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Nashville Center Replaces Sound System
ThE NEws MagazinE For LivE Sound
May 2006 Vol. 4 No. 8
Don't Cha Wish You Had A Gig Like This?
Bryan Cross Takes Pussycat Dolls and Fritz on the Road
NASHVILLE, TN—The sound reinforcement system at Nashville’s Gaylord Entertainment Center was recently replaced
with 48 Aero 38A self-powered speakers
from DAS Audio’s Aero Line Array family of
products. Additional DAS Audio products
were also included.
Located in the world’s country music
capital of Nashville, Tenn., the stadium’s
audio system was upgraded by Durrell
Sports, a local and national company
headed by John Horrell that specializes in
the design and installation of sound reinforcement systems for large-scale sports
arenas and stadiums including the Tennessee Titans, Kansas City Chiefs, Indiana
Pacers, Vanderbilt University, Bristol Motor
Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Las
Vegas Motor Speedway, Kansas City Royals, Churchill Downs, Indianapolis Motor
Speedway and the Nashville Predators.
For the Gaylord Entertainment Center’s
house system, Durrell installed 48 Aero
38As flown in eight clusters in key positions
through out the arena. Flown beneath each
Big Movement in
Freight Forwarding
LOS ANGELES, CA—We have all had to mix house and monitors from the same desk, and
it generally sucks. But Bryan Cross, who is handling both mixing and production management
duties for the Pusssycat Dolls, has taken a different approach, mixing both from the monitor
position. How does he hear the house? Stationed at Front of House, where headliners Black
Eyed Peas are mixed, Cross has placed a Neumann KU 100 dummy head—a.k.a. Fritz—feeding
a pair of JBL 4328 studio monitors. “I have the dummy head sitting out at Front of House and
it’s returning two lines back to monitor world. I’m sending all my monitor mixes pre-fader from
the console, using the internal effects, and mixing left/right on the faders and sending it to the
house.” For more details, see next month's issue of FOH.
Bill Hanley to Receive Parnelli Innovator Award
Jere Harris to Receive Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award
LAS VEGAS, NV—The Parnelli Awards
Board of Directors is pleased to announce
that Bill Hanley, one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most
prolific and influential sound pioneers, will receive one of the live event industry’s highest
honors, the Parnelli Innovator Award. He was
the ears behind such shows as the Woodstock and Newport festivals, and such acts as
the Beatles, Beach Boys, Velvet Underground,
Jefferson Airplane and many more. Hanley
even coined the term “sound reinforcement.”
This year’s
Parnelli Lifetime
Achievement Award
will go to Jeremiah
“Jere” Harris, who has
been active in Broadway theatre production since 1970 and is
Bill Hanley
founder of PRG.
“I’m honored to receive this award,”
continued on page 8
IRVINGTON, NJ—Jon Nevins, former
president of Speed of Sound, a production and touring cargo freight forwarder,
has launched a new freight company,
Shockwave Cargo. Speed of Sound owner
Michael Fuchs, former chairman of Warner Music and HBO, has hired Seth Block
from the private sector as president to
replace Nevins.
Speed of Sound, in addition to hiring
Block, promoted Frank Stedtler to vice
president and Justin Carbone to VP of
sales. Keith Mitchell has been promoted
to VP of West Coast operations and Daryl
Jones has been appointed to VP of East
Coast operations.
“The new management team is focused and we expect a rapid increase in
the business with the new personnel and
new attitude,” Fuchs said.
Shockwave Cargo is a separate division of Landstar and will benefit from
the client base Nevins brings with him
as they launch into an increasingly
competitive field.
Commenting on his departure,
Nevins said, “It was clear that our attitudes on the future of Speed of Sound
were not [going] in the same direction.
I have often heard people say that if they
could do things differently, they would
change what they had done. I opted to
do just that.”
Aero 38A cluster, via an AX-COMO flybar, are
the DAS Audio’s BiDriver units providing extreme directional pattern control in the midhigh frequencies allowing Durrell to reach
critical but difficult seating areas. Additional
BiDrivers are scheduled to replace existing
product under the central score board as
soon as the arena’s schedule permits. In addition to the Aero 38A system, eight ST-110
speakers were used to cover acousticallydark areas and eight Compact 218 Subs
provided low-end frequency reproduction.
The Gaylord Entertainment Center
was built in 1997 and is home ice for the
NHL’s Nashville Predators as well as home
field for the Nashville Kats of the Arena
Football League.
In This
Issue:
On the Bleeding Edge
With the new crop of vocal
processors, is live audio moving toward a "fix it in the mix"
philosophy?
Product Gallery
Big boxes and big amps to move
big air. A look at the wonderful
world of powered subs.
Theory & Practice
Get your mind out of the gutter.
It's just a mic pattern plot.
Ad info: www.fohonline.com/rsc
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Table of Contents
May 2006, Vol. 4 No. 8
What’s
What’s
Hot
What’s
Hot
What’s
HotHot
25. The Biz
Features
Why you’re finding out about more and
more speaker OEMs in the unlikeliest
of places.
14. FOH Interview
Mixer, manager, allergy victim: Jay Phebus
shares his tips for how to do it all.
16. Installations
Resurrection Life Church upgraded its
audio, and everyone’s singing their praises.
Find the powered subwoofer that’s sure to
knock your fillings out.
18
28. Product Profile
30. Producers on the Road
What you learn on the road can help you
make the most of your transition off of it.
35. Road Tests
When having a smaller snake is a good
thing. FOH reviews the new RSS S-4000
Digital Snake System, then talks about
making it thicker with the TC-Helicon
VoiceDoubler.
Columns
22. The Anklebiters
24
Why and when you might not want to go
“to 11.”
Queen’s Gambit
After a couple decades off, Queen takes to the road with a
new frontman.
You’re small, but you want to get bigger.
34. Theory & Practice
Getting ultra-high with wireless mics.
The 411 on the Midas XL8.
Carin Ford mics and mixes Broadway’s latest adaptation,
the powerful story of The Color Purple.
Find ways to make your tools teach even
the most tone-deaf Idol wannabes how to
stay in tune.
33. Regional Slants
26. Product Gallery
Coloring With Sound
32. On the Bleeding Edge
22. Sound Sanctuary
There is a difference between knowing
and walking the digital path.
40. FOH-at-Large
Invoking a higher power.
Departments
2. Feedback
4. Editor’s Note
5. News
9. International News
9. On the Move
10. New Gear
12. Showtime
37. In the Trenches
37. Welcome to
My Nightmare
Feedback
Do It Yourself?
Just read your Editor’s Note in the current issue (“Trust
Me,” April 2006). I can relate to exactly what you are saying,
and in my experience, have decided to feed the sound
guy as little as I can when in these situations. I have been
playing, selling, representing, installing and engineering
sound systems for more than 35 years. I started the first
real, full-time sequence-controlled band in 1985 where
we sounded like 14 pieces with only three of us (guitarist,
keyboardist and singer electronic percussionist) doing the
riverboat house gig in Pittsburgh, Penn. I, as you suggested
in your article, ran things from all my modules and instruments as though it were a live band and tried my best
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to trust about three different sound persons to run our
system for more than five years in this way. It worked fairly
well, but I had the advantage of playing in the same venue
every night, so once I worked out the bugs with him, it
always stayed the same.
Now I am back with another sequence-based act
doing 60s, 70s and 80s stuff, and our drummer (electronic
drums) runs sound from the stage. He has done this for
more than 10 years and most of the gear comes in as
stereo, and it sounds pretty darn good.
But we occasionally play a venue that has its own system and sound guy, so we feed him our sequence in stereo
(as it does going into our mixer) and I, being the keyboardist and some guitars, have decided to rack up my own
gear totally into an 18-space rack case mix system and
also send out a stereo feed to the house sound guy. I have
found that my blend and mix at my stereo monitor allow
me to develop an even blend of gains and tones, sending
a equally set post-fader stereo aux send to the FOH, then
all I have to be concerned about is whether the sound
guy doesn’t overly mess with the his channel EQ. This has
worked very well in all but a few situations.
Keep up the good work. I love your magazine
and articles.
Ken Coey
EMCO Music & Sound Services
Pittsburgh, PA
4/27/06 5:28:06 PM
4/27/06 4:52:31 PM
Editor’s Note
Ignore Text Wrap…
Publisher
Terry Lowe
[email protected]
Editor
Bill Evans
[email protected]
S
o there I was, sitting in the living room,
laptop fired up, reading copy for the
issue you hold now. It was about 9 p.m.,
and sadly, in an all-too-common situation,
my wife and I were both working on magazine projects. Like I said, I was reading, and
she was doing design and production on a
freelance project that required her to operate in a program she was unfamiliar with.
It was hard to concentrate because it
meant ignoring the screaming and swearing
coming from the general direction of the
area where my wife was sitting. Note that
I did not say the screaming and swearing
were coming from her, just that they were
emanating from that general direction. (Hey,
I’ve been married for 18 years; I have learned
something along the way.)
What she was trying to do was pretty
simple. She was just trying to make some
text wrap around a photo—a simple process
that she has done thousands of times before.
Except she was using another tool, a different
layout program, to do it. She tried all the tricks
she could think of. We asked people familiar
with the program. At one point, we were both
looking in a stack of books for the answer.
Things got quiet as she gave up on it for
a while and moved on to something else.
Sometime later, while doing something
else, she got a formatting dialog box on
screen and there, at the bottom of the box,
were three little words and a check box that
changed everything. The words were “Ignore
Text Wrap,” and the fateful box was checked.
Turns out she was doing everything
right all along, but as long as that box was
checked, it just didn’t matter. She had to
find that little piece of crucial info before
anything else would work.
If you have been reading my stuff for any
length of time, you know that my mind does
not work in a normal matter, so, of course,
this set me to thinking about the importance
of good information. For example, I was
road-testing a piece of gear for this issue, a
vocal processor that I really liked. One of the
inputs on the back was labeled “Voice,” so
I assumed that meant there was a mic-pre
built in and that I could jack a mic straight
into it. But then, I couldn’t figure out why it
wouldn’t do anything until I read the manual
and discovered that the “Voice” label referred
to the type of processing on that input, not
the presence of a mic-pre.
And anyone out there who claims to
have never done something similar is—how
do I put this nicely?—lying their ass off.
It is one thing to have this happen with a
piece of gear. It’s embarrassing, but rarely does
lasting damage (unless we’re talking about
power distro, in which case all bets are off).
It is quite another thing to be running your
business based on incomplete or faulty info.
I know plenty of local and even regional
soundcos who operate totally by the seat
of their pants. No business plan, no growth
forecasts, just a truck and some gear and a
“let’s get ‘er done” work ethic.
That work ethic is a good—no, an essential—part of success in this business. But the
difference between the guys who work and
sweat and really try and end up just scraping
by, and the guy who looks like he isn’t really
trying all that hard but gets the good gigs
and makes the real money is often those
business basics.
Recently, a company owner I was talking
to bemoaned the fact that he was having a
hard time finding a lighting contractor/vendor he could count on for the growing number of full-production gigs he was getting. I
asked what was wrong with the guy he was
using, and the answer was, “He’s too cheap
to hire anyone who is any good. He has a
bunch of big-hearted guys who are all pretty
useless.” Ask the lighting guy, and I am sure
he will tell you that he is paying a fair wage.
Technical Editor
Mark Amundson
[email protected]
Associate Editors
Allison Rost
[email protected]
By BillEvans
But his idea of fair and what is being paid in
the rest of the local market can’t match up,
or he would not have such a problem getting good people. That may be cheap or he
may just be working with bad, outdated or
incomplete information.
Like that Ignore Text Wrap checkbox, not
being able to identify where your company
has been over the past several years, how
it has grown, how that compares to overall
population and economic growth on your
home turf and what you expect to see happen in terms of number and types of gigs may
have you working very hard and not accomplishing a whole lot. You may even get away
with it for a period of time, enjoying great gigs
and real growth. But if your information about
the market is bad or incomplete, how do you
even know what gear to buy and in what order? What do you do when you have tapped
the credit line for $100K worth of line array,
only to discover that what you really needed
to stay competitive was a digital console?
It comes down to making sure the business of your business is taken care of. If you
are not the kind of person who is good at,
or can stand doing, the biz basics, then hire
someone who can. If you don’t, you may find
yourself out on fewer gigs and stuck in an
office doing work you can’t stand because,
well, someone has to do it. If that’s gonna be
the case, you might as well be an accountant.
And isn’t not having to be stuck in an office
doing boring, soul-killing work the reason we
all got into this in the first place?
Jacob Coakley
[email protected]
Contributing Writers
Jerry Cobb, Dan Daley,
Steve La Cerra,
David John Farinella,
Nort Johnson, Ted Leamy,
Baker Lee, Tony Mah,
Bryan Reesman, Jamie Rio,
Richard Rutherford,
Photographers
Steve Jennings, Bree Kristel
Production Manager
Shawnee Schneider
[email protected]
Graphic Designers
Ezra Padua
[email protected]
Josh Harris
[email protected]
Bree Kristel
www.breekristel.com
National Sales Manager
Peggy Blaze
[email protected]
National Advertising Director
Gregory Gallardo
[email protected]
General Manager
William Hamilton Vanyo
[email protected]
Executive Administrative
Assistant
Nancy Lopez
[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
Circulation
Stark Services
P.O. Box 16147
North Hollywood, CA 91615
Front Of House (ISSN 1549-831X) Volume 4 Number
8 is published monthly by Timeless Communications
Corp., 6000 South Eastern Ave., Suite 14J, Las Vegas, NV,
89119. Periodicals Postage Paid at Las Vegas, NV and
additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address
changes to Front Of House, PO Box 16147, North
Hollywood, CA 91615-6147. Front Of House is distributed free to qualified individuals in the live sound
industry in the United States and Canada. Mailed in
Canada under Publications Mail Agreement Number
40033037, 1415 Janette Ave., Windsor, ON N8X 1Z1
Overseas subscriptions are available and can be obtained by calling 702.932.5585. Editorial submissions
are encouraged but will not be returned. All Rights
Reserved. Duplication, transmission by any method
of this publication is strictly prohibited without the
permission of Front Of House.
ES TA
E NTERTAINMENT SERVICES &
TECHNOLOGY ASSOC IATION
Publishers of...
May 2006
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www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:02:26 PM
News
Greg McVeigh Matches Gear
Manufacturers with Artists
PALM SPRINGS, CA—Typically, when an
artist goes out on tour, they contract with a
sound company to supply a touring rig. The
manufacturer of that rig then promotes the
use of their equipment by sending out the
usual press releases and hoping for coverage.
Greg McVeigh’s Guesthouse Projects offers
a significant spin on the artist/sound company
relationship by involving an audio manufacturer looking for product exposure. Guesthouse
Projects, working directly with a manufacturer
and a sound company, establishes and nurtures
a relationship between those companies and
the artist/artist management group.
“In my 25-plus years in the pro audio industry,” says McVeigh, “I’ve had the pleasure of
working for top-notch manufacturers and with
world-class artists. The right match between the
two can produce dramatic results.The manufacturer gets great exposure for their product, potential customers can attend the show to learn
more about the gear, and the experience can
provide invaluable input for their engineering
and new product development efforts. The artist is fronted by top-flight gear, and at the same
time, the sound company or management firm
has someone to act as a liaison between themselves and the manufacturer.”
For the past 10 years, McVeigh worked for
Meyer Sound, since late 2003 as vice president of touring sound. While at Meyer, he
helped negotiate touring agreements with
Norah Jones, Barenaked Ladies, Dido, the
White Stripes and Avril Lavigne, among others. McVeigh’s experience in the pro audio
industry also includes work with Soundcraft,
QSC, Sound Image and Crest.
Allen & Heath Signs Buyout
CORNWALL, ENGLAND—UK mixer manufacturer, Allen & Heath Ltd., has signed a £9m
secondary management buyout (MBO) with
Close Brothers Growth Capital Ltd. (CBGC), a
provider of combined equity and debt funding. The move marks the successful exit of 3i,
who backed the original MBO in 2001, and
an increase in the management’s stake in the
company, giving them majority control.
The MBO team is led by Allen & Heath’s
managing director, Glenn Rogers, who has
fronted the company since the early 1990’s,
along with board members Dave Jones, finance director; Bob Goleniowski, sales director; and Tony Williams, operations director.
Peter Adams continues as non-executive
chairman, while James Blake, who led the
transaction for CBGC, will also join the board.
The deal is funded by way of a unique
form of single source financing from CBGC,
comprising equity and debt, along with equity provided by the management team,
who were advised by a team at the Exeter
branch of Ernst & Young, with legal advice
from Bond Pearce.
James Blake at CBGC commented, “Allen
& Heath has a well-established management
team with a proven track record of technical innovation. In Xone, they have a marketleading product range chosen by the world’s
most discerning DJs. However, it is in mid
range live digital mixing consoles under the
iLive brand where we anticipate the greatest
potential for growth.”
IN BRIEF
McCauley Offers Loudspeakers
ORLANDO, FL—Launching into a
new era, McCauley Sound, Inc. is releasing the iDESIGN series of powered, modular installation loudspeakers at the InfoComm 2006 show in Orlando, Fla. This
launch represents McCauley Sound’s
first-ever entry into the powered loudspeaker market.
iDESIGN modules are offered across a
wide range of coverage patterns, with driver complements scaling from 8- to 15-inch
cone drivers. By means of five different,
interchangeable, rotatable waveguides, installers can orient systems to the horizontal or the vertical, and combine patterns.
Gand Beefs Up Gear List
GLENVIEW, IL—Gand Concert Sound
has taken delivery of new Yamaha PM5D
RH and M7CL digital mixing consoles
and 16 NEXO GEO S loudspeakers, as
well as additional GEO T Tangent Array
loudspeakers, NEXO CD18 subwoofers
and NEXO PS15 stage monitor wedges
to join its existing inventory.
Already one of the earliest U.S. sound
companies to invest in NEXO GEO T technology, Gand Concert Sound deployed
the first arena-scale GEO T-based sound
reinforcement system at the Georgia
Dome (in Atlanta) in 2003 for a Christian
group event/conference.
“This recent expansion of our NEXO
inventory comes as a direct result of demand from our top clients,” notes Tim
Swam, vice president of Gand Concert
Sound. Indeed, based upon the success
of that initial debut, earlier this year Gand
Concert Sound was invited to provide an
even larger GEO T system at the Georgia Dome for an international corporate
show featuring Elton John. The system,
designed by Chris Beale, now of CBA U.K.,
was headlined by a left-center-right configuration, including a center array made
up of 27 loudspeakers, the largest GEO T
column flown to date in the U.S.
“We put that center column up
with only two motors, and the whole rig
weighed less than 3,000 pounds.” Gand
says. “Coverage from the front rows to the
top ‘nose-bleed’ seats shared equal clarity.”
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May 2006
4/27/06 5:12:39 PM
News
“The Swamp” Renovated for Sound
GAINESVILLE, FL—Built in 1930, Ben Hill
Griffin Stadium, affectionately referred to as
“the Swamp” by local fans, is the home of the
championship University of Florida Gators football team. Over the years, the stadium has benefited from a number of expansion projects,
most recently a 2003 renovation that increased
capacity to over 88,000 seats, making it the
largest—and loudest—stadium in the state.
Griffin Stadium now features a new highresolution video screen at the south end
zone, which is complemented by a state-ofthe-art audio system from Meyer Sound. “The
most effective solution for the stadium was a
single-source end zone cluster,” explains system designer Kelly Prince of Orlando-based
Pro Sound, who also supplied and installed
the system. Prince specified six MSL-6 hornloaded high-Q main loudspeakers in a split
configuration for the main system, with three
cabinets covering the east seating section and
the other three covering the west section. Two
CQ-1 wide coverage main loudspeakers and
two CQ-2 narrow coverage main loudspeakers handle the areas under the scoreboard.
A key challenge for single-source systems is
attaining intelligibility at the far end of the venue, which, in the case of Griffin Stadium, is the
south end of the stadium, some 500 feet from
the sound system. However, Prince knew that
Meyer Sound made a device designed expressly
for this purpose: the SB-1 parabolic long-throw
sound beam. Six SB-1 cabinets now assure that
every game call and announcement is clearly
heard in the south seating area.
“The sound beams are really remarkable,”
Prince says. “If you’re sitting out there at the far
end with the SB-1s turned off and then we turn
them on, it’s like night and day. The sound is
right there in your face, and the clarity is amazing.” Six 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofers
provide ample low-frequency reproduction.
Lacking complete documentation for the
stadium, Prince used Meyer Sound’s MAPP
Online Pro acoustical prediction software
in designing the system. “We only had CAD
drawings for a portion of the building,” Prince
recounts, “so we had to take our own mea-
surements with a laser tape. We plugged the
data into MAPP, and it was impressive how
accurate the outcome was. It really helped to
remove the guesswork.”
E-P-D’oh!
The following companies were either inadvertently left out of the Sound
or Supplier section in the Event Production Directory, or their listings contained
errors. Our apologies.
A-Line Acoustics
Bud Mayer
510 E. Washington St.
Corry, PA 16407
P: 814.663.0600
F: 814.664.7429
E: [email protected]
W: www.A-LineAcoustics.com
GroupBuilt Concert Production
4699 61st St., Ste. H
Holland, MI 49423
P: 616.335.2733
F: 616.335.2521
W: www.groupbuilt.com
Production Solutions, Inc.
Brett Puwalski
P.O. Box 8146
Reading, PA 19611
P: 610.374.6998
F: 610.374.7284
W: www.prod-sol.com
Rolling Thunder
Rommel Montes-DeOca
73 Carolina Ave.
Providence, RI 02905
P: 401.331.5427
Sight & Sound Productions
Jon Davis
3745 St. Johns Industrial Pkwy.
Jacksonville, FL 32246
P: 904.645.7880
W: www.ssav.net
Stanco Audio System
JC Girardier
5324 Aero Dr.
St Louis, MO 63110
P: 314.644.5557
F: 314.644.5559
W: www.stancoaudio.com
Technical Productions
Steven Vaughn
10866 Midwest Industrial Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63132
P: 314.644.4000
F: 314.644.5600
W: www.technicalproductions.com
May 2006
www.fohonline.com
4/28/06 10:49:58 AM
4/27/06 4:53:01 PM
News
Digidesign Announces VENUE D-Show 2.0 Software
DALY CITY, CA—With extended snapshot
automation capabilities, improved workflows
developed in response to user requests and
expanded signal routing and control possibilities, D-Show 2.0 gives VENUE users enhanced
functionality while maintaining the system’s
ease of use. The software upgrade also introduces support for two new digital I/O hardware options: the Digital Stage Input (DSI)
and Digital Stage Output (DSO) cards.
The D-Show 2.0 upgrade includes:
Snapshot Preview Mode enables operators to take the D-Show console offline
from the audio mix and create, modify,
manage, store and view snapshots in their
entirety without affecting the currently
active mix—useful for building cues during
a rehearsal or performance and for configuring the console for an upcoming act in a
multi-band festival.
Recall Safe allows operators to filter the recall of any parameter on any channel or output
on a per-scene basis using “scope sets,” allowing
for real-time adjustments without losing changes with a subsequent snapshot recall.
Absolute and Relative Edit Mode enables
engineers to make changes to individual controls on the console quickly and apply those
changes in an absolute or relative fashion
across multiple snapshots without affecting
other snapshot data.
Enhanced Propagate Mode makes it
even easier than before to capture parameter
changes after the fact and apply them to one
or more snapshots.
Split Fader Banking and Encoder Control
enable faders and encoders between the Main
Unit and Sidecar(s) to operate independently
which allows users to leave key channels available on one unit while banking channels on
another. This has the added benefit of allowing
multiple users to operate encoders on different
banks of the same console simultaneously.
Channel Strip Copy/Paste enables operators
to copy an entire channel or output and paste it
to any desired location, accelerating setup.
New signal routing options increase the
VENUE system’s flexibility. Operators can now
drive plug-ins from Direct Outputs (these appear as input assignments in the Plug-in menu),
which can dramatically free up the need for
auxiliary effects buses by allowing the user to
build numerous variable level parallel processing paths from a single direct output.
Stereo Linking/Unlinking of adjacent
inputs to the Matrix/PQ enables users to
discretely control the left and right side of
any source—including Mains LR—feeding a
mono Matrix or stereo Personal Q mix.
Monitor outputs in the D-Show patchbay
allows operators to patch audio digitally from
the monitor (solo) bus to physical outputs, as
well as to plug-ins.
Finally, D-Show 2.0 software introduces
support for Digidesign’s new Digital Stage
Input (DSI) and Digital Stage Output (DSO)
cards, respectively offering eight channels
of digital input or output (either AES/EBU or
ADAT digital optical interface standard) for the
VENUE Stage Rack. These new hardware options enable a direct digital connection from
the VENUE live sound environment to digital
speaker processors, format converters, effects
processors, etc.
New Orleans Church Restored on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
NEW ORLEANS, LA—Church Interiors Audio and Video Inc. of High Point, N.C., recently
helped bring back a New Orleans-area church
from the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina
as part of ABC-TV’s Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition. According to Dan Wood, president
of Church Interiors Audio and Video Inc., the
recently-minted division of the 25-year-old
church furnishings and renovations company
was selected from a pool of applicants as
subcontractors, donating time and materials
for the church’s audio systems, with gear supplied by Yamaha, Shure, H.S.A. and Rapco.
Thanks to the show and the efforts of
contractors, subcontractors and more than
300 volunteers, the 120-year-old First Emanuel Baptist Church now has new flooring, a
new church bell, new sanctuary
sound system and other repairs.
Although First Emanuel’s
brick exterior and stained glass
windows survived the hurricane,
high winds severely damaged
roofs, causing water to seep into
the chapel, gym and sanctuary,
ruining ceilings, floors and furnishings. DonahueFavret Contractors Inc. of Mandeville, La.,
joined with Extreme Makeover:
Home Edition to renovate First Emanuel as
general contractor, while subcontractors were
chosen from requests and by referrals.
Wood traveled to New Orleans on Feb.
18 with fellow Church Interiors employee
Todd Lineberry for what became a “four-day
installation marathon.” Upon arrival, he and
Lineberry met with local Church Interiors Audio
& Video representative Rick Freeman and toured
the site, made necessary adjustments and
continued on page 39
Bill Hanley to Receive Parnelli Innovator Award
Jere Harris to Receive Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award
continued from front cover
said a sincerely humbled Hanley. “I’m surprised—and very happy about it.” Hanley
and Harris will receive the awards and
acknowledgement of their illustrious work
from their peers at the Parnelli Awards Dinner being held the evening of Oct. 20 in Las
Vegas during LDI. Past recipients of the Parnelli Innovator Award include Bruce Jackson
and John Meyer. Past Lifetime Achievement
honorees include Patrick Stansfield, Bob See,
Chip Monck, Mike Brown and Brian Croft.
“A true eccentric,” said lighting designer
Monck, who crossed paths often with Hanley, including at Woodstock. “Bill is a great
concept person, a visionary. He never had a
negative word to say, only wanting a stable
power supply and a bit more time.”
Hanley was born in Medford, Mass., the
eldest of five children.“I was interested in electronics at a very young age, and my father gave
me my first crystal set when I was 6.” His love
of electronics grew and he began attaching
himself to local sound professionals, such as
they were at the time—one drove around in a
1937 Pontiac with a platform on it from front to
back doing gigs around the Boston area.
In the 1950s, he was building amplifiers
and experimenting with speaker design, determined to improve the sound he was hearing at big shows. He would work for such
companies as the Laboratory for Electronics
and later Cole Corporation, but “sound was
my home project,” he said with a laugh.
During those days, promoters didn’t care
about the quality of the sound, and Hanley
had an uphill battle convincing them of its
importance. Finally, musicians did notice the
difference and Hanley was being contracted
May 2006
by many to provide sound. Brian Wilson was
one of the first, and the Beatles used Hanley
on their East Coast tour. When Woodstock’s
initial site was cancelled, it was Hanley who
picked the final location of that momentous
event. Also, as a sign of the times, he was behind the sound at many of the anti-Vietnam
War peace rallies in the late 1960s and early
1970s, and was arrested for his efforts on
one occasion.
Today he’s still involved in the business,
though more on the staging side.
Harris comes from a distinguished family
of theatre professionals, but has made his
own name in more than 500 major productions, including Beauty and the Beast, Starlight
Express, Madame Butterfly, EFX and many
large-scale corporate events, special events,
and trade shows.
“I’m a little taken aback,” Harris said upon
hearing the news. “It’s lovely to be recognized and honored, but my success is not
based on me, but is the result of the team
of people I’ve been able to surround myself
with. My ‘lifetime achievement’ is that I’ve
always hired the best people.”
“Jere Harris has had his feet firmly planted
in the dual galaxies of Broadway and touring
production since he first burst upon the scene
in the 1970s,” Stansfield said.“He’s had the
savvy, vision and knowledge to build PRG resources large enough to be able to respond to
vast seasonal shifts of demand in the showbiz
industry while still remaining responsive to the
daily needs of individual productions.”
Harris family roots in theatre go back four
generations. His great-grandfather was a theatre manager in England, and his grandfather
was a company manager for producer/direc-
tor George
Abbot.
His father,
Joseph P.
Harris, is a
four-time
Tony Awardwinning
producer of
more than
200 Broadway shows
including
Jere Harris
Chicago.
Harris’
mother was an actress seen in such musicals
as Guys and Dolls and Silk Stockings.
Harris began his career at 16 in a Broadway scenic shop. From there, he was named
production manager for Theater Now, and in
1982, he founded Harris Production Services.
In 1984, he founded Scenic Technologies and
developed new scenic fabrication and automation techniques. His Stage Command™
was used in The Phantom of the Opera, Les
Misérables and Miss Saigon, and Universal
Studios’ theme park attraction Terminator 2
in 3D, among others.
In 1996, he founded the Production
Resource Group (PRG), and in addition to his
other companies he brought in additional
audio and lighting companies. Today, he has
16 offices in the U.S., Canada and the UK.
“We look forward to honoring Bill and
Jere as they should be honored,” said Terry
Lowe, executive director of the Parnelli
Awards. “We all look forward to praising and
thanking them for all they have accomplished thus far.”
www.fohonline.com
4/28/06 3:26:05 PM
International News
New Line Array Cabinets Used at British Cancer Benefit
LONDON, ENGLAND—Entec Sound became the first UK rental company to use d&b
audiotechnik’s new J8 (80º) and J12 (120º)
line array cabinets along with the new J-SUBs
on a major gig—six nights at the Royal Albert
Hall in London for the high-profile Teenage
Cancer Trust shows.
A dynamic range of international bands
and artists included Goldfrapp, Anthony & The
Johnsons, Bloc Party, Razorlight, Judas Priest,
The Scorpions, The Cure and comedian Ricky
Gervais, who opened the week-long event.
Entec Sound has serviced the event for
the last six years and seen it grow from a single night to the six-gig event it is today. Over
the years, they have sussed out the nuances of
the venue and fine-tuned the art of creating a
successful sound design. However, the major
sonic challenge still remains—ensuring the
system sounds equally as good for the megamix of different performance genres—from
the spoken word to heavy metal, and everything in between.
Entec’s TCT 2006 system was designed
by their own Stefano Serpagli in conjunction
with Ralf Zuleeg and Jonas Wagner from d&b.
The main left and right arrays comprising 12
J8s and two J12s a side complete with six flown
J-SUBs and eight Q1 elements for the outfill
hangs. The J-SUBS are a 3 x 18-inch true cardioid
sub, two drivers facing the front and one to the
rear, with either cardioid or hypercardioid settings available on the D12 amp. For this application, they were used in hypercardioid.
Under the forestage were four d&b B2
subs, running in ‘infra’ mode, adding low end
atmospherics into the equation. Serpagli
comments, “Running the two different types
of subs together is a perfect combination.”
They also flew a single Q7 each side high
up on the P.A. pickup truss to take care of the
far upstage corners of the balcony and gallery. The choir stalls were covered with two
Q7s and one Q10 per side.
For ground fills they used a single Q1 (frontfill) & Q7 (outfill) each side, sitting on top of a Q
sub—with Q7 repeated at the top of the sidestage stairs position each side. There were also
four E3s across the front of the stage.
The whole system was powered and processed by d&b D12 amplifiers using the latest version of d&b’s ROPE C software. It also
allows elements like additional HF to be added with the click of a mouse, and individual
engineers’ settings to be saved and recalled
as and when needed. ROPE C was run from a
laptop with a tablet on radio link, which allows
system adjustment anywhere in the room.
The new d&b offer a unique rigging option—the correct angles can even be preset
whilst they’re still on the floor on their wheels
via a locking arm on the back.
Entec supplied a Midas XL4 & H3000
console at FOH, each with a standard rack of
outboard effects and inserts containing all
the hits and more—Drawmer DS201 gates
dbx 160 & 1066 compressors, Lexicon PCM91,
Yamaha SPX 990s and KT DN370 as a ‘grab-
ber’ EQ for visiting engineers. The two desks
shared a ‘posh’ rack of valve equipment, including Avalon 737s, DP2044 and Summit
TLA100s, plus an Eventide H3000 harmonizer and a TC D2 delay. Front of House was
babysat by the unflappable Rob Coles for the
week, and the majority of bands performing
brought their own engineers.
Monitor world was overseen by Simon
Higgs, with Midas Heritage 3000 & XL3 consoles onstage, used in conjunction with
Entec’s APW wedges, driven by the new
Lab.gruppen 1,200 and 2,400 amps with KT
DN9848 processors. System EQ was programmable KT DN3600s with SPX990 reverbs, dbx
166XL comps & Drawmer DS201 gates for
‘engineer’s toys.
Entec supplied a wide selection of top
brand microphones including a Shure radio
system and a Countryman E6 headset, which
was used by Ricky Gervais.
Crew boss this year was Steve Phillips, a
long-standing ‘Entecian,’ who was assisted
onstage by Entec’s Owen McAuley of Entec
& Neil Osborne from The Warehouse in Scotland—who supplied some of the J-Series and
valuable back-up to Entec.
The project was managed for Entec by
head of sound Dick Hayes, who comments,
“Last year, we used the Q-Series system, which
went very well—having used C4 for all the previous years. With the advent of the J-Series, I
knew that this would be the ideal opportunity
to show off the new system.
“From the comments received, it was a
wise choice. There’s been a completely positive response from sound engineers, musicians, managers, promoters.”
On The Move
db Sound Image has added industry
veteran Debi D. to their team. Her position
with db as tour account manager is backed by
more than 15 years in the concert and touring
industry. Debi will be based out of the Chicago
office of db Sound Image.
QSC Audio Products,
Inc. has appointed Danny
Pickett to the position of
key accounts manager for
cinema. A veteran of the
cinema industry, Pickett
comes to QSC after several
years as manager of DVD
audio at 20th Century Fox.
Digigram has hired
Remi Oudinot, who will
be responsible for all
marketing communications within Digigram. He
has worked previously
for a software vendor in
Remi Oudinot
business process management and most recently for a company providing the technology to produce audio guides
for museums and cultural centers all over the
world, including such prestigious locations as
the Empire State Building in New York.
Danny Pickett
www.fohonline.com
200.0605.IntNews/OTM.EP.indd 9
May 2006
4/27/06 5:11:13 PM
New Gear
ISP Technologies TriReference
Monitor 210
JBL Professional
VRX915M Stage
Monitor
The ISP Technologies TriReference Monitor 210 speakers are
high output three-way active speakers whose shape and light
weight allows them to be pole-mounted, used as floor wedges
and ground-stacked. Their three-way design affords a higher crossover point (3KHz) and allows use of a 1.75-inch diaphragm driver,
which reduces HF rolloff. The dual midrange compression drivers
allow for greater resolution in mids, while the use of dual 10-inch
woofers results in equal or greater output than a single 15-inch
woofer. Standard with the system is a three-channel, 900-watt
rms amplifier/electronic crossover that is specifically designed for
use with the speaker. This amplifier features ISP’s patent-pending
DCAT high-current amplification technology.
With a 375mm (14.75-inch) stage
height and the use of the latest neodymium JBL transducers, the VRX915M
is compact and lightweight. Its compact
size and low profile provides minimal
obstruction of audience sightlines, while
a 2265H-patented Differential Drive
woofer handles 800 watts (continuous)
and the 2452H, 4-inch voice coil compression driver, coupled to a 50° by 90°
aluminum horn, provides highs. Bi-amp or full-range passive operation can be selected via a
recessed, high-current switch mounted alongside the NL4 input connector in one of the handle
cups. An additional NL4 connector is mounted in the other handle cup for a loop-thru connection, minimizing cable runs on stage. The enclosure of the VRX915M is constructed of Baltic
birch plywood and coated in JBL’s DuraFlex finish. It is a symmetrical 30° wedge design, with
four non-slip rubber feet per side enabling convenient left and right applications of adjacent
monitors.
ISP Technologies • 248.673.7790 • www.isptechnologies.com
Westone and Gennum
In-Ear Sound Design
Developed in consultation with artists, monitor engineers and industry professionals, In-Ear Sound Design
draws on Gennum’s 33-year history in developing audio
solutions and Westone’s nearly 50 years of knowledge
and experience in producing custom fit products for the
human ear. In-Ear Sound Design enhances the capabilities available to the personal monitor user by allowing
ambient sound to be mixed with the monitor signal and
providing tools to fully customize the response characteristics of both sources independently. It incorporates
a six-band parametric EQ, multi-band compressor and
brick-wall limiter. The patent-pending ear-level microphone design provides a spatially-correct stereo image
of the environment and allows the wearer to communicate without having to remove the
monitors from their ears.
Westone/Gennum DSP • 800.525.5071 • www.in-earmonitor.com
QSC Wideline Installation
Line Array
Representing the latest addition to QSC’s WideLine family of sound reinforcement components,
the new Installation Line Array (ILA) is now shipping.
The product group is designed for nightclubs, ballrooms, performing arts facilities, houses of worship
or any other venue seeking professional quality in
a lightweight, unobtrusive package. Central to each
ILA loudspeaker is a unique 2 ½-way design employing a pair of 8-inch drivers with 2-inch voice coils
and neodymium magnets. Both of these woofers
provide low frequencies, but only one operates in
the midrange, thereby providing far better directivity control in the crossover region. At the high-end,
a pair of titanium-dome, neodymium compression
drivers with 1.75-inch voice coils and 1-inch exits
are mounted upon a multiple aperture diffraction
waveguide. In combination, these elements deliver
extremely wide coverage (140°) that preserves solid
stereo imaging throughout the listening area.
Sound Made Simple iCD is an interactive computer-based application that
uses animation paired with an easy-tounderstand presentation that teaches
the basic fundamentals of audio and
acoustics. Topics covered include Sound
& Hearing, Signal Path & Gain Structure,
Mixing Consoles, Equalization, Acoustics,
Microphones, Signal Processors, Power
Amplifiers, Loudspeakers and Cables,
Connectors & Impedance. Several of the
units include interactive objects that allow the user to have hands on experience without requiring a full size audio system. The
interactive mixing console accurately simulates the look, feel, and function of a real console
and incorporates full functionality of the channel and master faders, pan control, and mute
buttons while allowing the user to mix real instrument tracks in real time. The price is $149.
Walthall & Associates • 850.478.9002 • www.soundmadesimple.com
200.0605.NewGear.JH.indd 10
PWS, the Professional Wireless
Systems Division of Masque Sound,
has introduced its next generation
Helical Antenna. The HA-8089 is
designed to provide drop-out free
performance for personal monitors, wireless microphones and intercom installations. The HA-8089
will transfer maximum RF energy
regardless of the polarization of
the transmitted wave. As the RF energy radiates out of the Helical, it is continuously spun
through 360º of polarization, millions of time per foot and actually bores through space as it
propagates. This ensures uniform coverage yielding crystal clear audio and eliminating dropouts. The compact 13-inch high unit features a sturdy 13-inch base, weighs less than 4 pounds,
is molded from polycarbonate and includes a protective trim ring. PWS also supplies an aluminum mounting block threaded for both 5/8-27 and 3/8-16 (Euro) mic stands. A custom model
for frequencies lower than 490 MHz is available by special order. The price is $499.
Martin Audio LE
Monitor Series
Sound Made
Simple iCD
May 2006
Professional
Wireless Systems
Helical Antenna
Professional Wireless Systems • 407.240.2880 • www.professionalwireless.com
QSC Audio Products, Inc. • 800.854.4079 • www.qscaudio.com
10
JBL • 818.894.8850 • www.jbl.com
This
high-performance
monitor is designed for largestage applications where
maximum SPL is required. It
features twin, high-specification 12-inch (300mm) lowfrequency drivers, a 6.5-inch
(165mm) midrange device
and a 1-inch (25mm) exit compression driver mounted on a
differential dispersion horn.
Differential dispersion technology increases the area over
which a constant SPL and consistent frequency response is
maintained at ear height, enabling the artist to move around more freely. The LE1500 is a
compact stage monitor that combines high output and controlled dispersion with a discreet,
contemporary design. It features a high–specification 15-inch (380mm) low-frequency drive
unit and a 1.4-inch (35mm) exit compression driver mounted on a differential dispersion
horn. Finally, the Martin Audio LE1200 is an ultra-compact, high-performance stage monitor combining maximum enclosure volume with an optimum presentation angle in a low
profile, contemporary design. It features a high-specification 12-inch (300mm) low frequency
drive unit and a 1.4-inch (35mm) exit compression driver mounted on a differential dispersion horn. As with all the monitors, the rear curves of the cabinet are a single, extremely stiff,
pressed and precisely machined beech laminate panel, and the hardwood front rail ensures
the cabinet is extremely rigid, tough and acoustically neutral. Left- and right-handed versions are available to facilitate use in pairs. The new monitors are optimized for use with the
Martin Audio DX1 controller to provide crossover, limiting and EQ functions. When operated
in passive mode, they may be used without a controller, but benefit from the EQ and limiting functions of the DX1—this also ensures that both active and passive configurations will
exhibit the same tonal balance when used together.
Martin Audio • 519.747.5853 • www.martin-audio.com
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:12:04 PM
4/27/06 4:53:36 PM
Showtime
Carlinhos Brown
Speakers: 16 x EV XLC 127+
Amps: Crown VZ
Processing: EV Dx38
Mics: Shure, AKG, Sennheiser
Power Distro: Link
Rigging: Verlinde
Venue
Fontejau Arena, Girona, Spain
Crew
Soundco/Provider: Ready So & Llums S.L.
FOH Engineer: Xavier Corbellini
Monitor Engineer: Carlos Martos
Systems Engineer: Tomas Paz
Production Manager: Enrique Girona
Gear
FOH
Console: Midas Heritage-3000, Midas Heritage-2000
MON
Console: Midas H-3000, Allen & Heath ML-5000
Speakers: EV Xw12
Amps: Crown
Processing: BSS
Audio Adrenaline with Tyrone Wells
& This Holiday Life
Venue
Speakers: 8 x EAW KF750, 8x EAW KF755, 6 x EAW
SB750
Amps: QSC Powerlight & Powerlight Series 2
Processing: BSS Omnidrive
Mics: Sennheiser KM184, E604, AKG C1000, MD421,
Shure Beta52, SM57, SM58, A-T ATM25, Radial JDI DIs
Power Distro: Motion Labs
Rigging: ATM
Felix Event Center, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA
Crew
Soundco/Provider: Audio Specialties
FOH Engineer: Ario Pena, BE:
Ryan Rettler
Monitor Engineer: AJ Williams BE:
Marcus
Systems Engineer: Steve Osterberg
Production Manager: Jared Wells
System Techs: Ellie Ash, Jon Dingman, Andrew Pratt
MON
Console: Yamaha PM5D
Speakers: KF650 sidefills, EAW SM200, Sennheiser
IEMs
Amps: QSC Powerlight
Processing: EAW MX8750
Gear
FOH
K Paz, Montez, Los Yonics, Los Elegido,
Los Diferentes De La Sierra
Venue
Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, IL
Crew
Soundco/Provider: Gand Concert Sound, Glenview, IL
FOH Engineer: Rob Laseau, K Paz, FOH=Roberto Salas
Monitor Engineer: Garrett Lane
Systems Engineer: Joe Perona
Production Manager: Tim Swan
Tour Manager: Oscar Naranjos
System Techs: Adam Rosenthal
Gear
Sound
g
Stagin
Ligh
ting
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM4000
Speakers: 22 x NEXO Geo T 4805 + 2 2815 and 12x
NEXO CD18 Subwoofers
Amps: 16 x Camco Vortex 6, 6 x Camco 200V
Processing: NEXO NS242
Mics: Shure, EV, AKG, Sennheiser, Radial DIs
Rigging: NEXO,CM Hoists
MON
Console: Midas Heritage 3000
Speakers: 16 x GCS Superwedges 4 x NEXO PS15s, 6 x
GCS GX3 Hipacks, 3 x GCS GSL subs
Amps: Crest Pro8001
Processing: Klark Teknik DN360s, NEXO NS242s
Mics: Shure, EV, AKG, Sennheiser, Radial DIs
Power Distro: Motion Labs #2
BOOKSHELF
1
Your#
resource
for continued
education.
200.0605.Showtime.BK.indd 12
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4/27/06 5:24:12 PM
Easter Sunrise Service,
Capital Church, McLean, VA
Venue
Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
Crew
Soundco/Provider: SineWave Audio Inc.
FOH Engineer: Rob Ranahan, Bill Smothers
Systems Engineer: Matthew Ewing
System Techs: Jakob Adam, Stephan Seals
Gear
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM3500
Speakers: 8 x JBL VerTec VT4888, 4 x EAW SB1000, 3 x
JBL VRX932 as frontfills
Amps: 4 x Lab.gruppen for line arrays, Crown MA5000 for subs
Processing: 2 x XTA DP226
Mics: Shure, AKG, Audio-Technica
MON
Speakers: 8 x EAW SM500
Amps: 8 x Crown
Chris Tomlin Indescribable Tour
Venue
The Classic Center, Athens, GA
Crew
Soundco/Provider: Spectrum Sound
FOH Engineer: Mark V. Thomas
Monitor Engineer: Tommy Kinnaird
Systems Engineer: Adam Duncan
Production Manager: Brian York
Speakers: d&b Q-Series, B2, C7, E3
Amps: d&b D12
Processing: d&b ROPE C
Mics: 3 x Shure UHR w/ KSM9 capsules
Power Distro: Spectrum Sound
Rigging: 4 x CM Loadstar 1-ton
MON
Speakers: Shure PSM 700, Sensaphonics
Gear
FOH
Console: Digidesign VENUE
Missionsfest
2006
Venue
Shaw Conference Centre, Edmonton, AB
Crew
Soundco/Provider: Axe Productions, Inc.
FOH Engineer: Chase Tower
Monitor Engineer: Brad Warchuk
Systems Engineer: Chase Tower
Production Manager: Kelly Kimo
System Techs: Brian Metcalf
Gear
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM4000-48C, Midas
Verona 480
Speakers: EV XLC 127+, EAW KF853, BH853,
SB850
Amps: EV P3000, QSC PL1.8, 2.0HV, 4.0
Processing: EV Dx38, BSS FCS-960, Roland
SDE-3000, Yamaha D1500, SPX-1000, REV500, REV7, dbx 166XL, 903, Aphex 612, 105,
Drawmer DS404
Mics: Shure, AKG, Sennheiser, AudioTechnica
Rigging: 10 x CM Lodestar 1-Ton Motors
MON
Console: Crest Century 32x12, Mackie
SR24-4
Speakers: Proprietary (15”, 2”)
Amps: Yamaha H5000
Processing: dbx DriveRack, dbx 2231
UB40 Hawaii
Tour
Venue
Waikiki Shell, Swingzone, MACC, Maui, HI
Crew
Soundco/Provider: Hawaii Pro Sound &
Video Rentals
FOH Engineer: Adam Scott
Monitor Engineer: Gonzo Smith, Martin
Hutt
Systems Engineer: Billy Kam, John
Kendrick
Production Manager: Rick Smoot
Tour Manager: Jimmy Innes
System Techs: Chris Waidzunas, Joe Arias,
Bully Soares
Gear
FOH
Console: DiGiCo D5
Speakers: NEXO Geo T, CD18 Subs
Amps: Camco Vortec 6.0
Processing: NEXO 241, Summit, TC EQ
Station
Mics: Shure KSM32, SM58, Beta98, Beta56
Rigging: Lodestar Motors
MON
Console: DiGiCo D5
Speakers: Clair 12AM, Shure PSM700
Amps: Clair, Carver
?
www.fohonline.com
200.0605.Showtime.BK.indd 13
May 2006
13
4/27/06 5:25:36 PM
FOH Interview
Jay Phebus: The Art of Juggling with
King’s
X
By BryanReesman
L
ive engineer Jay Phebus is a lucky man.
He has been mixing a band he loves,
King’s X, for more than two decades.
Since 1984, when King’s X was still a Midwestern circuit band, he has been their
soundman, and by the early ‘90s he had also
taken over as their tour manager following a string of short-lived TMs, which has
made his job challenging, to say the least.
While attending the University of Mississippi
Phebus originally intended to enter the Air
Force, but allergies prevented his admission
into the flight program, so he answered the
call when King’s X—bassist/vocalist Doug
Pinnick, guitarist Ty Tabor and drummer Jerry
Gaskill—needed help and left school. Since
then, he has toured the world with them,
from headlining club gigs to opening slots
for AC/DC. During downtime, he has mixed
other artists, including Stevie Wonder, Vertical Horizon, Eric Gales, Galactic Cowboys and
George Thorogood.
What makes Phebus’ story all the more
inspiring is that he has no formal training as
a soundman. Everything he has learned has
been through hands-on experience. He says he
has an affinity for computers and would have
jumped into that world after college had the
timing been right. But after being on the road
with King’s X for a decade, the band decided
to start delving into computers with 1994’s
Dogman album. Ironically, rock ‘n’ roll brought
Phebus to where he would have gone anyway.
Phebus spoke to FOH just prior to the
start of the recent King’s X tour, and he went
in-depth about the art of juggling jobs and
the joy of mixing, along with great product
endorsements.
FOH: So how do you
balance your schedule
with King’s X and
other bands?
Jay Phebus: As soon as our touring
schedule dropped to the point where it did
14
May 2006
200.0605.FOHInterview.JH.indd 14
The viewJay
fromPhebus
FOH
after we were signed, every year, I’ve done
something else. Last spring, I did 10 weeks
with Steve Vai, then also continued over to
Japan immediately following the U.S. completion. There are times when it works where
I’ll hop off a plane on Sunday, on Monday go
to a festival, then hop right up with King’s
X. Two years ago, I finished King’s X, stayed
in Houston a day, then hopped a plane to
Europe for Anthrax. It dovetails together like
that. There are so many big gaps in the King’s
X schedule that I’ll do assorted other touring.
I’ve been doing that for years.
So you do two jobs at
once?
Yeah, and I’ve done that with a lot of other
bands. I talked about that with Steve Vai and
his manager last year. He realized that I’m doing two jobs, and there are going to be sacrifices, and there’s no way that it cannot be that
way. The jobs overlap. One of the main things
is, typically, when you’re mixing the show, the
tour manager is doing business with the promoter and settling the show. I can’t do that.
That’s one of the main conflicts.
The other thing is all during the afternoon,
when the tour manager’s taking care of all the
problems, the sound engineer is doing sound
check and getting things working with sound,
so that causes problems as well. There will be
times when the crew’s waiting around for you
to do sound check.“Where’s the sound guy?”
“Well, the tour manager’s got him detained
at the moment.” Those are the kinds of things
that are hectic and frustrating.
What advice would you
give to somebody who’s
attempting to take on
both roles?
You’ve got to have an understanding of
the band and crew, and you yourself have to
have a lot of patience. I remember one time
last year when I was out with Steve, I had two
bus drivers in the front lounge, which I take
over and make a mobile office with my laptop and printer. I intentionally went on that
tour with a full digital console so I could get
away with going in there 15 minutes ahead
of time, so as soon I was plugged in, I was
90% of the way there. I didn’t have any effects to patch up, no inserts. Everything was
built into the console. I had to economize my
time. You have to be creative to make those
types of things work.
Anyway, Steve comes up and wants to
go the gym, and I’m going, “I’m right in the
middle of taking care of our receipts with
our bus drivers. I haven’t even set foot in
the venue to get sound check on the way.”
He just looked at me and said, “Don’t worry
about it. I’ll get Dave [the production manager] to take care of it.” He realized it was one
of those conflicting times where if you’re the
man and want me to take care of it, I’ll drop
everything, but I’ll let you make an educated
decision as to where you want me to be
spending my time and energy right now.
There are times when it gets even more
complicated than that. There are more things
that you’re involved with at one time. There
is no telling how many times throughout
King’s X’s tour career that I’ve been at Front
of House—and I know it gets frustrating for
the guys because I’m taking care of assorted
different business with the tour management—and I’ll have phone calls that stop
sound check. A lot of times I just want to get
a voicemail, but during certain times when
certain critical things are coming up and
there is time-sensitive business that I have
to take care of, sound check will come to a
grinding halt. We’ve all been doing this for so
long that it’s old hat for us now. Starting out
or working with new clients doing that sort
of thing can be trying and testing at times.
I have to admit that there were times out
on the Vai tour where it was quite difficult.
The longer you do it and the more patience
everyone involved has when you’re doing
something that of nature, the better it is.
So on this current
King’s X tour, what
console are you
taking out?
I’m taking the Allen & Heath GL3800,
the newest generation of the 32-channel
mainframe. I’ve used Allen & Heaths before,
so I was very familiar with it, and this was the
newest line that they had out. I am hoping
to get a chance to take out their new digital
console out as well. It’s just now hitting the
road, although it would be way more than I
need for what we’re doing.
At this point, I have other endorsements
with outboard gear. Paul Snyder at Four Star
Wire and Cable does all our cabling. That’s
one of the main things that’s helped us have
consistency and quality night in and night
out. It makes such a huge difference. When
you go into a gig, and you’re relying on them
for mic cabling, drum looms, a snake or whatnot…Paul and his products are fantastic. He’s
trying to do an article with Jerry about the
new drum loom. He came out to our show
last year. We’ve been using his drum loom for
the past couple of years.
As a matter of fact, I called Paul up and
took out an entire stage-wiring kit with
Vai. He has really nice cable bags that really
haven’t even hit the market. I don’t think
anybody’s really tapped into that. They’re
like round canvas bags that you can roll up
and put all your assorted cabling and looms
and whatnot from the stage. It’s an incredibly
good way to keep track of all your cabling,
store it, transport it, everything. That’s made
a huge difference. When I get to a gig now,
I don’t have to worry about whether their
outboard gear works. The last piece of the
puzzle was having my own console, so when
that came into play, I’ve got my own rack and
my own cabling to integrate into things.
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:04:06 PM
Monitor console
There was one time I had a rash of bad
consoles. It was one of those boiling points,
and I had had more than I could take. I was
tired of these piece of crap consoles day in
and day out. It was very, very frustrating, so
when we got together with Rob Joseph—a
close friend and colleague of mine who’s an
independent rep in the Midwest for Alesis,
V-DOSC, Lake Audio and dbx—he got me
hooked up with Gabe at American Music &
Sound [exclusive U.S. distributor of Allen &
Heath]. On the last tour, he knew my situation. We had had a previous endorsement
for a monitor rig with some processing and
a console that we ran PMs through. It only
lasted about one or two legs of a tour and
started developing a whole lot of problems.
Basically, a couple of days before we took
off on the last tour, he gave me Gabe’s number
and thought he got us a Front of House
console. To be honest with you, I hadn’t had a
long-run experience with Allen & Heath, but
that console is as clean as anything that’s out
there right now, and I’ve gone head-to-head
with many consoles. The odd thing is that a
lot of these venues we’ve played year in and
year out got new consoles. Great, I get my
own console, and they get a new console,
but I still would run all the house consoles
straight through my console. It only took a
couple of brand-new Soundcrafts or brandnew Midases, and my console was every bit as
clean or cleaner than theirs. I realized that I’m
already pre-dialed in, so we ran through my
console. That’s how we ran the whole tour. It’s
just a well-oiled machine at this point.
All I ask for from the venue is that the stuff
works. At this point, all I’m asking for is the
drive line. Racks and stacks, because I’m bringing everything else. Your board doesn’t even
have to work. I just need the snake to get to
the stage, and the amps, cabling and speakers to work. I’ve eliminated it all to that. I don’t
care if any of your microphones work. I don’t
care if you don’t have any mic cables. You
don’t need even to have mic stands. We bring
our own. Usually, when King’s X is leaving,
the crews are going,“Dang, I wish every band
was like this!” We’re packing so much gear,
we’re virtually self-contained. We’ve done it in
the way it should be attacked sonically. Then
again, King’s X is a musician’s band. You want
to hear what they’re doing. It doesn’t matter
if they’ve got flash pots or if their makeup is
right tonight or they’ve got that leather jacket
on. The show is them and their talent, which is
cool. I dig that about them. And I love my job
mixing. It’s my passion.
longest-standing endorser. Tony Pinheiro at
DR Strings has supported Ty and Doug for
years. They won’t play anything else. Rich
Mangicaro at Piaste Cymbals is one of our
longest supporters. Jerry loves their cymbals, and I don’t know what we would have
done without them. Ken Dapron at Yamaha
Guitar Development, and John Gedusi, our
builder, have also supported Ty and Doug
for years with guitars and basses. They’re
second to none! As you
might have already noticed, we only endorse
products that we actually use and love. King’s
X has always stood for
integrity and quality,
from the music they
write to the products
we endorse.
“All I ask for from the venue is that the stuff
works. At this point, all I’m asking for is the drive
line. Racks and stacks, because I’m bringing
everything else. Your board doesn’t even have
to work. I just need the snake to get to the stage,
and the amps, cabling and speakers to work.”
-Jay Phebus
So how much changes
every year with
King’s X?
It doesn’t really, per se. We start up next
week. My console’s been packed up in a
case in a trailer. We’ll have a reference point
where we started from last time. The guys
are constantly evolving their rigs. We have
beyerdynamic, another huge piece of the
sonic puzzle. Beyer has been there for us year
in and year out, and Paul Froula, our rep that’s
there now. They even had us for an appearance and signing at their booth at NAMM
this past January.
Beyer is crucial. We have every microphone we ever need and then some.
Sonically, it’s an excellent product, and the
consistency night in and night out is just a
night and day difference from 10 years ago
when we didn’t have all these pieces of the
puzzle in place. It was the same thing with
Vai. I got my cabling endorsement from Four
Star and brought all my beyer mics as well,
so I had a big consistency night in and night
out, which is a wonderful thing to have.
Each of my guys has endorsements
that have been supporting us for several
years. All of them are an important ingredient for our consistent and superb sound.
Steve “Doc” Dachroeden at AMPEG is Doug’s
200.0605.FOHInterview.JH.indd 15
4/27/06 5:04:26 PM
Installations
(L to R) Cliff Rosenberg and second audio man Ed Ensink at FOH
The Sound of Sacred
By LindaHutchinson
Michigan’s Resurrection Life Church
gets an audio upgrade and much more
A
t a time when churchgoing worldwide is on the decline, the stratospheric rise in attendance at Resurrection Life Church in Grandville, Mich., makes
for a real study in contrasts.
Under the leadership of senior pastor
Duane Vander Clok since 1984, this nondenominational Christian church has gone from
400 or so parishioners to serving thousands
each weekend in every demographic—adults,
children, teens, college-age, the elderly, as well
as Spanish-speaking members from one main
church campus and two satellite campuses. At
present, weekend attendance hovers around
8,000 people, which puts them into the top
100 churches in the nation for attendance.
In response to this kind of growth, the
church walls had to expand as well. After
mulling over growth plans for years, and
really getting down the nitty-gritty for
three—this newly-finished church expansion
added 212,000 square feet of new space,
features a 4,200-seat Worship Center with
broadcast capabilities, a new 40,000-squarefoot, two-story structure that will serve as
a nursery for babies and children up to 5
years old, as well as a bookstore and café. The
Resurrection Life Church facilities now total
332,000 square feet of space.
16
May 2006
200.0605.Installations.JH.indd 16
This congregation views music as a very
important part of their worship service. With
a greater attention toward quality of sound,
the church debuted their new Worship
Center replete with a new million-dollar
sound system on March 25 and 26 during
what was termed a “soft opening” weekend.
Stacks & Racks
House Speakers: 15 x L-ACOUSTICS
KUDO,11 x L-ACOUSTICS SB218
Subwoofers, 19 x EAW UB82e, 12 x EAW
AX396, 1 x EAW MQH1346e, 8 x EAW
AX396, 8 x EAW MK5394
Amplifiers: 19 x Crown CTS-2000,10 x
Crown CTS-1200, 2 x Crown CTS-600, 9 x
Crown CTS-4200, 5 x Crown I-Tech 6000,
1 x Crown I-Tech 4000
Speakers: 4 x EAW SM200,
4 x Community M12-RB, 4 EAW MK2300
Choir monitors (flown overhead)
Personal Monitors: 12 x Sennheiser
ew300IEM G2 (Shure E2 & E3 earbuds),
10 x Shure PSM700 (Ultimate Ears custom ear molds)
Over the course of event, more than 14,000
people came to attend services. The church
dedication weekend is scheduled for April
29 and 30.
“Our pastor here has a vision and gave us
the go-ahead to get in and get it done and
make the sound the best we could make it,”
said Ken Reynolds, director of the Worship
and Creative Arts Department. “Our music
is pretty aggressive—probably more than
most churches—and we needed a sound
system that could handle that,” Reynolds
said. By “aggressive,” he basically means that
the church performs contemporary religious music in a church setting rather than
traditional hymns accompanied by piano
and organ. “We have full keyboards, a full
brass section, guitar—the whole spectrum,
we needed to be able to reproduce that,” he
said. They also have a 250-member choir.
Reynolds remarked that when the debut
weekend was over, people commented on
how “crystal clear” everything sounded. “It’s
like they could hear everything, every little
detail,” he said.
And if you’ve got the idea that it’s only
about music, you’re not thinking big enough.
“We have pretty diverse services,” Reynolds
said, telling a story about one service where
Mics
Mics: 14 x Shure UR systems (1
bodypack, 6 Beta 87C, 4 Beta 58), 5 x
Shure U4-D receivers (6 U2/Beta 58
and 4 U2/Beta 87C), 2 x Sennheiser
SKM5200-BK w/Neumann KK105
capsule and EM3032-U receiver
Mic Locker: 4 x beyerdynamic M 88 TG
(brass section), 4 x Sennheiser MD441
(brass section), 8 x Neumann KM184 MT
(choir mics), 1 x SCX25A-PS stereo piano
mic kit, 1 x Sennheiser e901 (kick drum),
8 x Shure KSM32/CG condensers (drum/
percussion overheads, misc.), 1 x Yamaha subkick (for kick drum LF extension),
2 x DPA 4066-F, 1 Audio-Technica ATM23HE (snare drum), 2 x Audio-Technica
897 shotgun microphones (crowd mic
for broadcast audio), 1 x AKG C 451
(high-hat), 4 x Shure Beta 98 D/S (toms),
1 x Sennheiser MD421 (Leslie speaker
top), 1 x Shure SM7 (Leslie speaker
bottom), 2 x Shure Beta 56 (congas,
misc. percussion), dozens of mics were
brought from existing facility—Shure
Beta 57s, 58s, 4 x AKG 414s, as well as
many SM58s and SM57s
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:09:47 PM
Crew
System Design Consulting Firm:
Acoustic Dimensions
Lead Designer: Robert Rose
was given the very daunting task of selecting all the audio equipment for the church
expansion project.
“Acoustic Dimensions is one of the best
consultants in the business for churches, it’s
a big part of what they
do.” Rosenberg said. “We
really felt that when CEO
Craig Janssen came to
give a presentation, he
really took time to really
listen to our people on
the leadership team. It’s
very difficult to make
people feel like you’re their only customer,
but that’s the way they made us feel. They
caught a vision of the way we wanted to do
things, and they ran with it.”
When it came to making choices, “I
wanted to stay in line with the vision of the
church, but when it came to the equipment
selection, I really wanted to look at things
with the future in mind, along with the
amount of finances that we had,” to get the
best possible system, he said.
Acoustic Dimensions’ Robert Rose served
as project manager on the job. “People who
work in audio have opinions—and many
of them have strong opinions—but we
saw very eye-to-eye with Cliff, which made
things work out really well,” Rose said. “He
was looking for a very straightforward, reliable but very robust system. He’s extremely
technically competent, but at the
same time, he didn’t want—or
doesn’t get lost in—the need
to have the latest and greatest
‘gee-whiz’ gadget. He knows he’s
going to spend as much time on
system upkeep and setup and just
mundane things. So the system
was designed with a bit more of a
‘road’ mentality than some of the
permanent installations that we’ve
done.”
use. “Permanent installs don’t use these kinds
of things as often,” Rose said. So Rosenberg
now is able to set up multiple bands without
unpatching or disconnecting anything. “He
can set up his midweek service and a com-
snakes. They have two full Pro Tools HD accel
rigs and 96 tracks of Votari hard disc in the
broadcast room that Rosenberg uses just
to catch the worship services. “When we
bought those machines, we knew we could
bounce all those sessions
all out to Pro Tools and
after that, remix everything in Pro Tools or move
them out in the opposite
direction and not lose
anything,” Rosenberg said.
“I’m getting to the point
where I’m ready to test out
pletely separate set of inputs and not disrupt some of this bidirectionality!”
Interestingly, Front of House is centrally
what he’s got set up for a Sunday service,”
located in Worship Center room. Literally.
he said.
Rosenberg was very keen on acquiring
“I’m actually standing at the same level as
DiGiCo consoles, one for Front of House,
the audience and mixing from among them,”
another for monitors and another in the
Rosenberg said. “And I really want to be a
production room. And any one console can
part of it, right there.”
run the entire system. “DiGiCo has a very
Another key element Acoustic Dimeninteresting product, and it’s the only one I
sions pushed for was an acoustical change in
thought really had the capability to do what
the room itself. “The room was pretty dead;
we wanted it to—serve us in every room—
it just wouldn’t respond,” Rose said. “There
and feel like I wasn’t making a big comprowas no ceiling, per se, so there was concern
mise in one part,”
that people wouldn’t
Rosenberg said.
even be able to hear
Each console is
each other sing.”
a different size and
Now, acoustical
makeup, geared to
panels hang from
House Console: DiGiCo D5 “Live” 112EX
its individual space,
the roof deck to help
(Dual power supplies, 5 DSP cards, dual
but, said Rose, “From
provide some sound
MADI cards, ST optics for Optocore I/O),
a user standpoint,
return to the congreDiGiCo I/O rack w/24ch Analog IN, 16ch
they operate in a
gation.
AES IN, 16ch AES OUT, 40-ch Analog
very similar manner,
“There are a
OUT, all snakes Whirlwind custom-made
so training on them
surprising number
Monitor WorldConsoles: 1 x DiGiCo
is pretty straightforof musicians in this
D1 Live Custom (Dual power supplies,
ward.” Because these
church,” Rosenberg
5 DSP cards, dual MADI I/O cards, Tour
machines run on
said. “You can’t do a
Optics for Optocore I/O), DiGiCo Local
a MADI system, an
big audio upgrade in
I/O Rack w/32-ch Analog IN, 8-ch AES
AES standard digital
a church that doesn’t
IN, 8-ch AES OUT, 40-ch Analog OUT, 1
format with 56 chanhave, as a part of
x SoundTracs DS-00 Post Production
nels of audio on a
its vision, to reach
Console w/2 x EX-00 expansion wings (4
single coax cable, at
people through
x 56-ch MADI cards, 512-ch on Optocore
Front of House and in
music, specifically
I/O, 32 faders, 160 max. input channels
the studio, Cliff is able
church music.” As an
w/6 x EFX processors), 3 x 16-ch Aviom
to take MADI and go
audience member,
Network I/O cards (total 48 outputs),
into a single recordor when someone’s
3 x Aviom A-16D Pro 8ch distribution
ing device. “So, from
playing on stage, “it’s
hubs/power supplies
an infrastructure and
an incredible motermination standment between you
Proccessing: 7 x BSS London BLU-80, 5
point, that made
and God,” he added.
x HP ProCurve switches (for CobraNet
things really simple,”
“People are trying
audio and system controls), 1 x Yamaha
Rose said. And, they
to give something
NHB-32C CobraNet gateway, 1 x Lexicon
can use DiGiCo stuff
back to God, here’s
PCM-91 Reverb, 1 x Sweetwater Systems
with other third-parwhat I’ve trying to
Rack Mount PC w/2 x RME MADI I/O
ty, MADI-compatible
convey to my guys:
Cards running Steinberg Nuendo, 1 x TC
equipment.
We may be back here
Electronic EQ Station (AES Digital I/O)
The consoles are
pushing buttons, but
capable of 160 chanwe’re also a part of
nels of mix down and
all that as well. It’s a
are interconnected with CobraNet, a fibercompletely symbiotic relationship.”
optic ring, as opposed to traditional copper
“I’m actually standing at the same
level as the audience and mixing
from among them.”
- Cliff Rosenberg
System Design: Ryan Knox
System Installer: Parkway
Communications
an artist was positioned onstage with easel
and brush, painting a picture. “We expanded
the scope of this department, to include music, dance, even art,” he said. “Our reasoning
for that is that some people are touched by
music, others are touched by movement and
dance while others are moved artistically—
so why couldn’t that also be an expression of
worship?”
“This church has grown so much in the
last few years, it’s just amazing,” said Cliff
Rosenberg, technical director. He, along with
assistant Israel Ruiz and about 20 key volunteers, is what ensures sound as well as quality
at the church and two satellite campuses
where church services are held. “I’m basically the audio leader, but there are many
volunteers working every weekend,” he said,
quick to emphasize that it takes many to get
the entire job done. “I don’t do all the nuts
Road Mentality?
The main sanctuary originally
had an analog console and basic
speaker system, and that was
about it. “They have some extremely talented musicians at the
church. And those kind of people
are the type who push systems to
the very edge, and they demand a
certain level of quality. They simply
outgrew the system,” Rose said.
Add to it that this church does several services with music a week.
One of several customized
designs crafted by Acoustic Dimensions’ Ryan Knox, who did all
the audio design and detail work
on the project, the setup onstage—from a
connectivity standpoint—is
more like a touring setup.
The platform has a lot of
multi-conductor snakes, stage
boxes, things that road shows
and bolts myself. I’m more of the ‘vision’ guy;
there are many people other than myself
who are clearly dedicated to making the
church a better place.”
Rosenberg, himself a musician, was one
of several key people to help this church
form its audio identity. After
he and his wife, Lori, moved to
the area from Texas, Rosenberg
did a careful job of shopping
Choir rehearsal room (200 person
around for a church that suited
capacity): 1 x Midas Venice 240 console,
them, finding Resurrection Life
2 x Shure ULXP24 w/ Beta 58, 4 x Crown
Church. He started as a part-time
K2 amps, 1 x BSS FDS-336T MiniDrive, 1
drummer in the church band,
x Ashly GEQ3102, 2 x EAW MK2394, 2 x
and slowly got involved in other
EAW SB625 subwoofers, 2 x EAW SM200
duties in 2001. At that point, just
floor monitors
a couple of guys helped with
Chapel area:1 x Allen & Heath 2800/24
audio at the church. Rosenberg
volunteered on projects here and input mixer, 2 x Shure ULXP24 wireless
w/ Beta 58 handheld & W151B lavalier/
there until finally, in 2003, he was
asked to take a paid position. Lori body pack, 1 x Aviom AN-16i input module, 1 x Presonus ACP88 compressor/
now works at the church as an
gate,1 Ashly 4.24G Digital EQ, 1 x BSS
assistant to Ken Reynolds.
London BLU-16 DSP, 4 x EAW MK2394,
Rosenberg served as the
2 EAW SB625 subwoofers, 4 x Crown K2
main audio coordinator for the
expansion project and, with help amplifiers, 3 x EAW SM200 floor
from Acoustic Dimensions, Texas, monitors
Consoles &
Processors
Other Systems
The smaller “chapel” room
www.fohonline.com
200.0605.Installations.JH.indd 17
May 2006
17
4/27/06 5:10:18 PM
On Broadway
The Sound of
The Color
Purple
I
was wondering how Alice Walker’s deeply
poignant and deeply disturbing drama
The Color Purple would be interpreted as a
Broadway musical, especially at a time when
so many literary and filmic adaptations are
gratuitously brought to the Great White Way,
but I was pleasantly surprised. The wellwritten show has a magnetic lead in
LaChanze, a highly talented ensemble cast,
and a score that spans African music, R&B
and blues. And the multilayered story—on
its most basic level, about a woman named
Celie who struggles through life with an
abusive, controlling husband after having grown up with an abusive, controlling
father—is incredibly powerful.
Live engineer Carin Ford is behind the
board for this intense theatre experience. She
first entered the business in 1989 through
Lily Tomlin’s one-woman show The Search
for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,
working the sound effects for the actress.
That sounds easy, but with 600 cues in the
show plus background music, Ford stayed on
her toes and really interacted with the lead.
From there, she moved on to mixing shows
including Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast,
Ragtime, Seussical The Musical, Mamma Mia!,
Thoroughly Modern Millie and Caroline, or
Change. Here she talks about working on this
sonically-demanding production, which is
her third with sound designer Jon Weston.
FOH: Effects were
used sparingly here. I
noticed the reverb on
Nettie’s voice when she
was speaking her letter
to Celie, and there were
gunfire sounds during
the African sequence.
But was there anything
else?
Carin Ford: Not really. The only thing that
has background noise is the whole Africa
scene, and that’s the war stuff. The rest is just
specific things like car horns and a telephone
ring, but that’s it. During production they
wanted to try other things, like birds chirping
in certain parts and horses and carriages in a
town scene, but it just sounded like noise.
What kind of console
are you running?
I’m using a Cadac J-Type. We’re using
three frames of a Cadac.
Just mics on the
actors?
Exactly. Of course, there are mics in the
pit. The woodwinds are double-miked, upper
and lower, and then we’re just using single
mics on the trumpets [NeumannU89] and
the trombones [AKG C12]. On the strings,
we’re using the Neumann M 147, just one
for each instrument. There is an overhead [M
147] on the two violins and viola and one is
over the cello. We’re using the PLM 170s for
the lower woodwind mics, and we’re using
Sennheiser MKH40s for overhead.
18
May 2006
200.0605.OnBroadway.BK.indd 18
Are you running any
speakers in the back to
fill out the sound?
Under the balcony are EAW JF60s. For
onstage foldback, we are using d&b E3s. We
have three stage left and three stage right in
the wings. For the off-stage monitors, we are
using Hot Spots hung together with a 9-inch
black and white conductor monitor for offstage singers.
Carin Ford
Is it normal to double
mic the woodwinds?
Yes, because all the woodwind players
play at least two or three different instruments. So when they’re playing the piccolo
flute, you’re using the overhead mics. And
then for saxophone and clarinet, you use
both mics, but have a combination of the
two for the different instruments.
There is hand percussion as well, correct?
We are using a Sennheiser MKH-40 on
the toys and a Sennheiser MKH-60 shotgun
mic over the African drums. The Sennheiser
MKE-2s are used on the SK-5012 transmitters for the actors. There are two actors using
Countryman mics. They’re all single-miked.
What about the rest of
the pit?
On the harmonica, we are using a
Sennheiser ME 104, and we are using an AKG
C-416 clipped onto the acoustic bass. The
electric bass is on a DI. On the guitar amp,
we were using a 441, but we changed it, and
I don’t remember what mic we are using
now. For the acoustic guitars, we are using a
Neumann KM-100.
Has any mic ever gone
out during a show?
It has only happened once on a lead.
On the leads, we don’t tend to move the
mikes unless they sweat, and most of them
don’t sweat. But the dancers, of course, can
go sometimes, but surprisingly, they haven’t
been bad.
Our backstage guys, Pete and Bob, are
my RF guys and really good at catching
those guys before they sweat. They’re constantly listening, and they can catch these
guys before they get back onstage. Sometimes they can’t catch them because they
blow them out just before they go onstage
or as soon as they get onstage.
Are you using any
processing or other
outboard gear?
Not a lot. There’s nothing really on vocals.
We’re using some gates on the drums just
to keep our drummer under control. We use
it on the drummer and the bass, and that’s
about it. We’re just using a Lexicon reverb
unit, I think the 480, for the band and for vocals. There’s a special reverb for Nettie during
her letter monologue.
What are the
challenges you have
faced on this show?
The challenge for me—because this show
is more R&B, which I haven’t done a lot of—is
to be able to mix and find a good balance between the band and the vocals. With R&B, you
don’t want the vocals to be too far out.
You have a lot of voices
to mix, and some people have more powerful
voices than others.
The desk has some automation. On the
sidecar, the input faders for the ensemble are
automated. The faders for the principal characters are not automated. Putting the chorus
on automated faders allows us to program
a mix for each cue so that I can bring up the
men and women up on two VCAs and know
that the balance is good.
Is it tricky when
you have someone
substituting for a
cast member?
That can be difficult. The woman who
is the understudy for Shug, the nightclub
singer, has a very different voice and acts very
differently than the regular cast members.
Are subs in the pit also
problematic?
That can be a challenge. I’ve had sub
trumpets come in, and maybe one doesn’t play
quite as loud as the regular player, but then you
can get somebody else who plays much louder.
So I constantly have to keep my eye on that,
but that’s just the nature of the business, no
matter what show you do.
We’re also dealing with the musical
writers—Allee Willis, Brenda Russell and
Stephen Bray—and all of them come from
the pop world. None of them have ever
done a Broadway show. So it’s also difficult
dealing with these folks because they don’t
understand that this isn’t going to be like a
rock concert. I remember Allee Willis coming
to me and saying, “I can’t hear these speakers
here.” I’m like, “If you do hear them, we’re not
doing our job.” Things like that have to be
explained. We had to explain to them that
certain instrumentation in certain songs
needs to be a certain way without competing with the vocals. That’s a difficult balance,
too. Mixing the show, I have to juggle what
Jon Weston wants to hear, what the director
wants to hear and what the music department wants to hear.
By BryanReesman
What’s the most fun
aspect of working on
this show?
I love the music, and I know a lot of the
cast members. I’ve worked with LaChanze,
who plays Celie, and Kingsley Leggs, who is
Mister. I worked with some of these folks in
Atlanta on the trial run.
How did the show
change from Atlanta to
New York?
The basic framework is the same, but
they added songs and changed certain
things. The scene when Mister is drunk in the
road and his son is coming after him used to
always be between the two of them, but then
they brought in Sophia and these townspeople. And “Big Dog” is a brand new song
that wasn’t in Atlanta. They also improved
the transitions because they would just fall
through the cracks. They really Broadwayized the show, meaning they took out some
of the harshness of the story; certain key lines
and key scenes that would have been a little
more harsh, like how the film was.
What do you like most
about this show?
I love the music, and I love the book,
although I love the music most. When I heard
that this was happening, I was determined
to do this show because I love Allee Willis,
Brenda Russell and Stephen Bray. I figured
with that music, I had to get in on it, and I had
worked with musical director Linda Twine before on Caroline, or Change. With all the other
shows I did, I didn’t pursue any of them. They
all came to me. But this one I had to do.
The other reason I wanted to do this was
that I knew it was a powerful story that would
really affect people. One of the great things
about mixing this show is listening to the
audience’s reaction; hearing what they think
during the show and after. The great thing
about it, too, is that I’ve been in this business for
17 years, and this is the first legitimate Broadway show I’ve done where the majority of the
audience is black. So if this is what it takes to
get black folks to come to a show, something
other than Medea’s Family Reunion, it’s great.
Things are slowly changing. Bombay
Dreams recently pulled in a large Indian audience. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more shows
like this on Broadway that cater to a broader
audience rather than another revival of a
tried-and-true show.
They’re talking about bringing The Wiz
in, with a hip-hop version of the roles. They’re
talking about doing an interracial cast for
that, even though it’s a black show. It may
work. Who knows? I’d like to see more of that,
but I’m just glad that The Color Purple has
really touched people.
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:15:22 PM
4/27/06 4:54:04 PM
4/27/06 4:54:48 PM
4/27/06 4:55:21 PM
The Anklebiters
Turn it Up!
No, Down!
No, Up! No…
A friend and I went to a concert recently to hear a very popular band. But it was
so loud that it was impossible to make
out individual voices or instruments. We
put cotton in our ears, which seemed to
help. On the break, we went to talk to the
sound guys and discovered that they all
had ear plugs in their ears!!! Hello? Get a
clue! How can you get a good sense of the
proper volume level for your audience
with plugs in your ears? Was the problem
that the sound system was bad or was it
dufus/already deaf sound people?
Donna Ramos
New Hampshire
Paul H. Overson: This really brings up a
dilemma. Was it the sound person(s), the artist or the management? What is too loud? I
recently heard a sound guy say that he hated
hearing people talk during the concert. He
told me that he would just overpower all
audience talking.
Is the protocol for a rock concert the
same as for a ballet or a symphony? Should
talking not be allowed? When do volume
levels build excitement and when do they
impact comfort levels of the audience?
Venues today are starting to impose dB
limits and enforce them with fines and/or a
total shutdown of the event. Is the problem
By BrianCassell and Paul H.Overson
with our industry for not policing itself,
or are we powerless to overcome the
artist/management because they pay us?
What do you think, Brian?
Brian Cassell: Dilemma really seems
to be the right word here, Paul. Personally, I
never wear earplugs when I mix FOH (mixing
in monitor world is another story as I use
personal monitors whenever the artist does).
I figure that if I can be comfortable with the
sound level in the room, most others can
too. Fortunately, I’ve never been forced by
an artist or management to push the sound
beyond what I thought was reasonable.
On the other side of things, I have occasionally been asked to turn things down
when the sound was traveling further than
expected. And when that happens, a polite
“no problem, officer” usually helps the situation as long as you promptly pull the mix
buss back a bit and don’t try and creep it
back up. I mean, let’s assess the differences
here: On my belt, I carry a multi-tool, a knife,
a flashlight and a two-way radio; Sergeant
Turnitdown and Deputy Itstooloud each
have most of this plus a Glock and some
handcuffs. I think we’ll comply.
Joking aside, the reality is that we as an
industry need to seriously police ourselves
before someone steps in to do it for us. If we
don’t, our jobs are going to get real difficult
real fast as we become the middlemen
between the artist’s already excessive
stage volume and the venue manager’s
insistence on maintaining some arbitrary
volume in the house. Things would be so
much simpler if we put the reigns on the dB
levels ourselves. For the health of our own
ears, as well as for the concertgoers, it’s the
right thing to do. So we must ask ourselves,
how do we accomplish this?
Paul H. Overson: I have had many occasions when the level was dictated by the
management/artist. I was told in no uncertain
terms what the level should be and then
they turned it up. I was so loud that I put in
earplugs just so I could mix. I tried to point out
that the audience was wincing and covering
their ears as well. I didn’t do me any good.
What were my options? I tried to get
the guitar player to turn down his stack
(that worked only once). I had the monitor
engineer (who worked for me) turn down
the monitors, and that helped. The monitor
engineer put guitar amps on cases so that
the sound was directly hitting the ears of the
players and the players voluntarily turned
down the volume. I have put drums in a cage
and that really helped with the extra loud
drummer. These are all tricks, and sometimes
they work and sometimes they don’t.
I have also had engineers try to overcome a bad room with excessive volume,
but the results have not been great. It really
comes down to who has the most power
(financial or executive), and that says it all.
Brian, what are your thoughts on this?
Brian Cassell: Gosh, Paul, I have to say
that I’m glad I’ve never been in quite that
situation. Sounds like the kind of client that
I wouldn’t want to do repeat work for. And
that’s saying something when it’s a struggle
for a small company to keep the gear out
of the shop and in the venue where it can
make money.
Unfortunately, money really does talk.
And maybe in this case, it’s speaking a little
too loudly. Not only do we need to protect
the hearing of those in the room, but we
need to protect our own reputations as
audio providers. On top of that, as businessmen, we have to consider the liability side.
I’d hate to see my company’s name on the
list of persons named in a liability lawsuit for
hearing damage.
Mark Amundson recently addressed
some contract issues in his Theory & Practice
column. Maybe we should add a clause to
our contracts, allowing us to set limits of
reasonable and safe acoustical levels for the
performance. It might not fly with a touring
act, but it could be a sign of “sound company,
beware!” if a client feels the need to strike
that line from the contract.
Sound Sanctuary
Small Rack, Big
I
love gadgets, buttons,
knobs, faders, attenuators,
meters and especially
anything with blue LEDs on
the front panel. What I never
did enjoy was looking at a
gaggle of wires behind the
rack or actually ever having
to move a rack full of stuff.
I understand the “need”
for the confident and knowledgeable FOH person to
have as much outboard gear
as possible. All praise the elevated audio budget! But at
Fig. 1
some point, a 6-foot rack of
processing for the fixed part
of a fixed house system (or small portable
system) just doesn’t make sense anymore.
While most of my staff and I have sat
through numerous certification training
sessions on brutally intensive DSP system
management units, I will suggest that many
average FOH tech types would do themselves a great service to borrow a laptop.
Downloading some software and installing it
is not all that difficult.
In Fig. 1, you will see that we have a really
simple three-way bi-amped main system and
four channels of stage monitors. Basic. You
will also see I could easily run out of room
drawing in all the processing possibilities!
Even in this rudimentary system, we have a
minimal nine pieces of equipment that really
never need to be adjusted once the room is
“tuned”. Averaging out typical sizes for this
gear comes down to about 18 to 20 spaces.
22
May 2006
200.0605.Ankle/SoundS.EP.indd 22
Sound
By RichardRutherford
Fig. 2
In Fig. 2, we have eliminated about 40
pounds of equipment, about 20 balanced
cables (i.e. ,120 points of connection) and
saved 10 to 12 rack spaces!
Some people call them system
controllers, some call them loudspeaker
management and some of the install pieces
do so much that it is hard to know exactly
what to call them. Regardless, it’s not just
about the rack space. In reality, we have also
provided a piece of gear typically capable
of changing all the attributes of the system
with just one button!
Imagine if you needed the same system
to do distributed sound and needed a delay
for the four speakers now being used as
stage monitors. What if you needed all those
speakers to get a mono signal? What if you
wanted to send four mixes to a postproduction point (or points) and didn’t need the
stage wedges?
Not all DSP controllers are created equal,
of course, and the most complex units can
cost thousands of dollars. However, you
really can replace a dozen pieces of equipment for a few hundred dollars if you do a
little research.
I always recommend getting a unit with
at least two more outputs than you think you
need. You will use them! Another suggestion
is to make sure you can gain access to system
presets either through a simple selector switch
or at least via an RS-232 port on your laptop. I
know some units tell you how easy they are to
navigate with the knobs, but a couple hundred
dollars for these kinds of options will develop
your faith in digital processing. Designing a
whole new system setup in just a few minutes
and clicking a mouse is way better than repatching cables. (Do they still do that?)
It’s not unusual to “program” a system
before it’s ever in place, and with a couple
minutes of tweaking, you’re done minutes
after the speakers are in place. You can even
make specific adjustments for elevation,
humidity and ambient temperatures. Try that
on your graphic equalizer!
There are also many units available
with digital I/Os, so you can grab a CAT5
cable and go direct to any number of
postproduction possibilities.
One of the best features common to
most DSP control devices is the security
code user lock-out functions. Even the
well-meaning volunteers slinking around
the rack with a Phillips-head screwdriver
looking to thwart security covers on crossovers will be repelled by the wonderful world
of digital! A world without need for security
covers on audio equipment…pinch me, I must
be in heaven!
The point is that there are too many
reasons not to step into the present decade,
donate some of that old gear and try something well worth the time, effort and money.
If you’re still confused, send me an e-mail
([email protected]) and I’ll help get
you on the digital path.
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 4:59:03 PM
4/27/06 4:56:01 PM
Photos: Steve Jennings
Production Profile
Members of Queen and Bad Company’s Paul Rogers Team Up With Clair For a “Killer” Tour
By BillEvans
R
eplacing a charismatic front man is
never an easy task, and when that
means someone with the vocal power
and range and total command of the stage
as the late Freddie Mercury, it looks impossible. Maybe it was a need to get back
onstage or maybe the band just did not
want the Broadway show We Will Rock You
to be its last hurrah. (We Will Rock You did
fairly poorly in a truncated Las Vegas run and
closed earlier this year.) Side note: Yeah, the
story line for We Will Rock You was silly—a
quasi-sci-fi tale of a world without rock
music and the rebels trying to revive it that
did a passable job of stringing together the
hits of Queen. But Mamma Mia! (a similar
kind of show featuring the music of ABBA) is
at least as silly, the music is not as cool and it
remains a hit, running concurrent shows in
London, Melbourne, New York and Las Vegas,
and selling out seven years after its initial
opening. Go figure.
Guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger
Taylor teamed up for the better part of the
past year with Bad Company vocalist Paul
Rogers for a tour that did good business
both in the States and Japan. Tour audio was
handled by Clair Brothers under the direction
of system engineer/crew chief Bob Weibel,
whose biggest hurdle of the day was the
carpet on the floor of the MGM Grand Arena
in Las Vegas. “It helps the room sound better,
but it’s murder to roll cases in. And this is a
rolling stage, so they had their hands full. But
hey, at least there is no ice,” he quipped.
According to Weibel, the tour is a pretty
straightforward rock show without a lot of
high-tech bells and whistles. “The most notable thing is that we are using six per side of
the newer Prism II subs, and we also have the
new FF-2 front fills,” noted Weibel, explaining
that the Prism II was really developed for rap
shows and that they were being used on the
Queen tour. “They are dual 18s in a bandpass resonant chamber. They are a relatively
narrow bandpass. I don’t think they even go
above 80Hz,” he said.
“We’re manipulating them with delay
somewhat to control that classic phase issue.
You can’t make that classic center peak and
the surrounding nulls go away, but you can
moderate it somewhat.”
Clair Brothers Crew
HE: James “Trip” Khalaf
MME: Graham Blake (Indy)
SE/CC: Bob Weibel
Stage Engineer: Patrick Murphy
Stage Technician: Ryan Lawless
System Technician: Anthony Rossi
Touring Arena System
44 x CBA i-4 curved array system
36 x CBA i-4b bass supplements
8 x CBA FF-2 Front fill
12 x Prism II sub-lows
Midas XL4 house console
Midas H3000 monitor console
Monitor system: CBA 12am, 12am-II,
2x15 wedges, and HL15 w/Martin bins
side fills
FOH EFx: Summit DCL200, Eventide
H3500 Lexicon 480xl, Yamaha SPX990,
dbx 160xl, Cranesong STC8
Drive system: Clair/Lake I/O system
System Engineer-Crew Chief Bob Weibel with Clair Prism II subs and FF-2 front fills
24
May 2006
200.0605.ProdProfile.BK.indd 24
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:25:21 PM
The Biz
Stepping Out Of The Shadows
However, the era of the Wizard of Oz,
where the engineer works behind the
curtain and the P.A. brand takes at least perceptual credit for the speaker, is coming to
an end, Rose agrees. And that’s a good thing
for all involved. “When the brand is strong for
the speaker, we feel it adds credibility for the
enclosure maker,” he says.
That’s led to Eminence instigating a
worldwide brand-awareness campaign,
Eminence is emblematic of the
type of business that making
speakers was when Shanghai
was an exotic travel poster
instead of an FOB destination.
vision set, but they make the technology that
makes it brighter; Boeing takes 30 seconds
next to a Budweiser commercial during a
football game to extol their aircraft despite
the fact that most viewers aren’t currently in
the market for a $30-million 737.
OEM speaker manufacturers are getting
on that same boat. “The speaker manufacturers are being more assertive about increasing their brand awareness,” says Jack Kelly,
president of Group One Ltd., which distributes the UK-based Celestion brand in the U.S.
Kelly adds that Group One made a strong
effort to build brand awareness for Celestion to stimulate demand for Celestion OEM
speakers in the P.A. market. (Celestion has
long been a major supplier to guitar amplifier manufacturers.)
At a time when the industry is
contending with decreasing revenues and
margins as lower-cost suppliers enter the
market, and as actual manufacturing by established brands moves offshore to compete,
creating a recognizable brand image acts as
a hedge against price erosion by creating an
image that reflects the use of higher-quality
materials.
Eminence, a speaker manufacturer
named after the town it’s headquartered in
in Kentucky, has been a longtime supplier of
OEM speaker products to companies including Fender, EAW and Community. Chris Rose,
the company’s marketing manager, says Eminence considers itself a link in a chain that
extends from the components suppliers who
punch out speaker baskets to the manufacturers of the enclosures, with Eminence
and the handful of other established OEMs,
including RCF, 18 Sound and B&C, as a nexus
in the market. “There’s a whole chain out
there that results in a good speaker being
matched to a good enclosure—that’s where
the magic comes from,” he says.
to Costco and Wal-Mart now, in products
that would never have been on our map a
decade ago,” he says. “Overseas manufacturing is part of what it takes to grow that, and
developing the brand name is what you
have to do to differentiate yourself and
your product from the larger flow of products that come out of this bigger range of
OEM manufacturers.”
OEMs may face global competition
now, and the estimated single-digit growth
of the professional speaker sector means
a lot of company growth will come from
taking existing market share. However,
there is a new and expanding niche in the
market: boutique P.A. system developers
that constantly need leading-edge speaker
designs and refinements. Relatively new
companies, such as EM Acoustics and
something that Rose acknowledges wasn’t
part of the corporate strategy until relatively
recently. Six years ago, Eminence began affixing its own label to its OEM speakers. And
China, the elephant in pro audio’s parlor, was
a major factor in the decision. “A lot of this
coincides with so much of the manufacturing moving to China,” he says. “The need to
market the brand is probably the most dynamic change in the OEM speaker business
in the last few decades.”
That’s not a glib comment, either for
Rose or for the sector as a whole. Like
much of pro audio in the 20th century,
speaker manufacturing was as much a guildlike craft as an industry. A relatively small
group of companies manufactured products
and components for an equally familial
collection of OEM companies and distributors. That bucolic landscape was largely
ripped apart during the last decade, as
anyone in the music recording business can
attest to. A few pockets of pastoral quiet
remained, but were soon caught up in the
globalization of manufacturing. Speaker
makers were among them.
Eminence, a city of about 3,500 people, is
located between Louisville and Frankfort, in
the Bluegrass region the state takes its motto
from. It’s emblematic of the type of business
that making speakers was when Shanghai
was an exotic travel poster instead of an
FOB destination. The father of company
president Rob Gault founded the company
there in 1966. Rose says there’s still a tremendous sense of obligation felt towards the
community from which Eminence, the
speaker company, has drawn its workforce
for 40 years. Eminence has a factory in China
now, and Rose sees it as a necessary and
positive move—one that seeks to grow his
business, not undercut domestic manufacturing. “Our customers are selling speakers
www.fohonline.com
200.0605.TheBiz.BK.indd 25
Danley Sound Labs, are becoming growth
opportunities for OEM speaker suppliers.
The nature of the high-end, highly customized products they seek is also a hedge
against Asian competition.
Another area of opportunity is audio
companies entering the transducer arena,
such as QSC’s venture into powered speakers. Andy Farrow, U.S. sales manager for
Celestion, which supplies some of QSC’s
speakers, says these new avenues of demand
are proliferating. “We’re coming across them
on a weekly basis,” he said on his return from
what he described as a particularly robust
NSCA show in March.
OEM speaker makers will find more
opportunities like these in coming years.
They’ll have to, as the sector becomes more
globally dynamic.
W
hen you hear that infectious fournote audio signature on television,
you know without even consciously
realizing it that there’s “Intel inside.” The makers of components of larger systems, who
have tended to labor anonymously in years
past, are waking up the need to market their
own brands. It’s a worldwide phenomenon
that transcends market sectors: Siemens
informs you that they may not make the tele-
By DanDaley
May 2006
25
4/27/06 5:26:30 PM
Product Gallery
Powered Subs
By BillEvans
I
have often thought of subwoofers as the
audio equivalent of whatever it was that
inspired Scottie to howl at Capt. Kirk, “I
need more power, Captain!”
Big subs need to move big air, and that
takes big power. The usual result was a rack
of amps dedicated to the subs and the one
piece of gear so heavy and unwieldy that no
one wanted to touch at the end of the night.
But then, along came the powered sub
with the driver and the power and often
crossover and other processing all in one
box. Still heavy, but easier to deal with on a
number of levels.
First, the driver and the power are made
to work together. So you don’t really need
to worry about things like total power
output on the amp and what the efficiency
of the driver will do to your final SPL. With a
powered sub, you just worry about SPL and
how it sounds. Oh, and power draw—don’t
want to be tripping breakers in the middle
of a show.
There are many in the sound tribe who dislike the idea of powered speakers because if an
amp goes, it is one thing to deal with it in a rack
on the ground, and another to try to get to an
amp that is flown in the speaker cab. But with
subs, which are more often on the ground, that
may be a moot point in a lot of cases.
Regardless, if you are open to the idea
of power and driver in the same box, there
are some very nice choices out there in a
wide range of prices. Here’s a look at some of
them…
JBL VPSB7118DPAN
Model
Price
Physical Dimensions
(H x W x D)
Weight
www.crestaudio.com
LQ 15PSW
$1,599.99
24.50" x 21" x 27"
112 lbs
Bag End Loudspeakers
www.bagend.com
P-Quartz-R
$5,750
40" x 31" x 31"
240 lbs
Danley Sound Labs, Inc.
www.danleysoundlabs.com
DTS-20
$4,667
88" x 18" x 20"
205 lbs
Company
E-mail
Crest Performance
DAS Audio Of America
www.dasaudio.com
TH-115P
$3,925
40" x 22" x 28"
150 lbs
Compact 218Sub 2000
$5,363
40" x 27" x 32.5"
205 lbs
A
$5,363
40" x 27" x 32.5"
205 lbs
40" x 27" x 32.5"
235 lbs
AERO 182A 2000
Dynacord
$3,150 MSRP
19.9” x 31.7” x 27.5”
54 kg
D-Lite PowerSub 315
$3,300 MSRP
18.3” x 23.7” x 26”
42 kg
NTS22
$4,658 MSRP
17.6" x 25.9" x 30.2"
98 lbs
1
www.dynacord.com
EAW
www.eaw.com
Electro-Voice
www.electrovoice.com
FBT
www.fbtusa.com
ISP Technologies
JBL Professional
www.isptechnologies.com
www.jblpro.com
L-ACOUSTICS
www.l-acoustics-us.com
Mackie
www.mackie.com
Meyer Sound Laboratories
www.peavey.com
Renkus-Heinz
www.renkus-heinz.com
WorxAudio Technologies, Inc.
www.worxaudio.com
Yamaha Corporation of America www.yamahaca.com
May 2006
200.0605.ProdGal.JH.indd 26
SbA760
List $1,690, MAP $1,430
23.7" x 16.9" x 26.2"
94.7 lbs
Plasma P2
List $3,090, MAP $2,590
35.8" x 18.8" x 23.6"
140 lbs
PSR 118sa
$3,200
29.53" x 20.75" x 29.35"
150 lbs
FBT Maxx 10sa
$1,679 MSRP
24.8" x 19" x 25.2"
90 lbs
XMAX 212
$3,999
42.5" x 24" x 45"
225 lbs
XMAX218
$3,800 Retail
22.5" x 48" x 30"
230 lbs
VPSB7118DPAN
$5,917 MSRP
20.25" x 27.63" x 32"
75 lbs
VT4882DP
$5,978
18" x 39.9" x 39.8"
154 lbs (70kg)
VT4881ADP
$4,649
22.4" x 31" x 31.5"
137 lbs (62 kg)
SB15P
TBD
17.5" x 20.5" x 20.5"
80 lbs
SWA 1501
MSRP $1,259.99
23.5" x 17.2" x 23.7"
88 lbs
SWA 1801
MSRP $1,699.99
28.5" x 23.5" x 23.5"
132 lbs
700-HP
$7,560 (w/o optional
rigging)
22.5" x 45.93" x 30"
(w/o rigging)
204 lbs
(w/o rigging)
600-HP
$6,090 (w/o optional
rigging)
22.5" x 41.4" x 22"
(w/o optional rigging)
182 lbs (w/o
optional rigging)
Impulse 115P
$1,549.99
24.375" x 21.125" x 27"
106 lbs
www.meyersound.com
Peavey
26
Madras M 18
D
DR18-2
$4,675 pro net
24" x 48" x 24"
204 lbs
PN212-SUB
$2,340 pro net
14.5" x 32" x 23.25"
113 lbs
TL.118SS-PMD-2
$5,780
22.5" x 28" x 30"
176 lbs
TL.215S-PMD-2
$5,100
18" x 28" x 30"
187 lbs
TL.218SS-PMD2
$7,400
22.5" x 48" x 30"
285 lbs
MSR800W
$1,099
23.625" x 20.625" x 23.25"
99.1 lbs
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:15:55 PM
1x
)
DAS Audio AERO 182A 2000
Worx TL.218SS-PMD2
Peavey Impulse 115P
Driver Size & Numbers
Max SPL Free
Space, continuous
@ 1 meter
Flyable?
Internal Crossover for
Passthrough to Mid-High
Boxes?
Flat to What Frequencies?
Power Requirements
15" cast-aluminum-frame
transducer
128 dB
No
Yes
45Hz - 120Hz
120 VAC
4 x 18" EL-18A drivers
131 dB, SPL @ 45
Hertz
Yes
No
± 3 dB from 8Hz to 80Hz
88 to 270 VAC auto sensing
1 x 12" woofer
125 dB SPL
No
No
15Hz - 150 Hz ± 3 dB
1 x 15" woofer
132 dB SPL
Yes
No
36Hz - 200 Hz ± 3 dB
2 x 18" 4" voice coils
143 dB
Yes
Yes
40 - 140Hz
115V 50Hz/60Hz
143 dB
Yes
Yes
40 - 140Hz
115V 50Hz/60Hz
140 dB
Yes
Yes
28 - 85Hz
115V 50Hz/60Hz
35Hz - 145Hz
Locking PowerCon mains
connector with Edison plug
- 4 amps
1 x EVX 180B
130 dB
No
Integral 124Hz, 24 dB L.R.
lo-pass filter for use w/ Madras
M 15 or M212 tops
1 x Electro-Voice DVX 3150
129 dB
No
Adjustable x-over points of
80Hz, 100Hz and 160Hz
32Hz - 160Hz (-10 dB),
37Hz - 128Hz (-3 dB)
Locking PowerCon mains
connector with Edison plug
- 4 amps
2 x 12" woofers
132 dB
Yes
Fixed low pass frequency; high
pass frequency is switched for
NT full range system
-34Hz - 135 Hz
115 VAC
15" EVS-15FR
128 dB
No
N/A
42Hz - 150Hz @ -10 dB / 55Hz-150Hz @ -3 dB
120V
18" EVX-180B
132 dB
No
100Hz
40 Hz - 100Hz @ -3 dB / 30Hz - 110Hz @-10 dB
120V
1 x 18" w/ 4" dual coil
130 dB
Yes
Yes, 100Hz
35 - 100Hz
10 amps
15" w/3" dual coil
129.5 dB
Yes
Yes, Stereo L&R
36 - 120Hz
6 amps
2 x 12"
136 dB
No
24 dB/octave stereo
35Hz - 3 dB to 100Hz -6 dB 24 dB/octave xover
120VAC 9 mps typical
2 x 18"
137 dB peak
No
Yes, stereo 24 dB/octave
32Hz - 3 dB to 100Hz -6 dB 24 dB/octave crossover
120VAC 16 amps typical
1 x 18"
129 dB SPL 1m
Yes
80Hz/125Hz (DSP)
39Hz - 145Hz (± 3 dB)
6A @ 120V/3A @ 240V
100-120VAC/200-240VAC
Auto range
2 x 15"
133 dB
Yes
No
32Hz - 110Hz,
28Hz - 120Hz
1 x 18"
130 dB SPL
Yes
No
34Hz - 125Hz, 25Hz - 160Hz
100-120VAC, 200-240VAC
Auto Select
1 x 15"
131 dB
No
45Hz - 100Hz
115 VAC
1 x 15" woofer
128 dB
No
120Hz
-3 dB (47Hz-120Hz) -10 dB (36Hz-120Hz)
120 VAC
1 x 18" woofer
135 dB
No
120Hz
-3 dB (45Hz-120Hz) - 10 dB (35Hz-120Hz)
120 VAC
8.8 A rms max long-term
continuous@115V
2 x 18" cone drivers
139 dB max peak
Yes
No
30Hz - 150Hz (± 4 dB),
28 - 175Hz (± 10 dB)
2 x 15" cone drivers
138 dB max peak
output
Yes
No
39Hz - 130Hz ±4 dB,
36Hz - 150Hz ±10 dB
8.8 A rms max long-term
continuous@115V
15" Low Rider
128 dB
No
Yes
45Hz - 120Hz
120 VAC
2 x 18"
135 dB
No
No
32Hz - 120Hz
115 VAC or 230 VAC
2 x 12"
129 dB
No
No
40Hz - 120Hz
115 VAC, 230 VAC
1 x 18"
124 dB/1m@26Hz
Yes
No
(26Hz - 150Hz 3 dB) (19Hz - 150Hz -10 dB)
4 amps
2 x 15"
134 dB 1W/1m
Yes
No
(41Hz - 220Hz -3dB) (34Hz - 220Hz -10 dB)
8 amps
2 x 18"
129 dB/1m@26Hz
Yes
No
(25Hz - 150Hz 3 dB) (17Hz-150 -10 dB)
8 amps
1 x 15" Cone
122 dB 1 watt,
1 meter
No
Yes
40 - 120Hz
120V 60Hz
www.fohonline.com
200.0605.ProdGal.JH.indd 27
May 2006
27
4/27/06 5:16:17 PM
Product Profile
Midas XL8
By JamieRio
“D
igital Goes Midas.” No, I didn’t
coin this phrase (nor did I have
anything to do with the Matrixlike magazine ad). The phrase is the promotional tag Midas (Telex, Klark Teknik) hung
on their new digital mixing console. I would
have said “Midas puts the analog in digital.”
However, I am not an ad guy; I am simply a
writer for FOH who found himself an invited
guest of the Midas folks to witness the unveiling of XL8 digital desk.
The press pre-unveiling took place at
the enormous Musikmesse show in Frankfurt, Germany, on March 29. (In the interest
of full disclosure, FOH, like a number of other
U.S.-based publications, had not planned on
sending anyone to MusikMesse. FOH readers
should know that Telex, the parent corporation
of Midas as well as EV, Klark Teknik and others,
saw the XL8 introduction as important enough
that they paid airfare for some journalists,
including FOH’s Jamie Rio. While Jamie was
able to cover some other gear at the show,
the Midas launch was over two days at three
hours per day. There is a lot here to write about.
We will get more from Jamie on other aspects
of the Messe show in next month’s FOH. –Ed.)
This special launch was chock-full of info. So
much so that after two hours I was nearly in
a coma—in a good way. The following will
hopefully explain why Midas hopes to take
this new console to the front of the class.
Failure Is Not
An Option
The very first thing that the Midas reps
let us know was that throughout the three
years of R&D and the $10 million it took
to get this console up and running, their
primary concern was reliability. Only time in
the field will tell that story, but there does
appear to be a high degree of redundancy in
this system. That word “system” is an important distinction between digital and analog
consoles. When you purchase a Midas XL8, in
addition to the control surface, you get four
24-input digital stage boxes with splits and
a separate set of 24 independent balanced
outs for broadcast or recording. You also get
DSP boxes and I/O boxes and an outboard
28
May 2006
200.0605.ProductProfile.BK.indd 28
moving fader EQ. Also, the XL8 is able to
control other computers via its touchscreens,
keyboard and mouse. For instance, if the
system is set up as an install, you can view
and control the house HVAC system through
the desk. No, really.
But before I get off on a tangent, let me
get back to the reliability aspect of the XL8.
The control surface has five multipleredundant power supplies. The stage boxes
sport dual integral power supplies. Midas
decided to use the open-source Linux operating system as the foundation of the system
and all master controls are duplicated. As a
matter of fact, you could run the stage boxes
via a laptop if the desk went down completely (also possible with a number of other digital mixing systems). Midas will also offer 24/7
global telephone support via service centers
located in Minneapolis, Kidderminster (Midas
HQ in the UK) and Singapore.
The use of Linux is important, but it is
not the only way in which Midas opted to go
with an integrated open architecture. Rather
than inventing their own protocol, they
leased Sony’s AES50 digital audio distribution. With calls for the standardization in
systems for the control and distribution of
digital audio getting louder all the time, this
is a potentially huge move, one that opens
Midas up to the rest of the world. Using the
Sony protocol, the XL8 can run up to 100
meters of dual redundant (there’s that word)
connectivity between hardware elements
using CAT5 cable and up to 500 meters using
optical fiber. The system incorporates an
automatic integral delay management system which Midas says eliminates the comb
filtering problems associated with latency.
(For you analog guys, this is the time delay
inherent in all digital devices that is added
because of the conversion form analog to
digital and back.) We’ll have to wait to really
see it in action to confirm that.
Still on the open architecture tip, Ethernet TCP-IP & USB tunneling are used for
third-party add-ons, and keyboard-, videoand mouse-switching are on the control surface. Basically, Midas is using tried-and-true
technologies from the computer world for
the connectivity and communication. Which
just freed up more time and money to work
on the desk itself.
Knobs, Buttons
and Faders
Now that I have given you all this
background infrastructure information, how
about we look at the control surface? The
desk looks very analog except for the daylight-viewable display screens. Three banks
of eight each make up the input channels
and those banks go four layers deep. The
“top” channels are each fully displayed on
the input screen. Three Midas mic pre amps
are present at each input channel along
with a line input for 96 total inputs, and each
input channel has a very analog feel. The
input gain is where you would expect it, the
aux and pan controls are where they should
be, and the look and feel is very Midas. Hardware is dedicated, meaning that knobs don’t
change function: The gain knob is a gain
knob, etc., and nothing else. Next to each
bank of eight input channels is the EQ, compression, effects, aux sends and “anything
else I forgot” strip. This control strip is also
very analog and very Midas. You do not have
to travel through layers of digital pages with
this desk. Basically, you turn a knob or touch
a button and you see what it is supposed to
do. The color-coding of control groupings
allows you to work without having to read.
For example, I can set the drums up as red
buttons, the vocals as blue, the lead vocal as
green, guitars as orange, etc.
Like with other digital desks, there is no
need for board tape. Individual channels can
be named via the main channel button and
the process is painless. There is actually a
pulldown menu with a variety of instrument
names or you can type in the individual
instrument. The desk is also perfectly set up
for dual operators. I can have eight drum
inputs on the left side of the control surface
and send it to my partner on the right side
or vice versa using any combination of input
channels. This is a handy feature and can free
up one engineer for a specific task while the
other engineer is working on a completely
different piece of the mix without moving
(L to R) Matt Larson, U.S. sales manager for Midas/KT; Big Mick;
Alex Cooper, director of console engineering for Midas;
Richard Ferriday, brand development manager for Midas/KT.
their assigned locations.
The master section of the console has
the “all meters, all the time” screen. That’s
pretty self-explanatory, letting you see every
input channel. Of course, there is a screen for
all processors, whether it is EQ, compression,
gates, limiters or effects processors. Everything is onboard and visually accessible. All
in all, there are five daylight-visible screens at
the front of the desk. Of course, full capability
theatre-style scene automation is onboard,
along with snapshot scene automation and
cross-scene global edit capability.
The fact of the matter, folks, is that I am
only scratching the surface of this digital system. But the most important thing is I can tell
you that with all it has to offer it is very easy
to operate. Midas U.S. sales manager Matt
Larson took a little extra time with me after
the initial introduction and went over the
operation of the desk. About 15 minutes into
this second demo, I had a pretty clear idea of
how things worked. Not because I am some
kind of genius, but because the console is
very analog in operation.
Midas had the system set up in its
own outdoor tent at the Messe show. The
sound was great, but to tell you the truth, I
could not tell if it had that “Midas sound.” I
own a Midas, and I have to be at the board
personally to hear and feel that tonality. I
think Midas has developed an exceptional
product. On the one hand, Midas knows that
they will automatically sell a certain amount
of these units. Large sound companies will
almost certainly have to have at least one of
these systems in their arsenal. The question
is how well Midas will sell outside of their
already predetermined customer base. They
certainly have spent the time and money
on this project. There is no doubt that the
console looks and feels like the best of Midas.
Only time will tell.
www.fohonline.com
4/28/06 3:35:14 PM
4/27/06 4:56:33 PM
u
p
n
J m i g
Off the Road
Ross Hogarth
By David John Farinella
T
here are those magical moments in
the recording studio when musicians
give birth to a song, yet it is when those
same musicians play that song in front of
an audience that it comes to life. Live sound
mixers are in a unique position to watch
as audiences and musicians respond to
each other. Likewise, these Front of House
engineers have to respond almost instantly
to problems that arise, which can run the
gamut from faulty gear to failing instruments
to singers who might need a bit of technical
assistance to hit all the appropriate notes.
For many active producers working these
days, including Ryan Greene, Don Gehman,
Ross Hogarth and Mark Howard, this was the
perfect training ground for the stresses and
joys of the studio environment.
Although Greene had been working as
a staff engineer in Los Angeles, he says he
learned some valuable lessons during his
live-sound gigs around town. “When you’re
doing live sound, you really learn frequencies,” he explains. “If something is ringing in
the system, you don’t have a lot of time; you
have to know.” He and other members of
the live sound crew would play a game as
the band was sound checking, called “Name
That Frequency,” where they would try to
guess what frequency was being altered by
another engineer. “It was stupid, but I really
learned a lot. It was almost ear-training in a
weird sort of way.”
In addition to the sonic challenges that
live mixing affords, according to Mark Howard, working in that environment also gives
you a head start when it comes to tackling
technical problems in the studio. “In the live
world, you show up, you’ve got a P.A. and you
set it up. ‘Why doesn’t this work? The show
is going to start in 10 minutes...’ It’s all about
fast thinking and knowing and troubleshooting, and I think that kind of technical
thinking works in the studio, because you
plug in and if it doesn’t work then you’ve got
to think. A lot of studio guys don’t have that
kind of training—they kind of work at their
pace and it’s slow,” he says. “For me, every
time I go to record, it’s like you’re onstage,
and that’s the opening of the show and you
better have your fader up and you better
30
May 2006
200.0605.Producers.JH.indd 30
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:18:17 PM
Christine McVie’s Band
In the live world... It’s all about fast
thinking and knowing and troubleshooting, and I think that kind of
technical thinking works in the studio.
Ross Hogarth
have your level when that guy starts to sing.
You can’t mess it up or there can’t be no signal, because that might have been your take.
“You have a small window of opportunity
to get performances out of people,” he adds.
“I steal performances out of people, because
if you don’t get them and you start to labor,
then you’re not going to get that soul. I rely on
that kind of stuff for vocals. If I looked at the
percentage of all vocals or overdubs, I think a
lot of the great stuff comes from that very first
time through. They are thinking, ‘Okay, this is
my first pass.’ They’ll try a bunch of stuff and
you’ll get an amazing take, but once they start
to refine it they lose a lot of the character.”
For example, Howard points to the guitar
tracking sessions with Marc Ribot on Tom
Waits’ 2004 album Real Gone. “He’s an amazing guitar player,” Howard reports. “The guy
is phenomenal. The first pass, the guy just
plays a bunch of crazy stuff and it’s wild, but
once he starts to refine it he loses that. It’s
perfect and it’s amazing, but the excitement
of it is kind of tamed. So, that’s what happens;
the more you sing the song, the more you refine it. For some things, that’s great, but when
you are going for performances and you
want attitude and you want all that stuff, it’s
going to happen in one, two or three takes.”
Ross Hogarth moved from the road to
the studio while he was working with guitarist David Lindley as a guitar tech. “David
was working on a solo album, and Jackson
Browne, who he had been with for years and
years, was producing it. Jackson’s engineer
was working on the stuff and then they had
something else to do, so David was basically
left with me and an assistant who was more
trained than me, but I was more trained than
David, so I was plopped into the chair to basically run the tape machine,” Hogarth recalls.
“It was a very strange position, but it was a
lot of fun and very exciting. I hadn’t yet made
the total transition and I was still sort of
considered a road guy, so I went out of town
and did some more gigs. Then, I got a gig
with Don Gehman on a record that he was
producing with a guitar player (Who Am I? by
Todd Sharp) that I had worked on the road
tuning. It was a great place to be, you know;
it’s where I wanted to be.”
Gehman had a special affinity for
Hogarth’s position, because he had gone
from working on the road with Stephen Stills
as a live-sound mixer to the studio.“I was
really burned out on this 301-nighters-a-year
schedule,” Gehman recalls.“Stephen saw that
my heart was really into music and not so
much in this travel thing, and he offered me
an opportunity to help finish a record that he
was working on at the time (the 1975 release
Stills). So, I did it, and he thought I was good
and had the right personality, and he set me
up at a place called Criteria Recording Studios
in Miami, which at the time was like Atlantic
South—Tom Dowd, Jerry Wexler and Arif
Mardin were all there. The Bee Gees came in.
The Eagles. It was just a great place to be for
most of the ‘70s, and it was where I kind of cut
my teeth on how to produce records.”
Not only did working at Criteria give
Gehman an understanding of how to work
in a studio versus the road, it put him at the
right place at the right time. John Mellencamp, who was then working under the
stage name John Cougar, had been brought
to Criteria to work with the legendary
producer Tom Dowd, but Dowd was busy
with a Rod Stewart project. “Tom thought
that maybe the Albert Brothers (Howard
and Ron), who were another set of producers
there, might do well with him,” Gehman
says. “So, they made a record with Mellencamp where I did most of the work, and
out of that situation, John came back to me
to co-produce records with him. That’s really
www.fohonline.com
200.0605.Producers.JH.indd 31
where people began to really know me
as a record producer.” The first GehmanMellencamp production was the 1982
offering American Fool, an album that featured the break-out songs “Hurts So Good”
and “Jack and Diane.”
This was excerpted from Producing Hit
Records: Secrets from the Studio by longtime
FOH contributor David John Farinella. More
information on the book can be found at
May 2006
31
4/28/06 3:32:21 PM
On the Bleeding Edge
Voice
of a New Generation
B
ack in my days as a long-haired metalhead, I played drums and sang backing
vocals for a band called Dagger. Love
us or hate us, we were competent musicians who took pride in our ability to play
and sing. The most widespread comment I
received after a show was, “Who’s playing the
background vocal samples?” Interestingly,
there wasn’t anyone with a sampler or a tape
machine hiding behind the curtain: We were
simply singing backup vocals. I vividly remember spending countless nights rehearsing nothing but harmonies until we’d get
them right. We wanted to sound like our CD.
Nowadays, audiences expect a band to
sound like the record. Is it because they are
more discriminating than they used to be,
or is it simply a sense of entitlement that
32
May 2006
200.0605.BleedEdge.JH.indd 32
their favorite band should sound “just like
the CD”? Could it be a lack of appreciation
for how much work it takes for a live band
so numb to lip-syncing that they don’t know
the difference between live and Memorex?
It may be a combination of all of the
You’d be surprised at the number of
lead singers who are “auto-tuned”
on-the-fly at the FOH console.
to sound the same onstage as they do in the
studio? Or is it that audiences have become
above, but the net result is the same:
Competition is fierce, and that may be the
reason many acts have resorted to integrating studio vocal-processing technology into
their live shows. Some of that technology
includes fixing out-of-tune vocals and vocalists handling their own effects on stage. Let’s
look at these one at a time.
Pitch-accuracy of vocals is a topic near
and dear to my heart. I have zero patience for
artists who can’t sing in the studio, and less
than zero for artists who can’t sing live. Of
course, the familiar model of tuning vocals is
our audio-vision of a sub-par singer soaring to new heights, bolstered by the latest
pitch correction technology from TC-Helicon,
DigiTech or Antares. You’d be surprised at the
number of lead singers who are “auto-tuned”
on-the-fly at the FOH console, and we’re
starting to see pitch correction applied to
backing singers as well.
Many people feel this is cheating, and to
some extent, I agree with them. When was
the last time you saw a drummer who was
being time-corrected? (On second thought,
don’t answer that. I see plenty of drummers playing along with a click onstage). It’s
almost like the steroid problem in baseball:
If everyone is doing it, how can you possibly
remaining competitive while abstaining?
Some of these vocal processors include
the ability to modify the “character” of the
voice, adding parameters that control the
size of one’s chest cavity (no wisecracks
please), add vibrato where there was none,
or make your next door neighbor sound like
Mickey Mouse. Which one of these knobs
makes me sound like Frank Sinatra?
The interesting thing is that using pitch
correction on a voice doesn’t have to be
audible in the Front of House mix to be
effective. What, you say? According to Kevin
Alexander at TC-Helicon, “When a person
learns to sing, one of the things they listen
for to determine if they are in tune, is the
beating between their own voice and the
people they are singing (or playing) with.
This lets them know when they are flat or
sharp. If their own pitch-corrected voice is
sent into the monitors as a reference, they’ll
hear beating between the corrected voice
and their natural voice, and naturally adjust
their pitch until the beating goes away—at
By SteveLaCerra
which point, they are in tune.”
So, feed your pitch-corrected signal into
your lead vocalist’s monitor mix, and quite
soon, they will learn to sing on key. Fascinating. There are a plethora of tools available
for the job. Hardware boxes manufactured
by TC-Helicon (VoiceLive, VoicePro), Antares
(ATR-1a, AVP) and Eventide (H8000FW) can
fix pitch in real time. If that doesn’t float your
boat, Manifold Labs’ Plugzilla is a hardware
box that will run your favorite standard VST
plug-ins without a computer, making it a
breeze to use software in live situations.
Employing any of these tools, you can elect
to either fix a singer’s pitch in the FOH mix, or
send the fixed voice to their monitors and let
them figure it out themselves.
Stomp Boxes for
Singers
The flip (and much more fun) side of
the vocal-processing coin is the trend for
lead singers to control their own effects on
stage. Guitar players have been aggravating
sound engineers with this for years and now
vocalists are in on it, too. Singers want to
hear Front of House effect cues in the monitors, which is difficult in club situations or
tours where the band is not traveling with a
monitor engineer. From the sound engineer’s
standpoint, there are important questions to
be raised when the mic is routed through a
vocal effects device: Where does this thing
patch in, at the stage or the FOH console?
Is the output mic or line level? Is the output
sufficiently quiet? Do I have to worry about
ground issues? Will the vocal still be intelligible when the singer initiates the “chipmunk”
patch? Most importantly: Does the singer
know how to use it, and have the patches
been set for the same output level?”
The answers depend upon the device.
In the case of the DigiTech Vx400, there are
balanced XLR outs on the back panel carrying the processed output at line level, but
their Vocal 300 provides mic level out. That
brings up the next question: Do I need to
add any additional processing? In the case of
the Vx400, the answer is “probably not.” The
latter is capable of EQ, compression, chorus,
flange, phase, pitch and reverb. Just when you
thought you were off the hook for cueing effects, there’s preproduction coming your way.
In the way that guitar processing or modeling
can change the output level of a guitar rig,
variations in vocal presets can change the
output level of the lead vocal. This is unacceptable and must be dealt with in advance—
especially where the vocal sound includes
a distortion component. Maybe that’s not a
bad thing…maybe it’s billable hours spent at
rehearsals to work out the vocal patches.
In addition to being the Front of House engineer and tour manager for Blue Öyster Cult, Steve
“Woody” La Cerra teaches aspiring audio minds
at Mercy College in White Plains, N.Y. He can be
reached via email at [email protected].
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:00:28 PM
Large
By LarryHall
B
eing in this biz for only 10 years, I guess
it’s safe to say that I am a baby. All of
the biggest houses in the biz have
been around for an average of 30-plus years,
and a recent FOH poll revealed that a very
small percentage of sound hire companies’
owners are under the age of 40. I just celebrated my 38th birthday.
Three times in the 10 years HAS
Productions has been around, it’s lack of
longevity in this biz has been questioned
by a visiting FOH guy, all really big shows.
In this biz, stakes are high and there are
no second chances, so as crushing to my
ego as it is, I understand their perspectives.
With it only coming up three times, I guess
I should feel fortunate.
The Short Versions
A very good friend of mine who was (and
continues to be) a well-respected promoter
gave me plenty of gigs for the “anklebiter”
level I worked in at the time. In fact, as I have
grown, he has continued to give me bigger
and better gigs.
About nine years ago, a new large venue
opened up where my friend was put in charge
of all production and booking of the acts. I,
of course, called on him with the expectation
of handling all of the shows. He informed me
that I was not able to handle acts of the size
he was booking. I argued that gear was easy
to sub rent, and then, he said it:“You are not
experienced enough to deal with these acts.”
I was crushed! I went to the venue for one of
the first big shows, and Toby Keith was the act.
Not as big as he is now, but big enough. After
seeing the big production rental for the show,
I thanked my friend for saving both of us a lot
of grief. He was right; I was not ready.
However, after 10 years (9½ years after
the Toby thing), HAS Productions has come a
long way. We have hired some very seasoned
staff members and have a few younger guys
who still actually love every part of a gig,
even the crappy ones. Today, I am confident
that we could handle the gig.
The second incident came six years ago.
We had taken over a venue from a larger
competitor. During NFR (National Finals
Rodeo, a huge week-long event in Las Vegas),
they would book a lot of country.
I received a rider for a pretty big rodeo
act. Looked the rider over and realized we
had almost all of the gear required. I eagerly
called the production manager to advance
the show. The first words out of his mouth
were, “You’re who? With who? I assumed the
‘big’ guy was doing the gig.”
My heart sank. I started telling him that we
did these kinds of shows all the time and I had
the gear he was asking for.“On your rider, you
want KF 850s. Cool—that’s what we have.”
His response was, “Uh, don’t you have this
other box, or what”? I said the 850 was the
only box on his rider.
Next, I said, “Well, you want SM 222
wedges, I have those too.”
“I want something smaller,” he shot back.
This went back and forth for a while and I
ended up asking him, “Well, do you want anything that is actually on your rider?”
Through Being Small
Fast-forward a bit. The venue, of course,
booked the act for the entire week. From loadin to load-out, he treated us like crap. We did
everything right. Well, maybe if I had brought
him a bottle of aspirin every day to deal with
his hangover we would have gotten along
better. Oh, did I mention he was a smoker who
dumped ashes in our console every night? It
it was surprisingly easy to put together a
bid and submit it to the buyer. A few weeks
passed and the buyer called to tell me we
were the middle bid and we had the job.
My crew chief/shop manager called the
“heavyweight” FOH guy to advance the show.
The guy freaked out, telling my guy that none
of the gear we were offering would do, and
The guy freaked out, telling my guy
that none of the gear we were offering
would do, and what were we thinking?
almost seemed like he wanted us to know he
didn’t give two craps about us or our gear.
The worst part? The venue booked them
during NFR for the next three years. Every
year, it was the same. The entertainer was
truly one of the nicest people we had ever
worked with, and I believe if he knew what
this guy was about, he would have fired him.
Unfortunately, the performer’s health took
a turn for the worse and he passed away.
But this guy actually had the balls to call
me for work! “Uh, hey man. So I live a couple
hours away and can commute if you need
anything. I think we work well together.” UNFREAKIN’-BELIEVABLE!!
The final story happened just a few
weeks ago. I have been “romancing” a new
client, lots of work coming from this guy. His
first event was a corporate event for about
300 real rich people in a tent. They had hired
a founding member of one of the biggest
acts of the last 30 years. We got the rider and
what were we thinking? It was exactly what
was on the rider, we told him.“Oh, that is the
wrong rider,” he replied (we have all seen this
one before). Even this big, heavyweight FOH
guy couldn’t get the right rider out. I thought
he would be more together.
We had a portion of what he wanted and
told him we would need to get back to him
on the rest of the list. After a few calls, we
had secured all of the equipment he wanted.
This also meant we needed to rent gear we
hadn’t budgeted for, but I needed to make
an impression with the FOH guy and the client. My intent was to eat the rentals even if it
meant losing money on the gig.
My crew chief started calling Mr.
Heavyweight and left several messages. No
response. We sent e-mails with lists of exactly
what he wanted. No response. About two
weeks before load-in, I called my client, who
made a call to the FOH guy and was told,
“Those guys don’t know what they are doing.”
www.fohonline.com
200.0605.RegSlants.JH.indd 33
“The guy at HAS I advanced with was
unprofessional and gave me the run-around.”
“Won’t return calls.” (Heavyweight FOH
guy NEVER called.)
“Besides, I have never heard of them.”
That’s the gist of it right there.
Well, we got the boot from the gig.
Which was the first time that had happened
in 10 years.
Now, the client is having second thoughts
about using us at all. This would be a high-sixfigure-a-year client, and now because some
%@*! says he doesn’t know who we are, we
may lose the whole gig for the long term. Look, Mr. Heavyweight, if you’re not comfortable, just say so up front. You don’t need
to slander me or my company—especially to
the client. (Big attorney word, slander. Ten out
of 10 people I talked to about the incident
said to sue him.)
He could have said, “Hey Larry, maybe we
can do something down the road with a bit
less stress and see how it goes.” That would
have gone a long way.
I would have gracefully bowed out if he
would have just said,“I am just not comfortable
without a name-brand company. This event is
just too important.” I wouldn’t have liked it, but
I would have backed out just the same. That
would give me the opportunity to keep peace
with the client and maybe work something out
with this guy for the future.
So, here we are. I am perplexed about
this last story and am sure I can’t possibly
be the only guy this has happened to. So
please feel free to send me your feedback,
tell me to stop crying about it or share
you stories with me. You can contact me at
[email protected].
Getting
Regional Slants
May 2006
33
4/27/06 5:21:24 PM
Theory & Practice
Wireless Microphones
Part 2
I
n Part 1 of the Wireless Microphones
piece, I described wireless mic limitations,
preferred locations of mic and receiver, RF
link budgets and antenna polarization. In Part
2, we’ll cover radio frequency names, antenna
patterns and compression/expansion circuits.
Superlatives
Us techno-geeks are quick to toss out
acronyms like VHF and UHF without a care,
hoping that no one will bother to ask why
a user might choose VHF or UHF as the
frequency band for transmission. Starting
with HF (high frequency), we move up to
VHF (very high frequency), then on to UHF
(ultra high frequency), then to SHF (super
Fig. 1
high frequency) and, believe it or not, EHF
(extremely high frequency). Each of these
high-frequency superlatives stand for a range
of frequencies, or bandwidth. HF has 3 megahertz to 30 megahertz, VHF has 30 megahertz
to 300 megahertz, UHF has 300 megahertz
to 3 gigahertz, SHF has 3 gigahertz to 30
gigahertz, and EHF has 30 gigahertz to 300
gigahertz. And these are all waves per second
of radiated electromagnetic energy, better
known as radio frequencies (RF).
The reason I am blathering about Hertzian waves and superlatives is that these
waves travel from transmit antennas to
receiver antennas at 300,000,000 meters per
second. If your transmit frequency is 300MHz,
then a new wave starts just as the previous
wave expands to one meter beyond the an-
VHF antennas tend to be the telescoping
whip types at the receiver and floppy wires
at the mic or belt pack. UHF antennas are
much shorter and tend to be nontelescoping rods on both the wireless mic
and receiver. The reason for only a quarter of
their wavelength in size is that they use the
“groundplane” to bounce and balance the RF
Most wireless mic manufacturers spend
precious engineering and marketing resources
advertising that their compressors and expanders
are the best, and make comparison to wired mics.
Fig. 2
tenna. Much like sound waves, the one meter
is a “wavelength”.
Antenna Theory
To cut to the chase on antenna theory
for wireless mics, most wireless mics and
wireless mic receivers use “wire antennas”
cut to a quarter wavelength of their nominal
transmit frequency bandwidth. That is why
By MarkAmundson
transmitters and receivers with frequency
modulation (FM) to keep the static out. But
through the air, FM transmission only has
about 50dB signal to noise ratio, and most
microphones require about a 90dB or better signal to noise ratio to be at parity with
wired mics. To get the extra tens of decibels
of dynamic range, a compressor circuit in the
wireless mic squeezes the 90dB down into
Fig. 3
waves for efficient transmission and reception. See Figs. 1 and 2 for depictions of a UHF
wireless mic and receiver.
The groundplane for the mic receiver is
the chassis and any other conductive rackmounting materials. On most wireless mics,
the metal mic grip is the ground plane. By
designing the quarter wave antennas and
a quarter wave or more of nearby groundplane, the RF waves can be transmitted and
received well. But the mechanical configuration of the wire/rod/whip antenna and
the groundplane defines the way most of
the RF energy travels to/from the antenna.
This yellow defined area in the figures is the
antenna pattern of best transmission and reception and looks a lot like mic and speaker
patterns. Note the steep “nulls” at the ends of
the wire antennas where not much energy
is transmitted or received. And knowing the
nulls is what I want you to take away from
this diagram so you know not to locate a
receiver/transmitter RF path where these
nulls are occurring.
This means the receivers should be not
high above the stage, or well below the stage.
Also, do not place the receivers down the
“boresight” line of the typical mic-handling
angle (down-front, behind-above). But beyond
these few null points, there leaves a lot of
front/back/sides locating of receivers for good
reception. As I mentioned in Part 1 of wireless
mics, you typically have little to no control of
how the “artist” handles the wireless mic, but
you can locate the receivers reasonably close
and out of the null paths.
The Ol’ Squeeze-Ola
To get from the microphone diaphragm
to the console, wired mics have—at most—a
transformer and wire in the path. But most
wireless mics have amplifiers, VHF or UHF
the 50dB FM channel. At the receiver, the reverse must be done by expanding the 50dB
back to 90dB with an expander circuit. Fig.
3 shows a typical block diagram of wireless
mic and receiver signal paths.
While compression and expansion
circuits are well-known in audio gear,
making a very high-quality compressorintegrated circuit to fit inside a small
microphone is quite a challenge. Then add
problems like very small battery voltages,
and the compressor must lightly “sip” power
from the same battery to not drastically
decrease talk time on the wireless mic. This
is why most wireless mic manufacturers
spend precious engineering resources
developing, and marketing resources advertising, that their compressors and expanders
are the best, and make comparison to wired
mics. So note those bandwidths, distortions
and dynamic range specifications, as well
as battery life, when comparing wireless
mic systems.
VHF vs. UHF
Many years ago, VHF wireless mics were
the only affordable option. But as the RF
electronic technology improved, UHF mics
came about. UHF wireless systems offered
smaller antennas and a less crowded
frequency spectrum to be exploited. But
as I mentioned in Part 1 on wireless mics,
higher frequencies like UHF undergo more
attenuation when penetrating performers
in the path of the receiver. For awhile, this
oddly made VHF wireless less expensive and
more reliable, until UHF receiver technology
could handle weaker UHF signals. Today,
only a few VHF wireless mic offerings are
still available, mostly for the cost-conscious
music industry (MI) buyer who can live with
the bigger antennas.
200.0605.Theory.BK.indd 34
4/27/06 5:27:16 PM
Road Tests
TC-Helicon VoiceDoubler
By BillEvans
I
once heard from someone who had
reason to know that a decade ago, a huge
rock band well-known for their vocal
harmonies had all of the parts sampled and
played back live by a keyboard player located out of sight of the audience. It was not
about being able to sing—these guys always
could and still can—it was about thickening
things up and getting closer to the sound of
the record.
Ten years ago, that sampling method
was really the only way to get the doubling effect live. I have heard people try a
number of other methods, including delay
and chorus, but it never sounds quite
right. The problem is that to really get the
effect of a live double—which will always
vary in timing, pitch and energy from the
“root” track—you need a lot of processing
power and rocket scientists to write the
algorithms that both describe those variations and account for their randomization.
Then, it has to sound great and be easy
to use. There have been some products
out there (mostly vocal harmonizers) that
could be used to get a doubling effect,
but they were either fairly lame-sounding
and hard to figure out, or very expensive
and still hard to use. Enter the TC-Helicon
VoiceDoubler.
Recall button to make
it active. The Edit button puts you in
edit mode, Store saves the preset and Bypass
takes the Doubler out of the signal chain.
The back panel sports XLRs ins and outs, RCA
jacks for SPDIF in and out, AES/EBU in and
out, MIDI in, out and through and an input
for a footswitch that can be used as a simple
bypass or a preset up, down and bypass.
Let’s go back to those knobs for a sec:
In live mode, those knobs are active and
labeled for the most likely to be edited on
the fly groups—Timing, Pitch, Overdub
Level and µMod Level. These are selfexplanatory, except the last one. The µMod
is the VoiceDoubler’s internal effects unit
that does classic vocal effects on one
singer at a time, including chorus, detuning
and delay.
The Gigs
We used the VoiceDoubler with female
backup vocalists in a couple of different
situations. The first time out, we brought the
unit to a rehearsal after opening the box and
glancing at the gear, noting the XLR ins and
outs. Knowing from experience that A) the
venue we were using would most likely have
a Mackie mixer with quarter-inch aux and
send jacks, and B) that
at least some of the other TC-Helicon
products had no preamp and could not take
a direct mic input, I started to open the toolbox and grab a couple of adapters. But then
I noticed that the two XLR ins were labeled
Voice and Aux and figured that meant one
was a direct mic input and the other a line
level for an aux send. Big mistake.
When I got to the venue and found
the expected quarter-inch jacks, I thought,
“No problem, I’ll just plug the mic right
into the Voice input and we’ll be ready
to rock.” Wrong. When it wouldn’t work,
I finally looked at the manual and was
reminded about the old cliché about the
word ass-u-me.
Turns out that in this case, Voice refers
to an input that will get the vocal overdub
treatment, and Aux is any other signal that
will receive only the µMod effects processing.
While the labeling could have been a little
clearer, I should have checked the manual
before I left those adaptors at home. Bottom
line is that the Doubler stayed in the box that
first time out. My bad.
The next time out, same venue, same
band, but this time, I read the manual (OK,
most of it) and had those adapters with
me. Setup was a cinch. In its default mode,
the VoiceDoubler gets its input from an
What it is: Vocal doubling and effects
processor.
Who it’s for: Anyone who needs to
thicken live or recorded vocals.
Pros: Easy to use, sounds like a TC,
plenty of live control.
Cons: Rear panel labeling could be
clearer.
How much: $1,249 MSRP
aux send and gets patched back into a
pair of channels that gives you immediate
control—at the console—of the relative levels of the dry input vocal and the
virtual overdubs. This is a very nice touch
for live use.
How did it sound? Using the VoiceDoubler on one backup singer, our two singers
sounded like six and the backups were
thick and sounded very natural. We had
to remember to mute the effect channels
between songs in case someone spoke on
the mic because by itself, it sounded a little
strange, but in context it was great. The only
problem is that I found myself wanting two
of them so I could put one on each of the
girls. Something is gonna have to come out
of the rack…
The Gear
The VoiceDoubler is a single rack-space
processor that looks a lot like other TC
products (a good thing). From left to right on
the front panel, you will find a power button
and a large display panel that tells you what
preset you are using and other important
info about the audio. Let’s not gloss over
that power button—too many companies
have been leaving this off as a cost-saving
measure or locating it on the back, making
it hard to access in a rack. Attention gear
manufacturers: Power buttons belong on the
front. Thank you.
The combo LED/LCD display shows preset number, a level meter that monitors both
input and output levels (this is important,
more later), and further right, the LCD part
gives the name of the preset along with the
values for the four edit parameters mapped
to the four knobs that appear to the right of
the display. Don’t get scared by terms like
“parameters mapped to knobs.” The Doubler
is easy to use and very useful even if you
never get past the presets.
To the right of the edit knobs is a section
with four buttons and a data wheel. Spin the
wheel to find the preset you want and hit the
www.fohonline.com
200.0605.RoadTests.JH.indd 35
May 2006
35
4/27/06 5:22:24 PM
Road Tests
RSS S-4000
Digital Snake System
What it is: System for transport of digitized audio in a live setting.
By BrianKlijanowicz
A
nyone who does one-off or touring
gigs has been there. It’s late, it’s been
a long day and you have hundreds of
feet of heavy snake to drag and coil into a
box, which then weighs a ton, and you have
to push it around to get it into the truck.
Sometimes, if you are really lucky, the truck
has no lift, so you get to muscle it up a ramp.
It’s one reason why we have been watching the development of digital snakes that
transmit over fiber or CAT5 and fit in a case
that you can carry onto an airplane without a
sideways glance from the flight attendant.
The Gear
The product that was sent for review was
the RSS S-4000 digital snake system. It comes
in a couple of different configurations: 32 x
8, 64 x 16, 96 x 24 or 128 x 32. The -S-4000
is also available in custom configurations
including 24 x16, 48 x 16, 56 x 24 and 96 x
32. This system runs at 24-bit 96KHz. RSS is
part of Roland, and this system was developed by some of the same rocket scientists
who designed the popular all-in-one Roland
recording units.
With the basic 32 x 8 configuration like
I used, there are four main hardware pieces
when using the system in a “split” configuration. The first is the “Modular Rack.” For all
you analog guys, this would be your split box
on stage. This is where your mic preamps
and analog-to-digital conversion take place.
Every channel has a signal, clip and 48-volt
LED for onstage monitoring. It also has a
cool power switch that looks like a missile
launch button with a plastic cover. That way,
some drunk band roadie can’t turn it off by
“accident.”
The second piece is a hub (required
only when doing splits). The modular rack
is hooked up to the hub via two Ethercon
connectors. (If you are not familiar with these,
they look like a computer network plug
wrapped in an XLR shell, and they are pretty
bulletproof.) One is the main and the other
is a redundant backup that automatically
switches over if the main loses connection
somehow. There is a non-audible 1 sample
loss when switched over. (Samples are measured in microseconds; trust me, you can’t
hear it.) Roland has a proprietary hub that
will be available soon, but you can also use
a consumer brand such as D-Link or Linksys.
The hub is sort of your “split.” One set of
Ethercons (CAT5e cable) goes to FOH and the
other set goes to monitor land.
FOH and monitor land both get an
S-4000H FOH unit and an S-4000R remote
controller. This is your D-to-A conversion to
go into your console as well as your preamp
control. Inputs and outputs from the console
interface into the FOH unit via D-Sub connectors. Each connector holds eight channels
of audio. (Rumor has it that Roland is working on a mass pin version and I confirmed
this with a call to Roland.)
The FOH remote is also plugged into
the FOH unit from an RS-232 port. The
remote controller can control up to 40
channels of audio. It controls phantom
power, preamp gain and has a -20dB pad.
If an input channel clips on the remote,
the clip light will stay on until you hit the
“clip clear” button. However, you can only
control the preamp gain from one place,
FOH or the stage location.
One really cool thing I did notice about
the phantom power was a half-second or so
mute when you turn it on. That will definitely
come in handy with visiting engineers instead of the “Whoops, sorry!” we are all used
to. The remote also has presets for storing
gain settings for repeat acts. We did find out
that you cannot run Clear-Com through the
snake though due to voltage restrictions.
The Gig
This year at NSCA, I took a visit to the
Roland booth and they had a comparison
between a standard analog snake, which was
conveniently 400 feet long, and their digital
snake. (Over CAT5 like we used, you can only
Who it’s for: Touring and one-off
soundcos. Installs where running a ton
of copper is not practical.
Pros: Fewer potential RF and AC noise
problems compared to analog; CAT5e
cable is a lot cheaper, lighter, smaller
and easier to run than W4, Ramlatch or
Veam; a substantial reduction in sonic
signal quality degradation over longer
cable runs compared to analog snakes;
redundant power supply available
Cons: You can only control gain from either FOH or stage, not both at the same
time; D-Sub fanouts feel kind of thin and
cheap; cannot run Clear-Com through
return lines
MSRP: $7,995 for 32 x 8 system with remote control, stage and FOH units. Pricing for custom configurations available
by contacting Roland Systems Group.
go 350 feet.) I listened to some music, hit the
A/B switch and I was blown away. It sounded
like the soundman turned down the suck
knob! Compared to the analog snake, the
Roland had a lot more clarity and warmth to
it. It was a complete night and day difference.
The show that I used this on was for
Juice Newton at the Silverton Casino Hotel
Lodge in Las Vegas. It was at their outdoor
event center for roughly 1,200 people. Even
with the unfamiliar connectors and hubs and
converters we were not used to having on a
gig, setup was a snap.
While prepping for the show, I did try
unplugging the main Ethercon (CAT5e
cable) while audio was running through the
snake to see what would happen. Absolutely nothing! It switched over automatically
without any audible change whatsoever.
I’ve heard our rig at the Silverton many
times, more than I would like as a matter of
fact. The system always sounds good but this
time was a lot different. It was a lot fuller and
clearer than ever before at that venue. Even
the visiting engineer noticed the difference.
And packing up did not involve sweat, grunting and swearing—at least not when it came
to the snake. Sweet.
36
May 2006
200.0605.RoadTests.JH.indd 36
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:23:14 PM
In The Trenches
Beth Gladen
Owner/engineer
Sweet Spot Audio Productions
Cleveland, OH
440.342.8625
[email protected]
www.myspace.com/soundchic
Services Provided:
Live sound, both medium and small scale.
Sound, stages and lighting.
Clients:
New company! First year of going out and
doing this on my own! Clients include The
Grog Shop, The Winchester and several
other local bands.
Quote:
“I’ll do it!”
for myself! I put together three different
systems, bought a truck and started telling
everyone I can think of. Wish me luck!
Hobbies:
Music, fashion, cooking, home studio.
Equipment:
My consoles are Allen & Heath GL-2200 series 32 and 24 and a (dare I say it?) Mackie
1604. Amps are all Crown. Speaker systems are Martin, EAW and JBL. Outboard
is mostly BSS, with a couple TC Electronic
M-1s and a D-2. Also Ashly EQs on the
monitors. Mics are the usual SM 58s and
57s, Beta 57s, Beta 58s D112, D-6 as well as
Beta 52. Sennheiser 421s, ATM Pro 25s and
AKG & Rode condensors.
Don’t Leave Home Without:
My M-1, D-2 and my Tascam burner.
Personal Info:
I am a 20-year veteran of the audio industry and finally decided to go out and do it
Jake Obermeier
Owner
AJ Audio
Fort Worth, TX
818.308.5733
[email protected]
Services Provided:
Full sound system, FOH mix,
monitor mix.
Hobbies:
Editing videos.
Equipment:
EAW KF650s, EAW SB 850s, Crest HP8-40,
Shure SM58s, Shure PSM 600 personal
monitors. dbx DriveRack. Audix drum mics,
dbx 166XL compressor/limiters.
Don’t Leave Home Without:
Cell phone.
Quote:
“Nothing to do but to do it.”
Personal Info:
I’m the only 18-year-old I know who owns
their own sound company.
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.
Welcome To My Nightmare
Ego
Check
T
he best disruption repair I ever saw
didn’t involve any human problem,
but an electrical one. It was a blazing
hot day at the Philly Folk Festival a while
back. During an afternoon round robin at
one of the side stages, among the performers was a “name” who obviously was
none too happy to be playing to a bunch
of hicks (comment: “If I knew I’d be doing
workshops, I would have brought my knife
so I could show you how to whittle.”) and
a fairly newly-established Susan Werner.
Name brand had just finished a song, and
Susan stepped up to the mic and launched
into “So Heavy (When You’re Holding Up
the Ceiling).” About a minute into the song,
something apparently shorted out in the
amp, resulting in a 60Hz blast at about 120
http://go.to/tonygleeson
dB. The soundman, after a brief attempt to
correct the problem from the board, tore
down behind the stage and pulled the
plug, eliminating the noise, but leaving
the stage 100% acoustic. When we could
all hear again, we realized that Susan had
waded out into the middle of the crowded
hillside and was leading the multitudes
in an a cappella chorus of “So Heavy”. A
minute or so later, the sound restored, she
strolled back up to the stage and finished
the song with amplification. She got a twominute screaming standing ovation. Name
brand got polite applause and was not
invited back.
Mike Space
www.fohonline.com
200.0605.Night/Trench.BK.indd 37
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 702.935.5584.
May 2006
37
4/27/06 5:14:35 PM
Employment
Manager - Digital Technical Services
As the world’s largest supplier of
professional audio equipment with total
group sales exceeding $4bn, this is an
exciting opportunity to join a major international company.
As part of Harman International Industries, Harman Pro North America is the US distributor
for the Soundcraft and Studer brands of audio mixing consoles. We are currently seeking
a ‘Digital Technical Services Manager’ to oversee all aspects of service and training related
issues for our growing range of digital audio consoles.
Reporting directly to the Vice President/General Manager, the successful applicant will be
responsible for overseeing all aspects of technical services to insure we deliver the highest
level of support to our customer base.
The role will require a degree of travel which in the early days may be up to 60% of your
time. Early on you will be sent to Europe for vigorous training on all aspects of service and
support to insure you are well equipped to handle all aspects of the role.
This is a newly developed role and represents a ground floor opportunity to join a small
team of audio professionals dedicated to delivering the highest levels of service.
You will need energy, enthusiasm, the ability to travel at short notice, as well as being an
outgoing individual with an existing understanding of current digital audio technologies.
Good communication and presentation skills are also pre-requisite. Ideally you will have a
degree in an associated field and/or have a minimum of 5 years experience in a similar role.
The role will be based in Northridge, CA and where appropriate, re-location expenses will be
paid. Salary and benefits will be commensurate with the role.
Duties will include:
• Pre/post sales support including on-site demonstrations and post sales operator and
service training.
• The setting up and monitoring of a 365 day 24/7 emergency phone service.
• Preparation of training materials
• Sales engineering support
• Managing the release of software updates to the customer base
• Expanding the department as requirements grow
Harman International Industries, Inc. is an equal opportunities employer
If you are interested in this position, please email us your resume to
[email protected] or fax us at (818) 920-3208. Please be sure to
include “Digital Technical Services Manager” in the Subject line.
RECORDING ARTS INSTRUCTOR
(LIVE SOUND)
Beginning Fall 2006
Citrus College, now celebrating 90 years
of service, is a comprehensive two-year
community college dedicated to serving the residents of eastern San Gabriel Valley in the
Los Angeles, CA area.
We seek a full-time (10-month) tenure track instructor of Recording Arts. This assignment
will include a wide variety of courses included in the District’s Recording Arts Technology
Program. Will act as lead live sound faculty and coordinate with adjunct faculty for the
instructional program. May consist of day and/or evening hours.
For information or application, visit our website at:
www.citruscollege.edu or call our Job Hotline: 626.914.8553
EOE M/F/D/V
keylock
3U rack
drawer $79.50
Case and Rack
Hardware
www.dblittle.com
38
May 2006
200.0605.Index.ss.indd 38
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:08:12 PM
PG# PH#
A-Line Acoustics
34
Audio-Technica
31
D.A.S. Sound Products
30
dbx
03
Digidesign
23
EAW
20,21
Eventide Inc.
19
Hear Technologies
25
L-Acoustics
05
MackieC4
MC2 Audio
09
Meyer SoundC2
Midas
07
Peavey
29
Roland Systems Group
15
Rutherford Design
36
SLS Loudspeakers
33
TC ElectronicC1
814.663.0600
330.686.2600
888.327.4872
801.568.7660
650.333.2137
800.992.5013
201.641.1200
256.922.1200
805.604.0577
800.898.3211
516.249.1399
510.486.1166
800.392.3497
866.443.2333
800.380.2580
818.775.0046
417.883.4549
818.665.4900
URL
COMPANY
www.a-lineacoustics.com
www.audio-technica.com
www.dasaudio.com
www.dbxpro.com
www.digidesign.com
www.eaw.com
www.eventide.com
www.heartechnologies.com
www.l-acoustics.com
www.mackie.com
www.mc2-audio.co.uk
www.meyersound.com
www.midasconsoles.com
www.peavey.com
www.rssamerica.com
www.rutherforddesign.com
www.slsloudspeakers.com
www.tcelectronic.com
TCS Audio
TMB
Westone Music Products
WorxAudio Technologies
Yamaha Commercial Audio
PG# PH#
06
13
04
08
1,11,C3
URL
858.487.1600
818.899.8818
800.525.5071
336.275.7474
714.522.9000
www.tcsaudio.com
www.tmb.com
www.westone.com/music
www.worxaudio.com
www.yamahaca.com
866.274.4590
423.892.1837
650.742.9166
800.346.4638
800.614.4083
866.796.6232
800.203.5611
www.audioeast.com
www.dblittle.com
www.hi-techaudio.com
www.discount-distributors.com
www.musicgearcapital.com
www.northernsound.net
www.soundpro.com
MARKETPLACE
Audio East
dblittle.com
Hi-Tech Audio Systems
Hybrid Case
Music Gear Capital
Northern Sound & Light
Sound Productions
39
38
38
38
38
38
38
INDEX
COMPANY
For advertiser information go to www.fohonline.com and click on Instant Info.
New Orleans Church Restored on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
continued from page 8
coordinated with show production and other
trades for access to scaffolding and conduit.
The team was assisted by New Orleans-based
Church Interiors employees Chuck Wicker and
Chris Frazier, along with volunteers from their
partner manufacturers. Wire pulls and rigging
points for the P.A. cluster and choir monitors
were completed, along with demolition of an
existing sound room, on the first day.
The First Emanuel sanctuary system now
includes a Yamaha M7CL digital mixing console, and several models from the Yamaha
Installation Series loudspeaker line for the
house P.A., choir speakers and monitors
system, driven and processed with Yamaha
PC4801N and PC9501N amplifiers and a
DME24N digital mixing engine. Rapco supplied custom floor boxes, panels and cabling,
while H.S.A. provided custom wooden racks
and component housing.
“We had originally planned on using a
three-box rig with two 60 by 40s on the bottom, plus a 90 by 40 to carry the balcony,”
says Wood, “but when we actually saw the
space, the room was only about 45 feet from
the back of the chancel area to the wraparound balcony, so a third box would have
been overkill. We ended up doing a 30º splay,
with the bottom of the cluster about 28 feet
off the floor, and the coverage was more than
sufficient.” Under-balcony support was also
deemed unnecessary, since the few rows of
seats were well-covered by the house P.A.
First Emanuel’s classic Southern Gospel
choir, band and pulpit are more than covered by more than a dozen Shure wired and
wireless mics. All house and monitor feeds
are routed from M7CL, with auxes set for the
choir mix, plus and floor mixes for the pastor and band. A Yamaha AW16G digital audio
workstation and model MSP10 Studio monitors also share the front of house position,
ready to record services.
“We also knew that the DME24N had
plenty of processing power and are using it
for speaker processing, system EQ and crossover,” he adds. “The initial programming was
completed before we went to New Orleans,
but we did do some fine tuning. The room
required some adjustments at around 200Hz
and some smoothing out around 630Hz, and
we do have hard limiters on everything since
many of the operators are volunteers. A few
effects are being sourced from the M7CL, so
there was no need for an outboard rack.”
“Obviously, prime time network television is a great vehicle to expose products to
potential customers,” says Dan Craik, product manager for Yamaha Commercial Audio,
who, along with district manager Chris Taylor,
worked with Wood to help provide the First
Emanuel system. “But this was different from
the usual installation in that the goal was not
to sell product, but to provide a quality system to a deserving group of people.” Yamaha
is providing special training with the First
Emanuel staff on the new gear.
www.fohonline.com
200.0605.Index.ss.indd 39
May 2006
39
4/27/06 5:08:32 PM
FOH-at-Large
I
The Sound of a
Higher Power
was already seething and it was only
two hours into the second day of a video
shoot. The artist had chosen to play live
with her band and record a full set of tunes
to Pro Tools for a concert-style video. She had
hired a well-known recording engineer who
is much noted for his live productions and
a video company that boasted a roster full
of film and lighting luminaries. I had worked
with the artist for
quite a few years and
was called upon to
provide and mix the
live audio portion of
the video and recording. I was told that
the artist was paying
for the project out of
pocket and was asked
to keep the budget
as low as possible.
Wanting to be of assistance, I quoted a
fairly low rate for the
shoot, which included
the equipment as well
as my day rate for the
three 12- to 14-hour
days the production
would require.
The first day, we
were scheduled to
load in and set up
from 9 a.m. until 8
p.m. with a dinner
break until 9 p.m., after
which there was to be a full band sound and
video check from 9 p.m. until 11 p.m. The following day, we were to return at 10 a.m. for a
quick check, and then commence shooting
the video at 11 a.m. for the next two days.
The producer insisted that I load into the
venue at 9 a.m., but I suggested that with all
the lighting and video equipment loading
in at the same time that it would be prudent
to stagger the load-in and have me arrive at
4 p.m., which would then give me plenty of
time to get set up and running. The producer
told me that I should be there no later than
1 p.m. as the video and recording crew were
quite fast and would probably be finished
by the time I arrived. I told her I thought she
might be a bit unrealistic in her scheduling,
but agreed to a 1 p.m. load-in.
The venue happened to be a small club
in midtown Manhattan in which I had already done a few shows, and I knew that the
potential for overcrowding could be as likely
as it is for the number 1 train during rush
hour. I was not proven wrong, and when I
arrived for my load-in at 1 p.m. I found myself
working around and under the lighting and
video crew, who had only begun to set up.
I gritted my teeth, and with the one loader
I brought (budget constraints, ya know),
managed to run feeder cable and to get the
console, snake and racks all set by 4 p.m. To
reduce the stage volume, the artist and the
producer had decided to have everyone on
personal monitors with one pair of wedges
downstage for the singer—just for some fill.
I was running six mixes of PMs, one mix of
40
May 2006
200.0605.FOHatLarge.JH.indd 40
wedges plus sending a left and right to the
in-house system as the band had planned to
do a performance (for the video) in front of a
live audience.
The recording engineer had decided that
he would bring all the microphones, and I
was to bring stands, cables and two wireless
microphones. By the 6 p.m. dinner break, I
had the two wireless microphones and all of
[email protected]
my personal monitors up and working and
I fully expected to start setting the stage by
7 p.m. At 7 p.m., the backline arrived with
some of the musicians and I helped them get
set up, though I still did not have an input
list. At 9 p.m., the microphones were still
not set up, and I was told that the recording
engineer and his A-2 had left for the evening
and would return the following morning.
When I expressed concern to the producer,
he called the engineer, who told him, “By
the time Baker arrives, he will have to play
catch-up.” The situation was exacerbated by
the fact that the musicians had also left for
the evening.
My callback time for the following morning was 10 a.m., and when I arrived at the
venue, the stage had still not been set and
it became apparent that the A-2 knew very
little about miking a stage. Since I was told
that I would be playing catch-up, I assumed
that someone knew what they were doing,
but there I was, working alone (budget, ya
know), and explaining how to neatly run
cable to the sub-snakes on stage. When
everything was finally patched I had to run
back to my console and start getting my
mix and dialing in the musician’s ears. As it
turned out, not every musician had used ears
before and they were not used to playing in
such an isolated manner, thereby extending
the time it took for them to get comfortable
during sound check.
The band members kept complaining
that the sampler, which was being run by
the guitarist, kept changing levels between
songs, and though I tried to explain that the
samples were all playing back at different
volumes, it still became my problem to fix. I
had eight open wireless channels and was
finding that I needed to change one or two
of the RF frequencies to ensure that there
would be no signal dropout. All of this takes
a bit of time, especially when working alone,
but I considered this to be a normal sound
check, even accounting for all the anomalies.
The only real problem with my sound
check was that the producer wanted to start
getting some footage and was wondering
why it was taking me so long to get set.
The situation was getting frustrating as all
energy was focused upon me while I was
trying to iron out problems that were not
mine other than by association. At one point
the keyboard player, with great fanfare and
exasperation, loudly complained, “Now I
have nothing in my ears!” I walked over to
the stage and plugged his ears back into the
belt-pack, and though he apologized, I was
fuming and beginning to lose patience with
the situation.
While I was walking back to the console,
the producer and artist decided to have a
meeting with me to understand who was to
blame for the shoot running so far behind
schedule. While I didn’t want to fan the flame
of the blame game, I told them that I had
expected to do the check the night before,
but everyone had left before the job was
done. My answer seemed to appease them
for the moment, but I was furious at bearing
the brunt of other people’s ineptitude. I
walked back to my console and one of the
guys from the lighting crew (who seemed
to understand the situation) said to me, “You
must have the patience of a saint.”
He was wrong, of course, since at that
very moment, I was headed to the road case
I kept for these special moments, but as I was
opening the case marked “Uzi,” I stopped for
a moment to ponder the situation. I remembered a few years ago reading a news story
about wrist bands people were wearing that
bore the legend “WWJD.” It stood for “What
would Jesus do?” and was intended as a way
to get oneself to think about a course of
action before embarking upon it. Not being
one who wore that accessory, this may seem
out of character—who knows, it may have
been the “saint” comment that provoked the
thought—regardless, I found myself asking
the question, “How would Jesus mix?”
I closed the case and turned away from
my reactive desire to give a big shout-out
with my Uzi, and it came to me in a flash.
First of all, Jesus would always have a 12man crew, which would include a monitor
engineer, an A-2, a backline tech, a stage
manager, a production manager, a tour manager and six loaders. He wouldn’t need an
electrician as he is always tied into a higher
source of power, but, if need be, he could do
his own electrical tie-in, though not while
walking on water. If he arrived at a show and
the system was too small for the venue, he
could turn Mackies into line arrays, and if the
mix was bad, he could always fix it by the
laying of his hands on the console.
By BakerLee
Hospitality would never be a problem,
for those who accept him as their A-1 will
never want for hunger or thirst. He would
equalize his mix by dumping the seven
deadly frequencies of pride, covetousness,
lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth, while at
the same time, boosting the frequencies of
love, tolerance, compassion and forgiveness.
If a musician lashed out at him about the mix
he wouldn’t fight back, he would just turn
the other knob.
He wouldn’t stand for hypocrisy and
would probably say, “Render unto video,
lighting and recording that which is theirs
and render unto live sound that which is live
sound’s.” In regard to blame, he would probably say, “Let those (in production) without
blame cast the first cable.” He would never
mix with effects, though he could always
work a miracle or two. His vocal mix would
always be strong and affirming, while his
background vocals would always be mixed
to sound like an angelic choir. He would also
definitely give new meaning to the “VOG”
microphone. He would be selfless in his
approach to mixing, and would never take
the easy route—which means that he would
most likely be in great demand with “metal”
and “goth” bands. He would teach all those
around him that the true mix is within and, of
course, all his mixes would be heavenly with
a beautiful redeeming quality.
Keeping these thoughts in mind, I was
thankful that I held my temper in check and
my Uzi in its case. The video shoot turned
out to be a huge success and the mix was
sublime, with everyone involved reaching a
higher level of consciousness, understanding
and “unity.” That’s how Jesus would mix!
Coming
Next
Month...
•
FOH Interview: A Tale
of Two Generations
FOH grills Brian Ruggles,
who has mixed Billy Joel
for 36 years, and Kyle
Chirnside, who has gone
from clubs to arenas in a year with Fall Out Boy
•
Regional Slants
A gig in Baja California is a good excuse for a
working vacation, but can
Jamie Rio make any
dinero in Mexico?
www.fohonline.com
4/27/06 5:03:23 PM
4/27/06 4:57:10 PM
4/27/06 4:57:45 PM

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