. There were also no guitar/bass amps visible, but the guitarist on the left side of the stage was much louder in the mix than the guitarist on the right side (I was center-left of the stage). They were likely in their normal spots, but were covered up.
I decided to orient the red dots upward about 12-15 degrees (starting from originally being oriented straight forward).
To my ears, in spite of being in the 2nd row, there isn't much snap or clarity to the drums, or for that matter, any of the instruments. But the vocals (somehow!) come through fairly clear. Although, it sounds more like a stack tape to me.
Judas Priest posted this picture at their FB page from the end of the show. If you look closely, you can see me and my grandson.
We both shot video, which I mixed and synced with the MK41V audio. Here's a sample:
https://youtu.be/j-YxPuO-jYE
Topic: MK41 config (Read 2490 times)