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California Fires Fuel Setbacks for
Live Production Companies
By Breanne George
ThE NEws MagazinE For LivE Sound
NOVEMBER 2007 Vol. 6 No. 2
They Keep Rascal Flatts Heard Above the Crowd
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — After a week of catastrophic wildfires that swept across
500,000 acres from Santa Barbara to as far south as the Mexican border, destroying 1,700
homes and leaving 4,403 residents homeless, 100 injured and seven dead, California is ready
for a break. Like their residential neighbors, companies in the region, including
those in the live production industry, are
recovering from the fires’ wrath as lost
gigs, evacuations and employees’ personal losses brought business to a virtual
standstill.
Sound-Image’s corporate headquarters in Escondido, Calif., was in the thick of
the danger zone — only three freeway exits away from neighborhoods destroyed
by the Witch Creek Fire, which stormed
through Escondido and the surrounding
communities.
The company had a mandatory evacuation on Monday Oct. 22, and the offices
In October, Jersey Boys, the 2006
were closed for three days.
Tony Award winning musical about
“This place was handcuffed until tothe rise of The Four Seasons, opened
day (Oct. 29). Escondido’s basically been
its Chicago tour date at the LaSalle
continued on page 6
locked down,” says
Bank Theater, which had been renovated in 2006 to great acclaim. However, when it came time to prepare
the venue for the show, Associate
Sound Designer Andrew Keister discovered that the historic theatre
NORTHRIDGE, CA — When FOH
still lacked a sufficiently up-to-date
queried Harman insiders about the colsound system. The team spent a week
lapse of the buyout deal with a couple
doing the theatre renovations, six
of heavy-hitting Wall Street investment
days installing the system, four days
banks, one person told us, “Sid is by no
in rehearsal — and then the audience
means a dumb guy and may, in fact, make
arrived. To find out how they pulled it
Harman a ton of money for having them
all together, turn to page 22.
back out.” Turns out he was right, as Har-
Jersey Boys Settles
into Chicago Theatre
Harman Reaches
Agreement with KKR
It is no easy task to keep up with the energetic members of the award-winning country music
group Rascal Flatts. The band is on tour, taking major U.S. cities like Nashville, Chicago, St. Louis
and Atlanta by storm. Since the band’s hit single “Bless the Broken Road” reached the No. 1 spot on
the Billboard charts for five straight weeks, Rascal Flatts has been at the top of the world’s country
music scene, alongside performers like Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Reba McIntyre and others.
While the band was on the road with its Still Feels Good tour, FOH spoke with Stuart Delk (monitor
engineer) and Jon Jon Garber (FOH) who filled us in on how the band is tweaking its way into
atmospheric stardom. Turn to page 16 for the complete interview.
Ted Leamy Joins Pro Media/UltraSound
HERCULES, CA — Pro Media/UltraSound, the West Coast-based A/V integrator, special event and
tour sound company, has appointed Ted Leamy to the position of chief operating officer. Leamy has
more than 25 years of professional audio and tour sound experience, including holding key positions
at Electrotec Productions involving the touring operations of numerous international touring artists.
Leamy most recently held the position of vice president of installed sound for JBL Professional and
joins Pro Media/UltraSound, further strengthening his two-decade-long close relationship with company leadership and staff.
"I look forward to working with the incredible staff at Pro Media/UltraSound; it feels like I am
coming home," commented Leamy. "My number one priority will be to help maintain the high
level of professionalism and quality established by this great company as we continue to grow in
tour sound, special events and installations."
man, along with KKR and GS Capital Partners, announced this week a new agreement that will keep the bankers from
paying the $225 million termination fee
called for in the original contract, instead
seeing them make a $400 million investment in Harman that they cannot sell or
hedge for at least one year.
Terms of the new agreement include
the following:
• KKR and GSCP will purchase
$400 million of 1.25% senior notes,
convertible under certain circumstances into Harman common stock,
at a price of $104 per share. KKR and
GSCP have agreed neither to sell nor
hedge their position for at least one
year.
continued on page 10
12
26
30
AES Report
Lots of recording gear and a few live
tidbits.
Product Gallery
The spotlight this month is on
self-powered subwoofers.
The Biz
Dan Dailey offers his perspective on
the Harman deal and its long-term
effect on the industry.
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NOVEMBER
2007, Vol. 6.2
Production
Profile
Feature
Features
12 AES New Gear
FOH went to New York for AES, took a bite
out of the Big Apple, and brought back a
few cool tools.
18
Experience Seattle’s infamous Bumbershoot
— one of the most eclectic music festivals on the planet.
Regional Slants
Columns
30 The Biz
The trials and tribulations of Harman
International.
32 Theory and Practice
16 FOH Interview
Country sensation Rascal Flatts keeps the
challenges coming on the current tour.
Have no fear — poor man’s power distro
is here.
32 The Bleeding Edge
22 Installations
For Jersey Boys, the 2006 Tony Awardwinning musical about the rise of The
Four Seasons, a stint at the LaSalle Bank
Theater in downtown Chicago turned into
a serious install for the show’s surround
sound system.
Nate Duran Photography
26 Product Gallery
Intermodulation Analysis Software (IAS) is
air traffic control.
33 Anklebiters
Hanging with Gear Snob Rob.
36 FOH-At-Large
Inventory — not the sexiest part of the live
audio biz — but oh, so important.
This month’s gallery shines light on
self-powered subwoofers.
28 Road Tests
We put some AKG mics to the test…see
which ones pass the drop test. Plus,
get pumped for the QSC Powerlight 3
Amplifiers.
31
Departments
2 Feedback
4 Editor’s Note
5 News
11 International News
13 On the Move
14 Showtime
33 In the Trenches
FEEDBACK
Audio Excellence thinks and acts big with its touringgrade service — and stands out from the competition.
Tubeheads Unite
I agree with you on your article
(Theory and Practice) in the Oct. 2007
issue. That being said, let me say I’m
NO physicist engineer, or “seasoned
gig veteran.” I grew up in the “hollow
state devices” era (i.e. vacuum tubes). Of course, I have done troubleshooting on the solid state devices, since
I have had 42 years in Avionics. (21
years with Federal Express doing
Autopilots and similar equipment;
retired at the end of 2004; and 21
years before that doing Nav/Com on
general aviation aircraft.)
I do some repairs for musicians’
guitar amplifiers, tube & SS, some P.A.
amps and, believe it or not, antique
radios. I recently finished an antique
radio (a 1929 General Motors Model
140, TRF AM receiver) for a museum.
The point here is you mentioned
the Radiotron Designer’s Handbook,
which has helped me greatly. When
you have tubes that are “Mostly Unavailable,” you may have to substitute a different one. The handbook
then comes in handy with a copy of
some other tube manuals and a little
common sense.
A friend of mine said, “You are
the only guy in the state of Arkansas who could make that 1929 radio
work.” I do not agree since I am also
a Ham Radio operator (W5RDN) and
know that there are some sharp guys
still in the Ham Radio community.
I continue to read your column
each month — before I look at the
rest of the magazine.
Best Regards,
Roger Nash
(W5RDN Ham Radio)
Self-Power or Not?
It was great to see Jamie Rio’s article on powered
vs. unpowered loudspeakers for install in October’s
FOH (“Sound Sanctuary”). A couple of things you
could also mention are:
• The controls on the rear of a powered speaker
make it easy for the talent or some other unassuming helper to “just turn it up a little,” making it hard for
the person in charge of the overall sound and operations to predict whether the levels replicate the same
levels from the previous week’s service. Check these
controls each time you power up to avoid surprises.
• Also, the little LED lights on the front of some
powered cabinets can be annoying in a sanctuary
where the congregation should be focusing on the
service. I know some professionals who do industrials
who tape over these LEDs on fill speakers to help hide
them. One manufacturer of powered loudpspeakers
offers the ability to defeat the light via a jumper. Nice
touch.
• And safety is crucial. Be sure to follow all the
manufacturer’s instructions when hanging or flying
loudspeakers. Get the right brackets and hardware
made specifically for rigging. Loudspeakers, whether
powered or unpowered, are heavy items that need
to be suspended properly. And, if you are doing outdoor portable audio (like at Easter or Christmas), you
need to be able to protect the talent as well as the
audience if a freak rainstorm were to come along. You
also have one more cable to run out into wet grass to
contend with. This might be a situation where a passive loudspeaker and power amplifier or powered
mixer combination come in handy.
I know your article was about a “permanent”
sound system, but I couldn’t resist offering a few
more suggestions.
Your articles are always right on, and I enjoy reading them. Nice to know that real “users” of the gear
are doing the writing. Keep up the good work!”
John Schauer
Product Manager, Live Sound Department
Yamaha Corporation of America
Editor’s Note
By BillEvans
Publisher
Terry Lowe
tlowe@fohonline.com
Once Upon a Time When
Things Were Simple
Editor
Bill Evans
bevans@fohonline.com
Managing Editor
Geri Jeter
gjeter@fohonline.com
Associate Editor
Breanne George
bg@fohonline.com
W
ell it’s that time of month
again. The staff is screaming for an editors note, and I
would rather have all of my fingernails
pulled out with a pair of rusty needlenose pliers that came from a lampy’s
fog juice-soaked tool belt than write
one.
I mean, I have been shooting my
mouth off in print in this space for
more than five years. Is there really
anything left to say? Does any of it really matter? OK, way too philosophical.
It just gets hard to keep up sometimes
with an industry that is changing at
the speed of sound.
How’s this? I was shooting the
s*#% with my good friend Larry Hall at
H.A.S. Productions the other day, and
he was telling me that he is looking at
getting rid of all of his analog consoles
and going totally digital. As he put it,
“I only have two or three guys a year
who insist on an analog board, and
they always insist on a Midas Heritage,
which I have to rent anyway.” Actually,
he would still have one analog desk in
the house. My personal Midas Venice
lives there these days so he can rent it
for smaller gigs.
But think about the implications
here. This is a good-sized soundco
with a bunch of inventory and as
much work as they can handle in any
given week, but they ain’t exactly
Clair or Sound Image. This is a regional company looking to do all digital,
all the time unless someone insists on
“old” technology.
It makes sense on a number of
levels, including the ability to dump
a couple of comp/gate/FX racks along
with the consoles, which would all but
pay for the desk he has his eye on. But
still, if someone had told me just two
years ago that this kind of thing would
be happening, I would have thought
they were nucking futs. I would have
bet Big Mick’s weight in lap dancers
that such a shift was at least another
decade from taking place.
On another note, I was asked to be
part of a panel at AES on digital distribution of audio for live sound folks. I
can never figure out why anyone wants
me on a panel like this because all I do
is talk for a couple of minutes and roll a
live hand grenade into the room in the
form of a question or subject area that
no one really wants to talk about. In this
case it was, “Hey, digital distribution
would be great if we could all, I don’t
know, agree on a freakin’ standard. If the
MI world can come up with MIDI so all
of their stuff can talk to each other, then
how come the rocket scientists in pro
audio can’t?” It was really cool to watch
all the manufacturer types hem and haw
about why they went with a proprietary
system and how it was all about performance, not profit.
Only the sole other non-manufacturer
on the panel, Dave Shadoan from
Sound Image, had the balls to say that
it is all about the money. No one wants
to adhere to an industry-wide standard that lets the user decide which
pieces from which manufacturers to
use, if they can roll out a proprietary
system and make you buy a bunch of
THEIR stuff.
Dave also had the best line of the
session when he said that two things
had to happen before digital transport
became common in the live world.
“First,” he said, “we need a real standard
and second, all of the old guys have
to die.” Pretty funny until I remembered that I am one of those old guys.
Hmmmmm…
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
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
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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Front Of House (ISSN 1549-831X) Volume 6 Number
2 is published monthly by Timeless Communications
Corp., 6000 South Eastern Ave., Suite 14J, Las Vegas, NV,
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40033037, 1415 Janette Ave., Windsor, ON N8X 1Z1.
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News
Steely Dan’s Heavy Rollers Tour 2007
BERKELEY, CA — For more than 35 years,
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have produced the smooth amalgam of rock, jazz, blues
and soul that constitutes the sound of Steely
Dan. Their patented blend of complex layered
melodies and distinct rhythms has always
placed a premium on musicianship, innovative
instrumentation and pristine production.
When Steely Dan resumed touring after
decades off the road, Fagen and Becker carried
their devotion to audio quality with them from
the studio to the stage. For their current Heavy
Rollers Tour 2007, the band retained Thunder
Audio of Taylor, Mich., to provide a system.
“It is a huge honor to work with Steely Dan,”
says Thunder Audio VP Paul Owen. “Everybody
who comes to the show — band members, associates, fans — expects the sound to be A-1,
the audio quality that Steely Dan is known for.
There is no gray area, which is one reason why
we went with Meyer Sound gear across the
board.”
For the main system, Head Audio Systems
Technician Keith Jex employs left and right
arrays consisting of nine MILO cabinets and
one MILO 120 high-power expanded coverage curvilinear array loudspeaker each. Two
700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofers per side
handle bottom end, and a Galileo loudspeaker
management system provides processing and
drive for the whole system.
Jex sets up loudspeaker deployment for
each arena using Meyer Sound’s MAPP Online
Pro acoustical prediction software. “I come in
before they unload the trucks, measure distances and heights and plug the numbers into
the computer. The resulting configuration is
always correct,” says Jex. “Plus, I love that I can
use MAPP to make sure my weight loads are
correct so that I don’t exceed the capacity of
the facility.”
He uses a SIM 3 audio analyzer to identify
problem areas that may surface in a particular
venue. “I don’t have to hunt around for things,”
he says. “I can determine almost immediately
if there’s a problem in the room and zip it out
(with Galileo’s EQ) right away.” Jex runs both the
SIM 3 system and the Galileo system’s Compass
control software from a wireless tablet PC.
Jex configures the system to split the
house into three zones, much like a theatrical
sound design. “That ensures that I’m not hurting people’s ears up front, or giving the people
in the back a weak show,” says Jex. “Plus, it
makes time-aligning the system and the subs
a snap; with other programs we’ve used, there
was a lot of guesswork; with these tools, I can
actually see where to put the alignment.”
Monitor Engineer Peter Thompson delivers mixes for Fagen, Becker and their 10-piece
band through 14 MJF-212A high-power stage
monitors, along with two UM-1P narrow-cov-
erage stage monitors
for the horn section.
“Right from the getgo, the band liked how
the monitors sounded,”
Thompson says. “With
the Meyer wedges, you
have amazing vocal
clarity; it’s basically like
using a studio monitor.
And because they are
self-powered, my footprint is half the size it
would be if I had amp Steely Dan hits the stage again
racks on the stage.”
Adds Jex, “Our Meyer Sound speakers, they’re still in great shape. I haven’t had one
especially the wedges, get used hard, and cabinet break down.”
Church Comes into the
21st Century for Its
New Sanctuary
Chief Audio Technician Kelly Olp (R) and volunteer Tim Kiser
at Faith Chapel Foursquare Church’s new Soundcraft Vi6
BILLINGS, MT — Houses of worship often represent a unique challenge for sound
system designers. With a wide range of services and other events to be accommodated
during a typical week, flexibility represents a
key parameter. And increasingly larger contemporary choirs with onstage musicians can
present a challenge even to trained audio
engineers. So when Faith Chapel Foursquare
Church of Billings, Mont., went shopping for a
console for its 1,100-seat sanctuary, the list of
requirements was long and complex.
“We ultimately chose a Soundcraft Vi
digital console,” explains Chief Audio Technician Kelly Olp. “It’s an unbelievable sounding
board with a great variety of routing options,
onboard effects processing and equalization.”
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2007 NOVEMBER
News
California Fires Fuel Setbacks for Live Production Companies
continued from cover
Dave Shadoan of Sound-Image. “These
have been the worst fires in the history of
California.”
As business returns to normal, some
employees who have had to deal with unthinkable tragedy are still searching for
normalcy. Sound-Image’s Chief Financial
Officer Ralph Wagner lost his Rancho Bernardo house in the fire. “Imagine being
woken up at 4:30 in the morning, and in
15 minutes you are backing out of your
driveway and looking at a 100-foot wall of
fire as far as the eye can see — and coming right at you,” Shadoan says. “He lost
his entire world.”
Shadoan related that another employee, who lost his home in fires four years
ago, had fire sweep through his property, but it miraculously missed his rebuilt
house.
Fortunately, a reverse 911 system
notified residents of emergency evacuations and was a major factor in the high
survival rate compared to past wildfires,
Shadoan noted.
Foothill Ranch and Santiago Canyon
Renkus-Heinz Inc. CEO Harro Heinz
and Rik Kirby, vice president of operations,
made an executive decision to evacuate
their sole manufacturing facility in Foothill
Ranch, Calif., on Monday morning, Oct. 22.
The Santiago Canyon fire, which officials
say was deliberately set by arsonists
and is currently under FBI investigation,
encircled the factory and the adjacent
building in a C-shape, Kirby described.
The closest flare-up, which leapt onto the
I-241 Toll Road across the street from the
facility, was less than 250 yards away.
“We got to work in the morning at
8:00 a.m., and everywhere was smoky, but
come 9 o’clock, we saw fire coming over
the hills next to us, and it just raced down
the hill toward the houses across the toll
road from us,” he recalls.
Shortly after the flare-ups occurred,
firefighters rushed to the scene and put out
the fire on the toll road, and water-dropping helicopters contained the larger fire
engulfing the hillside. Because of the incessant smoke, the facility’s 55 employees
were given paper masks and sent home for
the day. Kirby emphasized that the evacuation was strictly precautionary and that employees were not in imminent danger.
Fire surrounds the Renkus-Heinz facility
During the evacuation, the company’s
intellectual property was moved out of
the building, including important paper
documents from the document control
office as well as computer servers and
hard drives. “We literally loaded our entire
document control office in a van,” Kirby
said.
The Renkus-Heinz facility was left untouched by the fire; however, the close
call made the company rethink its disaster planning and look into new ways to
store irreplaceable intellectual property.
“We already had an IT support company meet with us about better ways to
keep off-site data backups — we have
them — but we’re not 100% sure of their
integrity,” Kirby said. “So, we’re making
sure that we are covered if something
were to happen.”
As Far North as Costa Mesa
Although QSC Audio Products Inc.,
based in Costa Mesa, Calif., was 20 miles
away from the nearest fire, the company
did experience a blackout, says Ed Faranda, senior manufacturing engineer.
“We found out (the blackout) was
caused by transmission lines in Orange
County that were heated up and unable
to supply the voltage,” he says.
The low humidity had an effect on QSC’s
manufacturing — when the factory gets
below 30% humidity, the solder paste used
to make the electrical connection onto the
circuit boards dries too quickly. To keep the
desired viscosity, Faranda says he had to cut
time in the process by two-thirds.
On a personal level, Faranda experienced the wildfires from a different point
of view than most civilians. He is a reserve
deputy for the Lakewood branch of the
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Law enforcement served a vital role during
the disaster, helping with evacuations and
traffic control so firefighters could focus all
their energies toward fighting fires.
Faranda operated the emergency
operations center at the Lakewood Station and also patrolled the city streets to
augment the police force which sent 24
full-time deputies per shift to the various
emergency areas.
“It feels great helping the people and
also helping the other deputies when
they get tight and they’re overworked,”
he says. “I’m just one person, but there are
850 reserves in L.A. County alone.”
Lost Business and Other Problems
Other businesses suffered financial woes
as a result of cancelled gigs.
Ultimate Ears, based in Irvine, Calif., encountered some minor setbacks in production when two clients — Velvet Revolver with
Alice in Chains and Sheryl Crow — who use
their personal monitors, cancelled shows. Six
of the company’s employees had plans to at-
tend the shows to meet clients and take care
of any service issues, says President and CoFounder Mindy Harvey.
“It’s been challenging to connect with our
clients as they come through town,” she says.
“We would typically hand deliver repaired
monitors and check our gear to make sure
the band and engineers were happy.” Harvey
admits the cancellations are a “huge inconvenience,” but says she anticipates the shows
will be rescheduled.
The fires also caused some logistical
issues when a division of the company
located in San Diego had a mandatory
evacuation. “Everything kind of came to
a screeching halt for us because we were
getting ready to move them up to our Irvine office,” Harvey says. Unfortunately,
the Santiago Canyon fires were near the
Irvine offices, resulting in heavy smoke,
ash and overall poor air quality. As a result, the move was postponed a week.
Stage-Tech, based in Santa Fe Springs,
Calif., lost a contract as stage vendors
for a local vendor in San Diego. The gig,
a private function where Chris Isaak was
to perform, was cancelled when impending danger near the facility prompted
an emergency evacuation. Stage-Tech
was supplying stage equipment and two
crew supervisors for the event. The trucks
— two loaded bobtails and the stage itself — were already loaded prior to the
cancellation.
“It’s not company-changing or anything, but it’s still a $500 gig — that’s a
nice little chunk of dough for the week,”
says owner Charley Guest. “It definitely
hurts when you lose a job like that.”
Guest says he is hoping to recover his investment.“Assuming nothing bad happened
and this was a cancellation, I was gong to
find out if we could recoup some of our fees
to load the trucks from our shop,” he says.
In addition to the lost gig, Guest says
he has had two employees call in sick the
week of the fires. Although he can’t say
it’s directly related, he notes smoke inhalation could be a contributing factor.
“It’s a devastating situation, emotionally if nothing else,” he says. “I live within
10 miles of one of the fires, and my office
manager lives within three miles of another. We have people spread out all over
Southern California who are definitely being affected on different degrees.”
The Police and Justin Timberlake Steal the Show
FRESNO, CA — This year’s highest
grossing concert tour is somewhat of
a shocker, considering it isn’t today’s
hottest band or uber-celebrity — think
Daughtry or Justin Timberlake — but
rather an 80s new wave rock band that
made its debut on the music scene 30
years ago.
According to Pollstar, The Police Reunion Tour, services provided by Claire
Brothers/Showco, is the sell-out tour
of 2007, with average gross sales of
$3,947,320 — more than double Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds
tour at $1,724,905. Not bad for a band
that hasn’t released a studio album
since 1983.
The Police’s 20-city comeback tour,
sold an average of 35,471 tickets per
show at a price of $111.28. Justin Tim-
NOVEMBER 2007
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berlake’s (Claire/Showco) 16-city tour
didn’t fall too far behind, assuming
the No. 2 position. The FutureSex/LoveSounds tour (his first solo stint since
coheadlining with Christina Aguilera
for the 2003 Justified/Stripped Tour)
sold an average of 20,872 tickets per
show at an average price of $82.64.
Country music tours are a hot commodity this year, with Kenny Chesney
coming in at No. 3 with his 27-city tour,
which brought in $1,848,631 with more
average ticket sales (26,480) than Timberlake. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s
Soul 2 Soul 2007 tour (Claire/Showco)
came in at No. 5 with $1,302,523, and
the second highest ticket prices on the
list ($88.52). Rascal Flatts’s 25-city tour
(Sound Image) ranked 6th, with average gross sales of $842,415.
News
BUENA PARK, CA — Surrounded by a
stunning stage show that included five
huge video screens and six pillars with
stage lights that rose and fell all night,
Sting and bandmates Stewart Copeland
and Andy Summers took to the stage at
Madison Square Garden with Front-ofHouse Engineer R. Michael Keating controlling house sound using a Yamaha
PM5000 analog console. Ian Newton used
a Yamaha PM1D at monitors, and Kirk Shreiner used a Yamaha PM5D for opening
act Fiction Plane (vocalist/guitarist Joe
Sumner, Sting’s son). Clair Brothers, of Littiz, Penn., is handling the worldwide tour
production (at press time, Shriner left the
tour to mix Maroon 5). “When I found out I
was going to mix Fiction Plane, the PM5D
was my first choice,” Shreiner states.
Keating said there is no room for digital desks in his “old school” world and
chose the Yamaha PM5000 for several
reasons. “I have always been a fan and
user of Yamaha consoles since the late
70s when, while working with local club
bands, I purchased a PM1000 24-channel board…we were living large,” he says.
“Reliability has always been foremost in
my priorities for sound equipment since
I don’t deal well with gear that doesn’t
work all day, every day. I used a PM 4000
for years without ever having a problem,
so when the PM5000 came out, I loved the
sound of the mic pre amps. Great sounding console, recall, and the time-tested
reliability of Yamaha.”
As far as the P.A., Keating says the
system they are using is a bit of a hybrid, “taking the best of the old and the
best of the new,” combining the age-old
sound of the Clair Brothers S4 sub low
boxes with the clarity and precision of
the Clair Brothers I-4 line array powered
by QSC and Crest power amps. Four de-
Santa-Cali-Gon Festival Supports Local Community
INDEPENDENCE,
top boxes powered
MO — Attracting
by Avlex PAHS-2460B
upward of 250,000
and PAS-1080B ampeople, this year’s
plifiers on mids and
Santa-Cali-Gon Days
horns, respectively,
festival featured live
coupled with Sound
music performances
Bridge 3818SW and
on three stages and
Sonic R218 subwoofincluded appearances
ers powered by Avlex
by artists Mark Ches- The main stage at the Santa-Cali-Gon Days festival
PAHS-3820B amps.
nutt and the Bellamy Brothers, among others.
Cabled microphones included models
A Crest Audio Century GTX 40-channel, from the Avlex, Superlux and MIPRO catalogs.
eight-bus console handled mixing tasks. Several Superlux CM-H8A, S241/U3, PRO-258,
Wireless microphone systems included PRO-218A and PRA-C5 models were deployed,
MIPRO ACT-707D UHF receivers used with along with MIPRO MM-707P plus Avlex AVS-21
MIPRO ACT-707H condenser handheld and CI35 models.
transmitters, as well as MIPRO MR-212 VHF
Jerry Keller, owner of KVI productions,
true diversity receivers, along with MIPRO reflected on the festival. “The Santa-Cali-Gon
MH-202 dynamic handheld transmitters. For Days are an important event in this region of
monitoring, MIPRO MI-808 wireless personal the country,” notes Keller. “We had some tersystems were used.
rific musical performances throughout the
For the Gospel stage, Independence- four days, and we consistently saw crowds
based KVI Productions provided the sound of at least 600–700 people at any given
services for performances by the Jason time. The gear performed flawlessly, and the
Watson Band, the Reverend Jimmy Bratch- people really got into the spirit of things.
er and Dewayne Phillips. The KVI installed This festival is a great way to help support
SR system included Sound Bridge 3222HT numerous community projects.”
CORRECTIONS
lay speaker towers with
Clair Brothers R4s x 8 are
used, and all processing
for the P.A. is handled by
Clair/Lake IOs with TC
1128 EQ inserted on L &
R of the Yamaha PM5000
console.
Outboard gear includes Lexicon 480L,
PCM 70, 90, 91, TC 2290,
TC Voice Works Harmonizer, TC Voice Doubler, five Distressor EL8
compressors on vocals,
bass and Kick; Manley (L/R) Ian Newton’s daughter; Ian Newton, ME; Sean Baca, Clair Bros.; Michael Keating,
EL OP Stereo comps on FOHE; Tom Ford, Clair Bros.; Larry Wilson (standing); Aaron Foye; Kirk Schreiner, ME for
Fiction Plane; and (seated in front) Shaun Clair. bass and Tarus Pedals.
Microphone arsenal consists of Sennhie- snare bottom, hi hat, splash cymbals and
ser 865 vocal mics, Shure Beta 52 on kick percussion, AT 4050 on overheads and
drum and percussion gong drum, a Shure guitars, Beyer OPUS 87 and 88 are used
SM 57 on top snare, Neumann KM184 on on toms.
The Oregon Symphony on the Waterfront
PORTLAND, OR — The Oregon Symphony Horne’s XLC boxes are loaded with EV new DVX
starts its annual concert season in style at the woofers designed to provide low-frequency
end of each summer, celebrating popular clas- muscle, mid-range headroom and higher oversics in the heart of the community with outdoor all power handling. A total of 36 XLC127DVX
performances staged in Portland’s public parks. and 20 XLC215 were used for the concert.
Horne Audio deployed Electro-Voice XLC
“This community event is always a pleasant
loudspeaker systems for performances on way to cap off our summer work schedule,” says
Aug. 30 by the Oregon
Peter Horne. “We’ve done
Symphony and the Portthis show for a number
land Youth Philharmonic
of years now, and we
in Tom McCall Waterfront
used to use trap boxes.
Park. The program feaFor the past three years
tured classical favorites
we’ve used XLC line arranging from Copland to
rays, which provide more
Tchaikovsky.
precise coverage and
Horne addressed the
full bandwidth control.
large bowl-shaped venue
The effect is seamless,
with 14 delay towers in
and the XLC’s character15 time zones and a suristic mid-range warmth
round-sound system with On the river at Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Ore. and smoothness really
a circumference of approximately 1,000 feet.
impressed the organizers, especially with the
Spaced up to 75 feet apart, the towers were added boost of the DVX drivers.”
configured to keep every member of the audiAside from working well against the amence in a near-field zone, minimizing environ- bient noise of the city surroundings, Horne’s
mental effects on sound quality. Most of the XLC system has to reproduce a lot of musical
towers featured three XLC127DVX enclosures, information in this somewhat unusual conwith low-end support via two XLC215 subwoof- figuration. “The overall impression is that the
ers. In addition, QRx112/75 boxes provided front full orchestral sound is everywhere, even and
fills and delays at the far end of the venue. All clear,” added Horne.
Due to a total brain fart, last month’s product gallery on digital EQs showed a bunch of gear all selling for the same price. No excuses offered. We just blew it when sorting
data. Here are the models with the correct pricing.
Company
Web site
Model
MSRP
Ashly Audio, Inc.
www.ashly.com
Protea 4.24G
$2,340.00
BEHRINGER Int’l GmbH
www.behringer.com
DEQ2496
$379.99
BEHRINGER Int’l GmbH
www.behringer.com
DEQ1024
$189.99
dbx Professional Products
www.dbxpro.com
dbx iEQ31
$899.95
LP4D4
$5,560.00
LP4D8
$6,178.00
LP4D12
$6,947.00
Dolby Laboratories
www.dolby.com/livesound
LP8D8
$6,947.00
Klark Teknik
www.klarkteknik.com
Klark Teknik DN9340E
$4,346.67
Mackie
www.mackie.com
Quad EQ
$1,159.99
Rane Corporation
www.rane.com
DEQ 60
$999.00
Sabine
www.Sabine.com
Graphi-Q2 GRQ3121
$799.95
Sabine
www.Sabine.com
Graphi-Q2 GRQ-3122
$1,299.95
TC Electronic
www.tcelectronic.com
EQ Station-8
$8,145.00
Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems Inc.
www.yamahaca.com
Yamaha DME64n, 24n
$6,500;$3,600
NOVEMBER 2007
www.fohonline.com
Chris Marksbury, CM Photos
The Police Reunion Tour Hits the Big Apple
News
Oktoberfest Rolls Out the Barrel and Gear
With the average fest hall featuring
traditional polka acts like the Black Forest
Band, headstand beer drinking phenom
George Kash and Grammy Aaward-winner
Walter Ostanek, Sherwood’s M.I. department
has all the tools to get the job done. On the
other hand, larger venues, not to mention
opening ceremonies and the annual parade,
see crowds ranging from 3,000 to 10,000
beer lovers — this is where having the
region’s largest front-of-house inventory
gives Sherwood Systems the upper hand.
Tim Mitchell, Sherwood’s production manager, faces the challenge of
New Nightclub Brings Ibiza Vibe to D.C.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Washington,
D.C. nightclub Ibiza has opened with a
$500,000 sound system, designed and
installed by Adam Weiner and Bill McClure of ITI Audio, that incorporates four
Dolby Lake Processors providing six-way
crossover filtering and loudspeaker optimization.
The multipurpose sound system was
designed for both DJ and live use — the
first live event was a campaign fundraiser
by Hillary Clinton with guest artist Mya
performing in early September — and
comprised Martin Audio W8LC compact
line arrays. “The installation was a piece
of cake,” Weiner reports. “We expected to
be in there for a day just getting filters
sorted out, but we loaded up the preset
Martin Audio provided for the Dolby Lake
Processor, and it sounded pretty great out
of the box. We just made some minor adjustments, mostly on the parametric EQ
on the master. Everybody that has heard
it says that they like it.”
Additionally, the AES buss and routing
matrix of the Dolby Lake Processors are
being used to feed the outputs from four
separate DJ booths to any combination of
four rooms at the 30,000-sqare-feet club,
coordinating
gear,
trucks
and
technicians during
the course of
the
10-day
celebration.
With
so
many shows
taking place
on a continuous basis over the
week, it is inevitable that
S h e r w o o d Kitchener-Waterloo goes Bavarian for Oktoberfest
Systems must
also comply with noise violation by-laws. stage that was carefully monitored using
One particular neighborhood is plagued EAW’s SMAART software.
by a 60 Hz resonance that is surprisingly
Now that the festival is over, Sherwood’s
loud even though it is nearly 300 meters technicians are left testing and wiping down
from the venue. The problem was solved beer-soaked cabinets and cables in prepaby creating a cardioid sub under the ration for the next onslaught of events.
The crowd begins to gather at the Ibiza nightclub
which features stainless steel and glass
decor, waterfalls, VIP terraces and a wall of
50,000 LEDs on the main 100-foot by 70foot dance floor.
According to Weiner, a touring
FOH engineer who has been using the
processor since the Lake Contour was
introduced nearly four years ago, the
Dolby Lake Processors are able to tame the
less-than-ideal acoustics and 2.5-second
RT60 of the warehouse-like club space.
“The Processor gives us filters that can
take out such precise areas of problematic
frequency content that we can make it
sound good,” says Weiner. “The problems
that can be fixed with the Dolby Lake
Processors are problems that couldn’t be
corrected with some other products.”
KITCHENER-WATERLOO, ONTARIO —
Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest is North
America’s largest Bavarian festival, second in the world only to the original
Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. Kitchener’s Sherwood Systems Inc. has been
providing sound reinforcement, staging
and lighting to each of the festival’s 13
venues for nearly two decades. Throughout the years, the festival has evolved by
diversifying the musical acts showcased
throughout the week, including David
Wilcox, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Blue Rodeo and Jully Black.
OLD LYME, CT
— In support of
Hilary Duff’s new
album, the Dignity Tour set out
in late July for 32
shows throughout
North
America,
with more shows
being added in the
fall. The show used
Sennheiser wireless audio technology with thirtynine RF channels,
including Duff’s e
935 vocal microphone. Now that
the show has hit
the road, Lorin
credits the cardioid’s ability to reject everything but a singer’s voice. “There are a lot of excited fans
at Hilary’s concerts, and they can produce high frequencies above 4k like nobody’s
business. She routinely goes down to shake their hands, and they’re constantly
screaming — in essence of 114 dB plus! I can leave the Sennheiser e 935 flat and still
reject all that. Hilary cuts through.”
Hilary Duff Sings Over Screaming Fans
News
Phillips Academy Graduation Ceremony Leans Green
ANDOVER, MA — Phillips Academy in
Andover, Mass., used a new Martin Audio system during its 229th commencement. The system, provided by longtime
supplier Balanced Input, was comprised
of Martin Audio W8LM Mini Line arrays
W8LMD downfill speakers and WS218X
subs for the main coverage, a number
of Martin WM05s for fills and Martin LE
1200s for confidence monitors. Ashly PE
Series amplifiers provided power for the
speakers with onboard DSP under wireless control from a portable laptop.
Mark Waker, founder of Balanced
Input and an audio provider to Phillips
Academy for 11 years, explained the
decision to go for a miniature line array rather than a conventional trap box
system. “We’ve used conventional boxes and it worked well, but we had big
mains on scaffold, then midfield delays
on crank-ups and then crowd-pleasers
at the very back, also on crank-ups,” he
says. “ The coverage was good, but the
graduation space is surrounded by unforgiving 50-foot-high brick dorms, and
so much gear was visually intrusive. I
have been using Martin products for a
long time, and, so with Rob Hofkamp’s
(Martin Audio Director of North American Operations) help, we put the system
together.”
“There is also the
carbon footprint issue — it bothered
me how much energy we were using,” Waker explains.
The Martin speaker
systems are high efficiency, the amps
are high efficiency
and I would say that
reducing crew count
from six to three,
Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass.
rig time from six
to four hours and replacing a 26-foot qualifies as efficient.” Coincidentally, the
box truck with a Dodge Sprinter Van keynote address by Head of School Barbara
Landis Chase focused on conservation
and energy efficiency.
The system is flown from custom
lifts, which go to 15 feet, but due to lowhanging tree branches, the system was
trimmed at 10 feet with the top box almost horizontal. “We had to trim it very
tightly to the back of the seated area,
so we added fills for the standees,” comments Dan Ostroff, A1 for Balanced Output, the new company formed to market the new system. “Balanced Input will
continue with consulting and contracting, and Balanced Output will focus on
live events. The next event will be the
same system, in a large gymnasium, way
higher SPL with more subs, and it still all
fits in the Sprinter.”
Event Coordinator Duncan Will expressed his delight at the dramatically
improved sound, superior aesthetics
and “the absence of hardware in the
trees.” Phillips Academy AV Manager
Mike Crouse added, “The Martin system sounded better, was quicker to set
up, and looked cleaner than any other
system we’ve used for graduation. I’m
looking forward to seeing it return for
our 2008 commencement.”
Harman Reaches
Agreement with KKR
continued from cover
• The parties have agreed to terminate their Merger Agreement dated April 26 without litigation or payment of a termination fee.
• The company also announced
that Brian F. Carroll, member of KKR,
will join Harman’s board of directors.
The company will use the proceeds
from the KKR/GSCP investment to
repurchase Harman common stock
through an accelerated share repurchase program.
Dr. Sidney Harman, executive
chairman of Harman, noted, “We
are pleased to have reached an understanding with KKR and GSCP. Although we do not agree with the
reasons for cancellation of the original merger agreement, we view this
$400 million investment as a vote of
confidence in our business and its
prospects for continued growth. Our
company benefits from excellent customer relationships built on worldclass products, brands and technology, and we are well positioned to
capitalize on market opportunities in
the automotive, consumer and professional sectors.”
10
NOVEMBER 2007
www.fohonline.com
International News
Nana Fest Rio Pumps up the Volume with Adamson
process. “There are no advantages in having a
high-tech system unless you have a thorough
understanding of how it works and how to best
operate it,” Neiva says. “There are resources we
can provide them. We accompany new Sotex
clients to a series of events to make sure they
are satisfied and that they can take advantage
of different markets with their new system.”
The inauguration of the Lang Brothers
Adamson system took place on Aug. 26 at
Nana Fest Rio, headlined by the popular Axé
music band Chiclete com Banana, and held at
the open-air Riocentro before an audience of
about 40,000.
Sotex Commercial Coordinators Guilherme
Zauza and Fabrício Neiva were at the venue following the installation process. “It is a pleasure
to have Lang Brothers as a customer,” comments
Popular Austrian Theatre Installs DiGiCo Consoles
ST. PÖLTEN, AUSTRIA — DiGiCo’s Austrian distributor, TON Eichinger Professional Sound Systems, has recently made
sales of DiGiCo/Soundtracs consoles in the
Austrian market. The first was to ORF, the
country’s central radio facility; the second
was to the Landestheater, St. Pölten, in
Lower Austria.
ORF’s central radio facility, located in
the capital of Vienna, comprises small to
medium-sized studios used for recording
radio talk shows and small live music shows
as well as high-level postproduction. Its
The DiGiCo DS-00 digital console
recent purchase of three Soundtracs DS-00
digital consoles — two for its Vienna facility,
and one for its Eisenstadt regional studio
— is part of a series of such installations
there.
“ORF have used Soundtracs consoles
for some time, having had DS3s previously,
and are familiar with the way they work,”
says Othmar Eichinger of TON Eichinger.
“So when it was time to update its system,
the decision was made to install three DS00s with fader expansion units.
A DiGiCo D1 Live digital mixing console has been installed into the Landestheater, a medium-sized provincial theatre in
Lower Austria. The theatre wanted to have
a portable solution for its mixing requirements, allowing it to have the option to use
the D1 at other venues or open-air events.
“The small footprint means it can be transported very easily by two people,” concludes Othmar. “And it doesn’t take up too
many seats, which is great for the theatre’s
bottom line.”
Zauza. “Their team’s
technique is very
good, Marcelo knows
the local business and
renders an excellent
service.”
“It’s a pleasure to
do business with a
serious company that
provides
thorough
technical
support,”
agreed Ferreira. “The
feedback was very
important in positioning our company as a
viable nationwide option for large-format
touring and festivals.
Nana Fest Rio in Brazil
Nana Fest Rio in Brazil
The Great Wall of China Echoes Medical Message
BEIJING — The message about neuroradiology was spread loud and clear
to the world at the 9th Congress of the
World Federation of Interventional and
Therapeutic Neuroradiology ( WFITN),
recently held in Beijing — the first
time the biannual event was hosted in
China.
With an audio system representing manufacturers from
around the world, a
Spectra T56 console from
APB-DynaSonics handled
the task of mixing the
event. Other products included Lab.gruppen amplifiers from Sweden and
Adamson loudspeakers
from Canada. Eastern
Acoustic Developments
Ltd. was responsible for
providing the sound.
The opening ceremony at the Great Wall
Gate in Ju Yong Guan
near Beijing was high-
lighted by a performance featuring
the China Broadcasting Performing
Arts Group and China Film Symphony
Orchestra. The World Federation of Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology is a chartered international
nonprofit
organization
dedicated
to the advancement of the medical
discipline.
Backstage at the WFITN Conference
RIO DE JANEIRO — Sound company Lang
Brothers, with headquarters in Rio de Janeiro,
has acquired Adamson True Line Source arrays
and complete systems solutions as specked by
Adamson’s Brazilian distributor, Sotex. Lang
Brothers Director Marcelo Ferreira took delivery of 24 Adamson Y-10s, eight T-21 Subs, 12
Lab.gruppen FP+ 7000 and FP+10000 amplifiers, Dolby Lake processors and Reference Lab
cabling. This sale marks the fourth major Adamson sale in the Brazilian market since Sotex
took over the distribution just over a year ago.
AF&C Eventos Ltda, Marc Systems and Dot
Com preceded Ferreira’s deal.
The entire Lang Brothers audio team attended a weeklong training seminar where
Fabrício Neiva, Adamson’s technical coordinator, guides new customers through the
New Gear
L i ve A u d i o G e t s a S u p p o r t i n g Ro l e
NEW YORK — OK, let’s make sure we are all on the same page here: AES is a recording
show. It always has been and though there have been real efforts to make it more relevant
to the live audio community, it remains what it is. That said, there was some cool stuff, although much of it was “remember that thing we showed last AES? Well, it’s shipping now.”
Most notable was how many live audio manufacturers did not show up
L-ACOUSTICS’ new SB28, the successor to its
SB218 subwoofer, is a four-Ohm, front-loaded,
2 x 18-inch direct radiating bass-reflex tuned enclosure capable of operating down to 25 Hz. The
LF transducers are designed to provide an exceptional cone excursion capability combined with
low thermal compression even at the very highest operating levels. The enclosure’s bass-reflex
L-ACOUSTICS SB28
vents feature a progressive profile allowing for
laminar airflow. Control and amplification of the SB28 is managed by L-ACOUSTICS’ new LA8
amplified controller platform. The LA8’s DSP filtering encompasses crossover, system EQ and
L-DRIVE thermal and over-excursion protection of the transducers.
www.l-acoustics.com
including Bosch/Telex/Midas/KT/EV, EAW and DiGiCo. Digidesign was there, but
pushing new recording/Pro Tools stuff not the VENUE. The real rub here is that as
the stage and studio continue to merge, we live types have to get up to speed about
things like plug-ins and recording interfaces. Which means AES will be a live audio
show — even though it’s really not.
We saw drawings of a version of the RSS
Digital V-Mixing System more than a year
ago out back on the loading dock of some convention center in what is fondly remembered
as the “dumpster demo.” The system incorporates the new RSS M-400 Live Digital Console
— configurable digital snakes with remotecontrolled mic preamps — for approximately
$10,000. No, that is not a misprint. The M-400 VMixing Console features rapid recall of scenes,
100 mm motorized and touch-sensitive faders,
RSS Digital V-Mixing System
a large bright 800 x 480 color screen, dedicated
effect knobs for EQ, pan and gain and then integrates with the RSS digital snakes for a seamless stage to FOH solution.
www.rolandsystemsgroup.com
Lab.gruppen’s PLM 10000Q
Lab.gruppen’s PLM 10000Q was announced at PLASA, but we actually got to see and touch
a working version at AES. It integrates the amplifier technologies of Lab.gruppen’s FP+ Series with
the power and flexibility of a Dolby Lake Processor. It also incorporates Dante self-configuring, lowlatency audio networking as standard. All operational and monitoring functions are accessible via
a custom version of the Dolby Lake Controller software, which also offers integrated SmaartLive
real-time system measurement and analysis as a plug-in option. Each of the PLM 10000Q four-output channels (driven independently) provides 2700 W at 2.7 Ohms (2300 W at 4 Ohms), with more
power available when driven asymmetrically. The PLM 10000Q is housed in a 2U chassis weighing
only 13 kg (29 lbs.).
www.labgruppen.com
Meyer Sound got really, really small. The MM-4XP miniature loudspeaker is a self-powered version of the popular MM4 miniature wide-range loudspeaker with a face measuring
just four inches square. It is designed for distributed systems
where space is at a premium, yet a single light-gauge cable can
deliver balanced audio and DC power over a long cable run of
up to several hundred feet. The MM-4XP can be used for fixed
installations as well as for stage lip frontfill, fill and spot coverage or installation in steps and other hidden locations. The
one-rack space MPS-488 external power supply is required for
Meyer Sound MM-4XP
use of the MM-4XP. It provides 48 V DC power to up to eight
MM-4XPs, while also routing eight channels of balanced audio from its XLR inputs to the five-pin
EN3 connectors on its eight-channel outputs.
www.meyersound.com
A month ago,
we talked about seeing a Studer Vista
out on the Toby
Keith tour, and then
Studer unveiled the
Vista 5 SR, a roadready version of that
console. Studer gave
the 5 SR a new frame
Studer Vista 5SR
and rack, as well as
other touring upgrades like a brighter screen, which uses the Vistonics user interface that is also on
the Soundcraft vi6. The coolest thing here is that they set one up off-site in a ballroom-type space,
with an actual band and invited engineers down to actually mix on it. FOH’s Steve “Woody” La Cerra
walked up, asked that the board be “zeroed out”; he built a mix on a totally unfamiliar system in a
matter of just a few minutes. Nice.
www.studer.ch
Back to that recording crap, it has become pretty obvious that any digital console maker
who wants to survive will have to offer a seamless recording path, and Yamaha is doing just that,
partnering with ADK on the LYVE Tracker. This sturdy rack-mount unit takes 112 tracks via a pair of
MADI cards (or other interfaces including ADAT, AES, Ethersound and analog) from either a PM5D
or M7CL and sends them to 640 GB of audio storage space. The unit is natively compatible with
Nuendo or Cubase and also offers a Pro Tools compatible file format.
www.yamahaproaudio.com
Oh, and that whole plug-in thing. Waves has gotten on the future wagon offering
an extensive bundle called Waves Live specifically for the Digidesign VENUE series.
Can you read the writing on the wall?
12
NOVEMBER 2007
www.fohonline.com
On the Move
APB-DynaSonics announces the appointment of North Coast Marketing as sales
representative for Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky,
West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania.
Led by company principal Dennis Cray,
North Coast has been in business since 1981
and focuses primarily on the touring sound,
contractor and retail segments in his territory.
North Coast represents leading brands such
as Audix Microphones, Blue Sky Monitors,
EAW, Face Audio, and others, in addition to
APB-DynaSonics.
Crown announces
that Brian Pickowitz
has been promoted to
the role of business development manager for
touring sound. Before
his promotion, Pickowitz spent three years as
a project lead engineer.
Brian Pickowitz
B os c h Co m m unic atio n s Sys te m s
welcomes Gary Pace
as its new national
sales manager for Dynacord. He will team
with Dynacord Product Manager, Americas Jeff Taylor. Most Gary Pace
recently, Pace was in sales and marketing
with LSI, a lighting and rigging production
company.
Digidesign announces the appointment of former EAW executive and industry luminary Frank Loyko to the position of
worldwide director of
sales for the Digidesign VENUE live sound
product line. In his new
position, Loyko will be
responsible for defining and leading all live
sound sales strategies
worldwide, including Frank Loyko
managing Digidesign’s direct live sound
sales team. One of the founding members
of loudspeaker manufacturer EAW, Loyko
has more than 30 years of professional audio sales experience.
Hebsiba Multimedia Group in 1998: Hebsiba
Sound Co., Cinema Visual Co. and Cell Lightings Co. The three companies designed and
built many sound and video systems for
churches, government buildings, stadiums
and arenas. In 2002, the companies merged
to form one large firm: Hebsiba Multimedia
Group, at which time the group extended
its business to the rental market, broadcasting stations, recording studios, internet
facilities and exhibitions. From 2004-2007,
Hebsiba Multimedia Group was appointed
exclusive distributor for Nexo, Camco and
Innovason for the Korean Market.
HME welcomes Warman Marketing to
its network of professional audio representatives. Warman will represent the Southwestern region for HME including Arizona,
New Mexico and El Paso, Texas.
Sabine, manufacturer of professional
audio equipment, announces that it has
signed five new companies to represent
Sabine products in the U.S. The R. Joseph
Group is taking over in Indiana, Kentucky,
Ohio, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania. Prosonic Solutions is taking over in
Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico;
K & R Productions will represent Sabine in
Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South
Illinois; Intelligent Marketing Inc. will head
up sales in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maryland, Rhode Island and Connecticut; and Marketing Concepts will be
handling sales in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana.
Sabine also has
named Don Boomer as
sales director — western region where he
will handle Pro Audio
sales west of the Mississippi, customer and
consultant relations,
and develop new mar- Don Boomer
kets. He is relocating to Los Angeles and
will be traveling in the territory immediately. Don comes to Sabine from Peavey
Electronics.
Bill Woods, a veteran of the pro audio
industry, has been appointed to the position of groups and marketing director for
MC2 Audio, XTA and Quested Monitoring
Systems and will assume all sales and marketing responsibilities for the group.
Meyer Sound
announces that
Miguel Lourtie has
joined the company’s
European
technical
services group and
will provide technical
support and design
services to custom- Miguel Lourtie
ers within the European community. He
also will be an instructor in Meyer Sound’s
growing education program, using his multilingual capabilities to reach industry professionals in their native languages including Spanish, Portuguese and Italian (as well
as English). Lourtie has been affiliated with
Meyer Sound since 1993.
Italian pro audio manufacturer Outline
has appointed Hebsiba Multimedia Group
as its sole distributor for the Korean market.
Three individual companies founded the
Sennheiser Electronics Corporation has
hired Sebnem (Sebi) Altug as project manager for marketing communications. She brings
nearly a decade of experience in marketing
and communications, marketing research
and advertising and
film to the job. Altug
will manage key communication projects for
all Sennheiser products
and services and will
coordinate the annual
media schedule for
Sebi Altug
Sennheiser in the U.S.
TransAudio Group has been appointed the
exclusive U.S. distributor for Paul Wolff’s Tonelux
Designs Limited discrete audio products for recording and live production, and ShadowMix
motorized fader automation for DAWs. Tonelux
manufactures a broad range of mic preamp, EQ,
signal processing and master modules that may
be combined in the new V8 portable rack or the
19-inch VRACK and configured with the FRACK
fader package to create a custom console.
Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems,
Inc. announces the appointment of Dan Craik
to the position of house
of worship marketing
manager. Craik joined
Yamaha in 1998 and held
the position of product Dan Craik
manager for hardware products responsible
for product marketing and support of Yamaha’s
renowned digital and analog consoles.
The company has
also expanded its sales
force with the appointment of Mike Eiseman
as district manager for
the Illinois, Indiana and
Wisconsin sales territory.
In his new position, Eiseman will be responsible Mike Eiseman
for all sales activities and the implementation
of marketing plans throughout the territory.
Furlong had been on the staff at Willow Creek
Community Church where, for over 14 years,
he was the live audio engineer for church
events, holiday services, and national and international conferences and was the recording
engineer for church-produced albums.
U.K. mixer manufacturer Allen & Heath
has appointed SunInfonet as its exclusive
distributor in India. The company will manage the sales, distribution and service of the
complete Allen & Heath product line from
its headquarters in Delhi. Following the appointment, Allen & Heath and SunInfonet
held the first in a series of training seminars
to provide an in-depth introduction to Allen & Heath’s products.
Showtime
CareNet Conference ‘07
Featuring The Sounds of Liberty and Dennis Jernigan
VENUE
Kentucky International Convention Center
(Cascade Ballroom)
Rosemont, IL
CREW
FOH Engineer: Chris McDonald
Monitor Engineer: Jarrod Monk
Systems Engineer: Cody French
Production Manager: Chuck Schmidt
Soundco
Liberty University
& Axxis Inc.
GEAR
Amps: Crown K2s, Meyer proprietary
Processing: Motu 828mkII, T.C. D-Two
Mics: AKG C414, C535EB, Avalon U5, Shure Beta58a,
ULX Beta 87a, SM57, Rode S1, Sennheiser MD421
Power Distro: Axxis proprietary
Rigging: CM motors
Snake Assemblies: Rapco
MON
Speakers: (6) Aviom Pro 16 Systems w/ Westone UM2s,
(4) EAW SM200iH, (1) Sennheiser EW300iemG2
Amps: (2) Crown MacroTech 2402
Processing: PM5D-RH
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM5D-RH
Speakers: 2 Custom B&C loaded 2x18s, 1 600HP,
12 Meyer M1D, 2 UPA-1P
ST
La Kalle’s Bling Blineo 2007
Soundco
Abe V. Systems Inc.
Venue
GEAR
Shea Stadium
Flushing, Queens, NY
FOH
Console: Midas H3000 & Yamaha PM 5D - RH
Speakers: JBL VerTec 4889 (mains), JBL VerTec 4889 (sides),
JBL VerTec 4888 (wides)
Subs: EM Quakes (mains); JBL VerTec 4880 (wides)
Amps: Powersoft 6K, 8K, 10K
Processing: Lake Dolby
Mics: Shure UHF-R w/Beta 58, Sennheiser EW 100
Monitors: Clair 12AM wedges
CREW
FOH Engineers: Abraham Viera, Sr., Raul Gonzalez,
Daniel Friedman
Monitor Engineers: Elizear “Spanish ET” Traval
Stage: Mike Pistone, Javier Davila
Wireless: John Kendrick
System Techs: Edwig “Hatian ET” Timmer, Tom Benson
Production Manager: Daniel Viera
MON
Midas H3000
Yamaha PM5D-RHk
Head East
Venue
GEAR
The Largo Cultural Center
Largo, FL
FOH
Console: Midas Verona 400
Speakers: Renkus-Heinz T-3, Renkus-Heinz Celf 15-2 sub
Amps: Renkus-Heinz P3500
Processing: Behringer, Lexicon, Yamaha
Mics: AKG, Audio Technical, Sennheiser, Shure
Power Distro: Proprietary
Snake Assemblies: Whirlwind
CREW
Soundco
C.O.L.T. Sound
& Lighting
ST
FOH Engineer: Ron Leman
Monitor Engineer: Rob Mondora
Systems Engineer: Rob Mondora
Production Manager: Rob Mondora
Tour Manager: Ron Leman
Systems Techs: Scott Dempster, Don Short
MON
Speakers: EAW JFX-560
Amps: Crown Macro-Tech 24x6
Processing: Rane
Power Distro: Proprietary
ST
ST
CREW
FOH Engineer: Andre St. Pierre
Monitor Engineer: Bryan Baumgardner
Systems Engineer: Kevin Gilson
Production Manager: Bethany Haskett
Systems Techs: Brian “BK” Koerner, Beau Charles, Scott Puro
GEAR
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM5D and PM5000
Speakers: dV-DOSc (underhang); L-ACOUSTICS V-DOSC,
MTD 108a (front fill); SB28 (subs)
Amps: Lab. gruppen fp6400
Processing: XTA DP226 and 448
Mics: Audix, Sennheiser, Shure
MON
Consoles: Yamaha PM5D and PM5000
Speakers: dV Sub (drum fill), L-ACOUSTICS Hi-Q
115, Martin W8 with WSX sub (sidefill),
Sennheiser IEM 300
Amps: Lab. gruppen fp6400
Processing: Dolby Lake
Mics: Audix, Sennheiser, Shure
Power Distro: Motion Labs
GEAR
Chase Park Plaza Hotel
St. Louis, MO
FOH
Console: Midas H3000
Speakers: Martin W8LC and WSX, Nexo PS-8
Amps: Crown I-tech 6000, QSC PL2.0HV
Processing: Dolby, Drawmer, Lake, Summit, XTA, Yamaha
Mics: AKG, Neuman, Sennheiser, Shertler
Rigging: CM
Snake Assemblies: Rapco
FOH Engineer: Tom Young
Systems Engineer: Jim Cutshall
Production Manager: Bob Horner
Tour Manager: Vance Anderson
Systems Techs: Karyn Rotramell
MON
Speakers: EAW SM-12, Nexo PS-15
Amps: Camco V6, Crown
Processing: BSS, Nexo
Ironman Sound
Industries LLC
Venue
Orange County Fair & Exposition Center
— Pacific Amphitheatre
Costa Mesa, CA
CREW
FOH Engineer: Robert Pham
Monitor Engineer: Mathew Nguyen
Systems Engineer: Robert Pham/Ron Lubben
Production Manager: Robert Pham
Systems Techs: Dominic Nguyen
Saigon Love Story Concert
Soundco
Premiere
Production
Amps: All QSC Powerlight 2 and PL380
Processing: QSC Basis 914z
We
Mics: AT5000 wireless, Shure Beta98, AT2500 on kick,
Helpinstill Piano PU
Want You!
FOH wants your gig
shots, horror stories and
Rigging: CM
resume highlights! Go to
Snake Assemblies: Ramtech 3-way 54 channels, 300’ to FOH,
www.fohonline.com/submissions
25’ to Mon
MON
Consoles: Allen Heath ML5000
Speakers: Nexo PS15
Amps: QSC PL-4.0
Processing: Nexo processor
Mics: Shure, AT
Power Distro: Motionlabs
Rigging: CM
to send us your Showtime
pics, Nightmare stories and In
The Trenches stats. Or e-mail
bg@fohonline.com
for
more
info.
We
cover
the
industry
— and that means
you!
ST
FOH
Console: Yamaha PM5D-RH
Speakers: QSC Wideline 10
ST
Venue
CREW
Soundco
Clearwing
Productions
Rigging: CM, L-ACOUSTICS
Snake Assemblies: 2 Ram Iso splits
Tony Bennett
GEAR
Soundco
Download Fest Chicago —
Brand New, Snoop Dogg, The Shins
www.fohonline.com
2007 NOVEMBER
15
FOH Interview
StuartDelk and JonJonGarber
Rascal Flatts Continues to Grow, As Do Complications
Rascal Flatts in concert
By KevinM.Mitchell
T
he phenomenon that is Rascal Flatts is
like the universe — it just keeps expanding. And for those out on the road with
the trio, there’s a pretty simple reason: The band
is listening.
“These are artists who are very fan-oriented,”
says Stuart Delk. “They listen to the critics and
the fans. They read what both are saying and
respond accordingly.” Whether it’s what song
they play and where in the set list it’s placed, or
what gags and dramatics garner the biggest response, Gary LeVox, Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don
Rooney continue to tweak their way into stratospheric stardom.
Their current tour, Still Feels Good, started in
June and will run deep into 2008. In some ways,
it is a ratcheted-up take on the band’s last tour
with a lot of the same behind-the-scenes artisans involved. The music is again trusted to Delk
(monitor engineer) and Jon Jon Garber (FOH).
Garber worked for Brad Paisley, Brooks &
Dunn and Toby Keith in various positions before becoming assistant engineer, and finally
FOH, for Rascal Flatts. He’s been with them now
for eight years, and every time he figures it out,
they throw new challenges at him — and he
wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’m here for the challenges — that’s what I
love,” he declares.
Delk, too, has worn different hats with Gary
Allan and Tim McGraw, among others, and
has been on the Rascal rocket for nearly five
years. On this tour, Sound Image supplied the
gear, plus five additional crewmembers: Crew
Chief Landon Store, System Engineer Pete McDonough, and stage techs Jeremy Moore, Jason
Blackburn and Ian Maurer.
The show fills 18 trucks with 90 JBL VerTec
4889s, 32 VerTec 4880s and 12 QSC Widelines. It’s
all powered by Crown 8000s. In addition to the
16
NOVEMBER 2007
Here’s an idea: Why don’t you just tell the
band where they can and can’t go?
[later …. When they finally stop laughing… ]
Garber: [Laughs] You can’t tell these guys
anything!
Delk: You try something like that, and
they’ll go further just to defy you!
(L/R) Jeremy Moore, Jason Blackburn, Ian Maurer, Landon Storey, Pete McDonough, Jon Jon Garber, Stuart Delk
“I’m here for the challenges — that’s what
I love.” — Jon Jon Garber
core trio, Rascal hits the road with five backup
musicians, most of them multi-instrumentalists.
All are completely wireless except the drummer
and keyboard player, and the band insists on
running all over the arenas. Oh yeah, and the
band’s audience is one of the most vociferous
ones out there.
“They have the loudest fans,” sighs Delk.
“Last night in Chicago, we were playing in a
wooden arena, and it was the loudest ever.” But
he keeps them in line with the volume knob —
not turning it up, but down.
“You have to keep the levels at decent
levels and bring them down,” says Garber.
“Bring the fans back with the mix, because
they want to hear the music.”
On their 11th hour of a 19-hour day, Delk
and Garber were comfortable with leaving
their post long enough to sit down and talk
with FOH.
The instruments, mics and monitors are all
wireless — that’s a lot of signals….
Stuart Delk: It’s my biggest challenge.
We’re carrying 32 channels of wireless that is
inbound and outbound, and 27 are active during the show, plus a couple of backups. With all
the digital TVs on the market out there emitting
powerful signals, it’s been rough.
Jon Jon Garber: Especially in New York,
L.A. — Chicago we played last night…
Delk: But now we’re using the new Shure
UHF-R wireless system, which is self-scanning,
and able to find its own frequencies. It’s cut the
time I need to find frequencies in half. And we’re
using high-powered, high-gain antennas that
are very directional, which we need as the guys
go everywhere. But once it’s locked in, we don’t
have to worry about it.
And the personal monitors?
Delk: We are using the new Sennheiser
G2 systems that are also self-scanning.
I have to do some antenna positioning
— like today, I have antennas in the seats
high up clamped on the hand-railing aiming down on the whole floor. It needs to
be high up because the signals can’t go
through water, and people are basically
made of water.
www.fohonline.com
What’s different on this tour for you, Jon Jon,
from the past one?
Garber: This tour has different challenges — like now they do a full band on the second stage near FOH. Last tour, just the trio
came out and played acoustic behind me.
Now it’s a quartet with drums, and they play
five numbers and use a Rhodes piano. I’m
mixing them, when with the drummer just
over my shoulder — I’ve had to ask him to
play quieter….
It’s kind of overwhelming because first
you’re hearing the real sound, then moments
later you’re hearing the delay from the main
speakers hanging from the stage. You have to
mix accordingly and try not to get too carried
away.…
Stuart, is the band challenging to monitor
for?
Delk: It’s eight radically different mixes —
each musician wants something completely
different. During rehearsals, it was tough dialing stuff up, but now I have a sense of it.
Garber: Because of the demands of the
set, we have the guitar amps under the stage.
But when someone plays a guitar solo, he
wants to hear it, feel it, in more than just his
ears. So we have “hot spots” with wedges and
a guy who just watches where the guitarist
lands for the solo; he cranks up the wedge
that is closest to him.
“Bring the fans back with the mix, because they
want to hear the music.” — Jon Jon Garber
Also, we have side fields — three VerTecs
on each side — just for vocals and to add
some presence. It gives the singers the feeling of air movement, which a lot of guys miss
when they go to personal monitors.
So, normally you do shows in the round?
Garber: Yes, and it’s challenging at 360.
It just adds so many more reflections to your
hearing perspective, and you’re hearing stuff
from everywhere. It’s a matter of knowing what
level to keep your mixes at.
With the band’s shows getting increasingly
complicated, are there ever any conflicts
with the lighting and staging people? Seems
like toes could get stepped on….
Garber: Not at all. We have a good team
out here. We have a great stage manager, and
everyone just talks to each other.
Let’s talk boards.
Garber: I’m using my board of choice, the
DiGiCo D5. The band has had it for a long time
— five years. We’ve added the DiGiCo D5 1-12
EX, so now it goes up to 112 inputs. We run
about 68 from the stage, and altogether we
have about a total of 110 inputs. And I use a
lot of plug-ins. The whole thing is run with
HiQnet System Architect configuration and
control software.
Delk: I use two Yamaha PM 5000s. I’m a
Midas fan, but we need as many outputs as
we can get with this gig, and Yamaha has the
most outputs. It’s been a solid rig. First Yamaha I’ve really used, and it’s warm sounding.
How involved is the band in the sound?
Garber: Jay [DeMarcus], the bass player, is
like the producer of the group. He knows what
he wants all the time and coordinates the music. They are always trying to make it better.
Delk: But mostly, they leave it up to us.
They trust our opinion. Though, if something
sounds weird or is not to their liking, they let
us know. Overall, they mostly leave it to us…
we like to try different things. For example,
we’ve gone through three kick drum mics,
experimenting. We have a Shure SM91 inside,
but outside we started with an Audio-Technica 450, then tried a Shure SM32, and tonight
we’re trying out a Sennheiser E 902, which just
came out last year.
With that, and all the running around the
band does, especially when you’re in the
round, feedback must be an issue.
Garber: It’s always a big issue, and we try
to control it as much as we can.
Are you successful?
Garber: About 99% of the time… [he
smiles]
www.fohonline.com
2007 NOVEMBER
17
Production Profile
Electric, Eclectic and Loud
Carlson Provides Clear Sound for Seattle’s Massive, Multigenre Bumbershoot Festival
By LeonardChandler
The board at the Samsung Stage
C
ould Bumbershoot be the most
eclectic music festival on the planet?
It’s definitely got a serious claim. Where
else can you hear hip-hop, post-modern jazz
and Mongolian throat singing, with blues,
gospel, folk and gypsy punk on the side, all on
the same ticket? And we’re not talking generic
genre bands: Bumbershoot organizers find
and book trendsetters and scene-stealers. This
year’s bill included the Wu-Tang Clan, Fergie,
John Legend, Sam Yahel with Joshua Redman
Jr. and Brian Blade, and Yungchen Lhamo.
Plus Robbie Laws, the Holmes Brothers, Bert
Jansch and Gogol Bordello. (If you don’t have
a scorecard or the festival program handy,
or don’t know the names, refer to the list of
musical styles above for clues.)
Bumbershoot is also amazingly familyfriendly — with 16 venues going from
late morning to almost midnight, there’s
something for anyone, anytime. The crowds
are multigenerational, relatively sober and
generally tolerant of the inevitable chaos
and crowding. What else would you expect
when you cram 50,000 people each day
into the Seattle Center, which every Labor
Day weekend is chain-linked off from the
rest of downtown to become its own little
metropolis of music, comedy, film, literature,
dance, theatre, poster art, crafts, ethnic food
and good vibes. Even the street performers
are uniquely classy, from the female mime
dressed as an angel or pixie to the gradeschool-age young lady who stands on a
balance ball, spins three hula hoops and
plays some hella bluegrass fiddle.
Keeping It Clean
PP
So here we are — this warm Saturday
sunshine, this cool Starbucks beverage (Seattle is the Evil Empire’s epicenter, after all.
Pike’s Place Market is the only place you can
still see the original topless mermaid.) This
is the perfect combo for relaxing on some
Bumbershoot’s mainstage at midnight
18
NOVEMBER 2007
wooden
bleachumbrella, rain, Seattle
ers, watching a float
— is the picture complane buzzing Seing together?) So,
attle Memorial High
Carlson Audio has
School Stadium and
three KF750s per side
listening to Crowded
for outfill, one on the
House. But what’s up
deck for frontfill, and
with the mix? Even
12 SB1000s on each
my abused ears can
side for…well, probadistinguish
actual
bly for Wu-Tang Clan,
song lyrics — we’re
Bumbershoot 2007’s
talking verses, not
closing act. But even
just “hey now, hey
the mighty Tang has
now.” Sure, there are The Yamaha M7CL at the Wells Fargo Stage
to respect the speed
a lot of people up
limit. “We have a mefront by the stage,
ter at FOH in here,”
but there’s got to be
Mark tells me, “and
at least an acre of
computers on the
exposed concrete in
other stages measurhere.
ing one minute averA couple of hours
aged LEQ.” Careful
later, Mark Carlson,
geographical planowner of Carlson
ning, tight scheduling
Audio, confirms my
and strict adherence
guess. “We have
to the dB speed limits
some of the beta
mean you can walk
UX8800 processors
from stage to stage
with Gunness Focusat Bumbershoot
ing,” he tells me after
without having the
climbing down from
electronica bleeding
the monitor sideinto the solo acousfill rigging during a Sound check at the Samsung Stage
tic singer-songwriter.
sound check. “We’ve
That’s not easy to do
been working with EAW, tweaking them outdoors, even with the buildings that oca little.” The new DSP filters developed by cupy much of the Seattle Center.
EAW’s resident genius really make an audiFormerly Full House
PP
ble difference in the main arrays: 12 KF760s
over 4 short-throw KF761s each side, driven
Mark Carlson worked his first Bumberby QSC PowerLight 6.0s and 4.0s.
shoot 16 years ago. “We did one stage that
Still, the Samsung Mainstage at Bum- year, and it took all our gear,” he recalls.
bershoot is just a super-sized high school The festival still empties the Carlson Aufootball stadium, with the extra-difficulty dio warehouse: The company is doing four
architectural feature of large concrete over- stages this year, putting pretty much its enhangs above those bleachers. (Bumbershoot, tire inventory of KF750s, KF850s, JF260s and
Wells Fargo Stage: Sr. Engineer Steven Midkiff, Apollo Media
www.fohonline.com
The Samsung Stage
SM400s to work, along with all of its people.
“For the staff, this is the big weekend,” Mark
Carlson explains. “It’s a chance to get out of
the shop and out to the festival. Our crews
work the same stages every year, so everyone knows what to do. That’s Christina, our
production manager, up on stage now — I
have an all-woman stage crew on the main
stage this year.”
The main stage sees 14 acts on this long
weekend, and every one of them gets a
sound check. The eSurance stage crew turns
18 acts in three days, with 30 to 45 minutes
in between sets from 1:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
“There’s no sound checks on those stages,”
Carlson points out. “It’s just ‘plug in and go.’”
As nine-year veterans of the Bumbershoot
main stage, Carlson Audio knows to expect the
unexpected. This year, the company provided
a choice of desks for both FOH and monitor
engineers. “We have a Midas XL4-44+4 and a
Yamaha PM5DRH with v2.06 software at front
of house, and another PM5D with a Midas Heritage 3000 44+4 for monitors,” he says. “Most
people are pretty PM5D-savvy these days, but
there are some who won’t give up those Midas
preamps.” There’s a Klark-Teknik Helix EQ on
FOH, and 12 channels of BSS 404 compressors
along with eight channels of Drawmer DS201
gates available for the finicky guest engineer.
Carlson is also ready to handle special
processor requests, with inserts for an Eventide Eclipse and Summit DCL200. They also
keep a pair of Yamaha SPX990s, a T.C. Electronic 2290 and a Lexicon PCM90 on tap.
It’s all about versatility — like their monitor amp racks. “We have Ashly Protea processors, so they can do anything we need,”
Carlson says. “We have presets for SM400s,
JF260s, even KF850s with special crossovers
in them that we use for stage fill.” With 12
channels of Shure UR Series wireless and 10
sets of personal monitors on stage, there’s
plenty to keep the monitor mixers busy.
Production Profile
Keeping It in the Community
PP
Up on the main stage, with sound check
ending, Christine says, “Look out, it’s going to
be mayhem up here in minutes,” says Christine. We head for the backstage trailers.
Later in the weekend, I had to check
out Sam Yahel, the young New Yorker who
has developed a distinctive post-modern
jazz voice on the venerable Hammond B-3.
The Wells Fargo Stage is on Bumbershoot’s
mezzanine level, wedged in between a
couple of buildings. The beer drinkers in
the rear and the late-arriving overflow
crowd appreciate the Ramsa and Martin
delay speakers. They’re the property of
Steve Midkiff and Audio Media, as is the
Community P.A. up onstage. Steve has
been working Bumbershoot since 1997. “I
was doing Folk Live at the Seattle Center,”
he recalls. “And Rick Lockard said ‘We can
make this a Bumbershoot Stage.’ By now,
they trust me to handle things up here
pretty much on my own.”
Bumbershoot is a bit of a busman’s holiday for Steve, who is the king of black tie
galas in Seattle. “Most of the year, I have
one mic open at a time,” he says. “Of course,
I got into this to do music, but the industrials and the galas are paying the bills.”
Audio Media is a Community dealer,
and Steve was trying out his new TFL218
subs. Amp racks are Crest Pro, “the new
lightweight stuff,” and QSC. All the different
zones — subs, monitors, main stage 3-ways
and three or four different delays — are direct from the Yamaha M7CL. “The feature
set on this thing is amazing,” says Midkiff.
“There are 16 outputs from every input,
and if you add a card, you can have eight
more, all with parametric EQ, compressor
and delay.” Steve seems to really know how
to get the most out of his tools, like using
both compressors on an input to help out a
speaker with clueless mic technique, or dialing in a little lowpass shelving to smooth
out a vocalist’s rough edges.
While I was chatting with Steve about
the history of his Bumbershoot gig (he
used to run the “Wild Stage,” with all sorts
of shenanigans), Sam Yahel strolled up to
ask about the organ sound. Steve immediately put him at ease by introducing himself as “your sound man.” “I’m playing bass,”
Yahel pointed out, and then offered that
“60 Hertz on down is just garbage,” thereby
establishing his audio literacy. “My sweet
spot is usually around 80 to 100.” “You’ll
get plenty of bass on stage,” his sound guy
Setting up at the Samsung Stage
20
NOVEMBER 2007
replied. “I usually look for that spot where
it just starts to hang and then back it off a
little.” Reassured, Sam went back on stage,
kicked a few pedals and then said, “Well,
it’s a little bit boomy right here, but it’s
pretty good.”
Put It in a Binder
PP
“This festival is just a huge spreadsheet,” Steve says. “It’s the same spreadsheet every year with different information.” Of course, like many spreadsheets
(the ones that predict 15% growth into the
infinite unforeseeable future, for instance)
Bumbershoot’s sometimes fails to match
up to reality. Schoolyard Heros substituted
for +44, the Blue Scholars filled in for Ryan
Shaw, the Horrorpops just plain failed to
show, and Sam Yahel’s fellow New Yorkers
Brian Blade and Joshua Redmond Jr. apparently got stuck on the East Coast. Not
to worry, though. Local players Mark Taylor on alto and Matt Jorgensen on drums
filled in, and the trio tore up a set of Sam
Yahel compositions, standards and even
“Norwegian Wood.”
“Actually it’s all these binders,” says
Technical Director Rick Lockard, pointing
to a shelf of the large three-ring variety.
The production office at Bumbershoot is
as quiet as the eye of the storm — tucked
away on the third floor of the Center
Theater (doing a festival in the midst of
downtown has a few advantages, such as
the availability of indoor plumbing). This
is where Rick and his crew handle three
labor contracts (with the city of Seattle,
the Seattle Center and OneReel, the promoter), five sound companies and four
staging suppliers. “We used to have a lot
more,” says Lockard, who’s been running
Bumbershoot since 1986, with a brief hiatus doing corporate events for Microsoft.
“But we keep the same vendors year to
year. All of the outdoor lighting is from
Seattle Stage; the indoor venues at the
Seattle Center have their own gear and
crews. ProLine is a sponsor/donor for the
projection equipment — these days, almost any kind of theatre or performance
art has a video component.
For sound, we use Carlson Audio, Audio Media, Dan Sound, Point Source and
TriAmp, which does all our backline. The
staging is from the Seattle Center’s inventory, Seattle Stage and Lighting and
Spectrum Production Services. We’ve all
been tweaking things for a long time. By
now, the guys have learned that if they
turn the speakers 5 degrees in a certain
direction, they won’t get complaints. Line
array really helps with that.” Of the Seattle
Center’s 76 acres, less than half is actually
available for stages and audiences, the
rest is “buildings, fountains, flowerbeds
and roads we can’t block.”
Vendors like Carlson and TriAmp put
their inventory at Bumbershoot’s disposal.
“About three weeks before the festival, we
tell TriAmp what backline pieces we will
definitely not be using,” Lockard explains.
“Everything else is on call for the whole
weekend. Sometimes we can just drop an
extra Twin Reverb on a stage, and that will
take care of things for the whole day. But a
lot of artists insist on using their own gear,
so we run golf carts from the bus through
the crowd to the stage.”
But it’s not the crowds or the temperamental performers that are Rick Lockard’s
biggest challenge. “It’s the existing tenants of the Seattle Center,” he explains.
“We don’t use Key Arena because of the
The festival banner at the Samsung Stage
www.fohonline.com
Seattle Storm WBA franchise — between
home games and practices, there’s just not
enough availability in there.” Even when a
venue is available for Bumbershoot, the
timing can be very tight. “We don’t take
possession of the parking lot in front of the
Main Stage until midnight Friday,” Lockard
points out, “and there will be a high school
football game in there the Friday after Labor Day.” Just keeping the Astroturf in playable shape is a $50,000 annual expense for
Bumbershoot.
Months of preparation, a week of setup,
three days and nights of festivities, then
another week of cleanup. And before you
know it, it’s time to start revising all those
binders for next year. But like the production vendors and thousands of attendees,
Rick Lockard keeps coming back for more.
“This is really a unique event,” he explains.
“There’s something special about Bumbershoot — the diversity, the integration of
all the arts from music to theater, dance,
comedy, film and even literature. I tried to
leave, but I just had to come back.”
Installations
Oh,
What a
Job!
When Does a Tour
Turn into an Install?
LaSalle Bank Theater in Chicago
By JohnBliss
T
he LaSalle Bank Theater in downtown
Chicago is a grand old house in the
Broadway tradition. It opened in 1906
as the Majestic Theater and, for many years,
was a prime stop on the Orpheum circuit.
The theater went dark during the Depression, but was taken over by the Shubert
family following World War II. For years, it
housed Broadway shows, both on tour (Cats,
A Chorus Line) and on their way to Broadway
(Spamalot, Sweet Smell of Success). In 2005,
the theatre closed for a multimillion-dollar
restoration project and reopened in 2006 to
great acclaim. This October, it became the
home of the Chicago tour of Jersey Boys.
For Jersey Boys, the 2006 Tony Awardwinning musical about the rise of The Four
Seasons, there are benefits and drawbacks
to playing in the LaSalle. The classic design
of the theatre echoes the period of the play.
But the venue required some serious work
to make it ready for the show’s extensive
surround sound system.
Andrew Keister, the associate sound designer on the show, visited the site early in
2007. What he saw presented a challenge. The
theatre wasn’t designed with the access to run
cables to the locations where they were needed. And the fact that the theater sits at the base
of a 20-story office tower — the Majestic Building, recently renovated into a boutique hotel
— made access that much more difficult. This
was not going to be an easy install.
Work at the LaSalle began shortly after Labor Day. “We spent the first day stripping out
the house sound system,” Keister recalls. “Then
we spent a week rebuilding and upgrading
the house cabling system. The wiring that was
in place was not sufficient for our needs, so we
22
NOVEMBER 2007
had to upgrade
grating the show
all that. The first
into that theatre,
week felt less like
which he knows
installing a tourinside and out. It
ing show and
would have been
more like a conreally hard to do
struction site. We
without him.”
pulled in all new
Once
the
cabling and had
upgrade was finto change the
ished, installing
old connectors. I
the actual sound
Associate Sound Designer Andrew Keister
don’t know what
system was comthe connectors
paratively easy.
In a lot of shows, sound Much of the syswere; I had never
seen them before.
i s s o m e t h i n g t h a t tem came from a
So we had to upproduction that
shouldn’t be noticed. If had played at
grade to modern
electric conneca critic says something the Ahmanson
tors. There was
in Los
about the sound, they’re Theatre
a lot of manual
Angeles. Masque
labor and a lot of
going to say something Sound provided
soldering — not
gear for that
bad. In Jersey Boys, the the
fun work.”
tour and now sent
sound adds an extra additional gear to
Michael Mix,
head of the audio
Chicago for the
dimension to the piece.
department at
installation
at
— Andrew Keister the LaSalle. Steve
the theater, says
the crew brought
Canyon
Kenin literally miles
nedy, the sound
of new cable. “We used 4,500 feet of Monster designer on Jersey Boys, has a longstanding
cable alone to wire the surround system,” he relationship with Masque, who supplied the
says. Because the theater had been recently gear for the Broadway production, as well as
renovated, the new cable had to be tied and outfitting all of the tours.
wrapped and integrated as much as possible
Since this is an open-ended run, Kennedy
into the existing architecture. Much of it was and Keister were able to put together a syshidden alongside existing plumbing and con- tem customized for the LaSalle Bank Theater.
duit. Keister appreciates Mix’s contribution to “When we design a touring system, we look
the process and says, “He’s a wonderful guy at the venues we’ll play for the first couple of
and was immensely helpful in terms of inte- years and try to build something that’s going
www.fohonline.com
to work in all those spaces,” Keister explains.
“With a sit-down tour, we can go further in
terms of the quality of the surround system
we’re installing, versus what we can put into a
theatre in 48 hours. This speaker package is designed specifically for the architecture of the
LaSalle, as opposed to a speaker package that’s
designed to work in 25 different theatres.”
Because of the work that went into upgrading the cabling, everything else had to happen
fast. “It was done incredibly quickly,” says Keister. “We spent a week doing the renovations to
the theatre itself. Then we installed the system
in about six days. The cast had four days of rehearsal, and then they brought in an audience.
It was done on an incredibly tight schedule.”
People may be surprised to discover that
the sound system is primarily analog, rather
than digital. Kennedy and Keister, who do not
consider themselves “gear heads,” had good
reasons for choosing to go in this direction.
“What’s nice about the show from a sound
perspective,” Keister says, “is that much of the
storytelling occurs when the group is in concert or in the recording studio. This means the
sound plays a featured part. In a lot of shows,
sound is something that shouldn’t be noticed.
If a critic says something about the sound,
they’re going to say something bad. In Jersey
Boys, the sound adds an extra dimension to
the piece. Des McAnuff is a wonderful director
who understands the power that the sound
can have in impacting the audience.”
Because of the importance of the sound,
the designers were more interested in faithful reproduction than the latest gear. According to Keister,“ The goal of the design is
absolute signal purity — to capture what’s
coming into the microphone and reproduce
Installations
ers on each wall serve the
dress circle, mezzanine and
balcony. The 16 rear speakers and 26 side speakers are
complemented by delay
speakers, which serve the
orchestra, dress circle and
mezzanine. Because nearly
half the orchestra is covered
by the dress circle above,
that level has two sets of
delay speakers — one row
mounted at the front of the
dress circle, and another
midway back.
Jersey Boys regular Julie
Randolph came along to assist with the install and the
opening. “Julie Randolph L to R: Drew Gehling, Jarrod Spector, Jeremy Kushnier and Michael Ingersoll in Jersey Boys
is the original mixer of the
Broadway show,” Keister explains, “so we take Bank Theater for what is likely to be a long
her to each production that we open. She run. And after that? “Most of the cabling and
works with the sounds mixers, and lets Steve infrastructure modifications that we added
Kennedy and me concentrate on the overall we’ll leave in the theatre,” says Keister. “There
sound of the show.” Ty Lackey, who worked wouldn’t be much benefit to us taking it out.
the show in Los Angeles, will run the board We always try to leave a theatre a little nicer
at the LaSalle with Mix as his assistant.
than when we arrived there. It’s our small
Jersey Boys has settled into the LaSalle gift to them.”
Joan Marcus
the processing is by XTA.
The audience is more likely to notice
the array of speakers that fill the house. The
show depends on a combination of EAW, LACOUSTICS and Meyer speaker products. The
adjustable center cluster consists primarily
of L-ACOUSTICS, while the towers flanking
the stage hold EAW speakers. The surround
is created by a variety of speakers on each of
the four levels of the theatre. Four speakers
back each level of seats, while an additional
four speakers are located on each wall of orchestra seating. An additional three speak-
Joan Marcus
it as accurately as possible, while doing as
little as possible to the signal between its
input and its output.”
The heart of the system is a Cadac
J-Type Live Production Console, with a 58slot main frame and a 40-slot sidecar. Michael
Mix praises the system for its reliability. “It has
amazing circuitry,” he says. “There’s virtually
no degrading of the sound.” Mix also appreciates that the board is completely modular, which makes his job of maintaining the
equipment a little easier. Camco Vortexes 4.0
and 6.0 provide the amplification, while all
L to R: Michael Ingersoll, Jarrod Spector, Drew Gehling and Jeremy Kushnier in Jersey Boys
LIVE SOUND, Theory & Practice
Mark Amundson’s first book
Available
Now
at
www.fohbookshelf.com
24
NOVEMBER 2007
www.fohonline.com
Product Gallery
Powered Subwoofers
W
hether we like it or not, the
trend in speakers these days
is very much leaning in the
direction of “self-powered.” Not too long
ago, the only real debate had to do with
the trade-offs between an amp and cab
that were purpose-designed to work
together without additional processing,
and the fact that you had to run AC to
each cabinet, and if one pooped out
during a show — especially if it was flown
— you were pretty much out of luck. At
least with passive stuff, you could switch
out an amp on the ground.
But the increasingly quick move
toward digital signal transfer means we
are likely to see more and more selfpowered stuff. If you are running your
entire mix on a piece of Cat5, it does not
make a lot of sense to switch to copper
and NL4s for the actual speaker runs. If
the amp — and the D-to-A conversion
— is in the box, then it is Cat5 from the
stage box all the way to the speaker.
Here is a look at some of the selfpowered options on the low end of the
audio spectrum.
EAW’s NTS22, with a companion EAW NT59 full-range
loudspeaker, used on the recent Thomas Dolby tour.
QSC’s HPR 181i powered subs at the Austin City Limits Festival in
Austin, Texas. They’re being used as drum subs along with QSC’s HPR
152i-powered 15-inch 2-ways, which are serving as drum fills.
Company
Model
MSRP
Dimensions
Weight
Frequency
Response
Maximum SPL
A-Line Acoustics
www.ALineAcoustics.com
LS218A
$ 3,499.00
44.5” x 21.8” x 22.8”
160 lbs.
40–200 Hz
133 dB
PBassault-R
$11,960.00
40 “ x 36 “ x 40 “
310 lbs.
18 Hz–50 Hz
139 dB @ 45 Hz (1 meter)
PD12E-DA
$ 1,960.00
9.125 “ x 27 “ x 36 “
80 lbs.
8 Hz–95 Hz
121 dB @ 80 Hz (1 meter)
PD18E-AD
$ 3,220.00
15 “ x 38 “ x 30 “
131 lbs.
60 Hz–250 Hz
129 dB @ 80 Hz (1 meter)
NTS22
$ 4,658.00
17.6” x 25.9” x 30.2”
98 lbs.
35 Hz–130 Hz
126 dB average; 132 dB peak
VPSB7118DP
$ 4,629.00
20.25” x 27.75” x 32”
129 lbs.
39 Hz–145 Hz
129 dB SPL
VRX918SP
$ 2,249.00
20.0” x 23.5” x 29.5”
85 lbs.
34 Hz–220 Hz;
31 Hz–220 Hz
126 dB peak (free field
condition, measured)
L-ACOUSTICS
www.l-acoustics.com
SB15P
$ 3,075.00
17.5” x 20.5’’ x 20.5’’
80 lbs.
40–100 Hz
131 dB
Meyer Sound Laboratories Inc.
www.meyersound.com
700-HP
$ 7,860.00
45.93” x 22.5” x 30”
204 lbs.
30 Hz–125 Hz
139 dB
Outline
www.outline.it
LAB 15 SP
$ 5,113.41
16.93” x 33.86” x 33.86”
119.05 lbs.
33 Hz–174 Hz
137 dB peak (1 meter)
Peavey
www.peavey.com
Impulse 115P
$ 1,549.99
24.375” x 21.125” x 27 “
106 lbs.
45 Hz–120 Hz
128 dB peak
QSC Audio
www.qscaudio.com
HPR181i
$ 1,849.00
28.6” x 23.5” x 22.9”
127 lbs.
45 Hz–95 Hz
134 dB Peak
DR18-2R
$ 4,975.00
24” x 48” x 24”
204 lbs.
32 Hz–120 Hz
133 dB program, 135 dB
peak
PN212
$ 2,340.00
32” x 14.5” x 23.25”
113 lbs.
40–120 Hz
126 dB program, 129 dB
peak
TL118SST-P
$ 5,350.00
22.5” x 28” x 30”
135 lbs.
18 db Hz–150 Hz
131 dB long-term, 135 dB
peak
TL218SST-P
$ 7,183.00
22.5” x 48” x 30”
285 lbs.
18 db Hz–150 Hz
138 dB long-term, 141 dB
peak
MSR800W
$ 1,099.00
23 5/8” x 20 5/8” x 23 1/4”
99.1 lbs.
40–120 Hz
122 dB (1 meter)
Bag End
www.bagend.com
EAW
www.eaw.com
JBL Professional
www.JBLPRO.com
Renkus-Heinz
renkus-heinz.com
WorxAudio Technologies Inc.
www.worxaudio.com
Yamaha
www.Yamaha.com
26
NOVEMBER 2007
www.fohonline.com
EAW NTS22
L-ACOUSTICS SB15P
Meyer Sound 700HP
Yamaha MSR800W
Peavey Impulse 115P
Power Amplifier Rating
Cabinet Design
Driver Size
Interfaces
Onboard Processing
1,000
Front-radiating
2 x 18”
M & F XLR, I/O Powercon
Built-in DSP selectable
Omni/Cardoid
4 amplifiers @ 1,000 watts each
Sealed box infrasystem
4 x 21”
XLR In, XLR Thru, PowerCon
Yes
500
2 x 12”
Yes
1,000
2 x 18”
Yes
2 x 1,000 watts
Drivers in “push-pull”
arrangement, vented
enclosure
2 x 12’’ (w/4’’ voice coils)
Neutrik PowerCon, XLR, loop-thru
Yes
1,800 watts continuous
Front-loaded
18”
XLR PowerCon
Yes
750 watts continuous/
1,500 watts peak
Direct radiating
18”
Internal DSP, XLR in- and output, Powercon in- and loop
connector
No
1,000 watts
Front-loaded, vented
15”
XLR, PowerCon
No
2,250 watts
Front-loaded
2 x 18” neodymium
cone drivers
XLR-Looping/L6-20, IEC-309
No
1,250 watts
Hybrid waveguide indirect
radiation
15”
XLR In, XLR Thru, PowerCon in- and loop
No
1,000 watts continuous
Front-ported, tuned
to 40 Hz
15” with Kevlarimpregnated cone &
4” VC
1/4-inch TRS & female XLR; male XLR thru output; left & right
power amp outputs with high-pass crossover; stand-alone,
electronic two-way or three-channel operation
Yes; onboard Kosmos
subharmonic generator
built-in
700 watts
Front-radiating vented
enclosure
18”
Analog XLR input
No
1,600 watts program
Tuned ported
2 x 18’’
4-pin or 8-pin Neutrik, screw terminals/IEC
No
1,600 watts program
Tuned ported
2 x 12’’
Looping (female in/male out) XLR input connectors/IEC
No
1,000 watts
Front-radiating
18”
PowerCon-XLR
Yes
2,000 watts
Front-radiating
2 x 18”
PowerCon-XLR
Yes
800 watts max
Bass reflex type
15”
XLR-3-31
No
www.fohonline.com
2007 NOVEMBER
27
Road Test
QSC Powerlight 3 Amplifiers
By MarkAmundson
A
t long last, the QSC “Big Hammer” debuts. The PL380 represents the third
generation of the Powerlight series
of audio power amplifiers. This new family
of high-power and lightweight audio amplification raises the stakes for QSC in tourgrade amplifiers. I received both the PL380
and PL340 amplifiers for this review.
The Powerlight 3 family has three members, all two rackspaces in size and with
very similar front panel cosmetics. The three
models are the PL380, PL340 and the PL325,
representing stereo 2-Ohm power ratings at
4,000, 2,000 and 1,250 watts respectively. The
PL325 and PL340 are Class H amplifier designs similar to all previous high-power Powerlight offerings. The PL380 departs from the
Class AB/Class H approach and offers a novel
Class D amplifier topology to create giant
power output ratings (4,000w/ch@2-Ohms,
2,500w/ch@4-Ohms, 1,500w/ch@8-Ohms) in
a modest two-rackspace chassis.
The
TheGear
Gear
rt
Starting with the front panel, the PL3
amplifiers feature 1 dB per detent attenuation controls in 21 increments. Two LED
ladders indicate channel signal levels with
indications for signal present, -20 dB, -10 dB
and clip. A new blue LED indicates power-on
status, with additional LEDs for bridge and
parallel modes of operation. In addition to
the usual forward cooling vents and a power
switch, optional rack handles are provided
for quick rack extraction.
The new stuff is on the rear panel. Gone
are the DIP switches, and slide switches are
in place for 3-way input sensitivity selection
(26 dB, 32 dB, 1.2 volt) and Bridge/Stereo/
Parallel mode selection. Each channel has
two slide switches for clip limiter enable (On/
Off ) and high pass filtering (Off/30 Hz/50 Hz).
For input signals, you have the choice of either Phoenix connector jacks or XLR female
jacks. For convenience, a parallel set of XLR
male jacks are provided for thru patching. A
“Dataport” 15-pin D-subminiature connector is provided for audio input connections
and for amplifier status voltages for future
remote monitoring hardware.
For speaker output and input power connections, the usual pair of Speakon NL4 jacks
is provided, backed up by four colored binding post connectors for rack install wiring.
My PL340 amplifier had the usual IEC jack for
power input and 12 amp, 120 VAC-rated cord
set. Since the PL380 amplifier was an early production build, it came with a hard-wired and
strain-relieved 18-amp, 120VAC cordset with
a Hubble 30-amp twist loc plug. Future PL380
builds will feature the new 30-amp Neutrik
Powercon twist loc chassis connector with the
cord set having both the mating Powercon
connector and NEMA three-prong twist loc
connector.
The Powerlight 3 amplifiers have a common 20–20 kHz frequency response, besides
all the external physical ergonomics. The
PL340 features a damping factor of 500 at
8 Ohms and a 0.01% THD specification with its
1.96 V sensitivity to clipping with a 32 dB gain
setting. Power output ratings for the PL340 are
a respectable 2000 w/ch at 2 Ohms, 1250 w/ch
at 4 Ohms and 800 w/ch at 8 Ohms. The PL340
AKG C5, D5
and
draws nominally 11.8 amps at
120 VAC, given the usual 1/8th
power pink noise stimulus and
stereo 4-ohm loading.
For the PL380, the Class
D design is a bit less pristine
with a 200 damping factor at 8
QSC Powerlight 3 Amplifiers
Ohms and a 0.06% THD specification with a 2.67 V sensitivity to clipping with a 32 dB gain setting. The ise of driving a pair of double 18-inch subs to
PL380 draws a modest 13.1 amps at 120 VAC its fullest abilities.
from the 1/8th power pink noise stimulus and
Out at the club gigs, no issues were found,
4-Ohm stereo loading.
and the clean full-range output shook the
Mechanical specs are a common 19-inch venues without sounding flabby or having
by 3.5-inch by 15.63-inch depth that includes any noted loss of fidelity. Many club patrons
the rear rack ear projections for usual tour appreciated the high-quality sound reinforceracking. The PL340 weighs 22 pounds, with the ment, although it takes good quality gear
PL380 weighing a little more at 24 pounds.
throughout the signal chain to guarantee that
complement.
The Gigs
rt
In summary, I found no flaws in the PL340
The Powerlight 3 amplifiers by QSC were and PL380 performance, given real-world expecquick to re-rack in my club mains (C-rig) amp tations of audio fidelity in club settings. Some
rack, replacing a QSC PLX3602 at mids and specsmanship critics might take issue with the
a Crest Pro9200 for subs. Since I was able to Class D amplifiers lowered damping factor and
keep everything at 32 dB gains, I needed no THD ratings, but the numbers are plenty decent
BSS Mini-drive processor setting changes, and given that human hearing is the limiting factor
I was off to shop testing and on to the gigs. I for audio quality measurement.
expected no performance changes at mid-volume sound pressure levels, and the PL340 and
PL380 upheld that bargain and even showed
What it is: Audio Power Amps
slightly lower supply current draw, using a FurWho it’s for: Local, regional and touring
man power monitor strip as the measuring
soundcos and installs needing big power.
ammeter.
How much: QSC PL340 $2,149 SRP, QSC
Critical listening tests in the shop showed
PL380 $3,599 SRP
what the new Powerlight 3 amps could do.
They stayed pristine throughout all the torture
Pros: Small, rugged, sounds great, efficient.
testing, and the PL380 delivered on its promCons: None to my ears.
MicroMC 519m
By BillEvans
I
t is always a challenge when you show up to
a gig with a passel of new mics to try out. It
is even harder to cram them all into a single
review. But that is what we are going for here.
TheGEAR
Gear
THE
rt
First up: the C5, a handheld condenser
that pretty much replaces the C900 in the
AKG line. As someone who owns five C900s,
I hate to see them instantly obsolete, but
such is the pro audio game. It is rated at 65
Hz to 20 kHz, yet rolls off pretty quickly under
200 Hz. Very flat with the exception of a couple
of 2–3 dB bumps in the 2–4 kHz and 7–15 kHz
ranges. Well-built with a groovy faux-retro look
and an almost gunmetal blue finish. It is quiet
(69 dB signal to noise), can take up to 140 dB
input without a bunch of distortion and passed
the drop test (six feet to concrete, capsule down).
Like most other handheld condensers, the pattern is probably too open for a really loud stage.
These things really are meant to be used with
personal monitors to keep feedback at bay.
The D5 is a dynamic that looks pretty identical to the C5 — same look, same feel in the
hand and almost the same on-paper specs.
The first frequency bump shifts down to the
1500 Hz–3 kHz range (which tones down the
perceived brightness of the mic), and it can
take a walloping 147 db input. The D5’s supercardioid pattern is also substantially tighter
— especially in the higher frequencies — rolling off at about 30 degrees off axis, where the
C5 is open to closer to 60 degrees. Also passed
28
NOVEMBER 2007
the drop test without problems.
The C519 is a clip-on condenser that is
perfect for horns. Flat from 1–3 kHz and then
a smooth 4 dB rise between about 4 and 10
kHz. It will take 130 dB of input. I don’t bother
dropping these kinds of mics, but they did
get their share of abuse, as you will see.
THE
TheGIGS
Gigs
rt
All the mics were put through their paces
on a pair of outdoor gigs in the L.A. area. First
was an outdoor festival with my nine-piece
band onstage and FOH’s Jamie Rio running
both mains and monitors from side of stage;
the other was a benefit for a large Catholic high
school with a salsa band and an old-school,
almost disco dance band. Again, mains and
monitors from a Midas Venice 320, but this time
I was behind the board, and we got a position
out front. Off center, but at least out front.
At the first gig, we had two female vocalists and two male vocalists trading off between the C5 and D5 on two different sets.
While we liked the sound of the C5, Jamie
had a bit of an issue keeping it under control on a not-especially-loud stage. To be fair,
we did say that these mics are really optimal
for use with personal monitors, and I set
this review up because my band does 90%
of its gigs in-ear, but this was a “bring the
minimum amount of stuff” gig, so we were
using provided wedges. Not sure why, but
feedback was less of an issue with the male
vocalists than the two females.
AKG-C5
AKG-D5
The D5 was a solid dynamic, but it is always unfair to put a dynamic up after a condenser, as less “air” in the response can mean
a perceived dullness in the sound that is more
about the openness of the condenser than
any problem with the dynamic. That said, it
performed fine, and the feedback issues we
had with the girls up front went away as soon
as we switched out the mics.
We had largely the same experience on
the second gig. The C5 sounded great with
the mostly acoustic salsa band, but was a
problem with the one-hour-late, screamingly loud dance band. Switching to the
D5 between songs went a long way toward
cleaning things up. A nice plus was that the
response is similar enough that we were able
to do that without huge EQ changes.
But the star of both shows was the C519,
which was a snap to use and sounded good
both for pro players with great mic technique and guys without a clue. Even an idiot
trumpet player who insisted on shoving the
www.fohonline.com
AKG-C519M
element all the way into the bell of his horn
could not overblow it. He clipped the channel on the board until I engaged the pad, but
never overloaded the mic.
All in all — a solid trio. I have become a
total condenser slut for vocal mics since buying those C900s, which probably accounts
for my lack of real enthusiasm for the D5. But
the “abuse it all you want” nature of the C519
tipped the scales. Thumbs up.
What it is: Condenser and dynamic
vocal mics and clip-on horn mic.
Who it’s for: C5 quiet stages and PMs, D5
loud stages and wedges. C519 anywhere
there’s a horn.
How much: AKG-D5 $160; AKG-C5 $299;
AKG-C519M $299 (all prices Pro User Net)
Pros: Solid construction, good value, nice
sound.
Cons: C5 could use a tighter pattern; D5, a
little more high end; C519, none.
The Biz
What Blew Up
the Harman Deal?
H
arman International is a huge
player in the live sound arena,
with brands including JBL, Soundcraft, BSS and dbx, but in September it
had more in common with the real estate
market than it did with the music business. Harman’s high-flying stock soared
to $124 per share last April when two private equity companies, Kohlberg Kravis
Roberts & Co. (KKR) and Goldman Sachs
Group Inc.’s private equity unit, stated
that they wanted to take the company
private, offering a premium over and
above the stock’s stated value, for a total
of $8 billion. However, the deal fell apart
five months later, with KKR and Goldman
Sachs backing out in the wake of the
crash of the credit markets last summer,
ing difficulties in a tight credit market.
Wiser Heads
Heads Prevail
Prevail
Wiser
biz
The dénouement of this drama could
have turned out to be complex and ugly.
On Wall Street, you don’t just walk away
from a deal like this; aside from the money
— in this case, a $225 million termination
fee (chump change to these guys) and the
costs of possible litigation arising from
the 24% hit the stock took when the news
came out — a banker’s word is his bond,
and this puts reputations on the line.
As it turned out, neither side wanted
a drawn-out and expensive legal battle, as
that would have still called Goldman Sachs’
and KRK’s market wisdom and commitment
level into question, as well as Harman’s own
It is another reminder that as more companies
in this industry go public, the industry as a whole
is that much more vulnerable to the dynamics
of larger markets.
when bad mortgages rolled into repackaged securities began exploding like pipe
bombs in portfolios all over the world.
In an analogy that the one to two million American homeowners facing foreclosure would understand, the private equity guys began to feel buyer’s remorse,
realizing that they had made a deal to buy
at the top of the market. KKR and Goldman Sachs informed Harman that there
had been a “material adverse change” in
Harman’s business — the escape clause
in the agreement and a charge Harman
vigorously denied. Worse, an anonymous
source had told the Associated Press that
the private equity firms sought to quash
the deal over questions about Harman’s financial health, not because of any financ-
By DanDaley
reported reluctance to have the “minutiae” of
its financials — a term used by an anonymous
source in the Wall Street Journal — exposed to
any more scrutiny than the SEC requires. So
both sides came to an agreement: KKR and
Goldman Sachs would purchase $400 million
of Harman’s convertible senior notes at $104
per share and hold them for at least one year,
and Harman will use these funds to accelerate
its stock buy-back program.
It’s a practical solution, but one that
leaves a wake. Company founder Sidney
Harman called the $400 million settlement “a vote of confidence in our business.” The reality is, it was a face-saver
for both sides. Harman shareholders saw
their value proposition drop with a thud:
The buy-back price is $16 per share less
On Wall Street, you don’t just walk away
from a deal like this.
than the $120-per-share the consortium
was willing to purchase the company
for earlier in the year, reducing Harman’s
market capitalization from $8 billion to
$5.6 billion. That’s a significant “ouch” in a
gyrating stock market.
Harman will more than survive this
imbroglio. Regardless of the raised eyebrows caused by KRK and Goldman
Sachs’ assertions of “material changes”
in Harman’s business fortunes, Harman’s
own 10-K disclosures suggest the company was fairly robust, reporting three
consecutive years of increased profits,
with a total of over $3.5 billion in net
sales in fiscal 2007. Pro audio, which
makes up 14% of Harman’s revenue, has
shown steady increases in both sales and
margins. And in terms of margins, it also
does not hurt that Harman’s pro audio
business is largely based on hardware,
selling into a live sound business — the
only remaining part of the music business that continues to thrive on hardware. Going forward, the company expects 2008 to be impacted by additional
R&D expenditures and the rollout of new
“infotainment” products, but those kinds
of developmental costs are to be expected with any technology company.
The bulk (70%) of Harman’s revenue
comes from sales in the automotive
sector, an industry somewhat roiled at
the moment between labor unrest and
slumping sales. Nonetheless, Harman has
a good share of the market for automotive entertainment systems, particularly
with speakers.
Still, some questions persist. Harman’s
most recent quarter, reported in August,
was described by financial pundits as
“lackluster,” and revenues of $911 million
were about $30 million less than analysts’
expectations. But there’s still nothing obvious that suggests any cratering in the
near or long-term future. Harman’s stock
has the kind of jagged graph common for
tech companies; nonetheless, it has been
trading consistently between $80 and
$125 a share for three years.
Victim
Victim of
of the
the Crunch?
Crunch?
biz
This suggests that it was actually the
credit crunch that caused the deal to sour.
The easy availability of money had fueled
two years’ worth of private equity acquisitions; as soon as the spigot was turned off, a
lot of deals suddenly didn’t look as attractive
as they once did.
The real significance of this episode to
the pro audio industry: It’s another reminder
that as more companies in this industry go
public, the industry as a whole is that much
more vulnerable to the dynamics of larger
markets. Nowhere is that more clear than in
live touring sound now that publicly traded
Live Nation (LYV) and the privately held, but
investment-active, AEG Live (via parent company Anschutz Corp.) have become major
players in concert production and venue
ownership. Expect that kind of market sensitivity to increase going forward, the Harman
deal notwithstanding.
(Back when Live Nation’s signing
of Madonna was still speculation, CEO
Michael Rapino had been coy on the record about the issue during, ironically, a
Q&A with Goldman Sachs.)
Contact Dan at ddaley@fohonline.com.
Regional Slants
Audio
Excellence
This Soundco’s Secret Weapon? Touring-grade Service from a Regional Company
S
By DavidJohnFarinella
teve Poulton, president of Audio Excellence in Albuquerque, N.M., recalls his
first gig under the new company moniker. “It was out at the Journal Pavilion, which
is a 15,000-seat venue just out of town, for radio personality Jim Rome,” he says. “We didn’t
have enough equipment to do the show, but
I convinced the promoter that we could definitely handle the show and take care of it.”
Poulton traveled from Albuquerque to
Colorado Springs, Colo., to rent a JBL line array from Audio Analysts, got out to the venue
and then set up the system. “I was flying by the
seat of my pants, [but] I was convinced that
we would do whatever we needed to do and
had the know-how and wisdom to figure out
how to do [it],” he reports. “I definitely jumped
in at the deep end on a lot of big shows in the
early days. My philosophy was always to act
as if we were providing touring-level service
in a regional area. We always acted as if we
were big, and I think it facilitated us getting
there rather quickly.”
Spreading It Around
Somebody Loves You Crusade 2004 at Isotopes Baseball Field, Albuquerque, N.M.
RS
Renting from Audio Analysts for that show
was actually the first time that Poulton looked
to another company for help, but it wasn’t the
last. In fact, he points out, the company could
get its hands on 400 boxes available within a
six-hour drive. “We’ve had Richter Scale or On
Cue come and do a show for us when we’ve
been overbooked and vice versa,” he says.
“We’ve gone out and even done arena shows
for some of those companies. So, it’s been real
nice to have people to work with — people
you can trust, people who know that you’re
not going to take their clients, they’re not going to take yours, that you can get the show
done, and we all do well. Also, I’ve found that
working with guys who have been in the
business for 20 years plus, who I can call up
for a bit of advice and figure out how to do
this thing [has been helpful].”
Poulton needed some of that advice, he
admits, because he came to the sound company business after spending 10 years on
the road working for such bands as Crystal
Method, Pink Flamingos (a band that played
an assortment of corporate shows) and “a lot
of no-name acts to fill in my time and week.
It got to the point that I had some children,
and I wanted to be a little closer to home, so I
started doing more stuff around New Mexico.”
Over a year or so, he worked in many of the
state’s venues and built relationships with
dozens of other regional companies.
After getting tired of begging and borrowing gear, Poulton started collecting his own. A
mic package was first, then a BSS Omnidrive
366 and then a set of Meyer MSL4s. He also approached one of the men he had worked for
over the years who had a P.A. in storage and
asked if he could refurbish it and then rent it.
“He agreed and I stripped all the boxes down
and rebuilt them,” he says. “I bought a Lake
Contour processor, and the system sounded
incredible for a double 15 front-loaded box.
That was the first large rig we had — it was a
32-box system with some double 18 subs.”
Of course, the company’s inventory of
equipment has grown and now includes a host
of top-notch gear. In fact, Poulton is in the process of looking for a 10,000- to 15,000-squarefoot warehouse to move into during 2008.
The Driver, Not the Car
RS
Nevertheless, gear is only a percentage of
what makes a company successful, and Poulton seemed to grasp that early on. Indeed,
when he moved to town, he looked around
for people who were interested in audio. He
founded the Albuquerque Audio Engineers
Group, and then started to teach them about
speaker technologies, live analyzing software, crossovers and digital processing. “I offered all the resources I had — all my books,
videos, equipment, whatever I could pass on
to people to teach them,” he says.
During the process, he looked for potential employees with good attitudes. “That was
my number one thing because this business
Setting up for Easter Sunday Sunrise Service 2007, Calvary of Albuquerque
is really about relationships and getting along
with people. So, I had people who had great
attitudes and were willing to learn.” These
days, Audio Excellence boasts six full-time
employees and has a roster of 30 freelancers
who can be picked up with a phone call.
Building and keeping talented pros, who
are flexible and knowledgeable enough to go
from show to show, has become important as
the company continues to service the various
venues around New Mexico. Indeed, Audio
Excellence staffers can be found at any of the
local casinos, at 3,000-seat venues or at the
Journal Pavilion. Also, Poulton reports, the
town is becoming a film and television destination, so he’ll get called on to provide playback services on set with a couple of JBL EONS
or asked to record a looping session with a
visiting star. The company has also worked at
the Santa Fe Music Festival, the New Mexico
State Fair and the Balloon Fiesta.
On the Road Again?
RS
In addition to hometown work, Poulton
reports that he’s thinking of expanding the
company into regional tour work. “There’s a
possible 10 weeks of stuff with a band in the
new year,” he admits. “Another intention of
the company was that we always had plans
to send a major package out on the road. The
possibility is here that in the new year, we will
be doing some road dates. We’ll have a couple
of consoles, some P.M.s and a mic package.”
City of Albuquerque, 4th of July 2005
www.fohonline.com
That move, he adds, is the culmination of
a five-year plan. “We were going to buy the
gear, go bigger and better than we needed
for our market and then pay it off,” he says.
“Then we’d open up some lines of credit, so
we could just about buy a whole new speaker
system, but already have the infrastructure in
place. We went multipin right from the beginning, and a lot of it was redundant — we had
a $10,000 effects rack out on a $2,500 show.
A lot of the way that we packaged stuff and
built stuff right from the beginning was with
the intention that we would be ending up
on the road. We’re kind of there now, but we
need more gear because we would lose what
was happening here in the region.”
Poulton is also opening a handful of
complementary divisions, including backline, installation, sales and a recording studio.
“We’ve diversified a little bit just because the
opportunities have been there,” he says. He’s
toying with moving into the lighting and
staging business. “It seems that the marketplace is turning to a single source. I’ve always
been a little reluctant because it’s been my
philosophy to stick with what you know and
what you know well, but I think there’s that
possibility on a regional level in the future
— at least to accommodate some of our primary clients. I want to continue focusing on
the audio, continue refining that and doing
that well, while growing the inventory and
the client base.”
FOH racks
2007 NOVEMBER
31
Theory and Practice
Poor Man’s
Power Distribution
P
oor man’s power distribution is pretty
much using the existing install venue
power distribution, either because you
do not have the moderate money to own
a distro, the experience to use a dedicated
portable power distribution unit (PPDU) or
the venue does not easily accommodate
the attachment of a PPDU. But have no fear,
there are ways to maximize the existing
available sub-circuits without calling in the
electricians.
Receptacle
Receptacle
Receptacle
Sub-circuit B
Circuit
Sniffer
CB
TP
How to Find Separate Circuits
Well, one could always use the classic: Find the breaker panel, read the cryptic subcircuit names, trip-off the suspect
breaker and search for the dead receptacles. Typically, in a working bar or club,
this is a recipe for disaster, as you will
likely choose the wrong subcircuits at the
wrong time and probably get a stern talking to, if not booted out completely. But
it does work great if you have the time
and the venue is not in use. In the bad
old days, you arrived Thursday night at
bar-close to find the circuits for your Friday night gig. And, if you had an observer
buddy and a two-way set of radios, this
was done quickly.
Figure 1
Thankfully, today we have a modern device called a circuit sniffer that is used in conjunction with a circuit transmitter/buzzer.The
transmitter is plugged into desired usage receptacles and creates a modulated amount
of current draw on the hot and neutral wires
all the way back to the breaker panel. To
get the path, simply plug in the transmitter
and go to the breaker panel with the circuit
sniffer to find out which breaker buzzes the
loudest. Finding each receptacle’s path may
take some time, but will give you a clear layout of what subcircuits are in easy reach of
the performance area. And if you are sure or
brave, you can confirm your circuit choice by
tripping the breaker and noting the removal
of the buzz from the transmitter.
Feeders
Breaker
Panel
CB
W
Feeders
Sub-circuit B
CB
When You Arrive
EDGE
We’ve all faced the problem of trying to
use our wireless gear in different parts of the
country: When you arrive at a certain area,
you have to do a bunch of detective work
(or trial and error) to find out how to set the
frequencies on your wireless units to avoid
interference. IAS automates a large part of
this process. Upon arrival at a location where
you intend to use wireless audio, you load the
local TV channels into IAS. If you know what
these channels are, simply enter them into
a list. If you are unfamiliar with the area, the
software provides a frequency “wizard” that
helps you identify local broadcasters.
IAS includes a database of FCCregistered television stations that is periodically updated for accuracy. In addition to the
By SteveLaCerra
NOVEMBER 2007
name and physical location of the station,
the database provides the call letters of the
station, the operational status and the broadcast strength of the signal. Analog (NTSC) and
digital (ATSC) TV stations are included in the
database as are PAL and DVB. If you enter the
latitude and longitude of your locale, IAS also
can search for these local stations. For those
who are geographically challenged, the program will accept any of 40,000 zip codes and
then calculate latitude and longitude for that
zip code.
Once the active stations in the area have
been identified, they are imported into a list
and shown on a color-coded display at the
bottom of the screen. This list will be compared and tested against the frequencies of
your wireless system(s). IAS also maintains a
database of wireless products organized by
manufacturer, model and frequency agility of
the unit, so if you select (for example) a Shure
UR system, the software knows the frequencies on which the UR can operate. Running
the test compares the possible operating
frequencies of the UR system to the frequencies of the active TV stations in the area. Then,
IAS displays the frequencies of the UR system
that are least likely to conflict with the active
broadcasts in the area.
Here is where the similarity to previous
wireless spectrum analysis software ends: Intermodulation Analysis Software can import
CB
Sub-circuit A
Circuit
Sniffer
Receptacle
ReceptacleYou can find Mark at marka@fohonline.com.Recep
Sub-circuit A
Air Traffic Control
Receptacle
ith all the recent discussion about
how difficult it may become for
our industry to use wireless audio
devices, it’s comforting to know that at least
one manufacturer has been hard at work on
something that makes using wireless audio easier. Professional Wireless Systems (a
Masque Sound Company) has developed a
product called Intermodulation Analysis Software (IAS). The purpose of IAS is to facilitate
coordination of wireless audio frequencies in
any locale, minimizing the chance for interference with local television and radio stations.
32
Sub-circuit A
CB
Breaker
Panel
TP
Tips and Tricks
Referring to Figure 1, here are a couple of
things you can do to help speed the circuit sniffing process. Most electrican’s wire venue receptacles are in daisy chains; in other words, they
are series of receptacles all on the same circuit. If
you are an astute observer of the venue’s receptacles and think like an electrician trying to wire
the room for the first time, you may correctly
guess that the receptacle farthest upstream
chains back to the breaker panel. The reason
for guessing your best regarding the farthest
receptacle is that each downstream receptacle
still has the buzzing current flowing through it,
and the sniffer can be used near the suspect receptacles to pick up this buzzing. If there is a reasonably loud buzz, there is a very good chance
it is on the same breaker.
Obviously, you can’t guess the layout perfectly, but in Figure 1, buzzing up subcircuit A
will not cause buzzing in subcircuit B. However,
by becoming a keen listener of your circuit
sniffer, you can sometimes hear the buzz lightly
in upstream receptacles. The rationale for this
sniffing is to unobtrusively locate all the available circuits so you can run service cords back
to the stage/performance area to power those
amplifiers, consoles, backline and stage lighting.
Obviously, stage lighting is first to be minimized
if open subcircuits are in short supply. But others may differ with you on this.
Circuit
Buzzer
Receptacle
Receptacle
Feeders
The Bleeding Edge
CB
Receptacle
Circuit
Buzzer
Receptacle
ptacle
Circuit
Buzzer
Receptacle
Receptacle
Receptacle
At Your Service
TP
First and foremost, any poor soundco operator should have plenty of extension cords
(service cords) to gain access to those far-flung
receptacles that are on other subcircuits not in
full use. I recommend plenty of 25-foot, 50-foot
and 100-foot service cords of 12-gauge conductors with a type S (not SJ) jacketing. Also,
once near the stage, some 10-foot or 15-foot
breakout service cables with a quad-receptacle
box are handy for backline and other shared
loads on a 120 VAC, 20-amp subcircuit.
I have mentioned this before, but the NEC
requires type S-rated (extra-hard service) service cords for lengths of 20 feet and beyond
when used for live performances. Within 20
feet, you can use the more common type
SJ cords found at most home improvement
stores. But as a distro-poor soundco, you have
to make up for this deficiency by having even
more extension cords.
By MarkAmundson
nating wireless frequencies for such a huge
Circuit
event. The first is identifying local broadcasters and finding a sufficient number of open
Sniffer
channels in the area. The second is assign-
the data regarding the Shure wireless system
into the “active” window, appending the list of
active frequencies for the locale. When you add
the next wireless system — say a Sennheiser
personal monitor system — the test process is
repeated, but this time the Sennheiser system’s
possible frequencies are compared to the entire active list, including TV stations and the
Shure wireless system(s). As wireless activity for
an event gets more complicated, the software
keeps track of the frequencies you already
have earmarked for use with other wireless
audio systems. Intermodulation Analysis Software works with systems from Audio-Technica,
Electro-Voice, Lectrosonics, Sennheiser, Shure,
Sony, Telex and others. Of course, once IAS has
indicated the optimum channel set up for your
wireless devices, it is up to you to actually set
the wireless transmitters and receivers to the
appropriate channels.
Receptacle
This Is Cool Because…
EDGE
So what’s the big deal? Well, Intermodulation Analysis Software really isn’t going to
shine in a situation where you are running
one or two channels of wireless gear with a
touring band. You have to envision Intermodulation Analysis Software in use on a largescale event. Take the Super Bowl, for example,
an event at which there may be a thousand
wireless audio channels in use simultaneously. There are three problems with coordi-
www.fohonline.com
ing these open frequencies to their respective equipment and users while making sure
they don’t step on each other. Third, multiple
frequencies operating in the same region
can interact to form new harmonic frequencies that interfere with other channels (this is
called Intermodulation). In the past, this job
was a full-time day gig where a human being
had to search FCC data for active channels in
the location, log these frequencies into some
sort of database, search frequency charts for
various models of wireless audio gear and
compare them to the local broadcasts, making sure that no one frequency would be assigned to multiple users!
It appears that IAS has taken a timeconsuming, high-brain-damage process
and turned it into an easily managed
task. Intermodulation Analysis Software
runs under Microsoft Windows 2000 and
XP. For more information, check out the
link at www.professionalwireless.com/
ias/index.aspx
Breaker
Panel
Sub-circuit B
Steve “Woody” La Cerra is out on a neverending tour mixing front-of-house for Blue
Öyster Cult. He can be reached via e-mail at
Woody@fohonline.com
C
g
Han ing with
Gear nob Rob
S
By KenRengering
Howdy Anklebiters readers,
My esteemed colleague Brian Cassell is
getting married and all that it entails, so at
the suggestion of the Editor, I am writing this
column with my imaginary friend to keep the
conversational quality of the piece. I have decided to name my imaginary friend Gear Snob
Rob. He is a smarter and more experienced
sound engineer — a little jaded, because he’s
a major tour guy.
In honor of Brian’s wedding, I recount a
wedding situation I recently worked. Hope you
enjoy it and send Brian well-wishes on his honeymoon, while he employs a part of his anatomy besides his ears!
Ken: Gear Snob Rob: Are you familiar with
an instrument called a krar? That’s how I was
told it was spelled. It is a stringed, almost-sitarsounding thing that the player, when standing, holds up by a strap around the arm/wrist
and strums/plays with the other hand. The
notes of the krar are played by fingering the
strings with the hand of the supporting arm.
This gig was an East African wedding that ran
two days and was quite a culture clash for my
fairly Westernized ears. Did I mention that the
event happened with two hours notice (no
lie) and the advance guy answering my questions was a police officer friend of the bride?
You ever walk into situations like that?
Gear Snob Rob: Yes, I’ve had my share of
dealing with pressure-filled situations. Ever
mix among 50k screaming fans?
Anklebiters
Ken: No. Upon arriving, I check with the
building guy about power and he tells me
the last time they had entertainment, some
band flipped the breakers 10 times. I am a
little worried about my stuff. Most of the
processing is protected, and the amps are
good about shutting down if there is an issue, but I really don’t want to risk one of my
bread-and-butter pieces on this gig. Since I
have never destroyed anything electronic, I
didn’t want this to be the test case for the
“Lost, stolen or damaged” clause in my contract. Especially when English-speaking responsible parties were few and far between.
Ever worry about this Rob?
Gear Snob Rob: No. I have a systems
tech or two and dynamics and effects on
my digital console. Do you know where the
hospitality buffet is located?
Ken: Ah, no. We didn’t have a meal
on this gig. Back to my story. With a little
searching, we came up with two-and-a-half
20-amp circuits to use. Based on the police
officer/advance guy’s information, I set the
speakers at the front of the stage, facing
the dance floor. We get everything, and I
mean everything, plugged in and ready to
go for sound check, and another guy walks
in and says he wants the speakers on the
wall with the wedding dais. I explained that
that might be an issue with the wedding
party, because the subs were literally two
inches from their tables. And to top things
off, the mains are facing perpendicular to
the front edge of the stage. Needless to say,
I was worried about this situation and the
front vocal mics, but also the krars, which
had pickups attached.
Gear Snob Rob: I have a buddy who
recently did a fly date. He showed up and
the Meyer rig and subs were flown behind
the stage. Full band, four or five front line
vocals. It is what it is. You come into a tough
situation, you correct it if you can, or you
deal with it.
Ken: Yeah, well we down-stacked and
restacked the speakers, and I had just
enough cable with me to do the job. I did
lack the appropriate Ethiopian/Eritrean break music. My
whole point was, I came in,
dealt with an unknown instrument and did a pretty
good job! I kind of surprised myself when every
one of the 400 guests was dancing
in a circle, and they were all smiling. It
made for a truly happy wedding, and I felt
like we helped make it the special day it is
supposed to be.
Gear Snob Rob: So you did your job?
You’re a freakin’ superstar.
Ken: Hurry back, Brian!
To send Brian congratulations or to just vent,
e-mail the guys at anklebiters@fohonline.com.
In The Trenches
RICH MORRIS
Max Shiffman
Mike Kephart
Audio engineer,
lighting programmer
MS Productions
Aliso Viejo, CA
949.395.3194
mshiffman@mac.com
Services Provided: FOH audio
engineer, live event production,
installations, automated
light programming
Clients: Katharine McPhee, Coast
Hills Church, Dana Hills High,
Systems 2000
Quote: “Nine times out of ten, you won’t
get the equipment you want.”
Personal Info: I am 16 years old and in
the audio-visual industry, hoping one
day my career will take off. I have three
years of sound and lighting experience.
Hobbies: Playing the drums, critiquing films.
Equipment: Yamaha M7CL, Yamaha LS9,
Allen & Heath ML5000, Wholehog III,
Midas Heritage, Sennheiser, Shure, EAW,
dbx, Meyer, JBL, BSS Soundweb, ETC.
Don’t leave home without: Zip ties,
iPod, gloves.
Chief Engineer
Kephart Sound Productions
Feasterville, PA
www.kephartsound
productions.com
215.396.1967
michael@
kephartsoundproductions.com
Services Provided: Live sound,
live video content
Clients: Lower Southampton
Mike Kephart (left) with Al Stewart
Township television station.
Quote: “When in doubt, blame the
Hobbies: Hanging out with my wife and
electrician.”
kids, playing my drums and sleeping.
Personal Info: Doing live sound for
Equipment: Peavey, Mackie, Soundcraft,
over 25 years, drummer for 20 years
Shure, Audio Technica, Tascam
— I love what I do.
Don’t leave home without: That pesky
oddball power adapter.
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.
www.fohonline.com
2007 NOVEMBER
33
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Meyer Sound Laboratories
OVO/Mega Systems
Peavey Electronics/Crest
Precise Corporate Staging
QSC Audio Products
Renkus-Heinz
RSS by Roland
TMB
Ultimate Ears
Westone Music Products
Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems
13
9, 11, 13
5, 6
23
19
C4
10, 30
11
3
C1
17
C2, 12
9
7
29
25
21
24
15
14
4
1, C3
814.663.0600
714.897.6766
828.670.1763
801.568.7660
877.292.1623
650.731.6287
800.992.5013
618.257.3000
818.894.8850
818.665.4900
519.747.5853
510 486.1166
210.684.2600
877.732.8391
480.759.9700
800.854.4079
949.588.9997
800.380.2580
818.899.8818
800.589.6531
719.540.9333
714.522.9011
http://foh.hotims.com/12796-100
MARKET PLACE
AudioEast
dblittle.com
Gabriel Sound
Hi-Tech Audio
New York Case/Hybrid Cases
Sound Productions
34
34
34
34
34
34
866.274.4590
423.892.1837
973.831.7500
650.742.9166
800.645.1707
800.203.5611
www.fohonline.com
Month 2005
35
FOH-At-Large
Bits and Pieces
By BakerLee
There’s a Bunch of Stuff to Keep
FOH
Track of…
Inventory! Not necessarily the sexiest or
most glamorous part of the live audio business, but definitely the lifeblood of what we
do. As well as providing income, our equipment defines us professionally. The equipment we stock as audio providers draws to
us a certain clientele who, once happy with
the product, will hopefully return to us time
and again looking to repeat past successes.
As our companies branch out and expand,
we may sell or dispose of old equipment,
while updating and replenishing our inventory with the hope of adding new clients to
our roster. Certain companies cater to nonmusical corporate events, while others accommodate concert venues. Whether one
has a warehouse filled with all the latest
gear, or just a small DJ rig stored in the back
of a van, it is still inventory that needs to be
taken into account.
Lost, broken and misplaced gear is always a problem no matter how large or small
it may be. The deficit cuts into our profit
(which to begin with is not marginally that
high) and also makes for more work, or possibly the loss thereof. Regardless of size, all
companies have ways to track and account
for their equipment. Whether by a simple
hand count, store numbers or bar codes, we
all have load sheets and/or computer programs that help us track and account for our
equipment. Whether we rent one piece or
multiple pieces of equipment, it is imperative that we can provide a paper or digital
trail leading to said equipment. Not only do
we need to know where it is, but we need
to know when and how it is being returned
so that it can be reserved and rented once
again.
Small Does Not Equal Cheap
FOH
Small pieces of gear are the easiest to
fly under the radar, and though they may be
small, they are not necessarily inexpensive.
Let’s say a pair of Sennheiser G2 personal
COMING
NEXT
COMING
NEXT
MONTH...
MONTH...
• The Top 10 tours of 2007.
• Cool tools for the holidays.
• Go to the Wall with Think Floyd.
(in this case the U.S. federal reserve) to be
even more diligent in accounting for their
cash. Sadly, this was not the case. One explanation for the lack of accountability was
that a good portion of the money was not
ours and was indeed Iraqi assets that had
been frozen in U.S. accounts from as far back
as the first Gulf War. (It wasn’t ours anyway,
so who cares? ) The rest was U.S. cash, which
means that our taxes paid for this loss; therefore, we should care.
Another frightening aspect of this lack
of accountability is that much of this cash
was delivered to Iraqi contractors and may
have easily ended up in enemy hands. Mark
Thompson, in the September issue of Time
magazine reported that along with the missing cash, there was a missing stockpile of
weapons that was sent to Iraq to arm the
Iraqi army and security forces. In all, 110,000
AK-47s and 80,000 pistols have been reported missing and, as reported in Mark Thompson’s article, “Officials say it’s tough to track
tens of thousands of weapons in the midst
of a war.” I‘m assuming it’s like trying to keep
track of all our cables when we do sound at
an arena…NOT!
You Lost WHAT?!?!
Art by Andy Au
monitors rent for one hundred dollars per
day, and the client calls up and requests
three pairs for a show. It’s a busy day in the
shop upon their return, but a quick check
by the Q.C. department verifies that the belt
packs and transmitters are in the case. Unfortunately, someone overlooked that three
generic Shure E5 earbuds went out with the
order and only two were returned. Not a big
deal in the grand scheme of things, as everything else was satisfactorily returned, but
considering the replacement cost for the E5
buds cuts the gross take from the daily rental of three personal monitors in half — that
is a big deal.
We factor a certain amount for loss,
damage and repair into our costs just to account for such things as cables, microphone
clips and microphone stands, which again
by themselves don’t amount to much in the
grand scheme of all things audio, but over a
year’s time, if we lose 50 microphone cables,
20 clips and a few stands, it adds up. Not only
does it cost for the gear to be replaced, but
also there is a loss in rentals until it is restored
to inventory.
Most companies I know take a deposit
or a certificate of insurance against the
safe return of their equipment. The credit is
issued to the customer after the equipment
is returned and all pieces are accounted for
and verified to be in working condition. These
deposits are usually waived when an audio
technician is sent along with the rented gear
— the assumption being that the technician
is qualified and capable of keeping track of
his gear. A technician who loses or damages a
lot of gear is likely to lose his job as well, as he
becomes more of a liability to the company
than an asset.
Meanwhile Back in Iraq…
FOH
This all said — my mind boggles at what
I have recently been reading in the papers
and magazines. The September issue of
Rolling Stone magazine reports, in an article
by Matt Taibbi, how our government sent
$12 billion in cash to Iraq on huge wooden
pallets, which was then stored in Iraqi
government buildings and distributed to
local contractors without any real proof of
receipt. The money was earmarked to pay for
rebuilding costs as well as security, labor and
food, but was awarded in such wanton and
random ways that approximately $8.8 billion
of the $12 billion went unaccounted for.
Such businesses as KBR (a former
Haliburton subsidiary), as well as an upstart
security company by the name of Custer
Battles and a contracting firm by the name of
Parsons, received lucrative, no-bid contracts
and either overcharged the government by
millions or provided shoddy, if any, services.
To give an idea of how much cash was
available and how poorly it was accounted
for, one has to imagine that out of the 366
tons of cash delivered to Iraq, 266 tons was
unaccounted for.
The October issue of Vanity Fair magazine reported the same details in an article
by Donald Barlett and James B. Steele. In
their account, they claim that $9 billion went
missing, but then again, what’s a billion between friends. Friends it is, as they report
that well-connected private contractors
were awarded “cost-plus” contracts that ensure a 3% profit of a project’s total cost. What
this means is that the more the contractor spends, the more he makes. One would
think that if this type of deal is in place then
it would be in the best interest of the client
www.fohonline.com
FOH
Apparently, in an unrelated incident, the
Air Force lost track of a B-52 airplane that was
armed with nuclear-tipped warheads ranging
from 5 to 150 kilotons (just for perspective, a
15-ton warhead was dropped on Hiroshima).
As reported in the New York Daily News, Sept.
7, 2007, quoting Lt. Col. Ed Thomas, “The Air
Force standards are very exacting when it
comes to munitions handling; the weapons
were always in our custody.”
In the same paper, it was reported that in
the latest federal statistics “illegal weapons
are getting harder to come by, taking longer
to land on New York streets and be used to
commit crimes.” Apparently, in 2002 it used to
take only nine years for the guns to go from a
gun store to a crime scene in New York City,
and now in 2007, it takes 12 years for the same
trip. I’m not sure of the correlation between
these articles, but maybe an extra stopover in
Iraq adds four years to the trip.
At this point, I’m serious when I say I have
no idea if what we are doing in Iraq is for the
good or not. As much as I read or is told to
me, I cannot honestly tell if, by our actions, we
are stemming the tide of terrorism or creating
a new, more virulent society, but I do believe
we need to account for not only the money
spent, but our actions as well. I also know that
if we, as audio providers, managed to lose
three quarters of our inventory every time we
sent out an order, we wouldn’t be in business
for too long.
Maybe bar codes would help keep track
of the errant cash or maybe more troops, but
at this point, we have lost not only $8 billion,
but we have also lost more than 3,500 troops
in our efforts to stem the tide of evil. I would
hate to think that we are wasting the lives of
our young men and women to line the pockets of the connected few, as it doesn’t seem to
be the best way of deploying our most valuable inventory.
E-mail Baker at blee@fohonline.com.

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