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LOUD Technologies Restructures Business
PEOPLE. PRODUCTION. GEAR. GIGS.
DECEMBER 2008 Vol. 7 No.3
Rat Takes Audio Detour
LOS ANGELES — Set along the backdrop of skyscrapers in Los Angeles’ Financial District, The
L.A. Detour Festival brings international acts to the city for a one-day, four-day event with more
than 30 bands and DJs. Nine blocks of downtown were closed to make room for the potential
crowd of 10,000 people. The crew at Rat Sound had less than four hours to set up sound and four
hours to break down the entire festival. In the end, the downtown had to look like nothing had
happened the day before. Impossible? Find out how they did it on page 14.
WOODINVILLE, Wash. — LOUD Technologies Inc. has announced a reorganization
of its marketing, sales and engineering functions. Under the new organization, product strategy, development and marketing for the company’s MI and Pro
businesses will be managed by separate, dedicated product management
teams, while marketing communications for all the company’s brands will
be consolidated and managed by a
shared marketing support team.
“The restructuring will ensure
LOUD is well positioned to weather
the current global downturn and solidify our continued leadership position,” says Rodney Olson, CEO of LOUD
Technologies.
The company’s worldwide engineering resources will be scaled to support
a more focused product development
schedule. LOUD will also move North
American sales from its current captive
sales force to a group of independent
sales representation firms and consoliEddie DiBona takes only a second
date portions of its international sales
to
explain
why he jumped from a reguforce. The restructuring, expected by
lar hotel and casino gig to the land of
the end of 2008, will result in the reself-employment. “They exploded The
duction of approximately 90 fulltime
Sands?”, he answers with a laugh. “No,
positions.
I’m kidding.”Turns out DiBona, who had
The company has sold its SLM
spent 13 years at the Claridge Hotel
Marketplace catalog and accessories
and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J. and his
distribution business and proprietary
partner John Grasso, who was the lead
St. Louis Stage Gear brand, along with
audio engineer at the Sands Resort &
the Austin guitar and Knilling InstruCasino, started ACIR Pro as a backline
ments brands (“SLM Marketplace”) to
rental company some six years ago beSt. Louis-based U.S. Band & Orchestra
cause they saw a prime opportunity.
Supplies, Inc. The sale includes the
Turn to page 26.
transfer of the worldwide sales license
for the patented Perfection Peg stringed instrument tuning device. Terms
of the sale were not disclosed.
Widespread Panic Takes DiGiCo SD7 Out for a Spin
Chris Berry and Chris Rabold with a DiGiCo SD7
NEW YORK — Engineer Chris Rabold has
guided rock band Widespread Panic’s sonic
path live on tour since 2001. A total of 60plus inputs accommodate everything from
the six-piece band’s gear (the percussionist
uses 21 alone), triggers and audience mics
for recording — plus an allotted six lines for
guest artists, so there’s a lot to manage at all
times. Given the opportunity, Rabold jumped at the chance to take an SD7 out for a
spin on Panic’s U.S. fall dates.
“I’ve been mixing this band for a while
now, and am continually looking for ways to
improve their sound,” says Rabold. “I used a
D5 in 2005 with very favorable results, but
spent the past few years
continued on page 5
ACIR Pro: Not Just
Backline Anymore
New Gear
10
Stocking stuffers that will definitely
be on your Christmas list.
Road Tests
22 We check out dbx Direct Boxes and
AKG mics.
Vital Stats
24 We get up close and personal with
Adamson Systems.
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12/1/08 5:37:10 PM
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www.fohonline.com
DECEMBER 2008,
Vol. 7.3 2008,
DECEMBER
Vol. 7.3
Installations
What’s Hot
Feature
Columns
Features
14 Production Profile
18
NYC’s Le Poisson Rouge revamps its sound system to better
serve its mission of fusing theatre, dance and art.
Rat Sound provided crew and gear for the
Los Angeles Detour Festival, a one-day event
featuring 30 bands and DJs on four stages.
Screw the FCC, we’re going microwave.
25 Theory & Practice
What, were you born in a barn? Close the damn
door!
22 Road Tests
We check out the dbx db10 and db12 direct
boxes and an AKG wireless horn mic.
25 Anklebiter
How to work smarter, not harder.
24 Vital Stats
We get up close and personal with Brock
Adamson of Adamson Systems.
Welcome To My Nightmare
24 The Bleeding Edge
28 FOH-at-Large
How big is your bag of money, your Holiness?
26 Regional Slants
What’s Hot
ACIR Pro started as a backline company in
Atlantic City, but now serves clients up and
down the East Coast., providing a wide variety of
services.
23
Departments
4 Editor’s Note
5 News
9 International News
10 New Gear
10 On the Move
12 Showtime
23 In the Trenches
A gig in Alaska turns out to be a cold day in hell.
LETTERS
Separating the “Wheat from the Chaff”
I
have been reading with interest the
debate on white spaces. I have been a
broadcast engineer a little over 21 years
now and a live sound engineer for a bit
longer.
Thank you and your staff for a great
magazine. The articles are helpful, informative, funny and even insightful. Thank you
for all you do to help us to do what we love
to do.
In response to your editor’s note in the
September 2008 issue, I, and probably many
of us, do care that you and your staff edit
down the press releases from manufacturers. Please keep doing it! 200.0812.02.indd 2
In addition in working in broadcasting,
I am also a technical director at our church.
We don't have the budget like I have at
work, but we do have some money and
when we need to purchase a piece of gear,
we want to spend wisely and not waste it
on something that, in the end, is more of a
compromise than a tool to be used in the
ministry. So, thanks for looking out for us by separating the “wheat from the chaff.” We all
benefit from it.
Sincerely,
John Klawikowski
What’s
On
Your Mind?
No, really. We want to know. And we want to
let the rest of the live event audio world know
right here in this "Feedback" space. Send your
praise, complaints, questions and plans for world
domination to [email protected].
12/1/08 5:39:25 PM
Editor’s Note
By BillEvans
And Where
Do We Go From Here?
Publisher
Terry Lowe
[email protected]
Editor
Bill Evans
bevans@ fohonline.com
Managing Editor
Breanne George
[email protected]
Technical Editor
Mark Amundson
T
here has been an old Jackson
Browne song going through
my head lately called “The
Road and the Sky.” One of the verses
goes like this:
Now can you see those storm
clouds gathering up ahead?
They’re going to wash this planet
clean like the Bible said
Now you can hold on steady and
try to be ready but everybody’s
gonna get wet
Don’t think it won’t happen just
because it hasn’t happened yet
It’s obvious that we are looking
at some “interesting times” in our
little business. We’re not going to
do the doom and gloom thing, but
not acknowledging that things are
pretty weird would just be silly. But
I don’t believe that the sky is falling
either.
Most of the soundcos I know
are fairly busy. Some are very busy.
Still, right about now, a lot of us are
holding our breath and waiting to
see what the New Year brings. So,
here’s the deal: It’s gut check time.
And it is no time for being a wuss.
That may sound harsh, but it
will be the bold who come out of
whatever we are calling this financial “situation” in good shape —
some may come out stronger than
they are now. I have heard of some
companies that are looking at this
“situation” as an opportunity to increase market share as their weaker
competitors fall. Welcome to the
food chain…
I don’t own a soundco (owning a
small system that I rent out a few times
touring acts try to keep costs under
control by trucking around as little
gear as possible and renting a lot more
locally at each tour stop. And I am not
the only one who sees the biz moving
in that direction.
So, if you stay visible, do good work,
keep your customers happy and make
In the coming months, competition will
get fierce and it will be crucial for all of us
who want to stay in this business to stay
visible and hungry. Remember the fire you
had when you first started? It’s time to
rediscover it.
a year does not qualify), and I am the
last one to be giving financial advice.
But I can tell you this: In the coming
months, competition will get fierce
and it will be crucial for all of us who
want to stay in this business to stay
visible and hungry. Remember the fire
you had when you first started? It’s
time to rediscover it. Those who are
still young and hungry need to keep
that fire stoked.
My guess is that after a tough first
part of the year (which is mostly corporates, and those are disappearing
pretty quickly) that the next touring
cycle may see greater opportunity for
local and regional companies as more
sure your gear is up-to-date and riderfriendly, you may find things looking a
whole lot different — and a whole lot
brighter — come spring.
Yeah, we’re all gonna “get wet”—
make no mistake about it. But if
you’re smart, work your butt off and
have maybe just a little luck, you’ll
be OK. For what it’s worth, the FOH
team will be here trying to keep you
informed on where the biz is headed and how you can best navigate
an unfamiliar road. We all have our
own part to play and it’s time to put
the shoulder to the wheel and get to
work. The sky ain’t falling, it’s just a
bit of rain…
[email protected]
Contributing Writers
Jerry Cobb, Brian Cassell,
Dan Daley, Jamie Rio,
Steve LaCerra, Nort Johnson,
David John Farinella,
Ted Leamy, Baker Lee,
Bryan Reesman, Tony Mah
Photographer
Steve Jennings
Art Director
Garret Petrov
[email protected]
Graphic Designer
Crystal Franklin
cfranklin@ fohonline.com
Production Manager
Linda Evans
levans@ fohonline.com
Web Master
Josh Harris
jharris@ fohonline.com
National Sales Manager
Dan Hernandez
[email protected]
National Advertising Director
Gregory Gallardo
[email protected]
Advertising Manager
Maria Kritikos
[email protected]
General Manager
William Hamilton Vanyo
[email protected]
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Front Of House (ISSN 1549-831X) Volume 7 Number 3 is published monthly by Timeless Communications Corp., 6000 South Eastern Ave., Suite 14J, Las Vegas,
NV, 89119. Periodicals Postage Paid at Las Vegas, NV and
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DECEMBER 2008
www.fohonline.com
12/1/08 5:20:41 PM
News
Manoa Jazz Festival Grooves at the University of Hawaii
MANOA, Hawaii — The first annual
Manoa Jazz Festival kicked off at the Andrews
Outdoor Theatre at the University of Hawaii
at Manoa (UHM). Local artists including Noel
Okimoto Ohana, the Honolulu Jazz Quartet
and headliner Devin Phillips and New Orleans
Straight Ahead performed for 1,000 excited
onlookers, with sound reinforcement from a
Meyer Sound M’elodie line array loudspeaker
system provided by Honolulu-based Baus Engineering.
“We knew the music community would
be very supportive with a big turnout,” says
UHM program specialist and concert promoter Tim Slaughter. “So, we wanted to find
the best sound production we could, which
meant Randy Bauske and Baus Engineering.
Randy introduced us to Meyer Sound, and
we’re very happy that he did.”
Despite the beauty of the venue, it was
no picnic to work in. “It’s an acoustic challenge,” says Bauske. “The seats and back
wall are made of stone and concrete, so
there are lots of ricochet and slapback to
deal with, in addition to rampant moisture.”
The festival used five M’elodie line array
loudspeakers and two 700-HP subwoofers
groundstacked per side, plus two legacy
UPA-1C loudspeakers for frontfill. Stage
monitoring was courtesy of a pair of legacy
UM-1C ultramonitors, and system process-
ing was handled by a Galileo
loudspeaker
management
system with two Galileo 616
processors — one running the
main system, the other controlling the monitors — that
provided each band greater
control of the mixes.
“The M’elodies sounded
great,” adds Bauske. “And the fact
that we could cover that many
people with only five boxes per
side is impressive. The feedback
we got from all sides — musicians,
crowd and university people —
was overwhelmingly positive.”
Setup for the Manoa Jazz Festival at the University of Hawaii at Manoa
Widespread Panic Takes
DiGiCo SD7 Out for a Spin
continued from cover
on another desk, which was a fine product in and of itself. However, when I
went back and listened to mixes I had
done on the D5, it reminded me of just
how astounding the depth of field was
with the DiGiCo — something that I
specifically remember commenting on
when I first mixed on one. Eighth Day
Sound has always been a very strong
proponent of DiGiCo, and after a few
playful nudges from the guys, I decided
to give the SD7 a look.”
“I knew the DiGiCo would give me
a better, purer input than anything out
there and after flying up to Eight Day’s
shop in Cleveland to give the console a
spin, I knew my thinking was correct. I
literally sat up for three all-night mixing
sessions, playing back tracks I’d recorded through converters other than that
of an SD7, and taking the desk through
its paces. The processing power the desk
affords you, as a mixer, is pretty impressive to say the least. My EQ moves were
minimal, the dynamics were phenomenal (never thought I’d say that about a
digital desk) and the summing busses
never had that ‘choked’ sound common
on other digital consoles. Needless to
say, I was totally blown away by the sonic quality of the desk.”
With a few thousand miles and a
bunch of shows under his proverbial
belt with the SD7, Rabold says his satisfaction rate has increased exponentially. “Now that the desk’s converters are
being put to use live, the inputs themselves have never sounded better. The
top end on the desk is so smooth and
so distinctly different from any other
console on the market. You can just place things so easily within the soundscape without a lot of fuss. I don’t feel like
I’m trying to jam everything together;
there’s space and there’s depth.”
Rabold also expressed a desire early
on to get back to a console where he
didn’t need to embellish or augment it
with external plug-ins and/or effects to
get the sound he was looking for.
“I’ve grown tired of ‘dolling up’ my
inputs with processing just to get them
to the point where I felt satisfied with
them. I do have a few of my favorite analog dynamics pieces inserted, but I’ve
found myself turning units off that I’ve
relied on for years. I just don’t need to
go too far to get the sounds I’m looking
for with the SD7.”
www.fohonline.com
2008 DECEMBER
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12/1/08 3:22:22 PM
News
City Light Church Spreads the Message with Music
City Light Church in New York City’s Lower East Side
NEW YORK — A vibrant sanctuary and
worship center on New York City’s Lower
East Side, the City Light Church urges its followers to “Rediscover Life” in a relaxed and
casual, multicultural environment. Recently,
the church set out to upgrade the audio
system for their coffee shop/cabaret venue
that holds a number of music and open-mic
events as part of City Light’s approach.
D esigner/I nstaller Justin Slazas, working with
Delicate Electronics of Los Angeles,
wanted to provide quality audio
within the $25,000
budget in what
was a small space
with ceilings only
eight feet high.
Consulting
with Bill Sage of
Delicate, who had
installed
Martin
Audio AQ Series
speakers in several
installs, and Rob
Hofkamp, director of operations for North America, Slazas
determined “the AQ10 and AQ212 Series
speakers were ideal for providing high output and clear articulate sound from compact
enclosures. They were also a passive design
that saves on processing and amplification,
had unobtrusive horizontal and vertical
mounting options and the ability to work
in a variety of room shapes and sizes with
minimal additional equipment and EQing.
Martin’s independently programmable DX1
System Management Processor was also
very useful, as were its MA4.8Q and MA4.2Q
amps that deliver a lot of power from four
rack spaces.”
“After looking at several companies, we
decided to go with the Martin AQ series,” Slazas
said. “As a sound designer and engineer, I have
been working with a variety of Martin products for years. There is a certain well-balanced
sound that all Martin Boxes exhibit, which I felt
worked particularly well for this project.”
The rest of the system included a new
Mackie 1202-VLZ3 and a ULX Professional
Wireless System. Summing up, Slazas adds,
“We had a very short timeframe to get the
equipment delivered and installed. Getting
the speakers, processor and amplification
from one manufacturer helped a lot, and Martin Audio’s customer service and support were
invaluable in getting this project done right
and on time.”
Asked about the client’s reaction to the
new system, Slazas reports, “After installing
the system and going through several of City
Lights largest services, I received an e-mail
from the Worship Pastor, Darryn Belieu. His
exact words were‘the sound is phenomenal.’”
Levitt Pavilion Serves
Up an Eclectic Mix
ARLINGTON, Texas — With a 50-concert season, the Levitt Pavilion serves
up an eclectic mix of entertainment
productions, from dance to live music
to per formance art. With new productions for ever y show, the 2,000-capacity Levitt project demanded a sound
system that could adapt quickly to an
ever-changing schedule. Cornerstone
Media president Kent Morris, a veteran audio contractor and installer,
recognized the unique challenges of
the project and specified the Peavey
Versarray 212 line -array system as the
main audio component.
“Initially, the venue was designed
as a permanent installation, but it was
then converted to a portable system
for security reasons,” he said. “ This
meant that ever y component had to
be fitted into rolling cases and also
had to work with quick disconnects.
The Peavey Versarray 212 line array rig
we specified is substantial — six 2-x-12
enclosures flown over three 2 x18 subs
per side — but its unique bracket-andpin connection system makes setup
and teardown ver y manageable.”
Young@Heart Chorus Puts
Senior Spin on Rock Classics
FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. — Heil Sound
PR 35 dynamic microphones have been
selected by the Young@Heart Chorus
for use in their stage productions and
concerts. Four Heil mics are located
downstage for the singers as they put
a senior spin on rock classics such as
The Clash’s Should I Stay Or Should I Go
Now, The Ramones I Want to Be Sedated
and others. The Heil mics were incorporated into the show for the first time at
the Wilshire Theater in Los Angeles.
Sound Designer Dan Richardson,
who has mixed Y@H for years, comments, “I was looking to replace our
existing microphones and through
sheer coincidence, Greg McVeigh who
handles Heil’s artist relations had read
an article about the group in the Los
Angeles Times. He contacted me and
arranged for us to try the mics. We immediately put them into service and
haven’t looked back.”
The current performers in Young@
Heart range in age from 72 to 88. A few
have prior professional theater or mu-
sic experience, others have performed
extensively on the amateur level, and
some never stepped onto a stage before turning 80.
Challenges abound on a show
such as this — not the least of which
is the singer’s microphone technique,
or lack thereof. On or off axis becomes
subjective when the singer is in a
wheelchair or attached to a breathing machine. Richardson explains, “My
singers aren’t very technical. There is a
scene in the movie where we perform
a show at a prison in Northampton.
During the song Forever Young, Jack
steps up to the mic, which is still positioned for the previous singer. He’s
perfectly happy to sing with the mic
pointed directly at his chest. The Heil
PR 35s sound great when you’re on
them, but their off-axis response is
also useful. It’s not that their pattern is
wide; in fact, they’re very directional.
It’s just that, unlike many mics, material coming from the sides still sounds
good. They’re audio lifesavers.”
Young@Heart Chorus
6
DECEMBER 2008
www.fohonline.com
12/1/08 5:22:18 PM
News
Three Days Grace Headlines BayFest 2008
FOH engineer Chris Zakoor and systems technician Jason Baker
MOBILE, Ala. — With
over 125 live bands
playing in front of up
to 200,000 enthusiastic fans, BayFest is the
major annual musical
highlight in Alabama.
Taking place in Mobile, this year ’s festival
had added Flex appeal
with a Turbosound
Flex Array system.
Memphis-based
ProShow Systems has
provided production
ser vices to BayFest for
the past decade and
this year supplied a large Flex Array
system for the Pepsi stage, which is
traditionally where most rock bands
play during the event.
“ We heard the Flex boxes in Las
Vegas back in June and were really
impressed with the sound quality,
specifically the per formance of Turbosound’s unique Polyhornmid and
the Dendritic HF,” says Michael Faber
of ProShow Systems. “ We put the Turbosound rig on the rock ‘n’ roll stage
where it belongs, and were excited to
get the boxes out on a big show and
really open them up.”
With 24 TFA-600H flown cabinets
augmented by ground-stacked Aspect
TA-880L bass bins, the system provided the ideal combination of punch and
clarity for bands including Puddle of
Mudd, Buckcherr y, P.O.D, Three Days
Grace and Better Than Ezra. With up to
20,000 fans at the stage for the duration, Flex Array ’s high output capabilities and coverage proper ties were essential.
Setting up the system was ver y
straightfor ward, as AM&S product manager Claus Frostell confirms: “Half way
through the first hang, the ProShow
and local crew star ted raving about
how easy it was to fly. It was supposedly the best they ’ve ever done.”
He continues, “ We did that first
hang on the Thursday evening, but in
the daylight of the following morning we could see that the angle wasn’t
quite correct. It was a good oppor tunity to demonstrate the ease of bringing the arrays down and readjusting
the hang point. It took just 10 minutes
per side.
L a t e r, F r o s t e l l a n d s y s t e m t e c h nician Jason Baker spent half an
h o u r w i t h C h r i s Z a k o o r, F O H e n g i n e e r f o r t h a t n i g h t ’s h e a d l i n e r
Three Days Grace, to fine tune the
system to his taste.
“Chris commented that, for a midsized line array, it sounds like a big
system and is ver y responsive. He
could easily hear minor changes on
the console or graphic EQ, which isn’t
the case with many other speaker systems,” says Frostell.
Performance Audio Pumps
Up Energy Solutions Arena
Energy Solutions Arena
SALT LAKE CITY — Performance
Audio of Salt Lake City recently
installed a new Electro-Voice XLC
sound system at Energy Solutions
Arena. The 20,500-seat arena is
home to the NBA’s Utah Jazz and
is the region’s major concert venue
— Reba McIntire and Kelly Clarkson
were the first to perform alongside
the new system. Comprising 52 XLC
127DVX loudspeakers deployed in
four arrays (two 12-box and two
14-box), the new system provides
coverage to the arena’s upper and
lower bowls. FRX+640 loudspeakers were installed beneath the
scoreboard for full-court coverage.
“This was a team effort,” says Craig
Hylton of Performance Audio. “We
worked closely with Monte Wise,
Dave Larsen, George Georgallis and
Robert Deyarmond of EV every step
of the way to really raise the bar for
stadium sound with this install.”
8
DECEMBER 2008
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12/1/08 3:23:40 PM
International News
International Acts Perform at Shrewsbury Folk Festival
FOH Mixer Graham Bradshaw
at the Shrewsbury Festival
ENGLAND — CV Audio used
an Allen & Heath iLive system
for sound reinforcement at
the Shrewsbury Folk Festival,
a four-day festival with many
international acts such as
Grammy-nominated Winnipeg
five-piece The Duhks, Richard
Thompson from Fairport Convention, legendary folk rockers
Oysterband and Irish instrumental band Lunasa,
The iLive system was installed at FOH with a multicore
and analog split to a second
iLive system comprising an
iDR10 stagerackand iLive-80
control surface positioned on monitors. This was complemented with a
flown HK line array, front fills, subs and
wedges.
“Due to the comms system, it was
necessary to employ a traditional analog setup, connecting the FOH and
monitor consoles via multicore and active split,” explains CV Audio’s Graham
Bradshaw. “ This wouldn’t be possible
with most digital systems, but iLive
is so versatile we were able to easily
adapt the system on this occasion. All
the visiting engineers were unfamiliar
with iLive, but they quickly picked up
naming and color-coding channels and
saving band scenes.”
FBT Celebrates
45th Anniversary
ITALY — The year is 1963, and
Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in
San Francisco” wins a Grammy for
Record of the Year. Lawrence of Arabia wins Best Picture at the Academy
Awards, and the Los Angeles Dodgers sweep the New York Yankees in
the World Series. In the small town
of Recanati, Italy, two friends named
Bruno Baldoni and Vinicio Tanoni
decide to build a workspace to produce guitar amplifiers for the booming music market. Recanati is in the
Marches area of Italy and is considered a unique place where poetry
and music has always accompanied
its history.
From that small beginning, the
company, named FBT after its founders, became a worldwide supplier of
not only instrument amplifiers, but
also pro audio gear including loudspeakers, mixing consoles, microphones and power amplifiers.
Today, FBT operates out of a
540,000-square-foot production facility that allows the company to
stay true to its strong philosophy of
nationally based quality — all products are made in Italy. The entire
production cycle from R&D to the
design of tooling dies, assembly of
components and final construction
of each product is managed and implemented in-house.
While FBT has a long history,
its North American sales efforts
have been approached in a steady
and leveled manner. FBT products,
especially the FBTMaxx, HiMaxx
Powered speakers and the Modus
2-way line array systems, have seen
success in the United States with
corporate AV houses, installations
and also regional sound company
customers.
Sales are handled through FBT
USA, headquartered in Berlin Conn.
Tom Concorde directs the operation and says, “A/V contractors and
pro audio shops currently account
for about 70% of FBT’s total sales in
the U.S. That number is beginning to
skew though as the Modus and Qube
(designed during a joint partnership
with Renkus-Heinz) systems are gaining favor with sound companies.”
www.fohonline.com
2008 DECEMBER
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12/1/08 5:23:26 PM
New Gear
Carvin Ultra-light DCM “L” Series
Power Amps
Carvin introduces the Ultralight DCM “L” Series power amps.
The CLASS A/B
linear topology features high current bipolar output
devices that reduce distortion to.03% THD while delivering high slew rate performance. The DCM’s headroom
reveals its dynamic power from the Switchmode power
supply that operates at 100,000 Hz. The Switchmode
supply is designed to save AC input power and reduce
internal heat. The soft-start gently turns the DCM on to
prevent tripping AC breakers and a heat transfer system
offers advanced cooling. Features include recessed front
controls with status indicators that won’t get bumped or
easily moved. A “Ground Lift” switch eliminates ground
loops. A “Parallel Input” switch eliminates “Y” adapters.
The mono “Bridge” switch delivers the full power into
one output.
www.carvin.com
d&b audiotechnik E8 Loudspeaker
The d&b audiotechnik E8 is a twoway multipurpose loudspeaker employing an integrated coaxial driver
with neodymium magnet assemblies.
The 1” exit HF compression driver and
constant directivity horn are accommodated within the circumference
of the 8” LF driver. It has either a 90° x
50° or 50° x 90° dispersion pattern (H x
V), selected by rotating the horn through 90°. It has a
maximum output of 129 dB SPL. The E8 can be used for
speech and music or as a stand-alone full range system,
incorporated into larger distributed sound reinforcement situations without compromise to performance,
mounted on loudspeaker stands or flown from overhead bars. Its multifaceted shape allows use in a vertical or horizontal orientation as well as deployed as a
stage monitor. The addition of the E15X subwoofer extends its bandwidth of 62 Hz to18 kHz down to 40 Hz.
www.dbaudio.com
EAW JFL210 Compact Constant
Curvature Line Array
EAW has introduced the new
JFL210 Compact Constant Curvature Line Array, which features a
range of line array technologies
within a mobile, lightweight package designed for a multitude of
small- and medium-sized applications. Incorporating constant
curvature line-array design principles, JFL210 modules form easily
configured arrays with predictable
output and coherence and coverage that is both horizontally symmetric and consistent from short to long
throws. And, despite the compact size, modules and
arrays deliver high output capability and predictable
pattern control. The JFL210 can be flown or stacked in
a variety of ways. The enclosure size, shape, weight and
rigging are optimized for ease of transport and handling. Arrays may be easily flown or ground stacked,
and up to two enclosures may be mounted on a tripod
loudspeaker stand or on a pole above a pole-mount capable subwoofer.
www.eaw.com
Heil Camo PR 22
The debut of the Camo PR 22 officially
created Heil Sound’s new custom shop in
its Fairview Heights, Ill.-factory. The custom
shop will be dedicated to working with customers who wish to have custom finishes on
their Heil microphones. Heil Sound President
Bob Heil commented, “The PR 22 is shipped
standard with three different screw on grills,
which gives the mic a lot of versatility lookswise. The custom shop takes this idea one big step further allowing the artist to really customize his or her mic. Also, music
video producers have taken notice of the possibilities and are
asking us for custom finishes as well.” So, where does the camouflage finish fit it? The Camo PR 22 is part of a fundraising effort on behalf of Heil Sound and Operation Homefront. Artists,
including Joe Walsh, Charlie Daniels, Ted Nugent and others
have autographed Camo PR 22s and donated them.
www.heilsound.com
Martin Audio W8VDQ
Martin Audio’s new W8VDQ compact, three-way system combines line
array and differential dispersion technologies to provide a solution for even
coverage over wide angles and throw
distances. The system has been designed
to provide a short-throw horizontal dispersion of 120°, narrowing to 100° as the throw increases. The
vertical differential directivity (VDQ) creates progressively more
HF output as throw distance increases. The resulting dispersion
pattern is designed to cover audiences located on flat or gradually
sloping surfaces. Designed for passive or bi-amp operation, and
combining a Hybrid quad 8” LF and MF configuration with quad
1” HF — all horn-loaded — the system achieves a maximum SPL of
131 dB (continuous), 137 dB (peak).
www.martin-audio.com
On The Move
Crown Audio
has announced the
appointment of
Vincent Tan to the
position of business
developer for the Asia
region. In this role, Tan
will be responsible for
supporting the sales Vincent Tan
within the region and working closely with the
customer base. He will report to Brian Divine,
director of marketing for Installed Sound.
Previously, Tan served as an engineering
manager for Spectrum Conferencing Pte Ltd.,
which specializes in providing integrated
conferencing and professional audio-visual
solutions. Tan has also held the position of
IT manager for Electronics & Engineering Pte
Ltd, where he managed major IT networks for
multiple companies in various countries. Future
Sonics
has announced the
appointment of David
Gray as director of
client services. In
this role, Gray will
communicate directly
with artists, engineers
and other clients to David Gray
ensure all aspects of customer service. Gray
comes to Future Sonics with both a history
in the music industry and a background in
sales. Prior to taking this position, he was a fulltime musician and entrepreneur, co-founding
the independent label Curbside Records, as
well as the web design company DG2 Designs.
“We are certain David’s unique background will ensure our clients are not only
satisfied, but delighted with the service we
provide,” said President and Founder Marty
Garcia. “This is a testament to our commitment to our quality and client services as
we rapidly grow our company.”
L-ACOUSTICS
announces the appointment of Jochen
Frohn to the position
of international business development
director. Frohn has
extensive managerial experience in the Jochen Frohn
pro audio industry, notably 14 years at Crest,
where he served in a variety of roles including director of sales and marketing, Crest
Europe, Middle East, Africa and managing director of the company's German subsidiary.
Frohn's initial remit will be to take responsibility for the sales, development and
coordination of the company’s business
worldwide, focusing on actively building
foundations for L-ACOUSTICS Germany and
coordinating sales across Europe by building
and piloting teams for these territories.
Internally, he will work closely with
other members of the executive committee
led by founder and CEO Christian Heil, with
marketing director Stephane Ecalle on communication and with international business
supervisor Laure Guymont for business
planning and policies.
10
DECEMBER 2008
www.fohonline.com
Showtime
Ralph Stanley and His Clinch Mountain Boys
Venue
GEAR
Frank Center for the Performing Arts
Shepherd University
Shepherdstown, WV
CREW
FOH Engineer: James Welsh
Monitor Engineer: Chris Kourtsis
Systems Engineer: Mike Monseur
Production Manager: Patrick Wallace
Tour Manager: Rachael Meads Meeker
Systems Techs: Chris Mason, Nick
Bungato, Jacob Wysopal
Soundco
Welsh Sound
ST
FOH
Console: Soundcraft Series 2 44 x 8
Speakers: McCauley M.LINE, M90,
M120, MS1 subs
Amps: Crown XTI
Processing: BSS Varicurve, dbx
Driverack 480, dbx 160, 166XL, Lexicon
PCM81, TC Electronics M-One, D-Two,
SmaartLive Ver. 6, Toshiba Tablet PC
with Dlink RF Router to Driverack
Mics: Shure Beta 58, SM57, SM86, AKG
C451, Audio-Technica MB4k, AKG414
Power Distro: WSLP 200 Amp Single
Phase, Motion Labs RAC PACs
Rigging: CM Loadstar 1/2 Tons, Motion
ST
Labs Motor Control
Breakout Assemblies: Custom TL
DPD90
Snake Assemblies: 56-channel TL
NATEV 3 way ISO
MON
Consoles: Soundcraft SM16 48-channel
frame
Speakers: Wharfedale TWIN12X
Coaxial wedges
Amps: QSC, Wharfedale
Processing: KT, Ashly EQs, TDM
crossovers, KT RTA
Power Distro: Motion Labs Rac Pacs
Festival In The Desert / 20 bands including,
Patti Labelle, Smokey Robinson, Pat Benetar,
Boz Scaggs, Jonny Lang, Buddy Guy, Dr. John,
The Temptations, Los Lobos, Euge Groove
Venue
GEAR
Snake Assemblies: Whirlwind
J.W. Marriott
Phoenix, AZ
FOH
Consoles: Yamaha PM5D-RH, PM 4000
Speakers: 8 per side JBL VerTec 8889, 8
per side L’Acoustics SB28
Amps: Crown I-Tech 6000 tops,
L-ACOUSTICS LA48A Subs
Processing: dbx 4800
Mics: Shure, Sennheiser, AKG
Power Distro: Motion Labs
Rigging: On Cue Systems
MON
Speakers: 12 EAW SM500 wedges, 4
EAW KF850, 4 EAW SB850 sidefills
Amps: 12 Crown MA24x6 wedges,
Crown MA2400, MA3600, 2 MA5000
sidefills
Mics: Shure, Sennheiser, AKG
CREW
FOH Engineer: Aaron Kobel
Monitor Engineer: Chris Fruend
Systems Engineer: Mark Cockriel
Production Manager: Chaz Helsing
System Techs: Dan Myers
Sarah Palin
Venue
GEAR
Riverfront Sports Center
Scranton, PA
CREW
FOH Engineer: Kevin Rodio
Monitor Engineer: MIchael Shafer
Systems Engineer: Joe Lombardi
Production Manager: Jason Cataldi
Soundco
Spellcaster
Productions /
IMS- A/V
FOH
Console: Midas Verona 320
Speakers: McCauley M.LINE
Amps: Crown MA
Processing: dbx/Ashly
Mics: Shure UHF-R / Shure Presidential
Rigging: CM
Soundco
Total Sound
Productions /
On Cue Systems
ST
MON
Speakers: McCauley
Amps: Crown MA
Processing: dbx
12
DECEMBER 2008
www.fohonline.com
Blue Öyster Cult
ST
Venue
GEAR
Danbury Park Hatch Shell
Danbury, CT
CREW
FOH Engineer: Steve “Woody” La Cerra
Monitor Engineer: Bryce Beauregard
FOH System Tech: Dave James
Stage Tech: Dan Merriman
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM5D-RH
Speakers: Turbosound TFL 760 (Floodlight) 6 per side, Turbosound TSE 218
subs, 4 per side.
Drive Rack: EV DX 38s, dbx 160 XT
Comps, BSS 960 EQs
Amps: QSC PL-9.0 EV P3000s
MON
Console: Midas Siena 48 TP
Speakers: OAP 115/2 Wedges, Turbosound TMS-4 S Triamped sidefills, CS&L
215 Drum boxes
Processing: BSS 966 EQs, Presonus 8-ch
comps/gates, Lexicon MPX 1 reverb
Amps: QSC PLX-1802, Studio R X-5,
Ashly Protea 4.24C, Amp racks
Mics: Shure, EV, Sennheiser
Power Distro: CS&L 20-circuit IX 30 amp
Soundco
Concert Sound and
Lighting
19th Annual Freedom Rally
Venue
GEAR
Boston Common
Boston, MA
CREW
FOH Engineer: Dan Bouchard
Monitor Engineer: Duncan MacKinnon
Systems Engineer: Dan Bouchard
Soundco
FOH
Console: Midas Verona 480
Speakers: EV Xlc-DVX
Amps: EV P3000 / CP3000
Processing: EV DX38
Mics: Shure, Audix, Audio-Technica
Power Distro: AEI
Rigging: United Staging
Snake Assemblies: CBI
ST
MON
Speakers: EV Xw15a
Amps: Crest Pro200
Processing: Ashly Protea
Audio East
Wowowee Philipine TV Game Show
ST
Soundco
Venue
MTS Center
Winnipeg, Mannitoba
CREW
Monitor Engineer: Matthew Mulla
Systems Engineer: Iain Graham
Systems Techs: Iain Graham, Ian
Skrabek, Matthew Mulla
GEAR
FOH
Console: Midas XL4
Speakers: Main hang 24 X Line, 16 X
Line subs, side stack 4 XLD, front fill 2
XLD
Amps: 32 EV P3000, 16 TG5
Processing: IRIS
Mics: Shure, Sennheiser, AKG, ATM
Power Distro: SoundArt Custom
Breakout Assemblies: CPC
Snake Assemblies: Ram Latch 56 Pair
MON
Console: Midas XL250
Speakers: 12 EV Xw12
Amps: 12 QSC PL236
Processing: Xilica, Klark Teknik
Mics: Shure, Sennheiser, AKG, ATM
Power Distro: SoundArt Custom
We
Want You!
FOH wants your gig shots,
horror stories and resume
highlights! Go to
www.fohonline.com/submissions
to send us your Showtime pics,
Nightmare stories and In The
Trenches stats. Or e-mail
[email protected]
for more info. We cover the
industry
— and that means
you!
SoundArt
Winnipeg
www.fohonline.com
2008 DECEMBER
13
Production Profile
The Road
Less Taken
Rat Sound Powers Up L.A.’s Detour Festival.
Nowegian band Datarock
play the Triforium (Third)
Stage at the L.A. Detour
Festival.
By DaniellaPeters
I
n this business, there is no doubting the
importance of relationships. Whether it’s a
chance meeting that grows into a lasting
business relationship, or the way you handle
and troubleshoot the inevitable issues that occur due to the nature of the live event industry,
relationships are built daily.
In the early ‘80s, Dave Rat, founder of Rat
Sound, met a guy named Frank in a liquor
store. Conversation grew, and through talking to him, Dave was introduced to Gary Tovar,
founder of Los Angeles promoter Goldenvoice.
At the time, Rat was one of three sound companies Goldenvoice used, but only for smaller
shows. Originally, Goldenvoice hired Rat Sound
because of the company’s PA and proprietary
Rat Trap 5, which was harder for the kids frequenting the shows to climb than others.
Today, 26 years later, through built-up
loyalty and consistency, a strong relationship
exists. This is the reason why Goldenvoice —
now a huge international promoter — called
on Rat Sound for one of its latest events, the
Los Angeles Detour Festival, a one-day, fourstage event with more than 30 bands and DJs.
A Match Made in Heaven
Normally, I work on the sales and marketing side of Rat Sound. However, for this weekend, I crossed over to the production side
when I worked in Goldenvoice’s production office for LA Detour. Knowing most of their staff
from working with them on the Coachella festival, this seemed like a match made in heaven.
"Get there at 6 p.m. on that Friday," Production
Manager Kevan Wilkins told me. “You'll work
till midnight, then 7 a.m. on Saturday through
to about 3 a.m. on Sunday."
At the time, it sounded like pretty reasonable call times for a four-stage, one-day festival.
But it wasn’t until I got to the venue that I realized the enormous amount of organization an
event of this nature entails from both
a sound and a production angle. The
streets of downtown. were only being
closed from 8 p.m. on Friday until 6
a.m. on Sunday.
Obviously, if I was planning on
getting any sleep, I was delusional. It takes 10 days for the setup of five
stages at Coachella and five days to
take down. It was definitely going to Rat Sound FOH Engineer Mike “Milk “ Arnold on the Midas Heritage 3000
be tight to close down a thriving city
center, empty the streets, erect four stages Friday at 5 p.m.
Even though the residents and workers in
plus VIP tents, vending booths and shuttle in
over 30 bands and a potential 10,000 people, downtown were going about their business,
with less than four hours to set up sound and production trailers were set up in the equivalent of about 50 parking spots in the parking
four hours to break down the entire festival.
lot outside City Hall. Deliveries had started
with a mini-maintenance yard set up with
A Downtown Transformation
This was the third year for the LA Detour items needed for stages, tarpaulins, brooms,
festival, which is set along the backdrop of the lights and three forklifts. Cat power had been
skyscrapers of Los Angeles’ financial district. made a temporary bone yard of about 15 car
This year’s festival was headlined by the bands parking spaces to unload all their generaThe Mars Volta and Gogol Bordello. Created tors. Miraculously, by 7 p.m., everything was
by the infamous LA Weekly, the all-ages festi- in place and ready for the arrival of the first
val gave Angelenos a chance to experience a crew guys.
Live Music festival featuring international acts
7 p.m.
without stepping foot outside the city.
Production Manager Kevan Wilkins walks
Preproduction had started months before
with meetings with the L.A. Fire Department. the venue, marking the locations to put the
One of the benefits of working with an estab- generators, so that once the streets were
lished promoter is its history. Goldenvoice had closed not a moment was wasted. "Not only
done so much work over the years that a trust do I have the stages waiting by the streets,
between the two parties had long been estab- but also the fencing company ready to selished. Many city meetings, maps, layouts and cure the venue with classic fencing,” he said.
safety approvals later, the Friday before the Stagehands were all clocked in and had gone
festival finally came around. With the streets through the necessary safety training —
of downtown — nine blocks to be exact — ready to start when the streets closed. I have
closed down, we had 34 hours to set up, pro- to say these stagehands were pros. Crew
duce and load out a rock show. In the end, the Chief Bryan Bishop deserved an award. I don’t
downtown was re-opened, the streets were know where he found over 100 stagehands
clean — it was as if nothing had happened the to do the rotational shifts, but he did. Not
only were they all there at 7 p.m., but 98%
night before.
Kevan Wilkins, Goldenvoice Production Manager for the L.A.
Detour Festival.
were clocked in by 6.45 p.m. Everyone really
wanted to be there, and every single one was
experienced and valued their job.
8 p.m.
The streets were closed by Cal Trans,
trucks started loading in, stages were built,
lighting erected and a city within a city commenced construction.
3 a.m.
Four stage areas were set up and lights
had been fixed both on the stages and for the
grounds. Generators were working, four and
a half miles of fencing was laid and the last
stagehand was offsite.
Saturday – Show Day!
7 a.m.
Sound was, comparatively speaking, the
last thing to arrive but the first thing to set
up that day. With three of the four stages using the tried-and-tested Warped Tour “truck
staging,” this heavily dictated the weight
allowance of what speakers could be hung
The streets surrounding City Hall transformed into a four-stage concert venue.
14
200.0812.16-18.indd 14
DECEMBER 2008
www.fohonline.com
12/1/08 12:30:32 PM
CREW
Production Profile
Production Manager: Kevan Wilkins
Production: Victoria Szymela
FOH Engineers: Andy Turner, Owen “Doc” Thomas, Mike “Milk” Arnold
Monitor Engineers: Daniel Bonneau, Jared Woods, Johnny B
System Technicians: Manny Barajas, Tim Engwall, Sara Holt, Chris “Grandpa” Rymarz, Kyle Rogan, Jason Parsons
Crew Chief: Brian Bishop
Stage Managers: Arafa Keskin, Jason Brown, Westy, Ryan Kline
CREW & EAR
G
GEAR
FOH
Consoles: Yamaha PM5D, Midas Heritage 3000 and Yamaha M7CL
Processing: XTA DP428, BSS FCS 960, BSS DPR 404, Drawmer DS201, TC DTwo,
Yamaha SPX 990, Lexicon PCM80, DBX 160A
Speakers: L-ACOUSTICS V-DOSC, L-ACOUSTICS ARCs and Rat Dual 18” subs (DJ
stage, Rat Trap 5s)
Amps: Lab.gruppen, L-ACOUSTICS LA48A, Crest 7001s
With the streets of downtown — nine
blocks to be exact — closed down, we had
34 hours to set up, produce and load out a
rock show.
from the roof. In less than four hours, six
L-ACOUSTICS V-DOSC were hung per side
for each of the three main stages powered by LA48as and supplemented by Rat
Sound's proprietary subwoofers. Monitor
speakers were brought in, with both EAW
MicroWedge 12s and L-ACOUSTICS 115XT
HIQs covering monitor duties.
The dance area was the only unique
venue, as it was located at the top of the
magnificent steps of City Hall and used a generic set up of eight Rat subs and eight tops
(in this case, Rat Trap 5s) as the standard DJ
setup. Two of each were placed in the four
corners of the square-arched entrance. For
the sound crew, their main challenge was
the timeframe. With a load-in of 7 a.m. and
down beat at noon, what would normally
be a 9 a.m. load-in and 3 p.m. sound check
for a regular show was condensed into four
hours. It reminded me of the importance of
having a team you can trust. Each member
of the sound crew also had worked in various facets at Coachella for Rat. The months
before Coachella, handfuls of resumes pass
through my e-mail inbox of solicitations to
work the festival to which I forward to Rat’s
Jon Monson. As head of touring, he ultimately makes his choices based on people
we have had previous positive working relationships with or who we know and trust
from reliable sources, and this was true of
today. Each crewmember had national and
international touring experience and had
the knowledge and experience to go above
and beyond what was needed to get the
job done fast and accurately.
12 p.m. — Doors Open, Bands Begin
I was given a couple of hours off to rest,
but I thought I could power through. I was
enjoying both the work and the social aspect
of being at the festival, and I didn’t want to
miss a minute. I wandered over to find out
Monson’s choices for gear. “Unlike a larger
festival like Coachella where we have FOH
risers fitting up to four choices of console,
for this event, I was given the input lists and
preferences for each band and then came up
with a basic spec for each stage,” he told me.
“Then each production manager came back
with his or her particular preferences for
the headliner or the bands and that was the
16
200.0812.16-18.indd 16
DECEMBER 2008
console for the day at each position.“ It was
interesting to see with only one band, The
Mars Volta, bringing their own console, the
choices ranged from a Yamaha PM5D on the
first stage for FOH and monitors to the faithful analog Midas Heritage 3000s on the second and the smaller digital Yamaha M7CLs
on the third.
We were lucky that there were no sound
restrictions in this industrial area, and although there were apartments a block away,
residents seemed happy with the exchange
of free tickets for their trouble. Goldenvoice
had never had a complaint about sound,
which is often one of the main challenges in
metropolitan areas.
MON
Console: Yamaha PM5D, Midas Heritage 3000, Yamaha M7CL
Speakers: L-ACOUSTICS HiQs and EAW MicroWedge 12s.
Amps: Lab.gruppen, L-ACOUSTICS LA48A, Crest 7001, Crest 4801, Chevin Q6
Processing: XTA DP448 and DP226, BSS FCS 960
Mics: Shure (SM58s, 57s: Beta 98, 91, 58 and 57: KSM32, 137) Sennheiser (e609, e904)
and Audix (OM6 and D6)
One of three truck stages, which used a total of 6 L-ACOUSTICS V-DOSC per side behind the LA Weekly banners.
9 p.m.
One of the last bands went on, including a “silent disco” on the third stage. In
a nutshell, the silent disco is where DJs
perform to a crowd, and instead of the
sound going through the main PA, wireless “KOSS” headphones were given to every single member of the crowd to pick up
the music. This was the first time I’ve ever
seen the sound company become redundant at a rock show. Whoever thought up
this idea of eliminating the sound system
is genius; it worked like magic. As a “nonheadphone-wearing” passerby, it was
fascinating to see a crowd of partygoers
jumping up and down in unison to apparent silence.
12 a.m.
Everyone in production was set to
work, loading out sound, breaking down
the staging and clearing the grounds. I
was tired, regretting not having taken the
nap midday, and ready to go home. But
this part of the show is just as important as
setup, as one person wasting time or not
knowing what they are doing drastically
affects another’s ability (including myself )
to go home at a reasonable time of night.
3 a.m.
The last stagehand and I happily went
home before schedule, confirming to me
that anyone can buy a bunch of gear, but
it’s the people who run it and their attitudes
that can make or break an event.
Rat Trap 5s and Rat subs.
Los Angeles City Hall lit up for the DJ dance and techno stage.
L.A. Detour Festival
www.fohonline.com
12/1/08 12:32:13 PM
ALL PHOTOGRAPHY BY Robert Wolsch
Installations
The venue’s sound system is designed for an eclectic music mix.
By David JohnFarinella
L
ong before Le Poisson Rouge opened
its doors this past summer, the building located at 158 Bleecker Street
in Manhattan was home to the legendary Village Gate. It was at this club where
Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Ella Fitzgerald,
Charles Mingus and Allen Ginsberg performed their magic until it closed down in
the late ‘90s.
While the location remained empty,
David Handler and Justin Kantor were attending the Manhattan School of Music
and playing in trios together. Handler, a
composer/violinist, and Kantor, a cellist,
put a business plan together in 2004 to
open a club that could host a wide variety
of acts, and then they started to look for
space. Two years later, they found the site
of the former Village Gate.
It’s All About Flexibility
FOH
“We knew from the beginning that we
wanted to offer as deliberately eclectic a
pallet as possible in terms of our music
programming,” Handler explains. “So, we
wanted a space that was malleable, where
we could put a number of different stages
and have a number of different configurations.” The duo also wanted to stay in Manhattan, find a place that sounded good
and where there were not too many columns. Handler laughs at the last point. “It’s
virtually impossible to find that in Manhattan,” he admits.
After procuring the space, Handler and
Kantor began to look for the best team
to bring their dream venue together. Architect and acoustician John Storyk and
his wife, interior designer Beth Walters,
of the Walters-Storyk Design Group, were
one of the first people to be tapped to do
the work. Masque Sound from New York
City was hired to manage the installation
work.
Handler threw one more set of requirements at the design/install team — a clear
sound system that could go from mono to
7.4 surround sound to facilitate film screenings and contemporary electronic music
that utilizes multiple channels. “We wanted
to make sure we had really good coverage,
so that we weren’t going to have to blow
the roof off of anything,” he says. “We really
wanted clarity rather than volume.”
Storyk got interested early on for a
couple of reasons. “The Village Gate was
18
200.0812.18-21.indd 18
DECEMBER 2008
ground zero for many artists, and it was
the first club that I was ever in,” he says.
“Not that that is a reason to take a job, but
what’s a better reason? I can’t remember
who I saw there the first time, I was still in
high school, but I went there a lot during
the ‘60s. ”
His experiences in the club gave him a
leg up when it came time to planning, but
he didn’t realize the scope of the work until
he got in there. “It is a labyrinthian hodgepodge of a place,” he reports, “and it’s got
some strange issues on how you get in and
out of it and sitting on top of it is a residential building and there were some pushy
isolation issues. It’s a goofy place.”
Bringing the Studio to the Stage
FOH
Storyk used a handful of studio techniques to ensure proper isolation, including the use of double doors, IAC sound
proofing and high SDC value walls. “Most
of the sound transmission was airborne,”
he says. “It’s a massive concrete building,
so most of the sound leakage was basically going through holes. Doors weren’t
properly sealed, there was an elevator
shaft that for all intents and purposes was
a hole. It took a while to figure it out, but
when the detective work was done the solutions were relatively trivial.”
After that, the design team decided
to rearrange the space, moving the stage
into a corner so that on the opposite side
of the room two elevated platform areas
were built. One was for a VIP area, the other for the FOH position. The stage also had
to be big enough so that a 16-foot, twofoot-high round stage could be stored underneath to be used when an in-the-round
act was booked.
One of the early challenges that the
design team faced was finding proper rigging points, since the HVAC system was
being redone and new ducts would appear almost overnight. “I’d go in to hang a
line array and there would be a duct right
in my line,” reports David Kotch, systems
designer and project engineer/installer,
who worked with Storyk during the design
process and for Masque during the install.
“That happened pretty much every day I
was there.”
To overcome that issue the duo engineered a custom low-profile I-beam rigging system so that they could slide arrays
Digidesign Venue Profile at the FOH position
back and forth as needed. “We didn’t know
where the final placement was going to be,
so this made it very versatile,” Kotch says.
“Regardless of all the best acoustical and
loudspeaker prediction tools, you’re still
going to have to make final field changes.
So, it was good that we didn’t lock anything hard into place and I could make
those changes onsite or re-issue drawings
as needed. That actually saved us a lot of
time.”
Bring On the Squints
FOH
The system also helped when it came
time to interface with the video and lighting system, Kotch adds. “The entire project was a ceiling dance. I had to move the
speaker array to get the projector centered. It’s always a trade-off.”
The venue’s black ceiling color scheme
contributed to the success of that system.
“No awards for it,” Storyk jokes, “but it was
an obvious solution and it made the rigging that much easier. If it had been a
more theatrical ceiling that we wanted
to make an architectural statement with
and shine lights on, we’d have to be a little
more exacting.”
Knowing that the venue’s bookers were
going to bring in such a wide array of performers changed the way Storyk thought
about acoustic treatments. “A piano or
three strings in the middle of the space
typically means a space that’s reverber-
ant, live and bright,” he says. “On the other
hand, if there’s a 12-piece rock group as an
example, we want the space to be dead.”
The original design included a canopy
that could be raised or lowered depending
on the type of act playing, Storyk reports.
“It would force a little bit of an acoustic
change and put some extra reflections
from the center position. We designed it
and got it built, but in the end we didn’t
put it up,” he says. “To be honest, it conflicted with the lighting and we couldn’t
get it to work. We think we have a happy
balance. We’ve only put up panels where
we have to knock-off early comb filter reflections from the speakers, as opposed to
deadening the whole space.”
Back To the Audio…
FOH
Once the initial architectural design
was nailed down, Storyk and Kotch started
to spec in the PA. Gear from Meyer Sound
became an early leader and Meyer’s MAPP
tool was an integral part of designing the
system. Kotch first considered using CQ2s, but the 40-degree trap cabinet would
have meant a ceiling reflection that demanded treatment. Instead, he decided on
the M’elodie and M1Ds.
Specifically, the left, center and right
array includes four boxes of M’elodie with
a delay of four boxes of M’elodie for the left
and right. Five of the M1Ds are installed
with the main PA and three M1Ds are in-
www.fohonline.com
12/1/08 12:34:12 PM
Installations
Gear List
FOH Console: Digidesign Profile with Mix Rack
Systems Processing
1 Yamaha DME64
2 Yamaha DME8iES
1 Yamaha DME4ioES
1 Yamaha DME8Oes
1 Yamaha MY16AE AES/EBU i/o card
1 Yamaha MY16-ES64 Ethersound Card
1 Yamaha MY16-EX Ethersound Expansion Cards
1 Yamaha MY8ADDA96-CA
2 Meyer Sound Galileo 616 System Processors
3 Yamaha CP4SF
1 Sonnox Oxford EQ Plug-in
1 Sonnox Oxford Limiter Plug-In
1 Sonnox Oxford Dynamics Plug-In
Loud speakers
16 Meyer Sound M’elodie
8 Meyer Sound M1D
2 Meyer Sound 700HP Subs
2 RMS Cards for 700HP
2 Meyer M1D Subs
7 Meyer Sound UPJ-1Ps
5 Meyer Sound MM4XPs
1 Meyer MPS-488 PSU for MM4
6 Meyer Sound UPJunior
3 Meyer Sound UMS1Ps
Microphones
4 Shure SM57
8 Shure SM58
2 Shure sm81
2 Shure Beta 57A
2 Shure Beta 87A
1 Shure Beta 52A
1 Shure Beta 91
4 Shure Beta 98/S w/ A98D
4 Sennheiser MD421
2 Sennheiser E609s
2 Sennheiser MKH40
1 Electro-Voice RE20
1 beyerdynamic M88
2 AKG C414 B-XLS
2 AKG C451 B
1 Neumann KMS105
RF Microphones and Accessories
2 Shure UHF-R UR4D (H4 Series) Wireless Receivers
4 Shure UR2/KSM9 Microphones
4 Shure UR1 Wireless bodypack transmitters
4 Sennheiser MKE2 red dot to TA4 for wireless
4 Generic ¼” TS to TA4 instrument cables
1 Shure UA845 US Wideband Antenna Splitter
2 Shure paddle antennas in appropriate frequency for venue and receivers
Direct Boxes
4 Radial JDI Passive DI Boxes
2 Radial JDI Duplex Stereo DI Boxes
4 Radial JPC Computer DI Boxes
Monitor Console: Yamaha M7CL-48
Stage Monitors:
8 L-ACOUSTICS 112XPs
1 L-ACOUSTICS SB15P
stalled in the rear. The boxes are processed
through a pair of Meyer Galileo 616 System
Processors and six Yamaha DMEs. A handful
of Meyer UPJ-1P were added to the room to
cover the VIP, bar and front-of-house areas.
On the sub side of things, Kotch called for
700-HPs under the stage and 600-HPs in the
rear of the room for when LPR becomes a
dance club.
When the room is set up with the artist in the round, a new PA of five UPJ-1Ps, a
M1D sub and five MM-4XPs (to get the localization and imaging correct) are used.
The team had to find a console that was
just as flexible as the PA and the acoustic design, so Digidesign’s Venue Profile with the
Mix Rack was installed. “The owners wanted
to be able to record with Pro Tools night after night, 48 tracks, for archive or release on
iTunes or their own label,” Kotch says.
The backbone of the system, Kotch
reports, is the Yamaha DME64. “It has the
onboard DSP in addition to ether sound
audio transport built in,” he explains.
DME8iES carries sound to the machine
and the two bars, a DME4ioES to the stage
and annex bar and DME8oES to the annex
bar. “Pretty much anything that wasn’t
mission critical was transported via Ethersound,” he adds. “Obviously, two pieces of
Cat 5 is a lot cheaper than 64 channels of
analog audio. It gave them all the control
that they needed and the DME64 also
serves as a splitting matrix, because the
Digidesign Profile only has eight AES/EBU
outs and we have 12 inputs. So, the DME
64 really matrixes the primary system into
the two Galileos.”
On the monitor side of things, a Yamaha M7CL-48 was installed and eight LACOUSTICS 112XP powered wedges and
a SB15P are available. Redco Installation
custom engineered an onstage analog
three-way splitter that uses a Crimson au-
20
200.0812.18-21.indd 20
DECEMBER 2008
12/1/08 12:36:36 PM
Meyer Arrays
Architectural layout of the theatre
dio transformer and is tied into the architecture via conduit.
What made the project even more
exciting was that it was eight weeks
from signed checks and contracts to soft
opening in the middle of June. “We considered the whole summer a soft launch,”
Handler says. “We had some amazing
bookings, including Charlie Hayden,
DJ Logic and Marco Benevento doing a
turntables, samples and jazz thing. We
had Rickie Lee Jones, Mos Def, and our
official opening was with Lou Reed and
John Zorn. It’s been great.”
Storyk, who has had his hand in a number of live sound installations lately, believes that Le Poisson Rouge is primed for
success. “Justin and David were dedicated
to building a wonderfully sounding room
that would impress both artists and fans,”
he says. “It’s to their credit that they’ve
done that here.”
Yamaha M7CL-48 in monitor world
200.0812.18-21.indd 21
12/1/08 12:37:39 PM
Road Tests
dbx dB10 and dB12 Direct Boxes
T
he dbx brand now offers the dB10
passive direct box and the dBb12 active direct box. While not compact
at 5.82” x 5.44” x 2.20,” the direct boxes are
similar in size to the higher quality direct
box offerings and are fully featured for the
variety of needs for both performers and
sound people. I give kudos to dbx for using
steel over aluminum to help block magnetic fields from penetration into the sensitive
audio circuits. This is especially important
input to balanced output. The dB12 active
direct box handles a more modest +10
dBu without padding, but only gives up a
single dB of insertion over the 20 Hz to 20
kHz audio spectrum. At most of the audio
frequencies, the residual distortion is about
0.003% or less, with distortion increasing to
0.03% at 50 Hz.
Both direct boxes offer input and thru
TS phone jacks with a 0 dB, 20 dB, 40 dB
switched pad function to adapt to speak-
I give kudos to dbx for using steel over
aluminum to help block magnetic fields
from penetration into the sensitive
audio circuits.
as direct boxes are often mounted on instrument amplifiers, which have AC power
transformers nearby.
The Gear
rt
The dB10 direct box uses a large audio transformer to handle up to +33 dBu
of audio level across the 20 Hz to 20 kHz
frequency spectrum. At 0 dBu, the residual
distortion is less than 0.003% and the insertion loss is about 21 dB from unbalanced
er-side signal amplitudes if necessary.
Also, a 6 kHz low-pass filter is switchable
to knock out hiss for signal sources that
do not need high bandwidth. On the XLR
jack side, each dbx direct box includes
the usual ground lift switches and polarity invert switches. The dB12 active direct
box also adds a green power applied LED
for external phantom power detection.
No battery compartment is included, but
most consoles provide phantom power
By MarkAmundson
enough for the 8-mA draw needed by the
dB12 circuits.
The Gig
rt
As usual, I broke out the tools and
peaked inside the dB10 and dB12 direct
boxes. Inside, a sparse but professionally
laid-out circuit board made all the interconnects to quality jacks, switches and
other electronics. The board and chassis
say it’s made in the U.S. (built in Sandy,
Utah), so patriots will not take umbrage
with the issue of manufacturing. In
bench testing, I found both units worked
quietly and met all the specifications I
could test for. As expected, the high amplitude level distortion goes up slightly
as the frequencies drop from a low 50 Hz
toward even lower frequencies.
Out at the gigs, I found no musician
issues with accepting dbx brand direct
boxes, and the black paint cosmetics
work well in hiding the boxes onstage. I
could not find any performance issues,
and the audio seemed to pass through
the dB10 and dB12 without loss of fidelity. Taking a dispassionate view, one
could say that the dbx direct boxes are
larger and more expensive than some
competing direct box offerings, but I
find these offenses minor for the audio
quality experienced.
dbx dB12
dbx dB10
dbx dB10 and dB 12 Direct Boxes
Who It’s For: Everyone.
Pros: Good cosmetics, clean signal path,
fully featured.
Cons: None.
How Much: dB10 $129.95 SRP, dB12
$179.95 SRP.
Web site: www.dbxpro.com
AKG WMS 450 Wireless Microphone System with C519ML MicroMic
By JamesD’Arrigo
(Ed. Note: We took a bit of a different approach on this one. Having fronted a horn
band for more than 20 years, I am well-aware
of the difficulty of making a good horn sound
right in the system with the mics generally
available on your typical house gig. It is why
I carry my own horn mics on every gig where
I am doing the muso thing. So, for this review,
we put the mic in the hands of a top-notch sax
player who knows his way around a console
and then got some feedback from the sound
guys on some of the gigs where he used it. Here
is what they had to say.)
T
he pro audio world needs to know about
the WMS 450/C519ML MicroMic system.
This wireless combination is, in this sax
player/audio guy’s opinion, a new benchmark
for quality sound, ease of operation and reliability.
The Gear
rt
I have been a working professional saxophonist and reed player for the past 22 years and
I have played every hard-wired as well as wireless microphone that has ever been put in front
of me on just about every conceivable stage
set. As an acoustic instrumentalist, the greatest
challenges have been to compete with a stage
full of electronic instruments and drums where
just about everyone, including vocalists, have a
definite edge in sound reinforcement technology. How many microphones and wirelesses exist that are specifically designed for the human
voice, or the drum, or the guitar? For years horn
players had to remain behind fixed mics like the
“old catch-alls” in the SM57 or Sennheiser 421
— good mics for horns, decent reproduction
and sound guys like ‘em because of their repu22
200.0812.22.indd 22
DECEMBER 2008
tation for isolation and feedback rejection, but
hardly equipment that was purpose-built for a
saxophonist, trumpeter or trombonist.
I discovered the AKG C419 hard-wired horn
mic about a decade ago and never have left
home without it on a sound-reinforced gig. I
chose it over the standard offerings of the day
from other manufacturers that were in many
ways more widely accepted by audio mixers. I
feel that as a horn player, AKG has a keener insight into how my saxophones need to sound.
I had an urgent need to be wireless this
year. A new high-energy gig meant it was time
to be a Rock Star. Staying fixed to a mic stand
or even tethered with my excellent C419 was
not sufficient. Enter AKG with a purpose-built
SR450 receiver, a PT450 transmitter and the
new C519ML instrument mic. The C519 now
can plug directly into the transmitter or alternatively into an available phantom-powered XLR
cable when you do not need to be wireless, a
flexibility that I did not have on the C419. The
PT450 bodypack transmitter can even be attached directly onto the microphone so you
don’t have to worry about routing the cable
around yourself.
The Gig
rt
I played this system on a variety of gigs
ranging from 300-seat rooms to outdoor gigs
for 1,000-plus people and with bands doing
rock, funk, jazz, soul and even some classical.
Simply put, the mic makes my saxophones
sound like saxophones! Depending on the gig,
I may play as many as four saxes, and the C519
clips on and off easily, making instrument
changes quick and painless. The mic needs
very little in the way of equalization. All of the
acoustic properties that make the instrument
special are well presented in this mic. A simple
angle adjustment and distance change of the
capsule to the instrument yields predictable
acoustic changes that any horn player can easily master in order to customize the “feel” of
the mic without being bothersome to the engineer. Horn players around the world should
be put on notice that the Wunderkind at AKG
are thinking about them.
The C519 mic was used outdoors at the
Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas where
I was playing with a Billy Joel tribute band. This
is a gig I had done before with my C419. Brian
Pomeroy has been mixing this venue for some
time so he had a good read on the differences.
This is what he had to say.
“The mic sounded great and I had zero
problems with the wireless — and wireless
can be an issue down here. I had mixed
James before on a different mic and set him
up the way I always have. I ended up having to dial back the high-end a little bit because this C519 just has more sizzle to it. I
basically ended up pretty much flat on the
EQ. I thought during line check that it might
be a little much on the high end even after
backing it off, but when he played with the
band that extra high-end really made the
sax cut through without making it shrill. Oh,
and even on a loud stage full of wedges and
this being a condenser, we had no feedback
issues.
“As a sound guy, I am always a little leery
when artists bring in their own mics — especially anything new or unfamiliar. But next
time I see this AKG combo, I’ll be a happy engineer. And if you are looking to add to your
mic arsenal, this is one to take a real close
look at.”
AKG C519ML/WMS450
What It Is: Purpose-built wireless horn mic
and frequency-agile UHF wireless system.
Who It’s For: Anyone who regularly needs
to reinforce live horns.
Pros: Easy to set-up, solid wireless performance, great sound.
Cons: May have a little more top-end than
you are used to.
How Much: WMS 450 Guitar/Instrument
System $799.00 MSRP; C519ML $279.00
MSRP.
Web site: www.akg.com
www.fohonline.com
12/1/08 5:33:24 PM
Welcome To My Nightmare
he gig is a kickoff concert for orientation week at the local University.
No problem, 700 to 800 kids with a
four-piece band. Well, they don't have a
large budget for the show, which will be
outside under a tent, so we'll need a medium-sized PA with monitors and a light
rig. Nobody wants to rent a generator,
so we'll use the outlets that are used for
plugging in cars.
In Alaska, we have to plug in our cars
in the winter — it operates heaters that
are in our oil pan, engine block, batteries, etc. This row of outlets (each with two
20-amp circuits) runs down the edge of
the parking lot spaced 20 feet apart. The
closest one to the stage end of the tent is
75 feet, which means no runs under 100
feet on 12/3 power cable. After running
over 1,600 feet of individual power cables
for sound and lights (this is all added up
with cables ranging from 25 feet to 100
feet), the rig is up and running fine. We
did sound check and everyone is happy.
We then proceed to setup a small system
with a wireless mic and three powered
speakers another 150 feet out from the far
side of the tent. We sound checked it with
the lav mic and it was working great.
Here comes show time, this is when
the real fun begins. We start the event
at the small system with a presenter out
www.tonygleeson.com
A Cold Day in Hell
T
in the field, and as soon as he speaks on
the mic, a huge WOOMP sound shoots
through everyone’s skulls, and again, so I
quickly hand him a wired mic and trouble
shoot the wireless. Anytime there is sound
coming out of the speakers the wireless
makes this noise (have it soloed in headphones), so I run and get another wireless
unit, but the same thing happens.
About this time my other tech comes
running out and tells me that he is measuring 100 volts at his power for lighting!
So, I hand off the controls to him and go
running into the tent to troubleshoot. At
this point, I shut everything down, and
remarkably none of my equipment has
died. I went to the outlets to measure,
and at this point, I'm measuring 95 volts.
Keep in mind that the powered speakers
are somehow still operating.
After some frantic calls to the University physical plant and realizing that
it is a Sunday night and they are all at
home, I measured the next six outlets
in the row and found they were at 113
volts. So, with five minutes until show
time, we remarkably found more power
cables to extend five of our circuits another 100 feet or so from the working
outlets for audio and left poor lighting
to run on 95 volts. The show started on
time and had no problems; afterwards,
I told them that next year they will be
renting a generator.
Josh Bennett
Sound Reinforcement Specialists
Fairbanks, Alaska
In The Trenches
James Welsh
Sam Thompson
James Welsh
Owner, Engineer
Welsh Sound
Kearneysville, WV
www.welshsound.com
304-676-3208
[email protected]
Sam Thompson
Audio Engineer
F&G Sound and Lighting
Urbana, IL
www.fandgsound.com
217-328-2656
[email protected]
Services Provided: Full production services
— sound, lighting, live multitrack recording,
staging and rigging.
Services Provided: Professional sound,
lighting, rentals, installations, design, repair, sales and deck staging.
Clients: Ralph Stanley and his Clinch Mountain Boys, The Demon Beat, Seventh Seal,
The Fox Hunt, Seldom Scene, Los Pleneros
de la 21, Viento de Agua
Quote: “Friends don’t let friends wrap cables!”
Personal Info: I started out like many… I
was the guy in the band with the job, and
guess who bought the P.A.? I dropped the
band thing when I realized that I enjoyed
production work more. I began my business in 1995 and slowly expanded to grow
my inventory. Clubs and local events helped
build a strong client base, and within five
years, I had established Welsh Sound as a local sound company.
We recently expanded into staging and
lighting. What began as a humble little side
business has grown with leaps and bounds
into a fulltime business. When I’m not out
for shows with my gear, I freelance and work
as a monitor engineer for large folk festivals
across the country. I travel two months of the
year for one-offs, but do not tour anymore.
Hobbies: Reading industry-related periodicals, landscaping and expanding my
backyard, my family, computers and collecting scale-model farm toys, a passion
from my childhood.
Equipment: Soundcraft, Yamaha and Midas analog consoles. Yamaha M7CL, LS9
and PM5D, BSS, KT, Ashly, Drawmer, DBX,
Lexicon processing, McCauley, EV, EAW and
Renkus-Heinz FOH speaker systems.
Don’t Leave Home Without: Cell phone,
SmaartLive setup, Sharpie and positive
attitude.
Clients: Foghat, Pennywise, Apoctaliptica, Local H, Bullet For My Valentine, REO
Speedwagon, One Republic.
Quote: “Live fast, die young!”
Personal Info: I’ve been doing professional audio for five years and recently
was hired by F&G Sound for my audio experience. I was taught by audio engineer
Fred Simpson of ACM Sound.
Hobbies: Shooting, some video work,
hangin’ with my lady, guitar playing.
Equipment: McCauley MLA5 speakers,
Yamaha PM4K, M7CL/48, Midas Heritage
consoles, Lab.gruppen amps, Turbosound monitors.
Don’t Leave Home Without: Digital
camera.
If you’d like to see yourself featured in “In the Trenches,” visit
www.fohonline.com/trenches to submit your information
to FOH, or e-mail [email protected] for more info.
www.fohonline.com
2008 DECEMBER
23
Vital Stats
Adamson
Systems
By KevinMitchell
Who: Brock Adamson, president, CEO and head
designer of Adamson Systems Engineering.
What: “What do you think?”
When: Founded in 1983.
Fulltime employees: 55.
Current tours: John Legend, Jay-Z, Feist,
Linkin Park and “a lot of church installations
and theatres.”
Start of it all: “I was 15 and this stereo geek
at our church gave my dad this 150-watt-perchannel stereo. I built the thing up right as
Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced? came out.
I put “Foxy Lady” on and, from that point forward, I was an audio junky.”
Coming off the line: “We are building a palletized, automated conveyor line for assembling
our transducers. On this line there are two ABB,
six-axis robots, inverted and hung from a steel
structure that we built from scratch. These robots will assemble all of our transducers, dramatically increasing our production capacity
while simultaneously improving the consistency throughout our product line.”
Claims to fame: Parnellis awarded to several
partners, including Linkin Park’s monitor mixer
of the year (Kevin “Tater” McCarthy), FOH mixer
of the year (Ken “Pooch” Van Druten) and tour
manager of the year (Mike Amato).
Philosophy: “We like to build things that are
uncompromised. We strive to get the best materials and respect the audio path. We look for
density and rigidity. I had a competitor once
look at a cone and say, ‘That’s the most macho
speaker I’ve seen.’ And that was just the cone.”
Ethics: “People here have dirt under their fingernails. It’s not compartmentalized. There’s a
lot of cross-pollination and our guys are very
hands on.”
Who is that lady we saw you with: Wife’s name
is Orchid, and is a key component of the operation. She’s affectionately known as “boss lady.”
That he knows of: Son, Jesse Adamson, director of marketing and sales.
Can get some satisfaction: “The best part is
the satisfaction of realizing that we have established the company. We’ve gotten to a good
place. We own our real estate, we’re planning an
expansion… it’s the difference between planting a garden and growing it. We can plan what
to do next.”
Biggest drag: “You still see the very junior
people dorkin’ out. I’ve come all the way
from starting this company in a garage,
and that experience causes you to watch
out for the trivial things because those are
the things that can bite you and hurt you. I
have a good eye for details and I look out for
those things.”
Pet peeve about concerts: “When engineers don’t understand the difference between being loud and being powerful. If it’s just loud to the point where
everyone has earplugs, where is the
fidelity?”
Brock Adamson
Best concert ever: “Live Rust in San
Francisco . It was awesome.”
At the end of the day: “It’s a great
business and has been good to me.
Designing and building better systems is satisfying and rewarding,
and if you can make a living at it, you
can’t ask for a better career.”
A permanent installation at Versailles in France.
The Bleeding Edge
Nuke Your Audio
F
OH has written a lot of information over
the past year regarding FCC reallocation
of the UHF band and how it will affect
pro audio wireless. We’re not going to rehash
the problems facing the pro audio industry in
our efforts to continue using the UHF spectrum
for wireless operation. If you missed it, revisit
“Bleeding Edge” in the February, June, July, November, December 2007 and October 2008 issues. The RF problems remain for pro audio, but
at least one audio manufacturer, Music Sciences
(www.musicsciences.com), has taken a decidedly different approach by avoiding the UHF
band entirely and moving wireless audio into
the microwave band. That’s not the only story
here. Music Sciences has also introduced a
product the likes of which we have never seen:
The Mongoose Microwave Snake System (we’ll
get to that in a minute).
Pre-Heat to 10 GHz
T
TBE
P
As the name implies, microwaves are very
high frequencies possessing very short wavelengths. The microwave band occupies space
in the 10-GHz range, which (at the moment) is
relatively uninhabited when compared to the
crowded UHF band and is capable of carrying
both audio and video data. Initially, microwaves
were used to broadcast network television
across the country or for links between studios
and their transmitters, but small portable transmitters and receivers can be used in the field
to relay signals. You can think of a microwave
transmission akin to a flashlight shining a beam
of light from one point to another: Microwaves
are essentially transmitted in a straight line from
point A to point B. Unlike UHF, microwave transmission requires relatively unobstructed line of
sight because solid obstructions (including human beings) can block the signal.
24
DECEMBER 2008
According to the manufacturer, the band
and power/spread in the Mongoose system is
well above 20 GHz, and is relatively unaffected
by anything other than solid metal and concrete
objects — i.e., simply blocking the path with
people or drapes or even a torrential downpour
at 1,000 or so feet does not reduce the signal
enough to impede the connection and signal
flow. The system as specified has 24 dB of RF
headroom so these obstructions (anything
weather-related in the specified user distance)
would not interrupt transmission.
Why Transmit Audio Via Microwave? T
TBE
P
As mentioned, the microwave band at present is relatively empty compared to UHF, and
therefore, less prone to interference from local
television, cell phone, 2.4 GHz WiFi and other
consumer activity. Microwave channels provide
a wide bandwidth. When used for audio, microwave transmission has the ability to maintain a
wide dynamic range without FM modulation,
compression or companding (the bandwidth
of the Mongoose system is such that the signal
is a pure, uncompressed digital stream at 48
kHz/24-bit). While the real estate available for
UHF transmission of pro audio is shrinking at
an alarming rate, the microwave band currently
may be used without licensing under FCC regulations. Beamwidth of a microwave transmission is narrow enough to avoid interference
from other RF technologies yet wide enough
to allow easy alignment of antenna using an RF
signal strength meter, or even by sight.
Let Loose The Mongoose
T
TBE
P
The Mongoose is a wireless, digital multichannel snake operating in the microwave
range. It is a modular system with 16 channels per single-space rack unit and is expand-
By SteveLaCerra
able up to 96 channels of audio (or data) between stage and front of house in a 64-x-32
configuration. The basic concept behind the
Mongoose is that audio signals are patched
into a stage box providing A/D converters as
well as a CAT5 link to a microwave transmitter
situated near the stage. The CAT5 link also carries power for the transmitter and can be up
to 50 feet in length. Analog audio signals are
converted to digital data with 24-bit/48-kHz
resolution, yielding a frequency response of
10 Hz to 20 kHz (+/- 0.5 dB) and dynamic range
upward of 110 dB (resolution up to 96 kHz/24bit is supported). Latency is spec’d at 0.160 milliseconds, any analog in to analog out.
The transmitter beams multichannel audio to a microwave receiver (typically located
at front of house) where the signal is downlinked to a front of house rack with D/A conversion — thus the Mongoose can be used
with existing pro audio consoles. The system
also has the ability to transmit audio back to
the stage box where it can be connected to
a drive rack for distribution throughout the
venue.
Mongoose can accommodate a variety
of connections including analog line-level
audio I/O and microphone level inputs. AES/
EBU and MADI interfaces are currently under
development. Systems incorporating microphone level inputs employ a hardware control panel for remote control and monitoring
of preamp parameters including gain adjust,
mic/line selection, phantom power on/off,
channel level and channel grouping for up to
64 microphone inputs. The system also allows
an engineer to perform a line check without a
console, monitor audio of any stage or return
channel, and eyeball levels for all channels. Setups may be stored and recalled for later use.
www.fohonline.com
The Mongoose transmission system can be
configured in a variety of manners including
one-way transmission without diversity, oneway transmission with diversity, or two-way
“X-shaped” transmission with diversity. Several antenna options are available for varying
distance requirements, and all antennas are
equipped with standard hardware for tripod
or mic stand mounting. As far as the accuracy
required in aiming one antenna to another,
the size of the “target” area is one-tenth of the
distance between the antenna divided by two.
If, for example, the antennas are 500 feet apart,
then the target from one antenna to the other
is 25 feet in diameter — so it should not be too
difficult to “hit” for accurate transmission. The
fact that the microwave beamwidth is relatively narrow also means that it is less subject to
unwanted interference. Transmission distance
varies depending upon the type of antenna
used with the system. A 15-inch parabolic antenna is easily capable of covering distances
over 1,000 feet — plenty for just about any
pro audio application. Smaller antenna can be
used for shorter transmissions.
What does this mean to audio engineers?
Well, for one thing, we won’t need to rent a
backhoe for outdoor live events where the
copper multipair has to be buried below
ground under the audience. It also means
that we won’t have to worry about multipair
cable being permanently damaged when it is
run over by a truck. If we could have a direct
downlink to a digital console then there’d be
no need for any copper on the receiving end.
Mongoose price and availability TBA.
Steve “Woody” La Cerra is still out on tour mixing front-of-house for Blue Öyster Cult. He can be
reached via email at [email protected].
Theory and Practice
By MarkAmundson
A
couple of Decembers ago, I remember
loading in for a club gig. The club manager was not happy with the necessary
evil of loading in the production gear through
a side door, not because of the choice of entrance, but because it took a half hour to complete the task.
Now look at the situation from the club
owner’s standpoint. Your few dozen ins and
outs hauling gear have just cooled down the
venue to the point where customers are putting on jackets and complaining about the
room temperature. It doesn't take a rocket
scientist to figure out that cold beer won’t
sell to cold customers. So, to summarize the
lesson learned, find ways to minimize your
load-in and load-out time to keep the venue
environment under control.
Options
TP
Option number one is to hire a platoon of
roadies for a short period of time to expedite
load-in, setup and get them off the clock until
load-out. Usually not a wise choice, as it will
cost you in wages and adult beverages after
the hire. If you are talking about a C-rig in a
medium club scenario you can barely afford
yourself, let alone extra grunt labor for the ins
and outs.
To me, the obvious choice is to reduce the
number of ins and outs of production. This
usually means consolidating production gear
into cases and trunks, all with wheels (usually
Reducing Ins and Outs
four-inch castors) and moving them in haste
when all packed up. To execute the strategy,
the milk crates and plastic tubs need to be replaced with road-grade trunks and cases.
Case-Up
TP
Choosing road cases used to be a “DIY”
affair, but today there are so many good
manufacturers that a quick browse through
the EPD web directory will bring many qualified sources and competitive prices. A lot of
sound companies still multitask as road case
companies, and that practical dual expertise
results in cases with just the right amount of
ruggedness for the burdens of years of transportation.
While the road-case makers will want to
pitch you their versions of “standard” tour
grade cases, I still want to know the construction details just to ease my mind. Nothing sells
better than a few well-shot pictures of unloaded trunks and cases to indicate the level of
quality being marketed. My story of woe is ordering a costly console case and asking for the
usual floating doghouse requirement to absorb shocks to the console from the bumps on
the road. Unfortunately, the road case provider
did not understand that bolting the doghouse
to the external case shell basically defeats the
foam rubber surrounding the doghouse. So,
scrutinize your case providers.
My club C-rig has as much cases and
trunks as I can get the system down to. I have
three cable trunks for AC cables, speaker
cables, mic stands, audio snakes, sub-snakes
and XLR patches. Add to this a pair of amp
racks for monitor and mains duty, a FOH
outboard rack, a monitor beach EQ rack and
console cases for FOH and monitor consoles.
Short of dealing with speakers and stage
lighting, everything else is on casters.
For me, the big concern is the weightto-durability ratio when choosing casing.
Traditionally, tour-grade cases was half-inch
plywood with laminate out surfaces, which
made for heavy but robust cases. Today,
several case/trunk makers are choosing 3/8”
plywood under laminate, with the hope that
the lighter weight will allow the case to hold
together and save on fuel costs. Make sure
your supplier can prove to you that its thinner cases will still hold together by using
quality aluminum extrusions, riveting and
design practices.
My color choice for cases is still basic
black, not only for tradition, but because
black hides well off-stage so the audience’s
focus remains on the performers. Keeping
with tradition, I created a tagboard stencil
and use white spray paint to logo my cases. But don’t get too exuberant on stenciling, as show managers for corporate gigs
likely do not want your name peeking out
of the side-stage sightlines to the audience. That is why my stenciling is confined
to topside surfaces and my brand stickers
Working Smarter
stay bottom-side or confined to my Anvil briefcase. This may be common sense
to most of you, but it bears repeating to
those thinking that a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle
trumps corporate fashion sense.
Size Counts
TP
When choosing case sizes, I look at it
from a “me-myself-and-I” perspective. If I
can’t maneuver a trunk or case up a couple
of steps by myself, then I have chosen too
large a case or trunk. My current trunk size
is about 4’-by-2’-by-2’ high, and when fully loaded is about the maximum I care to
hump around by myself in most club gigs.
While I can hire or persuade a friend to do
two-man lifting on my trunks and cases under more difficult in and out environments,
the more I can hump by myself, the better
the overall situation.
My 20-space FOH outboard rack is another beastly case that could be cut down
into two smaller cases. The idea is nice, but
I see many cases from other soundcos without casters, and one man handling a heavy
10-space rackcase without wheels is not my
idea of safe lifting. But, occasionally, I do
need to maneuver a steep staircase gig, so
I have a “plan B” with a four-space outboard
effects case when the 20-space beast is reasonable. My final words of wisdom: Always
think about how to make load-ins and loadouts easier.
Anklebiter
By KenRengering
D
oes anyone else feel guilty about
purchasing items that make the job
a little easier? I love using powered
speakers for smaller stuff — the usual reasons apply (fat, lazy, sweaty, etc.), but I admit
to not dragging along an EQ rack when it is
good policy. It may be psychological, but the
channel strip EQ on the grade of a mixer I am
taking to these smaller gigs is not that great,
and even worse, sometimes it’s just some
DJ mixer directly into the speakers. Yes, I am
pretty much a delivery boy on those days.
Combining Both Skills
FOH
Granted, I am smart enough to know
which DJs I can trust and which require the
brick wall limiter plus babysitting. But it
is less than satisfying, even on those days
when I get to combine both “skills” as the
DB/BS (delivery boy/babysitter or decibel
bull-shitter!).
I purchased another tool today in the
“work-smarter-not-harder” category. It is
a two-position hand truck that unfolds to
form a four-wheel hand truck. It is my first,
and an item that many of you made one of
your first purchases, because you are much
smarter than I am. It cost about $200, and
the reason I feel guilty is that it represents
another admission of my getting older, feeling less frisky about pushing gear around.
Yes, I have other hand trucks. This more expensive model — about seven times the
cost of a “straight” hand truck — will reduce
the effort of a load-in by a third or even half
due to its increased capacity. It is another
item that is key to me being clean, cool and
collected at the gig. So, why my reluctance
to purchase this item?
Is it because I no longer feel the need to
make each gig sound perfect? No, I still want
every gig to sound pristine. Is it because I no
longer feel the need to drag every piece of
gear to the $300 job? Kind of, but I think we all
learn that lesson pretty quickly. Is it because I
am nucking futz? Yes! What are you willing to
pay somebody else to do now that you were
never willing to pay somebody else to do before? Is it making cables, changing the oil on
the truck or customizing the racks for the next
gig? I have been doing this for a while now
and have some measure of success. I have the
luxury of working in some of the best known
venues in the United States and maybe even
the world (doing very small gigs). When do
you reach the status when maintaining a supervisory role and not sweating the grunt labor is more beneficial to your enterprise?
We’re All Control Freaks
FOH
I think all sound engineers are control freaks
to a certain extent. Don’t think this applies to
you? Let some guy wrap a cable for you over
his shoulder at the next gig! Are you mature
enough to thank him for his help, taking your
beautifully trained cable from spaghetti-nightmare-making hands and set it aside to discretely rewrap it later? Or do you take the cable, sarcastically droll out a “thanks” while rolling your
eyes and unravel and wrap it — THE CORRECT
WAY — right in front of the poor, misguided
bastard who dared to touch your cables?
It is my nature to control every part of my
gig and that includes what I think should be
the correct amount of effort to load in and
out of the venue. I guess my point is to treat
each gig differently. If you are doing the no
budget bar band, sweating your cojones off
getting the gear in and out is expected. If
your doing the corporate gig, budget for and
hire enough qualified help so you can simply
supervise on the in/out. That leaves you free
to speak to the clients/potential clients and
your hands free to pass out business cards.
Time Well Spent
FOH
You’ll find that this time is well spent,
as you can bond with the client, set them
at ease and discuss future events! Not putting a hand on the gear to get it in or out is
going to set you apart. You’ll find standing
there and directing your people makes you
more approachable for other vendors at the
venue as well as those attendees who liked
what you did at the event. I love when the
venue approaches me to discuss becoming
their “preferred” vendor.
Now for the hard part — not even your
well-trained guys do things exactly the way
you would. Your best guys don’t treat your
stuff as well as you do. But your job at that
specific time is to attract more business. Be
open to attract that business — this is not the
time for you to chew out the tech because,
for the 87th time, he put the coiled cable in
the wrong place. Be cool, be charming and be
successful! I am living proof that you can put
lipstick on a pig!
www.fohonline.com
2008 DECEMBER
25
Regional Slants
ACIR
Pro
Not Just Backline Anymore
By David JohnFarinella
E
ddie DiBona takes only a second to
explain why he jumped from a regular
hotel and casino gig to the land of selfemployment. “They exploded The Sands?”, he
answers with a laugh. “No, I’m kidding.”
Turns out DiBona, who had spent 13 years
at the Claridge Hotel and Casino in Atlantic
City, N.J., and his partner John Grasso, who
was the lead audio engineer at the Sands Resort & Casino, started ACIR Pro as a backline
rental company six years ago because they
saw a prime opportunity.
“All of the backline in Atlantic City was
coming out of northeast Philadelphia and
New York City,” DiBona says. “We were techs
on the ground, and every time a keyboard
went down it took three hours to get another
one. That was the concept we started with,
just backline.” It helped that he and Grasso
knew the city, what people needed there and
they knew they could provide faster service.
Serving the East Coast
FOH
For the first couple of years, DiBona recalls,
he would drive around in a minivan with a
drum kit and a bass amp. Then a client asked
about sound, another asked about lighting
and then a request for an installation consultation came in. So, ACIR Pro now serves clients in
Atlantic City, New York and Washington, D.C.,
providing a wide array of services.
Of course, DiBona and Grasso had early
challenges that included getting the money
together to purchase gear and then proving
themselves to a tough client base. “The first
real challenge was getting people to trust
us,” he says. “They would say to us, ‘Yeah,
you’re great techs, but can you run a backline company?’”
Their first shows were in the Copa Room
at The Sands, and then the calls started to
come in and the company began to boom. “It
wasn’t that slick, we just tried to do a good
job, keep good gear and keep it up,” DiBona
reports. “At this point, I guess I’m just along
for the ride. What a difference a day makes, as
the song goes.”
Moving Into Audio
FOH
The impetus to move into audio started
somewhere in 2005, but took off as soon as
new partner Tom Young joined in 2006. “John
and I have strong audio backgrounds, so
people would ask us to cover the audio side
of the job, too,” DiBona says. “We partnered
with other companies for a while, but then
we decided to invest in our own gear. Right
about then Tom Young came into the picture
and he really wanted to make our audio presence stronger.”
Young (who won the Parnelli Award
for FOH mixer of the year in 2007) brought
with him a long history with some of the top
names in the music business, including Tony
Bennett and Frank Sinatra. He knew that ACIR
Pro had to upgrade the inventory of audio
gear. On the console side of things, ACIR Pro
invested in a collection of Yamaha consoles
that includes a LS9, M7 as well as a PM5D.
DiBona says that Yamaha was picked for a
simple reason: “They have a support network,
a track record and engineers are familiar with
them,” he says. “That’s really important as a
rental house because as soon as I say M7 or 5D
then my job is done. We looked at Digidesign
and a couple of other manufacturers, but with
the 5D, everything is in the case. I don’t have to
get a sidecar or an input bank. We liked that.”
ACIR Pro’s main line array includes d&b
audiotechnik Q1 loudspeakers. “For us, the
Q1 is the Swiss Army knife of sound systems
because you can ground-stack it or rig it, fly
it or put it on a stick,” DiBona explains. “It was
a little more money, but it has been valuable
when we do shows in places where there typically aren’t shows.” The company’s second array is from WorxAudio Technologies and the
inventory includes Meyer UPA boxes.
The move into lighting and video came
for the same reason — clients were asking
for it. “We had been subbing it out, but we
were having problems,” DiBona recalls. “We
figured that we could get lights and screw it
up as good as the next guy, so we brought in
a fourth guy by the name of Ron Farino, who
ACIR Professional Grand Opening (L to R): Yamaha’s Chip Allen, ACIR owners Ed DiBona, John Grasso, Tom Young and Yamaha
District Manager Bob Quinones.
One of ACIR Pro’s gigs, Tony Bennett, performing at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
runs that department for us. It’s just more service to offer a client. Especially the lighting,
we found it really hard to find a reliable company that wouldn’t try to steal the clients.”
A Natural Extension
FOH
DiBona, Grasso and Young, all touring engineers who have seen an incredible variety of
rooms around the world, figured that installations were a natural extension of the business.
“We’ve been in a lot of rooms, tuned a lot of
sound systems, and we know gear,” DiBona
says. “Also, when we became dealers of some of
this gear it just became a natural extension. We
have the product to offer, we can support it and
we can train people how to use it. We have a lot
of combined experience between the three of
us. I mean, you’re not going to come up with
many situations that we haven’t seen at least
once. That’s the greatest thing about having
Company
Page
Phone
Web
Company
A&S Case Company
13
818.509.5920
http://foh.hotims.com/18527-210
QSC Audio Products
Adamson Systems
Engineering
21
905.982.0520
Ashly Audio/CAMCO
8
585.872.0010
Bosch/Midas Digial Consoles
C1, 11
248.876.1000
Carvin Pro Audio
6
800.854.2235
Checkers Industrial Products
12
800.438.9336
Community Pro
10
800.523.4934
dbx Professional Products
17
801.568.7660
DiGiCo
15
516.249.1399
Full Compass
5
ISP Technologies
JBL Professional
Phone
Web
C4
800.854.4079
Sennheiser Electronic Corp.
9
860.434.9190
Shure Incorporated
19
800.257.4873
Westone Music Products
4
719.540.9333
Worx Audio
20
336.275.7474
Yamaha Commercial
Audio Systems
1, C3
714.522.9011
MARKET PLACE
Audioeast.com
27
978.937.3944
ttp://foh.hotims.com/18524-124
Gabriel Sound
27
973.831.7500
49 (0) 9421/706-0
Hi-Tech Audio Systems
27
650.742.9166
12
248.673.7790
HME
27
858.535.6054
7
818.894.8850
New York Case/ Hybrid Cases
27
800.645.1707
Kaltman Creations
3
678.714.2000
Sound Productions
27
800.203.5611
Meyer Sound Laboratories
C2
510.486.1166
Transamerica Audio Group
27
702.365.5155
OVO/ Mega Systems
20
210.684.2600
Under Cover
27
508.997.7600
26
DECEMBER 2008
www.fohonline.com
Page
partners. Now I have those guys to bounce stuff
off of and it makes it a lot easier.”
The partnership also contributes to the
company’s dedication to customer service,
since DiBona points out that each of them are
available practically 24/7. “If I’m up then my
cell phone is on,” he says. “Anybody can get
me at 7:30 on a Saturday night right before a
show if something won’t boot. We know what
it’s like to be the guy whose job is on the line
when shit isn’t working.”
That dedication, he believes, is what’s
kept them in business while facing competition from some bigger companies. “We were
like the David and Goliath story when we
started,” DiBona admits. “But we survived that
by doing a good job for people and by caring.
That goes a long way, no matter what you do.
Our clients know we care and we’ll do whatever we can.”
To Advertise in Marketplace, Contact: Maria Kritikos • 702.932.5585 • [email protected]
Employment
STAGING • LIGHTING • SOUND
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FOH-at-Large
What’s the Budget,
Your Holiness?
E
In a Perfect World
FOH
If one knows his or her gear and its capabilities then — in a perfect world — choosing
the proper system and the technical application of the equipment for any event becomes
an exercise in easy — in a perfect world! As
we all know by now, perfection is a hard goal
to achieve, and in so many cases, we settle for
the next best thing, which is, unfortunately,
imperfection. Let me qualify this statement
by saying that I am not implying that the
equipment or the application of the equipment is less than perfect, but that our technology and technical abilities do not exist in
a vacuum and are inexorably tied in with the
business we are trying to build or — at the
very least — maintain.
The audio business is a competitive world,
and unless one is independently wealthy and
indifferent to making a living, then providing a service at a fair market rate — while
still making a profit — should be the primary
goal of any company, large or small. One of
my bosses described his business plan as
such: “If a client has a bag of money to spend,
we want him to give it to us.” Granted, this is
COMING NEXT
MONTH...
FOH Interview
What happens when
you spend an hour with
an A-list guy with a 30year history? Too much
good stuff from David
Morgan.
Production Profile
Coldplay. Eighth Day.
d&b. Salt Lake City. Very
long drive.
Buyers Guide
We look at some
affordable mixers with
28 or Firewire.
USB
Artwork by Andy Au
very event has a budget. Whether it is
a speech for 20 people or for 20,000
people, a children’s birthday party or
a concert at an amphitheater, a one-off or a
long tour, make no mistake about it there is
always a bottom line. We in the FOH community spend many discerning hours reading,
learning and debating about which company
provides the best products, the technical
aspects of said merchandise and the proper
ways in which to use these commodities. It
is our job to know impedance, phasing, frequencies, speaker placement, microphone
placement and coverage as well as how to
set up and use the equipment to achieve the
best results for its intended purpose. When a
client calls upon us to provide audio for their
event we have to know which equipment to
bring and how to design the system that best
suits their needs.
I want to yell, “Look dumb-ass, let’s
cut to the chase — just how big is your
bag of money? Just give me the bag of
money and you can have whatever you
like.” Desperation makes for strange
bedfellows.
not necessarily an original business plan, but
quite elegant in its brevity. The problem —
and there always is a problem even with the
most luminous of plans — is how to implement this simple arrangement.
Considering the concise tone of this particular business plan, it would appear that a
shillelagh to the back of the client’s head in
a dark ally would give one sufficient time to
grab his bag of money and make a getaway.
Unfortunately, as we all should know, the
knock, grab and run approach is old-school
audio and doesn’t lend itself to repeat customers. Therefore, while bidding on a show
can be a tricky proposition, it seems that it
is still imperative to give the best service for
a fair and competitive market rate unless, of
course, one is a confidential service provider
in Iraq or a private contractor on Wall Street.
More For Less
FOH
Regrettably, due to a slow down in the
economy, it seems that there is an ever-growing increase in the amount of event planners
looking for a “more-for-less” type of arrangement when putting together their shows.
Shocking as it may seem, since the “grab-thebag-of-money” business plan is not an overly
unique idea, it has apparently been co-opted
by every sound company from sea to shining
sea, thus leaving us all in a position of des-
perate compromise. Short of employing the
shillelagh technique of negotiation, we of the
entrepreneurial persuasion must rise to the
challenge of learning to read our clients better than we have in the past.
The days of turning a client’s plea, “I need
a microphone for 500 people” into a sizable
audio package is gone. Now what we get is
the client calling up and thinking that they
can sneak one by us by starting the conversation with: “I’m planning a little event and I
need a basic sound system. Nothing too fancy, just a basic system.” Ok, I get it. “Little” and
“basic” are buzzwords for cheap. No frills, just
a “basic system.” I get it. “Tell me more, how
big is the band and how many people will be
attending?” “It’s just a small four-piece band
with a horn or two,” says the prospective client, “and there will only be about 800 people
in the audience, but they’re only little people.
You know, your small, basic type of event.”
“I know exactly what you want,” I reply.
“Instead of the gold, diamond-encrusted
speakers, I’ll give you the basic black speakers
with a small digital console instead of the holographic, laser-controlled, GPS, 400-horsepower console. “Look dumb-ass,” I want to
yell, “Let’s cut to the chase — just how big is
your bag of money? Just give me the bag of
money and you can have whatever you like.”
Desperation makes for strange bedfellows.
www.fohonline.com
By BakerLee
A Smaller Bag of Money
FOH
Given the state of the economy, I am
pretty sure that this scenario is being played
out all across the country, although I sometimes wonder if the bigger companies have
to suffer through the same indignities that
the smaller companies do. For example, if
the Pope was coming back to America in
today’s financial climate, I imagine that, as
always, he would give Mike Wolf a call at
CLAIR. I can only assume that the tone of
the conversation might be a little different than it’s been in the past considering,
just like everyone else who is feeling the
economic sting, that even the Pope has a
smaller bag of money.
“Hey Mikey, it’s the Pope. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, Benedict, how are you? Listen, I’m doing a small event at Yankee Stadium and I
need a basic sound system for only about
50,000 or 60,000 people. Just a few speeches, a little mass, a few bands, you know, the
standard stuff. Mikey, you know black speakers don’t do it for me. No, I think we should
go with the gold and maybe put them on
the roof of the stage. It’s gonna cost me,
huh? How much more for the gold? OK, OK,
we’ll go with the gold, but this time use the
paint instead of the 14 karat. Do you think
we can get by with four stacks instead of
six? Nah, that won’t be good if they can’t
hear, so go with the six stacks. Can they be
half stacks? OK, OK, Mikey, you’re killing
me. What? You want some line arrays, too?
Mikey, the budget is way over the top and I
have to cut bzack somewhere. OK, OK, but
Mikey you gotta understand, I do a bigger
mass in my own backyard. I know, I know,
it’s New York and the world is watching,
but do you know what the grounds crew
is costing me? Do we need so many monitors? They won’t? So, we get the monitors.
Mikey, show a little compassion will ya, do
you know what it costs to drape Yankee Stadium in white?
Look Mikey, I wouldn’t lie to you, but
the cost of this system is a little much.
Maybe I should just use the in-house system… hey, if it was good enough for Gehrig. No, no Mikey, I’m just kidding, take it
easy. OK, so we’ll go with the six stacks of
gold-painted speakers on the roof, some
line arrays, all the monitors, some microphones, cables, yada, yada, yada. Are you
sure we need both consoles — can’t we
do it all from one? OK, OK, you win, all
the equipment, but do we need so many
stagehands? Maybe we can cut back on
the labor. These guys at Local #1 are killing me and the union labor seems a little
over the top if you know what I mean. Why
not spread the wealth around? You know,
get a few homeless guys on the crew who
might want to make a buck or two. Yeah,
I know we have only 48 hours to get the
whole thing up and running, but it’s an
easy load-in, it’s all ramps, no stairs. Rolls
right in, right there at home plate. It’s your
basic, easy load-in. OK Mikey, calm down,
we’ll take the union stagehands, but do I
still get my 20% discount? No Mikey, it’s
always been 20%. That’s right, and remember, we’re tax exempt, too. Yeah, yeah, don’t
worry, I’ll get you a certificate.”

a PDF - Front of House

Transcription

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