About KDF

Keith is a retired university lecturer and research scientist with a life-long interest in working with sound systems. Starting as a teenager with a few horns and a battery amp, I progressed into music systems with my first mixer in 1982 and while studying acoustics (MSc.) in 1985, I worked with the Student Union's 36 channel live band PA system as well as my own little 12 channel rig. Next, work with a few bands and a year as an acoustics consultant, brought me to a turning point: I entered academia and left all this stuff behind.35 years later, having ended up as a Reader in Theoretical Biology at Queen's University Belfast, my Mum found some of my old sound kit in the roofspace of her house. When I took it off her hands, I was immediately 'addicted' again and restarted as KDF sound amplification. Over the past few years, I have built up a stock of equipment and spent quite a lot of time making boxes and wiring racks to create bespoke systems. I am happy to help out charities and small organisations (I can save them a lot of money), but I want the rigs to pay for themselves too. I will keep this going as long as I can - its good to keep active!

Founding Principles

Legendary sound engineer Dave Rat put it perfectly: “I do believe that our purpose in sound reinforcement is to connect the artist with the audience and to create memorable experiences that people love to hold on to.”That is true whatever the application, because public events are always about experience. The reason people gather together, rather than listening online or in private on headphones, is to get a social experience and sound reinforcement is an essential part of that. For live speech - whether a lecture, religious ceremony, political rally, or sports event, the first priority is intelligibility, but the second is to create a common shared experience that is engaging and even exciting. Especially in religious, political and sports settings, we want to authentically convey the passion and excitement of the speaker or commentator to create a sense of unity and empowerment among the audience.A sound system never accurately reproduces the natural sound of a person’s voice as though they were standing next to you and at a public event that is not even the point. Just as a painting is an interpretation of the view before the artist, one which emphasises the emotional and meaningful aspects of the scene, really good reinforced sound adds power and passion and a unifying feeling of participation to the essential requirement of intelligibility. For that reason it needs to capture the quality of the speaker’s voice and convey power, depth and breadth, encompassing the audience, subtly enhancing, without being jarring. With a good sound system, you will hear every word clearly and feel it emotionally.The same is true of music performance, where the primary goal is to create the authentic sound of the artists, not as in a private “hi-fi” experience, but as the enhanced emotional experience of collective engagement and empowerment for a mass audience.

Technically, reinforced sound is by definition ‘larger than life’, but more importantly it should be an emotionally magnified experience of collective connection with the artist. Achieving this is the subtle art of making a virtue out of the unnatural power of kilowatts of sound to envelop and engage, rather than to dominate and impose. Modern sound reinforcement, done well, is a unique combination of powerful technology with sensitive subtle artistry, in collaboration with the performers.Of course all that advanced technology comes at a hefty price. An inevitable consequence is that smaller venues, organisations and groups do not normally have access to its advantages. This is where small specialist sound reinforcement companies can make a difference. By applying the knowledge and experience of engineers from the big professional-system world and carefully selecting equipment of exceptional quality - scaled down versions of the best - we are able to bring world class sound reinforcement to the small gathering. Knowledge and experience are crucial in finding the optimum trade-off between quality and price of equipment. This is partly about knowing the real-world performance of a large range of sound reinforcement tools, rather than the marketing hype, or following the herd; it is also about knowing which items work well together and reliably. Professionally considered procurement results in excellent quality and reliability, at the sort of keen prices that small clients need to see.

Expertise extends to onsite engineers who are available, not only to ensure the correct and safe installation and removal of equipment, but also to draw from it the optimal performance in the spirit described above. That means almost all hire is ‘wet hire’, i.e. with onsite support. If we can be confident that clients are fully competent to replace us, then we will allow that, but may still take an advisory or supervisory role as appropriate. Safety is of course a serious business and with very high electrical power running in multiple kinds of cables, where touching the bare ends of a loudspeaker feed can kill, or badly handing an 80kg box can cause serious injury, we have to emphasise safety first: it trumps all other issues.

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Contact Me

Enquiries and Bookings

Feel free to contact me to discuss sound for your event. Every case is unique, so I will talk you through what is best to use, based on what you tell me about the event. The first step is to get in touch using the email below.

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