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iLive Sounds Out Eden for Children in Need
ThE NEws MagazinE For LivE Sound
DECEMBER 2006 Vol. 5 No. 3
Bennett Performs American Classic
Tony Bennett performs with Stevie Wonder
LOS ANGELES — Recently, Tony Bennett recorded a live performance a for a TV special, Tony
Bennett: An American Classic, which aired November 21 on NBC. The concert featured the live
vocals of Bennett, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Christina Aguilera, Diana Krall, Michael Bublé and
Barbra Streisand.
Tom Young, who has been Tony’s live guy for well more than a decade, has pioneered a novel
monitoring approach. As described in the Oct. 2004 issue of FOH, he flies four Meyer UPA-1P full
range cabs at the corners of the stage in an “X” pattern and controls one monitor mix from FOH.
The approach has so grown on Bennett that he has had Young bring it into the studio for all of
his records since ’99 and this TV outing was no different. Well, it was a little different. Instead
of four MSL4s in an X configuration, Young used several Meyer UPA-1Ps on continued on page 6
Audio Geeks Get Culture
BERKELEY, CA — When Meyer Sound
bought out Level Control Systems some of
us were a bit perplexed. Sure, get John Meyer and LCS’ John McMahon together and
you are pretty sure to be talking to the two
smartest guys in the room—any room—but
put aside the fact that they are both brilliant
audio geeks and there seemed little else to
200.0612.Cover.indd 1
tie them together. One made great speakers and the other great mixing tools, placing
them at nearly opposite ends of the snake.
You could almost hear the collective “huh?”
uttered by many in the live event production business.
Until, that is, the recent announcement
of the Constellation,
continued on page 5
CORNWALL, UK — The world famous Eden Project hosted BBC coverage of the Children In
Need fundraising evening, employing Allen & Heath’s new iLive digital mixing system to manage audio for two musical events. It was the iLive's first use in a public performance.
Comprising an iDR-64 mix engine with iLive-144 control surface, the iLive system was
initially installed in Eden’s Warm Temperate biome, where the Carnawn Ladies Choir sang a
mixture of Christmas and traditional Cornish songs.
“The Biome’s dimensions are 135m
long 35m high and 65m wide, and with
many twists and turns, open spaces and
enveloping vegetation, it is acoustically
challenging to fill all areas. However, iLive
— feeding an EM Acoustic speaker system
— filled the biome with the choir’s harmonies,” explains Steve Yelland from local PA
company, SPS Systems, which manages
many of Eden’s AV requirements. “Visitors
were encouraged to walk around the Biome to enjoy the performance anywhere
in the dome, and as the choir sang without
accompaniment, I had the opportunity to
create a rich soundscape over the biome.”
SPS Systems then moved the iLive
system from the warm Temperate biome
— which emulates the climate of the
Mediterranean, Southwest Australia, and
parts of South Africa and California — and
positioned it outdoors to manage audio
for the Eden Choir.
“For iLive’s first outing, we didn’t go
Dr. Seuss will always be rememfor an easy option — we like a challenge.”
bered for his wit, complexity and
explains Allen & Heath MD, Glenn Rogers.
imagination. Small wonder, then, that
“First, we moved the system mid-evening
a staging of Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch
to cater for both indoor and outdoor
Stole Christmas! The Musical would
events, which also meant that the equipunleash complicated costumes, crafty
consoles and miraculously monitored
ment was relocated from the warm bimouthpieces.
ome to the cold and rain of a November
And thanks to sound op Tom
evening in the UK. iLive took only minutes
Clark, you can hear them over larks,
to set up a second time, and despite the
hear them clearly from the park. Can
inclement weather it proved it could withyou hear them in the dark? Thank you,
stand the elements.”
thank you, Mr. Clark.
“This was the first time I had used the
Full story, with minimal rhyming,
iLive system,” says Yelland,“and I didn’t feel
on page 18.
intimidated mixing live after only a short
time with it. It was a hectic evening running two events with different setups in
two completely different environments,
but I felt comfortable using the system,
24 Installations
and it went without a hitch.” Yelland also
If it ain’t broke, Cirque du Soleil
liked iLive’s compact footprint, portability
won’t fix it
and durability in outdoor conditions.
Since opening in March 2001, the
26 FOH Interview
Eden Project has become one of the UK’s
It’s Halloween, and Widespread
most visited tourist attractions, and the
Panic sounds scary good
home of the annual Eden Sessions, which
have included acts such as Moby, Muse,
36 Sound Sanctuary
When it comes to monitors, the
Brian Wilson, the Magic Numbers and
Devil is in the details.
Basement Jaxx.
How The Grinch
Stole Broadway
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Table of Contents
December 2006, Vol. 5.3
What’s
HotHot
What’s
What’s
Hot
What’s
Hot
Features
20 ‘Twas the Night
Before Curtain
Santa ain’t the only one out there pulling
Christmas Eve duty.
22 Vegoose
The Rat Pack would be horrified at the motley
collection of aging hippie-types at Vegoose.
And then there was the audience.
24 Mystère – 6000
shows later
14
The 2006 Parnelli Awards
It was a night of laughs and honoring real audio giants.
35 The Biz
Live event audio has finally
invaded academia. Road dogs
with degrees?
36 Sound Sanctuary
28 Product Gallery
How to tell that pesky 110 dB guitar player
to stick it in his ear.
How many really cool gizmos can you stuff
into a briefcase?
37 Anklebiters
30 Road Tests
Phantom power haunts the consoles of
the unknowing.
“Dual-purpose” speakers that actually
work at both MON and FOH from SLS
and an MC 2 power amp to juice ‘em up
with.
40 FOH-at-Large
18 Inside Theatre
The Grinch brings a big green batch of
Christmas curmudgeon to the Great
White Way.
32 Regional Slants
26
34 Theory and Practice
Gotta love those pesky circuit trips at the
absolute worst times.
If it ain’t broke…
Columns
We profile one company that wins more
than prizes at fairs.
FOH Interview
33 On the Bleeding Edge
If live recordings come cheap, you might
as well get it right.
Keeping gear in unconventional places.
Departments
2 Feedback
4 Editor’s Note
5 News
10 On the Move
12 New Gear
16 Showtime
Chris Raboid and Brad Blettenberg keep Widespread Panic alive and
jamming. With or without chicken suits.
Feedback
[In the October Bleeding Edge column Steve
La Cerra took a look at competing digital console formats, and asked for an industry standard.
One of our readers wrote in, reinforcing the cry
for a standard with a rant of his own. –ed.]
A Call To Manufacturers
Ours is an exciting time in the world of sound
reinforcement, as finally the true integration
of digital equipment is becoming a reality.
Thanks in large part to the install market, established protocols are becoming the norm
and standards are opening. The studio DAW
users are already enjoying the benefits of
ReWire, ASIO and Core Audio with almost
complete interoperability (with one glaring
manufacturer hold out) between all their
200.0612.2.TOC.indd 2
software and hardware. But there is one key
product segment that seems obsessed with
keeping its secrets under lock and key. I’m
talking about digital consoles, a mish-mash of
competing proprietary standards and hardware-based solutions. Only DiGiCo so far has
seen fit to embrace a somewhat open platform, with Yamaha and Sony offering add-ons
to support the same MADI protocol. Gamble
have their DCX series but it’s all still a far cry
from real interoperability. It all reminds me of
the early days of sampling, with New England
Digital and Fairlight duking it out over high
cost hardware — and we know what happened to them.
Why has this situation come about, particularly as so many other sectors of our industry work to further their compatibility? The first reason generally trotted out is reli-
ability, the need to keep the console up and
running under mission critical conditions. A
highly laudable goal, and one which I think
few house engineers would disagree with.
However, how valid is that argument today?
We are surrounded by mission critical applications that influence every part of our lives,
yet increasingly those applications are running on open protocols and generic, disparate
hardware. Recently I watched an automated
airport train reboot itself and saw Linux flash
across the screens — moving people around
a large airport (40 feet off the ground) would
seem to require a robust package too.
The subject of latency in sound reinforcement is often raised and it, too, is a very valid
point. However, shouldn’t it be up to us, the
engineers, to assess the needs of each event
and make our own decisions? An open mar-
ket would encourage manufacturers to address latency issues, as better performance
leads to more sales.
The real reason, I believe, for this situation is that sound reinforcement manufacturers are obsessed with selling dedicated
hardware. They still see their future as a world
of large control surfaces and rack-mounted
equipment with the associated high development, production and distribution costs
being passed onto us, the users. Yet the studio (and to a certain extent DJ) manufacturers are headed in completely the opposite direction. Solid State Logic, Waves, TC Electronic
and Focusrite have all launched stand-alone,
Firewire or PCI based processing boxes. A
simple card, rack or tabletop processor (basically a small PC in a box) interfaces with your
continued on page 39
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Editor’s Note
,
Its the
Most Weirdest
Time of
the Year
Publisher
Terry Lowe
[email protected]
Editor
Bill Evans
[email protected]
Managing Editor
Jacob Coakley
[email protected]
Associate Editor
David McGinnis
[email protected]
By BillEvans
Technical Editor
Mark Amundson
[email protected]
O
K, here it comes again. As we approach the end of the year, I find myself with a tendency to get Serious.
Sorry, it’s a character defect that I continue
to work on, to little avail.
While I want to review the year and take
some time to reflect and be grateful, it is an
insanely busy time of the year. Here at Timeless World Headquarters, we are up to three
monthly magazines (FOH, PLSN and Stage Di-
“I was trying to figure out why I was running
around like such a maniac, and then I realized that I have 54 rentals or shows in the
month of November.” And things don’t really heat up in Las Vegas until the rodeo gets
here in early December.
But most of us in the live event audio world
— regardless of the number of shows we do
a year — can relate to that on at least some
level. That’s because, while all those millions of
Most of all, be grateful that
we get to do what we do.
rections) plus the annual Event Production Directory. (By the way, that little reference guide
that so many of us turn to in time of need is
finally going electronic as well as print. That’s
good news — especially for those of you who
spend significant time on the road — but it is
a hellacious amount of work to get it into the
new format.) Plus, I have a couple of side projects (including trying to front a large band
again — just how stupid am I?) that make
time even tighter.
Add to that the general holiday craziness
plus the fact that the last six weeks of the year
bring my daughter’s birthday (she just turned
16 — more worries for dad), Thanksgiving, my
wife’s birthday and Christmas. And I know I
am far from alone.
I got a call from an FOH writer who owns
a sound company the other day, and he said
people are gathering for events like company
Christmas parties, we are the ones who were
there starting the night before, loading in a
stage and a sound system and dealing with hotel riggers and other impossible personalities.
Most of us will think about holiday shopping
several times in the coming weeks — usually
during a moment of calm during the storm of
a gig, and the thought goes more like, “Crap, I
still have to go out and buy presents. When do
I have a day off?” (For a more humorous than
dour take on all this, check out the “’Twas the
Night Before Curtain” poem on page 20 — and
if you know who wrote it, drop us a line, so we
can give credit where it’s due.)
Some of us get the rep for being anti-social
because we don’t show up for parties thrown
by friends and family, and if we do it’s a quick
appearance. (Like the ones we make at the
parties thrown by clients. Gotta make those.
They’re not parties. They’re marketing.) But like
the retailer who makes 20–40% of their sales
in the next month, this is an important time of
year for us to stay on top of business if we want
to stay in business in ’07.
All that being said, try to take a little time
— even if it is at 3 a.m. after the gig, when you
get home and everyone else is long asleep
— to take a look at the last year. Note the high
points and the low, and try to figure out how
to not repeat the low ones. But most of all, be
grateful that we get to do what we do. Yes, it is
a crazy, cutthroat business. Yes, you work way
too many hours for the money you make, and,
yes, you are going to have to spend a chunk of
that end-of-the-year windfall on new, highertech gear if you want to stay competitive. So
what? We could still all be shuffling paper in
some soul-killing office just waiting for that
clock to click over to five (or more like six in
these days of corporate “rightsizing”).
Try this, just for kicks. The next time someone says something to you about how cool
your job must be and how you get to go to
shows and parties all the time, don’t tell them
about how much you’ve grown to dread
shows and that a party for you is just more
work. Don’t tell them about the 16-hour days,
the crazy clients or the gear that goes “kaboom” in the night.
Instead, take a second and picture yourself behind a desk doing something mindless, look the person in the eye and say, “Yeah,
you’re right. It’s pretty cool.”
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, Richard Rutherford,
Paul H Overson
Photographer
Steve Jennings
Art Director
Garret Petrov
[email protected]
Production Manager
Linda Evans
[email protected]
Graphic Designers
Dana Pershyn
[email protected]
Michelle Sacca
[email protected]
Josh Harris
[email protected]
National Sales Manager
Peggy Blaze
[email protected]
National Advertising Director
Gregory Gallardo
[email protected]
Account Managers
Holly O`Hair & Warren Flood
[email protected] & [email protected]
General Manager
William Hamilton Vanyo
[email protected]
Executive Administrative
Assistant
Dawn-Marie Voss
[email protected]
Feed Back
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Advertising Office
6000 South Eastern Ave.
Suite 14J
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Ph: 702.932.5585
Fax: 702.932.5584
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Front Of House (ISSN 1549-831X) Volume 5 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
additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address
changes to Front Of House, PO Box 16147, North
Hollywood, CA 91615-6147. Front Of House is distributed free to qualified individuals in the live sound
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40033037, 1415 Janette Ave., Windsor, ON N8X 1Z1
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Reserved. Duplication, transmission by any method
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permission of Front Of House.
Publishers of...
December 2006
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12/1/06 2:00:59 AM
Audio Geeks Get Culture
News
continued from cover
ing the orchestra shell while, at the same time,
exemplifying the need for different acoustics
that would compliment each performance. Cal
Performances’ Gala came just as Meyer’s vision
for multipurpose venues coalesced into a new
approach to the challenge of their acoustics:
Constellation electroacoustic architecture.
With Constellation, Cal Performances and Meyer Sound would address the issue of the hall’s
reverberation characteristics.
Constellation employs a VRAS processor
in combination with newly designed Stella
loudspeakers and Constellation microphones.
The VRAS technology, originally developed by
Dr. Mark Poletti of Industrial Research Limited,
employs a DSP engine to generate reverberation and early reflections, as well as mixing,
processing and routing them.
Each Constellation installation is designed,
specified and tuned by techs certified by Meyer Sound. Since Constellation incorporates a
regenerative component (meaning that the
hall’s acoustics are an integral part of the system), design and tuning must be carefully performed to the specific needs and characteristics of each venue.
Meyer Sound president/CEO John Meyer
and a team of Meyer Sound staff worked with
Cal Performances to define the system’s goals
and design. The system that was installed included an onstage “virtual orchestral shell” system to provide musicians with early reflections,
as well as the house system, for supplemental
reverberation and early reflections.
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200.0612.news.indd 5
Zellerbach Hall, home of Cal Performances
Stay tuned, as FOH is delving deeper into
this installation and the Constellation system
and will bring greater details about both over
the upcoming months.
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which appears to be a focusing and refinement of the LCS Variable Room Acoustics
System (VRAS). Where VRAS was pitched as
a way to meet varying acoustic needs of a
specific show, Constellation turns that around
and focuses on the venue and adjusting
room response to make the space acoustically friendly for a wider range of performance
types—an idea that has some in the world
of high culture (never a group particularly
enchanted with technology) watching their
expectations and assumptions about the nature of a venue become obsolete faster than
last year’s iPod model.
But Meyer has proven themselves serious
about the difficult task of winning over a tough
crowd with a high-profile install of the Constellation system and the hiring of someone whose
classical music credentials are unquestionable.
The new hire is Grammy-winning classical music engineer John Pellowe who comes aboard
in the role of consultant engineer specifically
to work closely on Constellation installs.
Pellowe brings to the Constellation effort
all the experience and knowledge he accumulated over the course of a long and illustrious
career. Trained in classical music recording by
Decca Records in London, Pellowe’s career
has brought him into contact with nearly every current major classical and opera star and
enabled him to work with the world’s top conductors and orchestras in many of the world’s
great concert halls. He has been sound engineering director for Luciano Pavarotti and The
3 Tenors since 1992, engineering concerts that
often played to audiences numbering in the
hundreds of thousands.
It’s an interesting move: It makes it harder
for the Culture Squad to dismiss technology
when it is being touted by one of their own. Or,
as Meyer Executive VP Helen Meyer put it, “His
involvement indicates to the fine arts community our seriousness in this pursuit.”
The initial Constellation install is at Zellerbach Hall on the University of California Berkeley campus, a venue whose diversity of program material imposes immense demands on
the hall’s acoustics, as the needs of orchestral
performances, recitals and graduations are
often at odds with each other. While the hall
has an orchestra shell that helps sound project and aids musicians in hearing each other,
erecting and striking it is a laborious and timeconsuming process that makes it difficult to
hold events of different types, even as close
together as consecutive days, not to mention
accommodate events mixing genres on the
same program.
“We have been grappling with this issue
of maximizing the hall’s sound for a number of
years,” says Cal Performances’ director Robert
Cole.
Says John Meyer, president and CEO of
Meyer Sound, “That creates a real challenge:
how can one room be made to sound right for
many different kinds of performances?”
The situation at Zellerbach Hall reached a
turning point as Cal Performances approached
a gala celebration of its 100th anniversary. The
program for the evening was intended to portray the range of events presented by Cal Performances, with the Mark Morris Dance Group,
San Francisco Symphony Music Director and
pianist Michael Tilson Thomas accompanying
Phantom of the Opera star Lisa Vroman, contemporary music ensemble Alarm Will Sound
performing works of John Adams and the San
Francisco Opera Orchestra with a chorus of
over 200 voices composed of the University
of California Alumni Chorus, University Chorus
and Piedmont Children’s Choir.
The logistics for this spectrum of performance styles made it untenable to consider us-
December 2006
12/1/06 1:40:56 AM
News
Band and Gear Are OK to Go
CHICAGO IL — Two low budget videos, one
produced in a backyard for just 10 dollars and
the other choreographed with eight treadmills
and performed in a single take, have brought
Chicago-based band OK Go a lot of attention
over the last year. Capitalizing on their newfound public recognition, the band is currently
touring the U.S. with Sennheiser Evolution Series wired and RF microphones, as well as wireless personal monitor systems.
Mike Kent has been touring for the last
two years as front-of-house engineer with the
band, who are described as “part indie rock, part
straight-up pop, with the occasional whiff of
Weezer, The Cars or Elliott Smith.” Backline amplification, drum and vocal microphones are all
Sennheiser Evolution Series, Kent reports.
“On the kick drum I’m using the e901,” he
reports. “On snare, I’m using an e905, the toms:
e604s and e914s on the overheads. I’ve got four
guitar inputs. I’ve got three e609 Silvers and the
fourth is an e902. It’s a boost channel, so I need
the nice low-end reaction, and that ends up
working out very, very nice. I also have a 902 on
the bass, as well as a DI.”
A pair of wireless e500 Series vocal microphones with 945 capsules are used during an
unplugged segment, he continues. “During the
show we do an acoustic set where the band
walks out into the crowd. We hooked it up so
that the acoustic guitars are wireless, on EM
550 G2s, in addition to the two wireless mics.
They just grab one mic stand — the belt packs
are attached — they walk out, plant it, plug the
guitars in and boom. We can do it anywhere in
the venue within the throw range of the equipment.”
All four band members contribute vocals
onstage, using wired e945 microphones. Kent
states that, for the band’s appearance above
Times Square on the opening night for ABC’s
Saturday Night Football college football coverage, “There’s a mic cable plugged in, but it’s not
going anywhere. The cable’s just for the look.
The singer takes his hand off the guitar and has
his hand on the mic, looking cool and swinging
back and forth, and the mic comes off the stand,
comes off the cable, and rolls off the edge, four
stories down into Times Square! I’m shocked it
didn’t kill somebody.
“It landed on the grille,” he continues. “The
grille was bent a little bit, but I plugged it in and
there was nothing wrong with it.We’ve been using it for two months.”
Everybody in the band is also on
Sennheiser’s Evolution Wireless 300 Series personal monitor systems.
Bennett Performs American Classic
continued from cover
Ultimate Support stands that could easily
be moved and hidden from the camera’s
view. Mixes were created for monitoring
upstage, mid-stage and downstage in
stereo. The mixes were all set post-fader
to vary the vocal levels with the dynamics of the tracks.
“I had on-site generic in-ear buds and
wireless packs by Sennheiser, just in case,”
said Young but reported that no performer asked for them after hearing the
stage sound. “Only one performer asked
for anything at all, and that was Christina
Aguilera who asked for a little more level
and reverb on her voice,” he said.
The Neumann U 47, KMS 85, KMS 105
and the Sennheiser SKM 5000 wireless
handheld, with a Neumann KK 105 capsule, all made appearances during the
one-hour special.
Young also worked as an audio supervisor on the shoot. “The show highlights
Tony Bennett’s career by taking you on
a chronological journey of his musical life, “ he said.” In the 13 years I have
been with Tony Bennett he has never lipsync’d which is typical in this type of film
production. He also never sings anything
Mike Kent, FOH engineer for OK Go
the same way twice, so each take was
done live at the Los Angeles Theater, an
old movie palace built in 1931 with excellent natural acoustics that created an
ideal setting for recreating different sites
in the singer’s career.”
The special, was filmed in HD and
mixed in 5.1 by Dae Bennett, who recorded the album tracks at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, London’s Abbey
Road and Bennett Studios in New Jersey earlier this year. Also assisting the
recording and playback were Joe Sidoti
and John Nave.
Software Updated
BERLIN —Software Design Ahnert
GmbH (SDA) has released version 1.4 of
EASE Focus, its freely available, publicly licensed program for configuring line arrays
and modelling their performance. EASE
Focus provides accurate predictions of line
array performance using the same acoustic
engine as EASE. Version 1.4 includes English, German and Spanish translations of
the software and help files, and updates to
AutoSplay, the mapping displays and other
important functions. SDA has simplified the
array configuration process and made it
more intuitive in Version 1.4. The EASE Focus Installer is available as a download from
http://www.easefocus.com.
Multiple Boards Serve a Festival of Song
THESSALONIKI, GREECE — The 38th Thessaloniki Song Festival took place in the POAK
Sports Arena in the city of Thessaloniki in
northern Greece in early November 2006. The
creative team behind the recent Eurovision
Song Contest held in Athens last May was responsible for the design and running of this
show, which included calling on Greek audio
production specialists and InnovaSON distributor, Enttech SA to handle all of the audio
requirements for the show. Enttech specified
and purchased three InnovaSON Sy80 digital
mixing consoles especially for the event, all of
which were run on an EtherSound network.
The configuration required an Sy80 console at FOH, one on monitors and a third to
handle all the broadcast requirements. There
was also a 56-mic input Stage-Box which acted as a microphone splitter for all three consoles, and a 48-mic input, 8-output DioCore (an
EtherSound-enabled Stage-Box) also distributing microphone signals to all three consoles,
but over EtherSound via Cat5 rather than the
fiber optic or coax links used for the Stage-Box.
All talkback channels were also handled over
EtherSound. The monitor console acted as the
primary EtherSound master and as the StageBox master. Just as they did for Eurovision, Enttech also supplied a full back-up system comprising an Sy80 FOH primary master console
and Sy48 broadcast console plus a Stage Box
and a DioCore all on a separate independent
network.
According to monitor engineer Elias Trintis, who was also responsible for setting up
the consoles in conjunction with InnovaSON’s
Matthieu Le Failler, the whole show ran like
clockwork. “Eurovision was the first time that
I’d used the new Sy80 control surface with
Sensoft v10.1 . . . It sounded absolutely fantas-
And Audio For All
MCKEES ROCKS, PA —La Posada, a senior
service provider in Green Valley, Az., includes
independent and assisted living housing, as
well as activity options like a library, an astronomy observatory, a natural-grass putting
green and a fitness center. With over 700 residents, the administration at La Posada are constantly investing in ways to enhance the lives
of their residents. Since May 2005, La Posada
has turned to Northern Sound & Light (NSL) in
McKees Rocks, Pa. for audio.
“I called NSL, spoke with a salesperson
and got immediate answers,” said Paul Ide, senior vice president and CFO for La Posada. Ide
December 2006
oversees all phones, media, AV, emergency/life
safety systems and computer systems on campus. Most recently, Ide was looking for an audio
solution to enhance resident council meetings
and various presentations — forums, drama,
music, etc. He explained, “We have three meeting rooms that hold 150-200 people each.
Residents were having a hard time hearing
presenters and comments from the audience.”
La Posada already operates an in-house
TV station that records and broadcasts events
and meetings on a blocked cable channel, so
the addition of microphones would also help
them better capture the meetings. Ide needed
tic, and the new functionality that comes with
the latest version software makes it even more
flexible and easy to use,” he remarked. “Based
on the success of Eurovision, we used a similar configuration for Thessaloniki (three Sy80s,
a Stage Box and a DioCore) but this time we
decided to run the whole thing on an EtherSound network. We also had a full redundancy
system, which is imperative on a production as
big as this. The problem was that we had a very
limited time in which to achieve it. However,
with Matthieu’s help, we got the whole thing
up and running perfectly in just three hours
without a single hitch.”
Enttech managing director, Yiannis Papoutsakis was equally pleased with the results.
“InnovasSON turned around my order for three
Sy80s in less than a week in order to get the
consoles to us in time for the show. I placed my
order on a Friday, and the consoles were with
a solution that could serve everyone’s needs,
but one that the residents (whose average age
is over 80) and staff members could operate. “I
called NSL with my requirements; they understood what I needed and helped with equipment selection,” said Ide.
The solution for La Posada included ten
Countrymen E6 earset microphones, two
Sennheiser ME2 lavalieres and 12 channels of
Sennheiser EW500 series wireless body packs
housed in a Gator G-Shock 16L rolling cart. NSL
recommended the Sennheisers for Ide, since
he needed a system with the least amount
of handling as possible; and the Gator rack so
that the staff can transport and store most of
the equipment in one case and recharge all
body-packs using a single power plug (rather
Caption: (L-R): Alex Ghanas, system tech; Panagiotis Petrouikolos, FOH engineer; Elias Trintis, monitor engineer; Vangelis
Koulouris, FOH engineer; Andreas Vaitudis, playback engineer
us by the following Thursday for the festival on
the Saturday. They even sent one of their own
technicians who worked with our own crew
to get everything set up and tested on time.
That’s not bad going when you consider that
the solder was barely dry on the circuit boards!
Anyway, the results speak for themselves, and
I’m grateful to InnovaSON for pulling the stops
out for us when we needed it.”
La Posada resident Warren Steurer serves as the lead operator for the in-house TV network
than needing to plug in all twelve packs). A
Soundcraft Spirit E12 mixer sits atop the rack. www.fohonline.com
12/1/06 5:54:39 PM
200.0612.Ads.indd 7
12/1/06 1:42:57 AM
News
Rodeo Moves Over for Rock
RALEIGH, NC — The North Carolina
State Fair produces nightly concerts featuring country, bluegrass, contemporary
Christian and, more recently, R&B/hiphop and southern rock bands, and one
of the principal challenges for integrator
RMB Audio is getting the best possible
audio quality in a venue originally designed for rodeos, circuses and livestock
exhibitions.
Made of concrete, glass and steel,
the fairground’s Dorton Arena was built
in 1952 and has been renovated several
times since then, but it is still not the optimum site for concerts. The concerts ran
for 10 consecutive nights with a wide selection of musical genres and different
engineering needs, including Bluegrass
legend Earl Scruggs to “new country” artists Joe Dee Messina, Blake Shelton, Eric
Church and Gary Allan, and rising Dance/
R&B stars Chris Brown and Paula DeAnda.
This year, RMB technicians Roger
Dennis (FOH) and Robert Weddings
(MON and logistics) used Martin Audio
Viewpoint room modeling software and
SMAART audio analysis software to come
up with the system setup.
According to RMB’s Cooper Cannady,
“The main hang consisted of 11 W8LCs
and one W8LCD left and right, and eight
W8LMs with two WLMDs hard left and
right stage for outfills. Lip fills for the first
rows were handled by W8LCs stacked on
the subs at the corners of the stage.”
The rest of the FOH setup consisted
of a Midas Heritage 2000 console; Chevin
Research and Lab.Gruppen amplification;
a Klark-Teknik DN-370 Stereo 1/3 Octave
EQ and FDS-388 OMNIDRIVE; Drawmer
limiting and noise gates; an Eventide
H3000; TC Electronic D-2 Delay and a
Yamaha SPX-990 multi-effect system. A
Midas XL-88 matrix mixer was set up to
allow the FOH console outputs from visiting audio engineers to interface with
the seven sends required for the house
speaker system. For monitoring, RMB used
14 Martin Audio LE700 biamped wedges
for stage monitoring, along with two W8/
W8S enclosures as sidefills.
Asked about the engineers’ reactions,
Cannady enthuses, “All of the engineers
were really happy.”
Dorton Arena
Eugene Church Worships with New Processor
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The recently
constructed First Baptist Church, in Eugene, Ore., has adopted the new Dolby
Lake Processor, integrating two into
its audio system. Some of the features
introduced in the Lake Processor include the portal front-panel interface,
advanced converter design, Iso-Float
ground isolation, LimiterMax true-RMS
limiting and flexible hardware configuration options.
The two Dolby Lake Processors control a main speaker system composed of
18 L-Acoustic dV-DOSC boxes plus subs
and front fills at the 1,400-seat church.
Steve Diamond, AGI senior staff
member, designed the variable acoustics of the 2,500-square-foot thrust stage
to accommodate choir and band, large
orchestra or a contemporary worship
team. Church sound staff may alter any
parameter in the system from from anywhere in the sanctuary using a wireless
tablet. For example, when the choir shell
upstage is in use, one preset can apply
front fill speaker delay compensation to
eliminate the mismatching of acoustic
wavefronts. Another preset can increase
low-frequency information and drive the
subwoofers harder during services.
Stone Pony Gets
Sonic Upgrade
ASBURY PARK, NJ — Asbury Audio
recently provided the world-renowned
Stone Pony live music club with a 48channel APB-DynaSonics Spectra-T
mixing console in an upgrade to the
existing house sound reinforcement
system.
Over the past 30 years, the Stone
Pony has played host to Bruce Springsteen and legendary house band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. As
one of three clubs elected to the Rock ‘n’
Roll Hall of Fame, it’s still going strong
today, with Johnny Winter, Hoobastank
and Psychedelic Furs slated to take the
stage in coming weeks.
Asbury Audio, also located in Asbury Park and headed by Jason Dermer,
is the official audio provider for the
Stone Pony, which offers a capacity of
up to 2,000. The company rides over a
December 2006
Eugene, Ore. First Baptist Church’s worship area.
House of Worship
Workshop Announced
high-end sound system with numerous
components that now include the APBDynaSonics Spectra-T for use by all mix
engineers working the venue.
“For us, the first attraction of the
Spectra-T is its sound quality,” Dermer
explains.
The Spectra-T at Stone Pony replaces an older “name brand” large-format
mixing console, with Dermer doing a
great deal of homework before making his decision. Spectra-T won out in
the under $30,000 price range, and the
possibility of a digital console was not
even considered. “At this segment of the
market, which is mid-level touring and
installation, there are many engineers
who either haven’t learned to mix on a
digital surface or are just not comfortable with them,” Dermer says.
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA — Fits & Starts
Productions will bring a pair of its HowTo Church Sound Workshops to next
year’s NSCA Expo on Friday, March 16
and Saturday, March 17 at the Orange
County Convention Center in Orlando,
Fla. Offering applied, hands-on training
for anyone seeking to gain a better understanding of sound systems or considering a sound system upgrade, the
workshops will focus on both basic and
advanced techniques.
The How-To Church Sound Microphone Techniques Workshop will take
place on Friday, March 16 from 3-6 p.m.,
focusing on the proper choice and use
of microphones in a house of worship
environment. The How-To Church Sound
Workshop on Saturday, March 17 will
provide an overview of how to operate sound systems and record worship
services, the class will dive headlong
into topics including microphones and
inputs, mixing consoles, processors, amplifiers, loudspeakers and setup techniques.
Fits & Starts’ audio education programs are hosted at NYU, the Tempe
Conservatory, Institute of Audio Research and the Berklee College of Music,
among other places. The How-To Church
Sound Workshops train more than 1200
church members each year.
The cost for both workshops is $225,
and includes lunch as well as free admission to, and a guided tour of, the NSCA
Expo show floor. To attend Friday’s workshop only requires a fee of $65, while the
cost of Saturday’s workshop only is $195.
To register, call 800-446-6722 or visit
www.nscaexpo.org.
www.fohonline.com
12/1/06 6:24:03 PM
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12/1/06 1:43:31 AM
On The Move
Aviom has
announced the
appointment of
Jeffrey Lange as
product specialist. In his new
role, Lange will
expand
sales
efforts in the
Jeffrey Lange
Midwest region,
participating in industry events, training
seminars and product demonstrations. Aviom has also announced the appointment
of Cardone, Solomon & Associates (CS&A)
as its manufacturer’s representative in New
England and upstate New York.
CAD
Professional
Microphones and
Astatic
Commercial Audio
Products were
recently
acquired by FBC Investment Group,
a private equity
Brig Carr
firm in Chagrin
Falls, Ohio. Under the leadership of Omnitronics president Brig Carr, assisted by newly-ap-
pointed CAD and Astatic V.P. of sales Tony
O’Keefe, both brands will be undertaking
initiatives in terms of product development,
sales, marketing, and distribution.
division. Turiello will be responsible for sales,
marketing and business development within
the division.
S c o t t
Robbins has
been
promoted to the
position of
senior vice
president of
worldwide
sales
for
Crown InScott Robbins
ternational.
Robbins previously held the position of vice
president of worldwide sales for Crown.
Sennheiser
ElectronicCorporationhas appointed John Page to
the position of
industry team
leader – Music
Industry. Bob
Tamburri
has
also been addJohn Page
ed to the SEC
sales team. Brad Stephens has accepted
the dual position of national sales manager for Turbosound and southeast sales rep
for Neumann and distributed brands.
JBL Professional has announced the
appointment of Buzz Goodwin to the position of executive vice president of sales.
Effective immediately, Goodwin assumes
complete responsibility for the development and implementation of all worldwide
JBL Professional sales programs.
Panasonic System Solutions Co. has appointed Tony Turiello to the position of group
manager in their Corporate Systems Solutions
Shuttlesound
has appointed Neal
Allen representative to the customers of Electro-Voice
loudspeakers,
amplifiers, microphones and network solutions.
Symetrix
Inc. has appointed Paul Roberts
director of domestic and international sales.
Paul Roberts
To get listed in
On The Move send your info
to [email protected]
Neal Allen
International News
Chinese Cultural Center Revs Up Scissor Sisters Sharp On New Tour
DALIAN, CHINA — The Dalian Cultural
Center, located in Zhongshan Square in the
heart of the city, is one of the area’s more recent building projects. The center is the main
venue for the 2007 Dalian Art Festival, an event
organized by local government.
When bidding for this audio installation
project began, many engineers flew to Dalian
to compete. After several rounds of competition
and review, the decision-makers at the center
decided to work with Telex EVI China on the
project. The “Total System Solution” availed by
the integration of EV loudspeakers,amplification,
wired and wireless microphones, Midas mixing
consoles, Dynacord ProAnnounce paging and
emergency systems and RTS TW intercom.
At the input end of the signal chain, EV N/
D, RE and PolarChoice series microphones provide for live events and meetings. Midas Heritage 3000 and Legend 3000 mixing consoles
apply to both live performance and television
broadcast mixes.
The main sound reinforcement system
employs various delayed EV Xi boxes to ad-
The Dalian Cultural Center theatre
dress the space’s architectural nuances. The
system also incorporates Midas’ patented SIS
(Spatial Image System), EV RL-Series remote
controlled amps running IRIS system supervision and performance-monitoring software
and Klark Teknik signal processing.
RTS intercom and Dynacord paging/public address system products are integrated
with the sound reinforcement system. Not
only does the Dynacord ProAnnounce system
support background music and guest/staff information/paging, it is also integrated with the
house fire extinguishing system to alert visitors
with emergency messages and evacuation instructions in the event of a fire situation.
LIVERPOOL, UK — Liverpool-based ADLIB
Audio is supplying audio production for the
Scissor Sisters’ current UK arena tour, with
Dave Kay engineering at FOH and Ben Booker
on monitors.
Kay, Booker and the ADLIB team have
worked with the Scissor Sisters since they were
an eccentric poppy club band. Kay explained
how the band’s schedule since the launch of
the new Ta-Dah album in Trafalgar Square, in
September, meant they couldn’t attend all of
the production rehearsal period in Wakefield.
However, in terms of sound, they were replaced
by the “virtual” version — a series of recordings
produced during the U.S. tour.
Kay is touring the new Soundcraft Vi6
mixing console in parallel to his Soundcraft
Series 5. Running a Technical Earth Pink Pig
multi-track system and Metacorder software, he records a 64-channel MADI stream
each night via the Vi6. For the UK tour, Kay
specified a JBL VerTec line array system — 48
4889s, 32 in the main hangs and 16 for the
side hangs. The subs are ADLIB DF418s. The
VerTecs are driven by Camco Vortec 6 ampli-
fiers, with Crown VZ5002s on the subs.
Kay is using the Lake Contour DLP (Dolby Lake Processors) for system EQ, which
he tunes using a wireless tablet. There are
some dbx and BSS compressors, Drawmer
gates and outboard effects from TC, Yamaha and Lexicon.
The Vi6 is also being used to accommodate guest and opening bands, including Lily
Allen, The Guillemots and Gossip.
Onstage, Ben Booker has everyone, including the guitar and keyboard techs, on
Sennheiser G2 PMs, with the exceptions of
Jake Shears and the two brass players, who
prefer wedges. So Booker has sorted them out
with two pairs of ADLIB MP3s.
For side fills on the bigger stages, Booker’s
using two VerTec 4888s flat on the floor. There
are also a couple of ADLIB double 18 subs. Both
singers use Sennheiser G2500 radio mics with
an 845 capsule, and BabyDaddy’s has a 935
capsule. Booker uses a Yamaha PM5D console
for the monitor mix. There’s a dbx drive rack
processing the ADLIB wedges and XTA DP428s
on the side fills.
Hauptbahnhof Station Rumbles To Life
BERLIN — The opening celebration for the
new Berlin Hauptbahnhof, a train station more
than 900 feet long, included performances by
German bands and a multimedia event entitled
“Symphony of Lights – Welcome to Berlin.” More
than half a million spectators filed in to see the
new station.
To ensure that the crowd heard all of the music and announcements, a distributed system of
more than 300 self-powered Meyer Sound loudspeakers was supplied by German rental company Procon, with additional systems coming from
London-based Capital Sound.On the left and right
of the stage were arrays of 15 MILO curvilinear array loudspeakers, to which were added 10 650-P
high-power subwoofers set up in front of the
stage for bass support and configured to produce
a kidney-shaped coverage pattern.
10
December 2006
200.0612.10-12.INT_OTM_NG.indd 10
The system also included 19 towers fitted
with Meyer Sound loudspeakers. The 30-acre area
itself was actually split into two sections separated
by the Spree River, each with its own FOH station,
which functioned autonomously, though linked
together via optical waveguide delay lines and
conventional copper wire.The digital audio source
signals were sent to the FOH stations via Yamaha
DM2000 mixing boards and rack-mounted processors, then routed to the various towers with
appropriate delay times.
The last line of delay towers, which covered
most of the southern area, consisted of five positions, each with six M3D line array loudspeakers
and two CQ-1 wide coverage main loudspeakers
for near-field coverage. System designer and technician Thomas Mundorf designated that three stations be installed on the other side of the river to
cover the promenade on the edge of the southern
area. Each station was equipped with three MSL-6
horn-loaded high-Q main loudspeakers and four
DS-2P horn-loaded mid-bass loudspeakers, while
four M3D-Sub directional subwoofers were placed
on the lower river promenade.
Eleven towers placed across from the stage
provided sound for the area north of the Spree
River surrounding the square in front of the train
station.The various towers held different combinations of MILO cabinets, 650-P subwoofers, UPA-1P
compact wide coverage units, MSL-4 horn-loaded
long-throw loudspeakers and DS-4P horn-loaded
mid-bass loudspeakers.All of the MILO arrays were
controlled using LD-3 compensating line drivers and CP-10 complementary phase parametric
equalizers.
Mundorf also used MAPP Online Pro acousti-
cal prediction software to help with determining
the delay times needed for the individual towers.
The music coming through the audio system was provided by live musicians, but for the
“Symphony of Lights,” a digital audio workstation
provided multi-channel audio. Stereo effects were
played as the trains rolled into the station from opposite directions; a third channel played musical
favorites from classical to pop, and a fourth channel played a heartbeat to underscore a series of
images projected on a video screen.
Meyer speakers hang in the “Symphony
of Lights” presentation.
www.fohonline.com
12/1/06 1:49:26 AM
200.0612.Ads.indd 11
12/1/06 1:44:24 AM
New Gear
Powersoft Audio USA K-Series DSP
Audio-Technica AT-MX381 SmartMixer
The K-Series DSP, from Powersoft Audio USA, Inc., is a processing system, incorporating both
IIR and FIR filters, enabling parametric control and phase response tuning of individual loudspeakers or systems under zone management. It
carries 10 bands of parametric EQ, aymmetrical
or asymmetrical crossover filters in 6dB/octave
increments through 48dB with Bessel, Butterworth and Linkwitz-Reilly filters. The Sharc-based
DSP is a 40-bit floating-point processor. In addition, there is also dynamics processing on-board
with a “look ahead” limiter function. The unit allows for AES/EBU digital I/O through one of the
K-Series rear panel XLR inputs, allowing a full
digital audio path from console to amplifier.
Audio-Technica’s new AT-MX381 SmartMixer is able to work with both analog and digital
operation and allows control of basic functions — like gain and level settings for each channel — from the SmartMixer’s front panel. Control more detailed settings via computer with
included software. The SmartMixer is intended for
meetings, courtrooms, classrooms, distance learning and worship services. Features include eight
balanced mic/line inputs with EQ, 48V phantom
power (individually selectable), NOMA circuitry
(helps control feedback), selectable manual mode,
linking capability for 16 units (up to 128 microphones), RS232 data port provides a connection
point for a PC running SmartMixer Software, and
it is compatible with Crestron and AMX systems.
Powersoft Audio USA, Inc. • 973.785.2005 • www.powersoft-audio.com
Audio-Technica • 330.686.2600 • www.audio-technica.com
WorxAudio V8-PMD1 Powered Touring Line Array
DiGiCo D5T12
WorxAudio’s V8-PMD1 Powered Touring Line Array is a two-way line array loudspeaker—
with integrated power and DSP capabilities — designed for corporate/industrial, theatre, medium concert reproduction, theatrical musical events and A/V production. The V8-PMD1 incorporates a three-inch voice coil compression driver coupled to a proprietary FlatWave Former
wave shaping device. Dual eight-inch transducers are coupled to the Acoustic Intergrading
Module (A.I.M.) and the enclosure is constructed from multi-ply Baltic Birch and is braced for
rigidity. Outside the enclosure is a multi-layered, catalyzed polyurethane finish that is available
in dark gray or black. A 14-guage, perforated, cloth-backed, powder-coated steel grill surrounds
the transducer complement. The V8-PMD1 also utilizes black anodized, aluminum TrueAim
rigging hardware with one-degree.
Housed in the rear of the enclosure.
The PMD1 amp pumps out 500 watts
for the low frequencies and 250 watts
for the highs plus a mute switch for
each output, a detented volume control, an XLR transformer with isolated
I/O and AC PowerCon. MSRP $6,822.
The DiGiCo D5T12 includes a 72 buss DSP engine, a 32 x 32 matrix, 41 fader surface and
up to 128 channels with dynamics processing or 96 channels with onboard effects. The console measures 58.43” W x 34.17” D. First introduced with Version 2 software on the D5 Live, the
D5T also can configure multi-console setups to share common I/O within a redundant fiber
loop, with remote control and console mirroring. The optional DiGiTRACS hard disk multitrack recorder is a 56-track
record/playback system, which allows audio playback, settings storage and show recording. Key features include dynamics processing with side chain EQ; up to 240ms of delay; four bands of parametric EQ, high and low pass filters;
72 user-assignable busses; 32 x 32 output matrix; group
outputs each with delay, six bands of parametric EQ and
compressor; and pre-equalizer group outputs for use by
measurement systems such as SIM; illuminated Next/Previous Cue buttons; off-line DiGiCo Cue Composer Show Programming software; user definable I/O specification and
on-board digital effects. MSRP: POA
WorxAudio Technologies • 336.275.7474 • www.worxaudio.com
DiGiCo • 877.292.1623 • www.digiconsoles.com
Digidesign Mbox 2 Mini
EAW UX8800 Digital Processor
Remember when a two-track board tape was actually recorded on tape? Does anyone even
still have a cassette player in the rack? As live audio gets increasingly digital, more FOH guys
are doing board tapes on their laptops, and the Digidesign Mbox 2 Mini is a nice way to get the
audio into that laptop. This USB-powered Pro Tools LE system is the newest and smallest member of the Mbox 2 family. Powered by Pro Tools LE software, the Mbox 2 Mini ships with a set
of creation tools that you can play with on long bus drives, including DigiRack plug-ins, Bomb
Factory plug-ins, the Xpand! sample-playback/synthesis workstation and the Pro Tools Ignition Pack, which
contains a collection of creation tools from Ableton,
Propellerhead Software, IK Multimedia and Broadjam.
com. Features include two simultaneous analog inputs
and outputs, USB power (USB cable included), frontpanel volume control and monitor mute switch, stereo
headphone output, 48V phantom power and a Kensington Security Lock in case there are any sticky fingers around the console if you know what we mean...
$329 U.S. MSRP.
The EAW UX8800 digital processor provides KF760 and KF730 line arrays and AX Series
loudspeakers with access to Gunness Focusing technology. Gunness Focusing corrects the
sonic shortcomings inherent in horn-loaded systems to provide sonic performance comparable to direct radiating studio monitors. In addition to providing the algorithms necessary
to deploy Gunness Focusing to high-output EAW systems, such as the KF760 and KF730, the
UX8800 also offers system processor settings for those products, allowing for consistency between various EAW systems.
Digidesign • 800.333.2137 • www.digidesign.com
Eastern Acoustic Works • 508.234.6158 • www.eaw.com
International News
Pilgrims Descend on Berlin
BERLIN — Preparations for the “Stadtkirchenfest” in Berlin, an ecumenical gathering of more than 170 Christian and Orthodox groups and communities, as well as
welfare organizations and action groups,
were in the hands of the Berlin-Brandenburg Ecumenical Council, in cooperation
with the Diocesan Council of the Archdiocese of Berlin. To handle the technical side
of the festival, the Council called in Clemens
Müller, freelance production manager and
sound engineer.
The south side of Berlin’s AlexanderPlatz was the main venue, although it is
directly adjacent to residential neighborhoods. For this reason, Berlin’s Public Order
12
December 2006
200.0612.10-12.INT_OTM_NG.indd 12
Office set a volume limit of 63dB, measurable at a distance of approximately 270 meters in front of the stage and 100 meters at
the side behind the stage.
The festival required a normal concert PA system for the area in front of the
stage (approx. 50 meters) and a separate
system for announcements during the
performances in the rear section (about
50-110 meters).
The main PA consisted of nine GEO D10
cabinets and three GEO D subs arrayed on
each side of the stage, aligned to provide
coverage to about 65 meters from the stage.
The delay system was made up of two hangs
of eight GEO S805s per side, and was flown
about 55 meters in front of the stage on tip
towers. In addition, four L-ACOUSTICS MTD
112s were used for the near fill and center
cluster. The equipment at the main mixer
position included a Yamaha PM5D console
and a Yamaha DME 24.
Sascha Richter was in charge of the
monitor position, using a Midas XL340, six
BSS FCS960s and 14 LE400 wedge monitors
from Martin Audio onstage.
The design proposals for the sound system were drawn up by PAM/events Gesellschaft für Veranstaltungstechnik mbH, with
the support of Reinhard Steger from CAMCOkk GmbH and freelance sound engineer
Ralph Metzler.
One of the NEXO arrays
at Stadtkirchenfest.
www.fohonline.com
12/1/06 6:22:28 PM
These companies made this event, and the opportunity to educate
the next generation of live event professionals, possible.
Gold
Sponsors
Silver
Sponsors
100.0612.25.ParnelliAD.indd 13
12/1/06 5:50:07 PM
By KevinMitchell
Photos by LisaMarieHall
O
n a perfect Las Vegas evening, a recordbreaking audience gathered in a Venetian Hotel Ballroom to pay tribute to the
very best of the year in our annual “Oscars of the
Live Event Industry” affair.
“When you think about it, it’s against our very
nature to attend an event like this,” observed
master of ceremonies and president of Timeless
Communications Terry Lowe during the ceremony’s opening moments. “We tend to be the kind
that shuns the spotlight. We’d rather be pointing
it. We’d rather EQ than speak into a mic.”
With that disclaimer noted, a few laughs had
and the announcement of the PLSN/FOH/Parnelli Scholarship to the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas, the ceremony began.The star-studded list
of those handing out the awards included Carol
Dodd, Buford Jones, Marilyn Lowey, Michael Tait,
Nook Schoenfeld, among many others. Toby
Keith’s tour was a big winner, garnering three
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Jeremiah “Jere” Harris
• Audio Innovator Award: Bill Hanley
• Production Manager of the Year: Dale “Opie” Skjerseth for his
work with the Rolling Stones.
• Tour Manager of the Year: David Milam, for his work with the
Toby Keith tour.
• Lighting Designer of the Year: Steve Cohen, for his work with
the Billy Joel tour.
• Lighting Company of the Year: Bandit Lites
• Regional Lighting Company of the Year: Delicate Productions.
• Set Designer of the Year: Bruce Rodgers for his work with
the Rascal Flatts tour.
• Staging Company of the Year: Brown United
Parnellis; other tours and events recognized include the Rolling Stones, Rascal Flatts, Billy Joel
and Tool.
Longtime Bill Hanley fan Dave Shadoan of
Sound Image introduced the Hanley tribute
video highlighting the life of this great, influential
man who was honored with the Sound Innovator Award. A visibly moved Hanley took the stage,
thanking his family, most of whom were in attendance. PRG’s vice president Darren DaVerna took
the stage in another highlight and spoke of Lifetime Achievement Honoree Jere Harris’ relatively
young, but inspiring career. Harris, who had many
friends, family and coworkers in attendance, gave
thanks to his parents, family and all those who
worked with and for him over the years.
There were two new awards handed out
this year: Video Rental Company of the Year and
Sound Designer of the Year.
• Video Director of the Year: Breckinridge Haggerty, for his
work with Tool.
• Video Rental Company of the Year: Screenworks NEP
• Pyro Company of the Year: Pyrotek Special Effects
• FOH Mixer of the Year: Dirk Durham, for his work with the
Toby Keith tour.
• Monitor Mixer of the Year: Earl Neal, for his work with the
Toby Keith tour.
• Sound Designer of the Year: Mick Potter, for his work on
Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular.
• Sound Company of the Year: Sound Image
• Regional Sound Company of the Year: Clearwing Productions
• Coach Company of the Year: Hemphill Brothers Coach Company
• Set Construction Company of the Year: All Access
• Trucking Company of the Year: Upstaging
• Rigging Company of the Year: Branam West Coast
• Freight Forwarding Company of the Year: Rock-It Cargo
The 2006 Parnelli Awards were made possible by Timeless Communications and its sponsors. Gold Sponsors: All Access;
the Harman Group: AKG, BSS Audio, Crown, dbx, JBL and Soundcraft; Martin Professional and Precise Corporate Staging.
Silver Sponsors: ASI, Apollo, Brown United, Littlite, PRG, Rock-It Cargo and Sound Image.
The 2007 Parnelli Awards will be held in conjunction with LDI in Orlando.
A shot of the pre-show Cocktail party, featuring a reunion of Showlites
employees.
1/2 JR. HORIZONTAL AD
The awards banquet, with stage in the background.
14
December 2006
200.0612.14-15.parnelli.indd 14
www.fohonline.com
12/1/06 4:18:28 PM
Money will help fund new entertainment technology program
President of Timeless Communication, publisher of PLSN, FOH, and now
Stage Directions magazine, Terry Lowe, announced at the Parnelli Awards Dinner the launching of a one-of-a-kind Entertainment Engineering and Design
program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the Parnelli/PLSN/FOH
Scholarship Fund that will be supporting it.
“We have sought and received advice and support from the industry leaders and the response has been overwhelming,” Joe Aldridge, UNLV’s head of
the Entertainment Engineering program, said from the Parnelli podium early
in the evening. “The establishment of the Parnelli/PLSN/FOH Scholarship is evi- Joe Aldridge of UNLV, announcing the
new Parnelli/PLSN/FOH Scholarship
dence of that support.”
Aldridge explained that the goal of the program, which will be a degree program in both the Colleges
of Engineering and Fine Arts, will admit its first students in the fall of 2007 and will offer a curriculum including elements from Mechanical, Civil and Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Art, Architecture,
Film, Music and Theatre.
“The goal is to find a way to address a growing need in the entertainment industry for a new breed of
students who would be well-versed in engineering principles while understanding the artistic demands
of the entertainment industry,” Aldridge said. “We sincerely appreciate Timeless Communications, and the
Parnelli Awards and its sponsors, for investing in the future of students in the Entertainment Engineering
and Design program.”
Bill Hanley, offering a few remarks after accepting the Audio
Innovator Award.
Jeff Lissaman of dbx accepted the awards on behalf of Dirk
Durham (FOH mixer of the Year) and Earl Neal (Monitor Mixer of
the Year); neither could attend because of their work on Toby
Keith’s Tour, both sent their thanks via video.
Gregg Brunclik (L) and Brian Koerner of Clearwing Productions,
posing with their award for Regional Sound Company of the
wlites
Dave Shadoan with his trademark Hawaiian shirt and award for
Sound Company of the Year for his own Sound Image.
200.0612.14-15.parnelli.indd 15
12/1/06 4:19:05 PM
Showtime
94.1 JJO Bandcamp 2006
Venue
Willow Island, Madison, WI
Crew
Sound Co/Provider: Intellasound Productions
FOH Engineer: Tim Woodworth
Monitor Engineer: Rufus Peterson
Systems Engineer: Shay McElwain
Production Manager: David Maier
System Tech: Bryan Schalburg
Gear
Amps: EV TG
Processing: XTA DP226
Mics: Shure, AKG, Sennheiser
Power Distro: Motion Labs
Rigging: Stageline SL-250
MON
Console: Midas XL-250
Speakers: Turbosound TFM-300, Floodlight
Amps: QSC PL236, PL 4.0
Processing: XTA DP226, QSC DSP-4
FOH
Console: Midas XL 200
Speakers: EV XLC 127+
Latin Grammy Street Party
Venue
Gear
Miami, FL
FOH
Console: Yamaha M7CL
Speakers: Meyer MICA, Meyer 700-HP,
Meyer UPA-1P
Processing: Galileo 616
Rigging: CM motors
Crew
Sound Co/Provider: Pete Diaz Productions
FOH Engineer: Frank Martinez
Monitor Engineer: Gilberto Morejon
Systems Engineer: Jair Alzate
Production Manager: Pete Diaz
System Techs: Alex Cutura, Ed DeSantos, Michel Catalan
MON
Console: Yamaha M7CL
Speakers: Meyer UM-1P, Meyer PSM-2,
Meyer MSL-4 & 650-P
Harvestmoon 2006 - MXPX, Blindside
Venue
Gear
Heritage Amphitheatre, Edmonton, AB., CAN
FOH
Console: Midas Verona 480
Speakers: 8 EV Xi1152s, 8 EAW SB850s
Amps: Carver PT2400
Processing: dbx Drive Rack, TC D-Two, M-OneXL,
Yamaha SPX900, REV500, dbx 900, Aphex 612
Crew
Sound
Ligh
ting
Staging
Sound Co/Provider: Axe Productions INC.
FOH Engineer: Chase Tower, BE - Tommy Rat (MXPX)
Monitor Engineer: Brad Warchuk
Systems Engineer: Chase Tower
Production Manager: Kelly Kimo
System Techs: Chris Feltmate
BOOKSHELF
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December 2006
200.0612.16-17.SHOW.indd 16
MON
Console: Yamaha PM2800
Speakers: 10 Woodworx 1.5Maxes, Shure PSM700s
Amps: Yamaha
Processing: dbx drive rack, dbx 2231 EQ
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12/1/06 4:32:35 PM
Dashboard Confessional
Venue
Gear
University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM5D RH
Speakers: EV X-line
Amps: EV P3000
Processing: PM5D RH onboard
Mics: Sennheiser, Shure, Neumann
Crew
Sound Co/Provider: Festival Sound and Lighting
FOH Engineer: Mike Fanuele/Bill Josten
Monitor Engineer: Jimmy Loud
Systems Engineer: Tom “Sticks” Leonard
Production Manager: Tim Lamb
System Techs: Matt Wertz
MON
Console: Yamaha PM5D RH
Speakers: EAW, JBL SRX 700 series
Amps: Crown Macrotech
Processing: PM5D RH onboard
Neal McCoy
Venue
Processing: XTA
Mics: EV
Power Distro: 3-phase 200-amp
Amarillo, TX Coliseum
Crew
Sound Co/Provider: LD systems
FOH Engineer/Production Manager: Steve “Sonny” Taylor
Systems Engineer: Billy
Tour Manager: Les Martines
Gear
MON
Console: Digidesign
Speakers: Sennheiser PMs
Amps: Crown MA5000/MA3600
Processing: XTA
Mics: EV
Power Distro: 3-phase 200-amp
FOH
Console: Digidesign VENUE
Speakers: EV line array
Amps: Crown MA5000/MA3600/MA2400
To get your event
listed in
Showtime,
visit
Venue
Vintage Vinyl, Fords, NJ
Systems Engineer: Mike Kurczski
System Techs: Dan Seeth, Thomas Bishop
Processing: QSC Basis
Mics: Shure
Crew
Gear
MON
Console: Yamaha PM5D
Speakers: EAW SM-15, KF695 side fills
Amps: QSC
Sound Co/Provider: JK Audio
FOH Engineer: Dave Rousch
Monitor Engineer: Mark Ortez
FOH
Console: Soundcraft MH3-40
Speakers: QSC ISIS Wideline
Amps: QSC PL-6
Ad info: http://foh.hotims.com
www.fohonline.com/
showtime
My Chemical Romance Record Promo
www.fohonline.com
200.0612.16-17.SHOW.indd 17
December 2006
17
12/1/06 4:33:50 PM
On Broadway
W
ORKING IN A
IRELESS WONDERLAND
Tom Clark makes sure the Grinch doesn’t steal any
frequencies in this holiday extravaganza.
A
lready a classic children’s book and animated television program, Dr. Seuss’
How The Grinch Stole Christmas! also
became a hit movie with Jim Carrey and a
popular musical theatre production that has
run seasonally in San Diego for eight years
in a row. Now, Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole
Christmas! The Musical is tantalizing Broadway
in its first holiday run. The Grinch team does a
great job of replicating the look of the book,
collecting a good ensemble cast, and delivering a charismatic Grinch (Patrick Page). Sound
designer Tom Clark, one of the powerful triumvirate that is Acme Sound Partners, took
on the show without having been involved
with the original production. He treated The
Grinch as if it was a brand new show. The 70minute production moves quickly but does
not overwhelm the audience, nor does the
unobtrusive, but well-layered, sound design.
“They are pretty much constantly putting batteries in, or taking batteries
out of, transmitters, from 9:30 in the
morning until 9:00 at night.” –Tom Clark
Q What were the biggest challenges for
you on this show, which features a stage
cut into three sections — one main area
and two side sets?
A Tom Clark: That was probably it, I suppose. The playing area is very wide compared
to what we normally come across. We were
able to actually take the sonic image over
towards the side of the stage when the action was centered on a piece off to the side.
Beyond that it’s actually a relatively similar
set-up to most other musicals. It included an
orchestra in the pit, so there’s a source there
to work from, and we had pretty good mic positions on everybody. The costumes, although
they’re quite spectacular, don’t center around
headpieces for the most part. Hats on people
were not such a big deal on the show.
Photos: Paul Kolnik
reeds are all on 4021s, except for the baritone
sax, which is on a Neumann U89. The percussion is mostly KM184s and 414s with a U89
on the timpani. The rest are keyboard inputs.
The upright bass is on a Barcus Berry pick-up
and a DPA 4041, which is tacked on a piece of
foam and stuck in the tail piece.
Q There are extravagant costumes and
hairpieces on stage. Do you worry about
ruffling with the costumes or the hair?
A We actually have no issues whatsoever.
We had an extremely good relationship with
both the hair and wardrobe departments,
and we got together with them quite early
and were able to work out good scenarios
before the actors ever got to the theatre.
Those things have worked out happily for us.
We had almost no issues of any kind related
to costumes.
Q Are you using any ambient or floor mics?
A No, we have no foot mics on the show.
is also a constant in the Acme approach, and
wearing Sennheiser SK-5012 transmitters. The
orchestra pit microphones are based primarily on DPA as well. Probably the oddest thing
that we’re doing is miking the drum kit with
just three microphones. It’s a pair of DPA 4006
Omnis with something that DPA calls a Nose
Q Do you worry about Patrick Page sweating a lot in the Grinch costume?
A He does, but his mics are all on the outside of the costume, so it’s really not a problem. He wears a full headpiece that the mic
cable is woven into the outside of, and his
Q How many inputs are you running for
this show?
A We have 30 wireless, about 50 or so orchestra and 12 channels of sound effects
inputs. Then we have reverbs and other outboard gear.
200.0612.18-19broad.indd 18
Q What other mics do you have in the pit?
A The brass are all on 4006s or 4007s. The
Q What mics are you using on the actors?
A The actors are all using DPA 4061s, which
ever we have a budget that will support it. It
has become the desk that we specify for the
majority of our shows.
December 2006
Cone on the front of them. They’re tucked in
on either side of the rack toms, then a 4021
for kick drum, and that’s all the miking there
is for the kit. The combination provides a very
realistic picture of what’s going on in a way
that I’m just not accustomed to getting with
multiple microphones, with a full mic-perdrum complement.
Basically, we’re betting the ranch on our wireless system working. The Grinch and the two
Maxes, the two “dogs,” are all wearing double
rigs, and we’re basically very comfortable with
the reliability of the gear. It’s a big enough
house that foot miking would be marginally
successful anyway. During the solo number
Cindy Lou Who has midway through the
show, she is wearing two rigs for that scene,
so if she were to go down we can shore her
up. Otherwise, everybody in the cast has been
told that if they get a strong sense that their
microphone is not working, they should find
a close friend to get near to, and we’ll try to
pick them up on that person.
The backstage crew is exceptional in the
Hilton Theatre. They are constantly listening ahead to make sure that nobody walks
onstage with a mic that is not working, and
the means by which the microphones are attached to the actors and to their costumes are
such that we’re getting pretty good at reducing the strain that takes place on the delicate
parts of the rig, which are at either end of the
wire. I’m sure from time to time there will be
an issue, but to my knowledge we have only
had one microphone that misbehaved anyway onstage, and that happened to be on a
person who was wearing two rigs, so we were
able to switch to the backup very rapidly. Nobody knew the difference.
Q What kind of console are you running?
A We’re sticking with the DiGiCo D5T when-
18
By BryanReesman
www.fohonline.com
12/1/06 1:51:51 AM
“Basically, we’re betting the ranch on our
wireless system working.” –Tom Clark
Q What outboard gear are you using?
A All the sound effects are being gener-
ated by SFX, which is the standard for us.
There are three reverbs on the show; three
digital reverb or delay type devices. There’s
a System 6000 from TC Electronic, which
provides surround reverb for the orchestra
primarily, although occasionally for the vocals as well. There’s an M3000 for the vocal
reverb, and there’s an Eventide Eclipse that
takes care of a couple of live echo effects. I
think the loudspeaker rig is the thing that
is the most different, although in recent
days it is not that different. The only speakers on the proscenium are LDS line array
columns, which are combinations of eight
seven-inch, low frequency drivers and
eight ribbon, high frequency drivers — a
“planar magnetic driver” they call it. These
columns, which are built from cabinets
that are about 13 inches square, are 22 feet
tall and are hiding behind some Christmas
trees on either side of the stage.
It harks back to a very old style of technology that was in use around the time
that a lot of us started working on Broadway, but taken to a 21st century degree in
terms of engineering and development.
The speakers are very high fidelity. They
get very loud but stay very clean, and are
almost completely immune to feedback.
There’s a section of a scene that takes place
under full amplification that is literally one
foot directly in front of the house left proscenium loudspeakers, and we have not
ever had a feedback issue with that location or any other using these boxes. We’re
now using them on The Drowsy Chaperone
and A Chorus Line. We’ve become very enamored of them, because of their small
profile and their high fidelity, for shows
that are not loud, for shows that are more
natural in terms of the reinforcement that
is done for the orchestra.
two or three live echoes during the course
of the play — the Grinch’s first entrance
and three different sleigh rides, only one of
which you see. Those are all pre-recorded to
allow the Grinch himself to take care of running around backstage to get from scene
to scene. At 70 minutes, there are 22 scenes
in the show, so it moves along at a pretty
good clip.
Q Where does the sound for the puppets
come from?
A That’s the ensemble cast, and they’re
singing offstage.
Q Do you worry about sound from moving lights or effects machines interfering with your mics, especially given how
much is going on technologically with
this show?
A We spent a good deal of time in pre-production checking all sorts of things out. There’s
a very complex, LED-based part/effect in the
Grinch’s costume, when he finally sees the
light, realizes that he might be a Who, too, and
his heart grows three sizes in one day. It’s a
quite elaborate and very expensive LED light
array, and we did two different sets of tests,
one in their shop and another one at the theatre, before the actor put it on, to verify that his
transmitters would not be adversely affected
by the effects. And sure enough, they’re not.
By now, we’re getting so used to having wireless devices of various kinds be a part of the
scenery and lighting systems that we spend a
good bit of time in pre-production coordinating the frequency usage and making sure that
nobody is just churning out obscene amounts
of transmission energy in a way that would
adversely affect us. The Sennheiser gear is really good at paying attention to the frequencies that it is supposed to be paying attention
to and no others. I guess it’s a combination of
good gear and careful preproduction work
and a fair amount of good luck.
Q Is the same live engineer running all
12 shows every week?
A Paul Verrity, who is the excellent front
of house mixer, will probably end up operating every performance. On Saturdays
and Sundays the crew does it four and
three times, respectively, so they’re getting two catered meals a day, and are
pretty much constantly putting batteries
in, or taking batteries out of, transmitters,
from 9:30 in the morning until 9:00 at
night without a break.
www.fohonline.com
200.0612.18-19broad.indd 19
Q Are other microphones woven into other actors’ costumes?
A No. The transmitters themselves are rarely on the bodies of the actors. They all have
these kind of big, puffy, pillow-like things that
they wear, and they built pouches into those.
But everybody else is in a typical head rig,
and the fact of the matter is that, although
it’s a very active show, the dancing in it is not
hugely athletic. They’re not building up a big
sweat for the most part.
Q How much reverb do you use?
A Most of it is actually track, but there are
transmitters are built into the padding of the
costume, in a place that doesn’t get problems
with moisture.
December 2006
19
12/1/06 1:52:42 AM
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Illustrations by Tony Gleeson
100.0612.20.poem.indd 20
12/1/06 2:08:08 AM
200.0612.Ads.indd 21
12/1/06 1:45:12 AM
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By Jacob
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P
Jessica Hird
Greg Looper (R) discusses the VENUE with
Pearl Jam’s FOH mixer, Greg Nelson (L).
Jessica Hird
Black Crowes at Vegoose
Tom Petty at Vegoose
Jessica Hird
The Goose Is Loose
Production Profile
22
December 2006
200.0612.22-23.ProProVEG.indd 22
roduced over the course of the Halloween weekend, the Vegoose music
festival in Las Vegas, Nev., featured
jam bands, punk bands, fringe bands and
mainstream headliners spread out over
three days and the city of Vegas. Bands
such as Widespread Panic and the String
Cheese Incident played out in late night
gigs at clubs closer to the casinos [Interview
with Chris Raboid And Brad Blettenberg of
Widespread Panic is on page 26 –ed.], while
the main show was concentrated on the
grounds of Sam Boyd stadium in the city’s
southwest corner.
Although it’s only been around for two
years, Vegoose is produced by the same
team that does Bonnaroo, Superfly productions with A.C. Entertainment, who
apparently decided they’d like to spend a
weekend in Vegas as well as a week in the
Tennessee wilderness in the rain. This didn’t
bother the folks over at Eighth Day Sound,
who provided the sound reinforcement for
the main stage. Owen Orzack and his crew
supplied the stacks and racks for Double
Down stage, while J.D. Brill and Clair/
Soundworx supplied the gear for the other
three stages.
The Saturday night headliner was Tom
Petty and the Heartbreakers, playing their
last show on their “Last DJ” tour. The tour
was also the last one for longtime Petty
FOH mixer Robert Scoville, who left the tour
after its first leg. Brian Hendry, who’s been
mixing monitors for Petty and the Heartbreakers for about 12 years, stuck around
for the whole tour, and his longevity in the
Petty camp lends itself to some extraordinary trust onstage.
“Tom’s not sound-checked for two years
now,” Hendry says. “Even at the start of this
tour. First gig, Tom didn’t sound-check.”
But it goes even further than that. With
the introduction of the Pro Tools VENUE
system to the tour, none of the band has
sound-checked since the first couple shows.
Pro Tools engineer Greg Looper records every show, using a PFL of all tracks coming
to FOH and records that straight to disk,
those unedited tracks are then used for
sound check.
“We take it straight off the top,” Looper
says. “So no EQing or programmed cues go
to tape; it’s straight off the pre’s. It makes it
easier for our recording engineer, because
he doesn’t have to undo anything that we
do. When we do sound checks, the tracks
come right back to the same channel, so
whatever we’re doing is already there.”
Doesn’t that make anyone on the crew
a little nervous?
“If you think about it, it’s actually better than getting a band up there just to
do a sound check,” Looper says. “Because
they’re never gonna play the exact same
way when you have 20,000 people in front
of you. There’s an adrenaline rush, so you’re
gonna play.”
With the exception of some outboard
Lake processing gear, all FOH processing
takes place in the VENUE, which is pretty
remarkable considering the fact that as
recently as three years ago the Petty camp
was still a hardcore analog crew. And even
with his “wicked” DiGiCo D5 mixing monitors, Hendry is still unwilling to completely
give up the analog vibe.
“The way the D5 is laid out,” Hendry
says, “For me, monitor-board wise, it’s a lot
more like an analog-type layout, you know,
user-friendly.” And in a festival situation,
where change-over happens in 20 minutes,
www.fohonline.com
12/1/06 1:15:41 AM
DOUBLE DOWN
STAGE GEAR
FOH
2
1
1
5
1
1
1
2 Ch.
4 Ch.
4 Ch.
MON
DiGiCo D5
Yamaha O1V
TC Electronic EQ Station
as Matrix mixer
Dolby Lake system control & EQ
TC Electronic M6000
Eventide H3000
TC Electronic 2290
Avalon 737
dbx 160SL
Summit DCL200 Tube Compression
4 Ch.
32
12
6
18
6
8
3
2
XTA GQ600
1/3 Octave EQ
L-ACOUSTICS V-DOSC Elements
d&b J sub (flown)
L-ACOUSTICS dV-DOSC
Elements (stacked)
d&b audiotechnik B2
d&b audiotechnik Q7/C7
Lab.Gruppen amps
CM 1-Ton Chain Hoists
CM 2-Ton Chain Hoists
NEXO PS10
2
32 Ch 2
12 Ch 12 Ch
16
2
2
4
Midas Heritage 3000
TC Electronic
EQ Station
Yamaha SPX- 990 Digital
Multi-Effects Processor
Aphex 612 Noise Gates
dbx 1066
d&b audiotechnik M2 (monitors)
d&b audiotechnik C7 (drum fill)
d&b audiotechnik Q sub (drum fill)
d&b audiotechnik C4 top (sidefills)
8
4
2
4
1
d&b audiotechnik C4 low (sidefills)
Shure UHF handheld w/ Beta
58 capsules
350’ 48-Channel Snake w/ KlarkTeknik DN1288 active splitter
d&b audiotechnik E9/E3
(Shout system)
Shure PSM-600
“Tom’s not
sound-checked
for two
years now.”
–Brian Hendry
JUNIOR FULL PAGE AD
Ad info:http:// foh.hotims.com
with no time for a full line check, ease of
use counts for a lot. Of course, none of
this stops him from taking advantage of
all the extra power available on a digital board. Because of the stage setup at
Vegoose, Hendry only had about 8 by 12
feet of space for monitor world. At times
like that he’s grateful for all the on-board
gates, compressors and effects. An analog board, with a sidecar for all the extra
inputs and the racks of outboard gear
never would have fit in that space. It’s a
definite advantage to be able to add half
a dozen guest artists on top of your seventy-odd inputs and not have to worry
about where to fit the sidecar.
“Figure out where you want the new
inputs, put ‘em in, nuke the channels up,
switch them around, do what you want
to,” he says. In this way he was able to
accommodate Stevie Nicks and crew
when she joined Tom Petty onstage at a
recent show.
Even with all this digital gear making
life easier, you still need to be at the top
of your game. Mics need to checked, levels set, and live is still live.
“Everyone should run through the
whole system, except on occasions like
this, where you’re time limited.” Hendry
says. “So when the band starts is still the
most exciting time. You’re at some big
festival when something goes out on
you, and you say, ‘OK, boys, let’s go.’ I dig
that.”
There weren’t any problems with
Petty’s show at Vegoose, but there was
plenty to dig. With multiple venues, four
stages and truckloads of gear, Vegoose
certainly seems to have gotten the “big
festival” part down cold.
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200.0612.22-23.ProProVEG.indd 23
December 2006
23
12/1/06 1:24:55 AM
The Mystère audio crew (L-R): Dave Robertson, Jacob Pennywell, Brandon Andreaser
Mystère’s FOH Engineer, Dave Robertson
Scenes from Mystère
By NortJohnson
I
n the relatively complex audio world
of live performance theatre and nontouring based performances, Meyer
Sound has emerged as the loudspeaker
of choice. But in the late ‘80s, it was a different story. In the late ‘80s, CD players
were just taking hold, iPods were sciencefiction conceits and the Rolling Stones
were the biggest touring act out there.
OK, so that last one hasn’t changed, but
just about everything else in the world of
live audio has. Got digital?
So imagine the blow-by-blow when
FOH decided to visit the longest-running
Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, Mystère, at Treasure Island, and the gear list
was revealed: Electro-Voice MT, DML, Midas, Crown — most of the gear older than
some of our younger readers, and not a
lick of digital.
Cirque’s been touring internationally with a live show since their first trip
to America in 1987. It was this late-’80s
touring background they brought to their
first permanent show in Las Vegas, a background indelibly influenced by the live
concert loudspeaker R&D department at
Electro-Voice, concert touring veterans
Big Mick Hughes and Harry Witz, and the
“new” manifold technology of the ‘80s.
While they took the concert touring pro-
24
December 2006
200.0612.24-25mystr.indd 24
They pioneered it. It sounds great. So why mess with it 12
years later due to technology?
ductions of artists like Metallica and AC/
DC to new heights, Cirque took them to,
well, the circus. Cirque has been producing shows in the same custom theatre
in the Treasure Island casino for 12 years
now, and with more than 6000 performances behind them, they have deployed
the same loudspeaker system design since
Cirque’s inception.
“As far as the P.A., it’s still the same
cabinets and still the same speakers from
when they started,” says FOH engineer
Dave Robertson. There’s a clarity in its simplicity that’s refreshing. “That’s part of the
design,” Robertson went on. “The sound
design complements the show. The goal
is not to distract from the show. The show
doesn’t need to thrive off of special effects. Everything technical on the production side just complements what goes on
in the show.”
Robertson should know. His background includes stints with Disney at
Epcot, where he got to twist knobs with
everything from Broadway shows to rock
bands, and Lord of the Dance in Las Vegas.
Even with the live band instruments,
there is no bleed outside of the system.
“The mix from the P.A. overshadows what’s
coming from the instruments. You might
get a small amount of percussion, but
that’s it.” Robertson says. “We’re using 18
Electro-Voice Delta Max DML 1152s, twoway bi-amped full range. Also eight EV
Delta Max 1122s two-way bi-amped full
range. Our mains are eight EV MTH 2/94As
as mid/high cabinets and four EV MTL 2As
for subs. Then there are six EV-DH1A highfrequency horns. We recently installed
10 Meyer UPM-1Ps on a recent two-week
break, along with re-coning all the ElectroVoice speakers.”
When it comes down to it, it’s all about
the meat in the seats, as they say. It’s no
different with Cirque, and the recent upgrades in speaker placement and re-coning are just maintaining a consistent audio
grooming. So often our industry seems to
feel the need to jump into the digital age.
When some things are just fine, why not
leave well enough alone? This seems to be
the attitude championed at Mystère.
A case in point is the bridge of the operation, the mix position. They have been using a
Midas XL4 for years. On their recent break for
theatre spring-cleaning, a Midas representative came knocking at the door. He was pushing the new Midas XL8 to the tip of the diving
board. Robertson was not so inclined to belly
flop into the almost filled digital pool.
“Originally there was a Midas XL3,” Robertson explained. “Then we went to the XL4.
The Midas rep showed up telling us about the
XL8. The XL4 has been great, and we needed
an upgrade.”So the decision was made to purchase a new console. They had an XL4, so the
natural thing to do was to make the decision
Cirque style. You guessed it. They upgraded
to the last XL4 to be produced by Midas. The
bottom line is that the theatre sounds really
good. They pioneered it. So why mess with it
12 years later due to technology?
Which is not to say they’ve been
standing still. As the show rolled on with
consistently sold-out, 1600-capacity performances through the years Cirque staff
went through some tweaking, including
the movement of delays to fill out soft
spots in the cheap seats. After all, this was
the first Cirque to have a theatre custom
built for it in Las Vegas. If you think for a
moment what the audio world did not
have 12 years ago, it makes you appreciate
this system and its design, and hold it in
high regard.
Robertson explained, “When you go to
La Nouba and those other shows, they really learned from this theatre. They really
learned a lot. When they built this theatre,
they didn’t even know where the band
was going to go.”
From an audio perspective, that in itself
shows that something was done right.
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FOH Interview
Who the Hell Is
Widespread Panic
and Why Do they Keep Following Me Around?
By BillEvans
C
hris Raboid and Brad Blettenberg are
a good team. Covering FOH and MON
plus production for Southern rock
jam band Widespread Panic, they have become “part of the family” with a band known
for going through sound guys with almost
Prince-like regularity — Chris has helmed
FOH for five years, and Brad has been
camped out at the side of the stage for a
decade. FOH caught up with the daring duo
on the band’s Halloween show in Las Vegas
(you can’t tell, but the singer is wearing a
chicken suit in the pics) and got a glimpse of
a crew that has both the chops and the balls
to hang with a band that regularly takes
things to the edge of the musical abyss without ever falling over. And this band that has
never had a radio hit was touring with one
of the most cutting-edge and best-sounding systems we have heard in a long time.
Here’s how they do it.
Q Chris, you are production manager
as well as FOH. How does that affect your
audio job?
A Chris Raboid: I have a real problem,okay,
paranoia, of people viewing the production
manager/FOH thing the wrong way. I’m an
audio guy who got thrust into the production world. Wearing both hats with Panic is
tiring, but actually works pretty easily. When
I was hired as the band’s production manager, I came from an audio background. I put
together a really good audio package with
some really good engineers. As sometimes
happens — no one’s fault — things just kind
of fell apart. We were in a rough situation,
and the band asked me why I wasn’t out
there taking the reins. It was put up or shut
up time, and I dove in head first.
Brad Blettenberg (L), MON
mixer and Chris Raboid, FOH
mixer and production manager
for Widespread Panic.
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December 2006
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12/1/06 12:50:34 AM
Meanwhile, Back at Monitor World…
Q Tell us about the monitor system.
A Brad Blettenberg: The console I’m using
is a Yamaha PM1D, utilizing all the onboard
dynamics. There is roughly 80 inputs coming
off the deck, and I use in the neighborhood
of 30 outputs. I have two pair of d&b M2
wedges for the guitar and bass mixes and a
set of Q7s for the key mix. I also have four
guys on personal monitors, and I’m using
a combination of Sennheiser 300 G2s and
Shure wired belt packs.
Q So it’s a mix of wedges and PMs?
A Well, it’s kind of funny because, when
I started with these guys 10 years ago, they
were all on PMs. JoJo (keyboards) was the first
one to go back to wedges, mainly because of
an inner ear situation. Then Dave (bass) was
the next victim; after a stint with Gov’t Mule,
in which he went back to wedges, he felt that
he could play with better dynamics. Jimmy
(guitar) came onboard this year, and he — to
my knowledge — has never been on PMs. I’ve
always wanted to do these guys on all wedges, but…be careful of what you ask for.
The guys are on two different types of
earpieces — Ultimate Ears and Future Sonics. The lead singer and the drummer are on
Ultimate, and the percussionist and the steel/
guitar player are on Future Sonics. I have the
console set up for split inputs. One layer (1
through 48) for one set of earpieces and the
other (49 through 96) for the other set, along
with wedge inputs. I work with the guys on
a daily basis for the tones. After that, it really
comes down to mix levels and ratios.
Q How loud is the stage?
A In normal places like arenas and sheds,
it really isn’t that bad — maybe 100 or so.
But given that we go from a shed to a small
theatre and back to an arena, it varies greatly
between 100 to 110. I asked Chris, and he said
that he has measured the bass rig at FOH 80
feet out at 90 dB, A weighted.
Q Jimmy has a system of wedges for individual instruments and controls them
himself with volume pedals?
A What we’re doing is a throw back to the
days of when Jimmy was with The Dead. I
believe Ian Dubois was the original mastermind behind the system. (He mixed six
out of seven band members, and I mixed
Mickey Hart in 2004.) Essentially, it is a
pedal system that gives Jimmy control of
the five instruments he needs the feed off
of. There is one pedal that has a sub mix of
kick, snare and hat, a second for percussion,
a third for a mix of keys (piano, clav, whurly),
another for the rhythm guitar and, finally,
one for the top end of the Leslie. Basically,
there are six separate mixes that the pedals
are inserted on. The mixes are then sent to
a matrix, and then on to amp and wedges.
We have three wedges out there for him
— two M2s and one Max. The M2s get the
brunt of it, and the Max gets the Leslie.
Things just seemed to click right off the
bat; management was happy, I felt confident
about the results, the band was hearing
what they wanted to from those they trust,
and here we are five years later. The key to
doing both jobs and having neither of them
suffer or “give in” to the other is having, and
trusting, a strong team. I have a fantastic
production staff, a top-notch stage manager
and the best system engineer and crew I
could hope for. I typically set up shop in the
production office until 2 or 3 p.m., and then
I wander out to FOH and the stage to start
the fun part of the day! By the time I make
it to FOH, CW (Alkire, system engineer) has
aligned the rig and made a pass at tuning it.
I hop in, listen to my program material, and
I may or may not make any changes from
there. CW is outstanding. He and I have been
working together for two years now, and I
trust him wholeheartedly. He knows what I
like, and I fully trust his methods of getting
us there.
Do I look at things differently doing
both production and FOH? Absolutely, positively, yes. If anything, I’m harder on myself,
because you don’t ever want anyone to
think you’re giving yourself a free ride.That is
actually the bane of my gig. I’m always aware
of the possibility that folks might see it that
way. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I
feel 100% confident that the results speak
for themselves. I/We, as an audio whole, have
a good thing going out here, and it’s hard to
dispute that. Listen.
Q How in the hell did a non-commercial
band that has never had a hit end up with
one of the most cutting edge systems on
the road today? A By paying attention and staying current
with what’s going on in the industry. It’s really that simple. Panic’s success has come almost strictly from touring.They’ve never had
a radio hit or a number one record. When it
comes to audio, and production in general,
they deserve nothing but the best, and I try
hard to keep up with what’s out there. When
we started a relationship with Eighth Day in
early ‘05, I was introduced to d&b products.
The stuff is just great.
The first time I mixed on the smaller Q
series array, I was a bit worried about how
well it would work as our main system in a
small 2,000-seat casino in Tahoe. We were
traveling with a V-DOSC as our main hang
and the Qs as a side hang at the time. That
night I spent the first two songs of the show
laughing at how great it sounded with just
those little boxes! Totally blew me away.
I told Owen Orzack if they ever wanted
to try out d&b’s large-format line array, I’d
love to give it a go. Fast-forward to ‘06, and
Eighth Day has decided to take delivery of
continued on page 39
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December 2006
27
12/1/06 12:51:05 AM
Product Gallery
By JacobCoakley
Byline: Jacob Coakley
It’s that time of year, time to start protecting your FOH console from snowflakes. Not that you’d let your board outdoors uncovered, but now’s when overzealous directors and set designers
decide it’s time to pull out all the stops and let the fake snow and confetti blizzard through the house, which means you get to frantically wave your cue sheet over your board, fanning all the
“flakes” away from vulnerable fader paths and moving parts. I suppose it could be worse, you could be the ones shaking the snow down or manning the confetti-cannons.
In any event, to make these trying times a bit more fun for all involved, we pulled this list together of all the cool things we’d like to see under our FOH tree. Some are fairly common-place
(if you don’t already have a flashlight — well, get one), others fun audio geekery (two audio analysis tools) while others were simple, but inspired (everyone loved one reader’s suggestion of
a laser range finder). So here you go, all the cool FOH toys you need for this year, as picked by our readers and editorial staff.
If the line’s there, but the audio isn’t, then you
need to figure out what’s going on. While we’re
always proponents of the “It’s not the car, it’s the
driver” school of audio, you can’t even get to work
if you don’t have a car — so we’re glad Whirlwind
makes their Qbox series. The Qbox includes a microphone, speaker, test-tone generator, headphone
output, LEDs that indicate voltage for phantom or
intercom power and more. And now the AESQBox
works with digital signals, recognizing sample rates
from 32kHz to 192 kHz. Learn more at their Web
site: www.whirlwindusa.com.
Shaped like a — well, like a “Z” — the bar
is designed to hold a mic in front of an amp
solidly and unobtrusively, resulting in less
onstage clutter and less to break down at
the end of the night. It’s even manufactured
right here in the U.S. No Web site, but you
can call them at: 800.520.4380
One of our posters in the Wild and Wooly Forums (www.fohonline.com/forum) suggested this,
the Hilti PD32 laser range finder. It took us a couple
seconds to see the use of this, but then we considered the next speaker hang we had to do, and it all
snapped into place. It’ll help with install calculations, hang placement and burning out the eyes of
our natural enemies, the lampies. [Humor, people,
humor. We don’t actually advocate burning out the
eyes of lampies, only drummers. –ed.] These are available at home improvement stores everywhere, and
you can check them out online at: www.hilti.com.
When we reviewed Smaart I/O hardware system
back in February Amundson said that he didn’t need
to even talk about the “great” software, since it filled
him with such “happy thoughts.” Apparently, our
readers agree, as a bunch of you wanted to be sure
we mentioned Smaart — whether it was version 5,
the beta copy of version 6, or whether it runs on a
PC, Mac or their own hardware system, you seem to
like it. So pull it out, run the tests, and get your audio
geek on. Find out more at www.siasoft.com.
Before we quit college we were always getting
yelled at for not giving proper credit for quotes in
our papers. One professor wrote “Reference, reference, reference!” in big red letters on a particularly
lacking report. We’d like to tack the same note onto
these headphones. When you need isolation for trying out an effect, trouble-shooting a signal chain or
cleaning up the mix a little, these are exactly what
you want. Sony is only listing the new HD phones
on their pro site (www.bssc.sel.sony.com), but you
can still get these at retailers.
A couple months ago we wrote about a Jimmy
Buffett gig, and how Rich Davis, his FOH mixer, and
Billy Szocska, his monitor mixer, basically stepped all
over themselves complimenting this mic. It appears
our readers agree with their assessment. Great thing
about it is that it is actually designed for road work,
too, a fact subtly acknowledged with their aluminum case that comes with it. This is a mic you can
feel good about taking on the road for a whole host
of reasons. Find out more at: www.shure.com
Leatherman Tool Kits, LED Headlamps and more. . .
Leatherman Bit Kit
The only people upset at the incredible engineering and fine craftsmanship of Leatherman
tools are the Swiss. We’re sure sales of their army knives have plummeted since these versatile
tools came out. Pick your favorite based on size and utility at www.leatherman.com, and then
pick up a Tool Adapter kit, say our readers. The adapter adds a lot more bits to your kit, so you’re
never left in the lurch. Running a close second as the tool everyone must have is a flashlight.
While technical editor Mark Amundson says simply,“You just can not have enough of the original
two AA-battery Minimag flashlight things stashed in kits,” (www.maglite.com) other users liked
LED flashlights better for their light quality and power efficiency, while one smart reader said a
headlamp was best, because it kept the teeth marks off his flashlight and the light pointed where
he was looking. You also can never have enough spare connectors and doodads — A stereo 1/8”
jack to two ¼” mono phone plugs helps plug in that iPod for bump music, while a Sescom IL-19
XLR isolation transformer (www.sescom.com) will eliminate any hum and a Triplett “Plug Bug”
Receptacle tester (www.triplett.com) will help you find a hot port fast.
Leatherman Tool Adapter
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December 2006
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Road Tests
SLS 8290 Dual-Purpose PA Box
By BillEvans
H
ow many times have you been shown a
vaguely trapezoidal box and then been
promised that it can serve as a mid-high
By WriterName
box or a full-range monitor? And how many
times have you actually dared use the “multipurpose” box as a monitor and then as a house
box? And how often do you keep using it for
two different applications? The point here is
that, multi-purpose or not, a box will generally
end up only getting used for whatever it’s best
at — no matter what the manufacturer says. So
let’s say we are skeptical when we take a multipurpose box out on both MON and FOH duty.
The Gear
RT
The SLS 8290 is a dual eight-inch design
with a ribbon tweeter. The PRD500 ribbon
is contained within a 90° die-cast aluminum
waveguide. The waveguide is pretty easily rotatable to line the ribbon up for vertical house use or horizontal monitor use. The
cabinet is made of 3/4” Baltic Birch plywood
and has both a cut-out handle and a standard
pole–mount socket.
Coverage is claimed at a conservative 90°,
and the cabs are easy enough to handle for one
crew member to put it on the pole. Inputs are a
parallel set of Neutrik NL4s — remember this
is a full-range cabinet. Frequency response is
respectable down to about 60 or 70 Hz. (On a
front of house gig you are going to want a sub
unless this is a straight spoken word gig.)
RT
The Gigs
I took a pair of 8290s on two very different
gigs. The first was an outdoor gig at the Fre-
mont Street Experience in Las Vegas with a big
horn band. Most of the band is on PMs — everyone except the horns and the bass player.
The horns are always a problem. Any of you
who have worked with horn bands will surely
back me up on this, but unless the monitors
are blowing their hair back with basically horns
and little else in the mix, they will bitch about
not being able to hear themselves. I have tried
to get horn players on PMs for a long time and
have had zero luck.
The first night of the two-night gig, we used
the venue’s standard JBL 12+ horn wedges and
no PMs for anyone. (Setup time did not allow
for getting PMs up and going.)
While everyone else could hear just fine
through the wedges, the horns were complaining by the end of the second song that they
could not hear themselves. Part of the problem was that, while there were eight wedges
onstage, there were only two mixes (the wellworn Allen & Heath at side-of-stage was doing
double duty as FOH and MON).
Second night we got the PMs going and
had the wedges there just in case someone lost
battery power on a PM receiver or something.
Emergency backup. We replaced the standard
wedges in front of the horns with a pair of
8290s. We got going and were nearly through
the first set when I realized that something was
missing. A whining sound. The horns were not
bitching about being able to hear. Chalk up one
for the 8290s.
The second gig was on a satellite stage
for a cowboy music and poetry festival (no
lie, I swear that was the gig) in Heber City,
Utah. They were used as FOH speakers on a
pole above a couple of small Mackie subs. We
hoisted them onto the
poles, powered them
up with a QSC RMX
850 amp and turned
on the subs. (Before
we go any further,
another side note. I
flew up to Utah, and
checked the 8290s as
luggage. I put them
in their shipping boxSLS 8290
es, stuffed a couple
of processors that I
needed to road test
as well into the boxes,
and it all came in under the weight limit. Nice.)
So as not to risk getting him in hot water, no names, but a noted sound guru was
on the gig as a favor to a friend. This person
has had a big hand in designing some of the
most-used concert P.A. systems in the world,
and he SMAARTed the system. He introduced a couple of pretty smooth and subtle
curves, which he said were really about the
very reflective and oddly shaped room and
that “those ribbons sound good out of the
box.” We were done.
When the show began — all single and
duo acoustic guitar-based cowboy singers
— as much as I hated the material, I had to
admit that it sounded very good. The 8290s
were clear and crisp without getting harsh.
Perfect for this kind of gig. Earlier, I had run
some AC/DC through the system and pushed
it. Pushing it hard, I never really got any noticeable distortion, but neither did I get the
testosterone feel of a good rock cabinet. A
metal gig is probably not right for this box.
But for gigs where clarity and fidelity are valued over sheer volume, the 8290s are a good
choice.
So there you go. A dual-purpose box that
actually works, well, dually. It doesn’t have
all the punch you might like for real rock —
compromises have to be made somewhere,
I suppose — but maybe the marketers
weren’t completely off on this one. Scary.
What It Is: Multipurpose P.A. cabinet
Who It’s For: Any soundco or rental house
that needs a good, crisp box without any
real rock ‘n’ roll dirt for acoustic or spoke,
word gigs.
How Much: $899.95
Pros: Great sound, good coverage, small
footprint.
Cons: Think Lilith Fair, not Ozzfest.
MC2 Audio’s E45 Power Amplifier
By MarkAmundson
T
his up and coming amplifier company
from England is producing some very
high tech professional audio power
amplifiers in small packages. I received the
flagship E45 amplifier from MC2 for this road
test review, and its cute black and anodized
blue aluminum chassis was easy on the eyes.
The E45 amplifier is called a “dynamic
amplifier” with proprietary power supply
rails that allow the amplifier to dynamically
switch to higher power voltages for normal
musical peak durations (less than one second typically). Because of the nature of its
proprietary technology, it makes more sense
to compare the E45 to Class G or Class H amplifiers using similar supply switching techniques. But after all the geek speak is done, it
means that the E45 in its two rack space size
and 25 pound chassis weight puts out 2250
watts per channel into 4-ohm loads.
30
200.0612.30-31.indd 30
December 2006
RT
THE GEAR
At
2-ohms
per channel, the
MC2 E45 amplifier
can do 3200 watts
per channel, if you
have the 40 amperes of 115VAC
power distro to
spare. Everything
else about the
E45 is normal in
a beautiful way. It has a standard 32dB (40V/
V) voltage gain with a +9.75dBu sensitivity
for 4-ohm max power. Then, it carries audio
performance specs like 20Hz to 20kHz frequency response with +/-0.5dB flatness with
less than 0.03% THD at full power across
the whole frequency band. It walks the talk
with a greater-than-400 damping factor at
8-ohms, and only hums at -105dB below the
full output, and that says a lot about the competence of the designers.
But lets talk user interfaces, starting with
the front panel. The MC2 E45 amplifier front
only has signal LEDs for signal present (blue),
-3dB (yellow) and limiter (amber). The remaining LEDs are for amplifier protect (red),
bridged mode (green) and power reduction
circuit (PRC) (green). Besides the mini-rocker
power switch for on/off, the remaining controls are the two input level controls with
dB scaling (-6dB at halfway). The cute blue
front panel also allows the model and brand
names to double as foam filtered air inlets.
This air direction is not my preference, as I
like warm air forward, but at least it gets the
cooling job done.
The rear panel has 12-gauge power cord
permanently attached to the E45 amplifier with a few inches of stripped and tinned
leads for a power connector attachment.
And with the 35-ampere circuit breaker just
above the cord bushing, it should remind
you that a beefy connector is required if you
are going to get some voice coils really moving. Two full size fans and grilles flank the
input/output back panel cluster with nice female and male XLR jacks for chaining amplifiers. Three NL4 Speakon connectors are logically placed for stereo and bridged/bi-amp
speaker cable configurations. Channel A and
B Speakons are wired only for +/-1 contacts,
with the middle Speakon wired for channel
A on the +/-1 contacts and channel B on the
+/-2 contacts.
All that remains unsaid on the rear panel
are pairs of PRC switches for each channel.
These switches allow for 0, -2, -4 and -6dB
power attenuation of the amplifier output
capabilities, which is perfect for sub/top or
mids/highs configurations from a single E45
amplifier. And the buttons are slightly recessed so that accidental touches or bumps
do not change the PRC settings.
THE GIGS RT
With the MC2 E45 amplifier in the sub-
woofer mode of operation, I really wanted
to see in a live setting if it could keep those
one-second power supply rails inaudible
when assaulted with lots of kick and rockin’
electric bass low notes. At the gigs, it passed
the test with no obvious running-out-of-gas
symptoms. But to me, the acid test for good
subwoofer-capable amplifiers is to also remain pristine sounding in the upper mids
and highs; especially in critical listening situations back at the shop. Again, it passed the
test to my ears.
Looking for niggles, the MC2 E45 amplifier came up a little short when noting some
shipping dents on the top chassis panel. Either it survived a very rough ride from the
English factory, or there is something moving in the center of the chassis. The 16.25 inch
rack depth also means you better ensure rear
rail attachment to keep things under control
when touring. All in all, this MC2 amplifier
gave me good vibes when using it.
What it is: Tour-Grade Audio Power
Amplifier
Who it’s for: Sound Companies with
reasonable expectations for a high power
amplifier and an urgent need to lighten
up the amp racks.
How much: $4695.00 SRP
Pros: Great Sounding, Lightweight, Basic
Features
Cons: Dented top panel on demo unit.
www.fohonline.com
12/1/06 1:27:08 AM
ALL PRODUCTION ALL THE TIME
YOUR
YOUR PASSION
PASSION IS
IS PRODUCTION.
PRODUCTION.
SO
SO IS
IS OURS.
OURS.
At Timeless Communications our staff includes
production company owners, audio mixers,
lighting programmers & designers.
We understand your world because we are a part of it.
Stay passionate. Read the industry’s #1 trade magazines.
house ad 0612.indd 31
12/1/06 6:34:34 PM
Regional Slants
SPL
Systems:
THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL?
Some of the SPL Systems team (L-R): Scott LaRochelle, Keith Lussier and Bill Forbes
By DavidJohnFarinella
B
ob Forbes is taking the opportunity
to breathe. As the president of SPL
Systems (www.splsystems.net), a regional sound company who strikes while the
proverbial fair and festival iron is hot, Forbes
has recently finished a five-month-long run
of festivals around the company’s Chicopee,
Mass. headquarters.
This past summer, the SPL crew worked at
17 fairs in the southeast Massachusetts and
northern New York state region that included
the Barnstable County Fair in East Faimouth,
Mass., Ulster County Fair in New Paltz, N.Y. and
the Duchess County Fair in Rhinebeck, N.Y., as
well as the Eastern States Exposition (“The Big
E”) and the Big Y Balloon and Music Festival in
West Springfield, Mass.
“It was a really productive summer,”
Forbes reports. “We picked up a couple of
new accounts and kept all our old accounts.”
SPL worked with artists such as Foreigner,
Grand Funk Railroad, Charlie Daniels, Brad
Paisley, Lonestar, Lee Ann Womack and Dierks
Bentley this summer. While the company provides P.A. for most of those acts, there are the
times when a band comes in with their own
gear. “Brad Paisley brought in his own rig and
crew,” Forbes says.“We got out of the way and
tried to help those guys.”
The equipment list at SPL includes EAW
and Ramsdell speakers, a collection of Crest
power amps and Yamaha MP4000s, Crest
LM52s, Crest VX40s, Ramsa 840s and Soundcraft LX7 consoles. The company also boasts a
range of outboard gear from Ashly, Drawmer,
Yamaha and TC Electronic, as well as microphones from Sennheiser, Shure, Audix, CAD
and Countryman.
Forbes opened the door of SPL (Sound
Plus Lighting) Systems in 1995, and the company includes a sales and installation business as well as production services division.
Installs have gone into a variety of venues,
including nightclubs, restaurants, houses of
worship and hotels.
It’s the summer fair schedule, though, that
has Forbes running, and in the midst of competition from a number of larger production
companies, he has stayed busy.“I’m not sure if
it’s a price thing,” he says. “Price doesn’t seem
“I don’t think we’re extremely cheap;
it’s a matter of doing a great job for
them.” –Bob Forbes
to be an issue, and
I don’t think we’re
extremely high, and
I don’t think we’re
extremely cheap; it’s a matter of doing a great
job for them.”
Then he waits for word to spread. “The
mainstay of our business is referrals,” Forbes
explains. “For whatever reasons, we don’t really knock heads with anybody. We do a real
good job for our clients, and that seems to
motivate them not to go anywhere else. So
we haven’t had any bidding wars that we’ve
lost to somebody.”
That said, Forbes reports, “We don’t want
to stomp on anybody with price, even though
we can be extremely competitive, because
I have extremely low overhead. That’s how
I run things, and that way I can survive and
be competitive.”
Proving that survival is a matter of service, Forbes is surprised when he hears
about the conduct of other sound companies. While he won’t get specific, he says, “If
that’s what we are going up against, then
it’s just a matter of getting our foot in the
door. If we can do that, then we’re there.
A lot of times, at least the fairs that we’ve
dealt with, it’s about longevity. If they’ve
been with a company for a while, there is
a lot of hesitance to move on, unless there
was something major that happened.”
But if the door opens, Forbes and his
staff at SPL are ready and willing to take
advantage of the opportunity. “We’re always on the lookout to pick up new stuff,
and we start that process right around
now,” he says. “We’re getting hired back
next year for all that stuff, too, so it looks to
be a good 2007.” After all, there’s all winter
to rest.
Bob Forbes, center, with Danielle Peck on the left, and Shannon Brown on the right.
www.fohonline.com
200.0612.32.REG.indd 32
12/1/06 1:55:05 AM
On the Bleeding Edge
Meeting the Demand
By SteveLaCerra
for Content
T
here are some things in the music business that never change. For instance,
record labels will always want to repackage a band’s old material. History has
shown that “Greatest Hits” packages are an
easy (and cheap) way to do this. After all, the
biggest expense of a new release — studio
band that’s 115 dB on stage and a PA that’s
120 at FOH. How many angels can you fit on
the head of a pin?
Here is how it really is going to happen:
you are going to need some sort of assistant
engineer, even if that person is just an extra
pair of hands. You are also going to need a
Eventually, some genius at
the label will figure that you
can easily handle a multitrack
recording while mixing the
show in front of 10,000 people.
In the rain.
means of splitting signals from the stage, preferably right off the microphone (i.e. pre-FOH
and -monitor consoles and processing). If you
are using a console that has a direct out on
each channel, you’re ahead of the game: take
the direct out from each channel into a channel on a multitrack tape machine or hard disk
recorder. Make absolutely certain that the direct out is pre-fader. You don’t want your fader
moves during the show to be recorded (you’ll
remix at a later time). Pre-EQ is probably also
a good idea, so that you can EQ the tracks
ex post facto. With a FOH console that has direct outs on each channel, you could probably
get something like an Alesis ADAT HD24 or
www.fohonline.com
200.0612.33.BLEED.indd 33
Whatever medium you decide to record,
be sure to record at a sample rate of 44.1
kHz. Sixteen-bit is sufficient since CD audio
is 44.1/16-bit anyway and the soundtrack on
most DVD’s is the same. Mastering engineer
Roger Lian at Masterdisk NYC tells me that
what you do NOT want is to force a sample
rate conversion at a later date by recording at
48-, 88.2- or 96 kHz. Roger tells me that sample rate conversion is about the worst thing
you can do to an audio file.
There’s always a small percentage of
the population that doesn’t trust computers and will want hardware recorders
on the road. I can understand that, having experienced problems with laptop
recording on the road. Lucky for me these
were only reference recordings. For those
so inclined, I refer you to eBay, where you
can get Tascam DA88s for a song. These
machines have proven reliable, and at this
point they are cheap enough that you can
get a spare without breaking the bank.
Thirty-two tracks for under a grand? I
wouldn’t be surprised, and you can transfer to Pro Tools when you get home. One
important note about the remix: plan on
separate sessions for the stereo mix and
the 5.1 surround mix. Automatic “folddown” from 5.1 to stereo really doesn’t
work very well.
Steve La Cerra is the tour manager
and Front of House engineer for Blue Oyster Cult. He can be reached via email at
[email protected]
time — is minimal for a re-package. Ditto for
the concept of a live recording. The band is
performing anyway, and by the time they’ve
played their 25th show, they’re pretty well
rehearsed, so the label decides it’s time to
record a concert for release on CD in stereo
and on DVD in 5.1 — and that’s where life on
the road gets complicated.
For starters, we’ll assume (uh-oh) that
the band you’re working with is competent
enough to actually play a show that’s worthy
of release. Eventually, some genius at their
label will figure that — since they’re on tour
and you’re a capable engineer — you can easily handle a multitrack recording while mixing the show in front of 10,000 people. In the
rain. Since you’re going to have a tough time
getting the label to foot the bill for a remote
truck (or even an assistant engineer), you’d
better be prepared with some ideas for how
to go about making a release-worthy recording while still attending to your other menial
duties, such as mixing the show.
The good news is that a lot of engineers
have made master-quality recordings of live
shows using simple recording setups. The
simplest setup is the “board tape,” but the
chances of a board tape being master quality
are slim. There’s just too much noise coming
off the average stage to allow your board mix
to be an accurate representation of what you
hear in the room. In other words, the guitar
player is usually so *^&% loud that you don’t
need a lot of him in your mix because you
can hear the amp, even when it’s not in the
PA system very much. When you play back
the board tape, there’s no guitar because you
didn’t need to raise up his fader very much.
(Foghat engineer Carl Davino is the master
of the board tape. Maybe we can get him to
share his technique some time.)
That brings us to live recording possibility number two: a live-to-two-track recording
mixed by another person in a room isolated
from the stage and PA, where they can actually mix the band during the show and make
aesthetic judgments on level and EQ without
interference from a crappy sounding room, a
Mackie HDR24/96 hard disk recorder, a wiring
harness, a bunch of hard drives (with a cushy
case to hold them), and be on your way.
Next up on the food chain is using a
transformer-isolated, three-way split, which
provides FOH, monitor and recording systems with their own feeds. Now you will
need mic preamps along with your recorder,
which means you can rack up some serious
pre’s and create a better product. If you’re
on a tight budget, you could get a couple
of MOTU Travelers, a Mac iBook and some
Glyph drives, and carry the whole system
in a small rack. (Make sure that the drives
are at least 7,200 RPM.) Or you could rack
up three or four TRUE Precision8 mic pre’s
(eight channels each) along with an HDR. In
any case, the idea is to get clean signal on
disk and mix later. You’re probably not going to be able to monitor with any sort of
isolation anyway because the PA is in your
face. What you are concerned with is setting
a good record level and then pretty much
babysitting the meters for the duration of
the show. A simple sound check will give
you all the information you need, though
I’d suggest setting record levels conservatively since band members always take it
up a notch come show time.
Those of you lucky enough to be mixing on
a Digidesign VENUE every night have a special
advantage when it comes to recording: Digidesign’s TDM Record option links the VENUE’s digital engine directly to a Pro Tools|HD system via
DigiLink connectors on the FOH rack, no additional I/O necessary, thank you very much.
December 2006
33
12/1/06 1:01:00 AM
GFCI
v
Theory & Practice
and Sound
Systems
ByMarkAmundson
v
v
Most GFCIs employ a small transformer
that has two wires passing through the transformer center from the hot and neutral screw
terminals on to the receptacle contacts. If
the currents in the hot and neutral wires are
identical, no magnetic flux is induced in the
transformer core and picked up by secondary
wraps of wire leading into the trip threshold
electronics. If a greater than 6 milli-ampere
current difference is present between hot and
neutral, significant magnetic flux flow in the
transformer tickles the
and releasEven the user’s manual that came with electronics
es the circuit breaker
the amplifier states that “If you have placed before the
excessive hum, just unplug the ampli- transformer. This trip
time is almost instanfier and flip the plug over.”
taneous, and prevents
severe shocks from
some of the artist’s backline gear in the hope reaching innocent humans.
Under today’s National Electric Code
that another GFCI has a less “trippy” condition.
The focus of this Theory and Practice column rules, most gear is completely tested, and the
is to introduce you to the inner workings of consumer is legally informed if the electrical
a GFCI device, and show you tips to help you products are safe to be used indoors only or
prevent false circuit interrupts (trips) and still outdoors as well. For musicians, modern instrument amplifiers and sound system gear
stay compliant with the NEC.
all have three-prong plugs and direct chassis-to-ground prong connections. But this was
What Is a GFCI?
A Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter is a form not always so.
of circuit breaker that seeks out a current path
that is not the hot and neutral wires. Most Old Work
To electricians,“old work” means commertypical circuit breakers are set up for high amperage circuit overloads or short circuits by cial or residential electrical wiring that was
monitoring the current in only the hot wire. A likely back in a time when two-prong recepGFCI looks at both hot and neutral wires, and tacles were the norm and safety grounding
if the difference in current (a “leak”) is more may not have been in place. This also applies
than 6 milli-amperes, the GFCI interrupts the to musical instrument gear and sound equipcircuit by mechanically opening both the hot ment that was meant to coexist with old work
and neutral wires together with its integral wiring. Most old work venue wiring was done
circuit breaker. See Figure 1 for a schematic before the early 1960s, but most sound sysview of a GFCI and a typical piece of gear as tem gear provided accommodation for old
work wiring all the way into the 1980s.
an electrical load.
A good example of old work electronics is
The 6 milli-ampere trip threshold is
set by government edict, as a reasonable my 1959 Supro Guitar Amplifier. This amplifier
threshold of when a human can endure has an unpolarized two-prong Edison plug
an electrical shock safely or become a life- that can be inserted into receptacles both
ending event based on gruesome statistics. ways. Even the user’s manual that came with
Every GFCI manufactured is tested at 7 milli- the amplifier states that “If you have excessive
amperes for a trip, and includes a “test” but- hum, just unplug the amplifier and flip the
ton to apply such a leak current between plug over.” This was the precursor of “polarity”
hot and ground wires for recommended switches that were placed on music equipperiodic testing. Because a circuit board full ment amplifiers from the 1960s through the
of electronics is used to sense these 7 milli- 1980s.
To make guitar and PA amplifiers safe for
ampere or higher current leaks, the components are prone to fail after many tens of the public in the old work days, one wire from
thousands of hours of being on duty. That is the AC plug had a “safety capacitor” connectwhy you must replace all GFCIs that do not ed between it and the chassis. When the safe-
34
200.0612.34.TP.indd 34
December 2006
Polarity Switches
v
How It Works
v
trip the breaker when tested.
ty capacitor wire was plugged to the venue
wiring neutral, the chassis hum was minimal
and no tingle on the mic or guitar strings was
noticed. If the safety cap wire was connected
to the venue wiring hot wire, typically the
hum in the speakers was a touch louder, and
musicians got a slight tingle from the mic or
guitar if they were partly grounded. By definition this was a ground-fault or out-of-polarity
condition.
To avoid the plug-flipping trial and error
on polarity, many music equipment manufacturers started incorporating a polarity switch
or an on-off-on switch that reversed hot and
neutral connections to the chassis safety capacitor for quick minimum hum determination. Safety capacitors also varied a bit in value
as well, with values between 0.01uf and 0.1uf
the most common. The size of the capacitor
also determined the amount of tingle possible, since at 60Hz power line frequency you
received a couple milli-amperes leak current if
grounded better than your amplifier and with
damp skin.
Referring to Figure 1 again, the example
amplifier is shown with a polarity switch in the
“out-of-polarity” position leaking the maximum amount of current due to the largest
size safety capacitor commonly used. Without going through the capacitive reactance
formula math, at 120 volts the capacitor current is 4.5 milli-amperes from the hot wire to
ground. Since the 4.5 milli-amperes is smaller
than the 7 milli-ampere GFCI trip level, all is
well. But put two or more of these amplifiers
on the same GFCI circuit, and a breaker trip is
almost guaranteed.
Solutions
v
A
ny sound person
who has been
in the biz for
a while usually has a
GFCI tale of woe to tell.
Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters (GFCIs) are
those pesky receptacles
found in bathrooms,
kitchens and outdoor
locations to prevent a shock hazard when
water and electricity could mix. Unfortunately,
the National Electric Code (NEC) requires GFCI
circuits if the public (read: musicians) has access to outdoor electricity. There are exceptions on GFCI usage for carnival vendors,
sound and lighting gear and other utilizations
where the public normally is not likely to engage electrical appliances directly.
These GFCI tales of woe usually come
from accidental tripping during performances at the most inopportune times. Most sound
persons will either cheat by substituting a
non-GFCI circuit, or try another GFCI circuit on
If you have a case of the GFCI false trips,
the best solution is to give each piece of gear
its own GFCI. Many extension cords (service
cords) have in-line GFCIs and can be employed
from on-GFCI circuits with success. Many of
these cords are yellow colored and designed
for outdoor construction equipment use, but
industrious sound companies can make their
own versions with black rubber cabling and
GFCI-equipped receptacle boxes on one end.
Do not connect GFCI extension cords
from an existing GFCI venue wall receptacle,
as the common GFCI will still trip out from the
sum of all the difference currents. Most sound
company power distro panels will have plenty
of non-GFCI’d circuits to connect to. And making a single backline AC circuit GFCI compliant can be done by taking quad receptacle
service cord (quad box) and placing in-line
GFCI extensions from that quad box location.
The legal challenge with this approach is that
you must prove that the quad box is watched
by soundco staff so that musicians are not
tampering with the non-protected box, much
like a circuit breaker sub-panel (e.g. Motion
Labs Rack Pack).
Contact Mark at [email protected]
www.fohonline.com
12/1/06 5:59:39 PM
ahcademias
eats up
for live
than from record sales.) The touring theatrical market has also increased in size
as more local and regional theatres have
been upgraded to accommodate complex shows. Academic administrators also
cite the fact that the live sound industry
has been more readily accepting of the
idea of formally trained entry-level personnel. “Live sound recognized the need
for trained people far faster than the
recording studio community, who were
very resistant to the idea,” says Bulla.
Not that everyone’s on this bandwagon. Many media academies still view live
sound as just a component of their larger
audio engineering and music production
tracks. “We see ourselves as not just preparing students for a particular niche in
the world, but for a broader ability to do
many types of audio-related jobs,” says
Jim Rosebrook, director of the Recording
Workshop in Chillicothe, Ohio. However,
he adds, when the school moves into
larger quarters this summer, there are
tentative plans to allocate some space to
live sound applications.
In fact, space is perhaps the main bar-
Of the 35 top-grossing
music artists, 31 made more
money from concerts than from
record sales.
Academic directors at schools that
have highly evolved touring sound and
production programs are unanimous
in their assessment that there are more
jobs, and better-paying jobs, in the live
sound end of the entertainment industry. “The job placement track record for
live sound has been excellent for several
years now,” says Wesley Bulla, dean of the
Mike Curb College of Entertainment and
Music Business at Belmont University in
Nashville, which has three venues — a
small club, a 1,200-seat auditorium and a
6,000-seat arena — on campus to teach
lights and sound. “What’s more, the work
is consistent; it’s the kind of work that
turns into a career,” he continues. Bulla
also cites growth sectors within the live
production side, such as churches, which
have been on a media tear in the last few
years, adding line arrays, theatrical rather
than architectural lighting and jumbo
video screens. “The churches cannot get
graduates fast enough,” he says.
The phenomenon has several forces
propelling it, not least of which is the
substantial shift in emphasis from royalties to touring revenues for many recording artists. (According to a study by Princeton economics professor Alan Krueger
in 2002, 31 of the 35 top-grossing music
artists made more money from concerts
rier to a school considering adding live
production courses. Josh Grau, who was
recently named director of live sound at
SAE’s school in Miami, agrees that Pro
Tools can be taught in a closet, but that
hoisting a line array or rigging a cluster
requires a lot of vertical space. “Until we
have that kind of space, we’re limited to
teaching theory — decibel and power
equations — instead of practice,” he concedes.
It would seem that teaching live sound
techniques requires access to real estate.
Some schools compensate by creating alliances with local venues, though local union
and municipal regulations can limit that.
And at least one entity is taking a shot at
teaching live sound online. The prosaically
named Web site Career Prospects, in Virginia, has a fairly detailed section (www.
careerprospects.org/briefs/K-O/LiveSound.
shtml) outlining what candidates would
need to learn, where and what the jobs are
and what they can expect to get paid. (The
site estimates that live sound engineers can
earn between $1,000 and $1,500 per week,
but adds the caveat, “… live sound engineers don’t always work every week.”)
They will have to pay, though. Taking
the academic route to the FOH booth will
set you back from about the $5,100 Omega
Studios charges for its 190-hour certificate
course in live sound and production to the
$12,000 to $30,000-plus at degree-based
programs at schools like SAE and Full Sail.
But while students will have to make
economic decisions based on their ability to
pay, and an expectation of getting a value
proposition, it’s worth some cost. “The work
is out there,” says Ed Petersen, president of
Maryland-based Omega Studios. “When I
started out you never had a sound system
at a Broadway show; now, you don’t have
one that doesn’t,” he states. “Every hotel of
any size at all needs someone to set up, operate and mix a sound system. Other areas
of entertainment should be so lucky.”
Expect manufacturers and touring
sound companies to increase their interaction with the audio academies, to the ben-
efit of both and to the students. It’s also a
good hedge tactic as the industry continues to see more consolidation.
Contact Dan at [email protected].
Contact Information
Full Sail
SAE’s Campus in Miami
3300 University Blvd.
Winter Park, Florida 32792
Phone: 800.226.7625
Web site: www.fullsail.com
16051 West Dixie Highway, Suite 200
North Miami Beach, FL 33160
Phone: 305.944.7494
Web site: www.sae-miami.com
Mike Curb College of
Entertainment
1900 Belmont Boulevard
Nashville, TN 37212-3757
Phone: 615.460.6000
Web site: www.belmont.edu/mb/
Omega Studios Maryland
5609 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20852
Phone: 301.230.9100
Web site: www.omegastudios.com
Recording Workshop
455 Massieville Road
Chillicothe, OH 45601
Phone: 800.848.9900
Web site: www.recordingworkshop.com
www.fohonline.com
200.0612.biz.indd 35
ByDanDaley
Y
ou can tell you’ve got a growth sector when more people want to sell
services and products around it.
For instance, there’s a business in iPod accoutrements that’s almost as big as iPod
sales themselves. If the education sector
is any indication — and it is — then live
sound is a bull market.
Several key college and universitylevel media technology operations have
been ratcheting up their live sound offerings. Full Sail in Orlando has a training area about the size of an airplane
hangar to support the show production
and touring courses that they upgraded
in 1998, from a component of the audio
engineering path to its own 13-month
degree program.
“It was one thing to win over the
manufacturers of the technology to the
idea that live sound professionals could
be trained academically,” says Dana Roun,
the director of the program. “But once we
were able to do that with the Clairs and
ShowCos and Vari-Lites of the world, it
became clearer to people that live sound
was a viable career path.”
ound
The Biz
December 2006
35
12/1/06 6:00:30 PM
Regional
Sound
Sanctuary
Slants
The
Devil
Is In the Details
By JamieRio
H
ey, friends, if you are reading this
article because you missed church
last Sunday, you’ve come to the
wrong place. Even though I attend church
regularly, I cannot offer any absolution for
your sins. However, if you want to create
better sound at your home church or get
some valuable insight into the mechanics
leader in the worship team. Or the leader
of the church may be the leader of the
worship team. Whatever the particular
scenario, if the pastor and leaders are not
on board with PMs, they probably won’t
be used at that particular church.
For the sake of this article, I am assuming you have a house that wants, or
is considering,
moving
into
the realm of
PMs. For now,
let me get into
the pros and
cons of using
PMs in a house
of worship environment.
My home church in Pasadena (the Pasadena Four Square) is a relatively small
church, and the band (worship team) is
loud. On a typical Sunday you will have a
drummer, bass player, two or three guitar
players, a keyboardist and a half dozen
singers. Plenty enough musicians and instruments to “Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord” (Psalms 98:4). The problem with that
“joyful noise” is that it can hurt the ears of
the faithful. And when you add the decibels produced by a half dozen floor monitors to the overall mix, the volume can really cause your cup to runneth over. OK,
enough Bible sayings, the real challenge
in Pasadena was to bring down the volume while still facilitating the musicians’
ability to hear each other as well as the
singers. Personal monitors seemed like a
viable solution. The staff undertook the
appropriate research, and an Aviom system was purchased. Keep in mind, in your
The problem with that
“joyful noise” is that it can
hurt the ears of the faithful.
of house of worship installations, you’re
talking to the right guy.
In this particular issue we will be looking at personal monitors (a descriptive
term for monitoring headphones that fit
inside the ear canal) for the worship team
(that would be a descriptive term for the
musicians/singers that lead the congregation in worship songs). There are a variety
of PM products available on the market,
and certainly PMs are by no means new
phenomena. So I am not going to explore
the different manufacturers or the pros
and cons of wired versus wireless systems.
You get out there and do your homework
on what products will serve your particular client, and I will try to add some insight
to the rest of the process.
The worship leaders, along with the
pastor/spiritual leader, are of course the
kingpins when it comes to additions to
any house of worship system. A lot of
churches include their pastor/spiritual
particular scenario, you may be doing the
research. At any rate, in a short time the
initial goal of reducing the overall volume
during the Sunday service was achieved.
That would be a pro if you weren’t paying
attention. And we also now have the ability to remove some of the stage monitors.
The leader of the worship team, we will
call him Pastor David (because that happens to be his name), loves his PMs. He
claims he can sing better with less strain,
that there is more clarity onstage, and
that he feels closer to the congregation.
David would probably describe his PMs as
a little bit of heaven on earth. However,
not everybody on the worship team wears
PMs. Not because there are not enough
PMs to go around, but because there is a
learning curve to the Aviom system, and
any system for that manner. This learning
curve has to be overcome before one can
make an educated decision on whether or
not to use the PMs.
Most worship teams are made up of a
volunteer group of singers and musicians.
None of the churches that I work with take
the time to train their volunteers. Maybe it
would be more accurate to say that most
volunteers don’t have time to be trained
in the use of any new technologies. If you
just plug a set of PMs into one of these
non-professional singers or musicians,
you will often find that their experience
with this type of monitoring can be very
strange. I guess that falls under the learning curve thing. Then you have to contend
with the musicians and singers who will
just not use PMs. Generally this group is
made up of the older players. I don’t want
to stereotype these people, but if you
have been listening to stage monitors for
the last 20 or 30 years, it is generally difficult to make the transition to PMs.
For myself, I have used PMs off and on
for ten years. But working as a professional
musician, I have mostly used them while
performing in front of a rock audience,
not a religious congregation. I personally
feel separated from my fellow musicians
and somewhat removed from the audience. However, in my use of PMs, I never
really had to worry about stage volume. I
only use my personal experience with this
type of monitoring as a reference for my
work in this arena.
My advice to those of you who install
personal monitoring systems in houses of
worship is to include training and to follow up on your bid. When I install an FOH
sound system in a church, I always include
a training course with the installation.
Most of the time I will return to my client’s
church and mix a Sunday or Wednesday. I
believe that this is even more important
when you install a PM system. If I were
writing a proposal today, I would attempt
to schedule at least two training sessions
of at least two hours each. More would be
better, but I am trying to realistic.
Keep in mind that it is not a real
stretch to take your expertise in on-stage
monitoring and transition into personal
monitoring. Just a little homework on
your part, and you should be ready to
rock or praise, or whatever.
E-mail J amie at [email protected]
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12/1/06 6:26:35 PM
The Anklebiters
By BrianCassell & PaulH.Overson
I have a mixer with a global on/off switch for
phantom power. If I am using just one or two
mics that need power, will it hurt anything
else to leave it on?
Charles Cox
Moapa, Nevada
Paul: Condenser microphones require a polarizing voltage and power for their built-in amplifiers. Sometimes provision is made to supply
this voltage directly through the microphone
cable. The procedure is called phantom powering, and the most common phantom supply
voltage available in mixing consoles is 48 VDC,
although 24V supplies are widely used. Most
phantom powered mics can operate on a wide
range of supply voltages, from as little as 1.5
volts or 9 volts up to 50 volts.
In a phantom power system, the polarizing
supply voltage is placed on both of the signal
lines in a balanced connection, with the same
polarity on each line. Dynamic microphones
connected in a balanced system with a phantom power input are then protected from damage, theoretically, since the system results in a
net zero DC potential across the coil. A dynamic
mic connected unbalanced to a phantom power input may be destroyed, however!
It is therefore very important to be aware
of whether a mixing console input is wired for
phantom power. Most inputs provide a switch
to disable the phantom power when it is not
needed. “Always be sure that this switch is off
when dynamics, or electret condensers with
internal batteries, are connected to the input.”
That quote is from the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook, Second Edition.
I realize that many of the smaller consoles/
mixers have a global phantom power switch
that puts the voltage across all of the microphone inputs. I haven’t had any problems with
the Mackie 1402 mixer in this regard. Just be
careful, and don’t use it when it is not needed.
Brian, what are your thoughts on this subject?
Brian: As long as you are using a balanced
connection between your microphone and
your phantom power source, and you are using modern microphones, you are unlikely to
have a problem with running global phantom
power. I have found that some older dynamics don’t behave well when connected to an
input that is energized with phantom power.
I have one particular vintage microphone, an
AKG D12e, which doesn’t produce a clean audio signal, and even emits an audible hum or
buzz from the microphone itself. I had taken it
to a small club one evening to use on the kick
drum and got stuck with a global-phantom
console. Since my vocal microphones were
all condensers, I had to come up with a solution to work around the problem. I wound up
inserting a ground lift adapter in the microphone end of the XLR line. This eliminated the
0V reference from the phantom circuit, and
the microphone no longer “saw” the 48 volts
of phantom power. And since the ground was
only lifted at the microphone end of the cable,
my signal was shielded from the adapter all the
way back to the mixer’s input. I opened myself
up to some RFI interference, and probably increased the signal-to-noise ratio
of the microphone, but with the loud
source material of a kick drum, a small
increase in noise was not a noticeable
problem in a club PA.
The other possibility, and really the
more technically correct one, is to use
an outboard phantom power supply for
your condenser microphones and leave
the global phantom power turned off at
the console. These outboard supplies are
made as accessories by many microphone
manufacturers, such as Audio-Technica,
Crown and Shure. To use one, it is simply
connected between the microphone and
the console input. Most models have standard XLR connectors to make interfacing easy.
Paul: The question that comes to mind when
using a monitor console and a FOH console is:
Which console provides the phantom power? I
have tried variations of this problem and found
some interesting things. I tried phantom from
monitor world but used a snake that had transformer isolation, and I couldn’t get power to the
mics. I then had to use the FOH phantom power. I
have tried it with ground lifts and had some mixed
results, depending on what was lifted. I recently
spoke with Howard Page of Clair Bros./Showco,
and he told me to have phantom power turned on
the channels on both FOH and monitor world.This
method balances out the load on the consoles and
gives the full 48 VDC to all of the items needing the
voltage. He specifically mentioned that Countryman DIs like the full 48 VDC or they won’t sound as
good.The snake must not be transformer isolated,
and the ground (pin 1) may be lifted. Brian, what
do you think of that statement?
Brian: I’d definitely agree that the vener-
able Type 85 likes its healthy dose of current.
What most people don’t know is that there is
also a battery compartment inside, and if you
have a battery installed and it goes dead, that DI
doesn’t want to work with or without the phantom power.
As for the idea of running phantom from
both consoles, it certainly seems like a valid
idea to me, assuming that you are using a
non-isolated snake with all of the grounds
landed. The current flow from the two consoles will sum, providing more total power to
the microphones. And when you are sending
power down a 24 gauge wire, you probably
need every bit of help you can get. This is especially true when even the monitor console
is likely to have 100 feet or more of cable between it and the microphone. That may seem
a bit much, but if you have a 50-foot monitor
leg, a 25-foot sub snake out onto the stage
and a 25-foot XLR cable plugged into that, it
all adds up quickly.
Before you had mentioned the con-
www.fohonline.com
200.0612.32.ankle.indd 37
cept of running phantom from both consoles,
I always thought it was best to run it from the
closest source. However, some guest engineers would find it strange when I was running my phantom from monitor world. They
would protest that that wasn’t the “standard.”
Where do people learn about these phantom
standards?
Paul: I think that habits start and then they
become “the standard.” I haven’t yet tried this,
but on my next gig I am going to do it and
read the voltage and see what happens. I am
glad that people, who are much smarter than
me, figure these things out and teach us a better way. I guess that we need a “myth buster”
in the sound business. If you, the reader, will
try this out and let us know what your experience is, we would love to hear from you. Also,
tell us any stories you have regarding phantom power and its effects on your mics.
Got a question? You can reach the Anklebiters
at [email protected]
Dear Anklebiters,
December 2006
37
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continued from page 27
the J-Series. They asked if I was still interested,
and the rest is history. It’s definitely a very telling rig; if you suck, it sucks. There’s nothing to
hide behind with that system.
We now run 24 bit/48kHz AES all the way
from the stage to the amps. Once the inputs
hit the VENUE’s converters, they never go
through another conversion stage. The Dolby
Lake Processors accept AES, the d&b amps
accept AES. It makes for an incredibly clean
signal path.
Most major touring companies can outfit
you with an impressive rig these days. Having
the latest gear is one thing, knowing the proper implementation of that gear is another. CW
and all the Eighth Day guys truly understand
the “hows and whys” of their gear. Fortunately,
I’ve found a company with the right people,
the right gear and the right knowledge.
Flashy gear in a rack is just that if you don’t
know how to tailor that gear to every specific
scenario you might encounter on the road.
Q What are YOU doing differently out front?
A I monitor individual inputs throughout the
show. I like to solo things post fader and then
add other inputs on top of one another, one
by one. By doing this, it helps to simplify what
inputs might be stepping on one another. You
can have the greatest sounding lead guitar in
the history of rock and roll, but if it eats up too
much room in the mix, who cares?
The one thing I’ve learned that has helped
me tremendously is to separate input from
system. By that I mean it’s crucial that I know
and trust how an input sounds coming out of
my console, so that when I hear that same input sound displeasing through the PA, I know
to alter the system, not the console. Sound
checks and empty rooms can really cause
you to second guess your moves on the desk
when the real problem might just be a bit too
much 2k in the system.
Q What was the learning curve like on the
VENUE? And what are the pros and cons
now that you have been using it a while?
A VENUE’s great on so many levels. Creatively, your options are endless. You can decide at
lunch you’d like to try a this on a that, and 20
minutes later it’s done. There’s no calling the
shop, taking out this piece of gear to make
room for that.
It admittedly took me a while to get around
on the board. I felt way too slow on it at first,
especially for a show that has 60-something
active inputs coming from the stage. I flew up
to Cleveland and spent three days at the shop
there playing back tracks (via Pro Tools). I’d
run through a whole show without stopping
to get used to its feel. The band has about 200
songs, and we get the set list about 10 minutes before they go onstage, so there are no
scenes for this kind of show. It’s “turn it on and
go!” Now, I cruise around on it just as fast I
would on any console.
Q What is your favorite part of working
with Panic?
A It’s a big band, and it’s an unscripted show.
When I’m able to mentally get on the same
page as the band and reel their sound in —
man, that’s just a great feeling.
Q The hardest part?
A Being away from my own bathroom
Q What would you be doing if you weren’t
doing sound for a living?
A Coaching high school football...how’s that
for polar opposite career paths?!
Q If you had to go on the road with a different system every night, and could only
bring three things with you, what would
they be?
A A Shure SM91, a Distressor and Brad.
www.fohonline.com
200.0612.39.indd 39
IN DE X
COMPANY
A Call to
Manufacturers
continued from page 2
host computer to offer a huge variety of
plug-ins all available to your third party
applications. You bring your audio in and
out with one manufacturer’s interface,
mix in another’s DAW, process with a
third’s plug-ins and mix your masterpiece
on a fourth’s control surface — this interoperability is becoming almost seamless. Venerable Allen & Heath have highend DJ products that double as both live
audio mixers and DAW controllers, all in
the digital domain. OK, you say, Digidesign allows plug-ins on their VENUE series. However, I believe that offering a
few proprietary compliant processors is
vastly different from the scenarios outlined above.
In conclusion, here’s what I’m looking
for: computer-based live sound mixing
software that will accept any compliant
interface, third party plug-ins and external control. With this I can then configure a console (maybe even in a Pelican
case) that addresses my absolute needs
without being locked into a hardware
solution. As new products become available I can integrate them into my system
at my will and my risk. Heck, I can even
lay the band’s sequencing and sampling
tracks or the playback cues directly into
my mixer. This is not brain surgery, the
standards are already well known, established, working and out there (MIDI was
ratified in 1983). We used to have interoperability, it was called the XLR connector,
and apart from a little transatlantic miscommunication it worked pretty well.
Now it’s time to put the decisions and
control back into the live mixer’s hands
and make the technology work for us.
Philip Barrett
December 2006
39
12/1/06 6:01:42 PM
FOH-at-Large
Drop the
C
all me archaic, but I actually find the English language to be a great way to express ones thoughts, regardless of intent
or purpose. From relaying simple instructions
in concise terms to loquaciously waxing poetic,
the English language, when used properly, is
capable of conveying thought and feeling with
nuance and elegance. This does not mean that
we need to roll our “R’s” or speak in Shakespearean English, but as intelligent
people we must find a middle
ground between “Wherefore
art thou?” and “Where you at?”
Starting with the president of
the United States on down,
spoken English has become
a lost art or, at the very least,
simply modified to the lowest
common denominator.
If language is a sign of intelligence, then the converse
must be true, and the failure to
speak properly must be a sign of a lesser intelligence. While we all know that this is not necessarily an accurate assessment of intelligent life,
it has been proven in many surveys that better
spoken people are viewed as more capable
and intelligent than those who are linguistically challenged. Over the years, the vernacular
of the English language has been changed by
the advent of new terminology with which to
explain new technology and new phenomena.
Words and phrases such as “ring tone,”“IMing,”
“download” and “Googling” are recent additions to the colloquial English that we all speak.
Older idiomatic expressions such as “cool it”
have been replaced by the updated “chill out,”
and phrases such as “groovy” and “far out” are
so archaic that one might as well say “swell.”
The word “ain’t” was added to the dictionary,
but in my 1980 Random House College Dictionary, the word is accompanied by a proviso that
states, “Ain’t is so traditionally and widely regarded as a nonstandard form that it should be
shunned by all who prefer to avoid being considered illiterate,” or, in layman’s terms, “Use at
your own risk.”
The reason I bring all this to your attention
is that, in our business, it is not enough just to
F-Bomb
be a technical wizard who can only speak “Audiophile” and “hip” musical slang. Since we are
constantly dealing with people and clients who
speak a more formalized English, it is a good
assumption that, to succeed in this business
as a touring or regional engineer, one should
have a better command of the language than
street slang. Unfortunately, advertisers, movies
and television, in their attempt to reach certain
I spend hours on the phone each day
with prospective clients trying to discern what
equipment and labor they need to make their
events successful. Anyone who does the same
knows how tedious and frustrating it can be
when a would-be client requests, “Just a basic
sound system for a small band,” or “a microphone for 500 people.” These are the clients
who need their hands held from start to finish,
and they are also the same clients who have serious budgets to which they need to adhere. As
it turns out, I am the one who spends long, agonizing hours deciphering what they mean and
what they are trying to accomplish. I perform
this task of building an order while utilizing my
mediocre command of the English language.
I am confident that I know what needs to be
done, and I am certain that I can communicate
the process to the client. Therefore, when an
engineer decides to bring an overabundance
of extra gear to an event, it defeats the purpose
of what I do and only makes the job harder for
said engineer. While I do recognize the importance of having a few pieces of gear as backup
when one is in the field, the idea is to not only
provide a client with what they need, but also
with what they can afford, and if they can only
fly coach,
why should
I upgrade
them to first
class? Remember, I
also have to
figure in the
hourly cost
of labor, as
well as a fair
price for the
equipment
and trucking, as this is how the company and
engineer make the most of their time.
When I once questioned an engineer as to
why he had taken so much more equipment
to a gig than was needed — or ordered — he
replied that it looked good to all involved if he
was able to pull pieces of gear out of his ass
when the client started to request more and
more.As much as I understood and appreciated
his illustrative metaphor, I took issue with not
only how he was transporting the gear, but the
fact that he thought it was OK to give it away. It
was a large corporate event, and I realized that
he wanted to look good for the client and also
make the company shine. After all, nothing sells
a company better than a job well done.
As it turned out, the client was a very distinguished and educated woman who had started
the company and created its success. She was a
very hands-on CEO and became overwhelmed
at the amount of gear being brought into the
event. She politely questioned the engineer
regarding the amount of equipment, and he
affably responded with his brilliant metaphor,
except now that he was in the heat of it, he decided to ramp it up a notch just to drive home
the point.“It may seem like a lot,” he said,“but I
“Hey Vinnie the F-ing console doesn’t f-ing
work, and now we’re all FCT.” Of course, a
sentence such as this one should only be
shouted across the room at the fanciest
of corporate events in order to have the
optimum effect.
40
200.0612.40.indd 40
December 2006
markets, rely on specific phrases and words
that only promote the improper syntax and idioms that, as Random House describes,“should
be shunned by all who prefer to avoid being
considered illiterate.”
Giving the wrong impression to those
around us would be most unfortunate since
the majority of audio technicians I know are
intelligent, capable human beings who read
manuals and operate rather complex technology. These same technicians, when need be,
are usually quite quick with a euphemism such
as,“My monitor engineer is a piece of work,” or
“The lead singer is something else.”Thus, knowing that said engineers are capable of turning
such a droll phase, it always galls me when a
good majority of their speech is peppered
with the “F” word. The English language contains such a plethora of words to choose from
that it is almost criminal to rely on one word to
describe every subtlety of emotion and spirit,
but nonetheless, we do it anyway. “Hey Vinnie
the f-ing console doesn’t f-ing work, and now
we’re all FCT.” Of course, a sentence such as this
one should only be shouted across the room
at the fanciest of corporate events in order to
have the optimum effect.
By BakerLee
just like to pull the f-ing sh*t out of my ass
if I need it.”
Of course, Vinnie didn’t realize that he was
painting a mental picture for the client, or that
she would spend the best part of the following four hours trying to escape the haunting
image by drowning herself in a sea of vodka.
Unaware of his horrific metaphor, he compounded his gaff by telling her not to worry,
as he had the perfect place to store the dead
and unused cases. Unfortunately, at this point,
knowing the place from which he was pulling
the equipment, there was no way for her to
know that he was speaking about the truck as
a storage space and that the “perfect place to
store the dead and unused cases” was not just
a euphemism he was using to complement his
brilliant metaphor.
As a salesman I am quite clear with a client
as to what might be needed for each particular
show, and while I want every event to be great,
I also do not want to second guess the client. I
do my best to understand their needs and to
provide them with a compatible system for
their event, but it’s not my job to bring a second
console and a split snake plus four more monitor mixes just because I think it is better than
what the client ordered. If I seriously doubt that
a show will work with the requested equipment, then I will just not book the show. While
I do want every event to be a success, I do not
think that I want my engineers to figuratively or
literally pull large amounts of gear out of their
asses to make the events work; nor do I want
them speaking to the clients in monosyllabic
four-letter words in order to explain their actions. As far as I’m concerned, both of these acts
“should be shunned by all who prefer to avoid
being considered illiterate.”
Coming
Next
Month...
• It’s a Metal New Year
FOH rocks in 2007 with a
profile of the Iron Maiden tour
and a Q&A with Ozzie’s MON
guy.
• Tech Trickle Down
Digital consoles are now in
high schools. What tech will
trickle down next?
www.fohonline.com
12/1/06 6:02:30 PM
200.0612.Ads.indd 3
12/1/06 1:47:20 AM
200.0612.Ads.indd 4
12/1/06 1:48:03 AM

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