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Is It Game Over for Networked Audio Wars?
More Major Manufacturers
License Ethersound
By Bill Evans
ThE NEws MagazinE For LivE Sound
OCTOBER 2006 Vol. 5 No. 1
Tours Track Studio Sound
OK, before any of you go postal on us: We are not making any declaration here. See
that squiggly thing up there in the top headline? It’s called a question mark. We are
posing what is called a “rhetorical question.”
All that being said, the question is forced when—although there are a number of
competing formats out there for the transport of networked audio—two companies
who each control large parts of the market and together are way past formidable both
make the same move and adopt the same standard within days of each other.
We knew about it last month but
were under a press embargo and still we
tried to work around it a little and give
you enough info to do the math and figure it out. But the deal is thus: Both Peavey
(which means Crest and all of the Media
Matrix stuff as well) and Yamaha (which
means NEXO, too) have announced that
they have adopted Ethersound networking technology for use in all of their products. Some of this will mean future products and some add-ons to, well, add-on
the capability to products already on the
market.
“We have monitored the development and growing acceptance of EtherSound technology, and we’re impressed continued on page 8
Inside...
18
On Broadway
How do you mic violence?
Big Thump
From a Small
Rack for BEP
Beck
There was a time when certain “studio” bands just didn’t tour because they couldn’t get the
same sound live as they could as the result of a couple of hundred takes on a drum track. But,
to quote Robert Scovill—an engineer whose credentials in both the live and studio worlds are
pretty impressive—speaking about mixing with a line array,“It gave me my EQ knobs back.” It’s
just one example of how technology is blurring the once solid line between stage and studio.
For a look at how engineers for some noted studio acts are taking an eraser to what is left of
the line, see page 22.
PLASA Undercard, AES Main Event
in Techno Battle For Live Audio
The recent PLASA show in London was kind of a warm-up for the upcoming AES show in
San Francisco with regards to the introduction of new live audio technology.
PLASA brought the Cadac S-Digital, a console that does all of the things we have all been
asking a digital desk to do for some time but at a price too steep for touring acts or even
most installs. At 195K pounds sterling (about $330K) expect this one in high-end theatrical
installs pretty much exclusively. Among other biggies like the huge-power-in-a-small-box
continued on page 12
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA—Schubert
Systems Group recently became the first
sound company in the U.S. to test the
prototype FP+ Series of touring amplifiers. Only days after their arrival , four
new FP 10000Qs and an FP 13000 were
loaded into SSG racks and were put on
the Black Eyed Peas tour that kicked off
on Aug. 24 in Mansfield, MA. Four FP+
10000Qs were put into two new racks
that are configured to drive line arrays,
subs, wedges or front fills with no modifications. Currently the four FP+10000Q
amps are driving 16 JBL VT4880 flown
subs + 16 SSG/McCauley 2X18 ground
subs as part of the 68 cabinet all Lab.
Gruppen powered PA system. A single
FP+ 13000 was added to the Black Eyed
Peas side fill rack (4 X FP6400 + 1 X FP13000)
to power their “larger than life” side fills
(8 JBL VT4888 line array cabinets (4 per
20
Parrotheadland
The vibe's in the air, the mic's
sewn in his shirt.
28
KEXP In Chicago
One FOH guy, 11 bands,
five mixes.
continuedon page 5
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Table of Contents
October 2006, Vol. 5.1
What’s
HotHot
What’s
What’s
What’s
Hot
Hot
Features
20 Mixing in Margaritaville 40 On the Bleeding Edge
One more reason to love the Hawaiian
shirt—it’s got great sound.
22 Picky Producers on
the Road
Studio technology—and
migrate to the stage.
26
FOH Interview
Can you bring the “Pushey Things” up a couple of dB?
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are known for being a little, well, whacked.
And with Dave Rat they appear to have found a sound guy who can
keep up with them.
demands—
Three diverse soundcos who are thriving
because they thought outside of the musical genre box.
Dead physicists BINGO. Unless you want
your speakers in flames, you better play
along.
28 Production Profile
43 Anklebiters
It’s live, it’s broadcast, it’s streaming, it’s
done by one mixer.
30 Product Gallery
Here comes the signal chain again. It’s an
A-T ATM250DE dual-element mic into a CBI
cable split, on to an APB DynaSonic console
with power provided by a Camco V6.
Columns
18 On Broadway
Making the most from a few mics on
The Lieutenant Of Inishmore
38 Regional Slants
What do you get when you throw cutting-edge gear on its first public
outing and a gaggle of guitars into a theatre in San Diego for a DVD
shoot and maybe a dry run for a Broadway show? We call it a “temporary installation” for Primal Twang
How increased air travel security is going to
make getting the gear to the gig a bigger
challenge
42 Theory and Practice
34 Road Tests
32
41 The Biz
24 Expanding Your
Offerings
Get your geek on with these audio
analysis tools.
Installations
We give Steve some extra space to begin the long process of getting plug-ins
together for digital consoles. Universal
format anyone?
Using consumer gear to make the gig
easier. It can work. Really.
The input’s connected to the output, of
course. But how do you make sure your
newbie “crew” gets the right signal into the
right jack?
48 FOH-at-Large
Cut the 60 Hz grumble, willya?
Departments
2. Feedback
4. Editor’s Note
5. News
12. On the Move
14. New Gear
16. Showtime
45. In the Trenches
45. Welcome to My
Nightmare
Feedback
[One of our Regional Slants authors, Larry Hall, got
this e-mail this month. His reply follows after the e-mail,
which we’re sure you’ll all identify with – ed.]
Larry –
Through many smaller jobs I get this: Mr. Small-time
lead guitar guy with a Behringer stack 8 heavy somehow thinks that blasting the stack at full power is the
thing to do when he is miked. Even after explaining to
him that the sound system will do the work for him,
and if you turn down your amp so I can actually put you
in the mix and that will help, they don’t listen.
200.0610.02.TOC.indd 2
Then you have the ever-famous, “Can you turn up
the vocals cause I can’t hear them?” Well, they are actually at max but the midrange crap coming from your
amp is canceling out the vocal frequencies in the mix
on stage and in the main mix, I say. It doesn’t help.
Is there a solution that you know of to eliminate
this? This one guy was coming in so hot that he was
clipping with the gain fully reduced on his channel.
I had to just keep him out of the mix or it would’ve
sounded like crap. Seems to me that telling them to
trust the 16,000 watts of sound power we have is not
enough. I only had one of those during this 13 band
event on Saturday, but that one set was a reputation
killer. I can’t afford to have bands like that hook in if
they aren’t willing to listen to the sound crew and let
us run the mix. It’s not a garage, it’s a venue—so let us
run the sound. Let me know your thoughts.
Matt Meighen
Owner
Meighen Productions
www.meighenproductions.com
Larry’s reply after the jump, on page 10.
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Editor’s Note
AES/PLAS
By Bill Evans
THE NEWS
MAGA
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SEPTEM
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Vol. 4
No. 12
Ins ide
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14
On Broadw
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The show
show at Thewithin a show IS the
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Publisher
Terry Lowe
20
As we
live event get into the second
production
half of the
for the
industry
year
first
sponsor— time in Las Vegas to honor its it means that the
own
premier Precise Corporate on Oct. 20. Plenty at the annual time is here once
awards.
again
Parnelli
of
Next, actual Staging—to
and a copy
whom we Parnelli news inside. Awards, taking for the
Bill Hanley, of the Parnelli voting is open
tip our
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about it and the man who the story behind)
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pretty much
16.
cre-
Telex Resp
onds
To Bosc
h Buy
Telex
Mathias Pro Audio Group
von Heydekam
president
time to
pf took
sit
some
Terry Lowe down with
FOH
regarding for an exclusive publisher
interview
Bosch, howTelex’s recent
acquisition
and why, it will affect Telex
by
ultimately,
customers
thing for
he thinks
,
the
it’s a good
can be found company. The
full interview
on page
10.
Hometo
wn Heroes
FOH readers
to the best give a nod
companies regional sound
36
FOH-at-Large
Look at that
How many hot mixer.
beers?
Ad info:
[email protected]
www.fohonline.
com/rsc
Editor
Bill Evans
Last Mag
[email protected]
Standing
C
an it actually be? Four years have
passed since the first time I filled
this space. Back in October of 2002
the industry was still reeling from the after-shocks of 9/11, and the consolidation
that has been a part of everyday life lately
was just beginning. The last thing anyone
wanted (especially in the manufacturing community) was another magazine.
And yet…
So let’s take a look at what has changed
in the past four years. The upper end of the
soundco biz has undergone some serious
consolidation with Sound Image buying
DB and creating a company big enough to
give ClairCo a run for the number one slot.
More serious consolidation has taken place
in the middle of the market as the sound
technology arms race has made it harder to
stay competitive, and some once regional
companies find themselves scratching for
the gigs once reserved for anklebiters. And
those heel-nippers have gotten more aggressive and techno-savvy which makes
things even tougher in the middle.
The ironic thing is that the only publication that has really been covering those
changes is the one that no one wanted to
see in the first place. In case you are unclear,
that would be the magazine you are reading right now. FOH came to be at a time
when the market was in a bit of turmoil, and
the truth is that we have not only survived
but actually thrived—as much as anything
Associate Editor
Jacob Coakley
[email protected]
Technical Editor
Mark Amundson
[email protected]
By BillEvans
through sheer, hard-headed stubbornness.
We recently did a survey of FOH readers and found that while some in the industry did not want another magazine, all y’all
have apparently found it to be a valuable
resource. Most of you who read FOH read
other pro audio publications irregularly at
best. Guess that means we are doing something right, but there is something else at
work here, too.
At the same time as the consolidation in
the sound business was happening, a shake
up in the publishing business was just getting started. Today, there are two “overall”
production magazines available that cover
both sound and lighting. Both are backed
by companies in the U.K., where that kind of
publication is popular, and both are finding
it tough going on this side of the pond.
Meanwhile, the big publishing companies that were the established players—
United Business Media, publishers of Pro
Sound News, and Huge Universe, publishers of Live Sound Int’l. as well as Pro Sound
Web—have both been sold. United has
been on the block for more than a year and
recently sold to an equity investment firm,
while Live Sound and Pro Sound Web are
now owned by EH Publishing, a company
that does consumer electronic publications
and whose specialty is really putting on expos and conventions. Even a studio magazine that some saw as competing in the live
sound space—Mix—has changed hands
moving from longtime owner Primedia to
Prism Publishing.
So what does all this mean to you? Well,
in addition to the interesting mirroring of
the live audio business, these changes have
left FOH as the only live audio magazine
that is privately owned and not controlled
by a large corporation or investment group.
It also means that with our stable of FOH,
Projection Lights and Staging News, the
Event Production Directory and our latest
addition Stage Directions (oh yeah, did I forget to mention that we just bought that established and respected technical theatre
magazine?) we are the ONLY publishing
company that does nothing but support
the live event production industry. We don’t
do cheerleading magazines or construction
magazines or have to answer to some faceless group of investors.
If we have an idea, we can decide to try
it or not, right away, without any long chain
of command to worry about. We were talking about it the other day, and the truth is
that the company runs much like a production crew with the same kind of controlled
chaos and “git ‘er done” attitude and no corporate BS.
The only thing left to complete the picture—and really give the industry at large
fits—is to bring back the Pro Production
conference. News of that is coming sooner
than you might think…
Thanks for four great years.
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]
Josh Harris
[email protected]
National Sales Manager
Peggy Blaze
[email protected]
National Advertising Director
Gregory Gallardo
[email protected]
General Manager
William Hamilton Vanyo
[email protected]
Executive Administrative
Assistant
Dawn-Marie Voss
[email protected]
Business and
Advertising Office
6000 South Eastern Ave.
Suite 14J
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Ph: 702.932.5585
Fax: 702.932.5584
Toll Free: 800.252.2716
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P.O. Box 16147
North Hollywood, CA 91615
Front Of House (ISSN 1549-831X) Volume 5 Number
1 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
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Overseas subscriptions are available and can be obtained by calling 702.932.5585. Editorial submissions
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9/28/06 4:33:50 PM
News
Company Formed to Support Euro Console Rental Market
HOLLAND—Axel Nagtegaal, managing director of distribution companies Midas Consoles Holland and
Electric Audio, has formed Dryhire.eu.
Among equipment purchased specifically for the new company are two
entire Midas XL8 live per formance
systems, a Heritage 1000, two Veronas, two Sienas, a Heritage 1000 and
a Legend, together with Klark Teknik
Show Command systems including
DN9331 RAPIDE graphic controllers
and 9848E system controllers, DN370
graphic eqs, DN1248 Plus splitters
and Square ONE Dynamics units. Mi-
das Heritage 2000 and 3000 consoles
are also available, as well as a wider
range of Klark Teknik equipment.
Nagtegaal explains the philosophy behind the company: “Our role
is exclusively to offer rental company
support; we’re not in the business of
renting equipment to end users or individuals,” he says. “We aim to offer a
small amount of defined niche products to a defined group of customers
who can rent what they need from us.
And we’re doing so from the position
of being a neutral company, and not
in direct competition with our clients.
All potential renters will be subject
to an intake interview so both parties know exactly who they’re doing business with, to protect mutual
interests and create a defined group
of rental companies with proven
track records.”
In the case of XL8 rentals, Dryhire.
eu will provide the whole system together with a factory-trained system
technician to assist the mix engineer,
as specified by Midas.
“We’re not restricting our service
to Holland exclusively but will also be
available to pre-selected companies
across Europe, as well as US companies who need to hire equipment for
European legs of their tours,” concludes Nagtegaal. “As a company we
have specialist product knowledge of
Midas mixing consoles, Klark Teknik
signal processing, Electro-Voice loudspeaker systems and Telex wireless
intercoms as well as other niche audio, lighting and trussing products.
We can offer a highly flexible, professional service, providing trained XL8
system techs who can cater for hires
of any size or length of time, no matter what equipment is required.”
continued from front cover
side, flown) + 4 JBL 4880A subs). All of these
systems are under the control of Lake Processors and the engineers are using Digidesign
DShow consoles for FOH and Monitors.
The FP+ Series technology platform combines a considerable refinement of patented
Class TD amplification and the Regulated
Switch Mode Power Supply to afford the
user proven reliability with unprecedented
power and channel density. The FP+ Series
effectively allows an over 50% reduction in
rack space measured against the company’s
current fP Series amplifiers. Also, for the first
time, Lab.Gruppen’s proprietary NomadLink
control and monitoring network is available
in a touring package as a standard feature.
“We were thrilled to be the selected as
one of the proving grounds for the new Lab.
Gruppen products, said SSG’s founder/owner Dirk Schubert, “We never hesitated putting the new product out with one of our
premiere clients. The Black Eyed Peas show
demands all the power available from the
monitors and PA, so it seemed like a perfect
venue for these new Class TD amplifiers. The
configuration of the new FP 10000 4-channel amp presents a very unique and cabinet
friendly power footprint and the FP 13000
is (to the best of my knowledge) the most
powerful amplifier in the world. Given the
cost and truck space and fuel issues in our
industry today, the value of compact size
and light weight of the new FP+ amps cannot be underestimated. Lab.Gruppen amps
power all of our touring systems and the FP+
models will be welcomed with open arms as
we continue to expand our services to keep
pace with the demand.”
With FP+ Series’ 4-channel models, each
pair of channels may be bridged to provide
2- or 3-channel operation. Full power without clipping is assured, as overall input sensitivity on all models is adjustable in 3dB increments from 23 to 44dB. Additionally, VPL
(Voltage Peak Limiting) tailors each individual output for the specific load conditions,
providing eight peak power output levels
to optimize performance while protecting
mid- and high-frequency voice coils.
According to Jon Maier, CEO of TC Electronic, Lab.Gruppen’s N. American distributor, Lab.Gruppen is enjoying record sales
and has invested heavily in to ensure that
the FP+ flows into full production swiftly.
200.0610.5-10.News.indd 5
Ad info:http:// foh.hotims.com
New FP+ Amp
Promises
Power for Peas
9/30/06 10:14:14 AM
News
Line Array Unleashed At
Music Festival
TORONTO—The Rizla Unleashed Music Festival delivered a fantastic weekend of music from a
breath-taking cliff top location overlooking Watergate Bay in Newquay, U.K. Concert Sound UK
was in charge of sound production. The sound system design was perfected by Didier Del Fitto
of DV2-Adamson Europe, who chose 24 Adamson Y10s and 6 Adamson Spektrix as downfills
for the main arrays. A total of eight ground stacked T-21’s Subs provided bass. On the stage four
M15’s took care of the monitoring. All speakers were processed with XTA DP226 and DP428
controllers and powered by Lab.Gruppen amplifiers.
Audio Boosts Iraqi-American Celebration
DETROIT—The Chaldean American
Chamber of Commerce hosted the Chaldean Cultural Festival at the Southfield
Civic Center near Detroit. Metro Detroit
lays claim to the largest Chaldean (Catholic
Iraqis) population in the nation, thousands
attended the festival. The main stage was
outfitted by Audio Visual One Presentations of Michigan Center, Mich. using ISP
Technologies Pro Audio gear.
ISP was represented with a 4 box per side
Mongoose Ground Stackable Line Array system, 6 XMAX 212 subs, 2 HDM 212 monitors
for side fill and front stage monitors and a full
compliment of ISP stage monitors, including
VMAX 12XL’s and VMAX 15XL’s. Calvin Williams,
owner of Audio Visual One Presentations and
a 20-year plus veteran in corporate A/V and
outdoor live festivals, was pleased with the
performance of the Mongoose System.
“At one point a crowd of over 6500
people packed the live music area. The ISP
rig easily handled the crowd with headroom to spare,” he said.
With all of the ISP gear being powered,
set up and tear down was much easier and
the gear’s 15,000 watts of power at the festival maintained the integrity of the sound.
Out of Sight Speakers At Club
NEW YORK—Manhattan clubbing is a
little more upscale at The Manor; those who
are lucky enough to make it inside experience an exclusive environment where proscenium arches, dioramas and dark leather
set the scene, and the clean power of a
complete Danley Sound Labs loudspeaker
system sets the pace.
According to Steve Petrik, Systems
Designer of D&A, his decision to design
the sound system around eight Danley
Sound Labs SH-100 full-range loudspeakers, six SH-50 three-way loudspeakers,
and six TH-112 subwoofers, has enabled
the 5,000 square-foot, bi-level Manor to
deliver a premium sonic experience to its
selective patrons.
Working closely with the architect
Mark Dizon of D&A, Petrik was handed
the assignment to bring an elegantly uncluttered look to the club. “They wanted
to conceal everything—the speakers,
lights, projectors—in the architectural
features of the space,” he says. “Along
with that, they wanted a complete audio
and visual system that would be highly
configurable, in an environment that was
sonically transparent.”
In the main upstairs room, the six Danley Sound Labs SH-50s angle down invisibly from within the ceiling soffits, provid-
October 2006
200.0610.5-10.News.indd 6
ing substantial directivity fulfilling Petrik’s
creativity.“I designed the system so there’s
a considerable drop-off in volume—four
or five dB—from when you’re standing
and dancing in the middle of the room to
when you’re seated on the edge,” explains
Petrik. “Because of the tight pattern control of the speaker—truly 50 x 50 almost
down to 250Hz—it allows you to aim the
speakers on the dance floor and focus the
energy there, not on the people sitting on
the sidelines.”
The Manor may be a high-end hangout, but its patrons will be treated to plenty
of strong low-end via the six TH-112 subwoofers, which are built deep into the floor
with their horn mounts inverted, resulting
in maximum performance and space efficiency. “We only have six inches of speaker
exposed to the floor, and the rest is sunken
into the basement,” Petrik says.
While a pristine-sounding audio setup
may seem to be simply a luxury within a
crowded nightclub environment, smart
club owners realize that it’s actually a business necessity. “Providing a sound system
that isn’t taxing on the patrons of the venue allows the venue to make more money.
Clubgoers stay longer when the sound
works whether they’re talking or dancing,”
Steve Petrik points out.
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9/28/06 4:34:57 PM
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9/28/06 4:57:08 PM
News
Washington’s Howard University Takes it Up a Notch
WASHINGTON D.C.—While Howard Universty is better known for academics than
athletics, sports are still a prominent aspect of student life. In fact, the university’s
homecoming football game and accompanying celebration is considered one of the
capital’s more notable annual events, with
thousands of local residents joining the
11,000-plus student body to partake in the
week-long gala, which features a cornucopia of musical entertainment and special
celebrity guests. With another year fast
approaching, Athletic Department facility
manager Isaac Darden knew it was time to
upgrade Greene Memorial Stadium’s aging sound system, and sought the advice
of Beltsville, MD-based RCI Sound Systems,
the firm behind other local high-profile jobs
including Kennedy Center Concert Hall and
the Washington Redskins’ FedEx Field.
“We knew the stadium needed an audio
system that could withstand the Washington weather, and could provide high SPL
coverage for both speech and background
music,” explained RCI’s Operations Manager Kory Hankin. Hankin specified a system
comprising two Community R2-52X and
two R2-474X weather-resistant three-way
loudspeakers covering the home team
seats. The visitor section and end zone area
are handled by a set of R2-52X, R2-474X and
R.5-HP speakers, each mounted 80 feet high
on the venue’s lighting poles using Community Professional SSYR2 Speaker Yokes in
conjunction with custom-designed mounting brackets from RCI.
“The Community R series have a proven
track record of providing excellent sound
coverage and intelligibility,” Hankin observes. “And I’ve been really impressed with
how well the R series speakers have held up
in outdoor environments on several previous jobs that we’ve installed them on.”
The Greene Memorial Stadium installation presented an additional challenge to
RCI installers David Riordan and Pat Flood
in the open-air design of the announcer’s
box; for security reasons, the amplifier and
control-module rack were designed to be
removable, and are only brought out for
game days. “We had to weather-proof and
secure all the connection points in lock
boxes,” notes Hankin. “Since the announcer
uses a simple setup consisting of several
wireless microphone systems for himself,
the referees, and an MP3 player for music
playback, pre-game setup is a snap.”
“We’ve gotten rave reviews from
staff and faculty alike,” Hankin reports.
“We’re really looking forward to football
season and the fans’ reaction to the new
sound system.”
Royal Bliss Happy to Face The Music
SANDY, UTAH—The band Royal Bliss,
whose musical style combines elements
of classic rock with a modern indie
sound, chose a touring sound package
that includes Face Audio F1200TS amplifiers, JBL VRX 932, SRX 712, and SRX
Subs. Their Mic package includes Audix
D6, D3, Shure Bros KSM 137, SM 58, and
Sennheiser 609 silver for the guitars. An
Allen & Heath GL3800 round up the FOH
and monitor desks.
Royal Bliss decided upon this particular rig to accommodate the wildly different and demanding environments they
play on any given night. From clubs with
low ventilation to large outdoor shows in
the peak heat
of summer,
with a myriad
of gradient
factors, they
can be sure
that their rig
is going to
be tested to
the extreme
again
and
again.
“We had
to have a
solid
rig,
that we were
sure
could
handle any
type of club
or venue and
still
sound
great,” says John Anderson, production
manager for Royal Bliss. One of the key
ingredients that have made a significant
impact to the band’s rig was the addition
of three Face Audio F1200TS amplifiers.
“We needed more real power—a bigger
punch in our low end that we had been
lacking,” concluded Anderson.
Eric Stoddard, lead engineer for
Royal Bliss, has attributed a noticeable
difference with the addition. “It’s night
and day. Face Audio has made a noticeable impact and brought a new level of
sound to the band regardless the size or
type of venue.”
Major Manufacturers License Ethersound
by its rapid implementation and evolution,”
said Hartley Peavey, Founder and CEO of
Peavey Electronics and CEO of Crest Audio.
“As the networked audio market grows,
EtherSound will enable us to continue to
expand our scope and deliver exceptional
value to our customers,” he added.
The Yamaha announcement was less of
a surprise, and the part we alluded to last
month. Yamaha and EtherSound are hardly
strangers: EtherSound Authorized Implementor AuviTran has sold EtherSound network cards for Yamaha consoles and digital
signal processors for several years, and will
continue to produce these products for
Yamaha. Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems, Inc. has been distributing AuviTranbranded EtherSound interfaces in the US
as well as NEXO loudspeaker systems, another EtherSound licensee. Larry Italia, vice
president and general manager of Yamaha
Commercial Audio Systems, Inc. commented that “EtherSound is already the network
of choice for many of our digital console
applications. The low latency is especially
important for live sound customers, as is
the ability to control and monitor stage
In Brief
Peavey has partnered with Software
Design Ahnert GmbH to offer its Ease
Focus acoustic simulation software free
of charge to users of the new Peavey Versarray line array system. Ease Focus Aiming
software draws two-dimensional representations of acoustical environments. . . CW
Sales & Marketing has stepped into the
U.S. pro audio market with brands such as
Audient, LA Audio and Tube Tech in their
distribution range. Founded by Chris Walsh
who cut his teeth in the sales & marketing
role as VP sales & marketing at Martinsound
and managing sales at Tannoy prior to running distribution company AXI. . . Additionally, LA Audio has picked up distributors
in the Far East and Germany. Distribution
and retail business Multi Voice Electronics (MVE) is the latest company in the Far
East to be appointed as LA Audio distributor and German hire company GM-Audio
chose LA Audio MS1224 microphone split-
LDI Expands
Production
Audio Training
NEW YORK—LDI 2006 has announced an expanded roster of audio training, demonstration and education programs for entertainment
technology professionals. LDI 2006
will take place October 16-22, 2006 at
the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Audio-related programs will include:
ET LIVE Outdoor Concert Stages
Adjacent to the Exhibit Hall: Attendees at LDI will have the opportunity
to see and hear live demonstrations
of concert sound products in an outdoor performance stage environment,
presented by manufacturers including
Loudspeakers: (A-Line Acoustics, d&b
audiotechnik, Eastern Acoustic Works,
JBL Professional, Meyer Sound, QSC
Audio), Consoles: (DiGiCo, Digidesign,
EAW, InnovaSon, Soundcraft, Studer),
Staging: (Mega Stage, Mobile Stage
Rentals, Stage Line, Stage Pro Mobile
Stages) Amps: (d&b audiotechnik,
Crown, QSC and Meyer Sound), Cable/
Snake (Link USA), Microphones (AKG,
Shure ), Power (Aggreko), Signal Processing (BSS Audio, dbx Professional),
Pyro (Sigma Services). To view photos
of ET Live from 2005, or to see a full list
of equipment, go to www.ldishow.com
(ET Live Tab).
inputs from front-of-house and/or monitor
consoles.”
EtherSound is an open standard for networking digital audio using off-the-shelf
Ethernet components. Fully compliant with
IEEE 802.3, EtherSound is a deterministic
network protocol with bi-directional transmission, high audio data capacity at mixed
sample rates and powerful control functions. EtherSound’s latency is stable and
easily calculated: the point-to-point transmission time between an audio input and
an audio output in an EtherSound network
is five samples (approx 100 microseconds
at 48 kHz), independent of the number of
channels transmitted.
www.fohonline.com
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9/28/06 4:57:49 PM
News
Artists Share Stage With Hot Mics at MTV VMAs
NEW YORK—MTV attracted kudos and
criticism for its attempts to revitalize the Video
Music Awards this year, but the sound reinforcement for all the artists remained superior.
Sennheiser and Audio-Technica were among
those who provided mics for performers.
The Raconteurs, house band for the day
on the new-look show, made extensive use
of Sennheiser microphones, while Beyoncé
wowed the crowd with a spectacular dance
performance singing into her favorite vocal
mic, the nickel finish Sennheiser/Neumann SKM
5200 hybrid wireless handheld.
“We used evolution series e935s on all the
vocals, including our guests, Lou Reed and Billy
Gibbons,” says Neil Heal, monitor engineer for
The Raconteurs. Reed made an appearance
with the band early in the show performing
the 1967 Velvet Underground classic, “White
Light/White Heat.” Later, The Raconteurs were
joined by ZZ Top’s Gibbons for a rendition of his
band’s “Cheap Sunglasses,” and near the end of
the broadcast, film director Jim Jarmusch, who
directed The Raconteur’s latest video, joined in a
spirited,“Internet Killed the Radio Star.”
According to Heal, the Sennheiser vocal
mics are ideal for a band that likes a very loud
stage. “With a normal stage volume of 128dB
at the vocal mics, I find the 935s are fantastic in
terms of clarity and feedback rejection. I tend to
keep my input gains down and my outputs up
so as not to pick up too much spill from cymbals, drums & guitar amps. They work really well
for me, and the band loves them.”
In addition to the vocal mics, Heal reports,
there was also an e609 on the guitar cabinet
for touring keyboard player Dean Fertita, while
drummer Patrick Keeler was miked with e604
on all his toms, an e602 on the kick drum,
and an e902 on the snare. Bass player “Little
Jack” Lawrence was the only band member
on wireless personal monitor, making use of
Sennheiser evolution monitors paired with Ultimate Ears earphones.
Beyoncé appeared with no introduction to
perform a spectacular dance number for “Ring
the Alarm,” the second single off her latest album. A longtime, user of the hybrid Sennheiser/
Neumann vocal mic, Beyoncé continues to
favor the Neumann KK 105-S capsule, but has
now adopted the newer Sennheiser SKM 5200
handheld. The transmitter offers a redesigned
user interface, mechanics and electronics.
Other top-flight artists used the AudioTechnica Artist Elite 5000 Series Wireless System with the AEW-T5400 handheld microphone/transmitter.
Artists utilizing the AEW-T5400 for front
line vocals included Justin Timberlake, Shakira,
The All-American Rejects, T.I., Young Dro, Panic!
At The Disco, and Kyle Gass of Tenacious D. Timbaland and Busta Rhymes also used the AEWT5400 during a tribute to director Hype Williams,
who received MTV’s Video Vanguard Award.
A wide selection of Audio-Technica wired
microphones were on hand for the extravaganza, including the AT4050 on overheads
and guitars; AT4047/SV for acoustic bass;
AE5100 on ride cymbals and hi-hats; ATM25
and ATM23HE on toms; and ATM350 for
Shakira
violins, violas and cello. AE2500 and AT4041
models were also put to use.
“The MTV VMAs were a fantastic showcase for Audio-Technica mics,” said Gary Boss,
Audio-Technica Marketing Director. “We were
excited to see so many artists deliver sensational performances of the year’s biggest
hits using our wireless systems as well as our
hardwired microphones.”
Benedum Reaps Audio Benefits
Feedback
continued from page 2
Matt —
OK, so this is a crappy subject. Most garage bands can’t be told anything because
they know everything.
About 10 years ago, I had a house gig
in a rock club. Three to four bands a night.
One night these guys show up, their first
time playing out. The drummer starts putting his kit together in front of the stage
while another band is playing! The guitar
player has a Marshall full stack as well. I yell
at the drummer to get his crap out back
to set up, and tell the guitar player to use
one cab and to play as quietly as possible.
The response?
“Hey bro, we’re pros! This isn’t our first
time, and if you were a musician maybe you
would have a clue!” So I snatched his guitar
from him, played a few runs, and went out
back and played a metal version of “Wipe
10
October 2006
200.0610.5-10.News.indd 10
MCKEES ROCKS, PA—The
Benedum Center for the Performing Arts in downtown
Pittsburgh, a historic theatre
that hosts over half a million
visitors a year, upgraded its
IR assisted listening system
with Sennheiser products
purchased through Northern
Sound and Light.
Named the “Number One
Auditorium in the U.S.” by
Billboard and ranked third in
Pollstar’s 2004 Top 50 list of
theatre venues worldwide, the
2,800-seat Benedum Center
provides turnkey production
services to everyone from
first-run national Broadway
tours to regional groups like
the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre
and the Pittsburgh Opera.
Benedum recently hosted the
Broadway tour of The Pretenders with house sound engi-
neer Chris Evans providing turnkey solutions
for stage monitors and at FOH.
Given the demanding technical requirements and budgets of each space, Evans often has several active productions as well as
equipment upgrades to manage. “Usually I
deal directly with the manufacturers for support with any substantial audio upgrades,”
explained Evans. “Northern Sound & Light is a
good supplier for the pieces and parts of a larger system. I know I can call them for anything
from a 1U rack piece to small hardware.” Most recently, Evans purchased fourteen
Sennheiser SZI 1029 and 1029-10 IR radiators
to replace the aging IR assisted listening system
at the Benedum Center. Evans worked with
NSL to receive the correct model numbers in
a timely manner. Evans noted:“Their customer
service is excellent. NSL is an easy company to
deal with; they fill a niche for me.”
Upcoming events at the Benedum
Center include twenty-four performances
of Monty Python’s Spamalot, as well as performances of Pagliacci, Swan Lake, Romeo &
Juliet and Mamma Mia.
Out” on the drums. Then I asked if he would
like me to sing his set too? Then—to add insult to ego injury—informed him that living
at home delivering pizza and splitting $50
between him and the other “musicians” in
his band was NOT pro. And that people who
act like that will deliver pizza for life while
the rest of us “pros” will continue walking
the walk and letting the talent to the talking. OK, enough about that.
You have very limited choices with
your problem. In the above case, I had been
there a year. I had the respect of the regular bands and the promoter always got my
back. If a band got out of line they didn’t
come back. Sometimes even national acts
do the same thing.
Option 1: Get the promoter to deal with
it. At the end of the day you are not the only
one that works for him/her. The band does,
too. If the promoter doesn’t get your back,
make sure he is aware of the crappy sound
consequences. Make sure he is aware that it is
NOT you. The down side to this option is you
seem to be a crybaby to the promoter and
making excuses. The good news is that the
other 12 bands sounded good. Of course you
could also get the singer on your side when
he starts bitching that he can’t hear!
Option 2: Make friends with the guy.
If you buy him a beer and give him a
couple old war stories about the sound
man against the band, maybe he will see
the light.
Option 3 requires full promoter support.
“If you don’t turn down, you don’t play.” This
will not make you any friends EVER! The band
will hate you and the promoter will not be
happy he/she was put in this position. I like
the line “I get paid the same if I do 12 or 13
bands today,” but “You guys dont want to
be known as a problem band do you?” also
works well.
Larry Hall
Larry can be found slapping bands around
at [email protected].
www.fohonline.com
9/29/06 1:26:20 PM
International News
Array Avoids Crackdown In Switzerland
AVENCHES, SWITZERLAND—Now in its
15th year, Rock’Oz Arènes is staged in the
atmospheric surrounds of an old Roman
amphitheatre on the outskirts of the town
of Avenches. Of the 40 acts that played this
year, many are internationally familiar names,
including Texas, Jamiroquai, Jovanotti, Franz
Ferdinand and Radiohead.
PA company Jaccoud is one of the first in
the world to invest in NEXO’s new GEO D tangent array system, purchased off-plan at the
ProLight+Sound expo in Frankfurt this spring.
Together with Frédéric Walder of Zap Audio,
distributor of NEXO products in Switzerland,
Christian Jaccoud designed the system for
Rock’Oz Arènes without assistance from
NEXO engineers.
One of the objectives was to devise a
system that would not provoke complaints
about sound leakage from the residential
neighborhoods surrounding the arena. This
was achieved with two arrays, each using
14 GEO D10 cabinets. Eight GEO Subs were
used for the seats, and eight CD18s covered
the floor of the arena. In addition, two arrays
of GEO S805s, (eight cabinets per side) were
used to provide coverage for the side wings
of the arena. PS8s were used for front fill, Alpha EMs for side fill, and the stage monitoring
system was made up from 16 PS15s.
In 2005, the Rock’Oz Arènes event used
a 12-cabinet per side NEXO GEO T system.
“Using GEO D this year, we added two boxes
per side for better coverage, especially in the
downfill. However we used the same number
of amplifiers—Camco’s Vortex 6 for the D10s,
and 200V for the GEO Subs—which is a good
endorsement of the efficiency of the GEO D
system.” CAMCO’s Tecton amps were used to
drive the PS Series cabinets.
Reactions from visiting sound engineers
like Andy Dockerty (Texas) were very positive,
and festival organizers were highly satisfied
with the system’s performance. Most importantly, not a single complaint was received
from local residents.
SINGAPORE—After several years hosting the annual Bay Beats festival, a concentrated exposition of local south-east Asian
talent featuring five “Indie” bands a day for
three days, this year a decision was taken
by Singapore’s Esplanade Theatres on the
Bay to purchase a large format line array
to cater for the festival’s audio needs.
“As the festival’s popularity has grown
we have experimented with a couple of
systems, most recently the Q-Series system from d&b audiotechnik,” said Esplanade’s Head of Sound, Robin
Shuttleworth. “We use d&b loudspeakers extensively throughout the Esplanade complex, C7 and C4 cabinets as
200.0610.11-12.INT/OTM.indd 11
Singapore Subs
Beat Bay
9/28/06 4:36:54 PM
International News
Singapore Subs Beat Bay
well as the Q, but my decision to purchase a
new system for Bay Beats was influenced by
several considerations, not just the needs of
the festival.”
Shuttleworth’s responsibilities include
the Esplanade Concert Hall, Recital Studios,
Theatre, Powerhouse and a dedicated outdoor space. “The festival is staged at our
Powerhouse venue and though the Q loudspeakers serve us well, I also wanted a system for use in our theatre venue for the occasional rock concert we stage there. As such
it needed to be powerful but not too large
as the proscenium is relatively narrow, and it
needed to be fast and easy to rig.”
Since delivery the Esplanade’s new J-Series
loudspeakers have seen action at Bay Beats
and in the Theatre for a concert by Scottish rock
wizards Mogwai. “The demands of these two
were very different,” explained Shuttleworth,
“and we found that, in fact, stage stacked rather
than flown subs works best at both locations,
which is the configuration we also used later
for the Singapore National Day celebrations.
Though some low-end power is sacrificed with
stage stacked subs through not coupling them
to the ground, the overall solution is best for
even coverage. If extended low-end is needed
we can always add B2s.”
“Overall the results have been extremely
pleasing; to be frank I can’t wait to try out the
J-Series in our show case venue the Concert
Hall,” Shuttleworth concluded.
PLASA Undercard, AES Main Event
in Techno Battle For Live Audio
Lab.Gruppen additions to the FP series of power amps was a wireless
powered wedge from Outline that
looks very interesting. All control, including EQ, are managed wirelessly
and each wedge serves as a kind of
extender lengthening the range of
the entire system. Look for reviews on
both of these soon.
Too soon to tell what the deal will
be at AES, but it is likely to be a mixed
bag with some companies hinting in
London of big things to come in San
Francisco and others—most notably
the now-part-of-Bosch Telex group
(EV, Blue, Midas, KT, Dynacord)—not
even exhibiting. For a look at some of
PLASA’s offerings and a few AES sneak
peeks see New Gear on page 14.
TO GET LISTED IN ON THE MOVE SEND YOUR
INFO AND PICS TO: [email protected]
On The Move
Morin
Productions,
the
North
American
distributor
of
Outline
Pro
Audio,
announced
that
Paul
Carelli
has
accepted the
Paul Carelli
position
of
vice president of sales and marketing. Carelli
will oversee all of the company’s growth strategies, sales activities, and marketing initiatives.
Carelli, a 30 year industry veteran, has spent the
past eight years as market manager of touring
systems for EAW and was an integral part of its
worldwide sales efforts.
Northern Sound
& Light added
Ken Boswell to
the sales staff.
Boswell joins NSL
from
regional
music store Hollowood Music &
Sound in Pittsburgh. In his new
Ken Boswell
position, he will
fill an integral position on the sales team by
fulfilling customer orders, conducting technical reviews of orders placed and working with
manufacturers to address any issues with
product availability or technical data. Boswell
attended Duquesne University in Pittsburgh
for sound recording. Ad info:http:// foh.hotims.com
Sennheiser Electronic Corporation recently promoted Dan Radin
to the position of
product manager,
Neumann, Klein +
Hummel and Distributed Brands.
Dan has primary
marketing
responsibility
for
Dan Radin
Neumann, TRUE
Systems, Klein + Hummel Studio Products
and HHB. Prior to joining Sennheiser, Dan received a Bachelor of Music degree from the
Berklee College of Music in Music Business/
Management.
12
October 2006
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www.fohonline.com
9/28/06 4:37:27 PM
200.0610.Ads.indd 13
9/28/06 4:58:25 PM
New Gear
Cadac S-Digital Console
The Cadac S-Digital is conceived to reflect the surface architecture of Cadac’s J-Type analog
console. In its basic configuration, it offers a minimum specification of 72 input channels, 66 mix
busses and 3 stereo listen busses. Key features of the S-Digital include: single or multi-operator
control with multiple listen systems provided as standard; extra console surfaces can be used
for tech and then relocated/removed; the ability to configure multiple control surfaces
within a single mixing system, allowing
control over all console parameters from multiple locations (such as Control
Room and FOH pit,
or FOH and Monitor); a proprietary
high-speed communications protocol linking
the core elements (Control
Surface, Multiple Audio I/O Racks,
and Processor Rack); all input and
output modules hot swappable; the
control surface consisting of three components—Input Frame, Output Frame and
a Central Control Module; a single Input frame
has the capability to control 144 input channels, and a single Output frame has control over all
72 output and listen busses; additional frames can be utilized to give physical control of every
channel input and bus output, mirroring a multiple-frame J-Type. £195,000.
Cadac • +44 (0)1582 404202 • www.cadac-sound.com
Aviom AN-16SBR System Bridge
Aviom’s new AN-16SBR combines up to four Pro16 A-Net streams onto a single Cat5e cable,
supporting 64 channel systems, in a variety of bi-directional configurations. All Pro16 Series
products are compatible with the AN-16SBR System Bridge, which is designed to be used with
Pro16 Series products when digital snake and audio distribution systems larger than 32 channels are required. One AN-16SBR is used at each end of every 48- or 64-channel run. The AN16SBR supports the configurations of 64x0, 48X16, 32x32 or smaller.
Features of the new System Bridge include two identical 1U rack-mount modules, each
with four Neutrik EtherCon connectors (16 channels each) and one Neutrik EtherCon connector for Bridge output (up to 64 channels).
Multiple AN-16SBR units can be used to create complex systems and, at each end of a main
run, one AN-16SBR is used to combine or separate up to four 16-channel A-Net streams onto
a single Cat5e cable. The combined Bridge output carries up to 64 channels. All network connections feature heavy-duty locking Neutrik EtherCon connectors. The Aviom System Bridge
requires no power supply and no DC power.
Aviom • 610.738.9005 • www.aviom.com
Digidesign D-Show Profile
This Digidesign D-Show Profile is a compact mixing console alternative to the D-Show,
the flagship console of the VENUE line. D-Show Profile offers full compatibility with all existing
VENUE hardware components, total file portability and a compact footprint.
D-Show Profile features a 24-channel frame that’s smaller than the footprint of a single
D-Show main unit. D-Show Profile uses the
same software as the D-Show, enabling
engineers to create and load files
for use on either console.
This also means that
users won’t need
to learn new software if they’re already familiar with
D - S h o w. D - S h o w
Profile works with all existing VENUE hardware components, such as FOH and Stage racks.
Profile features eight General Purpose Interface (GPI) inputs and eight GPI outputs to connect
and control any external equipment that can react to simple
switch closures. Used in conjunction with the new Event List in D- Show 2.5 software, engineers can design up to 999 simple or complex macros and use GPI to control external switches,
devices, equipment functions, and more.
D-Show Profile is expected to ship in Q4 2006. A complete D-Show Profile System, which
includes the Profile mixing console and VENUE FOH and Stage racks, will be available via authorized Digidesign dealers for $54,985 US MSRP. The Profile console will also be available separately for $17,955 US MSRP.
Digidesign • 800.333.2137 • www.digidesign.com
14
200.0610.14.NG.indd 14
October 2006
Martin Audio W8L “Longbow”
High Performance Line Array
Martin Audio’s new W8L “Longbow” is a quad-driver, high frequency system with a 10dB
greater output capability over the W8L enclosure. This additional high frequency headroom
enables the W8L Longbow to cope with adverse atmospheric conditions
that can severely attenuate high frequencies over long distances. The new high frequency system also results in improved HF summation of
cabinets in the array and
a corresponding reduction of side lobes.
Development of a
completely new ultralong excursion driver
gives the W8L Longbow
the ability to displace
almost twice the volume of air as the W8L
when driven with the
same input signal. This advance extends the low frequency
-3dB point down to 35Hz.
Features of the system include: Large scale, three-way line array element; Horn-loaded 15in
LF—106dB @1W, 1m (single cabinet); Twin 8in mid-horn —109dB @1W, 1m (single cabinet);
Quad 1in HF horn—119dB @1W, 1m (single cabinet); Consistent 90˚ horizontal mid and HF pattern control; Fast, integral rigging system with variable splay angles; ViewPoint array optimization software; factory controller presets for a wide variety of configurations; compatibility with
flown or ground stacked W8Ls; compatibility with ground stacked WLX, WSX, WS218X.
Martin Audio • 519.747.5853 • www.martin-audio.com
Rolls RM67 Mic/Source Mixer
The RM67 is a single rack space mixer designed for the install/contractor market. The
unit mixes three balanced microphones with four stereo sources to mono or stereo balanced outputs.
The XLR Microphone Inputs
have
Mic/Line
level switches, a
send/return Insert
jack and individually
switchable
+12 VDC phantom
power.
Priority
talkover, with variable Duck Sensitivity, is available on one microphone for paging and on
one Source input for use on a jukebox. telephone system, etc.
Each Microphone input has a level and tone control, and each Source input has a level
control. Bass and Treble controls have been provided for all the sources, and a Master Output Level control adjusts the level of all mixed signals. Source One has an added frontpanel 3.5mm input.
A pre-Master RCA output has been provided for recording, and a Remote Volume output jack is provided for connection to a 100K ohm linear taper potentiometer and used as
an external master level control.
The RM67 retails for $280 in the U.S.
Rolls • 801.263.9053 • www.rolls.com
Alcons SR9 Ribbon-fill Loudspeaker
The SR9 is a passive 2-way ultra-compact loudspeaker, specifically designed for applications
where ultimate fidelity response needs to be projected with wide horizontal and precise vertical coverage.
Typical (short to
medium throw)
applications for
the SR9 range
from low-profile
stage-lip/frontfill to upper-/
under-balcony,
up to “stealthmounted” system in stair risers or walls.
Loaded with the RBN401 pro-ribbon driver, with its patented horizontally controlled dispersion and 800W peak power handling, the SR9 system features 120° horizontal coverage. The
narrow 15° vertical coverage offers maximum gain-before-feedback directly above (on stage)
or under (orchestra pit) the speaker. The double 5 woofers are non-vented, for a smooth lowend roll-off; This sealed box tuning enables easily adjustable low-frequency response.
Alcons Audio • + 31 (0) 229 28 30 90 • www.alconsaudio.com
www.fohonline.com
9/29/06 1:21:59 PM
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9/28/06 4:58:51 PM
Showtime
Church Of God International Youth Convention
David Crowder Band and the Chris Tomlin Band
Venue
Anaheim Convention Center Arena, Anaheim, CA
Crew
Sound Co/Provider: SineWave Audio Inc.
FOH Engineer/Systems Engineer: Micah Dean
Monitor Engineer: Jeff Wood
Systems Engineer: Matthew Ewing
System Techs: Jakob Adam, Dwight Knight, Roger Miller
Gear
FOH
Console: Midas H2000, 56 input
Speakers: 24 JBL VT4889, 16 JBL VT4888
Amps: Crown MA5000VZ, Lab.Gruppen fp6400
Processing: XTA
Mics: Shure, Sennheiser
Power Distro: Motion Labs
MON
Console: Midas H3000, 56 input
Speakers: 6 EAW SM222s, 6 EAW SM500s,
6 Shure PSM 700 In-Ear Systems
Amps: 12 Crown MA36x12
Processing: Klark Teknik
Power Distro: Motion Labs
California Mid-state Concert Series
Amps: 44 Crown MA5002VZ
Processing: XTA DP226, BSS FCS-960, TC Electronic M5000,
D-Two, M3000, 2 Yamaha SPX 990s.
Mics: Shure, Sennheiser, AKG, Beyer
Power Distro: Skjonberg Custom
Rigging: 12 CM 1 Ton
Venue
Paso Robles fairgrounds, Paso Robles, CA
Crew
Sound Co/Provider: R&R Sound
FOH Engineer: Patrick Coughlin
Monitor Engineer: Patricio “Pato” Codoceo
Systems Engineer: Ryan Cornelius
Production Manager: Buddy Sokolik
Gear
FOH
Console: Midas H3000, Yamaha PM5D-RH
Speakers: 40 L-ACOUSTICS V-DOSCs, 8 dV-DOSCs, 24 SB218s, 6 Arcs
MON
Console: Midas H3000, Yamaha PM4000M, PM5D-RH
Speakers: 18 Clair Bros 12 AMs, 4 L-ACOUSTICS Arcs,
4 SB218S, 2 MTD 115s, DV Sub
Amps: 16 Clair/QSC PowerLights, 6 Crown MA5002VZ
Processing: BSS, Yamaha, XTA, TC Electronic
Mics: Shure, Sennheiser, AKG, Beyer
Power Distro: Skjonberg Custom
Dave Mason
Venue
Gear
The Largo Cultural Center, Largo, FL
FOH
Console: Midas Verona, 40-channel
Speakers: Renkus-Heinz T-3, Celf 15-2 Subs
Amps: Renkus-Heinz P3500
Processing: Yamaha, Behringer, Lexicon
Mics: Shure, Audio-Technica
Crew
Sound
Staging
Ligh
ting
Sound Co/Provider: COLT Sound and Lighting
FOH Engineer: Chuck Davis
Monitor/System Engineer, Production Manager:
Rob Mondora
System Techs: Wes Eubanks, Don Short
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200.0610.16-17.SHOW.indd 16
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Console: Allen & Heath GL2000
Speakers: EAW JFX 560
Amps: Crown MA2400
Processing: Rane
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9/28/06 4:38:51 PM
Cancun Re-Opening (Various Local Bands)
Venue
Gear
Cancun Beaches
FOH
Console: Midas Legend
Speakers: Meyer M2D line array
Processing: Klark Teknik, dbx
Mics: Shure and AKG
Power Distro: Hermes
Rigging: Tomcat ground support
Crew
Sound Co/Provider: J&S Audiovisual Cancun
FOH Engineer: Alex Carrasco
Monitor Engineer: Paco Lara
Systems Engineer: Edmundo Flores
Production Manager: Mike Thibodeau
Tour Manager: Raul Alfaro
System Techs: Gachuz, Oliveros, Mini, JM, Fabian, Chucho
MON
Console: Yamaha PM5D
Speakers: Meyer USM and Shure PMs.
Mics: Shure and AKG
Power Distro: Hermes
Rigging: Tomcat ground support
Congreso Gospel Music
Venue
Estadio Monumental – Lima, Peru
Crew
Sound Co/Provider: Sonido Minaya - 12Sound-Peru
FOH Engineer: Armando Sosa O.
Monitor Engineer: Giancarlo Minaya
Systems Engineer: Ronald Castro
Production/Tour Manager: Mirko Velasco
Tour Manager: Mirko Velasco
Gear
FOH
Console: Crest Century, 52 Channels
Speakers: 32 EAW KF850s, 24 SB1000
Amps: Crown, Crest, Carvin
Processing: dbx, Yamaha, Klark Teknik, Drawmer,
Lexicon, TC Electronic, BSS, Ashly
Mics: Shure Beta58, Beta57, Beta87, Beta52,
SM57, SM87, AKG D112
Rigging: 4 CM-Lodestar 1 ton.
MON
Console: Yamaha GA 32/12
Speakers: Clair Brothers
Amps: Crown Macro-Tech
Processing: Klark Teknik
The New Mexico Takeover 2006 with Ice Cube, DMX, Chingy and more
Venue
Journal Pavilion, Albuquerque, NM
Crew
Sound Co/Provider: Audio Excellence, Inc.
FOH Engineer: David Buehler, Caylan Johnson
Monitor Engineer: Jeff Beyer
Systems Engineer: David Buehler, Dan Myers
Production Manager: Steve Poulton
System Techs: Tre Lucero, Robert Brownlow
Gear
MON
Console: Allen & Heath ML5000
Speakers: Meyer UM-1P, Meyer 650-P,
Meyer CQ-2, Meyer USW-1P
Processing: dbx
Power Distro: Nutech, Motion Labs
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM4000-52
Speakers: JBL VT4889, VT4880, Meyer 650-P,
JBL SRX-712M
Amps: Crown I-tech, Crown K2
Processing: dbx Drive Rack 4800,
BSS FCS-960, DPR-402
Mics: Shure UHF Series Wireless
Power Distro: Nutech Industries
Rigging: CM 1 Ton LodeStar
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200.0610.16-17.SHOW.indd 17
October 2006
17
9/28/06 4:39:21 PM
On Broadway
Obadiah Eaves
By BryanReesman
P
laywright Martin McDonagh crafted
a morbid masterpiece with his Tonywinning drama The Pillowman, which
was covered in this column last year. If you
thought he couldn’t match the intensity of
a show about an author of dreary children’s
stories whose grisly endings are replicated by
a real-life murderer, think again. The Lieutenant Of Inishmore, which recently completed
a four-and-a-half month run on Broadway,
focuses on the fear and anxiety that spreads
through a small Irish clan following the death
of the cat of the one family member who happens to be a nasty local terrorist. The irony of
a brutal killer who loses his marbles over the
death of his closest furry friend is rich with
irony and very black humor. The production
features loud gunfights, hacked limbs, a blood
splattered stage and an actual live feline.
The man who designed the sound for this
gruesome masterpiece, which is perhaps the
bloodiest show that Broadway has ever seen,
is Obadiah Eaves, an experienced composer,
multi-instrumentalist and off-Broadway
sound designer who recently jumped up to
the big leagues by doing two Tony-nominated shows simultaneously on the Great White
Way. In the past Eaves has worked shows at
Radio City Music Hall and The Public Theater,
among others, and his accolades include being a Barrymore Award nominee for Best Original Music (King Lear at Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, 2002) and an Audelco Viv
Award nominee for Best Sound Design (Birdie
18
October 2006
200.0610.18-19.onBroad.indd 18
David Wilmot & Alison Pill
Blue, 2005) as well as winning a Lortel Award
for Outstanding Sound Design (Nine Parts
of Desire, 2005) and an Audelco Viv Award
for Best Sound Design (F---- A, 2003). He has
worked on shows written by David Mamet,
Harold Pinter, Tennessee Williams and Woody
Allen, and he has been violinist, mandolinist and whistler for numerous feature films,
documentaries, television shows and theatre
productions for outlets like Nickelodeon,
PBS, HBO, Sundance Channel, Arena Stage
and the Roundabout.
During a break from his many endeavors, Eaves chatted with FOH about his recent
juggling act and his personal approach to
sound design.
FOH: In Lieutenant, all
the sound seemed like
it was natural. Was
anybody miked?
Obadiah Eaves: No, but we did some really light miking in the softer scenes just for the
balcony. There were no wireless mics, but we
had shotgun mics and foot mics for a couple
of scenes.
Where were they
located?
There were two tiny foot mics that were
embedded in the shale area. It was an important thing to the designers that the audience
didn’t see anything theatrical, so we had to
make sure those were as hidden as possible.
We used little boundary mics. Then we used
some shotguns that were just offstage, left
and right. I think the boundary mics were
Crown MB4s. I believe the shotguns were AKG
747s. They were spotted on the table and the
armchair area. As you saw, it’s a very shallow
theatre, but it has really good acoustics. The
initial assessment was that we didn’t think we
would need too much in the way of mics, and
the director was not too excited about the
idea of using mics anyway.
You have music between every scene.
What was your
reasoning for the
music and for not
using wireless mics?
The same director has pretty much
done every major production of this show
so far. He did the original English production and the West End production. This is
the same music that has been used for all
of those productions. When I got the music tracks, they seemed like the right music
for the show. I knew what to do with them.
They also needed a lot of punching up for
the system that we were using at the Atlantic during its initial off-Broadway run, so I
did a lot of editing on them, but didn’t really add anything to them in the end. But
I did a lot of engineering on them. This is
all the original music from the original production. The antique music from the opening of the show comes from a cassette tape
that was apparently in Martin McDonagh’s
mother’s closet, so that pretty much came
straight off the cassette with a little bit of
EQ to take out the rumble. We did all the
editing on Logic with a Metric Halo set-up
in my studio.
You recently did sound
design for the show
Shining City, which had
a four-person cast,
including Oliver Platt.
That was really something because it was
going to be my first Broadway gig, but then
Lieutenant of Inishmore was moving to Broadway much sooner than any of us had thought,
so I ended up taking both of those at the exact same time.
They opened up within
six days of each other!
They both started tech on the same day.
I relied a lot on my assistants. My assistant
on Lieutenant of Inishmore was Ryan Powers. I’m not really a gearhead, so he actually
had a lot do with the design of the system,
and my assistant Mutt Huang at Shining City
did a lot of work when I was not there. I was
alternating days between shows.
www.fohonline.com
9/28/06 5:38:03 PM
Did The Lieutenant
of Inishmore change
much going
from off-Broadway
to Broadway?
(L-R) Peter Gerety & Domhnall Gleeson
David Wilmot & Alison Pill
How did Shining City
differ from Lieutenant
of Inishmore in terms
of sound design?
In some ways they were the same because
there were book scenes alternating with short
music interludes. The main difference is that
Shining City had a lot more on-stage, practical
sounds like doorbells and radios. It was more
theatrical in that way. In Inishmore they avoided almost every onstage sound effect to give
it a lot of immediacy. You wanted those gunfights and all the violence to seem very real, so
you avoided anything that sounded artificial.
They were using the real weapons and not accentuating them in any way. Shining City had a
lot of onstage sound and was also much more
heavily miked in terms of voice reinforcement
because it was in a very deep theatre.
What type of board
were you running for
Inishmore?
We were using a Yamaha DM 2000 with
ony an 8-channel SFX system redundant. SFX
is pretty much what I use for almost any show
now. There are other things that will do what
it does, and maybe in a slicker way, but it’s so
simple to be very fast. So if a director needs
a change, I can just do it in a few seconds. It’s
been very, very helpful to me. The speakers we
were using were Meyers, CQ-1s and CQ-2s for
the mains, and a lot of UPMs as well as MM4s,
which are great for underbalcony fills. I don’t
how many speakers there were in the end,
but our preliminary list included about 25 or
26 speakers.
volved with smaller
casts and more minimalist sound design. It’s interesting
that more and more
straight plays do not
seem to be as heavy
on sound, and the
designers seem to
want them to sound
more natural.
I don’t know if it’s more than used to be,
but I’ve found that the higher I climb on the
ladder and the bigger the gigs that I get doing
the straight plays, the less I do music and a lot
of sound. It’s really the downtown shows that
let you go completely crazy.
What shows have you
worked on previously?
The reason I was doing Inishmore is that
I have been doing half to two-thirds of the
shows at the Atlantic for a couple of years now.
I was doing sound design. I never really did
much assisting or engineering or crew work. I
started as a composer and went straight from
the low- to no-paying downtown shows to
the medium-paying off-Broadway shows. I do
music and sound, but I used to be more of a
composer/sound designer, but the more I’m
working, the less I’m doing music. I do music
for television. I did a channel design for HBO
Family. I’ve done a lot of shows for The Learning Channel—”Miami Ink”, “Operation Homecoming”, “Plastic Surgery: Beverly Hills”—and
some commercials here and there, Bell South
Yellow Pages for example.
Before Shining City
and The Lieutenant
of Inishmore, what
shows did you
work on?
Anything I do at the Atlantic would be offBroadway, which really just has to do with the
size of the theatre. Inishmore moved to Broadway, but it started at the Atlantic. Right before
that I had been working at the Vineyard, on a
show called Stopping Traffic, and at Playwrights
Horizons, on a show called Pen.
Now that you have done
these plays with small
casts, what kind of
Broadway show would
like to do next?
This is exactly the kind of Broadway show
that I like to do! The Lieutenant of Inishmore
and Shining City are my favorite shows that I
have worked on in terms of the quality of the
show. I think they’re great. My brother was in
Inishmore, and it’s the first time we were able
to work together.
Both The Pillowman and
The Lieutenant of Inishmore have a very dark
sensibility.
I’m actually doing the sound for a production of The Pillowman at the Berkeley Rep in
January, and I’ll be doing a lot of music for that.
It has great musical possibilities with all of those
fairy tale settings.
Very little, actually. At the outset it only
changed by one cast member, and the goal was
to keep it as close to the original as possible,
with a couple adjustments because we had a
greater budget. We made some of the effects
better. But largely it was the same show.
What are the acoustic
properties of the
Lyceum like?
I don’t believe the theatre has been treated
in any way. It has good acoustics as it is. It was
very difficult to find hanging points for the
speakers, because the initial idea for the design
was that there was to be a separate sound system each for the orchestra, the mezzanine and
the balcony. But we weren’t able to find enough
hanging points and placements for speakers to
make that happen, so the mezzanine and the
balcony shared a sound system.
Would you say that
you come from the
“less is more” school
of sound design?
Oh no, I enjoy doing “more is more” as
far as sound is concerned!
So it just depends on
the show?
Sure. It’s all about making sure that the
strong points of the show are maximized.
Some shows get carried away with sound
design these days.
Miking can certainly be overdone, and
a lot of people complain about that. It’s often true, but I also think that a lot of people
who complain about it would be shocked
at what they hear if they went to a musical
and there was no sound reinforcement. You
wouldn’t want to hear a jukebox musical
that was lightly miked.
How many inputs total
were you running on
the console?
I don’t remember how many the console
has out of the box, but we added a 16-channel ADAT card for SFX. There were very spare
sound effects. There’s a cell phone and a winch
for the torture sequence. The automation is
very quiet, so we added a winch sound. And in
that same scene, when Padraic, the title character, runs offstage to save his cat, he slams the
door offstage in the warehouse. Pretty much
all the gunfire and action was real. They were
loud. There was a lot of experimenting with
different types of ammunition to make it loud
enough for the audience but not too painful
for the cast. In that gunfight scene, a lot of the
cast wore earplugs.
Compared to a lot
of other Broadway
shows, you’re in-
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200.0610.18-19.onBroad.indd 19
October 2006
19
9/28/06 5:38:28 PM
By BillEvans
T
he call came on a Monday—not the
best time to get my attention. One of
the PR folks for AKG was pitching a story
on Jimmy Buffett. Jimmy has been a Sound
Image client for 31 years, and I like the Sound
Image guys, but what was really new about a
Jimmy Buffett show?
“Well,” said the voice on the other end
of the line, “He has these lav mics sewn
into his shirts.”
He what? The rep didn’t have a lot more
info but had definitely piqued my interest. I
called Dave Shadoan who owns Sound Image
and asked him what was up.
“He uses them to talk to the backup singers and the monitor engineer,” Shadoan explained. His own personal talkback? “Yeah,”
said Dave. “He won’t go on without ‘em.”
This was worth a trip to check out.
A Day At The Beach
The show was, appropriately enough, at
a venue with the word “beach” on the name.
Jones Beach in New York to be precise. And
the vibe stayed consistent as FOH mixer Rich
Davis came out with a lanky, easy stride to es-
20
October 2006
200.0610.20-21.BUF.indd 20
cort me in wearing shorts a T-shirt and sandals. Shortly after we got to front of house
and began to chat, he looked up as a vintage seaplane passed overhead and said,
“Here comes the boss.” Things are different
in Margaritaville.
But the system and the way the sound is
approached is anything but casual. Sound Image is hanging 52 of the big JBL VerTec 4889s
with 24 4880 subs—eight a side in the air
and four more a side on the deck, which Rich
feathers in on an aux as needed for the room.
“The ones on the deck are where you get your
coupling, so they’re important even if most of
the energy is coming from the hang.”
When it comes to consoles, Davis is old
school with a Midas XL4 that he has been using with Buffett for years. What is unusual is
that he is using the XL4 to do things that most
engineers insist on a digital console for.
“I mix shows on digital consoles all the
time,” Davis says. “The whole dynamics that
go away with the digital console, that’s the
only thing that I miss right now. I walk away
and I just go, ‘its clean but its just okay. The dynamics are gone.’ Play a B3 through a digital
Billy Szocska
console and listen to it and its not the same.
You don’t have the harmonic distortions. It’s
clean and MP3ish, and I guess that’s what a lot
of people are used to hearing.”
But why might a digital console come in
handy? Just ask Rich how many feeds he is
running from FOH: “You’ve got the live feed
for the house, video feed, the Internet for the
Sirius Satellite radio feed, Pro Tools…” They’re
using 16 tracks of Pro Tools to archive shows,
but the recordings have been released commercially as well. Does that mean Buffett will
join the ranks of artists embracing the “walk
out of the venue and buy a CD on the way out
the door” business model?
“I don’t think so ,” Rich answers. “But you
can walk in to any record store right now and
find live albums that we did. We did the DVD
and the football stuff. They record this stuff to
Rich Davis
play in the restaurants and to shoot video.”
All of that off of an old-school XL4. He turns
to monitor mixer Billy Szocska and asks, “you
see anything else?” “Nah I think that’s it.” Billy
answers. Which signals it’s time to hit Monitor
World and find out about those lav mics.
Monitor World
“I love them,” Billy says of the AKG WMS
40 Pro wireless. “I love the software. All I have
to do is program the transmitters. The receiver
will scan the environment, it will ask me how
many units I want to run and I’ll say four and it
will scan the environment and tell me which
four channels to put it on.”
And the lavs sewn into his shirt?
“Actually, he’s got the clip sewn in—it’s
really low profile. And the thing is, it’s a water-
www.fohonline.com
9/29/06 1:22:52 PM
“The thing is, it’s a waterproof microphone so you
can sweat all over the thing.” - Billy Szocska
proof microphone so you can sweat all over
the thing. It’s fantastic. That’s his talkback.
That’s the most important thing in the show.
I laugh but Billy says, “I’m not kidding. He
wears one mic but has a redundant transmitter on a different frequency at all times.
We haven’t had to use it. It’s been rock solid.”
Billy starts to tell about the time he
once switched the mic
off. Once. The
boss
was
evidently
not pleased
and the story
kind of fades
away like a bad
dream.
With
the
whole band on
PMs, Billy is running a lot of mixes. Complicating
matters is that he
and the band are all
using FutureSonic
ear pieces but the
boss uses Westone. “I
go crazy,” says Billy. “I
mean, I monitor Jimmy’s mix pretty much
the whole time but I still
don’t have the ear piece
he has. Believe it or not, I
use my old Future Sonic
as my reference because
that is what I’m used to. I
know how to gauge things with those, and
with those I’m able to make him happy and
the fans happy”
are used for electric guitars, but Rich turns to
a classic Manley tube comp for vocals.
Buffett has been taking some time off
and this gig is kind of a one-off. So what are
the Sound Image dynamic duo doing when
Jimmy’s at the beach? Billy works with Gwen
Stefani and they both work with Brian Wilson, while Rich does Mary Chapin Carpenter—very different vibes from the Parrot
Head Party, but both call their other gigs
very “musically satisfying.”
“Those are fans who listen,” says Rich.
“It’s not about the partying. It’s about the
music.” It’s a gig mix that sounds like the best
of both worlds.
Back at the beach, it is obvious that Rich
and Billy are a real team. They don’t exactly
finish each other’s sentences. Rather, they
speak in a series of seemingly unconnected
words and phrases, like this one about a gig
where Rich mixed a band I am intimately involved with at a Pro Production Industry Jam.
Check out this exchange…
Rich: “That was VerTec— ”
Billy: “Put them upside down—”
Rich: “Ground stack—”
Billy: “On the the subs—“
Rich: “The convention center—”
Billy: “Exactly.”
OK, you had to be there. But despite years
in the biz and impressive resumes, both Rich
and Billy still operate under the “whatever it
takes ethic.” Back to that San Diego Convention center gig. “Everyone said ‘oh you can’t
stack.’ It just takes a little work. They just don’t
want to put the effort in,” says Rich.“ ‘You can’t
do that?’ Just watch me!”
It’s a Tool, Use It For
What It Was Intended
That, after all, is the job when you get
down to it. According to both Rich and Billy, one of the great things about mixing an
act as established as Buffett is that they can
use what works. No endorsements to deal
with or politics. Buffett has never endorsed
a product. Never. And that frees Sound Image and the engineers to use whatever tool
is best for the job.
For example, while Rich is using Crown
I-Tech amps to power the VerTecs and uses
the System Architect software to control the
amps, he uses the Lake Contour to EQ the
system and provide drive control. Billy loves
those AKG lavs, but for main vocal mics they
used the Neumann KM105 for a long time,
but now both loudly sing the praises of the
new Shure KSM9, stepping all over each other
to praise it.
Ad info:http://foh.hotims.com
“It left the Neumann in the dust,”
says Rich.
“It has a wonderful low-mid,” adds Billy
before Rich jumps back in with “It’s warm
and thick.”
“But its not tubby or boomy—it’s all
smooth and right there,” Billy finishes.
The rest of the system uses the same
“whatever works” approach. Rich is on a Midas while Billy prefers a Yamaha PM5K. There
are a couple of dbx 160 comps in the rack that
www.fohonline.com
200.0610.20-21.BUF.indd 21
October 2006
21
9/28/06 4:40:46 PM
g
a
e
t
S
o
T
From udio
St
How Do You Translate Pristine
Studio Tracks Into A Live Show?
By DanDaley
J
effrey “Raz” Rasmussen has heard all the
Doobie Brothers records a million times
in the dozen years he’s been FOH mixer
for Michael McDonald, the band’s leading
crooner. But he doesn’t need them to recreate the dense and exuberantly sophisticated
sound of those records when McDonald plays
in concert.
“If you miss even a little trick, people
will come up and tell you about it,” says Raz.
“Those records are everywhere—on the radio, in elevators. The fans know exactly how
they sound. And that’s what you have to
do on stage—get those sounds and those
moves down.”
Raz has a few tricks to do exactly that—
get the Doobies’ thick, percussion-laden
sound across supporting McDonald’s unique
vocals. The huge snare sounds of the 1980s,
when the Doobies dominated radio, were the
work of multiple reverbs and triggered gates.
Raz approximates the sound using the onboard reverb on the Yamaha PM-5DRH FOH
console he uses on the tour. “I use a lot of a
very short reverb setting, putting it on heavy
on the snare,” which is miked top and bottom with Shure SM-58s, he says. “It makes the
drum sound very fat and gives it a gated-reverb sound effect.”
Interestingly, McDonald’s drums on the
tour are tuned by a drum tech who was highly in demand in Los Angeles studios. Matt Luneau came to McDonald’s attention when he
tuned the recording kit for the vocalist’s duet
tracks with Kenny Loggins on the Live at Red-
22
October 2006
200.0610.22-23.Picky.indd 22
woods LP. Augmenting that, Raz uses a studio
miking technique for the drum overheads,
setting up a pair of Shure KSM-32s equidistant from the kit and each other,
Studio background vocals are routinely
doubled and tripled, and the Doobies were
no exception. Raz uses an Eventide H-3000’s
“rich chorus” patch. “It really makes them
sound like those records,” he says. (And if
you’re curious, that famous Fender Rhodes
“suitcase” sound comes from a Yamaha Motif
ES-8 sampling keyboard.)
“How Do You Mic
A Dining Room Table?”
Getting the effect of the record across
live is more important now then ever: music
on demand and the vastly increased ubiquitousness of music in general means people
know the way things sound, knowledge reinforced subliminally in elevators daily. And
even the elevators sound better—digital has
raised music fans’ expectations of what music
should sound like across the board.
The eclectic nature of Beck’s music
shouldn’t be taken to suggest that the mayhem that creates it is without control, either in
the studio or on stage.“Beck never came right
out and said he wants to recreate the records
on stage, but that’s what I took it on to do and
I’m still here, so that tells me that I’m on the
right track,” says Sean “Scully” Sullivan, who
has mixed Beck since January 2005. Sullivan
got an idea of what was to come at a rehearsal where Beck was auditioning a guitarist for a
During the show, Beck “plays” a dining room table.
Sean “Scully” Sullivan, Beck’s FOH mixer came up
with a system to mic it. He uses Shure Beta-91s and
some contact mics taped to the stemware.
tour.“The first thing Beck had him do was play
drums,” he recalls.
Beck’s records have only gotten more
complex, which compelled Sullivan to switch
to a Digidesign VENUE console this year to
handle the almost 90 scenes and the 75 reverb and DSP presets he needs to get through
a show. He’s using plug-ins, specifically Reverb
One, ReviBe, and D-Verb from the VENUE’s
production pack, and the Eventide Anthology
bundle, to generate them. “The new album
has some very intense and lush processing
on it,” he explains.“I used to be able to handle
it with outboard effects but it was getting
out of hand. Like in the studio, it’s a matter of
managing the sounds, and this console can
do that.”
When Sullivan started with Beck, he sat
and listened to all of the artist’s album work,
looking to identify the key elements of the
studios records and figure out how to translate them live. He even asked Beck’s management for access to some of Beck’s studio
engineers, or at least to get him some of the
presets they used, but like many requests that
go down bureaucratic channels, it got a detour into the Twilight Zone. “So I just started
listening to the records and dialing stuff in,”
he says.
There was a lot to dial. Beck brings most
of the instruments he uses in the studio on
the road, and then some, including an Ikea
dining room table with place settings and
wine glasses, all of which are “played” during
the set. “I sent a list of inputs to Clair Broth-
ers (Beck’s touring with an I-3 line array system) with the dining room table on it and lot
of question marks where the microphones
should be,” he says. “How do you mic a dining room table?” (Answer: Shure Beta-91s and
some contact mics taped to the stemware.)
All of this was worked out in rehearsals,
which lasted six weeks for two to three weeks’
worth of shows, reminiscent of the kinds of
extended preproduction that precedes major
recording sessions. Sullivan doesn’t disagree.
“We spent the rehearsals in the kind of mode
you would when getting sounds in the studio,” he says. “What you learn about Beck records is that they’re made up of sounds that
might not stand alone all that well—he plays
a Sears Silvertone guitar through a Silvertone
amp that most guitarists think sounds pretty
bad by itself—but which make an amazing
sound when you put them together. Beck’s
M.O. is to make sounds with things that you
don’t expect to make sounds with, or at least
to make good sounds with. It’s the same on
stage as it is in the studio.”
One common Beck trick is the overdriven
vocal. Sullivan had tried that a few times using
a stomp box but got more feedback than vibe.
The solution turned out to be using a combination of the Line 6 Amp Farm and Tech 21
SansAmp plug-ins, with the background vocals
doused with a chorus and Micro-Shift effects
from the Eventide H-3000 plug-in, all inserted
into channels and adjusted with the processors’
mix controls. This lets the vocals ride above the
music, as it does on the records, says Sullivan.
www.fohonline.com
9/28/06 4:41:25 PM
“Beck’s m.o. is to make sounds with
things that you don’t expect to make
sounds with, or at least to make
good sounds with. It’s the same on
stage as it is in the studio.”
– Sean “Scully” Sullivan,
FOH Mixer for Beck
The mixes are a combination of studiolike precision and live-concert unpredictability. “The sounds are source-driven; they come
from the stage,” says Sullivan.“I’m not optimizing any one instrument but rather the whole
mix, carving out spaces for each instrument
using EQ and dynamics. Having the Clair line
array helps—it has 140 degrees of horizontal
coverage, so I can pan like a record and not
have half the audience miss half the sound.
“It’s like being the secretary in a doctor’s
office,” he concludes. “You’re not doing the
surgery but you do have to organize it.”
drum microphones, so I was able to be pretty
aggressive with my compression. In the end,
I was amazed at how well it all worked and
it fit beautifully in the song. Hard work, but it
made for a great moment of contrast in the
set. Not for the faint-hearted, though!”
There will always be a substantial divide
between music played live and
done in recording studios. The
stage is where musicians can stretch
the notions they developed in the studios
and see what else they might become. But as
every artist with a hit has learned, fans want
those hits to be true to what they hear in their
livan
Sean Sul
heads. When
the artist’s music is complex, creating fidelity to the studio version is a challenge. But as
these mixers have learned, it can be done.
Robert Scovill has mixed live sound for
artists including Tom Petty, Prince, Def Lepard and Rush, as well as having spent plenty
of time in recording studios. A true student
of drum sounds, he has become proficient
with an ambient drum-miking technique that
many credit to U.K. recording engineer Andy
Johns (Led Zeppelin, KISS). The technique
mandates that the recording of the kit is done
with no close-in microphones.
“The technique centers around three
Neumann U67s and a Sennheiser 421,” Scovill
explains. “I’m not sure this is how Andy did it,
but when I have employed it in the studio I
try to get one mic in front of the kit on plane
with the bass drum and the other two 67s
overhead, but try to get them all as close as
possible to the same distance from the snare
drum, which is easier said than done depending on the kit. The 421 just kind of hangs out
on the floor somewhere around the snare
drum. Once done a judicious amount of compression is used to glue the whole thing together. I have used this technique in the studio with great success, and it’s very powerful
when it’s all working.”
When Scovill went out with Matchbox
Twenty as their FOH mixer, drummer Paul Ducette asked him to recreate this sound effect
for the song “You Won’t Be Mine.” The song
has a very ambient drum recording on it from
(the late, great) Bearsville Studios, “which has
a killer sounding drum room by the way,” says
Scovill. “Given that I was not really willing to
take a set of rare and coveted U67s on the
road, I decided to give it a try with three Stephen Paul-modified U87s, in which solid state
U87i’s are converted to tube circuitry. I had
previous recording experience with them
and noted that they carried a number of the
characteristics of the U67s.
“After a fair amount of trial and error I was
positively amazed how well it worked. A couple of things were really working in my favor
to accomplish this, though. First, a completely
separate drum kit was used for the song,
which rolled out during a set change. This allowed Paul’s drum tech, Tony Adams, to really
refine the tuning of the kit to help the whole
process. Secondly, given that all the guys in
the band were using PMs, I did not really have
to worry about back line spill into the ambient
200.0610.22-23.Picky.indd 23
Ambient Drums
9/28/06 4:42:01 PM
By DavidFarinella
T
he drive behind expanding is varied,
but sound companies across the States
are looking towards a number of methods to accomplish the goal. This month FOH
checks in with three companies who have
seen an impressive factor of growth over
the past five years, Thunder Audio, Maryland
Sound International and Audio Analyst.
These three companies have a number
of things in common, including a strong
regional presence before jumping into the
national spotlight, an approach toward expanding both touring and installation business and a careful and thought out plan before the first step was taken.
“We wanted controlled growth,” reports
Audio Analyst co-owner and vice president
of engineering Albert Leccese. “We did not
want to turn into a $50 million mega-corporation. The rule that we used here was to not
do any more work than you have qualified
ness. The drivers behind the turn included
the fact that the company was getting more
and more requests and “the fact of trying
to flatten out the bio-rhythm of income,”
Leccese says. “In the summer time we’d be
renting the fridge here if we could, and in
the middle of winter we’d have no work for
two months. So, how do you go from feast
to famine and equal that out? We decided to
look for other sources of income and that’s
where we developed a couple of areas.”
The first was the manufacture and sales
of the company’s monitors and wedge
cabinets and the Tensalite Packaging Cases.
The second was the installation business,
where the company serviced local clubs and
churches. The team also started to look towards finding new bands to help.
“Where the touring department has
made sure that it stays diversified is that we
are very conscious of trying to sign young up
“ The rule that we used here was to not do
any more work than you have qualified
people to do the work. ”
–Albert Leccese, v.p. of engineering, Audio Analyst
people to do the work. That’s a hard thing
to do, because you’re sitting there thinking
about this contract that’s out there. But, if
you’re already busy than that’s fine.”
Six years ago, the Colorado Springsbased company turned a more focused eye
towards building a greater installation busi-
and coming acts, as well as established acts,”
explains Audio Analyst’s vice president of
the touring division Bruce Eisenberg. “That’s
been very consciously thought out. In that
sense, although we probably had a reputation as a rock and roll touring company, and
we still are, we’re diversified into lots of dif-
ferent areas whether it be Christian music or
Latin music.”
He adds that the company’s growth in
both the installation and touring businesses
was important for a specific reason. “I think
that in any business it’s very important to
find as many income streams as you possibly can,” he starts. Then he adds, because
the company has focused on the installation
business, “It was a diversification more than
anything else. It wasn’t something that was
done because of a failing touring department, it was something that was done because it was a natural off-shoot.”
That’s true at Thunder Audio as well,
reports the company’s founder and president Tony Villarreal, since installations are
something that the company has relied on
to cover its bottom line. In fact, Villarreal has
been working with Chene Park in Detroit for
the past 15 or so years, and the money that
the company earns there is used to purchase
new equipment for its summer clients. Thunder also provides services to Freedom Hall in
Detroit, which helps to cover the company’s
monthly nut.
This summer has seen the company doing quite a few one-offs which reminded him
of the time when Thunder was a new company.
“Prior to Thunder Audio getting leases for massive amounts of equipment, I had seven installs
around the city of Detroit that brought me in
revenue that would offset building expense,
phones, heat, electric, truck repair and things of
that nature,” he says.
Of course,Thunder is a company that moved
WE COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT ANY BETTER...
“FOH fills the needs in this specialized area of
live sound:
technology, and veterans can remain
THE NEWS MAGAZINE FOR LIVE SOUND
24
October 2006
200.0610.24-25.expand.indd 24
beyond corporate gigs and regional assignments
(two important books of business for any sized
company, and
ones that Thunder has not
given up on)
once Metallica
came into the
fold with Paul
Owens,
and
has serviced a
handful of metal bands and
tours. Recently,
the phones at
Thunder’s Michigan headquarters have been
ringing
with
requests from
clients that fall,
Villarreal admits
Paul Owen
with a laugh,
into the lightPaul Owen
weight market.
But that kind of do-it-all approach is working.
“As diversity goes you can’t just have yellow pickup trucks on your lot as you will only sell to people
who want them,“ says Owen.“We are recognized
as taking care of lots of heavier acts but there isn’t
a year goes by here where we don’t have two or
three plays out with an artist like Tyler Perry who
became huge in the last two year with his Medea
films. But if I used him as a reference to someone
from a rock tour they would laugh their asses
off.” The really funny thing is that Perry turned
over more than most top touring rock artists and
brought in some major income to the company.
“Who would have thought that Thunder
Audio,would be doing Kem , Anita Baker, Kirk
Franklin, Andrea Bocelli, and Megadeth in the
same year?” asks Owen. “Pretty diverse I would
say.”
That is also a look back for Villarreal.“A lot of
the people in the United States and in Europe
think we’re just a heavy metal company, and I
used to mix Tony Orlando and Dawn,” he says
with a laugh.“I was hired to do 14 shows with Mr.
and Mrs. Bob Hope and a symphony.” Villarreal
also spent five years mixing the Detroit Symphony where he worked with Cab Calloway, Rosemary Clooney and a handful of other talents.
The crew at Maryland Sound International
has moved between gigs with Neil Diamond, Hall
& Oates, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Whitney Houston and Josh Groban to heavy metal stalwarts
Disturbed. In fact, MSI worked with FOH mixer
Scott Canady on Disturbed’s run on the recent
Jagermeister Tour. According to MSI’s Todd Goldstein, the Disturbed tour was a huge priority for
the company.“Whether it pays nothing or pays a
lot, I’ve been trying to get rock back at the company,” he says. “This band is great to represent
MSI.”
But it’s not just the big bands that are a priority for MSI. Monitor engineer William Miller, who
mixed monitors for Disturbed, as well as a host of
other MSI gigs says, “My goal is to facilitate the
artists’ performance, no matter the style. I think
the reason MSI and myself have been able to
handle such diverse artists is a willingness to provide the same level of service across the board. I
don’t know too many other companies that send
the same engineers to do a club tour, a corporate
dinner, an arena headliner and the inauguration
and always get consistently satisfied clients.”
While the company’s specialized bass
cabinets eased the transition between musical
www.fohonline.com
9/29/06 1:18:31 PM
“A lot of the people in the United States and in
Europe think we’re just a heavy metal company,
and I used to mix Tony Orlando and Dawn,”
–Tony Villarreal, president, Thunder Audio
Tony Villarreal
sible audio they can and not settle for anything else. We work and work to get the sound
systems to sound amazing.”
In that philosophy, Todd is doing
nothing more than carrying on what MSI
founder Bob Goldstein started. When the
elder Goldstein went out on the road for
the first time in 20 years with Josh Groban
he sat down for an interview with FOH and
when the subject was raised of the inevitable audio compromises that are made
on any tour, his response was telling. “I accept that as reality,” he said. “I don’t like it, I
don’t want it to be reality and I’ll try everything I can to make it not reality. Last night
I was willing to accept eight bad seats out
of 3000 and I want to get that down to two
or one—or none.”
In the end, that may be the most important factor in how a sound company
can expand. Indeed, Leccese, Villarreal and
Goldstein all point to the same theme,
because the business these days is more
than boxes. It’s about people and it’s about
reputation. “As tempting as it is to accept
a whole bunch of work, it’s real easy to
Albert Leccesee
overstretch yourself and not take care of
the contracts that you get,” Leccese states.
“You go out and get a good reputation by
doing a lot of jobs, but it’s real easy to lose
it by doing a couple of bad jobs. You’re
only as good as your last show.”
genres, Canady points out that what puts MSI
over some other companies is the level of service he received while on the road.“Todd would
call me and say, ‘Whatever you need’ and he has
not been joking about that at all,” he says. “He
would call me after he sent some gear and say,
‘Whatever you want. It’s here. I’ll get it to you. If we
don’t have it, we’ll find it, we’ll buy it, we’ll make it.
Anything.’ It got to the point where I didn’t know
what to ask for, and that’s probably one of the
best approaches anybody has come to me with
in the last five years.”
Todd reinforces that point. “I find that a
lot of companies and company staff settle for
their shows to be OK sounding,”Todd says.“But
Maryland Sound is all about helping guest engineers and staff engineers get the best pos-
“Todd from MSI
would call me and
say, ‘Whatever you
need’ and he has not
been joking about
that at all. It got to
the point where I
didn’t know what to
ask for and that’s
the best approache
anybody has come
to me with in the last
five years.”
Ad info:http://foh.hotims.com
Bob Goldstein
FOH engineer Scott “Skitch” Canady
200.0610.24-25.expand.indd 25
9/29/06 1:38:07 PM
FOH Interview
DAVE RAT COOKS WITH
By DanDaley
D
ave Rat is sipping on a red wine while
absent-mindedly holding a cigarette
more like a prop than an outright addiction. He’s wearing a rumpled pair of shorts
emblazoned with the Union Jack that are tailored more with Benny Hill in mind than the
Tour de France. All in all, it could be a relaxing evening almost anywhere. That is, except
for the fact that at the moment he happens
to be in the center of an FOH and lighting
fort in the middle of the Earl’s Court venue
in London, surrounded by 10,000 screaming
fans halfway through a set by the Red Hot
Chili Peppers, on the first and ostensibly most
nerve-wracking night of a four-show stand.
He turns to a visitor and winks, saying in a
voice practiced at cutting through the crowd
noise without seeming to strain, “I try very
had to find ways not to have to really exert
myself at a show.”
Dave Rat’s tranquility is, of course, an illusion. He has been the band’s FOH mixer for 16
years, and his Santa Barbara-based SR rental
and service company, Rat Sound, has had
them as clients for two decades, one of a host
of artists, including Pearl Jam, Black Flag and
Sonic Youth, that Dave Rat and/or Rat Sound
has been there for as that increasingly rare
species: the independent owner-operator
sound provider working in a business landscape increasingly dominated by a handful
of large corporations. Rat makes the mixing
seem effortless, like flying a well-trimmed
aircraft. But as any veteran pilot or live sound
mixer can tell you, the effort required at
crunch time is directly disproportional to how
much work goes into the preparation. In Rat’s
case, that’s plenty.
Dave Rat says he never wanted to be a
soud engineer. He just wanted to satisfy a
youthful fascination with wires and flashing
diodes. He managed to get some of that out
of his system, in the early 1980s, when he took
a short-lived job at Hughes Aircraft where he
worked testing the robustness of various missile components, while still mixing sound for
punk bands around the Los Angeles area. By
1983, Rat Sound had worked its way up to a
gig at a sideshow during the U.S. Festival in
San Bernadino, Calif. using the company’s
entire system at the time: four single-18 cabinets, eight 2x12 enclosures and four horns.
Two, Two, Two PAs
In One
That’s a far cry from the complex system he designed and cobbled together
26
October 2006
200.0610.26-27.daverat.indd 26
for this year’s Chili Peppers’ tour. There are
two main line arrays on either side of the
stage. The simplified assignment of output
to each is, from left to right: guitar and bass,
kick and vocal, kick and vocal, guitar and
bass. If the venue calls for it, there are two
wraps on either wing of the stage that split
the outputs similarly.
The concept for the PA came to
Rat after a conversation with the band’s
management, who told him and the rest of
the production designers that they wanted
a unique and memorable experience for
the tour. The video projections can place
the band at any point in the picture, literally
moving them around on stage.
“I thought to myself, what could the
sound do to match that?” Rat recalls. “I
had just been to a Green Day show at
the Home Depot Center and the lights
were all over the place, the video was all
over the place, but I remember thinking
that the sound was always blasting from
the same spot. Concert sound in general
tends to be very uni-dimensional, and as
the lighting and the video get more complex and movable, it just makes the audio
seem that much more rooted. Sound is
still stuck in that stereo paradigm while
everything else has evolved.”
Rat toyed with the idea of moving
speakers that would mimic the location
of the band members on stage. One idea
was to have smaller speakers suspended
above the stage for an acoustic number
that would descend to join the rest of the
rig for a louder song. It would be a logistical
and operational nightmare —just the sort
of challenge he likes. But the ultimate solution was no less innovative and iconoclastic: dual PA systems.
“Dave does things his own way, always has,” comments Nick Brisbois, the
Rat Sound system tech. A disdain for convention—and a sharp sense of humor—is
evident on his mix set up. Where others
would list instrumentation, he has the faders grouped by whimsical yet logical terminology such as “Twisty things,” “Glowey
things” and “Noisey things.”
“The first thing they’ll tell you is never
to put two line arrays side by side; multiple
sound sources in close proximity reproducing the same signal creates comb filtering,” he explains. “But I’ve got very different
things going into each stack on either side.
It’s actually two separate [V-DOSC] line array systems operating together and linked
via a non-standard matrixing system on the Heritage 2000]
console. The distance between the clusters
—it started at eight feet but has been cut
to around six feet, with horizontal bars linking them to fight natural torquing—“will
allow me to alter the acoustic source of any
instrument or vocal by sliding it from one
system to the other.
“The idea that evolved was based on
knowledge I acquired designing the MicroWedge monitors. I had done quite a bit
of research, and was able to recreate and
prove that speakers have reduced clarity
as you increase the complexity of the signal sent to them. It’s fairly easy to demonstrate: just listen to a vocal mic through two
speakers at a mid to high volume and then
add in a 50Hz tone at high volume. It blurs
the vocals. Now use two speakers with the
vocal in one and the tone in the other and
the vocal will stay clear. There are several
issues, but I believe the main one has to do
with the speaker efficiency while the voice
coil is centered in the gap. The speaker is
less efficient when the voice coil is at its
extremes; the 50-Hz tone reduces the time
that the voice coil is centered. Some monitor engineers run separate instrument and
vocal wedges for this reason. I wondered,
what if I applied that setup on a grand
scale? Two PAs, and it works wonderfully.”
The system’s subwoofer array, lined up
three deep, is equally innovative. The resulting “sub cannon” acts like a trio of shotguns
triggered dominos style, with delays of 3ms
and 6 ms between them coordinated by the
XTA DP-428 digital system controller that
also manages and
processes all the other
speakers in the system.
A Changing Business
It’s not surprising that Dave
Rat likes to be different. He’s a
throwback to (but certainly
no relic of ) the days when the
mixer and the system were
pretty much cut from the same
cloth. “When I started in this
business 20 years ago, most
of the major touring rigs were
homemade,” he says. “Nothing
I have boycotted all forms of illumination. No lighting for me while I mix
and memorized the locations of all controls on the consoles. Been mixing in the
dark for over a decade, hence the lack of need to label my console inputs. The reason behind it is to sharpen my hearing and reduce visual distractions. Plus, it looks
cool. Turn off all the lights and you start hearing things you did not hear before.
I find that having a big thing with knobs lit up in front of me draws my focus to
it and knobs all sit there saying “turn me, no me!” I would much rather watch the
band and listen to the music. Memorizing a console is fairly easy. Also, I really like
to have metering of everything that is going on, visible at all times. I want to see
every compressor, every gate, every input, output, matrix, all of it. In fact, during
the show, that is all I want to see.“What is everything doing, right now?” No button
pushes, no menu scrolling. Oh, and I want it logically grouped. All my gates in one
area, all my comps in another, all my effects in another and not a splattering of
intermixed meters.
-- from Dave’s blog (www.ratsound.com/cblog)
www.fohonline.com
9/29/06 1:25:41 PM
1) Never rely on just one hang per side for a large outdoor show where wind is
even a remote possibility. With two clusters a side I have found that when wind blows
the sound of one cluster away from you, it often will blow the sound of another cluster towards you.
2) Cover extra width. By over-covering you will gain some buffer zone and keep the outer audience covered with breezes and mellow gusts.
3) Minimize long-distance throw and rely more heavily on multiple/regional delay clusters. The farther you project sound, the more susceptible it is to wind and environmental issues.
-- Dave Rat’s Blog
a big fan of the latest-thing craze,” he says.
“If Ramsa still made mixing consoles that’s
what I’d be using.”
But there is newer equipment he swears
equipment and who then have less-than-optimum shows,” he states. “It’s not necessary
to have a ton of gear to do a rock show.” He’s
proud that the Chili Peppers’ show has all of 25
outputs from the stage. “And I could get away
with just 18 of them if I had to,” he adds.
Dave Rat wonders if the age of the entrepreneurial sound company owner/mixer
is nearing an end. “It’s not a very profitable
business, and it’s getting less so,” he says. On
the other hand, though, he’s happy to see
more emphasis being placed on live music
in general as the music industry transforms
itself in the digital era. “We’re going to see
live and recorded music merge in a way we
never have before,” he believes. “We travel
with a 32-track Pro Tools system and we
can record, mix and release out of two road
cases, and we’ve done it. Expect to see a lot
of that going on from now on.”
existed from major manufacturers that was
worth anything. Now, we’re one of the few
companies left that can do a major world
tour with a homemade system.”
However, he acknowledges that there
is handwriting on the wall. “The quality of
the manufactured systems has been increasing, to the point where a lot of it is
very, very good,” he says. While Rat Sound
will continue to develop new systems, its
president says it will work increasingly in a
consulting relationship with some of those
manufacturers, such as the venture in
which Radian Audio manufacturers his MicroWedge monitor design. “I expect to be
doing more of that when this tour ends,”
he says, though he declined to specify
which other manufacturers
he may work with.
Rat’s famously opinionated pronouncements have
tempered with time. “I used
to be very possessive, in the
sense that I felt that the [PA]
system represented me,” he
says. “I would take comments
on the system personally. But
over time I’ve come to realize
that PAs are like cars—there
never will be a perfect one
for all applications. A Ford
or a Ferrari are just different
tools for different jobs. Fifteen years ago people would
say that a system is just a
bunch of boxes and I would
take offense at that. Now I
realize they were right. What
you have to also realize, then,
though, is that it’s the people
using those boxes that make
all the difference.”
He’s not a huge fan of
digital consoles; he feels
that the multiple page overlays that characterize those
desks impede the flow of
a live mix, particularly his
style of mixing. (See sidebar:
Mixing In The Dark.) “I’m not
by, such as the XTA DP series controllers. “I’m
cautious by nature—I used to do shock and
drop tests on missiles,” he says dryly. “I still
apply that mentality when I test out gear. I
took a whole bunch of controllers home
once and did a lengthy shoot-out between
them. The XTA DP-428 won that hands down,
followed closely by the DP-226. So we’ve
standardized our systems now around the
DP series controllers.”
Meanwhile, Rat amuses himself on tour
by tweaking the system and regularly experimenting with a few “don’t try this at home”
low-tech exercises. For instance, during the
run-up to the world tour, he brought a Midas Sienna mixer to mix a show at the Irvine
Meadows venue, and an even smaller Midas
Verona for the European tour promo show.
“I did it to prove that it’s not the gear, it’s the
guy,” he says. “There is a correlation between
engineers who demand the most amount of
www.fohonline.com
200.0610.26-27.daverat.indd 27
October 2006
27
9/29/06 1:32:46 PM
Production Profile
LIVE
MIXING
TIMES THREE
Scott Colburn
By JacobCoakley
I
Catfish Haven Backup Singers
t’s 12:35 p.m. when I walk into Engine studios in Chicago. In 25 minutes The M’s will
be playing live for a small audience here, but
their performance is going to reach a lot more
ears. KEXP, the radio station from Seattle which
is sponsoring this concert (and 10 others over
the course of three days), will be broadcasting this performance live over the airwaves in
Seattle as well as streaming it live in multiple
formats over the internet and cell phones,
keeping that stream available on their website
for two weeks, possibly podcasting the performance, burning it to CD for later playback on
the air and archiving it for possible inclusion
on a live CD at a later date. That’s a lot to think
about for FOH engineer Scott Colburn, but he
seems cool as he walks around the 11-piece
band in his socks, swapping XLR cables on the
lead vocalist’s mic and checking the DI boxes
on the string section (two violins and a cello—
yes, it’s a rock band). Of course, this calm might
come from the fact that everything that can go
wrong, already has. This morning, just after install, the ISDN line that fed the broadcast back
to Seattle failed.
Is It Live?
The M’s
The signal starts at a wide mixture of mics
and DIs on the band into a Trident Series 80B
board, where Colburn mixes. Each of the channels on the board runs out to a Pro Tools rig
recording the session, and the stereo mix from
the board is multed into a second board in a
different room, a Spirit Folio, and channels
23 and 24 on the Pro Tools session. The DJs
do their mix on the Spirit desk, and the stereo mix from that board gets patched into a
Telos Zephyr box, which samples the mix at 64
kbps/channel, and sends it out over ISDN back
to the production offices of KEXP in Seattle,
where they reverse the process and broadcast
the stream. Except today the ISDN refuses to
work. Instead of broadcasting live, the shows
are being recorded and FTP-d to Seattle. The
live broadcast, well, isn’t.
The show must go on, though, so at 1 p.m.
the band hits the first note, and Colburn works
The M’s
“I don’t want somebody so close to my face that I can
smell their breath when they’re singing. Because
you’ve never gone to a concert and heard the vocals
right in your face, you know?” -Scott Colburn
28
200.0610.28.kexp.indd 28
October 2006
the faders. The M’s is a huge group, 11 people,
all playing live in a recording studio—a lot of
big sounds competing in a tight space.
“I had a big discussion with the string players,” says Colburn, “Where we decided to go DI
for the strings, even though I really hate the DI
strings sound. It was really kinda necessary if I
was gonna hear them at all.” Colburn struck an
open mix, aiming for a Phil Spector “massive,
huge, live sound,” using two Sennheiser 421s
and a Shure 58 and 57 on vocals and guitar,
even though he thinks they’re a little too open.
“I would have preferred to have beta58s all the
way around, but they weren’t available, so I’m
using what I have.”
He’s got another 421 on bass, a d112 on
the kick drum, a SM57 on the snare and a pair
of Earthworks hyper-cardioid mics above and
pointing straight down at the drum set.
“I’m approaching the drum set as an instrument that’s being picked up by the two mics
which are the overheads, then I supplement
the kick and the snare with close mics on that,”
he explains.“It’s an effort to reduce the amount
of channels I have to deal with, and also to have
less mics open to reduce the amount of bleed
that’s gonna happen.”
It doesn’t completely work, though, as he
battles bleed throughout the set.
“When we went on the air, the first two
songs sounded the way I had envisioned it,
but after the interview the second two songs
just fell apart for me,” he notes, with a healthy
dose of self-deprecation. I tell him the mixes
sounded fine to me—lush and dynamic with
a nice crisp rock feel.
“I wouldn’t say that the mixes were bad,”
he replies, “But I just wasn’t happy with them,
and there was nothing I could do to be happy
with it.”
Mixing In The Milk
Colburn’s his own harshest critic. This manifests as an intense drive to improve the quality
of live sound mixes for KEXP, including experimenting with a surround mix for live performances, and upgrading the conditions of the
KEXP remote broadcasts. When KEXP broadcast from the Museum of Television and Radio
in New York City Colburn took it upon himself
to visit the museum and negotiate with them
to have KEXP provide the mixing equipment
and engineers.
“It was a big relief for them,” he says.“It was
still minimal equipment, but the improvement
was noticeable.” Eventually the live perfor-
mances were moved to a studio, but the negotiation between a live mix and the broadcast
quality went on.
While he tries to make every live performance sound as good as the CD that was
played before it, he’s adamant in his live
mixing philosophy.
“I don’t like the typical pop mix which is
like the vocals kinda on top and in your face
and the band’s got this whole other dimension
to it,” he says. “I don’t want somebody so close
to my face that I can smell their breath when
they’re singing. Because you’ve never gone to a
concert and heard the vocals right in your face,
you know? You don’t hear it that way because
there’s room and space in there.” He likes his
mixes like breakfast, and says vocals should be
“Here, in the center, and the music is like cereal
and milk in a bowl that surrounds the vocals
and supports it that way.”
But to get that sound out of a live performance and onto the broadcast, without upsetting the band’s manager and keeping the
sound consistent, requires jumping through a
few hoops.
“When I’m doing the broadcast mix I remove that space and bring the vocals back
up straight and on top of the music.” It sounds
counter-intuitive, but he continues, “The reason that I put them on top of the music is that I
know that when it goes to the station and goes
back out over the air it’s gonna hit another limiter, which is gonna pull that vocal down and
it’s gonna put it in the place that I actually do
want it to be.”
So the live audience’s mix is a little different than what actually hits the airwaves, but
everybody’s happy. “At this end, the people
that are listening, the people at the station, the
DJs, they hear the mix of a pop music mix that
they’re used to hearing and they appreciate.
And so everybody’s satisfied that way. I know
that in the end it sounds like I want it to sound,
but here, live, it sounds like everybody else
wants it to sound.”
And at the end of the day, everybody’s
happy in Chicago, too. The Engine techs have
worked with phone company and gotten the
ISDN working. At 9 a.m. the next morning local
band Catfish Haven blasts into the studio and
dances their way through a bluesy rock set,
electrifying the live audience that’s skipped
work to come watch the show, those listening
over the radio and people online as far away
as Iceland. It’s live mixing, with a reach a lot farther than your typical array.
www.fohonline.com
9/28/06 4:43:00 PM
200.0610.Ads.indd 29
9/28/06 4:59:48 PM
Product Gallery
SYSTEM MEASUREMENT TOOLS
Two shows come to mind when I think
about this month’s subject. About two years
ago I was out to interview Wiz at a The Dead
show and he talked at length about younger
engineers who were so dependent on system tools like SMAART that they would make
whatever changes the software told them to
regardless of whether their ears told them
something different. The other was local and
just a few months ago when I watched a guy
whose ears are obviously way better than
mine dial in delay settings on an XTA unit
without looking at the rack. He stood at FOH,
eyes closed and dialed it in with just his ears
and it sounded great.
But then there the time that I watched
Jerry Hogerson from Star Enterprises use the
Iasys system to measure a system that had
already been “setup” by the manufacturer.
After measuring and making a few tweaks it
sounded like a different—and much better—
system. It is, as always, all about balance. Here
are some tools you can use in your hunt for
the perfectly aligned system. Just remember
to trust your ears, too.
Audio Control-lasys
Galaxy Audio CM140
Ivie IE-35
SIA Smaart I-U
Company
Website
AudioControl
Industrial
Model MSRP
Resp,
Measurement
Form Factor Connectors
Features
Amplitude
SA3051
www.eaw.com
Galaxy Audio
Input/
Output
Levels
Delay, limiter,
Pink noise,
coherence,
4"x10"x13", 8
-56 to +36
XLR,
warble, sine, 44 to 190 dB
Iasys $3,995 RT60, polarity,
pounds,
dBu,
speaker wire sweep sine,
SPL
spectrum
metal case
other
analysis, SPL
www.audiocontrol.com
EAW
Stimulus
Types
$995
Spectrum
analysis, SPL
-56 to +36 4"x10"x13", 8
dBu, Max
pounds,
SPL 190 dB metal case
XLR, TRS,
RCA
Pink Noise
44 to 190 dB
SPL
Built-In
or RTA
Mic Input?
Memory
Capability?
Power
Supply
1/2 dB, 1/48
octave
XLR
balanced
mic input
Yes, 32
memories
AC Line
1 dB
XLR
balanced
mic input
Yes, and
memory
averaging
AC Line
N/A,
Software
Unlimited,
File based
N/A,
Software
Meter
Computer Measurement
Interface Resolutions
Plasma
Printer
interface
LED
N/A
Sample Rate
and FFT size
dependent
Narrowband
(Lin.Log)
N/A,
Frequency
Software Resolutions
<1 Hz, Banded
RTA 1/1 - 1/24
Octave, Time
Resolution to
one sample
EAW
Smaart $795
v6
SPL, RTA,
polarity,
frequency
response,
coherence,
delay
N/A,
Software
Software
CM140 $149.98
SPL Meter
1.0 dB
9"x2"x1" .5lbs
N/A
N/A
Line output
LCD
No
dB
no
None
9v
CM150 $299.98
SPL Meter
N/A
11"x3"x1"
.75lbs
N/A
N/A
Line output
LCD
Yes
(optional)
dB
no
Max/Min
9v
Pink
Numeric
N/A,
noise, sine,
N/A, I/O
display +
Software synchronous Independent L/R bar
log sweeps
graph
www.galaxyaudio.com
Ivie Technologies,
Inc.
IE-35 $1,747
www.ivie.com
ML1
$215$579
NTI Americas Inc
www.ntiam.com
NTI
AL1
30
$215$904
October 2006
200.0610.30.ProdGall.indd 30
RTA, SPL,
Polarity, RT-60,
Strip Chart,
Scope, Signal
Generator, Volt
meter
dB SPL, RTA,
polarity, audio
level, THD+N,
frequency
response;
Individual
harmonic
distortion;
AFILS
dB SPL, RTA,
Delay, Phase,
reverb time,
spectrum
analysis, Audio
Level, THD+N,
(Optional
STI-PA speech
intelligibility
$798).
Input: Mic
ActiveSync
Stores
Internal
White, Pink,
TFT Color
0.1 dB/SPL, Detachable
5"x3"x1.5",
and Line /
(computer
thousands batteries,
20 - 20 kHz
RCA and TA4 sine, square,
Touch
1/24 octave microphone,
handheld
Output:: Line
software
of
AC
triangle
Screen
RTA
supplied
level
supplied)
measurements charger
Flexible
Units; Also Handheld, 1
averaged
1/2 lbs
Leq
Flexible
Units; Also
averaged
and
Min/Max
for both
levels and
1/3 octave
levels
To +20 dBu
White and input (to +40
Pink Noise; dBu with
XLR; RCA,
Illuminated
Sine, Square, adapter);to
1/8"
LCD
Polarity
140 dBSPL;
pulse
Output to
1.6 V
USB IF
$325
dB/dBSPL
0.5%; Hz. 0.1%;
Selfpowered
MiniSPL mic
To +20 dBu
in (to +40
dBu with
Illuminated
adapter);to
LCD
140 dBSPL;
Output to
1.6 V
USB IF
dB/dBSPL
0.5%; Hz. 0.1%;
Analyzer
selfYes; with
3xAA;
powered averaging and
Generator
MiniSPL mic PC transfer
2 x AA
White or
Handheld
XLR;
Pink Noise,
palm-sized
RCA;1/8" Sine, Square,
instruments,
headphone Polarity
1 1/2 lbs total
jack
pulse, Delay
weight for all
Pulse
Analyzer
3xAA;
Generator
2 x AA
www.fohonline.com
9/29/06 1:27:45 PM
200.0610.Ads.indd 31
9/28/06 5:00:13 PM
Installations
Dan Crary
Photo By Steve Parr
Photos by:
“THIS IS
DE
VERY SE FINITELY A SHO
VERE MI
W THAT
SSION C
STARTED
REEP.” –
DAN CRA OUT SMALL AN
D SUFFE
RY
RE
D
By BlissBowen
S
Beppe Gambetta
Photo By Steve Parr
Albert Lee
Photo By Steve Parr
32
October 2006
200.0610.32-33.installs.indd 32
eventy inputs—
most of them
guitars—are a big
enough challenge for
any live engineer. Now
factor in all of this: Those
guitarists are all worldclass players doing a show
that tracks the history and
influence of the guitar. The
mix of players changes over
the show’s three-day run and
range from acoustic-based
classical and bluegrass to the
searing electric vibe of Albert
King and Eric Johnson. The show
is seen as a possible “audition”
for a theatrical run and is being
recorded for a DVD. Oh yeah, and
you are mixing in surround on some
gear that is seeing its first public use
in this country.
That was the challenge facing the
producers and crew of Primal Twang:
The Legacy of the Guitar, a world-premiere revue staged at the 730-seat North
Park Theatre in San Diego in September.
Virtually all of the artists were critically respected musicians’ musicians: Dan Crary,
Albert Lee, Eric Johnson, Doyle Dykes, Andrew York, Peter Sprague, Beppe Gambetta,
“Classical Gas” composer Mason Williams, harp
guitarist John Doan, Raul Reynoso, Dennis Caplinger, Jon Walmsley and revered folk icon
Doc Watson and his grandson Richard Watson.
Their involvement triggered a groundswell of
interest that enabled director Anthony Leigh
Adams, producer Christina Adams, co-producer/production stage manager Jeff Gregory and production coordinator George
“Corky” Lang to secure an enthusiastic
production team and an unusually
wide range of technical support
from sponsoring manufacturers
including Aviom, Lectrosonics,
Audix, Millennia, FutureSonics, ClearSonic, Fishman, L.R.
Baggs, Taylor Guitars and
Fender.
San Diego-based
rental
company
Meeting
Ser-
vices, Inc. added these donated items to its
mix of JBL, Soundcraft, dbx and Lexicon rental
gear, and MSI’s Ken Freeman provided an audio project plan and technical crew to pull
it all together. “This never would have happened without them,” Gregory asserts.
And it all came together in a month. “I
walked in the door after a nine-hour drive
from San Francisco,” Gregory recalls, “and
within 30 seconds was in a production meeting.” That was one month before opening
night. The crew didn’t assemble on-site until
five days before opening on Thursday, Sept. 7.
“We had a tech day on Sunday, we were
off for Labor Day, and started band rehearsals
on Tuesday,” recalls FOH engineer Gary Hartung. “16-, 18-hour days. It’s been very, very,
very hectic. We had a lot on our plate as far
as getting the PA inputs tuned properly for all
these guitars, and getting rehearsal started.”
If You’re Gonna Go,
Go Big
The complex production was the brainchild of director Anthony Leigh Adams, who
was inspired by guitarist Dan Crary’s one-man
concert. The two hashed out a theatrical piece
tracing the guitar’s history by presenting performances of various genres that evolved
along with the instrument: classical, flamenco,
gypsy jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, jazz, reggae, folk, bossa nova, rock, pop and permutations in between. Originally, they planned to
incorporate film footage of famous guitarists
into a multimedia presentation but then the
idea emerged to bring in “great stars” such as
Watson—the first artist Crary wanted to invite onboard.
“This is definitely a show that started out
small and suffered very severe mission creep,”
wisecracks Crary, who fronted the house band
and served as narrator. “It became a big deal
of its own momentum and we’re thrilled with
that, and we’ve struggled to manage it. Everything about it has been a challenge because
of the scope and complexity.”
Microphone, pickup and personal monitoring technology provided by manufacturers supportive of the music helped Crary
and Adams realize their theatrical vision, and
also helped simplify the tricky task of miking acoustic instruments. The cue-intensive
Chris Lawre
nce
production was a guitar geek’s
dream but it required a brainfuzzing degree of technical
coordination both backstage
and at front of house. It was
essential to have engineers experienced at miking live instruments, and vital to prevent any
bleed-over that might muddy the
sonic quality of the DVD.
Lectrosonics’ RF wireless systems
provided a partial solution, by enabling
Crary and Walmsley to move freely about
the proscenium stage and throughout the
house. Aviom’s personal monitoring system
for the key musicians made it possible for
the house band to mix themselves onstage,
and for the monitor engineer to concentrate
on Crary’s PM mix while simultaneously
avoiding leakage that would have spoiled
the DVD recording.
“What Dan accomplishes throughout the
show certainly could not have been done
without wireless technology,” says Matt Robertson of Lectrosonics. “The challenge was
indeed Dan himself, because he’s wearing a
six-string guitar, changes to a 12-string and
back. Each of his guitars has a pickup as well
as a microphone in it, so he needed two body
pack transmitters per guitar plus the headset
mic he’s wearing as well, and he needed the
ability to walk anywhere in the theatre.”
It’s A Mad, Mad,
Monitor World
Manning Soundcraft Series 5M and MH3
desks backstage was John Shearman. “In the
monitors, in the earpieces, the mix I’m sending them is basically not using the microphones,” explained Shearman (a road veteran
originally from Essex, U.K. with such touring
credits as Prince, Flaming Lips, and Smashing
Pumpkins). “Every instrument is either DI’d
or has pickups,” he notes. “We avoided using
acoustic guitar mics in the monitors, because
it’s difficult to get a level. We’re using wedges
onstage for the guest artists but not for the
house band; they exclusively have Futuresonic PMs and run their earpieces from the Aviom mixes. It’s basically the only way we could
have dealt with this situation.” Had they used
wedges for the band, he believes, the resulting leakage into the mics would have created
“a disaster.”
“I don’t think I’d have gotten any usable
signal using regular wedges,” he continued.
“And that was the main aim: to make the recording as clean as possible. Not having any
really loud monitoring onstage means we
can actually do that. Of course, we’ve got the
Plexiglas screen around the drum kit. Otherwise we’d have all that leaking into the instrument mics.” Lending years of touring expertise on stage, Future Sonics’ Marty Garcia
worked closely with Shearman, the musicians
and audio tech Clayton Green to optimize the
stage sound.
If Shearman’s monitor world was a linch-
www.fohonline.com
9/28/06 5:34:00 PM
Gary Hartung and associate at FOH
Soundcraft Vi6 digital console
pin of muso-centered engineering activity,
San Diego-based Gary Hartung (with touring
credits including Pat Benatar, Crosby, Stills &
Nash, and Mary Chapin-Carpenter) had a station at the rear of the theatre that was the live
audio hub. While Mark Kirchner recorded the
show from his Pro Tools outpost upstairs in
the lighting booth, Hartung tracked nearly 70
inputs, watched the stage and the script and
eyeballed five data screens on Soundcraft’s
brand-new Vi6 digital mixing console. Manning a board that’s being used at its first-ever
public concert event in the USA presented a
huge challenge, as did the speed and abundance of onstage changes between players
and instruments. Hartung’s goal was to “let
the music speak for itself” and to replicate as
closely as possible the period sound of the
performances—so that, for instance, when
Walmsley ripped into a Beatle’s song or surfguitar solo, it sounded like a live show would
have in the 1960s.
even Broadway. That was a prime motivation for the production team—along with
supporting the music and spreading it to
new audiences.
There was teamwork onstage, as well
as backstage. Gary Hartung noted that the
level of musicianship made his job much
easier. “There’s a tremendous familiarity between the musicians, and a lot of the mate-
rial is very popular,” he advises. “They’re all top-notch.
They’ll exchange between
themselves quite a bit during
any given song, and it’s really
interesting to listen to the different textures
and techniques, because you’ll have a steelstring guitar meshing with a nylon-string
guitar and a flamenco guitar and a banjo
JBL VP 7212
and a fiddle and a 12-string acoustic guitar
and an electric guitar, and a bass—all in the
same song. Musically and technically, this
show has been a real pleasure.”
Primal Twang marked the first theatrical-show use of JBL’s new VP series powered
loudspeakers, set up in a surround configuration. “We’re doing 5.1,” Hartung explains.
“I’m using an ambient program on a Lexicon 960 Surround Processor, and then I’m
spreading all the featured guest guitars into
that program. This puts a little more ‘space’ in
the hall, and a little more ambient feel.
Hartung noted he did not need a lot in
the way of PA. “We’re only using two of JBL’s
VP7315 15-inch 3-way powered loudspeakers per side, supported by two VP7118 powered subs per side. Then we have several
VP7212 powered units for surround locations, and we’re using the house’s installed
JBL center cluster, plus two of the same identical speakers in the coves of the theatre. On
top of that we’re using JBL front fills on the
lip of the stage. Meeting Services provided
more of a theatrical system than a typical
live touring rig. Production didn’t want to
see a bunch of speakers in the camera shots,
so it’s a low-profile system.”
Like Shearman, Hartung and Kirchner
stressed the priority placed on the DVD recording. “All these performers, they’re worldclass, they’re used to hearing and recording
their instruments in world-class studios, and
we want this DVD to be on par with that,”
Kirchner explains. “A lot of preproduction
went into this to make sure that these guys
can walk in, plug in, play, and basically we’re
capturing a studio-quality recording.”
Responsible for inputs feeding the recorded tracks, audio producer Henry Austin
was instrumental in coordinating the various
guitar microphones and pickups. Phil Garfinkel of Audix was also onsite to assist with
microphone applications. “This was really an
audio team effort” observed Austin.
The DVD’s release will share a memorable concert with fans unable to attend in
person. It could also conceivably open doors
for Primal Twang to tour regional theatres or
200.0610.32-33.installs.indd 33
Ad info: http:// foh.hotims.com
Surrounded with Sound
9/28/06 5:34:49 PM
Road Tests
APB Spectra-T Console
By JamieRio
A
re you looking for a new board? Let
me be a little more specific. Are you
looking for a new analog VCA console? We all know there are a lot of companies out there to choose from, but there are
not a lot of new companies building analog
mixing consoles. At least not a lot of new,
made in America companies. I have my own
ideas on why that is the case but I won’t get
into it right now. Let’s get back to this new
company thing. APB-DynaSonics is new.
They are less than two years old, however
the brains behind this corporation are certainly not newcomers to the audio business.
Chuck Augustowski, John Petrucelli and Taz
Bhogal are the founders of APB and veterans
of the audio console industry. These three
guys have decades of experience working with the sound contracting community
along with the tour sound industry. Why am
I giving you all this info, you may ask, rather
than jumping right into the nuts and bolts of
this console? Well, if you are looking to purchase a new console, you will have to make
a decision on why to invest your dollars in
this console. So, I figure a little background
information can only help you make an informed choice.
The Gear
The Spectra mixers have a laundry list of
features. The input channels start with high
quality Burr-Brown mic pre-amps. Phantom
power, line switch, pad, polarity switches and
gain controls are present on all mono inputs.
An adjustable high-pass filter with an on/
off switch starts the EQ section. The SpectraT equalization is sweepable in all four bands,
and includes shelving/bell switches on high
and low frequencies.
There are 10 aux busses with pre/post
faders (4) and pre/post EQ (2) switches. The
aux outputs feature 100mm faders with
polarity reverse switches. Aux outputs have
What it is: VCA Analog Console
Who it’s for: Regional soundcos
and installs
Pros: Super clean, responsive EQ,
great looking, loads of features for
the price
Cons: Might be hard to get it on
the rider
How Much: 32-T MSRP $18,500,
other sizes available from $13,500
to $26,900
pre/post assignments to Matrix section and
assigns to Left, Right, Center and Mono busses. You get eight VCA input groups along
with 12 mute groups (four discrete, eight
VCA assignment linked).
Further, there’s an output VCA system for
Left,Right, Center and Mono Outputs plus a
user selectable VCA system on all four matrix
outputs. Four stereo/split-track line input
channels are included on all console configurations. Inserts are present on all primary
outputs of the console, including aux and
matrix outputs. You also get internally illuminated solo and mute switches.
The board gives you a 15 by 4 matrix system with inserts and XLR balanced outputs.
Two mono alternate outputs with XLR (transformer isolated) balanced outputs are featured along with a stereo (record) alternate
output. A talkback system with oscillator is
on board. Eighteen, 15-segment output meters let you see what’s going on along with
six-segmented input channel metering. A redundant (plug-in) power supply is standard.
The console can be purchased in 24, 32, 40,
48 and 56 mono input channel formats. That
pretty much covers all the features. I may
have missed a few but let’s just say that this
console is packed with buckets of features
for a piece of gear in this price range.
The Gigs
Bill Evans and I took the Spectra-T on its
first outing. APB sent me a 32-channel model
which I received a day before the show. I really
didn’t have much time to familiarize myself with
the console prior to the show but both Bill and
I have been around the block a few times, so I
wasn’t worried.
The first thing I thought after setting up
the board and turning it on was how good
looking it is. This may not be that important
to many of you out there, but for me it’s very
important. If I am going to work with something day-in and day-out (whether it’s my car,
girlfriend or mixing console) I’ve got to enjoy
looking at it. APB built this board with great
colors and functional lighting.
Alright, back to the show. Anyway, we set
everything up for a rather large Latin jazz band
and started to get some sounds. The Spectra is
a very clean mixer. Actually, that doesn’t really
describe it. The Spectra is a beautifully transparent piece of equipment. It may be the VCAs but
it is probably the overall design. Whatever it is,
the sense of openness is immediately apparent.
We put the drums up first and I had a lot of
fun with the EQ. It is also transparent and very
deep. There are some of you who don’t
200.0610.34-36.RT.indd 34
9/29/06 1:28:31 PM
Camco Vortex 6 Amplifier
By MarkAmundson
always the case with high-power amplifiers. The 16.6-inch depth of amplifier
(422mm) is expected, and the built-in rear
ears make amp rack integration much easier than making or buying kits for rear rack
tie-down.
After the large club and smaller outdoor
gigs I did with Vortex 6, I ran some shop tests
and found nothing to really complain about.
It is a little heavier than the Crest Pro 9200 I
removed from my amp rack, but both amps
are superb in audio reproduction and lighter
than everything else out there. You will not
purchase a Camco Vortex 6 cheaply, but the
amp’s performance and construction will be
worth every dollar (or Euro) spent.
I
have been hearing great things about
Camco amps from visiting sound engineers
from Europe in recent years. Now that the
Camco Vortex series of amplifiers is distributed in the United States by Ashly Audio, it’s
easier for us all to get a look at these amps.
I was sent a Camco Vortex 6 amplifier, the
mainstay of many Euro touring sound companies. The Vortex 6 puts out 2100 watts per
channel into four-ohm loads with both channels driven with less than 0.1% distortion at
1kHz. And the Vortex 6 comes in a two-rackspace size with a 12.4 kilogram weight (27
pounds), and draws a polite 16 amperes at
the 1/8th power representing normal operation at 120V.
Externally the Camco Vortex 6 looks like
any minimalist audio power amplifier, but its
modest weight for its output ratings gives
you a clue that there is some magic inside.
The front panel has a large cooling air inlet,
but the plain power switch, two volume controls and On/Signal/Clip LEDs hide any semblance of advanced technology. Three status
LEDs do give you amplifier mode operation
stereo/parallel/bridged, and RS-485 control
operation (CAI).
The back panel shows off a bit more technology with a 12-gauge power cord terminated with a Hubbel 120VAC, 30A twist lock
plug. With its European pedigree, the binding
posts are not found, and two high power NL4
speakon jacks handle the speaker interfacing.
And the large rear vent shows off what looks
like a chassis full of aluminum heatsinks, which
is a very good thing. Also in the rear panel is
the obligatory XLR input and thru jacks for
signal patching. Five slide switches are also included for setting ground lift, amplifier mode,
protection/limiter usage, gain selection and
an optional future feature as new software is
created. Yes, I said “software.”
The Camco Vortex 6 technology includes
a microprocessor to handle the load protection and amplifier operation function inside.
Note that the Vortex 6 is still designed as analog-in and analog-out, with no digital conversion processing in the signal path. While the
switching power supply does take orders
from the microprocessor, the amplifier itself
is a Class-H amplifier using Bipolar transistors and getting juice from the three supply
rails from the switcher. Should something be
abnormal in the amplifier or load, the supply
rails can be lowered or crashed completely.
And just like VCA mixing consoles, the
Camco Vortex 6 has both the volume control
and microprocessor control of a 12-bit DCA
(digital controlled amplifier) per channel. This
obviously takes any scratchy-ness away from
the volume controls, and the 12-bit (4096)
levels permits the volume control to be a perfect logarithmic characteristic without having
to purchase that precision in the 40 detent
rotary control. The real brainy feature is that
the Vortex 6 can detect output clipping onset
from the amplifier and lower the DCA level
automatically (limiting). And of course, if you
just want to slam subwoofers with everything
the Vortex 6 has, you can switch the limiter
and speaker protection out.
The Vortex 6 also has two RJ-12 jacks in the
rear for daisy chaining the Camco amplifier remotely. This especially handy when you have
many racks of amplifier driving line arrays and
need to control many coverage angles. And
the Vortex 6 can drive two-ohm (at 3000w/ch)
and eight-ohms loads (at 1200w/ch) as well.
What it is: Tour-Grade Audio
Power Amplifier
Who it’s for: Sound Companies with
uncompromising desire for high-fidelity, and a moderate amount of remote
control capability for large systems.
Pros: Great sounding, small size, and
simple interfacing
Cons: None.
How much: Camco Vortex 6 $4905 SRP
The Gigs
With the Camco Vortex 6 used for subwoofer and mids, I found both power to
spare and great audio fidelity. This is not
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Road Tests
Audio-Technica ATM250DE Dual Mic Element
By BillEvans
T
his one will be short and sweet. We reviewed the Artist Elite AE2500 dual element mic soon after it first came out.
We liked everything about it except the price.
Evidently we were not the only ones because
A-T recently put out a lower-cost version in
their new Artist Series line that we can’t find a
lot different about.
housing. The two elements are mounted in
precise position so that phasing is not an issue.
The mic uses a special cable with a five-pin XLR
connector that attaches to the mic and then terminates in a pair of standard XLRs so you can
run the dynamic into one console input and the
condenser into the other and separately mix
and EQ the two to get the best sound.
The Gear
The Gigs
In case you weren’t paying attention the
last time, the ATM250DE, like it’s more expensive sibling, is two, two, two mics in one (if you
got that reference, congratulations, you’re old
like me). It has become a pretty common thing
in the big leagues to put two mics on the kick
drum but this means really getting the positioning down in order to avoid phasing problems that can suck the life out of your sound.
The ATM250DE addresses this by putting
a dynamic capsule and a condenser in a single
Though the ATM250DE was originally
looked at as a kick drum mic, it has seen a
lot of other uses as well. “Big Mick” Hughes
has used them on guitar cabs for Metallica
where they sounded brilliant, and I have
heard they make a killer sax mic as well (still
have to try that one).
On this gig we were mixing a pair of large
bands for an outdoor event for about 1200
people. The bands were of similar sizes but
had totally different sounds and very differ-
ent drummers. We used the ATM250DE on
both and got great results. Each of the drummers needed a bit of EQ tweaking and a different balance between the two elements,
but they both sounded great and we didn’t
have to spend a lot of time futzing with mic
positioning. Very nice.
My only issue with this mic is the connector. The cable is solidly made, but we all know
that cables fail all the time and this mic is unusable without that special cable. I would really like to see A-T include some kind of hard
adapter with the mic. The adapter would have
the female five-pin on one end and a pair of
male XLRs on the other all in some kind of
molded or, better, metal casing. That way, if
the cable takes a dump on the gig, you have
a plan B ready. Until that happens, order an
extra cable just in case. The extra expense is
worth it for the very cool sonic possibilities
this mic makes possible.
CBI Ultimate Starperformer Split-Box
By BrianKlijanowicz
C
BI sent over their
spanking-new Ultimate Starperformer transformer split-box
for review, a 56-channel
VEAM mass-pinned threeway isolated split. It also
has mass-pin connectors for the stage boxes.
We received a configuration with M176 and M61
connectors on it. Three
M176 connectors give
you your main outputs,
labeled “main,’ ‘monitor’
and ‘aux.” There are also
three M61 connectors for
the stage boxes. Each
M61 carries 20 channels
of signal (ie. 1-20, 21-40,
41-56). Every input on the
box has a male and female
XLR connector as well as
a ground lift switch to
help with troubleshooting. This unit comes with
rack-mountable ears, so it can be mounted
pretty much anywhere. One thing that could be easily addressed is the numbering of the channels. For example, when I am patching
something into channel 30, I would
tend to patch it into channel 40 because
the numbers are on the bottom of each
connector versus the top. But I do like
that they didn’t jam all the connectors
together, though. It’s nice for the people
that like to label the box with tape when
patching a stage.
The stage boxes that work with this
split are nice. They would be very convenient in arenas and on big stages. They
also keep the split looking clean during
a show (if you’re into that kind of thing).
However, this does raise the question: How
do you cross patch between the M61 stage
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October 2006
200.0610.34-36.RT.indd 36
boxes? Say I want channel 13 (in the first
on-stage M61 box) to go to channel 30 (in
the second on-stage M61 box). The only
way to do that is to manually take the output of channel 13 and put it into channel
30. So what’s wrong with this? Channel 13
and 30 will be getting the same signal, so
it basically defeats the purpose in the first
place. Unless you use an old-fashioned sub
snake, or a M61 XLR fan-out, cross-patching will be quite the task.
[CBI replies that Ultimate Starperformers
are built to order and that this configuration
for the test model was ordered by the customer. –ed.]
But all in all this is a great split box. It
has a lot of good features, and is well assembled. Definitely count on seeing some
of these along your journeys on the road in
the near future.
What it is: A split-box.
Who it’s for: Regional and corporate soundco’s.
Pros: XLR in and outs on every
channel, ground lift switch on
every channel, mass pin to keep
things neat
Cons: Channel numbering can
be confusing for those who are
not used to it, stage box mass pin
needs a better way to cross patch .
How Much: $10,000–$20,000, depending on customer specs. Each
unit built to order.
What It Is: Dual element mic—dynamic
and condenser
Who It’s For: Folks who were jealous of
the original and can afford this version
Pros: Super easy to place and use. Developed
as a kick drum mic, but has tons of other uses.
Cons: That special cable is GOING to fail
at some point. You need an extra cable
handy on every gig, just in case.
How Much: MSRP: $549.00
APB Spectra-T Console
really like VCAs, and others who will only
mix on consoles featuring voltage-controlled amplifiers. That is an argument for
another article, but I will tell you that the
VCAs on this board operate very smoothly
and cleanly. The mute groups are very handy and I loved the 100mm faders on the
Aux groups.
In a nutshell, the show went quite well
and the audience had a great time. During the
show the client/producer came by the FOH
area and mentioned how good everything
sounded. He also asked about the board. I
usually discount the client’s overall awareness but this guy noted that we had a new
console, that it was very handsome and asked
if we would be bringing it to his next event.
Just three days later I took the SpectraT out on another date with an eight-piece
swing band. This was a much bigger event,
however we were asked to mix from the side
of stage. With all the outputs available we
had no problem setting up a cue and mixing.
The board once again worked beautifully. At
this event the client (whom I have worked
with at dozens of events) was standing right
next to me at the console and didn’t notice
anything new or different. This client/producer is a woman however. This is not a slam
folks; I am just reporting the facts of the
event. On the other hand the, the lead singer
of the band commented on the quality of
the sound and the look of the mixer.
Both shows were very successful and I
enjoyed working on this board very much.
I think the Spectra will do very well in the
Contracting and general install arena but
APB may have an uphill battle with touring
sound riders. Which brings me back to my
opening paragraph. The quality and design is
definitely present in this piece of equipment,
but riders can be very tight. The good news
is there are more churches than arenas.
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9/28/06 5:00:49 PM
Regional Slants
Is It Live
By JamieRio
A
Or Is It iP
ll of us have mixed sound for track
acts, right? If that isn’t a broad enough
question, how about: have you, at some
point, played canned music through a system? This is an important question because
the majority of us have some particular music we use to listen to the tonal quality of our
rigs, or our clients rig, once
we are set up.
For the most
part we have
at least one CD
player on hand
for just such a
task. You may
even have a
Teac CD/cassette machine.
They sold a
lot of those
back in the day. But before I take us for a stroll
down memory lane, let me get to the subject
of my piece this month.
iPods are on the threshold of becoming
the new source of choice for the canned music that we play and use in our business. Don’t
get me wrong, when I say “on the threshold”
it may take many years to transition. However, we don’t use 8-tracks anymore (do we?),
and rarely will you find a cassette out there.
The reason I believe we are going in this direction is because it makes so much more
sense. First of all, you can stuff every CD you
own into your iPod and it’s all stored in a very
very small package. A package that won’t skip
or stop if you bump it or drop it. A package
that you just can’t scratch. (Well, the music
anyways—that brushed chrome gets more
scratches than Outkast at a DJ convention.)
o
er asked my
assistant to
queue up a
CD for his
monologue.
Without
thinking, my
assistant (emphasis on ass) hit the eject button on my CD
player and crashed the show. Here’s the point.
This probably wouldn’t have happened with
an iPod. Mainly because a small player like the
previously mentioned sits right in front of me
at the board. By the way, when the show went
down, the singer (Kristy Frank) never skipped
a beat. She finished the song a cappella. A real
pro for a sixteen year old.
Another example of my own flexibility
using my iPod took place just last Friday at a
blues festival in Valencia, California. I realize
by the time you read this there is a greater
time lag but don’t let that bother you. At any
rate, I was running sound for a blues artist.
She specifically asked me not to play any
blues before her show. “How about a little
country?” I asked. She wanted nothing to
do with that so I ran though every genre I
could think of until we settled on some Latin
jazz. I simply scrolled to one of my Latin jazz
artists and we had music. With more than a
thousand songs on my tiny player, I can just
about cover anybody’s needs or desires.
I believe this is only the tip of the iceberg
when it comes to these little players. Video can
be added to a live performance easier than
you can imagine. The reality of this format is
that it has improved my business. I don’t carry
around any CDs to my shows. Of course I have
a CD player and will have for many years, but
eventually I will only bring one if the client re-
quest or a rider calls for it.
I would like to add a couple of practical
things here. My personal CD collection supplied 99% of the music on my iPod. I have
also bought some material on line and it has
a very good sound quality. However, I have
attempted to take material from another
digital music player in MP3 format to my
iPod and that sound quality was less than
satisfactory. This information is probably
neither here nor there for most of you. I am
guessing that you can hear good from bad. If
you can’t you’re in the wrong biz. I thought I
would just save you some grief.
I think that transitioning into a small
player format, whether it is an iPod or a cell
phone should be fairly painless. (I’m probably underestimating the sheer number of
you who still only listen to your enormous
library of cassettes and 8-tracks.) All kidding
aside, if I look at where this biz has come
since I started my company, a lot has happened in a short time. Line array didn’t exist
just a few years ago, and a digital board was
a rare and expensive commodity. Now just
about everyone builds a line of flying boxes
(whether they should or not), and you can
probably find a coupon for some manufacturers digital board in a box of Wheaties.
Jamie Rio can
[email protected]
be
reached
at
http://foh.hotims.com
http://foh.hotims.com
Currently I use an iPod for all my bumper music and I have a few particular songs
I listen to when I am tuning a rig. I basically
can walk into any briefcase gig, pull out my
iPod and listen to the system using a song or
songs that I am very familiar with. This one
application has made my hired-gun work
better faster
and cleaner.
But
what
has really intrigued me
about the use
of these devices is that
I have had
more
and
more
track
acts bringing
their entire
show on an
iPod. I recently had a live rock act give me
their iPod for the intro and outtro music of
their show. For them (and me) it is simply an
easier, more reliable format.
Just a couple weeks back, I was supplying
sound reinforcement for a mid-sized Radio
Disney show. The show consisted of 2500 kids
listening to three of their favorite acts. All the
acts used tracks, plus I supplied intermission
music appropriate for the event. Two acts
used the CDs and one used an iPod. The intermission music came from a laptop. (I haven’t
mentioned laptops because with the other
formats out there I don’t think I will have acts
handing me their laptops for the backing
tracks any time soon.)
Anyway, back to Radio Disney. I was running the track for the second artist through my
CD player. During her show, the DJ/announc-
d?
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9/28/06 5:01:25 PM
On the Bleeding Edge
Moore
Means
More
W
ay back in the late 1950s an engineer named Jack Kilby working at
Texas Instruments developed the
first integrated circuit (IC) or “chip.” Kilby’s
IC consisted of a single transistor plus a few
semiconductors, all on a small wafer of germanium (interestingly, engineer Robert Noyce
simultaneously developed an IC using silicon
at Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation). A
few years later (round about the time a new
band called The Beatles ruled the charts with
songs like “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”) Gordon
Moore (one of the co-founders of Intel) predicted that—due to rapid advancements in
manufacturing technology—the number of
devices that could be engineered onto a chip
would double roughly every 24 months. In
the ‘80s Moore’s statement became bastard-
ized, and began referring to the idea that
the number of transistors on a chip could
be doubled every 18 months. Fast forward
to the late-‘80s/early-‘90s and the personal
computing industry adopted to the PC world
what has become known as “Moore’s Law”:
processing power doubles roughly every
18 months while the cost of this processing
power remains relatively stable.
If the effect of Moore’s Law can be considered dramatic on business in general, then its
effect on digital audio is profound—so much
so that audio professionals are becoming
wary of the same problems faced by anyone
who relies upon PCs to get work done: (1)
how long do I wait for the “next great thing”
before I buy a new machine and (2) what
happens to my business when that machine
By SteveLaCerra
becomes outdated (or worse, obsolete) after
two years? Substitute the words “mixing console” for “machine” and you begin to appreciate the quandary.
Exactly How Did
“Smaller, Faster, Cheaper”
End Up Costing So Much
and Taking So Long
Initially this problem was merely an annoyance for audio professionals. But the
problem has become much more serious as
this kind of processor advancement has made
its way into our computer-based mixing consoles. How do we justify investing $75,000 or
more in a new digital mixing console when
we know that a better, faster, cheaper, lighter
and more efficient product is on the way? Yet
if we hesitate technology will run us over and
we will not remain competitive in the marketplace. Big problem.
The result of such technological advancement is that bubbling under the surface of
our industry is another audio revolution that
cannot be ignored. Several issues are at hand
which we’ll discuss in the next few months
(it’d be impossible to hit all of them in one
month). First we’ll tackle the issue of processing, which as in the studio environment
is now migrating towards software plug-ins
instead of hardware boxes. Over the next
couple months we’ll look at such issues as
the increasing demand for content (e.g., live
recording for video release) and the unwillingness of record labels to pay a premium for
it. And—in spite of the fact that interfacing
live digital consoles with digital recorders is
becoming simplified—there’s no consistency
with them. Less obvious is the fact that storage, transfer and delivery of digital information is changing the way we work, but the
format war has just begun.
The Migration of Audio
Processing from
Hardware to Software
The idea of running audio processing
as software plug-ins under “host” applications such as Pro Tools or Digital Performer
is nothing new in the studio, but it’s taken
a long time to reach live sound reinforcement. It’s hard to say where the idea got
started but you can’t ignore the fact that
early on the Yamaha PM1D and PM5D provided the ability to expand onboard effect
processing through additional software.
Digidesign took this idea up to another
level when they introduced the VENUE, a
live sound console that has the ability to
40
October 2006
200.0610.40.BLEED.indd 40
use any Pro Tools TDM-compatible plug-in.
At PLASA 2006, InnovaSON announced that
they will adopt software plug-in processing
from Waves Ltd. as well as VB-Audio. The XL8
from Midas offers a variety of Klark Teknik
plug-in emulations, including one for the
DN780 digital reverb. (Can I please get that
to run under Digital Performer?)
So just how important is plug-in processing to live sound engineers? Well, let’s look at
it from several viewpoints. Suppose you’ve
just landed that mixing gig you’ve always
dreamed of: major artist, first class venues,
primo bunk with satellite TV and wireless
Internet and top-of-the-line PA with all the
toys you want. Since it’s a high-profile tour,
you decide that you’ll get the best reverbs,
comps, gates and EQs that money can buy.
For the lead and backing vocalists you want
something like the dbx 160S (approximately
$3,000 for two channels), Drawmer 1960 for
bass (another $3K), Universal Audio 1176’s
($1,700 each), Neve 1073’s ($3k per channel)
for kick and snare… the list goes on—until
the tour accountant reports to the artist how
much your outboard gear is going to cost.
The artist decides they don’t want to spend
$60,000 on your outboard gear because they
can use that money to hire their masseuse for
the 6-month tour. The artist’s astute accountant also points out that your toys will require
two 5-foot, 200-pound shock-mounted racks
that have to go on the truck, eating up space
as well as increasing fuel costs.
So are you screwed? Not if you can hang
with a digital console like the VENUE or the
Yamaha PM5D (which supports a variety of
compressor, reverb and EQ software plugins). Sure, there’s an investment, but after
you spend a mere $250 for the UA 1073 TDM
plug-in (it does a pretty darn good emulation
of the Neve 1073), you can use it on as many
channels as the mixing system supports. You
won’t have to write a $3,000 check for every
channel you need, and it adds absolutely no
weight to the truck.
Now here’s something you might not
know about using TDM (and some other)
plug-in software: you can install a plug-in on
any audio computer system (whether it be
Pro Tools or the VENUE or whatever) at no
cost. To use that plug-in you’ll need to purchase authorization, the preferred version of
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9/29/06 1:29:36 PM
The Biz
Moving Around
than musicians, including checking with your
airline the day of your flight as regulations can
change on a daily basis. It also recommends removing certain items from cases and racks, such as
wire cutters and soldering irons, and anything that
can be even remotely construed as a weapon.
The situation is not likely to ease anytime
soon, although late August saw some easing
of the new regulations regarding personal
items in the U.S. and the U.K. Other mitigating actions are on the horizon.
Part of a measure that has passed the House
of Representatives, section 135 of S. 1447 of the
Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001,
outlines a mandate that the new Undersecretary
of Transportation for Aviation Security develop
new regulations to remedy inconsistent treatment of musicians and their instruments. Depending upon the final wording, new regulations
could be interpreted to include music technology items critical to live performances, as well.
Meanwhile, though, other measures, such
as the implementation of X-ray screening of
cargo at the loading pallet level, as done routinely in the U.K. since 9/11, are not under consideration here. That will keep shippers limited
to working with freight flights or limited to
recertified known shippers. Combined with increased shipping costs due to fuel and security
surcharges, Daniel says that touring companies
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200.0610.41.BIZ.indd 41
By DanDaley
can expect to pay more for services.“I don’t see
any other outcome,” he says.
E-mail Dan Daley at [email protected]
R
ecent stories in the New York Times and on
wire services such as Reuters underscore
a small but significant collateral problem
stemming specifically from the alleged terrorist
plot to blow up airline flights originating in the
U.K. in August, as well as from the larger issue of
security aloft. Several symphony orchestras and
other musical performance groups have had to
cancel individual dates and even entire tours in
the wake of the U.K. plot reports as British airport
authorities and security agencies denied passengers any carry-ons, including their instruments or
music-related technologies such as laptops.
The implications for touring concert shows
are enormous.Wayde Daniel,manager of Soundmoves, a global shipper of music technology
gear on Long Island, NY, says fast turn-around
shipments of racks, consoles and processing
gear for tours has been significantly disrupted.
“We normally send a lot of equipment out on
passenger flights to clients who need a replacement piece on a moment’s notice,” he said.“The
changes implemented by the TSA [Transportation Safety Administration] have changed all
that. Now, we have to ship the equipment on
cargo freight flights. Those tend to leave once a
day and generally at night, whereas before we
had the option of a dozen flights or more to the
U.S. and Europe, all day long.”
Several symphony orchestras, including the
Orchestra of St. Luke, from New York, called off
tours on as little as three days notice, citing the
reluctance of musicians to entrust instruments
valued in the tens of thousands of dollars to aircraft cargo holds and airline baggage handlers.
The British Musicians Union has declared that the
tightened carry-on rules would have a “devastating impact” on tours and revenues.
The American Federation of Musicians has putatively negotiated an arrangement with the TSA
regarding musical instrument carry-ons, but the
TSA has said that the agreement is not binding.
Beyond the immediate impact stemming
from the August incident, the TSA has been more
strictly enforcing other post-9/11 regulations. Specifically, they are demanding that freight forwarders make in-person visits to each of their “known
shippers”—clients that ship 20 items or more a
month—at least annually and have them execute
TSA forms that recertify that status, then file those
forms with the TSA and keep them on hand for
what Daniel says have become more frequent
random and unannounced compliance audits.
“If the Stones are in town I have to drive
over to Giants Stadium and get them to sign
the form before I can deliver any equipment
to the venue,” Daniel says. “I had a band the
other day that needed a piece to go from Dallas to Minneapolis for a show that night. They
were not a known shipper, and there were no
freight flights till later that night, which would
have been too late. As a result, we never
shipped the piece and they never got it.”
Daniel adds that this is not only hurting
the performance of the shows but also stifling revenues for them and other shippers, as
well as for equipment rental companies.
Laptops, a key piece of gear for mixers and
often containing complete audio and lighting
cues and presets for venues, can be carried
on U.S. domestic flights as well as U.S. airline
flights to the U.K., but may not be allowed on
originating in the U.K., even aboard American
carriers. Laptops are routinely reported as one
of the pieces of baggage that most went missing or were damaged in cargo handling by
several travel marketing analysts.
Menc.com, a musician-oriented website, suggests several tactics than can be useful for more
Just Keeps Getting Harder
October 2006
41
9/28/06 4:47:05 PM
Theory & Practice
O
It’s the Laws
kay, time to get up on the soapbox again.
It’s probably my three quarters electrical
engineering circuit analysis education,
but why can’t most newbie sound people figure out how much power, voltage and current is
going into each of their speakers? I mean Ohm’s
Law and Watt’s Law have been around since
before Thomas Edison invented the light bulb,
Edison sockets (for the light bulbs) and Edison
receptacles (for plugging things into). So I guess
it is time we had a refresher course on the basic
electrical formulas, and those of you who know
this stuff can guess the famous dead physicist’s
names that make up the laws.
Ohm’s Law
Georg Simon Ohm (1789 – 1854) had his
name bestowed as a unit of electrical impedance (resistance) and generally denoted as Z
(for impedance) or R (for resistance). Ohm’s Law
is defined as volts divided by amperes to equal
ohms (R = V/I). For those of you quick with your
algebra, you can solve for volts (V = I x R) or amperes (I = V/R); knowing two out of the three
solves the third.
As an example, an eight ohm speaker with
100 volts of audio signal has 100/8 amperes,
or 12.5 amperes, running through the positive
and negative wiring. And if you were foolish
enough to plug your speaker directly into a
120VAC receptacle, you would have 120/8 or
15 amperes of current—that’s not enough to
blow a household circuit breaker, but is enough
to make your speaker turn into a smelly fuse or
a large electric match.
The physicist Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio
Volta (1745 – 1827) got his name attached to
electrical potential or “volts”. Mr Volta is famous
for inventing the first voltaic pile or “battery”.
Andre-Marie Ampere (1775 – 1836) is forever
attached to electrical current flow as amperes,
or “amps” for us modern-day electrical heathens.
The way you should envision electricity is to
imagine a garden hose with the water pressure
as volts and the amount of water flowing per
second out of the hose-end as amperes. Thus
the diameter of the hose can be thought of as
impedance. The bigger the hose, the lower the
impediment (impedance) to large water flows.
the combination Ohm’s and Watt’s Laws with
resistance as well. These are:
P = V 2 / R , P = I 2 x R,
R = V 2 / P, R = P/I 2 ,
Watt’s Law
Shifting that analogy to power, the amount
of water per second (amperes) and the exit
water pressure (volts) creates a force that does
work which is defined as “power,” if averaged on
a per second basis. English physicist James Watt
(1736 –1819) had his name attached as a standard unit of power, besides inventing a practical steam engine. Otherwise we would still be
equating our speaker power-handling in horsepower (746 watts per horsepower).
Watt’s Law states that voltage (V) multiplied by current (I) equals power (P). So in our
100 volts into an eight-ohm speaker example, the Ohm’s Law result
provides 12.5 amperes, or
100 times 12.5, or 1250
watts of audio power via
Watts Law. And for you
algebra nerds, you will quickly resolve the
companion equations of V = P/I and I = P/V.
And the real algebra terrorists will solve all
V =
( P x R),
I =
(P/R)
Test Your Knowledge
Now every power amplifier does not have
a proportional change in power-out with the
change in applied speaker load resistance, but
most manufacturers do list power ratings for
four-ohms and eight-ohm nominal loads. In
Figure One, I show two eight-ohm speakers
chained together for a parallel load of fourohm applied to the
power amplifier. In
this example figure,
I show the amplifier providing 1100
watts at four ohms. But many amplifiers of this
rating are likely to provide 600 or 700 watts of
power into an eight ohm speaker load. So as
200.0610.42.TP.indd 42
you load the channels with paralleled speakers, each speaker does not have independent
power, but the total speaker load interacts with
the amplifiers’ ability to give each speaker audio
power. The lesson here is to buy more amplifier
channels if every watt counts.
So regardless of the speaker cabinet’s actual power handling ratings, the example wiring in Figure One shows the 1100 watts being
evenly divided into the two speakers. This is
important, as most newbies think there is 1100
watts going into each speaker, or that 1100
watts comes out of the amplifier regardless of
the speakers connected. Each speaker’s load
impedance sets the amount of possible
power the amplifier can deliver to that
load, considering the total loading.
Running through the math, we know
that two eight-ohm speakers parallel wired
is four-ohms at the output connectors of the
amplifier. Using Watt’s and Ohm’s Laws, 1100
watts into four ohms is 66.3 volts (V = sqrt(P
x R) = sqrt(4400)). Using Ohm’s Law, the amp
to first speaker current is 16.6 amperes (I =
V/R = 66.3/4). But the second speaker cable
patching from the first speaker’s jackplate
will only pass half the current or 8.3 amperes
into eight ohms for the 550 watts (P = I2 x R
= 8.32 x 8) using the combo of Watt’s and
Ohms’ Laws. Note that I show red arrows on
the figure that depict the conditions as if I
were measuring parameters into the loads.
Extra Credit—More Dead
Physicists
I hope my brief run through all that math
clarified things a bit. For those not getting it
completely, there are pretty of circuit analysis
textbooks available that show the laws, formula
and theorems necessary to break complex loading into useful results. I intentionally skipped
over AC versus DC descriptions of volts, amperes and watts as that only messes up people
trying to get the basics mastered.
And we still have room for some more physicists. For AC circuits, one must pay homage to
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857 – 1894), the man
who discovered “Hertzian Waves” that we generalize to alternating currents. And then there is
Michael Faraday (1791 – 1862) and Joseph Henry
(1797 – 1878) whose capacitors and inductors are
now measured in farads and henries respectively.
And one can not measure energy (power times
seconds) without thinking of James Prescott
Joule (1818 -1889), and the joule’s equivalent of
watts times seconds. An electric charge must be
measured in coulombs instead of amperes times
seconds (or farads times voltage) thanks to fellow
physicists voting Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
to represent that unit.
Just remember that these famous physicists
have metric system surnames like femto- nanomicro- milli- deci- hecto- kilo- and mega-. This is
so you can understand your nano-farads from
your kilo-watts.
42
By MarkAmundson
E-mail Mark at [email protected]
October 2006
www.fohonline.com
9/28/06 4:47:29 PM
The Anklebiters
By BrianCassell
and PaulH.Overson
I had a small gig last Saturday. I had several friends helping me setup. The problem
was no one knew what to do, so I had to
direct all of the activities. When I fired up
the system there were many problems with
things plugged into the wrong places. Help!
Chris Russo
Prescott, Arizona
Paul: I have had this happen a few times as
well. I have since tried to fool-proof the system,
but I still have some things I need to change. Is
it possible to make the connections all different
so they won’t fit on the wrong place/connector?
In my case, I have all NL4 Speakons but I have
some marked Low and some marked High.
The Lows have a red color on them. I should at
least make all Speakons the same so they will fit
anywhere on the amp racks or the back of the
speakers. The color red is a problem as well. I use
red to denote the input for Highs from the drive
snake. The color scheme that I use is Blue for
Lows, Purple for Mids and Red for Highs. I need
to standardize on a universal color scheme for
my drive snakes. Brian, what do you do?
Brian: The closest thing I know of to a standard color scheme for a drive snake is the color
code Belden uses in their multi pair cable. On
the twelve pair version, the individual jackets
are colored as shown on chart below.
Some folks may recognize that this follows
the resistor code up through 10. Using a color
code like this makes work efficient for those of
1. Brown
2. Red
3. Orange
4. Yellow
5. Green
6. Blue
7. Violet
8. Grey
9. White
10. Black
11. Tan
12. Pink
us who are familiar with
the color scheme, but
that doesn’t help when
we have friends and others who are unfamiliar
with our systems helping us to set up. The only
real way to totally stupid-proof a system is to
use different connectors everywhere that can’t
connect where they aren’t supposed to. The
problem with that scenario is that you would
then need to stock lots of lengths of different
style cables, and suddenly you can’t simply
grab an XLR cord to extend something. There is
a reason that our industry uses XLR connectors
for almost everything. Let’s just try not to use
any of those Edison to XLR adapters, folks.
In my system, I have my drive (or return)
lines running to my amp racks via a 37 pin connector, which handles 12 lines. Now, this happens to be the same cable I use for my on-stage
subsnakes, allowing me to stock just one style
of cable. As long as the cable is connected both
at FOH and to the amp rack, I’m guaranteed that
I have the correct signal going to the correct
amp. From there out to the speakers, it’s not
quite as simple. I have considered using an NL8 for my full range box, and an NL-4 for my subs,
but again, I don’t have the money or the space
to store yet another style of cable. Where’s that
new warehouse I asked for last Christmas?
Paul: My input snakes use the resistor code
for the XLR tails. It is a very good system. The
drive snakes that I use are: a 12 channel for
the main drive snake and then three channel
XLR snakes to get the Low, Mid and High from
the 12 channel drive snake to FOH amp rack
on stage left and another 3 channel snake to
the FOH amp rack on stage right. I guess that
I must make a consistent color code for these
XLR snakes. As of right now, the XLR jacks on
the amp racks have Low, Mid and High. I need
to mark the snakes with the appropriate labels
and take the colors off or come up with a color
scheme. As you can see, cabling is fraught with
problems. A class in basic reading probably
would help our new helper friends find the
right way to plug in cables. You should always
check their work before turning on the system. I
haven’t always done that and it has burned me
more than once Brian, what have you to say?
Brian: Checking the work of green helpers
is a definite must, but sometimes conditions onsite put you in such a time crunch that you don’t
feel that you have the time to look over everything. My experience says that you don’t have
the time to not check everything. What if your
helper plugs a sub cable into your top cabinet
and you blow a high frequency driver with the
first stomp on the kick drum? Oops. Now even
if you have a spare driver on hand, are you going
to spend the time to swap it out onsite? I doubt
it. Frankly, there are times when I am working on
a new rig and I’ll ask the systems tech to double
check my work and make sure I haven’t misunderstood his labeling or instructions.
I think clear and concise labeling can go a
long way toward making sure that the correct
cable connects to the correct speaker. I have
even seen a system where the speaker cables
lived in the back of a rather deep amplifier rack. They were assembled as two looms, boldly coded with red for right and white for left. The amplifier end was terminated directly to the back
of the amplifiers and strain relieved in the back
of the case. When you uncoiled the looms, each
connector was labeled with text such as “FULL
RANGE ONSTAGE” or “SUBWOOFER OFFSTAGE”. Each cabinet had a big stencil next to the connector plate announcing whether it was a subwoofer or a full range cabinet. With this system,
all that the tech needed to do was read the
labels and know basic stage directions, which
can be taught in about 30 seconds. Eliminating the need to connect the second end of the
cable saved time and made it faster to check or
troubleshoot a helper’s work.
Paul: Good idea! The problem with my
racks is that there isn’t any room to store cables.
I guess then the next best thing is to color code
things to the point that all someone has to do is
match the colors. I did that on one set of racks
but no one follows it, and it has turned out to
be a big can of worms. I will have to enforce the
color codes and have someone else check the
work. A few minutes of checking can eliminate
many problems. I have color codes for House
Left and another set for House Right. Even
my son, who is color blind, was able to follow
the colors. He just thought that Red was really
Brown. Helpers who might not read too well
can usually follow colors.
Brian: If people can’t follow a color code,
we’ve got bigger problems with this world than
I thought. Maybe our stagehands can watch a
couple episodes of “Sesame Street” before they
get to the gig. Just for a little refresher course. Many of the big tour guys that I’ve worked
with will have the stage hands run all the cable
and walk around behind them to do all the
terminations. It’s one way of assuring that all
your connections are made properly, but many
times I need to be building FOH while someone
else wires the stacks and the stage. I really got
spoiled for a while. A friend of mine named
Andy worked with me consistently for about
four or five years. It was a real luxury that I could
trust him to wire the system up right every time,
and even send him out on his own with a system occasionally. Unfortunately, at our stage of
the game, most clients don’t pay enough to add
an extra paid tech to each show. But that’s really
the ticket… having a second person with you
that knows your system well enough to wire it
up properly. If you have tons of time for load-in,
it might not be necessary, but if you know you’ll
be in a crunch to get it all up and running, it may
be a good opportunity to bill the client an additional fee to cover that extra man.
E-mail The Anklebters at anklebiters@
fohonline.com
www.fohonline.com
200.0610.43.Ankles.indd 43
Dear Fellow Anklebiters,
October 2006
43
9/28/06 4:47:56 PM
Moore Means More
which these days exists on a device known as an
iLok. The iLok is a USB hardware key that unlocks
software when it is plugged into a USB port on the
host computer.When purchased (around $40) an
iLok is “empty.” When you purchase a plug-in, the
manufacturer “deposits” a software key into your
iLok account (without the key the plug-in will not
run). You then place your iLok into a computer
that has Internet access, log on to your account
and download the key into your iLok. One iLok
can hold more than 100 authorization keys,
and will work with both Mac OS and Windows.
iLok’s “Zero Downtime” program allows you to
insure your investment in case of a lost, stolen
or broken iLok, facilitating quick replacement
so you can get back to work.
Alas, not all can be perfect in the land of Oz.
Digital console manufacturers would be wise to
observe a lesson demonstrated (but not necessarily learned) in the studio where there is more
than one plug-in format. A variety of formats are
available such as TDM, RTAS, MAS and VST, just to
name a few. As you’d expect they are not interchangeable. If we really want the software plugin concept to spread in live sound, we need to
agree on a format and make it quick. Engineers
are not going to be happy purchasing a plug-in
formatted for use on a particular mixing system,
only to find that they cannot use that plug-in
when they decide to mix on a different system.
Listen up live sound manufacturers: let’s nip this
in the bud and get a standard straight away before things get out of hand. How about some
dialogue between the major players to agree
upon a universal format?
While there are other plug-in formats that
are viable, as soon as you step outside the
world of live audio the TDM format is the de
facto standard, with a significant majority of
the market already spoken for. And given that
it is studio technology that is really driving this
move toward digital consoles and plug ins, our
first inclination was to issue a sweeping declaration that the TDM format should adopted as
the standard for live audio as well. There are
hundreds of TDM plug-ins already available so
engineers wouldn’t have to wait for a favorite
to be released, and the format is proven: there’s
very little doubt that a TDM-compatible plug-in
will operate properly, with negligible latency.
Unfortunately, it may not be anywhere near
that simple. Yes, while TDM is thought of as a
Digidesign thing, Time Domain Mulitplexing
was actually invented by AT&T and Digi repurposed it for their digital audio workstations.
And, no, there is nothing on the legal, ethical
or moral fronts that would stop a company not
associated with Digidesign from developing
44
plug-ins that are TDM based (although using
the Digi-developed architecture to do so may
be a problem on all of those fronts, not to mention a massive technological undertaking).
However, there are issues ranging from
hardware configurations to console operating
systems that leave us with a hard truth: moving
to a universal standard would not be a simple
“port” from one operating system to another.
The best way to illustrate it is with the recent
switch of the Mac platform from Motorola processors to Intel. Even within the family of Digi
developers, that switch has meant changes and
most—if not all—TDM plug-ins are available
for Motorola-based Mac systems and for Intelbased systems but there are not single plugs
that work with both. If that is the case within
existing Pro Tools architecture then the chances
of other manufacturers who use other chip sets,
hardware and sometimes proprietary operating systems all getting on the same page, well,
you can see how big a problem this really is.
But it does not change the fact that something
has to give. And while TDM is the 800 lb. gorilla,
that “something” may come from someone else.
Yamaha boards have been able to run Waves
plug-ins via an add-on card for sometime and
InnovaSon announced the same thing for their
new consoles at PLASA.
A physical board added to the system will
introduce additional latency, that’s just physics.
But unless the entire industry is willing to settle on a standard that everyone can use [and
monkeys might fly out of my butt–ed.] it may
be the best answer. And we need an answer.
(Ironically, the big Waves news of the moment
is that they are introducing a plug-in bundle
specifically to run on the VENUE system.)
Hello!?! You folks on the manufacturing side?
Are you starting to get why there is confusion
and frustration out there?If we don’t agree on a
plug-in format standard, here is what will happen:
engineers and sound companies will hesitate to
purchase a digital mixing system that does not
support their favorite processors and they’ll also
hesitate to purchase plug-ins that won’t run on
their favorite mixing system. Can you imagine
buying an analog mixing desk that wouldn’t interface with a TC 2290 delay? I think not.
With a set of plug-ins onboard one’s mixing
system, audio life can become very easy. Obviously you’d have your favorite effects for use
everywhere you went—without the need, expense, backache, cables or interface problems of
carrying a hardware rack. Not-so-obviously, you’d
be able to carry presets (in your laptop) for devices that have no such capability in their original
hardware form—such as the aforementioned
Neve 1073 or Universal Audio 1176. Sound check
time would be reduced for engineers who don’t
have the luxury of carrying production because
they wouldn’t have to dial in the same effects
everyday for the same instruments, and they’d
have the consistency of mixing with the same
effects day after day. If you’re willing to commit
a few bucks, you can purchase “bundles” of plugins that include thousands of dollars of outboard
at a fraction of the individual prices.
Also worth noting is the fact that plug-ins
are available to emulate hardware devices
that are simply no longer manufactured, and
may have to be purchased second-hand. For
example, the Eventide Clockworks Legacy
package includes software that emulates the
venerable H910 and H949 Harmonizers—devices long out of production and only found
on the used market. Do you really want to
take such a hardware device out on the road
where it could be damaged due to road abuse
or (worse) stolen? Probably not.
Plug in and stay tuned!
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]
October 2006
200.0610.44.BLEEDSPILL.indd 44
www.fohonline.com
9/28/06 4:50:30 PM
Welcome To My Nightmare
W
G
h
o
s
t
R
i
d
e
r
s
i
n
t
h
e
C
l
u
b
Ghost
Riders
Club
Ghost
Riders
in tthe
the
Club
G
host R
i d e r s iin
n
he C
lub
ell, I had a show to do in Ybor City,
Florida. It was a recording job with
my remote truck. I went to the club
the night before the show to get a good
room sound. I set up the truck, ran out the
snake and power, hooked up the split and
put up the room mics. I had a great time
and got a great sound out of the room, so I
locked the truck up and headed home.The
next day I got a call from the club: “There
is a ghost on the stage and it pulled down
all your stuff.” Yeah, right, I'll be right over.
That’s what they said—ghost. OK. . .
Well, when I got to the club my truck
was gone, and when I got in the club and
saw the stage all the mic and drum stands
were knocked down, my split was torn apart
and the snake was pulled out of it. What the
hell!?! I had 3 hours to show time.
What I don't know was the A.M. manager had called the towing company and had
my truck towed.
I got on the phone to find my truck, and
when I found it still had the snake tied to
it—they had dragged 150 feet of it all the
way to downtown (it did lose the stage
box somewhere along the way). The club
paid for the towing fee and I drove back to
the club and looked at what I had. Then I
plugged in my soldering iron and went to
work. I had to cut mike cables to make a
split, and ended up looking like $&!+ but I
plugged in the mics and did a line check—
and it all worked. My black tape, wire nut
and solder splitter . . . worked.
The show went fine after that, and the
recording was great—but ever since then I
drive the truck back home with me.
No, I don't do soldering on the side Jim Tonge
[email protected]
www.tpcfl.com
Gigs from Hell. We’ve all had ‘em and the
good folks at FOH want to hear about
yours. Write it up and send it to us and we’ll
illustrate the most worthy. Send your
nightmares to [email protected]
or fax them to 702.932.5584
In The Trenches
Raul Alfaro
Engineer
J&S Audiovisual, Cancun
Cancun, Mexico
52.998.881.86.18
[email protected]
www.jsavcancun.com
Evan Hall
Staff Audio Engineer
LMG, Inc.
Orlando, FL
407.850.0505
[email protected]
www.lmg.net
Services Provided:
Video, audio and lighting support for clients
nationwide.
Clients:
Partylite, IBM, Cisco, Citrix, Coors, Rite Aid, Fortune Magazine
Personal Info:
I was once the youngest audio technician at
Walt Disney World, where I mixed many corporate events. Before that, at the age of 13,
I had a small audio company. I did corporate
and community shows between homework
and band practice. Since leaving Disney in ‘01,
I have made LMG, Inc. home. I have been on
staff for the last 5 years.
Services Provided:
J&S Audio Visual Inc, a full-service audiovisual rental & event production company,
has built a national reputation as a provider of powerful audio-visual solutions for clients of all sizes across a variety of industries.
Our offices in Cancun, Mexico have been in
operation for more than 11 years
Hobbies:
Computer video editing and golf.
Clients:
Jimmy Buffett, Natalie Cole, Kool and the
Gang, Seal, Pat Benatar, Air Supply, Marc
Anthony, etc
Equipment:
Yamaha PM5D, Midas Legend, Meyer M2D
Line Array, MSL4, CQs, UPAs, UPM, UM, etc.
We just love self-powered speakers.
Quote:
“You’re as best as your last event.”
Don’t Leave Home Without:
Pink Stick, iPod and a hat for the sun.
Hobbies:
Spending time with my family, grilling, prepping for the next show.
Quote:
“But we’re already using 30 of the 15 wireless
mics you told us we needed.”
Equipment:
Midas H3000, PM-5D consoles, Millenium and
Summit outboard, Sim 3 and SIA SmaartLive, LACOUSTIC V-DOSCs and dV-DOSCs and most of
the Meyer Sound line of speakers and processors.
If you’d like to see yourself featured in “In
the Trenches,” visit www.fohonline.com/
trenches to submit your information to
FOH, or e-mail [email protected]
for more information.
Don’t Leave Home Without:
Hugs and kisses from the wife and little people,
my Mac Powerbook and of course, I can’t forget what the shop refers to as “Chicken Little’s
workboxes one through 12.”
www.fohonline.com
200.0610.45.NITE-Trench.indd 45
Personal Info:
Doing mostly corporate events for big
companies in Cancun and all over Mexico,
we’ve been purchasing band gear to support groups that have been at the top of
the charts before and now do corporate
events. It’s very interesting because most of
the engineers are very old and very specific
in their riders, most of the time we cannot
find the equipment requested in Cancun or
even in the states.
October 2006
45
9/28/06 4:51:10 PM
EMPLOYMENT
D.A.S. Audio of America,
manufacturer of professional loudspeaker solutions
that excel in both audio
quality and value, is looking to build on its largest
year ever by adding highly
motivated Rep Firms in several key territories across
the United States. Please
contact Kevin Hill at 310300-1882 or email: khill@
dasaudio.com or stop by:
AES Booth #1225, LDI Booth
#1867 or Wfx Booth #1125
46
200.0610.46.MP.indd 42
October 2006
www.fohonline.com
9/28/06 4:51:53 PM
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JBL Professional
15
818.894.8850
www.jblpro.com
Lab.gruppen
C1, C4
818.665.4900
www.labgruppen.com
L-ACOUSTICS
8
805.604.0577
www.l-acoustics.com
Bag End
46
847.382.4550
www.bagend.com
LDI
41
800.288.8606
www.ldishow.com
dblittle.com
46
423.892.1837
www.dblittle.com
Littlite
6
888.548.8548
www.littlite.com
DK Capital
46
517.347.7844
www.dkcapitalinc.com
Martin Audio
11
519.747.5853
www.martin-audio.com
Hi-Tech Audio
46
650.742.9166
www.hi-techaudio.com
Media Numerics
35
908.647.9072
www.medianumerics.com
Hybrid Cases
46
800.645.1707
www.hybridcases.com
Meyer Sound
C2
510 486.1166
www.meyersound.com
Northern Sound & Light
46
412.331.1000
www.northernsound.net
Northern Sound & Light
12
412.331.1000
www.northernsound.net
Sound Productions
46
800.203.5611
www.soundpro.com
200.0610.47.INDEX.indd 47
IN DE X
COMPANY
A-Line Acoustics
MARKET PLACE
9/29/06 1:30:58 PM
Grumble
Grumble
FOH-at-Large
Grumble Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Don’t
Get
Grumble Grumble
Grumble
All
Grumble
Grumble Grumble
Grumble Grumble
T
hroughout my many years sojourn
within the world of live audio and production I have noticed, and become
very aware of, an underlying hum that seems
to permeate this specialized universe we all
inhabit. Sometimes it’s very quiet and other
times it becomes overbearing in its volume,
but it is almost always present. I have noticed
it at large gigs, and I have heard it rear its ugly
little head on small, seemingly simple shows.
Often it is hard to pinpoint as it isn’t centralized
in one location, and frequently it
stems from different sources.
Many times this hum doesn’t stop
even after the gig is finished and
many times I even hear it going
on back at the shop. It’s a hum
that seems to be prevalent in our
business and no, it’s not a floating 60-cycle ground hum that I
am speaking about, although a
certain amount of “grounding”
might be just the solution to alleviate this incessant hum that
often clutters our best endeavors. What I am referring to is the
grumbling and undercurrent of
discontent that insidiously seeps
into our work space regardless of
one’s position or capabilities. In
the same way that I identify and
attach the 2.5k frequency to a
person prone to hysteria I also associate the 60Hz frequency with
the grumblers and not so forthright complainers.
Believe me, I am just as guilty
of being 60Hz as the next guy
and I know from personal experience just how easily the 60Hz
grumble can turn into an incessant 2.5k whine. I have found
that there is never a shortage of
things to complain about, and
there is always a better way (than
the way it’s being done) to do
something, no matter what that
something might be. It could
be setting up, running cable,
loading a show, driving a truck,
rigging a system, better planning, better equipment, more
labor, less work, not enough
work, more money and even
how to run the company. Regardless of topic, there will always be someone who is grumbling that they
could do it better, faster or more efficiently.
While I am aware that this 60Hz grumble is
not unique to our vocation alone, I also know
that we have a radically different lifestyle than
most of the American workforce, and often it
is those same qualities attracting us to this
business that cause us to be the source of the
60Hz hum.
For example, as an live engineer you
might enjoy the fact that it is not necessarily
a nine to five job, you get to travel all over
the world, and it’s very much like a party
every night. Of course, each day is at least
a 12 hour day, if not more, and though you
are traveling the world you are doing it on
a bus with 10 other guys and not your wife
or girlfriend. It’s a party every night, but the
party consists of a bunch of drunken people
slopping beer all over you and your gear and
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
telling you that you need to turn one thing
or the other up or down to enhance their
personal listening experience.
Having these perks is like a visit to the
twilight zone where you wish for one thing
and receive it without realizing all it entails.
Every job has its frustrations and dilemmas
and ours is no different, except in our job
we have to solve the problems and make
everything perfect in a day’s time before
packing up and doing it again the next day.
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Now
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
chief for the labor, the lighting director, the
audio A-1, the head rigger and the tour manager or coordinator for the event. Basically, a
point source person who will deal with their
own staff and have an understanding of how
the day should proceed.
If you are the audio A-1, try to get with the
production manager and get a map of the
daily plan, much like you might get the stage
plot and input list from the band’s tour manager. Get on the same page and let everyone
[email protected]
“It’s a party every night, but the party
consists of a bunch of drunken people
slopping beer all over you and your gear.”
48
October 2006
200.0610.48.ATLARGE.indd 48
We try to be perfect, but there are so many
variables we need to make work that often
they seem insurmountable
Over the years I have learned how to deal
with artistic people in a capricious business,
but despite all the hours spent on diligent attention to detail and my striving for perfection I still can’t escape the 60Hz grumble. On
any single day one must coordinate multiple
vendors, labor crews, technicians, drivers,
band members, production teams, equipment and promoters; therefore, given the
amount of people involved, it’s not surprising that there might be an ongoing 60Hz
grumble. Fortunately, there are ways to abate
the stress and stop the 60Hz grumble before
it gets out of hand. One way to do this is to
try to have a meeting with everyone involved
in the daily show. When I say everyone I am
speaking of those people in charge. The crew
know what to expect. I have found that people tend to get 60Hz when they are surprised
(no one likes to be blind-sided), and if they are
caught off guard then the 60Hz grumble will
get very loud indeed.
Do not bring personal problems to work
because they tend to be acted out in negative
ways. Do not make everybody suffer for your
domestic problems. If you’re really concerned
because your wife is threatening divorce because of your late hours, grumbling about the
bands second encore and then rushing everybody on the load-out is not the answer. Stay
home! If, on the other hand, it is a work-related
issue that is creating angst, it doesn’t help to
get 60Hz even if you have others with whom
to grumble. Take the problem to the guy who
can make a decision regarding the issue, but
don’t take it out on the people around you.
If there is a problem with the daily pro-
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
Grumble
By BakerLee
duction take it to the production manager;
if there is a problem with the sound take it
to the audio technician. I find that if there is
a labor crew then I, as the production manager, want to deal with only the crew chief
and not 16 different guys that I don’t know.
If you are an engineer and you require a
specific piece of gear without which you are
unable to function then carry it with you everywhere you go and this way you will not
be disappointed when the local rental company cannot find it anywhere within a three
day’s journey from the venue.
If you think you can do a better job at
something than the guy who is doing the
job you should somehow vie for position
and start getting hired for that post. In the
meantime, getting 60Hz is not as helpful as
making a useful suggestion to the right person. Negative and positive attitudes are subjective to the individual person and it is our
job to maintain the positive and to eliminate
the 60Hz grumble hum that gets generated
at gigs. Planning is a key to success, but we
all know that even the best laid plans go to
waste...so improvise.
We’ve all done this work before, and it’s
just wasted energy to get 60Hz. I know it’s a
waste of good energy, I’ve generated as much
60Hz grumble hum as the next guy, but complaining doesn’t help! If there is a problem,
fix it. If you really are not enjoying what you
do, do something else. It’s a big world, with
lots of opportunities. You do not need to stay
around grumbling. Go be happy somewhere
else. I am aware that grumbling is a very satisfying release. I also realize that many people,
rather than fix their problems, are happier
living with a 60 cycle hum inside their head,
but let’s remember: There are no problems,
only solutions—and creating a 60Hz grumble
hum is not the answer.
E-mail Baker at [email protected]
Coming Next
Month...
• Installations
The guys at Mystère just got
a new XL-4. ‘Bout time, they
only did 6000 gigs on the
last one. A look at a popular
Cirque show 12 years after
its initial installation.
• AES Coverage
Was the trip to StudioGeek-Land worth the time?
What’s new for us folks who
have to get it right the first
time—everytime?
www.fohonline.com
9/29/06 1:31:44 PM
200.0610.Ads.indd 3
9/28/06 5:02:02 PM
200.0610.Ads.indd 4
9/28/06 5:02:24 PM

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