TC Group and Gibson Guitar To Merge

Transcription

By Breanne George
FEBRUARY 2008 Vol. 6 No. 5
The Gig of All Gigs: New Year’s Eve in NYC
Led Zeppelin Jolts
Crowds with Concert
of the Century (So Far)
Colin SaunderS
ThE NEws MagaziNE For LivE souNd
RISSKOV, DENMARK and NASHVILLE, TN — TC Group, the Danish holding entity for
five major pro audio brands, is currently in the process of merging with Gibson Guitar,
the legendary musical instrument manufacturer. The announcement was made by both
of the companies’ chief executive officers — TC Group’s Anders Fauerskov and Gibson
Guitar’s Henry Juszkiewicz — at this
year’s Winter NAMM show in Anaheim,
Calif. While the merger is fundamentally
agreed between the parties, the formal completion is expected by March,
according to Fauerskov.
“Gibson is in the music industry what
TC Group is in the audio industry,” Fauerskov says. “In the musical instrument
business, Gibson is a premium brand and
an organization committed to supplying
the market with quality products — and
TC group is the same in the audio world.
In that sense, we see a strong match between the companies.”
continued on page 5
How much pressure is there when you
are mixing the biggest concert event of
the millennium so far? Big Mick knows…
The iconic FOH engineer, best known for
his 20+ years mixing Metallica, was one
of two engineers behind the desk at the
reunion show at the O2 Arena in London.
Mick handled the band — Jimmy Page,
NILES, IL — Shure Incorporated anJohn Paul Jones and second-generation
nounced that large quantities of coundrummer Jason Bonham — while Robert
terfeit microphones, which were being
Plant’s long-time FOH guy Roy Williams
sold in India, were traced to their source,
minded the lead vocalist’s channel and
Easlem Sound Instrument Factory (also
some 40 effects returns. Monitors — and
known as Xingyou Electronics Equipment
there were a ton of Turbosound wedges
Co. Ltd.) in Guangzhou, China.
and sidefills — were wrangled by Dee
“This is not just a Shure problem. It is
Miller, Mick and Roy drove a Midas XL8
a pro audio industry problem, and we are
feeding an army of Meyer Milo line array
committed to fighting this criminal activcabs. And the show was — by every acity,” said Sandy LaMantia, president and
count I have been able to find —nothing
CEO of Shure Incorporated. “We are grateshort of spectacular. The Hammer of the
ful to the authorities in China for their help
Gods swings again. Turn to page 18 for
in this raid and will vigorously continue our
the “full roar” treatment.
efforts in China and the rest of the world.”
For months, Shure worked with
private investigators and local authorities
in China to uncover the location of the
Feature
counterfeiter’s manufacturing operations. 16
Train HOW staff in the basic tenets of
In cooperation with the Jiangmen and
good sound — and make a profit.
Enping Technology and Science Bureaus
(TSBs), Shure raided Easlem’s Enping
Installations
City-based factory, known as Enping Yi
MSM Systems creates a concertXing Electronics, where evidence was 22
friendly church on a budget.
obtained that the factory was producing
counterfeit Shure and other brands
Road Test
of microphones. The penalties to be
imposed by the Jiangmen TSB are still 26 The long-awaited Dolby Lake
being determined.
Processor review is finally here.
Shure Catches
Counterfeit Microphone
Makers in China
NEW YORK — When it comes to daunting audio gigs, few can match the challenges presented
by the annual New Year’s Eve Show in New York City’s Times Square. With a live audience in the
hundreds of thousands and a TV audience in the millions, this is one of those gigs where the
whole world really is watching. Long-time audio provider Maryland Sound International (MSI)
pulls off the seemingly impossible every year, but the most recent show was made better and
easier with the addition of Studer and Soundcraft digital mixing technology.
Two performance stages — each with a 96-input Studer Stagebox — and a broadcast stage with
10 inputs were all fed to an optical splitter, which fed both a Soundcraft Vi6 running monitors for
each performance stage and a Studer Vista 5 SR in the main “mix container.”
continued on page 6
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www.fohonline.com
CoNtENts
February
2008, Vol. 6.5
What’s hot
Installations
Feature
Features
12 New Gear: Winter NAMM 2008
35 The Bleeding Edge
16 See Tom Mix. Mix, Tom! Mix!
38 Theory & Practice
FOH hit the convention floor for a
firsthand tour of new gear that stood out
from the crowd.
24
Audio installers found innovative solutions to bring
the Salt Lake Tabernacle into the 21st century.
Learn how to effectively train house-ofworship staff on the basic tenets of good
sound — and make a profit doing it.
18 FOH Interview
Big Mick, iconic FOH engineer, gives Led
Zeppelin the “full roar” treatment.
22 Installations
MSM Systems created a concert-friendly
church to accommodate the energetic
congregation and diverse mix of bands at
La Fe en Jesucristo Church.
Welcome To My Nightmare
Columns
We really aren’t getting paid enough to
damage our hearing…
How much audio distortion is too much?
39 The Biz
We get festive with major U.S. music
festivals.
40 Anklebiters
How much should you educate your
clients and hold their hands for free?
44 FOH-At-Large
Do we live in a culture of cheating?
26 Road Test
Departments
What’s hot
The long-awaited Dolby Lake Processor
review is finally here.
27 Road Test
We get pumped with the Dynacord
PowerH 2500 and 5000 power amplifiers.
29 Buyers Guide
This month’s listing — subcompact line
arrays — is small, but mighty.
32 Vital Stats
34
A mysterious whistling noise during a
worship service brings this sound guy to
the brink of madness.
FEEDBACK
I was dismayed to read the Dan Daley piece
about the Local One strike in the January
2008 edition of FOH. He did not provide any
information about the cause of the strike, the
producers' demands, or the amount of time
spent trying to negotiate an agreement before the body finally had to strike or give in to
the producers' demands. He did offer one big
scary scenario easily bought into by anyone
unfamiliar with the business, and any young
readers who have not seen this all before. The
most egregious part of the presentation, in my
opinion, was the large yellow block declaring
that, "Several executives from pro audio manufacturers let me know — off the record, but
in no uncertain terms — that the cumulative
effect of these work stoppages would include
cutbacks in spending on audio technology."
Rane Founders/Owners Dennis Bohn and
Linda Arink get personal with a special
he said/she said edition.
2 Feedback
4 Editor’s Note
5 News
10 International News
11 On the Move
14 Showtime
34 In the Trenches
36 Regional Slants
Klondike Sound’s passion for audio starts
with the magic behind the music.
union Sundown?
Bullshit.
In the first place, these "executives" are in
no position to know this, but are in a perfect position to parrot such crap fed to them by theatre
management or producers. Second, labor is not
paid from the same "pot" as capital expenditures and improvements. Third, if an incoming
show needs a piece of gear, the producers will
get the gear. Fourth, pro audio manufacturers
are the last ones to know whether or not a purchase has finally been decided upon. They only
know when an order is placed. Ask the same
guys how many times they thought that they
had made a sale, only to find out that some
other manufacturer got the order instead.
Whatever these highly placed "executives"
do know, they do NOT know who is going to
spend what money where, or when.
Nobody wins when there is a strike. If you
are a worker who is on strike, it takes an awfully long time to recover your lost wages.
If the strike lasts for any length of time, you
will never recover the lost wages. No union
member wants to strike. The worker strikes
because he is unwilling to continue to work
if the changes in wages and/or conditions
demanded by management or the producers
come into effect.
The short duration of the Musicians Union
strike was mentioned in the article. Ask anyone involved. The reason for such a short
duration was because the IATSE stagehands
stood in support of their musician brothers
and refused to cross the picket lines. Believe
me when I quote, "if we do not hang together,
we will surely hang separately."
And I am likely to surrender my NARAS
membership, based upon the last mass
e-mailing from Neil Portnoy, which seems
to indicate that NARAS will be crossing the
writers’ picket lines to present the Grammy
Awards show. I hope that other IASTE, IBEW
and Musicians Union members feel the same
way and refuse to cross the lines.
I've been in this business since 1965
and making a living at it since the 1970s. I
have seen a lot of changes and a lot of innovation. What I see now reflects what I am
seeing in other aspects of our Bush-driven
economy. Management is crying poor while
profits climb, executives bank multimillion
dollar salaries and enjoy golden parachutes,
jobs are sent off-shore — all on the backs of
and to the detriment of the American worker.
continued on page 8
Editor’s Note
What Have
YOU DONE
To CHANGE
Someone’s
Life Lately?
By BillEvans
Publisher
Terry Lowe
D
on’t know why really, but the
coverage in this issue of the
recent Led Zeppelin show caused
a bit of an “I remember when” kind of
nostalgia among most everyone I
talked to about it. Love ‘em (me) or hate
‘em (my wife), you could not ignore
them. Yes, they were horrendous live
at times, but just like the generation
of rockers who came up in the late ‘60s
and early ‘70s and point to seeing Elvis
or The Beatles as their “I wanna play
guitar” moment, an awful lot of nextgeneration players point to Zep as
their reason for doing what they do.
So what does this have to do with
the world of pro audio — especially in
an issue that is supposed to focus on the
house of worship market? Easy. Those
kind of life-changing events only have
that kind of impact if the technical
details — like great sound — have
been attended to.
And it’s not just rock ‘n’ roll he said,
trying to get back on to the subject of
the church thing. When the leaders of
a church — any church — set out to do
a service, they do it with the express
intent to change lives. Rock bands are
probably out to put on a good show
and make some money. Changing a life
is a side gig at best. But in the house of
worship setting that is the main gig.
So when the pastor/priest/bishop/
rabbi/grand high mucky muck goes to
give the big inspirational message that he
or she hopes will touch the hearts minds,
and souls of the gathered congregation,
how successful do you think they will be
if the message is inaudible, distorted past
the point of understanding or plagued
with feedback? Anyone who works in a
church audio setting has a huge burden
— they must make sure that the message
gets to the listeners clearly and without
distracting audio problems.
tlowe@fohonline.com
Editor
Bill Evans
bevans@fohonline.com
Managing Editor
Breanne George
bg@fohonline.com
Technical Editor
Mark Amundson
mamundson@fohonline.com
Contributing Writers
Jerry Cobb, Brian Cassell,
Dan Daley, Jamie Rio,
Steve LaCerra, Nort Johnson,
David John Farinella, Ted Leamy,
Baker Lee, Bryan Reesman,
Tony Mah, Larry Hall,
Ken Rengering
Photographer
Steve Jennings
Art Director
Garret Petrov
gpetrov@fohonline.com
Production Manager
Linda Evans
levans@fohonline.com
Graphic Designers
Crystal Franklin
cfranklin@fohonline.com
David Alan
dalan@fohonline.com
Web Master
Josh Harris
Think about it, how much would I have
been affected by that single performance in
L.A. in 1977 if the sound had been horrible,
the vocals buried or the whole thing
plagued with feedback? I can guarantee
you this: It does not matter how great
the band is, if the sound sucks — THAT is
what people will remember. The owner
of Klondike Sound, who is profiled in this
month’s regional slants, is a great example.
His passion for sound began when he heard
The Beatles totally overblown by the crowd
in an early concert before anyone had
figured this rock ‘n’ roll concert thing out.
And it is not just church services.
What about weddings, funerals,
award ceremonies? If anything, these
present even more pressure than
many typical rock ‘n’ roll gigs.
So, hats off to us. We change lives
all the time whether we know it or
not. Just getting the message heard
— be it from the pulpit, a smoky
club or a huge rock show in an arena
— guarantees that we will have a
significant impact. Kind of puts a
different spin on “just another gig,”
doesn’t it?
jharris@fohonline.com
National Sales Manager
Dan Hernandez
dh@fohonline.com
National Advertising Director
Gregory Gallardo
gregg@fohonline.com
General Manager
William Hamilton Vanyo
wvanyo@fohonline.com
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News
continued from cover
“That brings some common understanding, but it is more of a coincidence,” he says. “It
gives us something fun to talk about, but has
not been a major factor in this agreement.”
Fauerskov admits he foresees challenges
in the coming year, and a lot of hard work on
behalf of both companies to make the merger a success. “It is important that we get the
right people together across the companies
to work together on the future of the organization, future products and so forth. It won’t
be easy.”
To facilitate the necessary collaboration
between TC Group and Gibson Guitar, project
groups will be appointed that will work
together on various aspects of the business.
Fauerskov also noted, the company will, no
doubt, be looking for new hires, particularly
in areas such as marketing and product
development.
“There is that strong link in terms of
technologies and also very important for
the organizations and the future is the
brands involved and that the people behind those brands always think quality first,”
Fauerskov says.
Risskov, Denmark-based TC Group is a
leader in pro audio and an umbrella company for five major pro audio brands, which
include TC Electronic, TC-Helicon, TC Applied
Technologies, Tannoy Ltd. and Lab.gruppen.
TC Group began with the founding of TC Elec-
tronic in 1976, and later founded TC-Helicon
in 2000 and TC Applied Technologies in 2003.
Lab.gruppen and Tannoy were bought in
2002. Fauerskov says the principal reasons
why TC Group entered into the acquisitions of
Lab.gruppen and Tannoy was to get involved
in new businesses, expand into more markets
and increase the use of TC Group technologies in amplifiers and loudspeakers.
Headquartered in Nashvile, Tenn., Gibson Guitar is a worldwide legend in musical
instrument manufacturing and music technology. The company, founded in 1894 in
Kalamazoo, Mich., specializes in classic models of every major style of fretted instrument,
notably acoustic and electric guitars.
Fauerskov says he see the merger as an
opportunity for TC Group to make a huge
impact in the guitar industry by integrating
TC Electronic around the electric guitar. TC
Electronic currently manufactures guitar pedals, stomp boxes and computer-recording
equipment relevant to guitarists.
“Obviously, on the sales and distribution
side, there is some overlap because TC Electronic sells to some of the same customers as
Gibson. By doing what we have already done
with amps and speakers, we plan on bringing
the electric guitar business to the next level.”
The operating companies will continue
to make and sell products under its individual brand names, but behind those will
be a holding company called Gibson Guitar
Corporation, Fauerskov says. Current shareholders of both companies will jointly own
the combined businesses under the Gibson
Guitar Corporation name.
From a market perspective, Fauerskov
says customers will not notice a difference.
“TC Group will continue to sell under each of
its brand names, and Gibson will continue to
sell under each of its brand names.”
Although no plans will begin until the
merger is complete, Fauerskov says there
are already discussions behind the scenes
in terms of new product development. “To
make significant new products, particularly
in the electronics world, that takes time. Our
goal for 2008 is to start work on some great
new things to enter the market with.”
In regard to what brand name will be
aligned with each new product, Fauerskov
says the decision will be determined on a
case-by-case basis. “If the product is a guitar,
it is obviously more affiliated with Gibson. It
will depend on the specific situation — we
have many brand names available to us.”
The new holding company, Gibson Guitar
Corporation, will have an equal number of
seats on the board from TC Group and Gibson Guitar for equal representation. “There is
going to be an even number from both parties, and there is also going to be a number
of people who are jointly appointed so that
we end up with an uneven number,” Fauerskov says. “That is usually best with decisions
so you don’t have a hung jury.” The board will
not be appointed until the merger is final.
When asked if there are plans to take the
new company public, Fauerskov says it is a
possibility. Although the issue has been discussed, he says there are no specific plans at
this time. “That may happen, it is certainly not
off the table, he comments. “It could happen
two years from now, 10 years from now — it
could happen not at all.”
Although both companies share similarities, including a shared passion for music and
quality products, differences do exist between
them that could bring challenges. For instance,
TC Group is European-based, as is the management style, which is very different from
Nashville, Tenn.-based Gibson Guitar. Fauerskov admits there are national and historical
differences that require a learning curve on
both parties’ behalf, as well as an understanding of the unique markets of both companies:
manufacturing, developing and selling guitars
compared to the pro audio world.
Perhaps a connection that brings some
commonality is the similar backgrounds of
company CEOs Fauerskov and Juszkiewicz.
Both attended Harvard Business School, as well
as David Berryman, co-owner and president of
Gibson Guitar — although they didn’t attend
Harvard at the same time and, therefore, never
knew one another, Fauerskov noted.
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2008 FEBRUARY
5
News
Village Baptist Church Moves in Wireless Direction
DESTIN, FL — Blessed with a 1,400-seat
worship center, Village Baptist Church in
Destin, Fla., schedules an ambitious calendar
of dramatic productions, multi-media activities and services that span traditional to contemporary. Unfortunately, their wireless microphone collection, which didn’t work well
even when it was new, reached the end of its
useful life and began distracting the focus of
their services.
Instead of praise for God and lessons
from the Bible, annoying crosstalk between
microphone channels and periodic interference from nearby Eglin Air Force Base captured the attention of church members despite their best attempts to ignore it.
Against this backdrop of wireless frustration, the church used six wired Neumann
KMS 105 live vocal condensers and a handful
of Neumann TLM 103 large diaphragm studio
condensers. “We were very excited about the
sonic qualities of those microphones,” recalled
Robert Curtis, media director for Village Baptist. “And when it became clear that we would
be upgrading our wireless system, we knew
we wanted to move in that direction.”
With an upcoming production on the horizon, Curtis contacted Bill Manning at All Pro
Sound in Pensacola, Fla., to get a new system
in place. “Of course, Sennheiser is well-known
for their RF stability,” said Manning, “but when
you add to that the excellent sound quality
of their handheld and headset microphones,
along with their ability to incorporate Neumann capsules, Robert was convinced.”
Village Baptist received a host of new
microphones to fit the various needs of its
services and productions. Eleven Sennheiser
HSP 2 ultra-lightweight head-worn microphones combined with eight SK 500 G2,
three SK 5212 belt-worn transmitters serve
for inconspicuous reinforcement of vocalists
and seven handheld SKM 5200 transmitters
with Neumann KK 105 capsules. An impressive rack of Sennheiser EM 3532 and EM 550
G2 dual-channel, true diversity receivers tie
all 18 of the Sennheiser wireless channels
down to the rest of Village Baptist’s existing
sound system.
In addition to microphones, the church
upgraded to 12 Sennheiser EW 300 IEM G2
wireless personal monitors capable of sup-
The Gig of All Gigs: New Year’s Eve in NYC
continued from cover
According to MSI Owner Bob Goldstein, “The
Studer Vista 5 SR is the console we have been
waiting for. In the smallest of footprints, it provides a ‘no limits’ solution to this project. We
can bring three stages worth of inputs, truck
feeds and playback into one console that is
easy to use, sounds great and provides all of
the outputs required with total redundancy.
With a ton of Vista consoles in the broadcast
field and the extensive abuse we have put
them through we know reliability is a nonissue. That is really important for this gig.”
Among the challenges of the Times Square
production is the need for even coverage
throughout an area that runs seven city blocks.
“Both analog and digital outputs — a total of
20 matrix output busses — were sent via Optocore to an army of Crown amps, which fed
JBL VerTec line arrays installed throughout the
square from 42nd to 48th streets,” said Shane
Morris, principal engineer for Soundcraft and
Studer USA. “And each of those matrix outputs
had its own EQ and dynamics control.”
The system included more than a mile of
optical cable with more than 20 signal “drop”
points. Additional outputs were supplied for
6
FEBRUARY 2008
both an analog broadcast split and Pro Tools
recording of the entire event.
Adding to the obvious technical challenges
was the fact that this show takes place in one of
the busiest commercial corridors in the world and
the powers that be can’t exactly shut things down
so the sound company can come in and set up.
“We have provided sound for some of the
most difficult productions in the world — Pink
Floyd on the Grand Canal in Venice and at the
Palace in Versailles; Super Bowl halftime shows;
inaugurations and Washington D.C. Mall
events; and large-scale sports events, concert
tours and festivals — yet these all pale in comparison to Times Square New Year’s Eve,” says
Goldstein. “Not only can it be really cold, it is extremely crowded on the streets and sidewalks
except for 2:00 a.m. until 7:00 a.m. Furthermore,
we are not permitted to make noise at any time
other than show time. In other words, we have
to be able to set up the system in a very short
period of time, turn it on and have it work flawlessly the first time — all with the most complex set of circumstances imaginable. But we
love this gig — it forces us to stretch the definition of flawless performance.”
plying four separate stereo
mixes via a pair of SR 3256
transmitters. Aviom A-16
series rack-mounted monitor mixers and remote control units feed the systems
and ensure that everyone
has a perfect monitor mix.
To coordinate all of
these wireless channels,
along with 10 hangers on
from the old system, Sennheiser sent engineers
to analyze Village Baptist’s local frequencies to
minimize crosstalk and
interference. Taking Sennheiser’s advice, the church purchased a
Sennheiser NET 1 system to integrate and
organize all its frequencies with a computer interface.
“This is seriously great gear,” enthused
Curtis, “and it works beautifully. We’ve run
27 channels simultaneously without flinching. We’ll replace our old wireless microphones with Sennheisers as the old mics
Village Baptist Church
die. It’s frustrating, but we’ve learned the
hard way. We bought less than the best
in the first place and so ended up buying
again. That’s more expensive in the long
run and we were forced to struggle with
inadequate gear for so many years. From
now on, we do everything with excellence.
Go with the top tier from the start and save
money in the long run.”
Landmark Church of Christ Brings
Sound System Up to Speed
MONTGOMERY, AL — Like many retained all of the front-of-house
churches around the country, Landmark equipment, which still had many years
Church of Christ in Montgomery, Ala., is of useful life. However, he replaced the
undergoing a slow shift from services that existing amplifiers with QSC amplifiers
are completely a cappella to services that and upgraded the decade-old processing
are driven by instrumental music with sup- with an Ashley Protea DSP. In addition, he
port by CDs and other media. When church replaced the modest choir’s wedges with
members began noticing that their de- wireless Aviom personal monitors.
“When we started this project, we
cade-old sound system wasn’t as ready for
the change as they were, the church con- knew that it was likely that, in addition
tacted Sound Designer Chad Edwardson at to new speakers, the room would need
All Pro Sound in Pensacola, Fla., to explore acoustic treatment,” Edwardson said. “In
ways that they could bring their sound sys- fact, with conventional high-Q loudspeakers, we would have almost certainly needtem up to speed with their ambitions.
“Their old system worked reason- ed treatment. But because the treatment
ably well for spoken word,” Edwardson would be very expensive, we waited to see
explained. “But the room is very live. Even if Danley’s tight pattern control would be
without reinforcement, a person speaking enough to tame the room.” Fortunately,
at the podium becomes awash in reflec- for the church, it was. From its position on
tions from all the hard surfaces. The old the ceiling, each speaker neatly covers one
speakers had wide-dispersion and threw section of seats with almost no energy disound everywhere. When the service be- rected at the side or back walls.
“The church is very happy with the new
came a bit louder than simple speech, the
room reacted in a negative way and the system and is now free to change the muintegrity of the sound kind of fell apart. sical content of their services,” Edwardson
The solution was to replace the old speak- concluded. “The Danley’s are robust. What’s
ers with Danley Sound Labs SH-50s, which more, the SH-50s deliver well-articulated
have remarkably tight pattern control and, bass all the way down to 50 Hz. Given that
they won’t be putting on rock shows, that’s
thus, would avoid energizing the room.”
Like all of their full-range loudspeakers, more than enough to convey a complete
the SH-50 benefits from Danley’s patented and realistic frequency response for any
Synergy Horn technology, which improves sort of music they want to perform.”
its phasing, intelligibility and pattern
control over conventional designs.
In fact, the SH-50’s pattern control
extends well below 500 Hz and is so
tight that its edge is almost palpable.
That was crucial to the success of Edwardson’s new design. He arrayed four
SH-50s from the ceiling in an exploded cluster, with each speaker firing
down at a separate section of seats.
By choosing a white exterior, the new
speakers blend in with the Landmark
Church of Christ’s sanctuary.
Because the church was working
with a limited budget, Edwardson
Danley Sound Labs SH-50 loudspeakers at Landmark Church
www.fohonline.com
News
Precept Ministries International Acquires LightViper Audio Transport System
CHATTANOOGA, TN — FiberPlex Inc. has
announced that the company’s LightViper
audio transport system was acquired by
Precept Ministries of Chattanooga, Tenn. The
organization installed the advanced fiber
optic audio system from its main auditorium,
which is used as a production studio for
its TV and radio production control rooms
and various audio/video production suites
located in a separate building on the 32-acre
pastoral campus.
The evangelical organization’s daily
Bible study T V program reaches 94 million households worldwide. The conduits that link the auditorium to the
production building are approximately
800 feet long. A standard Model 1832
plug ‘n’ play LightViper fiber optic audio
snake system with two splits was specified by Precept’s 20-year veteran audio
engineer Tom Byrd.
Byrd commented on the organization’s
investment in fiber audio routing technology: “We use the LightViper to connect all audio between our A/V buildings.
We typically use six wireless microphones
plus other hardwired stage microphones
connected to the LightViper’s stage box
backstage in the auditorium.
The main output of this stage box
feeds up the hill through 900 feet of fiber
to the media building’s Master Control
gear room. These audio feeds are then
routed to various audio control rooms to
feed video machines. We use eight audio
returns on the LightViper to route stage
announcements as well as other audio
feeds back down the hill and patch
as necessary to the auditorium and
classrooms. A split from the LightViper
stage box also feeds the FOH console
for auditorium audio.
He added, “We now have really
clean audio feeds between all locations, without any digital glitches or
any of the previous problems we had
with long runs of analog signals. We
have eliminated all grounding hums
since we no longer connect with copper between the two buildings; our
audio was routed with conventional
snakes through the same conduit runs,
which caused constant signal and noise
problems. The LightViper has made a
Faith Christian Center Church Provides Challenging Install
upgraded to keep up with changing
services and growing membership. It
was at this point that Pastor Johnson
contacted Tony Sprando of Audio Visual Presentations.
Audio Visual Presentations, one of
ISP Technologies newer contractors,
has been providing service in both
Audio Video sales and rentals and
turnkey solutions to houses of worship, resorts, hotels, schools and government agencies since 1999. Based
in Bend, the company was a natural
Faith Christian Center Church in Bend, Ore. choice for Faith Christian to rely on.
Because the building was an octagonal
BEND, OR — Faith Christian Center Church,
established in 1929, continued to grow along shape, this provided a challenge to upgrade
with the small logging town of Bend, Ore. The their system to one that would actually cover
current location was chosen in 1968, and the the whole sanctuary, including a wrap-around
original sanctuary, which is now the gymna- balcony. After researching the many options
sium, was built. As the church grew, additions available, Audio Visual Presentations decided
were made for offices, the Fellowship Hall an ISP Technologies system would be the best
and sanctuary overflow. In 1978, the church solution to the many problems the building
continued to grow and the new building was design created.
The RL4215 line arrays are a dual element
completed. In September 2006, Pastor Mike
Johnson decided that the sound should be four-way active system designed using ISP’s
proprietary LineSim software. The Reference
Line 4215 is just one of ISP Technologies fourway active line array systems, but the RL4215
system was designed primarily for house of
worship applications.
With the input of the engineers at ISP,
Tony Sprando choose two Reference Line
4215s, two High Definition Monitor 112s and
two XMAX 212 folded horn subwoofers for
the 500-seat sanctuary. Using the proprietary
LinesSym Modeling, ISP engineers defined the
hang points for these speakers. With the complexity of the hang, ISP recommended one of
their Professional Installation Network riggers
to help out with the hang. BC Sound of Battle
Creek, Mich., flew out to assist AVP in the rigging portion of the job.
The church echoed this sentiment in saying: “It is our pleasure to highly recommend
Audio Visual and Tony Sprando. In September,
after accessing our needs, he put together a
preliminary study that showed the best performance sound system needed to upgrade our
church’s sound. And at a price that was well
within our budget. “
Chattanooga Precept Ministries’ main auditorium
dramatic improvement in our production
work. The new fiber system also enables
us to feed many more signals as needed
between the main buildings.”
continued from page 2
FEEDBACK
Non-union employees in all industries are
watching jobs dissolve, pays stagnate, benefits erode; all while prices for basic necessities continue to rise, taxes rise and services
are cut. They run in fear of management and
fear that they might lose their jobs. In our own
industry, I am seeing the quality of touring
personnel decrease as low budget shows and
non-union tours employ unqualified individuals in key positions, just to increase profits. I
am a latecomer to the Union. It took me a long
time to wise up and understand what was really going on to see the truth through the blizzard of bullshit thrown out by management. Publications like this did not exist when I
was learning the ropes. I wish that they had.
FOH could educate or promulgate the fear and
uncertainty that allows management to erode
wages and conditions in our industry. Why
don't you help the young workers understand
what is going on instead of being a management propaganda organ? Your readers would
benefit from understanding the financials. If
you had someone who approached the money aspects of the industry the same way that
Mark Amundson approaches the technical aspects, it would be greatly appreciated.
Bill Park
8
FEBRUARY 2008
www.fohonline.com
News
Emmanuel Presbyterian Church Accommodates Expanding Congregation
A combination of four EAW KF730P biamp three-way line array cabinets and two
EAW SB625 subwoofers per side, along with
three EAW AX366 bi-amp three-way center
fill cabinets, and two EAW JF60s comprise
the center cluster. A delay ring of seven
EAW MK2396 full-range speakers balances
out the coverage, and EAW SM20iH wedges
combined with Aviom A-16II monitor mixers handle the stage. In addition, a distributed system of Tannoy 70-volt CMS501DC
ceiling-mounted speakers deliver sound to
the main lobby and two cry rooms in the
back of the sanctuary.
To allow the SymNet system to address
all of those speakers, a SymNet BreakOut12
adds a dozen outputs to
the 16 that come with the
two DSPs. “The SymNet 8 x
8 DSPs are incredibly powerful,” said Wright. “You can
do anything with these
boxes. I admit that when
I first saw the SymNet Designer software, it was a
little overwhelming, but
as soon as I started working with it, I understood its
simplicity. I had a few questions along the way and Symetrix was right
there to help me out.” SymNet also offered
ARC-K1 volume controllers for the lobby and
Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in San Jose, Calif.
cry rooms. Apart from those controllers, the
rest of the DSP is locked down and invisible
to the church’s technical staff.
COSTA MESA, CA — Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in San Jose, Calif., had outgrown
its land-locked building of 350 seats. They
were doing everything to accommodate the
expanding congregation, including multiple
services and overflow rooms. But the increasingly splintered feel created by so much division in time and space of what was actually
one community, coupled with a undersized
parking lot, spurred the church to search for
a new building.
At around the same time, the church’s
staff members attended a “HOW To Sound
Workshop” audio/visual training seminar
conducted by Mike Sokol of Fits and Starts
Productions. They were impressed with
Sokol’s aptitude and demeanor and were
eager to get him involved in the design of the
sound system for their new worship center,
which they were just beginning to build in
the facility of a former tech company.
Sokol was excited about the project, but
knew that it would be a disservice to the
church to take on the West Coast job from his
East Coast home. Although Sokol agreed to
consult, he recommended Rodney Wright, a
systems designer for Southern California’s JD
Audio Visual, to handle most of the project locally. With the team in place, Sokol flew out
so that he and Wright could spend some time
with Pastor David Parks, staff members and
the congregation in their old building to help
understand their vision for the new building.
As often happens, the church’s anticipated
budget for the AV system did not align with
the system they hoped for.
“That put us in the delicate position,” said
Wright, “of wanting to make sure they would
get a system that did everything they needed
with reliability and longevity, without losing
their trust that the extra expense was truly
necessary. We were especially careful to use
products with unusually good value for the
money to keep the budget from ballooning
without compromising the system.”
Despite the fact that the church staff was
comfortable with their old analog console,
Wright recommended they go with an alldigital system to deliver greater functionality
without increasing the price. “Symetrix’
SymNet DSP became the heart and soul
of the whole system,” said Wright. “I had
never installed SymNet before, but when I
researched our options, I found that SymNet
was remarkably affordable given all that it
could do. It was the good fit.”
Emmanuel Presbyterian wanted to
use many of their existing microphones
and stage equipment in the new building.
Wright only augmented them with a small
number of Shure ULX-series wireless and
KSM-137 series wired microphones. He
connected all microphones and line level
sources on stage to Aviom AN-16 series mic/
line inputs with integrated AD converters,
which interface with a 48-channel Yamaha
M7CL digital console.
From the console, signal travels to a
pair of SymNet 8 x 8 DSPs, which supply the
speaker processing for the LCR and distributed systems. They went with an LCR system for two reasons. First, the sanctuary is
decidedly fan-shaped, making a three-way
distributed system more sensible than a single huge cluster. Second, and perhaps more
interesting, the church’s active youth department wanted the ability to put on contemporary music events with a high caliber
of sound. Also included was a delay ring to
ensure that SPLs would be consistent from
the front seats to the back seats.
International News
to look after the band and one to concentrate
on Robert’s vocals and effects. Not the easiest
thing to do: two engineers, two pairs of ears
and two egos! Mick and I have known one
another for over 30 years and are both from the
Black Country, so that helped a lot,” Williams
says. “The XL8 let me have my own world
to work in with just the vocal mic and eight
effects — leaving Mick to create his world
without either of us getting in one another's
way. No blood was drawn, we had a blast and
more importantly are still friends.”
With the show’s large global profile, there
was intense pressure on the band to deliver a
stellar performance. With this in mind, the onstage sound was always going to be critical.
Monitor Engineer Dee Miller specified a full
Turbosound system supplied by Britannia Row.
Miller has worked with Plant for several years,
but it was the first time he had worked with
Page, Jones and Bonham. For musicians who
spent much of the 1970s on stage, personal
monitors were not a possibility.
“I should be so lucky!” laughs Miller. “I had
four major players who like a reasonably high
stage volume and who, with all those years of
experience, know what they do and don’t like.
So, my job was to make it right for all of them.”
For Plant, Jones and general stage coverage, he specified a system comprising 11 Turbosound TFM-350 high power full-range wedges,
which incorporate twin 15” LF drivers and a 2”
HF compression driver in a 42° angle enclosure.
A pair of TFM-450s, featuring a custom 15” neodymium LF driver and a 3” diaphragm neodymium HF compression driver on a 40° x 60° horn
were deployed for Page, another pair of TFM350s plus subs for Bonham and six Flashlight
mid-highs per side for sidefills.
“And I’ve never had a bad result with Turbosound wedges,” says Miller. “The TFM-350s
are amazing; I’ve done a lot of artists with them
and the way Britannia Row integrates the amplifiers and speakers as a complete system is
excellent. In addition, although other products
have since superseded the Flashlight cabinets,
we like the narrow dispersion pattern, and
they deliver exactly what’s wanted.”
Led Zeppelin performs at London’s O2 Arena.
Mixing on a Midas Heritage 3000, Miller
was busy during the show as the monitoring
requirements kept him well on his toes. “With
John Paul Jones playing bass guitar, bass pedals and keyboards, there was a lot going on,”
he says. “And Robert likes it edgy. He has a lot
of top end on his vocal mix, so it’s always a
challenge. I have to keep an eye on him and
my hand on his fader at all times. He likes to
know that we're really pushing things.”
He continues: “There was a lot of pressure
because, of course, it had to be absolutely right.
It was tough at the beginning of the show; the
first three or four songs were hard work, but it
settled down as we got into the set.”
For the aftershow party at the adjacent
IndigO2 venue, regular Turbosound user WE
Audio supplied 24 TFM-320 and TFM-330
wedges. As with the first part of the main
show, Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings were
performing with a number of guests, this
time including Ben E King, Solomon Burke,
Percy Sledge and Paul Rodgers. WE Audio
are the Rhythm Kings regular audio supplier,
but the addition of guests meant that no less
than 20 wedge mixes were required, plus
personal monitors. Amplification was by MC2,
with system processing by XTA. “It was hard
work with the sheer number of mixes, but it
went extremely well,” says WE’s Wayne Barker.
Brogaard echoes Barker’s comments, “It was
an honor and privilege to participate in this
iconic event. There was a lot of pressure, but
it’s always reassuring for us to know we’re
working with the best sound equipment
in the business. The entire crew from the
engineers to the guys running the PA did a
tremendous job.”
The sheer impact of Led Zeppelin’s influence on rock ‘n’ roll is echoed by the popularity
among generations of fans who weren’t even
born when the band first played, and also by the
300-million albums that have been sold to date.
The crowd was a drop in the bucket compared
to the estimated 400,000 people who attended
their last two UK concerts, but the enthusiasm
was no less contagious as the world’s greatest rock band played “Good Times, Bad Times,”
“Misty Mountain Hop,” “Stairway to Heaven,”
“Dazed and Confused” and “Whole Lotta Love.”
Colin Saunders
LONDON – Eighteen thousand fans packed
London’s O2 Arena for the most anticipated
concert in recent history. John Paul Jones, Robert Plant, Jason Bonham (son of original band
member John Bonham) and Jimmy Page played
a two-hour, 16-song set to pay tribute to the
band’s late record label boss Ahmet Ertegun,
who signed them to Atlantic Records in 1968. At
front of house, Big Mick Hughes mixed the band,
while Roy Williams handled Plant’s vocals.
UK-based sound company Major Tom Ltd.,
headed by Lars Brogaard, deployed a Meyer
Sound system comprised of 72 MILO high-power
curvilinear loudspeakers, with a center hang of six
MICA high power curvilinear loudspeakers and
10 flown 700-HP subwoofers per side. Ground
stacks included nine 700-HPs per side, and four
MICAs per side for outfill. In addition, one MICA
per side along with eight UPA-1Ps were strung
across the stage lip for front fills. Three Galileo
loudspeaker management systems handled 36
outputs, and a SIMÒ 3 audio analyzer was used
by Meyer Sound’s Director of European Technical
Support Luke Jenks to tune the system.
At front of house was a Midas XL8 Live
Performance System provided by Britannia
Row, with two engineers at the controls. “I had
known from before the start of rehearsals that
two engineers would be doing the show, one
Colin Saunders
Led Zeppelin Reunion Jolts Lucky Few with London Show
On the Move
APB-DynaSonics has announced that
Marshank Sales will represent the company
in Southern California, including San Luis
Obispo, Kern and San Bernardino Counties, as
well as Arizona and Southern Nevada.
The Marshank Sales Team
AV Concepts has announced the hiring
of Orlando Sanchez as a convention services
account executive. A 17-year veteran of the
A-V industry, Sanchez will be stationed in
Orlando, Fla., but will work closely with AV
Concepts’ San Diego office.
Group One Ltd., under the direction of
President Jack Kelly, has announced it has
reached an agreement with UK-based digital
console manufacturer DiGiCo to distribute
its products within the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
The agreement was signed Jan. 14, 2008 and
is retroactive beginning Jan. 1, 2008.
Harman International Industries Inc.
has announced that
Ken Yasuda, president
of Harman Japan, is expanding his responsibilities effective immediately to assume the
newly created position
of country manager of
Harman Japan. In his new assignment, Yasuda
will report directly to Harman International
Chief Executive Officer Dinesh Paliwal.
As country manager of Harman Japan, Yasuda will be responsible for the management
of support functions that cross division and
business lines, and, he will serve as the chief
spokesperson for Harman in Japan.
Meyer Sound Mexico (the Berkeley,
Calif.-based company’s Latin American distributor) recently expanded its facilities by
50%. The larger space will accommodate a
growing customer support staff.
Ken Yasuda
Steve Seable has been named Yamaha
Commercial Audio Systems Inc. product manager for the DSP and Amplifier Group. Seable
comes to YCAS from
Disney where he held
the position of head of
audio for the Hyperion
Theater at California Adventure in Disneyland.
Also, Peter Robinson
has been hired as product manager and joins
the speaker product
team as its third product manager. Robinson
spent 10 years at Harvest Productions, most
recently as sales manager and senior consultant with a focus on the
installation market.
Steve Seable
Peter Robinson
Business Owners
and Managers:
Make sure your staff
is up-to-date on the
industry by having
them read Front Of
House every month.
Send your company an
e-mail with our URL
www.fohonline.com/
subscribe/
and encourage them
to get their own
subscription. If they
are serious about
your business, they
should be seriously
reading...
www.fohonline.com
www.fohonline.com
2008 FEBRUARY
11
New Gear
Winter
Still Not an Audio Show, But...
FOH hit the convention floor for a firsthand tour of new gear that stood out in the crowd.
Crest Audio CV-20
SKB-R1406 Mighty Gig Rig
Mackie SRM450
Heil Sound PR 35 Mic
Peavey Versarray 212
AKG D4 Stage Mic
Soundcraft GB2R
Crown XLS 5000
Allen & Heath ZED-436
By BillEvans and MarkAmundson
O
K, so for an MI guitar show there was a respectable
amount of new audio gear at Winter NAMM. Nothing
earth-shattering, but enough to keep things interesting. Here is some of what floated our boats…
Crown Audio expanded its affordable XLS line with the
XLS 5000 power amplifier, putting 1,800 watts per channel at
4-ohms into every person’s gig budget (about $1,400 MAP). Although three rack spaces and 62 pounds with a conventional
supply and the Crown branding, this is the macro-tech-on-abudget dream for anklebiter subwoofer needs.
While also strolling through Harman world, a couple
other things were interesting. First are two new direct boxes
from dbx. Listing at $120 and $130 each, the db10 and db12
passive and active direct boxes are rugged and roadie-weaponlike devices that are professional performance quality. Also
at dbx was a slimmed down version of the DriveRack series
made specifically for powered speakers where things like
crossover point and delay are already set.
AKG’s new D4 Stage Mic is now vying to be the microphone everyone can use everywhere, with the exception
of vocals. Sporting a stubby dynamic profile, the D4 has a
wide-frequency band and a universal mic clip that doubles
as a drum rim clamp for percussion usage. And Soundcraft
entered the quality rack-mount mixer battle royal with its
GB2R, with one version offering 16-channel XLR, 100 mm
faders and six aux sends. And with Asian manufacture and
the quality GB circuitry, the Soundcraft GB2R is going to get
a big fan club.
Leaving Harmanland, QSC made some noise with its GX
series power amplifiers (and a cake that looked just like one of
the amps at the press unveiling). The GX3 and GX5 have front
panels similar to the new PLX2 amplifiers. But in keeping a specific cost sensitive market, the GX series are only 4-ohm and
above capable amplifiers for installs and MI-market customers.
The GX3 can provide 425 watts per channel at 4-ohms, and the
GX5 can do 700 watts per channel at 4-ohms. These amplifier
are targeting the under $400 cost markets.
Sabine came to NAMM 2008 with a new gizmo called the
Phantom Mic Rider that plugs through vocal mics via the XLR
connections and mutes mics not having a human Infrared
heat signature near them. The Phantom uses phantom power
and costs about $160 MSRP each to do its job. This is a small
12
FEBRUARY 2008
beautiful gadget for loud stages ( I can see sound engineers
keeping a couple in the briefcase as problem solvers).
The Bosch/Telex/EV/Dynacord/KT/Midas, etc., empire
was at the show with many new products, but what caught
my eye was the new DC-One speaker processor with a $999
MSRP. The DC-One from EV is a single rack space unit with a
2-in, 6-out XLR speaker processor and a good-looking human
interface. I especially liked the dual LED bargraphs for each
output channel showing both an eight-LED signal status and
an eight-LED limiter/band select status as well. Look for this
in a future road test review.
Heil Sound brought king Bob Heil out to NAMM to show off
his attire and a couple new mics. Of note are the PR 35 mic and
the Handi Mic. The PR 35 is pretty much the PR 30 side address
mic, but redesigned for handheld vocal use. The PR 35’s huge
dymanic capsule with plenty of sorbo-thane shock mounting
makes the PR 35 a great vocal mic that provides studio quality
vocal detail at a bargain price. The Handi Mic is a mini-sized
dynamic mic originally intended for Leslie cabinet mixing of the
rotary horn element, but can be used with hi-hat, cymbals and
anything needing great presence and high frequency detail.
Carvin quietly stunned me by sneaking out their XD88
X-Drive digital speaker processor. Featuring a large LCD display
for Graphic EQ settings and other displays, this 8 in by 8 out unit
has a lot of capability. Not only can you route the inputs and
outputs universally, but each channel has time delays, parametric EQ, crossover filters, gain controls, mute selection, phase
selection and a RTA/pink noise capability with a rear RTA mic
XLR jack for metering. And at $699.99, the price is right.
Allen & Heath was busy on both the analog and digital
sides of things. Adding to the iLive series, they brought in a
smaller control surface with 32 x 16 capability and a price tag
under $30K. On the analog end, they introduced larger frame
size ZED consoles with four-bus capability in the 16, 24 and 32
mono-XLR input sizes. The ZED-420, ZED-428, and ZED-436 consoles are positioned a touch below the GL series offerings, and
get a USB output capability with most of the GL2400 features.
Digidesign also went downmarket without sacrificing features. Their new Venue package combines the stage
and FOH boxes, allowing you to get into a Profile system
for less than $40K. This leaves just DiGiCo and Soundcraft/
Studer without a sub $45K digital console offering. Expect
www.fohonline.com
to see the march toward digital turn into at least a trot here
soon. Digidesign live marketing guru and uber mixer Robert
Socville says they are out to do nothing less than completely
change the live mixing paradigm…
Over in Peavey City — in addition to some wicked cool
guitar amp stuff that we are not allowed to talk about yet,
they were showing a new full-size version of the Versarray as
well as the CV-20, which is likely the last large analog mixer
to carry the Crest logo.
In the LOUD Technologies Pavilion, the Mackie line introduced several new products for live sound. What caught
my eye were the new SRM plastic portable loudspeakers
with Class-D amps and switcher power supplies. Both a 15”
SRM450v2 and a smaller 12” SRM350v2 keep a lot of the older
styling, but reportedly address most of the issues users had
with the previous version. (You own at least one pair of these,
so you know what we are talking about.) We’ll put them to the
test in an upcoming review.
What else? Audio Technica showed a pair of new wireless
personal monitor systems. Though originally conceived and
designed for the NAMM crowd, with a pretty pro feature set
and price tags of $599 and $799, you can count on seeing a lot
of these on gigs. Again, a road test is coming.
Other random stuff — SKB had some wicked cool new
cases including a Gig Rig and some watertight stuff that they
used for sound gear on the Pirates of the Caribbean set.
Evidently, they so trust these cases that they just closed them
up — with things like a Yamaha OM1V inside — and floated
them down the river to the next location. Oh, and Audix had
a neato clip-on mic stand for guitar and bass cabs that allows
you to avoid those little stands that everyone trips over and
keep a cleaner looking stage for $59 bucks.
Finally, it may not seem like anything for FOH to be covering, but there were no fewer than half a dozen systems out
there that aimed to get guitarists using a laptop as their amp.
While I think it’s one of those “never gonna happen” things,
it was gently pointed out by someone at Waves that this is
largely a generational issue. Just like the kids don’t flinch at
digital mixers, the time may come when the laptop-as-amp
thing becomes the norm. Which will present us with a whole
new set of issues and a market for tube direct boxes to “warm
up” that guitar signal. Same as it ever was…
Showtime
The International Military Music Festival
Venue
GEAR
Quebec City Coliseum
Quebec City, Quebec
CREW
FOH Engineer: Jacques Boucher
Systems Engineer: Bill Kinal
Production Manager: Daniel Simard
Soundco
Vision AV/
Kloda Focus
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM-5D RH
Speakers: 4 JBL Subs 4881, 36 JBL VerTec
4887, 4 JBL VerTec subs 4880
Amps: 18 Crown I-T4000, 4 I-T6000
Processing: PM-5D RH
Mics: AKG C430, C460, C535, AudioTechnica 4033 & 4050, 12 Shure UHF-R
Power Distro: Motion Labs & custom
Rigging: CM Lodestar
Snake Assemblies: RSS S4000 48X16
Digital snake
ST
MON
Speakers: EAW JF-50, Meyer UPA-1P &
UPM-1P
Amps: Lab.gruppen
Processing: TC Electronic Eq Station
Soundco
Clearwing
Productions
Southern Comfort Music Experience
ST
Venue
Tempe Marketplace
Tempe, AZ
CREW
FOH Engineer: Jim Jorgenson
Monitor Engineer: Devin Kelley
Systems Engineer: Gary Brunclik
Production Manager: Gary Brunclik
Tour Manager: Various
Systems Techs: Gary Brunclik, Jim Jorgenson,
Devin Kelley
gear
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM-5DRH
Speakers: L’ ACOUSTICS V-DOSC
Amps: Lab.gruppen
Processing: XTA
Mics: Beyer, Shure, Sennheiser,
Power Distro: Motion Labs
Rigging: CM Lodestar
Breakout Assemblies: Clearwing VEAM
Snake Assemblies: Radial
MON
Consoles: Yamaha PM-5DRH
Speakers: Martin F-1, Martin
LE-700
Amps: Crown
Processing: XTA
Mics: Beyer, Sennheiser,
Shure
Bear New Year’s Bash with Thornley,
State of Shock & Tin Foil Phoenix
Soundco
Axe Productions
Venue
Shaw Conference Center
Edmonton, Alberta
CREW
FOH Engineer: Jeff Bartlett, Bud Arnold,
Chase Tower
Monitor Engineer: Jeff Charmichael
Systems Engineer: Chase Tower
Systems Tech: Jeff Charmichael
GEAR
FOH
Console: Soundcraft Series Five 48 +4
Speakers: 24 EV XLC DVX, 8 EV Xi1152,
16 EV XSub
Amps: EV P3000 RL, EV P3000
Processing: 4 EV DX38, 2 BSS FCS960, TC D2,
M1XL, Yamaha SPX 990, 2000, BSS DPR404,
504, DBX 160A, Klark Teknik DN514
Rigging: 4 CM 1 Ton
Breakout Assemblies: Ramtech
Snake Assemblies: Ramlatch
14
FEBRUARY 2008
www.fohonline.com
ST
MON
Console: Soundcraft SM24 - 48
Speakers: EV XW12, EV Xi1152, EAW
SB850
Amps: Crown Macrotech
Processing: Klark Teknik DN360,
dbx Driverack
Mics: Shure, AKG, Sennheiser
Soundco
ST
EDGE
Audio Services
AFL-CIO PresIdential Forum 2008
Venue
Soldier Field
Chicago, IL
CREW
FOH Engineer: Pete Hansen
Production Manager: Al Zara
Systems Tech: Trevor Waller
gear
FOH
Console: PM5D-RH, Midas Venice 320
Speakers: 18 GeoD, 16 GeoS, 8 GeoSubs,
Nexo
Amps: 4 Camco V6, 8 Powersoft K-10
Processing: NX 242, NX 241, PM5D Internal
Proc., Shure SCM 810,
Mics: Countryman, Sennheiser 5000 series
wireless, Shure,
Power Distro: Motion Labs, 125A 3 Phase
Rigging: CM Lodestar 1 Ton & 1/2 Ton
Snake Assemblies:
Whirlwind
MON
Speakers: NEXO, 8 PS10
Amps: 2 Camco V6
Processing: NX241, PM5D
Internal Proc.
POCO
o
Venue
GEAR
Quebec City Coliseum
Quebec City, Quebec
CREW
FOH Engineer: Don Lanier
Monitor Engineer: Derrick Howard
Systems Engineer: Earl Parrish
Systems Techs: Ed Vinyard, Kenny
McPeek
Soundco
Pearl Productions
Venue
Viva La Bands Tour
CREW
FOH Engineer: Joe Iwan
Monitor Engineer: Ryder Bolden
Production Manager: Paul Collis
Tour Manager: Steven Page
Soundco
Cradle Of Filth
GEAR
MON
Consoles: Crest HPW 44
Speakers: MIPRO MI 808/E8P, Peavey QW
M L/R
Amps: Crest CS 3000/1400
Processing: Feedback Ferret D, VSX 26,
QF 131
I.E.S.
Sound & Lighting
Production
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM5-D
Speakers: 16 L-ACOUSTICS V-Dosc or dVdosc, 8 L-ACOUSTICS SB28 on most nights
Amps: Lab.gruppen
Processing: 6 dbx 166, 4 Drawmer 201, 1
dbx 160A, 2 dbc 163X, 2 dbx 1066, 1 T.C.
Electronics M-One, 1 T.C. Electronics D-Two,
1 Yamaha SPX 90, 1 Yamaha SPX 1000, 1
Yamaha D1500,
Mics: 2 Shure Beta 91, 3 Shure SM57, 1 Shure
Beta 57, 5 Shure Beta 98, 4 Shure SN 81, 2
Shure KSM 27, 3 Shure SM 58, 1 Shure Beta 58
Snake Assemblies: CBI 40 x 8 iso 250’ Mass
Split, 2 Hosa 30’ 6 chan subsnake, 1 Hosa
50’ 8 chan subsnake, 1 Hosa 50’ 16 chan
subsnake
MON
Console: Yamaha LS9-16
Speakers: 3 Sennheiser EW300-IEM G2,
custom-molded earpieces
Processing: T.C. Electronics M2000
Power Distro: 4 Philmore ST-2000
2000-watt 110/220 Step Up/Down
Transformer
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FOH
Console: Crest HPW-44
Speakers: Peavey Versarray VR 112/VR
218/QW 2F
Amps: Peavey CS 4080/4000/3000/1400
Processing: Peavey VSX 26, TC M-OneXL/
D-Two/Yamaha Rev 500/dbx 166,QF 131
Mics: Heil PRO 20/30/40 AUDIX OM5, D2,
D4, SCX 1, ADX 51, Shure Beta 91
Power Distro: Custom-built 200 Amp
Rigging: Genie, Crosby
Snake Assemblies: CBI 40-channel with
monitor split
ST
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2008 FEBRUARY
15
Feature
See Tom Mix. Mix, Tom! Mix!
Training HOW Staff in the Basic Tenets of Good Sound — And Make a Profit Doing It
CM Photos
Kent Clasen
MSM Systems Inc. President Kent Clasen during a training session at Pine Ridge Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, Mo.
James Obed, technical director at Greater Allen Cathedral in Jamaica, N.Y., with volunteer staff
By JamieRio
A
few months back, I wrote a Sound
Sanctuary article titled “Training The
Faithful.” I mostly discussed working
with and teaching all those nice house-ofworship volunteers how to take over mixing duties after I did an install or updated
a church sound system. Unfortunately, I
have failed miserably in my efforts to turn
everyday, well-meaning and good-hearted
churchgoing volunteers into respectable
sound technicians. Not only have I failed
personally, but the worship sound install
industry is failing in general.
Amplifying The Word
FOH
I realize this is a critical and sweeping statement to throw at everyone in the
church sound business. So, if your company is one of the few that not only installs
worship sound systems, but also trains
and educates volunteers and has already
scheduled follow-up and maintenance
programs, please accept my apologies. As
for the rest of us, maybe during the course
of this article we can explore some ways
we can make our church clients happier
and more proficient with their sound systems. And, thus, make us better businessmen and women and better people in general. All right, that may be a little too lofty a
goal for a writer such as myself, but maybe
I can impart a small amount of knowledge
and common sense.
I think every house of worship starts
with the same desire to serve its congregation to the best of its ability. This includes
delivering the word of God and all accompanying music and announcements in a
clearly audible and attractive manner. This
desire to serve the faithful is basic to every
religion. How this plays out can take on
thousands of different forms. If your church
has a 200-person congregation, your worship sound system shouldn’t be too big or
complicated to operate. If you work with a
40,000-person group of believers, Sunday
service is a major full-blown production.
Most of us are working and designing sound systems for houses of worship
that are somewhere in-between these extremes. What I am seeing more often in
the smaller churches (300 to 800 persons)
is an increasing demand for better sound
and lighting and an elevated production
quality to their services and presentations.
Today, messages from on high have to be
presented in a much more upscale and
smoother package. I know that may sound
really awful to somebody who just wants
to hear the word of God right from the
book it was written in. However, in reality,
16
FEBRUARY 2008
the presentation of religious material has
always been clothed in the style and technology of the day. Take Jesus for instance;
He was well-dressed in the clothes of his
time and did his preaching in fields, on hill
tops and in town squares — as these were
the technical standards for verbal presentations of that time.
If it weren’t for the constant desire for
houses of worship to improve their productions and better serve their people,
you and I would probably be out of work.
And church wouldn’t be as fun as it is today. Remember, God invented dancing,
singing and laughing. I just want to amplify it. At any rate, the reality is that work has
never been better. At least, that is the case
right here in Southern California. 2007 was
a banner year for God and me — I did more
installs, services and events at local houses of worship than I ever have during any
previous year. Church business is certainly
booming, which leads me back to my opening statement about failing to help church
volunteers keep up with the operation of
their new gear and technology.
Getting It Right
FOH
As sound providers and system installers, we have a responsibility to properly
train somebody (usually a volunteer) to run
the systems we install or upgrade. The most
common scenario I run across when checking out a sound system for the first time
is not finding anyone at the church who
knows how to turn the thing on. “Well, our
sound guy gets here early every Sunday and
he turns it on. I have his cell number if you
want it,” is the typical response. Or, if I am
fortunate enough to have an appointment
with the house of worship sound crew, I am
told not to touch any of the outboard gear.
Especially the intimidating graphic EQ. “We
had the room tuned in 1978 and nobody
has touched that thing since,” would be a
common warning.
At times, I have walked into a church
that has a nice new system with a fresh mixer, outboard gear, microphones, etc., just to
hear the pastoral staff telling me they have
been getting complaints every Sunday
about the service being too loud or harsh.
They get complaints that the announcements are unclear or the preacher’s sermon
is muffled. Now, we all have been in a worship house that has just horrible acoustics.
I realize that the environment in which we
install our systems can be less than desirable. However, that is a subject for another
day and won’t be discussed here and now.
Anyway, back to the issues at hand.
A volunteer mixing sound at the Word of Life Church in Shreveport, La.
God invented dancing, singing and laughing.
I just want to amplify it.
Another common situation is to have a
church where the congregation’s average
age is 55, but the good-natured volunteer
sound tech is about 20 years old. Of course,
this guy wants to crank up the worship
band. Rockers for Jesus are just fine, but
that may not be the appropriate point of
reference when mixing to a senior group of
churchgoers. All these situations and more
happen in the worship sound environment
because the sound techs are generally volunteers. I am not suggesting that volunteering at your local church is not a good
and helpful thing to do. I volunteer at my
church and it’s a fun and satisfying thing
to do. It becomes a problem when the volunteer’s enthusiasm exceeds their understanding or ability.
I think we underestimate the importance of the guy or girl mixing a service.
If the volunteer is on his or her game, the
music will be uplifting, the announcements
will be heard and understood and the message from the pulpit will reach the ears of
the believers with grace, purpose and maybe a little style. On the other hand, if the
sound tech is failing his job, the service can
be flat and lifeless. Or, even worse, a blast of
unexpected feedback can loosen the dental fillings of half the people in the congregation. A house of worship that assaults its
people’s senses with the sound system can
lose members. Whereas a pleasant sounding, well-run system can invite visitors who
may become members.
If you have worked or volunteered at
any house of worship long enough, you will
understand the importance of growing a
congregation’s size or at least keeping the
www.fohonline.com
A Yamaha PM1D console at FOH inside the Greater Allen
Cathedral in Jamaica, N.Y.
numbers solid. For better or worse, there
will always be a business aspect to religion
and congregation size. When you take all
these things into account, the sound tech
bears a great deal of responsibility and often
doesn’t understand the basics of sound or
much about mixing at all. So, the question
becomes what can we do as professionals
working in the business of worship sound
to ensure that each non-professional volunteer tech is as good as we are? I mean
that in general, not as good as you or I individually. I don’t want to bruise any egos
here, friends.
Training the Faithful…
FOH
For most installers (myself included),
training the volunteer sound crew means
showing them how to operate the new gear
we just installed. There is no question that
we must teach as many people as we can
about the new equipment, but if our training stops there, we are really doing our clients a huge disservice. Without the proper
training, all that amazing new equipment
Lakewood Church sanctuary in Houston
we have setup in our latest house of worship can potentially cripple your new client.
If that dedicated volunteer fails to operate
the new gear properly, he or she can crash
the service, piss off the pastor and damage
the congregation’s hearing — ultimately
driving away the followers and closing
down the church. Obviously, I am exaggerating, but I want to stress the importance of
properly training those faithful volunteers.
I think that some sort of sound theory
education needs to go along with equipment training. How many volunteers know
what hertz are? Or the frequency separation
points of a standard graphic EQ? Or what
frequencies are, in general? How about signal flow? The average volunteer does not
need to be a rocket scientist, but they need
to know more than just “pushing the first
slider makes the preacher louder.” Please
don’t think I am naive about the challenges
involved with regard to training volunteers.
Every house of worship is different and operates under a wide variety of dynamics.
Before you could ever begin a sound training course for volunteers, you must first
convince the church staff and elders that
such a course is warranted. You certainly
are not going to be training new volunteer
sound techs for free are you? A budget will
be needed to pay your fees as a teacher.
Once the powers that be have allocated
funds for your training class, you may find
that not all of the volunteers are enthusiastic about being trained. They may already
think they know all they need to know, and
they may not want to listen to any outsider’s
ideas about sound. Yeah, all beliefs aside, we
can be considered outsiders. In some cases, I have found worship houses that have
volunteer techs who are extremely knowledgeable. If you are one of those fortunate
churches, you may want to consider paying
your rare and valuable volunteer. However, I
have found that most volunteers lack understanding or are very set in their ways.
I once installed a new sound system in a
little church in Pasadena Calif. The main man
(volunteer) in charge of mixing and consequently training any volunteer mixers had
been at that church for many years or decades). I suggested that a digital graphic EQ
would be a great addition to the churches
sound. At the mention of digital, this senior
volunteer went into a tirade about the evils
of digital verses analog — going as far as
suggesting that I be burned at the stake for
mentioning digital on the hallowed grounds
of his church. OK, I am exaggerating a little,
but this is a good example of the obstacles
and complexities we can face in the attempt
to train the faithful.
continued on page 43
www.fohonline.com
2008 FEBRUARY
17
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FOH Interview
Colin SaunderS
Big Mick Hughes Gives Zeppelin
The “Full Roar” Treatment
By BillEvans
I
“ remember 1977. I started going to concerts and
I saw the Led Zeppelin. I got a guitar on Christmas day. I dreamed that Jimmy Page would
come from Santa Monica and teach me to play…”
“AM Radio”— Everclear
FOH: So, where do you want to start?
Big Mick: Let’s start from me getting the gig.
There you go. How did you get the gig?
Well, it all started with a phone call from
Roberts engineer, Roy Williams, someone who
I have worked with and known for more than
20 years. He asked for my assistance in getting
him the use of a Midas console live and direct
from the manufacturer in Kidderminster. Being
as I have been involved with Midas for some
time, I said, “no problem.” When I enquired as to
what it was for, he replied with the off-the-cuff
statement, “Oh, it’s for this Zeppelin thing.” As
the conversation progressed, Roy explained
to me that because of the amount of vocal FX
returns, it had been decided there should be
two consoles, one for the vocals, which would
be his responsibility and the second for the
band under the command of an unknown at
that point, which is where I offered my services. The band was happy to give this the go
ahead as Jimmy had previously seen Metallica
at the Wembley Stadium show and thought it
sounded great. And obviously, Roy gave Robert a thumbs up on the fact that we are friends
and I’m a local Black Country guy.
to get noise reflected around the building and
back at the stage. Plus, on-stage monitoring
has also evolved along with PA technology.
I never heard any complaints from the band
that they wanted more… put it that way…
Right. Well, you’re the obvious choice.
The obvious choice? Well, maybe. There
are few engineers who would turn down such
an opportunity — the engineering world was
literally at their feet. I was grateful to have
been given the opportunity of course; however, I also found the experience as much of
a challenge as I’m sure they did. I was in a
dilemma. How do you make a band like that
sound? Is this Led Zeppelin 30 years ago, or
is this Zeppelin 30 years later? It was hard to
know just what was the right thing to do.
Well, I saw the monitor rig specs this
morning. They could have almost done
the entire show with that monitor rig.
It was pretty big. And, it was pretty loud.
I know some, shall we say, “vintage” acts
have had a problem adjusting to current
PA systems because they are more focused
and there is a lot less sound coming back
at them from the house.
Plenty coming back at the O2; that room’s
very active. It’s a big arena show, you know.
Even though it’s a line array, you’re still going
The band’s set list on top a Midas XL8 Live Performance System at FOH.
18
FEBRUARY 2008
So, how was it, co-op engineering?
Well, because we get on all right, it wasn’t
too bad. I mean, obviously we talked about
the level of the vocal over the band and, of
course, we have to be careful we didn’t get
into the trap of Roy turns the vocal up, so I
turn the band up…blah, blah, blah. You could
just end up chasing your own arse. There was
much discussion and we worked together.
Okay. Now, I remember it wasn’t that long
ago that a certain engineer told me they
wouldn’t pry his analog Midas out of his
cold dead fingers.
And looking back at that time, I would
still say the same. In that period, digital was
Colin SaunderS
Colin SaunderS
Like Art Alexakis, I saw Zeppelin in ’77 and
can still close my eyes and put myself in that
room again. This is a band that is so big and
revered by so many that I have actually had a
hard time getting myself into the space to get
this piece put together. Imagine what it must
have been like to actually mix the show.
Big Mick knows what that is like. The iconic
FOH engineer, best known for his 20+ years mixing Metallica, was one of two engineers behind
the desk at the reunion show at the O2 Arena in
London. Mick handled the band — Jimmy Page,
John Paul Jones and second-generation drummer Jason Bonham — while Robert Plant’s longtime FOH guy Roy Williams minded the lead
vocalist’s channel and some of the 40 effects
returns. Monitors — and there were a ton of Turbosound wedges and sidefills — were wrangled
by Dee Miller, Mick and Roy drove a Midas XL8
feeding an army of Meyer Milo line array cabs.
And the show was — by every account I have
been able to find —nothing short of spectacular. The Hammer of the Gods swings again.
www.fohonline.com
CREW & GEAR
CREW
It was a show so big that it needed two
sound companies. Major Tom provided
the Meyer Milo FOH rig while Britannia
Row pitched in with the Midas XL8 and
the extensive Turbosound monitor
system.
Colin SaunderS
A Midas XL8 Live Performance System at FOH.
Tech crew from UK-based Major Tom Ltd. (left to right): Jack Dunnett, Ali Viles, John Chadwick and Dave Vinnicombe.
very unstable and a new field. Now the “beta”
testing of the live digital mixing concept is
over, things have changed, and my perspective has changed, realizing the opportunities
digital can offer.
Sounds like you’re pretty comfortable with
the XL8 now.
I’m getting there. There was a lot of psychology that went into the layout and operation of the desk and ultimately it’s very comfortable to use. It’s still got some “teething
problems,” but it’s a fantastic sounding piece
of gear.
Did it cut down on what you have to bring
out as far as outboard gear?
We didn’t really know what we needed.
If we would have actually gone analog, we
would have started with one XL4 and would
have ended up needing two — let’s just say
the input list evolved a few times. It was
about 36 inputs and 40 effects returns in the
end. We still had to carry some outboard gear,
but the majority of the FX were handled by
the XL8, so yes, I suppose it did slim down on
the extras.
And what kind of stuff were you running
outboard?
H3000, TC-Helicon, TC-Helicon VoiceWorks, a four Engine M6000, a Leslie emulator
to run vocal on “No Quarter,” which later we
abandoned in favor of the XL8’s phaser plugin, which was better… hmmm… what else
did we have? Oh, yes, Klark Teknik shiny new
multi-track — the 9696. Virtual Sound check?
Hmmm…
Oh, so you guys were recording the shows
as well?
Well, we were in rehearsal at a place called
Black Island Studio in Acton, a sound stage
place, but we couldn’t get any set in there as
it wasn’t quite big enough. So, the band set
up in one room and I was in another with the
XL8 and a pair of Genelec 1037s. It was hard
to get work done while they were there. So, it
was much easier to record it…then we could
play it back to work on parts and effects when
it was much quieter.
I saw there was a Turbosound rig and
monitors.
Yeah. That’s from Brit Row.
Now it has been a long time since they played
together…how did the rehearsals go?
While Robert was in America with Roy,
I spent a week with the other three. Then
Jimmy broke his finger and we had two
weeks off… We did another two weeks in
Black Island with Robert and then we moved
to Shepperton, which is a much bigger rehearsal place where we could have a bit of
PA and we could put in the entire lighting
system and the 100 feet by 30 feet video
screen. We finally moved out of there a week
later into the O2 — a day before the show.
[Ed. Note: Screens for the show were provided
by Creative Technologies.]
Did the monitors interfere with the house
sound at all?
No, not really. I mean, you’re talking about
a really big environment. I had a huge system
in there. The main hang was 18 deep and
there was a shit pile of it everywhere. And,
you know, you’re talking about some side fills
and wedges, it’s not really going to come on
through with a system of that size. They do,
however, bleed into the mics, so you have to
work with that.
Was it a MILO?
Yeah, Meyer MILO, all the way through.
Smaller boxes, of course, for the infill.
How many subs?
Nine aside on the floor and I believe 10
flown either side. That was plenty. I mean,
we would turn them down constantly. The
O2 arena is a little weird. It’s kind of good on
the sides, but it’s a bit strange on the floor.
It was like a bass bow wave that comes up
and down the arena. I think it’s the sides
of the arena, they’re so steep. When I go
in there again, I will be more prepared for
that — it kind of took me by surprise, I must
admit.
Are there talk of any other shows or is this
going to be four weeks of rehearsal for one
thing?
I am not aware of any plans to do more
shows, could be fun though.
Right, and it had to be screaming loud.
Oh, I’m sure.
Did you use any of specialized stuff that
you’ve developed for Metallica? Things
like the under-miking of the cymbals?
No, it needed a different plot than that.
It needed a more open approach. You know,
with the Metallica thing we control all the
ambiance; we keep it all tied in. But with
Led Zeppelin, I was looking for more of an
ambient attitude…
Okay. Sounding more organic?
Yeah. It couldn’t be Metallica because
Led Zeppelin always had a more open
drum sound. So, with the Earthworks mics
setup, I went with two SR25s over the top
in an X-Y configuration and then a couple
of SR25 overheads as well. And then I used
an SR30 on the hi hat, Shure SM57 on the
top of the snare. SR25 on the bottom of
the snare. Toms were Audio Technica 350s.
Kickdrum was a Shure Beta 52 with another SR25 on there as well, and both with
KickPads. Another SR30 on the timpani
drum and finally an AKG 414 on the gong.
That was pretty much it from the drums,
and then no noise gates…
www.fohonline.com
FOH Engineers: Big Mick Hughes and
Roy Williams
MON Engineer: Dee Miller
Major Tom Crew: Lars Brogaard, Luke
Jenks, David Vinnicombe, Jack Dunnett,
John Chadwick and Alistair Viles
GEAR
19 boxes of Meyer Milo on the main
hangs per side
24 boxes of flown HP700 sub bass
2 hangs)
6 Mica as center hang
8 boxes of Milo on the side hangs
per side
8 boxes of Milo on the rear hangs
per side
8 boxes of Mica as ground out fills
9 UPA1P as lip fill
FOH system controlled by three Galileo
processors and monitored VIA RMS.
Console: Midas XL8
Effects: TC M6000, SDE 3000 with tap, DN
6000
MONITOR SYSTEM
Console: Midas H3000
Insert racks:
16
X
Channels of Graphic
Eq’s (BSS FCS960)
6
X
Channels of Noise
gate Drawmer DS
201
6
X
Channels of
compressor/limiter
Avalon/Summit
Effects racks
1
1
1
1
X
X
X
X
Yamaha SPX 990
Lexicon PCM 70
TC D2 DDL
TC 2290
Drum MON
1
2
1
X
X
X
Midas 24 CH Venice
SPX 990
Eventide H3000
Bi amped Wedges
12
X
Side fills
4
X
8
X
Drum fills
2
X
Turbosound TFM 350
2 x 15”
Turbosound TFS 780
narrow highs
Turbosound TFS 780
lows
Turbosound TQ425SP
2 x 15”
FEBRUARY 2008
19
Colin Saunders
FOH Interview
mega stars. Unbelievable. Even Paul McCartney was in the audience sitting in the seats. It
was quite bizarre.
The pressure on everybody had to be
enormous.
Oh, it’s surreal. It’s really surreal. It was so
hard not to think about what was coming. I
checked out of the hotel at about 5 pm show
day, after attempting to watch some TV so as
to relax a little, but it was quite pointless, as all
I could think about was the show.
No gates? Hmmm.
Other than the kick drum. I had to lightly
gate the kick drum because I was nervous
about leaving it open as the SR25 was
positioned outside the drum. But other than
that, no gates on anything else. I wanted to
get as open a drum sound as possible.
That’s a real different vibe from the Metallica things.
Oh yeah, well it had to be. I think they
were a little nervous that I was going to approach it Metallica style. And I guess I kind
of did try in rehearsal at first, with triggers
to open gates and all that sort of stuff. But…
it wasn’t right… it wasn’t Led Zeppelin. It’s
just a different animal. It needed to be more
splashy, more open.
Okay. What about miking the guitar… Did
he have like an army of amps up there?
I used just the 30-Watt Orange with an
Audio Technica AE 2500… sounded fantastic.
Jimmy did have other guitar setups that he
switched in and out as needed, which were
also mic’ed with AE 2500s.
30-Watt Orange?
30-Watt Orange. I tell you what, in rehearsal when he fired that up, I was like, ‘wow,
how many watts is that guitar amp?’ — and I
went down and looked at it — it was 30 watts!
I was like, that defies the laws of physics, but
I mean really defies the laws of physics. It was
the loudest 30 watts I have ever heard!
You had how many inputs?
We started with the normal setup. You
go, OK, it’s a 36-input band. And then you
figure probably 10 or maybe 12 effects return, but by the time we do all the specialist
bits and pieces… Well, 36 plus 40 effects, so
approximately 76.
76 inputs for a three-piece band and a
singer?
Yes. Well, it’s Led Zeppelin isn’t it?
Right. But it makes lot of sense. I mean, the
eyes of the world were on this thing.
You have no idea. It was like walking in the
clouds. Even standing outside of the hotel the
night before smoking…There was a guy standing there and he goes, ‘Yeah, I just got here
from California,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, really?’ and I
asked, ‘What are you doing here?’ He said, ‘I’ve
come to the Led Zeppelin thing. You guys here
for Led Zeppelin?’ But, I’m not going to say we
were working it… I just said, ‘We all are.’ And
then he went on saying, ‘Yeah, I paid for this VIP
trip’ — I think he said it was 10 grand. People
were paying so much money for one show.
The people in the audience, f#*&ing hell.
I mean, it read like a who’s who — you know,
from David Gilmour to Dave Grohl — all these
It’s not the same as a gig…
It’s nothing like the gig… the gig pressure is so much more intense… the vibe is
so different. The intro starts and there’s the
band… well, here we go. And you feel like
a rabbit in the headlights. It took me three
songs to tune the PA for the sold-out room.
I was just dazed and confused…great name
for a song (laughs)…
For God’s sake, you are standing there mixing Led Zeppelin.
Oh, yeah, we did try to ignore that fact for
the whole period. But it’s difficult when you’re
walking around backstage and everywhere
you go there is a celebrity.
So, not only are you mixing the biggest
band ever, but you’re mixing them for a
bunch of people who could hire you.
Yes, absolutely. All the managers that
were there. Everybody was there. All I needed
to complete the set would have been James,
Kirk, Lars and Robert. Kirk was going to come,
but with the date change he couldn’t make
it in the end. If they would have been there,
then it would have just been the full f*&#ing
hat trick.
Well, I haven’t heard anything but good
reports back from it. Everybody said the
band was really just great and that the
sound was phenomenal.
Excellent. To me, of course, as the guy
that did it, I just think I could have made it 10
times better.
So, what else? Is there anything I am missing? Is there anything you want to talk
to me about that I’m failing to ask you
about?
No, I think you’ve pretty much got the full
story there. But, you know what was a crying shame about the gig? People were more
interested in capturing the moment on their
camera phones as opposed to enjoying it. At
the end of songs, it wasn’t like the crowd went
crazy or anything. They were pretty tame.
How do you have a tame crowd at a Zeppelin show?
Because they don’t want to shake the
phones. Looking at the audience from behind
the console, it was a sea of screens. Just a total sea of telephone screens. Really bizarre,
seriously, Bill. And because the people didn’t
want to shake the phones to f#@k up the video they’re recording, it was pretty tame. They
all roared vocally. But the crowd were just tripods… it was strange.
Okay, keep me posted as to what you’re
doing. You said you had a small tour you’re
out with for a little bit. Who is that?
They’re a band called the Wildhearts 
that was just before Christmas and was more
to calm down from the Led Zeppelin thing.
And how did you come down from something like that?
Well, exactly, it was a bit hard. It was like
all I could ever think was Led Zeppelin songs. I
go to bed thinking Led Zeppelin songs, wake
up thinking Led Zeppelin songs, and it almost
drives you to distraction.
Yeah, it’s got to be an all-consuming thing.
It was, and it had to be because of what it
was. We had to go into the O2 at 110%
Well, they got the full roar treatment,
didn’t they?
They did really, and it was full roar,
crushing, f*@%ing great rock music.
GETTY IMAGES
Colin Saunders
Back to the two engineers thing. Mick, they
don’t call you Big Mick for nothing.
No, true, hahaha…
How do you put you two guys behind the
console?
Well, Roy’s not that big, and the console’s quite wide — we managed to get two
chairs in there. Roy’s at the end bay and I
just got the rest of it. It’s the only way really
— other than going with a sidecar. I don’t
think we could have done it on any other
digital console than the XL8.
Well, it’s immense and plus you get one
shot at it.
That was the problem, and as much as you
can rehearse and rehearse and rehearse…
Of course. We all finish the gig and go ‘if I
had only done that…’
It’s been like that ever since. You know
what I mean… oh, how I could have done
that… I could have made that so much better.
20
FEBRUARY 2008
www.fohonline.com
Installations
Creates a Concert-Friendly Church
La Fe en Jesucristo Church Embraces the Music
The congregation at La Fe en Jesucristo Church embraces the music in the worship.
By BreanneGeorge
W
ith an energetic congregation and
10-piece band, the La Fe en Jesucristo
Church attracts international attention. Despite its location in a small Hispanic
neighborhood of Kansas City, Kan., wellknown Hispanic Christian bands regularly visit the church to perform during worship services. When the church moved into a larger
facility (the church consolidated its worship
facility from a previous two locations to one),
Church Trustee Noe Aguilar wanted a stateof-the-art sound system to accommodate
the array of culturally diverse music, which
includes everything from heavy metal and
rock to soulful tenors and traditional hymns.
“We didn’t have the space and we didn’t have
the sound system,” says Aguilar. “We had to
rent auditorium space and equipment to accommodate the different styles of music. This
time around, we wanted a concert-friendly
church.”
Up to the Challenge
FOH
When looking for an installer, Aguilar says
aside from the expense and history of professional work, he was looking for a company
that offered its knowledge during the initial
assessment. Some companies made suggestions regarding basic speaker placement for
improved sound, but MSM Systems Inc., of
Lawrence, Kan., conducted a thorough evaluation of the situation. “They came in and said, ‘If
you hang speakers at this point of the ceiling,
you’re putting people in danger because the
ceiling could potentially collapse’,” Aguilar says.
Because of the building’s architecture (circa
1950), the existing ceiling beams could not
hold the weight of the line arrays. He brought
in an engineer for a second opinion, who confirmed what MSM Systems had predicted.
The company was awarded the contract, and
had just one month — from receipt of the
contract to first day of service — to install
the sound system. “That was a big challenge,
not only for our company, but we were also
appreciative of NEXO and Yamaha to get us
22
All Photos Kent ClAsen
MSM Systems
FEBRUARY 2008
the equipment in a timely fashion,” says MSM
Systems President Kent Clasen, adding that
he is used to working under a timeframe of at
least eight weeks from contract to completion.
The crew consisted of Technical Director Eddie
Winslow, Installation Technician Kirk Hutson
and Clasen, who designed the sound system.
The heart of the system consists of a
Yamaha LS9-32 digital audio console, Yamaha
T4N amp, two Yamaha PC9501N amps and a
NEXO GEO S line array system that includes
two NEXO ALS2-CF 2 by 18-inch subwoofers,
14 NEXO GEO S805 eight-inch two-way, fivedegree vertical line array loudspeakers and
two NEXO GEO S830 eight-inch, two-way,
30-degree vertical line array loudspeakers.
“It’s a very high-energy congregation that
really embraces the music in their worship,”
Clasen says. “We wanted the church to have
a high-quality stereo system. We were familiar with the GEO S system from NEXO, so that
was one of our first choices.”
Shaking Things Up
FOH
MSM Systems worked with Structural
Engineer Eddie Winslow to install 16-foot
I-Beams across the ceiling to support the left/
right NEXO GEO S805 eight-inch vertical line
arrays. Aguilar says he was surprised at the
compact size of the speakers, and was initially worried that they wouldn’t be enough to
cover the entire sanctuary, which holds about
1,000 people.
“I didn’t know the dimensions of the
speakers, but I pictured them bigger when
they brought them in. They were so small
compared to the ones we had before. Ours
were like boat anchors,” Aguilar says with a
laugh. Clasen assured Aguilar that he would
be surprised — the speakers would be more
than enough to deliver accurate, quality
sound that would impress not only those in
attendance, but also the bands.
The biggest challenge, however, was
placement of the NEXO S2 2 by 18-inch subwoofers because installers didn’t have the
capacity to add them in a flown configuration.
“We settled on the S2s — they didn’t have to
be flown, and we had a little bit of floor space.
Two of them really filled the room with strong
bass during the opening service. We had to
put a high-pass filter on the bass guitar channel to keep it from shaking the balcony where
a projector is mounted.”
Floor placement of the NEXO S2 subwoofers
also made sense from a visual standpoint,
reducing the look of bulky audio equipment.
“Hanging the subwoofers would have added
a lot of speakers to be seen, so putting them
down on the ground allowed us to eliminate
that visual problem,” Clasen comments. Aguilar
says he initially thought the subwoofers on
the floor would be too loud for people sitting
in the first few aisles, but, thus far, he has only
received positive feedback.
Invisible Control
FOH
MSM Systems also installed a Yamaha
LS9-32 digital audio console to replace the
church’s large-format analog mixing board.
The console’s onboard effects and compact
size helped reduce front-of-house equipment
size by half. “Getting rid of the racks and large
analog console is a big plus for them; they
didn’t have to eliminate any seats around
front of house,” Clasen says. Since a majority
of performers use personal monitors, the console’s presets allow each individual musician
to recall their own settings. This is a benefit
for the church as well because it helps maintain low stage volume, Clasen noted.
During the first day of service, Clasen
showed Aguilar the Yamaha LS9’s ability to
be run via a laptop. “He’s like, ‘Check this
out, see the mixer over there…’” He had his
laptop, and with the click of the mouse, he
turned the volume down. It’s not that expensive — all I need is to buy a router because
the mixer comes with software. In the future,
we’ll still need the sound booth for CDs and
live recordings, but we can reduce the mixer
to a laptop.” Aguilar says this option gives the
www.fohonline.com
church invisible control, as a volunteer sitting
in the back of the sanctuary could literally run
the entire sound system.
The Wow Factor
FOH
The church recently held a concert that
brought together youth groups from local Hispanic churches. Since most of the bands were
teenagers, the style of music was more youthful — and loud — with bands performing hard
rock, punk and heavy metal. Although the
styles of music were different than the church
was accustomed to, the sound system wowed
the bands. “The bands absolutely loved the
sound. Even though it was loud, the sound
didn’t bother people’s ears. The sound system
was able to hold up,” Aguilar says.
When Aguilar contacted the band Zona 7,
who was to perform at an upcoming event,
he says the band was shocked to learn the
church had such an impressive sound system, and commented on the seven NEXO
GEO S805s on each side of the sanctuary.
“They were like ‘no way!’ — they couldn’t wait
to hear the sound. They were surprised that
a church had them, I guess because they’re
more expensive, but we knew with all these
events that we would save money in the long
run. We would spend so much money renting
equipment and auditoriums. We wanted to
make it easier on us.” The La Fe en Jesucristo
Church is one of the largest Hispanic churches in the area, and its new system is quickly
becoming a model for other local houses of
worship. “Several churches have called us asking what speakers and mixers we are using,”
Aguilar comments.
Positive Feedback
FOH
The church has a group of volunteers that
work the system, and prior to the first service,
Clasen conducted training sessions with them
on how to use the digital console. He also attended the first service to ensure everything
performed up to par. “MSM did a one-on-one
training session with me; we recorded it to be
Around 1,500 people attended the opening day worship service.
The La Fe en Jesucristo Church is one of
the largest Hispanic churches in the area,
and its new system is quickly becoming a
model for other local houses of worship.
used as a training manual for techs,” Aguilar
says. “I worried that digital would be so different, and it would take (the volunteers) a
while to learn it, but they picked it up the
first time.”
An unforeseen challenge for Clasen was
tuning a system for a Spanish-speaking worship service. “It was unusual to tune a system for a language that I am not fluent in. It
helps that the NEXO system has a very linear
response, so not much tweaking was needed during the actual service,” he says. The
first day of service was a success with the
audience and bands alike providing positive
feedback. The system made sense for both
the budget and the space with coverage
“amazing from the front row to the balcony,”
Clasen comments.
The La Fe en Jesucristo Church is located
in a lower-income community, so the highquality sound system is pretty rare, admits
Clasen. “They were stretching their budget to
get to this level because it was very important
to them, which was evident at the first service.
The way the congregation responds to the
band and the music was just incredible.”
The Yamaha LS9-32 digital audio console at FOH
CREW
Sound System Contractor: MSM Systems Inc.
Design/Commissioning: Kent Clasen
Technical Director: Eddie Winslow
Installation Technician: Kirk Hutson
GEAR
www.fohonline.com
2 NEXO ALS2-CF Subwoofer 2 x 18”
carpet finish
2 NEXO GEO S bumper hardware for
flying GEO S
14 NEXO GEO S805 eight-inch two-way, fivedegree vertical line array loudspeaker
2 NEXO GEO S830 eight-inch, two-way,
30-degree vertical line array loudspeakers
1 NEXO NX242 2 x 4 digital loudspeaker
controller
2 MSM custom rigging
1 32 x 8 snake
2 Sub snake eight-channel fan to box
1 drive snake
1 speaker wire 4 COND 13 AWG
1 speaker wire 2 COND 12 AWG
1 Shure DFR22 digital processor
1 Yamaha LS9-32 digital mixing console
2 Yamaha PC9501N amplifiers
1 Yamaha T4N amplifiers
1 12-space FOH rack
1 Lowell amplifier rack
1 Lowell A/C sequencing system
2008 FEBRUARY
23
Installations
Bringing the Salt Lake Tabernacle
Into the 21st Century
The two-year renovation involved mixing modernization and preservation
By DavidJohnFarinella
All Photos Courtesy of the ChurCh of
Jesus Christ of lAtter DAy sAints
Interior of the Tabernacle after the seismic upgrade and renovation
C
ertainly any kind of installation work
demands a high attention to detail,
and everyone from architect to designer to installer to end user needs to be
on the same page. The team that worked
on the two-year renovation of the Mormon
Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake
City, Utah, took that pressure, doubled it
and then doubled it again.
After all, these pros were working on a
building that was originally opened in 1867
and has been at the center of The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well
as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s weekly
broadcast, for 140 years now.
Begging for Renovation
FOH
Chief Engineer Sean McFarland points
out that the Tabernacle was in desperate
need of the work. Indeed, he reports that
the venue’s front of house position “was a
little spot they’d carved out in the middle
of a couple of the pews, but it really was
such a mess that it was never used. You
could squeeze a guy in there, but you had
to lube him up and shove him down in a
hole to make it work,” he says with a laugh.
“What was there had never been designed
and integrated as a whole system, but had
Preparing for the interior renovations
24
FEBRUARY 2008
evolved with years and years of technology,
and it desperately begged for renovation
with the structure of the building.”
Robert Breitenbeker, who serves as the
manager of event support for all of the venues on the Temple Square campus, concurs.
“This is the first time the building has actually been closed and renovated any substantial amount,” he says. “So, this was our
opportunity to completely redo all of the
infrastructure — lighting, sound and A/V
systems — to bring it into the current century.”
Before this opportunity, Breitenbeker
admits with a laugh, almost every piece
of lighting, projection and audio gear was
bolted on. “It was always that we got a request and we had to figure out a way to
scab it on to the structure.”
At the same time, the directive from the
church’s President Gordon B. Hinckley was
to make sure that the essential structure
was not altered. “The preservation people
didn’t want anything to be changed, so we
had to find an in-between medium,” Breitenbeker says. “We were ready to rip the ceiling down, put in catwalks, speaker positions
and all of that stuff, but because of the very
unique structure of the dome and its acous-
tic properties, we weren’t allowed to touch
that, so we had to find other solutions. Having the building closed for a period of time
[enabled us to] find solutions that fit all of
the requirements, both on the preservation
side and on the technological side.”
The team from the Tabernacle worked
with FFKR Architects, audio and acoustic consultants Kirkegaard Associates and
Diversified Systems, who were charged with
integrating the massive audio, lighting and
projection installation.
“Phenomenally Good Acoustics” FOH
On the plus side, the Tabernacle has legendary acoustics. In fact, tour hosts prove
that to visitors by dropping a straight pin
or a small nail and then tearing a piece of
newspaper, while standing by the pulpit. It’s
all audible throughout the room. So, McFarland says, the room doesn’t need a powerful reinforcement system if there’s any significant musical event. “The only time that
reinforcement is used is for speech and if
there was some event where there was an
acoustic instrument like a guitar or something that required it,” he says.
Even with a full orchestra and the Tabernacle’s iconic organ playing? “The choir
Halfway there…
Final steps
www.fohonline.com
is 350 people,” McFarland answers. “A good
vocal performer, even singularly, can outdo
an instrument that’s registered appropriately.”
At the same time, McFarland reports
that a JBL VerTec line array system (10 4888s
per side for the main floor and six VT4887As
for the side balcony seats) was purchased.
That line array is to be used, he reports, for
“what we would call a concert with youth
flair. Those are used very, very seldomly.
In fact, in the time that the building has
been opened, those arrays have never been
flown.”
Since sonic punch was not required and
there was much concern about the Tabernacle’s reverberant soundscape, the designers
looked to intelligibility and flexibility as the
prime requirements for any speaker system installed into the Tabernacle. In fact, McFarland
says, the room’s reverberance was a major
concern. “That was one of the biggest problems before — the instant that any acoustic
energy hit the ceiling, sound went everywhere. Having phenomenally good acoustics
[in one place means] you have other spots in
the building that can be equivalently bad, so
the entire design criteria here, and what was
done and looked at by Kierkegaard, was how
TRenT WALkeR
A view of the choir and organ.
Front-of-house position
“We were ready to
rip the ceiling down,
put in catwalks,
s p e a k e r positions
and all of that stuff...
but we had to find
other solutions.”
– Robert Breitenbeker
to keep the acoustic energy from the speakers from hitting the ceiling.”
The answer to this issue came via the
steerable Duran Audio AXYS Intellivox speaker system. “With those, we can absolutely
pinpoint the horizontal plane [of the audio],
and [the mixer] can put the sound right in the
audience and eliminate the dome,” McFarland reports. A pair of Intellivox DS 280s was
installed on one of the Tabernacle’s support
columns and is designed to cover the main
floor, while two DS 180s are used to cover the
rear of the room. Two Ds500 arrays were installed on either side of the organ’s pipes to
cover the balcony.
Hidden Audio
FOH
All of the Intellivox boxes have been
custom painted to blend in as much as possible to the Tabernacle’s color scheme. To
fill in here and there, Renkus-Heinz TRX61
boxes were custom fit into the underside of
the balcony to fill any of the area that the
Intellivoxes didn’t cover, McFarland says.
Also, L-AcouSTIcS 108 monitors were installed on a column above the rostrum, and
112s are placed on the stage during performances for monitoring.
The system is driven by crown I-T4000
and I-8000 amplifiers, and the FoH mixer
works from a Yamaha PM5D console. “That
was another challenge,” McFarland says,
“because they wanted the position to
largely disappear, so there were some great
cosmetic and building challenges. How do
we squeeze this thing in? How do you hide
a PM5D?” The solution was found, he explains, by making the FoH position as low
profile as possible and then blending the
cabinetry into the color of the pews around
it. “It became a reasonable operator position with enough room for all of the equipment, yet it doesn’t jump out as a large mix
position.”
www.fohonline.com
2008 FEBRUARY
25
Road Test
Dolby Lake Processor
By LarryHall
S
o, unless you have been living under a
rock somewhere, you know about the
Dolby Lake Processor — at least you
know it exists. Quick review: The Dolby Lake
grew out of a unit called the Lake Contour,
also known in a modified form as the Clair
I/O. It was the first speaker processor to offer
the ability to run using a wireless tablet computer so you could make adjustments from
anywhere in the room. It won a ton of awards
and everybody wanted one. Sidenote: The
development was led by legendary audio designer Bruce Jackson — and Bruce does not
make stuff that sucks.
The Gear
RT
Fast forward a few years and Lake is
acquired by Dolby Systems. Yes, THAT Dolby.
Another pro audio company that was made a
part of a much larger group that specializes in
consumer electronics and big installs. Dolby
had always owned a piece of Lake, but this
buy made them a subsidiary. We all wondered
what it would mean for the Contour and
most of us were pleasantly surprised when,
shortly after the buy, Dolby announced the
release of the all-new Dolby Lake Processor.
A kind of Contour on steroids that looked like
something out of a sci-fi movie.
When Jackson and his partner David
McGrath started developing this project more
than 10 years ago, they had the advantage of
two things that gear developers almost never
get — a clean slate and substantial financial
backing (Clair backed the original design).
Jackson had been working with computer
games, which had given him a whole new
take on interacting with digital audio. Which,
you will see, had an effect on ease of use.
The Dolby Lake is basically everything
the Contour, the Clair I/O and the Mesa EQ
were — all shoved into one box (except some
of the presets that are written just for Clair
cabs, which no one can rent so why bother
including them). In addition to all of the normal stuff you would expect to see from a
speaker processor, we were told at the introduction that we would be able to “stack” EQs
in ways we had never done before and that
even using the tablet we would hear those
EQ changes immediately as if we were using
a real analog EQ.
We were excited enough about it to
spend $350 to send one of my full-time guys
to take the training class on the Dolby Lake.
Oh, and I sent him with a P.O. for two units.
We were ready to go. Turns out that the unit
was so popular so quickly that we were not
able to get one at the time — in fact, it took
more than a year to get one for this review.
So, as excited as we were about the Dolby
Lake — especially after my guy took the class
and came back telling us everything it could
do — there was work to do and gigs on the
books and we could not just sit and wait.
We ended up buying a few of pretty much
every other controller on the market to figure
out which way to go. We purchased three of
the new BSS Minidrives, two dbx 4800s and
one XTA 428 to go along with the XTA 226s
we already had. Object of the game? Figure
out what controller and manufacture worked
What it is: Speaker controller, EQ, Dynamics. A better question is “what isn’t it?”
Who it’s for: Soundcos with a need for high-end sound and control.
Pros: Excellent sound. Very easy to use.
Cons: Took too damn long to get here.
How much: Ranges from $4,990 (LPD) to $6,947 (LP4D12).
Web site: www.dolby.com/professional/live_sound
26
FEBRUARY 2008
Dolby Lake Processor
best for us. Then get rid of the rest. But, Dolby
was not used to the cycles of the pro audio
biz — especially the touring side of it — and
timed the release of the first production run
at the same time that most soundcos, large
and small, are making purchases for the allimportant summer season. The result was
that we just could not get one, and I know
the same thing happened to others. We reluctantly dropped Dolby from the "race." We
have since committed to one controller for
everything and have sold everything else
off and put 10 new controllers in service last
year and plan on many more this year.
About four months ago, we finally got
the Dolby Lake into the shop! There were still
a few “hiccups” to deal with — we were sent
the Dolby as requested with a 4-in and 8-out
configuration to match what we already had
in our drive racks, but the laptop they sent us
had one version of software, and the manual
was for a different version. Once we got the
stars and moon and sun aligned and Dolby
got us the right “parts,” we were able to take
it out and use it.
The Gigs
RT
The Primm Valley Arena. New Year’s Eve.
B.B. King. Thirty-two VerTec boxes in four
hangs, plus 16 subs and four frontfills.
After load in, we had some time to play.
I put the Dolby on one side and the “house
controller” on the other. We load in our VerTec
settings. At first, just like our initial run with
the Dolby in the shop with a ground stack
of four VerTec, the Dolby was thin-sounding compared to the “house unit.” We were
both relieved and disappointed at the same
time. All of the hype. All of the “we don’t have
one for you to try yet.” All of the anticipation.
Is it just another product with great marketing, but not so great performance?
NO! It simply needed a bit of tweaking
(as any controller would need). Different controllers have different personalities. The same
adjustment made on two controllers using
the same speakers and amps can make one
system sound great and pretty much suck on
the other.
We picked a track on Christina Aguilera’s
CD Stripped. I chose this disc because her
voice can show harsh characteristics in hi freq
drivers, but the tracks have an overall smooth,
full-range tone. After about 100 pans back
and forth, I was sure that the squint lighting
bitch was ready to rumble. Whatever! Do we
care what lampies think? No, we don’t!
One pet peeve I have with “high end” controllers is crappy front panel controls. If you
don’t have a laptop...GOOD LUCK! Yes, you
can get into most of them without a comput-
www.fohonline.com
er, but they are hard to drive and very hard
to follow. There is not a real industry standard
for speaker controller “lingo.”
Now, in the shop we used the computer
Dolby sent — very sexy graphics and easy
to use. So, back to my pet peeve. I purposely
left the computer in the case, and spent no
time in the shop with the controls on the
front of the unit. I wanted to go at it blind. I
want a controller that is as easy to use with
or without a computer. I mean, what if your
computer crashes or gets ripped off while
you’re stuffing your face?
How did it go? Man, how easy can it be?
As you pick the section you want to work
with — for example, input levels — every
button on this sexy beast required for inputlevel tweaking lights up. Almost like following the Yellow Brick Road, except it’s digital
and has lot more colors that just yellow. I was
able to access every single feature I needed
simply by using whatever buttons lit up. The
single downer difference between say a dbx
4800 and the Dolby is that the screen on the
dbx actually shows a graphic representation
of whatever you are working on. The Dolby
does not. You get “6 DB, 3 DB, 2.4 DB.” No, real
“look” at what you’re doing. But you do get
that functionality with the computer software and, besides, the Dolby just plain looks
cool.
Back to the gig… As we panned the CD
back and forth and with a little tweaking (we
used SMARRT to tweak the house rig already),
the Dolby had a far smoother high end without
sacrificing the punch in the low-mid response.
Overall, I was pretty blown away by it. Two or
three minutes of tweaking and it was showready — much quicker than other controllers I
have used (and I have used a bunch…)
Bottom Line? Every now and then a
heavily-marketed piece of gear hits our
business that actually stands up and delivers, at least, what you expected and, in this
case, way more. We are very happy with
the controllers we have, but with another
large purchase in front of us later this year,
I would definitely consider The Dolby Lake.
(Dolby says that they are currently able to
meet production requests for the unit.) And
you will be seeing this technology around
even if you don’t buy the actual unit. For example, Lab.gruppen just released a new series of amps with what is basically a Dolby
Lake built right in.
I could spend a lot of time telling you all
of the crazy, cool tech features this unit has,
but there is not enough room in a single
magazine article to do it justice. Instead,
take one for a drive and make up your own
mind. It REALLY doesn’t suck.
Road Test
Dynacord PowerH 2500 and 5000 Power Amplifiers
interfacprovided as alternative output interfac
es. Besides a large fan and a ground lift
switch, four XLR jacks are provided for
conthe dual channels in and through con
nections. Phoenix connector blocks are
also provided for alternative input and
through interfacing. Three slide switches
intercomplete the remaining rear panel inter
faces for selecting sensitivity/gain, dual/
parallel input signal routing and bridged
mode operation. An expansion slot cover
also adorns the rear panel for modular
network cards, like the RCM 26.
By MarkAmundson
I
t is not often that Dynacord comes
out with a new high-end audio power
amplifier, but when it happens, it is
usually a real technological marvel. The
PowerH 2500 and 5000 power amplifiers
are designed by the same German engineering team that produced the legendary L 2400 (P3000) concert sound amplifier. For over 60 years, amplifiers from
that location have proven to be the finest and most reliable components one
could possibly find.
The Gear
RT
Starting from the obvious, the Dynacord PowerH 5000 is a “compact” but
large amplifier in that the two rackspace
height makes it similar to other modern touring amplifiers; however, the
20.15-inch depth makes the Dynacord
PowerH 5000 a large rack beast. The good
news is that each PowerH 5000 weighs in
at a nice 29 pounds. Inside the chassis
is a pair of three-step class-H amplifiers
designed in a grounded-bridge fashion,
and each driven from three-stage, floating, 70A capacity switching power supplies. Straubing’s engineers were the
final holdouts on using switcher supplies — as opposed to the conventional
supply L2400 amplifiers — because the
switcher PSUs did not meet the performance criteria of the amplifiers they
supplied.
At four ohms per channel loading
(my personal measurement standard),
the Dynacord PowerH 5000 amplifier
puts out about 2,500 watts per channel.
At 2-ohms, the output power is 3,500
watts, resembling a healthy power supply scheme to provide maximum dynamic headroom. With both channels driven,
total peak output power available is
stunning at over 9,200 watts! Input sensitivity is a selectable 0/+6/+9 dBu max
signal to max output voltage swing for
compatibility with most systems. The
frequency response is 10 Hz to 30kHz
within a +/-1dB window. Damping factor is a respectable >400, and slew rate
a respectable 35V/microsecond for good
signal fidelity input-to-output. And at
4-ohms per channel with 1/8th power program signals, the PowerH 5000 sips only
1,450 watts from its power inlet.
Like many tour grade amplifiers, the
Dynacord PowerH 5000 uses a microprocessor for managing many housekeeping functions. The optional RCM-26 DSP
module allows loudspeaker preset storage and recall, an AES 3 digital input, RS
232 port for integration with media control systems, four gpio ports, onboard
sample rate converter and state-of-theart signal-processing for both channels,
including digital voice coil protection
and Finite Impulse Response filter technology, as well as complete amplifier
and loudspeaker supervision through
the IRIS-Net software suite.
The front features a modest LCD
panel with three adjoining buttons for
up, down and enter navigation. Along
with necessary rotary level controls and
signal level LED bargraphs, additional
LEDs are sprinkled in for gain selection,
mute and protect indications, parallel or
bridge mode indications, IRIS-Net activity, standby and power-on indicators. A
nice custom power switch rounds out
the front panel on the PowerH 5000.
The rear panel on the Dynacord PowerH
5000 amplifier includes a 30 amp Neutrik Powercon jack for mains power input right next to a pair of NL4 Neutrik
Speakon jacks for the speaker connections. Channel A NL4 output includes ch
B on pins 2+/- for single cable drive of
bi-amp loudspeaker systems. Additionally, four binding post connections are
The Dynacord PowerH 5000 is a real
powerhouse of an amplifier. It practically begs
to be used on subwoofers, and meets or
exceeds the need of providing prodigious
energy to transparently create body-shaking
bass sounds.
The Gigs
RT
Racking up the Dynacord PowerH
5000 brought up no major issues, and
a minor note to self that this amplifier
sucks cooling air from the front and exhausts it rearward. Choosing the +9dBu
input sensitivity on the rear gain switch
puts the amplifier into 32 dB mode,
which fits in with the rest of my amplifier
system. The menu system on the front is
nice and easy to use, especially for monitoring amplifier status like mains Voltage, Current and amplifier temperature.
Even if you’re not a system engineer
with the digital plug-ins for IRIS-Net
and many PowerH 5000s, the feature
www.fohonline.com
to be used on subwoofers, and meets
or exceeds the need of providing prodigious energy to transparently create
body-shaking bass sounds. I believe the
Dynacord engineers would not have let
the PowerH amps leave the factory if the
power supply energy reserves were not
of overkill quantity.
Using the PowerH 5000 on tops and
wedges, the fast slew and quality classH amplifiers made the mids and high
similarly transparent as the lows were
on the subs. I would gladly take a bunch
of PowerH 2500 and PowerH 5000 out
to gigs and feel confident these amps
were up to the rigors of the road.
What it is: State-of-the-art power amp
Pros: Well-built, great fidelity and powerful.
Cons: Large chassis size.
How much:
Dynacord PowerH 5000: $4,590
Dynacord PowerH 2500: $ 3,840
RCM-26: $925
Web site: www.dynacord.com
Ad info:http:// www.plsn.com/instant-info
Dynacord PowerH 2500
adds substantial value at the front panel and allows user adjustable control of
PSU current limiting. This can be handy
when trying to run such a beast from
a less than ideal power circuit. If you
do have IRIS-Net up and running with
modules in each amp, then the DSP
horsepower can become the two-channel digital speaker processor inside
each amplifier.
In the shop and out at the gigs, the
Dynacord PowerH 5000 is a real powerhouse of an amplifier. It practically begs
2008 FEBRUARY
27
News
CORRECTIONS
Company/Web site
Dynacord
www.dynacord.com
Electro-Voice
www.electrovoice.com
Due to an editing error, Electro-Voice and Dynacord were left out of last
month’s Buyers Guide, which featured Speakers-on-a-Stick. We regret this omission.
Model
Cabinet
Drivers
Weight
Power
SPL
DSP
I/O
Price (List)
D15-3
Polypropylene
HF: EV DH-3; MF: Dynacord DND 6120 Neodymium;
LF: Dynacord DND 15400 Neodymium
52.8 lbs
Program 1,000 Watts;
Peak 2,000 Watts
133 dB
NO
NL4
$1,500.00
ZX5 Polypropylene
HF: Electro-Voice ND2; LF: Electro-Voice DVX3150
49.6 lbs
600/1,200/2,400
Watts
132 dB
NO
NL4
$990.00
Good Hope Baptist Church Upgrades Audio System with New Loudspeakers
GoodHopeBaptistChurch
Morrisville, NC — Faced with a traditional problem that many churches encounter with their audio systems, Cooper
Cannady and the installers from Raleigh
Music Brokerage came up with a simple
but unique solution.
When Good Hope Baptist in Morrisville,
N.C., an older, established church outside
of Raleigh built a new facility about seven
years ago, responsibility for the audio sys-
tem design was left to an electrical contractor, which resulted in a system that just
wasn’t getting the results the church had
originally hoped for.
As Cooper explains the project, “The
audio system had been designed and installed by someone we were familiar with,
and they’d put a dual 15” sub with a single
12” and 1.5” two-way cabinets hung from
the ceiling. That was fine, but the room has
28
FEBRUARY 2008
www.fohonline.com
a 25-foot ceiling with a depth of 50 feet and
the horn pattern was insufficient to cover
the width or depth of the room from that
position. It sounded okay if you sat in the
middle of the room, but the mixing position
was elevated in the back of the room, and
the operators didn’t even know there was
a horn in the rig, so they were basically just
getting ‘air disturbance.’”
After some preliminary discussions,
Cannady and his team decided to pull the
existing cabinets out and put in Martin AQ
8 Architectural Series speakers, which feature an 8-inch-long throw direct radiating
bass driver with a 2-inch voice coil and a
1-inch exit compression driver with a 1-inch
diaphragm coupled to a rotatable constant
directivity HF horn. Or as Cooper puts it more
informally, “it’s a really nice-sounding little
box, and they’ve outfitted it so you can easily
rig it horizontally or vertically, which worked
out well for this particular situation.”
To take advantage of the AQ8s 90degree horizontal and 50-degree vertical
coverage, the eight speakers were hung
horizontally two per column, two columns
per side to adequately cover what is a fairly
large room. As Cooper explains, “It’s basically
a left-right hang. On house left, we’ve got
a pair coming down cantered off about 10
degrees between columns. The approximate
vertical 5-degrees between column cabinets
covers the seats that are at 0 degrees at the
edge of the stage. There is a complementary
120 degrees of horizontal coverage per side.
That way, the four cabinets give us a much
wider coverage pattern.”
In terms of the actual rigging, two
AQ8s were hung off one mast, with a fabrication consisting of lap hinges on the
back and a turnbuckle on one end of the
cabinet to space the distance between
the cabinets that fit onto one arm. Summing up, Cannady points out that, “Because they’re mounted horizontally with
the horizontally rotated horn pattern of
90-degrees horizontal and 50-degrees
vertical, it gave us the opportunity to create more vertical rake into the space and
get more sound into the back of the room.
We kept the existing QSC amps and the
rest of the system intact.
“At first, they wanted us to put their subs
back in, but we asked them to hold off for a
few weeks so they could acclimate to the
new Martin Audio system, and we agreed to
put the subs back if they weren’t extremely
happy. So, they gave it a few weeks because
they wanted to hear it with one of the
Christian rock bands that play in the facility, and when I called them in a few weeks,
our contact there said, ‘Forget the subs, we
don’t want them anymore.’
“As it turned out, just having those AQ8s
in the room provided a much better overall
response, vastly improved coverage and a
significantly higher audio quality throughout. The system works equally well for electric bands or the minister’s lavalier mic in
terms of clarity and overall balance, so we
got everything we needed just with the
AQ8s. The church was pleased with the Martin Audio system and chose to decline the
reactivation of the sub. We no longer needed
a sub or anything else to go with it.”
Subcompact Line Arrays
W
ell, we have officially reached the
point where everyone THINKS
they need a line array, whether
it is appropriate to the venue or not. That
being said, the ability to control dispersion
can make a small array perfect for house of
worship applications. The problem comes
in when the church wants a line array, and
it actually is the right choice, but they
want something small and inconspicuous.
Which is where “subcompacts” come into
the picture.
For the purposes of a Buyers’ Guide
like this one, the problem is that there
is no real defined standard for what
constitutes a subcompact system. We
made the call that we would allow individual manufacturers to define what a
Buyers Guide
subcompact meant to them. Then when
we got everything in, we looked at the
results and killed any entry with a LF
driver bigger than 10 inches. Which still
leaves a pretty wide range. The single
exception here is the Peavey Versarray,
which has a 12-inch driver, but only has
one — so in terms of physical size — it
is actually smaller than some units with
smaller drivers.
If you are looking for a physically
small system that has some of the
attributes of a full-size line array, take
a gander at the following pages for a
look at what’s out there. But remember,
in the wrong hands, a line array can
be almost a weapon. Choose wisely,
Grasshopper.
Worx M80i-P
EV XLD281 side fill arrays at the Oregon Jamboree, deployed by
Horne Audio Inc. of Portland, Ore.
D.A.S. Audio CA-28A
Meyer M’elodie
The Versarray 112 line array in use on the Jagermeister Mobile Stage.
Martin W8LMD
www.fohonline.com
FEBRUARY 2008
29
Buyers Guide
Model
Price (per
cabinet)
Driver Complement
Sensitivity per Driver/
Passband
Dimensions and
Weight per Cabinet
Power Handling (per band)
Metrix Wave-i &
Metrix Wave -t
$3,800.00
Metrix Wave-I;
$4,500.00
Metrix Wave-t
(MSRP CAD)
Call for current pricing
LF/MF: ND8-ML 8.5” Kevlar Neodymium low/mid range Driver
(16 ohms), HF: B&C DE800 1.4”
exit Compression Driver (16
ohms)
SPL@2.83v-1m: Metrix Wave HF
1109 dB, LMF 98 dB
10.3” x 21.25” x 16.44”
Weight: Metrix Wave-t:
53 lbs; Metrix Wave-I
Weight: 43 lbs
L-MF: 250, 500 peak, HF: 110, 220 peak
Adamson Pro Audio
www.adamsonproaudio.
com
Metrix-i & Metrix-t
$3,800.00
Metrix-I;
$4,500.00 Metrix -t (MSRP
CAD) Call
for current
pricing
LF/MF: ND8-ML 8.5” Kevlar Neodymium low/mid range Driver
(16 ohms), HF: B&C DE800 1.4”
exit Compression Driver (16
ohms)
SPL@2.83v-1m: Metrix HF 110 dB,
LMF 98 dB
8.5” x 21.25” x 16.5”
Weight: Metrix-t: 51 lbs,
Metrix-i: 41 lbs
L/MF: 250, 500 peak, HF: 110, 220 peak
Alcons Audio
www.alconsaudio.com
LR14
$3,290.00
LF: 2 x 6.5”, HF: 1 x RBN401 proribbon
97 dB nominal
6.7” x 22.6” x 12.6”
Weight: 33 lbs
400 W/800 W
D.A.S. Audio
www.dasaudio.com
CA-28A
$3,990.00
LF: 2 x 8” neodymium 8MN16
HF: 1 x 1.5 3” voice coil neodymium driver
100 dB
10.4” x 34.7” x 15.8”
Weight: 80.5 lbs
350 W + 100 W
EAW
www.eaw.com
NTL720
$4,750.00
2” x 6” (LF), 2” x 6’ (MLF), 6” x 1”
tweeters (HF)
Full range: 127 dB; LF, MF and HF:
122 dB (all 1w-1m)
9.41” x 24” x 14.28”
Weight: 47 lbs
Self-powered (Class-D), 500 W per
subsection, each with matched DSP
XLD281
$3,330.00
LF1 Passband: 1 x 8” DVN2080
(16 ohms); LF2 Passband: 1 x 8”
DVN2080 (16 ohms); HF Passband: 2 x ND2S-8 (16 ohms)
SPL: 141 dB
9.90” x 28.58” x 14.52”
Weight: 48 lbs
LF1 power handling: 200 W cont., 800 W
peak; LF2 power handling: 200 W cont., 800
W peak; HF power handling: 80 W cont., 320
W peak; Biamp LF1/HF power handling: 200
W cont., 800 W peak; LF2 - 200 W cont., 800
W peak
XS212
$2,630.00
2 x 12” DVX3120 (4 ohms)
98 dB
28.58” x 20” x 14.88”
Weight: 84.88 lbs
1000 W Cont., 4000 W Peak
XLE181
$2,630.00
LF: 1x 8” DVN2080 (16 ohms);
HF: 2x ND2S-8 (16 ohms
N/A
20.31” x 9.88” x 14.53”
Weight: 37.92 lbs
LF: 200 W Cont., 800 W Pk.; HF: 80 W Cont.,
320 W Pk.
FBT
www.fbtusa.net
Modus 15/Modus 40
$4,850.00
LF: 8 x 8”, HF: 8 x 1.7”
105 dB LF, 108 dB HF
28” x 38.5” x 19”
Weight: 183 lbs
4000 W LF, 800 W HF
ISP Technologies
www.isptechnologies.com
HDL4210
$7,200.00
2 x 10 woofer, LF: 2 x 6.5” MF: 2
x 2” compression driver, HF: 2 x
1.75” polyester neo high band
N/A with active system
43.5” x 11.1” x 27.5”
(with amp)
Weight: 135 lbs
(with amp)
NA active system total power 1,000 W RMS
JBL Professional
www.jblpro.com
VRX928LA
$1,649.00
LF: 1 x 8”, HF: 2 x 1” Neodymium
compression drivers
LF 90 dB/HF 108 dB
9” x 16.5” x 10.5”
Weight: 28 lbs
LF: 400/800/1600 W, HF: 30/60/120 W (continuous/program/peak)
L-ACOUSTICS
www.l-acoustics.com
KIVA
$2,585.00
2 x 6.5” LF, 1 x 1.5” diaphragm
N/A
20.5” x 6.94” x 14.1”
Weight: 28.7 lbs
1,000 W
W8LMD
$4,429.00
LF: 8” driver, MF: 8”, HF: 2 x 1”
LF + MF 99 dB 1W-1M, HF 103 dB 1
w-1m
24” x 11” x 16”
Weight: 66 lbs
LF+MF 400 W aes, 1,600 W peak power
handling,
W8LM
$4,099.00
LF: 8” , MF: 8”, HF: 2 x 1”
LF+MF = 100 dB, HF= 106 dB
24” x 9” x 15”
Weight: 64 lbs
LF + MF = 400 W AES, 1600 W peak, 75 W
AES, 300 W peak
M.LINE M60
$3,390.00
LF: 2 x 8” woofer, HF: 1 x 2”
diaphragm
LF 97 dB SPL (2.83v @1m), HF 106
dB SPL (2.83v @ 1m)
10.2” x 30.7” x 20.9”
Weight: 72 lbs
LF: 800 W AES, HF: 120 W AES
M.LINE M90
$3,390.00
LF: 2 x 8” woofer, HF 1 x 2”
diaphragm
LF 97 dB SPL (2.83v @1m), HF 106
dB SPL (2.83v @ 1m)
10.2” x 30.7” x 20.9”
M.LINE M120
$3,390.00
LF: 2 x 8” woofer, HF: 1 x 2”
diaphragm
LF 97 dB SPL (2.83v @1m), HF 105
dB SPL (2.83v @ 1m)
10.2” x 30.7” x 20.9”
Meyer Sound Laboratories
www.meyersound.com
M’elodie
$7,070.00
LF: 2 x 8” drivers, HF: 3” compression driver
Input Sensitivity- 0 dBV (1 V rms, 1.4
V pk) continuous is typically the onset of limiting for noise and music.
28.54” x 9.19” x 12.75”
Weight: 62 lbs
900 W peak
Outline North America
www.outline.it
Mini-COM.P.A.S.S.
LF: 4 x 5”, MF-HF: 2 x 1.75”
Self-powered system: 3.2 dBU; 1.12
Volt (500 + 500W EIAJ output) of
Input Sensitivity
12.4” x 21.6” x 16.3”
Weight: 55 lbs
500 + 500 W (built-in amp + DSP)
OVO Systems
www.ovosystems.com
CAVA
$3,472.00
MF: 2 x 8”, HF: 2 x 1.5”
101 dB
31” x 24.8” x 10.5”
Weight: 96 lbs
MF: 500 W HF: 100 W
Peavey
www.peavey.com
Versarray 112
Line Array
$1,599.99
LF: 1 12” Black Widow NEO 4”
voice coil woofer, HF: 2 4.75”
ribbon drivers
Low-frequency section: 96 dB SPL
(2.83V input); high frequency section: 99 dB SPL (4.0 V input for 16
ohm wiring, 2.0 V for 4 ohm wiring)
14.06” x 25.25” x 11.75”;
Rear:
12.62” x 25.25” x 11.75”
Weight: 54 lbs.
LF: 500 W continuous, 1,000 W program,
2,000 W peak; HF: 80 W continuous, 160 W
program, 320 W peak
QSC Audio Products
www.qscaudio.com
Wideline-8
$3,159.00
HF: 3” compression driver; dual
8” woofers
99 dB
9” x 20” x 16”
Weight: 45.5 lbs.
HF: 85 W, MF: 250 W, LF: 250 W continuous
Renkus-Heinz
www.renkus-heinz.com
PN102LA
$4,270.00
LF: 2 x 10”, HF: 2 x 1”
LF = 101 dB; HF = 110 dB
12” x 233/4“ x 16”
Weight: 82 lbs
LF: 800 W, HF: 200 W
SLS Audio
www.slsaudio.com
LS6500
$1,099.00
LF: 6.5” , HF: 5” SLS PRD500
Ribbon
LF-94 dB HF-101 dB
7.25” x 14” x 10”
Weight: 20 lbs
LF: 100W, HF: 35W
Worx Audio
www.worxaudio.com
M80i-P
$3,250.00
(2 x 8” bass) (1 x 1” high)
96 dB @ 2.83V
24.5” x 10.125” x 18”
Weight: 62 lbs
LF: 250 W, HF: 75 W
Company/Web site
Adamson Pro Audio
www.adamsonproaudio.
com
Electro-Voice
www.electrovoice.com
Martin Audio
www.martin-audio.com
McCauley Sound
www.mccauleysound.com
30
FEBRUARY 2008
$7,179.53
www.fohonline.com
120
ran
fre
120
kHz, w
120
resp
Fre.
120º
respo
6º H;
Disp
Disp
90º
Dispersion and Frequency Response
Maximum SPL
at 1 Meter
Rigging Description
Electrical Interface
Construction/Surface Treatment
N/A
Metrix Wave-i (install) is equipped with the EIR (Enclosed Installation Rigging) system with 6 settings in the logarithmic scale),
Rigging Frame is made of black powder coated steel equipped
with hanging brackets. The Metrix Wave-t features the AIR
wheel with 6 settings in the logarithmic scale, paired with a black
powder coated, aluminum rigging frame with a built-in movable
pick point.
Neutrik Speakon NL8
11-ply Baltic Birch with black speckle bake
enamel.
Neutrik Speakon NL8
11-ply Baltic Birch with black speckle bake
enamel.
eak
120º H, 15º V, frequency response: (+/-3dB) with full
range preset 95 Hz-18 kHZ, with sub 35 Hz-18 kHz,
frequency range with Xover preset 110 Hz-18 kHz
eak
120º H, 5º V (+/-3 dB) with full range preset 95 Hz-18
kHz, with sub 35 Hz-18 kHz, frequency range with Xover
preset 110 Hz-18 kHz
N/A
Metrix-i (install) is equipped with the EIR (enclosed Installation
Rigging) system with 6 settings in the logarithmic scale), Rigging
Frame is made of black-powder coated steel equipped with
hanging brackets. The Metrix-t features the AIR wheel with 6 settings in the logarithmic scale, paired with a black powder coated,
aluminum rigging frame with built-in movable pick point.
120º H, 15º V, 74 Hz-20 kHz
130 dB
No manual lifting required or separate rigging parts
ALC amplified loudspeaker controller
Durotect
120º H, 80 Hz-20 kHz
131 dB
Integrated in cabinet
Powercon
Wisa Birch plywood - black polyurethane paint
110º H x 12º V, 75 Hz-21 kHz
133 dB
Proprietary FastLatch system that allows all components and
even entire modules to be replaced within built array structures
115V - 230V
Baltic Birch sealed with propriatary RoadCoat
120º H, V: array dependant, software definable; freq.
response (-3 dB): 75 Hz-18 kHz; freq. range (-10 dB): 60
Hz-20 kHz
141 dB
Fully captive aluminum, 1º increments, 16 elements with 8 to 1
safety factor. Groundstack rails available.
2 x NL8
Enclosure Material: Birch plywood w/EVCoat;
Grille: Zinc-plated steel with powdercoat paint
Fre. response (-3 dB) 54 Hz; freq. range (-10 dB) 47 Hz
138 dB
Fully captive alumninum, 1-degree increments, 8 elements with
8 to 1 safety factor
2 x NL8
Birch plywood w/ EVCoat; Grille: Zinc plated
steel w/ powdercoat paint
120º H, V: array dependent, software defineable; freq.
response (-3 dB): 90 Hz - 18 kHz; freq. range (-10 dB): 75
Hz - 20 kHz
136 dB
Fully captive aluminum, 1” increments, 16 elements with 8 to 1
safety factor
2 x NL8
Birch plywood w/ EVCoat; grille: zinc plated
steel with powdercoat paint
Modus 15: 90 x 15, Modus 40: 90 x 40
138 dB, LF, 134
dB HF
FLY BAR
N/A
3/4” Baltic Birch plywood
Baltic Birch plywood with spray on polyurea
black splatter finish
r
SP
0W
., 800
t., 320
g: 200
., 800
ont.,
90º H x 6º V for 4210-6
90º H x 12º V for 4210-12
145 dB
Aluminum/steel rigging with 1 to 6º settings on the 4210-6 and 1
to 12º settings on 4210-12
power con power input
connnection / 4x XLR
connectors for audio
input from external
processor
100 x 15, 70 Hz-20 kHz
122 dB: LF 122 dB
HF 128 dB
M10 eyebolts/VRX-SMAF array frame
Parallel Neutrik
Speakon NL4
DuraFlex coated Birch plywood, 18-gauge
foam backed perforated steel grille.
100º H, up to 15º V, 80 Hz - 20 kHZ
126 dB
Concealed, captive
NL4 Speakon
Composite, epoxy texture
120º H, 20º V, 60 Hz-18 kHz
130 dB
Captive integral rigging
N/A
Multi laminate Birch plywood cabinet, textured black finish
100º H by 7.5º V
131 dB
Captive integral rigging
NA
Multi-laminate Birch plywood w/ textured
paint finish
6º H; V is array dependant, and freq response is 60hz-18
kHz (+/- 3dB)
LF 132 dB, HF
132.8 dB
Monarc integrated rigging system
NL4
5/8’s 12-ply Birch, Procoat Elastometric weatherproof
Dispersion = 90º, frequency response = 60 Hz-18 kHz
(+/- 3dB)
LF 132 dB, HF
132.8 dB
Monarc integrated Rigging
NL4
5/8’s 12-ply Birch, ProCoat Elastomeric weatherproof
Dispersion = 120º, frequency response = 60 Hz-18 kHz
(+/- 3dB)
LF 132 dB, HF
131.8 dB
Monarc integrated Rigging
NL4
5/8’s 12-ply Birch, ProCoat Elastomeric weatherproof
Free field 76 Hz-16 kHz +-4 dB
131 dB
Quickfly rigging with four captive GuideALinks in the bottom
corners of two aluminum and steel end frames, secured with
quick-release pins
Powercon with looping
output or VEAM
Birch plywood, black textured
60-150º variable horizontal dispersion from
180 Hz-19 kHz (-3 dB); 110 Hz-20 kHz (-10 dB)
138 dB
Integrated high-load flying hardware and handles
XLR for signal; Powercon for Mains
Textured scratchproof, fire-retardant
90º H, 8º V
131 dB
Propietary spring-loaded Biema rigging
Internal power amplifier
Polo Birch plywood, textured black or white
finish
ram,
60 W
90º H x 15º V (per line array module); 110 Hz-20 kHz
LF: 129 dB, HF:
124 dB
Custom array brackets and hardware, and a custom array angle
adjustment system are included with each module. Quick release
pins, and a crank-lift system codesigned with Vermette specifically for the Versarray system are available as accessories.
Two Neutrik 4-pin
Speakon jacks
18 mm 13-ply Baltic Birch plywood finished in
black or white painted finish, perforated steel
grille finished in silver-vein powder coat paint
uous
140º H, 68 Hz-18 kHz +/- 3 dB
HF: 133 dB, MF:
128 dB, LF: 128 dB
Integral, side plate adjustable rigging system, vertical splay
adjustable in 1º increments from 0-10
2 x NL8 in parallel
15 mm Birch plywood in black or white
150º H; 60 Hz-18 kHz
136 dB
Captive rigging hardware on each cabinet
PNX102LA Looping
Speakon; PN102LA
looping XLR + RJ45
Cobranet
Black or white paint std, Custom color and
weather resistant, optional
110º H; V defined by configuration
LF:120 dB, HF:
123 dB
Included
NL4
Baltic Birch Black/white latex or natural fnish
150º H (65 Hz-17 kHz +/- 3 dB
123 dB
TrueRig 1º increments
PowerCon AC- XLR in/
out
Baltic Birch-polyurethane finish
RMS
(con-
wer
75 W
www.fohonline.com
2008 FEBRUARY
31
Vital Stats
Rane Founders/Owners Linda Arink and Dennis Bohn
— Special He Said/She Said Edition
Founders/Owners Linda Arink and Dennis Bohn
Naval Flight Officer flying the RA5-C Vigilante
reconnaissance aircraft
from the U.S.S. Kitty
Hawk during the Vietnam War; but just as important is the fact that he was a 1958 Duncan
Yo-Yo champion runner-up in Seattle.
She said: “Getting to be part of turning an
idea into a product that people want. I love
the tangible results of our work.”
Degrees of separation: Arink is in fact only
two degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.
She did a radio ad with an actor who did a
movie with Bacon. [Ed. Note: Now everyone
reading this is a mere three degrees of separation from Bacon.]
If and when I get on vacation, you’ll
find me …
He said: “Sailing the Caribbean on the
luxury yacht Sea Cloud II.”
She said: “Disneyland in the winter; Alaska
on a cruise ship in the summer.”
PERSONAL
My pet peeve about live concerts is …
He said: “Too loud, too crowded, too much
hassle.”
She said: “People behind you telling you to
sit down when you want to be up and dancing. Come on, it’s a concert!”
Rane factory in Mukilteo, Wash.
By KevinM.Mitchell
BUSINESS
Who: Founders/Owners: Linda Arink (“she”)
and Dennis Bohn (“he”).
What: An audio tools manufacturer.
ing Rane live sound products include Tom
Petty, Pearl Jam, Incubus, Joe Nichols, Heart,
Queensryche and Scissor Sisters.
The TTM 56 DJ mixer will go on display
with the Grandmaster Flash portion of the
Smithsonian’s Hip Hop exhibit planned for
the near future.
Claims to fame: Acoustic Guitar Player’s
Choice Award (twice); DJ Tech Awards
(twice); Electronic Musician Editors’
Choice Award (three times); Pro Audio
Review Excellence Award (three times);
among others.
Where: Mukilteo, WA
(20 miles north of Seattle).
When founded: 1981.
Number of products in catalog:
More than 100.
“Most of the stuff you worry about happening
never happens, so quit worrying so much.”
— Linda Arink
Current clients include: 311, Joe Nichols,
Tom Petty, Brittania Row Productions,
among others.
Recent company highlights: Our most
popular product is the C4 Quad Compressor, four-channel compressor/limiter. You can
get it in software form as a plug-in that works
with Digidesign live consoles, or as C4 hardware. The G4 Quad Gate/Ducker/Expander
is a compliment to the C4. Recent tours us-
Chris Sullivan (Sully), FOH engineer for the Joe
Nichols tour, uses Rane’s live sound products.
32
FEBRUARY 2008
People might be surprised to know:
15% of Rane employees have worked
at Rane for 20 years or more; Rane built
custom headphone amplifiers for IBM for
use by the U.S. Army in 1984; and Rane
designed the first THX-certified EQ for
home cinema in 1991 upon request by
LucasFilm.
People might want to salute… CEO George
Sheppard, who was a U.S. Navy Lieutenant
Director of Sales Dean Standing with Grandmaster Flash
at the introduction of the special gold signature edition
The Fams…
He said: “Wife Pat Tolle, a professional artist; daughters Koshtra (photographer) and
Kira (script supervisor); Mojo, the 15-yearold cat; and Cisco Cheeseburger, the sevenyear-old beagle.
She said: “Husband Bruce Arink, a guitarist; daughter Megan (high schooler);
Snorky the cat (would spend all day flushing the toilet if we let him).
If I could tell my younger self one thing, it
would be …
He said: “Master the fundamentals, then all
things follow.”
She said: “Most of the stuff you worry about
happening never happens, so quit worrying
so much.”
Best part about my job is …
He said: “Not having a boss.”
Owner Dennis Bohn’s seven-year-old Beagle named
Cisco Cheeseburger
www.fohonline.com
Biggest drag about my job is …
He said AND she said: “Government
interference, regulations and taxation.”
The CD in my car right now is …
He said: “Grace Slick, Manhole.”
She said: “Chris Daughtry, Daughtry.”
If I could have lunch with any person
living or dead, it would be …
He said: “Thomas Paine… but if he was
busy, then Ayn Rand.”
She said: “John Lennon.”
Words to live by:
He said: “If you get to it and you canNOT do it? Well, there you jolly well are,
aren’t you?”
She said: “The main thing is to keep
the main thing the main thing.”
(L to R) Dennis Bohn, Linda Arink and Rane CEO George Sheppard
Welcome To My Nightmare
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Art by Tony Gleeson
www.tonygleeson.com
I
get a call the other day from a local
production company that I’ve been
doing work for lately. They say they
need me as an opt-out at this synagogue for two days and that it’s “the
lowest level mixing gig” they’ve got. I’m
like, “sure, why not?” — they're paying
my rate, and I've got nothing planned
those two days, anyway.
I come in with really low expectations
(think 12-channel Mackie w/ two boxes on
sticks), and they're immediately met. The main
hall (where there is to be about 2,000 people)
consists of two small under-hung boxes and
four mics, one for the rabbi, two for readers
and another one on the cantor. They take me
back to FOH, which is in another room around
the corner inside a vertical rack.
The person from the venue opens it up
and asks if I know how to use this (pointing to
a small LED screen with a knob underneath it). I
reply that “I haven't seen it before” and ask for an
explanation. Turns out, this thing is the smallest
digital console known to man...the LED screen
is a button that changes the fader selected
and the knob changes the volume level. No Eq,
nothing besides level — OK, not so bad...one of
those set-and-forget, I'm-going-to-be-boredfor-the-next-four-hours gig — or so I thought.
Just as I finish “examining” their system,
the house guy says to me “OK, now I'll show
you to the other PA you'll be running as well.”
I reply, “Oh, there's another service after that
you want me here for, too?” He chuckles and
says that I'll be running both systems at the
same time. Now, the second PA is something
like the first, except instead of the button-andknob combo upstairs, there's a 12-channel
console rack-mounted with a high/mid/low
EQ and six-band graph — slightly better, since
now I can at least hammer away problems
instead of just dropping the level and saying
“sorry, can't go any louder.” Did I mention that
the second PA is down three flights of stairs in
another room? Yeah, it looks like I'm getting a
workout the next two days.
The services start and everything goes
fine for the first day, with me going up and
down the stairs between rooms every 20 minutes or so. No problems, clients are happy,
everyone can hear everything.
I get there the next morning, check both
systems…everything seems good to go. Services start (entirely in Hebrew, might I add) and
it's running fine. I'm upstairs listening to the
service, and all of a sudden, a guy comes up to
me saying there's “a whistling sound downstairs
that comes and goes.” OK, easy enough to fix
(so I thought), and I run downstairs and listen.
No whistling sound… after about five minutes,
I start to walk away and hear this 800-1k ring
erupt through the room at a moderate volume.
Thinking it might be a feedback issue, I
notch it out on the graph. Doesn't stop. I drop
the mains around 20db. Doesn't stop. I shut
the mains off completely, still doesn't stop.
OK, this is odd. As I'm contemplating what it
could be, it randomly stops.
I bring the mains back up to normal so
everyone can hear again (the Rabbi was talking during this whole ordeal) and continue
my thought as to what that sound could be.
All of a sudden, the sound randomly starts
again, and as soon as I get off my chair to go
to the console, it stops. This is just getting
weird. Next time, when it starts, I'm going
to be right here waiting. And when it does, I
dial all the power amps down. It's still ringing
throughout the room. Alright, it CAN'T be the
PA, unless there's something other than what
they've shown me. For the remainder of the
service, I'm sitting there trying to induce this
noise into the PA, with it randomly starting
and stopping the whole time. Nothing I did
could either cause or remove this tone running throughout the room.
At the end of the show, the house tech
(I think he was a tech… at least, he was the
guy who showed me the systems and gave
me instructions) came over and asked if there
was a problem with the PA. I give him the
explanation about what I've done, and that I
found it not to be anything with their system,
unless there was something they hadn't told
me about. He replied “no,” so that was that. I
couldn't figure out what it was, but it sure as
hell wasn't the PA downstairs!
James Feenstra
Audio and Lighting Technician
Ed Note: Instead of leaving all of us hanging,
James told FOH that he and the two other
techs working the gig eventually came to the
conclusion that the mysterious whistling sound
was someone’s hearing aid running low on
batteries…Who’d a thunk it?
In The Trenches
Tony Cianciotto
Dennis Mortson
FOH Mixer/Tour Manager
Freelance
London, Canada
519.670.1969
dennis.mortson@sympatico.ca
www.myspace.com/micmixer
Service Provided: FOH, monitor mixing,
tour management
Clients: Evans Blue, Alannah Myles,
Bowfire, The Trews
Quote: “What’s the budget?”
Personal Info: Going on 20 years in the
sound reinforcement industry.
Hobbies: Camping, catching up on TV series
that I miss on the road, collecting things.
Equipment: Innovason SY80 digital
mixing console and any analog mixing
console, Beyerdynamic and Audix microphones, Hughes and Kettner Red Boxes, all
kinds of processing...
34
FEBRUARY 2008
FOH Engineer
Greenlight Entertainment
Ronkonkoma, NY
631-676-4057
tony@greenmachineband.com
greenmachineband.com
Services Provided: FOH, monitors, lighting
Clients: Greenmachine, Slaughter, Life of
Agony, Pro-Pain, Fear Factory, Roxy Music
Hall, Sparks, Deer Park, N.Y., The Crazy
Donkey, Farmingdale, N.Y.
Quote: “Champagne sound on a beer
budget.”
Don’t leave home without: My mic kit,
blackberry, laptop, printer and GPS (Not
necessarily in that order).
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
trenches@fohonline.com for more info.
Personal Info: I have been doing FOH
since I can remember. When I’m not
behind the board, you can catch me with
my bass on.
Hobbies: My family, playing bass, working
lights and sound at my theatre (Take-One
Theatre Arts) — a theatre for children —
and checking out the local talent.
www.fohonline.com
Equipment: Peavey and Mackie consoles,
Mackie and Crown amps, Yamaha bins, TC,
dbx, Lexicon, Zoom and Furman
Don’t leave home without: My Maglite,
multitool and duct tape
The Bleeding Edge
By SteveLaCerra
O
ne of the issues that sound engineers deal with on a daily basis
is that of hearing conservation.
In the United States, advocates for employee safety such as OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and NIOSH (National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, have
set very specific guidelines for avoiding
hearing loss due to exposure to loud
noise. And let’s face it: Many sound
engineers work under constant conditions of “loud noise.” Research by such
organizations has produced a plethora
of data regarding hearing conservation,
Hear Ye,
Hear Ye!
I’ve used many odd “techniques” to
deal with this problem over the years:
mixing shows with foam ear plugs,
mixing shows with custom-molded attenuators, mixing shows with no plugs.
Then there are the silly variations: mix
the first 10 minutes of the show without plugs, put plugs in for five to seven
minutes, then take one plug out. Start
the show with both ears open and then
put plugs in alternate ears every 10 or
15 minutes for the duration of the show.
An annoying game, and a distraction to
the mixing process, but I’m really not
getting paid enough to damage my
former has the ability to balance the
amount of ambient sound against the
“direct” feed of the monitor mix.
And therein lies the interest of the
front-of-house engineer. How about using the 3D Active Ambient System to
seal one’s ears off from the raucous din
of the room — the high SPL — but then
open up the ambient feed so that you
can hear the house sound via the ambient microphones, but at a safe volume
level — anywhere from unity gain down
to -24 dB. Or turn the ambient mics off (a
simple toggle switch), so you can check
the solo bus in isolation. Brilliant!
With a tool like the 3D, you can still
hear the room, naturally and acoustically, so the quality of the mix is not
affected. But now, you can adjust the
ambient level like a volume control for
the room. You could mix an eight-hour
show every day without risk of hearing
damage.
Now that’s technology at its best.
Steve “Woody” La Cerra is the front-ofhouse engineer and tour manager for Blue
Öyster Cult. He can be reached via email at
Woody@fohonline.com.
I’m really not getting paid enough to damage my hearing, thank you very much.
some of which refer to the amount of
time a person can be subjected to loud
noise without damaging their hearing.
As an example, NIOSH research has
produced a recommended exposure
level (“REL”) of 85 dB, A-weighted as
an eight-hour, time-weighted average.
According to their studies, exposure to
noise at or above this level or length of
time is hazardous to long-term hearing.
NIOSH publication number 98-126 Criteria For A Recommended Standard: Occupational Noise Exposure, Revised Criteria
1998 features a chart of maximum safe
exposure times versus dB levels. An increase of 3 dB SPL above the 85 dB REL
essentially requires the exposure time
to be cut in half. So, if you are monitoring at 88 dBA, your exposure time
should be no longer than four hours; at
91 dBA exposure should not exceed two
hours.
It’s not hard to see that by the time
we reach real-world concert SPLs, the
REL can be calculated in terms of minutes: At 105 dBA, exposure should be
no longer than four minutes and fortythree seconds. Any longer, and you risk
your hearing.
Turning it Down
BE
Meanwhile, Back at FOH…
BE
Recently, Sensaphonics (www.sensaphonics.com), a company specializing in custom personal monitors, introduced a product called the 3D Active
Ambient personal monitor system. The
3D (patent pending) differs radically
from other PMs because it was designed
to solve a problem that many performers have expressed regarding PMs: the
feeling that they are isolated from the
audience and other performers when
their ears are plugged. It’s not hard to
understand. Many IEM engineers have
juggled chainsaws to solve this issue,
placing audience mics in the house or at
the front of the stage and feeding them
into the ear mix, or perhaps sending the
entire house mix back to the ears.
The 3D Active Ambient System
solves this problem by incorporating
subminiature, precision-equalized microphones into the earpieces, allowing
the listener to hear ambient sound with
the correct directionality and natural
sound quality. When a person wearing
the 3D Active Ambient System moves
their head, the mics move with them,
preserving correct directionality relative to the environment. Plus, the per-
www.fohonline.com
This Danse Macabre is relatively easy
in the studio. When mixing with band
members in the control room, I have run
into complaints that the control room
monitor level is not high enough. Too
bad. I kindly explain that I cannot work
for an extended day at louder levels. I
also show them where the volume knob
is, as I stroll out of the control room and
into the lounge while they listen at earplastering levels.
Unfortunately, we cannot do this at
a live performance. The audience at a
typical Justin Timberlake show is probably screaming at an SPL of at least 100
dB, and you have to pump the PA above
that din just to hear the band (or track,
or whatever).
hearing, thank you very much. I swear
one of these days, I’ll mix a show where
there’s a 1/4-inch stereo jack at every seat,
and we tell the audience to bring their
headphones because there won’t be any
PA.
Over the past 15 or so years, musicians have become hip to the fact that
the personal monitor can help them
avoid exposure to loud noise. When
implemented properly, the ear is sealed
from ambient noise with a tight-fitting
plug. The plug has a small built-in driver
through which we can send a mix, but
since the ear has been sealed from outside noise, the level of the audio signal
sent into the ear can be made very low,
thus preserving the hearing.
2008 FEBRUARY
35
Regional Slants
Klondike Sound Makes Magic
Klondike Koehler
Klondike Koehler
Owner John “Klondike” Koehler’s passion for pro audio comes from a deeper level — the magic behind the music.
Corporate Dinner, Worcester, Mass.
Installation of L’ACOUSTICS KUDO rig for Ani DiFranco at Asbury
Hall, Buffalo, N.Y.
Klondike Koehler
By DavidJohnFarinella
T
he question of what attracts people
to a profession in pro audio elicits
a wide variety of responses. John
“Klondike” Koehler, owner/operator of
Klondike Sound Co. in Portland, Maine,
takes the answer to a whole other level.
“I’ve always been interested in energy
transfer, whether it was turning the key
on the dashboard and hearing an engine
roar to life or putting your foot down to
the floor and feeling energy applied to
the rear wheels,” he says. “There was just
something fascinating about the way
that energy, and in this case specifically,
electrical energy could move columns of
air and bring people to share an emotional experience. It was really something close to Wizard of Oz magic.”
Koehler first experienced the limitations of that magic in 1966 when he
saw The Beatles play D.C. Stadium in
Washington, D.C. “A ring of Altec A7s on
the running track around the baseball
field were simply no match for the fans,”
he recalls. “At that point, it became real
obvious to me that if music was to be
experienced in a large setting, the hardware had a long way to go. That put me
on a path to find ways to make sound
that came through a loudspeaker more
representative of the source.”
Finding a Solution
rs
So, during his college days, the “recovering” bass player started to put
pieces of audio gear together while
looking for a new loudspeaker recipe.
The first rig that he came up with was
a pair of 4 x 12” Kustom columns with
some Altec 511B horns perched on top
with hand wound LC crossovers. His and
the company’s selection of gear moved
(l to r) Contract Manager Chris Kelly, Shop Manager Justin Anderson, Deployment Manager Darin Pawlus, Office
Manager Karen Sise, Owner/Operator John Koehler.
from there to hot-rodded EV Sentry IVs, a
big pile of chopped up Klipsch La Scalas,
Turbosound TMS-4s, EV MT enclosures
and finally to a wide assor tment of
L - Acoustics V-DOSC rigs.
These days Klondike relies on a big
inventory of V-DOSC arrays, QSC HPR
loudspeakers, ARC and Meyer fills and
EAW SB1000 subwoofers that are powered by QSC and Lab.gruppen FP 7000
power amps. The company also boasts
a wide variety of consoles from Yamaha,
Midas, Crest and Soundcraft. “The key
thing is that we can deploy up to 1,000
inputs a night,” Koehler reports.
Of course, Klondike didn’t start out
with all that technology at its disposal.
Koehler recalls the first show he worked
on in 1969 for B.B. King. “There were
no monitors, only three microphones.
There was 100 watts for the whole house
speaker system. It’s interesting to note
that that same show in that same venue
now would involve 500 times that much
power.”
Over the next couple of decades, Koehler moved from a college dormitory into
a series of offices — and his client list
grew accordingly. During the company’s
early years, Koehler worked with jazz legends such as Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald,
Mel Tormé and Stan Getz in venues that
ranged from Carnegie Hall to Kennedy
Center to the Symphony Hall in Boston.
rs
Finding the Sweet Spot
Working in those halls taught him
valuable lessons. “Those are venues that
are acoustically very challenging,” he
says, “and if you’re careful not to overwrite the acoustic signature of the room,
you can get great intelligibility and a
very ambient and appropriate listening
experience. Most of the time in those
environments, you can over-amplify and
very quickly lose the battle for a sweet
sounding show.”
Klondike Sound has added an impressive list of clients and events to its
list of gigs, In fact, the company has recently provided gear for Crosby & Nash,
Emmylou Harris, Mavis Staples and Susan
Tedeschi as the artists traveled through
the Northeast.
The company has also provided tour
support for Ani DiFranco for the past 12
years. “She’s been a very steady, very loyal and wonderful account for us,” Koehler
says. “She is an example of an artist who
places sound reinforcement quality very
high on her priorities.”
Koehler first met DiFranco when
Klondike provided sound for one of her
shows in Maine. “We heard that she liked
a lot of low end in her monitor speakers,
and so we basically laid a couple of PA
boxes on their sides and gave her what
she wanted, which was an enormous
amount of energy,” he says. “People were
approaching her as a folkie, but here is a
girl, barely five feet tall, with an acoustic
guitar who can sound like an entire reggae band by herself.”
Beyond individual shows and tours,
Klondike works on a number of music festivals. In fact, the list of festivals
that the crew works at is impressive and
runs from the Philadelphia Folk Fest to
Michael Arnone’s Crawfish Fest, Rhythm
and Roots Festival, the Hudson River
Revival and the New Orleans Jazz and
Heritage Festival, where he’s worked as
the audio director for the past 30 years.
“We mix every conceivable style, from
Bulgarian choirs to bluegrass to Zydeco,”
Koehler reports.
Keeping It Real
rs
So, how does that influence Koehler
as a mixer? “It kept me honest. It wasn’t
about subwoofers,” he answers with a
laugh. “It was really about what can I do
to be true to this source, to this music.
It’s really, I think, about having the musical sensitivity to identify very quickly the
lead melodic, the lead lyrical and the lead
“There was just something fascinating about the way that energy could move
columns of air and bring people to share an emotional experience. It was really
something close to Wizard of Oz magic.”
36
FEBRUARY 2008
www.fohonline.com
LARRY BERGER
Klondike Koehler
Klondike Koehler
Zeiterion Theater/James Brown, New Bedford, Mass.
Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival at sunset.
rhythmic components and use those as
focal points in the mix, because that’s
what the audience is there for.”
Klondike has now been in operation for 40 years, and Koehler has some
definite ideas on how the company has
survived. “Do very thorough advance
work with everyone involved, always
bring something extra to the show and
get the equipment out of the way of the
music. We also maintain a very deep and
very flexible inventory to accommodate
overlaying events,” he says.
The company’s experience, he believes, gives him a leg up on any local
competition that has sprung up thanks
to the boom in affordable equipment.
“Of course, some pricing adjustment
has been necessary, but we work harder than most to bring more value to the
production before, during and after the
event. The key is helping the promoters and, of course, the artists succeed in
giving a great concert.” That said, there
are some things that Koehler has done
to differentiate the company from others, including keeping a deep stock of inventory that features a low-noise floor, a
strong office staff and a roster of “technicians who consider their sound systems
to be musical instruments and play them
well.”
The future, Koehler reports, looks
bright. Indeed, the company has already booked the spring and summer
with more than 100 shows, and he’s
always looking towards bringing in
new gear that improves the experience for audiences. “We love the opportunity to make something lighter
and smaller and sound better,” he
says. “That’s the key.”
Bruce Cockburn on stage at Clearwater Festival with L-ACOUSTICS
VDOSC rig
www.fohonline.com
2008 FEBRUARY
37
Theory and Practice
By MarkAmundson
Distortion:
How Much Is Too Much?
A
design approaches that clean up the signal
performance. After all, there are competitive
designs out there, and you do not want to be
the worst piece of gear in the signal path.
udio distortion is one of those topics that has been so perjured in the
last couple decades that most engineers have either ignored the specifications
on their equipment or just had their eyes
glaze over as they were given the data. The
real question is how much distortion is too
much? And the second question is, does a
much lower distortion specification really
justify the extra cost or other performance
compromises such as power efficiency or
power output?
Audio Distortion Criteria
tp
In the early days of electronics and audio reproduction, it was not a case of the
perception of distortion, but how much audible distortion could you bear to get maximum loudness before the vocal intelligibility suffered. In these vacuum tube powered
days, 5% total audio distortion was the
standard value applied to audio power
amplifiers well into clipping. I still remember Fender guitar amplifiers and early PA
systems providing power rating based on
the 5% distortion criteria in the 1960s and
early 1970s. But as audio high-fidelity (hi-fi)
became a craze in this time, manufacturers
began using the new solid-state electronics and shooting for near total elimination
of audio. Thus, began the specsmanship
battles in the 1970s and 1980s of “how low
can you go” in rating audio distortion.
The industry smartly used two testable
methods of determining audio distortion.
The first and most popular is the percent
of Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), with
ratings typically made near maximum
power output of the amplifier. The second distortion test is the Inter-Modulation
Distortion (IMD) rating. IMD measurements
were made using two audio sinusoidal
sources (e.g. 400 Hz and 1 kHz) just below
full power capability, and noting the relative intensities of product (sums and differences) of spectral distortions.
For example, a sum distortion spike of
400 Hz and 1 kHz test tones would be 1400
Hz, and the difference would be at 600 Hz.
The IMD ratings were more truthful at determining how much smearing of random audio
signals a piece of audio gear produced. Where
as THD measurements tended to be truth
tellers of the real audio power output limits because designers could hit any distortion number depending how much on the
verge of clipping they chose. See Figures 1
and 2 showing spectrum plots for the two
distortion measurements.Then there is the
real truth on THD ratings, as they are an
instantaneous ratio of clean test tones out
to distortion harmonics. Most audio power
amplifiers today can easily hit 0.1% THD or
way better when operating around 80% of
power output.
38
FEBRUARY 2008
But the same test at 1 or 10 watts might
show THD numbers way worse. This is because lower-power outputs do not reduce the
audio harmonics in the same proportion. So,
the reality is that most live audio gear is run
more in the lower-power regions than near
max output headroom, where most of the rat-
critically listening to a sinusoidal test tone
and could gradually introduce clipping to the
point you could hear the harmonics with the
fundamental tone, most people can discern
distortion around 0.1% Total Harmonic Distortion. But, if you had random music or speech
to listen to, your distortion perception dimin-
I am sure most of us have heard distorted HF
drivers, buzzy mids and wobbly subwoofers.
ing measurements are made. Today, it is very
common to see mixers, signal processing and
power amps with THD ratings in the 0.01% to
0.001% areas because that is much more impressive from a marketing perspective.
tp
Humans and Audio Distortion
Another question is “How well can you
hear audio distortion?” The answer is not the
same for everyone, but we have general rules
of thumb as audio gear designers. If you were
ishes to around 1% THD. I have personally
done these tests and the amounts are correct.
So, now as designers of audio gear, how
much of that 0.1% or 1% THD budget do you
want to eat up on any piece of gear like amplifier, mixing consoles or other signal processing? The real answer is that you shoot for
reasonable design practices based on historical results and pretty much take what the final measurements give you. If you get near
the 0.1% THD mark, you may take alternative
tp
The Reality Show
But, and it is a big but, overall audio distortion does not come in itty-bitty amounts
along the signal chain. The really big offenders in the audio signal path are generally
not the electronics if the engineer is doing
a good job in gain structure. The truly big
offenders are the “transducers” in the audio
signal path. Theses transducers are the microphones and speakers that do the sound
pressure to electrical, and electrical to sound
pressure conversions. And these transducers
are where most of the audio distortion compromises are made, and force the remaining
electronics to function with as little distortion as possible.
Obviously, microphones can be pushed
by excessive sound pressure levels into distortion. And in many cases today, a screaming
vocalist is actually seeking audible distortion
to reinforce his/her emotional communication. But other than excessive SPL input, most
microphones can be low-distortion contributors when applied properly. And today, we
have abundant choices in mic transducer
technology to focus on the appropriate audio sound generators; like condenser mics
for quiet female vocalists or large diaphragm
dynamic mics for loud kick drums.
The real distortion problem child is our
mains speaker choices. I am sure most of
us have heard distorted HF drivers, buzzy
mids and wobbly subwoofers. Even the
best speaker transducers out on the live
sound market may have a percent or more
of audio distortion when pushed at average
capabilities. Can you do something about
it? Not much, considering every brand of
speaker and the many models available to
solve various sound reinforcement applications. The obvious answer is headroom,
headroom, headroom! In other words, given
no other impediment like space for extra
speakers, the cost to purchase extra speakers and the extra amplifiers to power extra
speakers; having plenty of speakers pushed
well below their peak SPL capabilities is the
lowest-distortion solution.
But in the real world, we do have limits
in our speaker choices, and we do wish to
use every last bit of speaker capability to
save overall costs to perform the gigs asked
of us. So, occasional audio distortion in live
sound reinforcement will be our companion
and our reality check. But purchasing quality speakers may be your best way of delivering the cleanest, lowest distortion sound
reinforcement.
You can find Mark at marka@fohonline.com.
www.fohonline.com
The Biz
By DanDaley
I
t used to be that if you wanted a
good ol’ roll-in-the-mud with music
over a long weekend, you needed
to catch a flight to Europe. America,
the country that brought you Woodstock and Farm Aid, quickly ceded the
title of home of the multi-day music
festival to the Old Country.
The U.S. is home to only four major
mainstream music festivals more than
a decade old: Seattle’s Bumbershoot,
New Orleans’ Jazzfest, Milwaukee’s
Summer fest (aka The Big Gig) and
San Diego’s Street Scene. And four
of the country ’s largest music festivals — the peripatetic Bonnaroo, the
stationary Austin City Limits, the onagain-off-again Lollapalooza (born:
1991, canceled: 1998, resuscitated:
2003) and Vegoose in Las Vegas (no
descriptions, I just like saying “ Ve goose”) — didn' t even exist in 2001.
Something
estive in the Air
i n g fe s t i v a l s, L i v e N a t i o n h a s r e p o r t e d l y a c q u i r e d s t a k e s i n U. S .
fe s t i v a l b r a n d s l i k e S a n D i e g o’s
S t r e e t S c e n e a n d N e w Yo r k ’s B a m b o o z l e. Co m p e t i t o r A E G n o w h a s
i t s o w n s t a k e s i n m u l t i - d a y fe s t i v a l s, i n c l u d i n g Co a c h e l l a , J a z z Fe s t
a n d B u m b e r s h o o t . Ac c o r d i n g t o
the San Diego Times-Union, the
companies are in a race to establ i s h a m a j o r m u s i c fe s t i v a l i n e a c h
of the top 25 markets in the United
S t a t e s. “ W h o e v e r c a n r e a c h a c r i t i cal mass first will be able to strike
e xc l u s i v i t y d e a l s,” a fe a t u re o n
the subject in the paper last year
s t a t e d. “ I n o t h e r wo r d s, t h e y c o u l d
t e l l a n a c t l i k e T h e W h i t e S t r i p e s,
‘“ Lo o k , we’ v e g o t t h e s e 2 0 fe s t i v a l s, w h i c h c o u l d f i l l y o u r e n t i r e
s u m m e r s c h e d u l e. We’ l l p a y yo u a
p r e m i u m t o o n l y p l a y o u r s.”
a company-owned arena — the kind of
concrete environment that often spells
doom for the festival culture that prefers wide-open grassy spaces.
The space that the festival is in is,
thus, critical, and how audio technology adapts to what’s going to be a
loud evolutionary roller coaster-cumpolitical-football will be interesting to
watch. One crucial element in getting
urban festivals approved will be the
noise impact they will have on downtown residents. The technology and
techniques needed to attenuate sound
without emasculating it will become
the subject of sound bites on the evening news.
MySpace to the Rescue
BIZ
Finally, the recent rise of the multi-
day festival, whether it’s downtown or
on Yasgur’s farm, has to be viewed in the
context of the Internet social networking phenomenon. I’m not sure this has
a direct effect on our end of the festival
equation, but it does have an extremely
important impact on music in general
and concerts in particular. Bands like
Arctic Monkeys became famous when
people who went to see their shows
posted videos on MySpace. A fan base
that would follow them to shows developed from these videos and made the
band famous the same way heavy radio
airplay used to. And it’s going to take
those elements — bands with lots of
fans — to make the festival concept, and
us, work consistently.
Contact Dan at ddaley@fohonline.com.
Multi-day arts festivals have become
profitable at a time when the rest of
the
music
business,
including
giant
amphitheater shows, are tapering.
Getting European
BIZ
Gar y Bongiovanni, editor of
Pollstar, told me that while he
doesn’t have specific numbers, he’s
watching U.S. festivals multiply
annually, noting that new live music giants Live Nation and AEG
are tr ying to replant the European
mass-music experience here. “ The
festival culture in Europe is ver y
well- established
because
they
didn’t have the modern arenas that
we have in the United States,” he
says. (Although Led Zeppelin at the
O2 in December suggests that may
be changing.) “Live Nation, who are
huge in the Euro fest business, has
stated they need to become much
more of a player in the U.S.”
T h e y w i l l . Ta k i n g t h e i r e x p e r i e n c e i n E u r o p e, w h e r e t h e y p a r t n e r
w i t h M e a n Fi d d l e r, t h e p r o m o t e r s
b e h i n d t h e h u g e Le e d s a n d R e a d -
Dancing With Dinos
BIZ
From a technology perspective,
this sequence of events owes much to
both the technology of concert sound
and the technical talent that develops
it and mans it. But it’s as accurate to
suggest that both the technology and
the talent will have to adapt to the kind
of landscape upon which very, very
large dinosaurs dance. It’s safe to say
that the multi-day music festival owes
much of its economic viability to the
arrival of the automated digital audio
console. The ability to toggle between
artists quickly increases the number of
performances per day and reduces the
need for multiple stages, both of which
increase the profit margins for festivals,
which have inherently shaky numbers
to start with. Fiber-optic snakes also
contribute to a leaner, more nimble
operation for multi-day/multi-stage
operations, as do other items such as
plug-ins, which further reduce weight
and footprint.
Some of the challenges that the
concert business is going to face in the
immediate future include the growing confrontation between multi-day
festivals and urban downtowns that
have been revitalized with new and
costly residences. Street Scene in San
Diego was essentially kicked out of
the increasingly toney Gaslamp Quarter District that spawned it and denied
access to the city’s major park, forcing
new owners Live Nation to move into
www.fohonline.com
That ’s changing. Over the past
six years, the number of major U.S.
festivals has doubled even as attendance at huge amphitheatre shows
has declined. And multi-day ar ts festivals have become profitable at a
time when the rest of the music business, including giant amphitheater
shows, are tapering. Bonnaroo has
only been around since 2002, yet it
attracts more than 80,000 fans ever y year, each paying over $170 for
a ticket.
2008 FEBRUARY
39
Anklebiters
g
n
i
t
t
i
s
y
b
a
B
Ken
Hey Brian, one of my steady clients
is developing a young act that has some
potential. Problem is, their backing tracks
are bad and they don’t know how to use
the wireless gear they have purchased or
borrowed from me. I get at least one call
each day when they are rehearsing to talk
them through some fairly basic function.
How much do I educate my clients and
hold their hands for free? Bear in mind
that they are always nice and appreciative.
Brian
Polite and appreciative should be
part of any good relationship between
a customer and a service provider. I
wouldn’t let that have an effect on how
much work you do for them for free. Let’s
the
Brian
Your time has to be worth something.
If you feel guilty about charging the client, maybe you should keep a detailed
log of how much time you actually spend
babysitting them. That way, you’ll know
at the end of the week exactly how much
time you’re giving them. You then have
the evidence in hand to justify billing
them. Then, when they call again, tell
them just how much free support you
have been giving them lately.
Ken
I always feel that, in the long run, a
more educated client will be an easier
client to deal with because he understands what our job entails and will
know, for example, that yes, we need a
monitor engineer when we have Earth,
Band
Wind & Fire on stage. Knowledge is
power, but also a sales tool. You agree?
Brian
It can work both ways. If I overeducate a small production client, my productions could turn into rentals. Then
rentals turn into sales. Then they don’t
need anything from you but service on
the cheap gear that they bought because they thought they knew everything. Clients — they’re the teenagers
of the business world.
Ken
I agree that your client doesn’t necessarily have to know Ohm’s Law to rent
or purchase a piece of gear, but do you
really feel there is such a thing as being
overeducated? Or that it would hurt sales
or rentals? Nobody has ever accused
If I overeducate a small production client, my
productions could turn into rentals. Then
rentals turn into sales. Then they don’t need
anything from you but service on the cheap
gear that they bought because they thought
they knew everything.
face it; favors simply don’t pay the bills.
It’s great that they give you repeat work,
but it sounds like you are repeatedly giving them something for nothing. I’d say
it’s time to make them responsible for the
money end of being a customer.
Ken
What’s a simple, easy (read; chickenshit) way to let them know I am happy
to help, but I need to get compensated
for my time and my knowledge without
causing hard feelings or making them feel
like I am being a greedy bastard. I mean, I
am greedy and a bastard, but I don’t want
them to know that!
Brian
I’d give them some kind of notice
ahead of time. Say, at the beginning of
the month, tell them that at the end of
the next 30 days your policies are changing and you will begin billing for tech
support. You could give them the benefit
of the doubt and let the first stupid question slide each time they rent something,
and then bill them for your time after
that. You may have to act like a big business and pretend that this is something
you’re billing all your clients for.
Ken
Yeah, my strategy lately is to offer to
send a tech to them, and they decline,
preferring to keep me on the phone. The
other problem is that they don’t have the
proper gear for what they want to do, so
every solution is kind of a temporary fix
until the next phone call. Again, I feel
guilty about wanting to charge them for
chewing up my time, but I know my time
is worth something, right?
40
FEBRUARY 2008
By BrianCassell&KenRengering
www.fohonline.com
me of being too smart. I glean industry
magazines like FOH, and read online reviews, and listen to those more experienced, like you, and even to those with
less experience, but with a layman’s way
of speaking the truth  hoping for those
glimmers of insight or those “a-ha” moments of clarity. My clients are more like
toddlers  they have the ability to stand
on their own two feet and even to take a
few steps, but then the doubts creep in
and they stumble.
Brian
Well, all I can say is, let them stumble
their way into your shop to keep renting
more gear. Just make sure that gear is being rented out, not just loaned out.
E-mail the guys at anklebiters@fohonline.com
Marketplace
Business Owners
and Managers:
and encourage them
to get their own
subscription. If they
are serious about
your business, they
should be seriously
reading...
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Make sure your staff
is up-to-date on the
industry by having
them read Front Of
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EMPLOYMENT
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COMPANY
PAGE #
PHONE #
WEB SITE
AKG
33
818.920.3212
A-Line Acoustics
10
814.663.0600
http://foh.hotims.com/17562-100
Audio-Technica U.S., Inc
11
330.686.2600
Columbus McKennon/ CM Hoist
17
800.888.0985
d&b Audiotechnik
5, 6
828.670.1763
dbx Professional Products
13
801.568.7660
Digidesign
C4
650.731.6287
Dolby
23
415.645.5113
EAW/ Loud Technologies
C2
800.992.5013
EV, Electro Voice/ Bosch
C1, 7
248.876.1000
FDW-W (Violet)
37
608.227.2040
Full Compass
9
800.356.5844
Hear Technologies
8
256.922.1200
Heil Sound
10
618.257.3000
Innovason
35
615.401.7275
JBL Professional
3
818.894.8850
Martin Audio
25
519.747.5853
NAB
28
OVO/Mega Systems
27
210.684.2600
Production Intercom
26
847.381.5350
Radial Engineering/Cabletek
41
604.942.1001
Renkus-Heinz
29
949.588.9997
RSS by Roland
39
800.380.2580
TMB
15
818.899.8818
Westone Music Products
4
719.540.9333
Whirlwind Music
14
585.663.8820
Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems
1, 21, C3
714.522.9011
Consolidated Audio Technology/ Gabriel Sound
42
973.831.7500
Hi-Tech Audio Systems
42
650.742.9166
New York Case/Hybrid Cases
42
800.645.1707
Sound Productions
42
800.203.5611
MARKET PLACE
See Tom Mix. Mix, Tom! Mix!
continued from page 17
…and Getting Paid
FOH
Now, for the sake of this article, let me
paint this picture. You have gotten the install or upgrade contract. During your negotiations, you successfully convince your
clients that training the staff and volunteers is paramount to the success of the
new sound system. Everyone is in agreement, the money is paid, and now, it is your
job alone to train everyone at this particular worship house who has any interest in
learning about live sound.
I am not about to tell you how to train
anyone, volunteers or otherwise, but I will
tell you about a program that I am putting
together at a church in the small town of
Monrovia, Calif. My four two-hour classes
are designed to transform any individual
who is modestly interested in house of
worship sound into a pro (OK, at least a
novice). There will be notes, outlines and
schematics available for the following subjects. The first two classes revolve around
frequencies and equalization. I have a tone
generator that is helpful in ear training and
isolating those very important EQ markers
that we all must be able to identify quickly
and accurately.
I pretty much separate instrument EQ
from vocal EQ. Vocal EQ and tonal quality is
so important that I spend some extra time
here. Also, the voice is where most feedback in a church emanates from. My third
class covers signal flow — from the microphones to the speakers and everything in
between. If I can train my people properly,
they will be able to figure out what to do if
the snake inputs and outputs get crossed
up. Or if a piece of gear is unplugged from
the rack for an outreach event, it can be
plugged back in without any major drama.
Lastly, I work with compressors, gates and
effects processors. Obviously, these are basic subjects, but I think they will make for a
good foundation.
I have yet to begin training this little
church in Monrovia, but I will let you
know how it goes. Of course, all of my
worship houses have my cell and e-mail,
but problems usually arise during a Sunday service. Generally, I am mixing on a
Sunday and there is no way I will be answering my cell phone while the pastor
is recapping the Ten Commandments (or
whatever). So, I am considering pitching
an every six-month refresher course to all
my volunteer classes.
I know a lot of you already offer some sort
of maintenance contracts for your house of
worship clients. It makes sense to visit your
handiwork regularly and make sure that everything is working at 100%. Then, it should
be just as important to visit with your volunteers at regular intervals for general tune-ups
and new equipment training. Maintenance
and training contracts go so hand-in-hand
they should be nearly one and the same. It’s
just good business sense to keep your sound
system working at its best and your volunteers operating at their best.
Even though this is new ground for me
(and probably for you), it doesn’t take an Einstein to see the importance of it. Especially at
this particular time in worship sound. More
and more, I am being asked for my opinion
on the pros and cons of digital mixers in a
small church environment. I will soon be installing a digital board in a La Canada church
that holds no more than 300 per service. I
think that it will be a great addition to this
church’s already stellar sound system. But
this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Over the next few years, I believe we will
see thousands of smaller houses of worship
changing out there analog mixers for digital
ones. For many of those good old volunteers
that have been pushing away at an old analog
board, the transition to digital may be very
frightening. The first person that comes to
mind is that elderly volunteer from that little
church in Pasadena. (mentioned earlier in
this article). People in that category may just
decide to volunteer in some other capacity.
I really don’t mean that in a cruel way, but
times change. This, however, is an enormous
opportunity for those of us who can teach
digital mixing. Depending on where you
live and work, this change to digital may be
coming as a trickle rather than a flood, but
you can be sure it is coming.
There will be a time in the not-to-distant future where sound techs, volunteer or
otherwise, won’t even know how to operate
an analog console. I may be one of the few
guys left who can teach analog. OK, before
I get off on some ridiculous tangent, let me
just say that this really is a great time to be
working in worship sound. I personally have
only been seriously making noise in this
niche of the market for about four years. If
you didn’t already know, it is an enormous
market. And there are a lot of facets to it.
Opportunity abounds for those of us
who believe in what we are doing. It doesn’t
hurt to also believe in a God. After all, if it
weren’t for God, whomever he or she may
be to you, we wouldn’t have houses of worship. Hence no worship sound systems. So,
praise Jesus or Buddha or God Almighty or
Allah or Krishna or whomever.
2008 FEBRUARY
FOH-At-Large
By BakerLee
A Culture of Cheating?
A
Everything Old Is New
FOH
The older guys — and if you’re not one
yet, you will be if you stay in the business long
enough — argue that there isn’t any digital
console that can replace a top line analogue
board. The younger engineers grasp the new
technology in a heartbeat and don’t even
question the viability of the new formats, as
the old technology becomes a vague memory of days gone by. While the more seasoned
engineers claim to need only an SM58 and
their own voice to ring out a system, many of
the newer technicians require a laptop and
a software program to determine the errant
frequencies that they cannot discern due to
their reliance upon the latest technology.
COMING NEXT
MONTH...
Wazzup in Monitor
World
FOH checks out current
monitor trends…
•
•
•
•
•
Multiple engineers
Multiple consoles
“Mixed” systems
Self-mixing
Other wacky stuff
FOH Interview
We check in with Parnelli
runner-up Kevin “Tater“
McCarthy.
ART BY ANdY AU
udio, music, baseball (New York Yankees) and girls are pretty much all I
think about and not necessarily in that
order. Well, not really girls since I’m married,
but something like it. Believe me, I’m not trying
to imply that I’m shallow…OK, I’m a superficial
scum, so sue me, but they do all go together,
although maybe not in this article. So, just for
expediency, if I forget about the girls, it leaves
audio, music and baseball. That brings to mind
the steroid scandal of 2007, and boy does that
upset me! Not because of the obvious reasons,
such as drug use or that George Mitchell is the
director of the Boston Red Sox and not one
Red Sox player was named in his report. Nope.
The cause of my distress is that the steroid
scandal makes me think of politics, technology
and ethics, and that gets in the way of my important thoughts about audio, music, baseball
and girls (or in my case, my wife).
New technology in a competitive world is
the means that gives us the advantage over
our business rivals, while at the same time,
it can be a double-edge sword that works
against us as well as it does for us. I’m sure
that most of us have a story or two regarding
a show or production where the technology
of the production was state of the art, and yet
the show was less than brilliant due to operator inadequacy or possibly a technical glitch,
such as a software malfunction in the digital
console that locked out the engineer.
While technological advances are tools to
be used to enhance the capability of human
performance and endeavor, this same boon
to mankind is, in many instances, often misused and abused. I refer mostly to those tools
that are developed benignly, but are then
employed for military and destructive ends.
Although atomic energy is the first thing that
comes to mind, the various shades of mis-
Never Enough
FOH
Technology begets new technology,
and it seems that the more we have, the
more we need. We adapt old technologies
to accommodate the newer innovations and
just as we think we have it all together, we
have to update once again. Although basic
principles and practices remain the same,
the new and improved tools that we have
There, I said it, “cheating,” and that
brings me back to baseball, which
then brings me back to audio, music
and girls. But, as stated earlier, it’s
best if I leave the girls out of this.
used and abused just about covers the gamut
of most technologies. But advancement will
not be deterred, and despite any Orwellian
misgivings — regardless of the religious naysayers — technological progress marches on
and sweeps all of us up in its path.
It is difficult to imagine how any of us ever
succeeded in a world without cell phones and
mobile Internet access, but now it’s a mainstay of our operations, and those without the
latest technology cannot keep up with those
that do possess the tools. The competition is
stiff and the demand is high to provide the
latest technologies and to provide it immediately. If we, as audio providers, should falter
in the least way, some Internet search engine
will be able to lead a prospective buyer in
the right direction, but away from us, which
means a loss of revenue.
at our disposal are designed to facilitate
our actions and improve our overall output
and earning capacity. An editing job in the
studio that once took three hours may only
take one hour with one of the new digital
cut and paste programs available. We can
model sounds and make an SM57 sound
like a Neumann U87. As of a few years ago,
we were obligated to write down all our
settings after a sound check, and now all
we need to do is upload our mix from a card
and we are ready to go.
If I let my mind wander (as it is wont
to do) to the next generation of digital enhancement, I would say that soon there will
be a speaker system capable of ringing itself
out to any given room with just the push of
a button. No need for an engineer to concern themselves with frequencies, balancing
www.fohonline.com
the different fields, adjusting the angles of
the speakers, setting delays, etc. One push
of a button and the computer goes to work
and the system gets optimum coverage and
frequency response. How about a console
that is capable of mixing any band without
an engineer? The console will have a software program consisting of samples of every imaginable instrument and will take the
input from the stage and process it for each
instrument. The console will also process
and auto tune each vocal, and since a “mix”
is just a mathematical relationship between
instruments, it will mix as well. Sure, there
will be problems in the beginning, but in
time the bugs will get worked out and the
next wave of engineers will find it archaic
to have to manually mix a band or ring out
a system.
Technology is a great boon to mankind,
and with each new technological step forward there is always the old guy doubting the
veracity and staying power of the new machine. This is nothing new and progress has
always been met with resistance from those
of an earlier time. The application of electric
light was questioned by those used to the
reliability of gas and oil and, when first built,
automobiles were a novelty and looked upon
as a contraption that would never replace the
horse. Speaking of cars, I still know people
who think driving an automatic transmission
is not really driving, but a form of cheating.
There, I said it, “cheating,” and that brings me
back to baseball, which then brings me back
to audio, music and girls. But, as stated earlier,
it’s best if I leave the girls out of this.
Cheaters Never Win…Or Do They? FOH
We live in a culture of cheating, and we
learn to rationalize it if we feel it’s beneficial
to our health or our pocketbooks. Ethically,
can we say that auto-tuning a vocal in concert is cheating? Is playing backing tracks of
Pro Tools a form of cheating? Is lip-syncing
in concert cheating? How about sampling? I
know, you’re thinking that this is technology
and it’s very different from taking steroids
or HGH, but we live in a culture that pushes
amphetamines (in the form of Ritalin and
the like) on kids so that they can focus and
perform better and — if they do get better grades — is that cheating? Maybe there
should be an asterisk next to every child
conceived by a father taking Viagra, or possibly an asterisk next to any singer that gets a
vitamin B shot before a concert to help them
perform. An asterisk should be placed next
to any song, poem or story that might have
been written under the influence, especially
if the song goes to number one or wins a
Grammy. For that matter, special effects in
film are cheating. Photoshop is cheating.
Birth control is cheating, and when stem
cell research is fully developed, there will be
even more cheating going on, guaranteed!
Regardless of the preferred cheating
method, the technology is still just the tool
to be used by the operator. Hell, you could
give George Mitchell a boatload of steroids
or HGH and he still won’t hit towering home
runs or win Cy Young awards. For that matter, given the best technology, he probably
couldn’t auto-tune a vocal either.

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