Martin Audio MLA User Manual page 203

MLA System
USER GUIDE
The three goals are Leakage, Target and Hard Avoid. The relative balance for each of these is controlled by the horizontal faders
with the numeric percentage value of each showing to the right. The default starting position is each with equal importance so
a level of 33% for all three (yes that equals 99% not 100, get over it...).
Leakage is the spill onto non-audience areas the importance slider is coloured red to match the red non–audience planes in the
Coverage tab. It can be deactivated by un-checking the 'on' box. The default value is 20 which means that the system will attempt
to achieve a level at least 20dB below the audience level.
Target controls the audience level, as with the other goals it can be deactivated. The option is primarily there for consistency, it
would be highly unusual not to want to optimise the audience area but not impossible, for example, if you had an area off site
where it was crucial to keep levels to an absolute minimum you would make the area hard avoid and give maximum priority to
the Hard Avoid goal by deactivating Leakage and Target. Target is shown with a green slider also to match the green audience
region in the Coverage tab. The goal figure is 0.7dB by default so the optimisation will attempt to match the magnitude contour
set in the Coverage Tab to within 0.5dB.
Hard Avoid also has an 'on' check box and a blue importance slider. The default Goal is 30dB lower than the audience level for
any plane selected as hard avoid.
The importance sliders allow you to set the relative importance of each of the three goals, two if you have one of the goals
switched off. If you have two switched off the fader for the remaining function will automatically go to 100% and will no longer
be adjustable. If you attempt to switch off all three goals the system will automatically turn Target back on (see, it's not so easy
to break it!). When you adjust any of the three sliders, the other two will automatically compensate for example if you move
target to the right towards the maximum, both Leakage and Hard Avoid will move down. If you think in percentage terms, all
three start with equal precedence at 33%. If you move Target up to say 70%, Leakage and Hard Avoid will decrease equally to
15%. Now if we move Hard Avoid up to 35% both Leakage and Target will move down an equal amount from their previous
position so will end up at 5% and 60%. The actual figures are not particularly vital, what the sliders give you is a quick, easy way
of balancing the relative importance of the three goals to achieve the results you want at a glance. There is a reset function which
will turn on all three goals and return all three faders to the default, 33% position. It will not however reset the figures for the
goals, if you have changed these you will need to change them back manually.
To show the optimisation results, we have set the faders as follows;-
MLA System User Guide V2.1
203