The sound engineer surveyed two very different challenges: a morning keynote with 2,000 attendees in a convention hall, followed by an afternoon breakout with 50 people in a conference room. The same audio content speech reinforcement required completely different approaches. Understanding how sound operators mix for different audience sizes enables appropriate system design and mixing technique that delivers quality audio whether serving dozens or thousands.
Scaling System Design to Audience Size
Small audiences (under 100) may not require sound reinforcement at all—a presenter’s natural voice carries adequately in typical meeting room acoustics. When reinforcement is needed, compact systems from Bose, JBL EON, or QSC K Series provide adequate coverage with minimal infrastructure. The goal shifts from filling large spaces to enhancing clarity and ensuring consistent volume throughout smaller rooms.
Medium audiences (100-500) typically require distributed speaker systems that maintain consistent coverage without excessive front-row volume. Main speakers provide primary coverage; delay speakers extend reach without requiring the main system to push harder. QSC, JBL VTX, and similar systems scale appropriately for these applications, with processing from Symetrix or Biamp managing delays and zone coverage.
Large audiences (500+) demand line array systems from L-Acoustics, d&b audiotechnik, or Meyer Sound that project consistent levels across substantial distances. The physics of line arrays cylindrical wave propagation with gentler level falloff make them essential for large-scale coverage that point-source systems cannot efficiently achieve.
Mixing Technique Adjustments
Gain structure requires different approaches at different scales. Small room systems operate with minimal gain; pushing them hard creates feedback and distortion. Large systems need proper staging through the signal chain appropriate preamp gain, conservative bus levels, headroom maintained throughout to achieve the output levels large audiences require without introducing noise or distortion.
Compression and limiting become increasingly important with audience size. Small systems might use minimal dynamics processing; large systems need compression to maintain consistent levels across dynamic presenters and limiting to protect speakers and ears from unexpected peaks. The Waves plugins integrated into DiGiCo consoles and Yamaha Dan Dugan automixing provide the processing that large-scale speech reinforcement demands.
Room acoustics affect mixing approach significantly. Large reverberant spaces require cleaner, drier mixes that don’t excite room resonances unnecessarily. Small dead rooms might benefit from subtle reverb enhancement that adds life to dry signals. Measurement systems like Smaart reveal acoustic characteristics that inform mixing decisions EQ curves, delay settings, and level relationships that optimize speech intelligibility for specific environments.
Mixing for different audience sizes requires both system design that matches scale and technique that optimizes for specific conditions. Sound engineers who understand these relationships deliver consistent quality whether serving intimate gatherings or massive assemblies adapting their tools and approach to serve the actual audience present rather than applying one-size-fits-all methodology.
