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PEOPLE. PRODUCTION. GEAR. GIGS.<br />
JANUARY 2011 Vol. 9 No.4<br />
New Yorkers Light the Tree with an Audio Assist<br />
From PRG, L-Acoustics, JBL and Sennheiser<br />
photo courtesy of JBL<br />
NEW YORK — The crowds at Rockefeller Plaza Nov. 30 were dazzled by the sight of some<br />
30,000 LED lights on the 74-foot-high holiday tree, but the annual 2010 lighting ceremony<br />
didn’t belong to lampies alone.<br />
A big part of the two-hour event, broadcast on prime-time TV, were the musical performances<br />
by Sheryl Crow, Josh Groban, Jessica Simpson, Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, Susan<br />
Boyle, Charice, Kylie Minogue and Katherine Jenkins, among others. continued on page 8<br />
PORTLAND, OR — Audinate and Stage Tec Entwicklungsgesellschaft<br />
für professionelle Audiotechnik mbH, a supplier of digital mixing<br />
consoles and audio routing systems, announced a collaboration<br />
where Audinate’s Dante digital media networking technology will be<br />
incorporated into a range of StageTec products.<br />
“Audio over IP is the future,” said StageTec managing director Dr.<br />
Klaus-Peter Scholz. “We have been looking for an integrated solution,<br />
and Audinate’s Dante is the answer. It’s important to us,” Scholz added,<br />
“that we partner with a company that understands not just audio,<br />
L-Acoustics’ KARA arrays flanked the 74-foot-high Norway spruce.<br />
Yamaha Forms Strategic Alliance<br />
With Rupert Neve Designs<br />
BUENA PARK, CA — Yamaha Corporation<br />
Japan and Yamaha Commercial Audio<br />
Systems, Inc. announced a strategic<br />
partnership with Rupert Neve Designs,<br />
based on both parties involvement with<br />
VCM (Virtual Circuitry Modeling) Technology.<br />
Yamaha’s digital VCM technology<br />
promises to give engineers access to the<br />
warmth and richness of analog circuitry,<br />
including classic compression and EQ<br />
units and tape machines from the 1970s,<br />
in a stable, easy-to-operate digital format.<br />
Rupert Neve Designs said Yamaha<br />
VCM technology is the first digital technology<br />
that can accurately reproduce<br />
Rupert Neve’s analog sound, reaffirming<br />
Yamaha’s efforts to make digital sound<br />
as pleasing as analog.<br />
“With Yamaha VCM technology, we’re<br />
able to pick up the amazing quality of<br />
musicality and accuracy that was inherent<br />
in the original Rupert Neve Designs<br />
Proel America<br />
Names Ed Simeone<br />
VP of Sales, North<br />
America<br />
Proel America<br />
named industry veteran<br />
Ed Simeone V.P<br />
of Sales for North<br />
America. He will be<br />
responsible for all<br />
sales and market-<br />
Ed Simeone<br />
ing efforts in the<br />
U.S. and Canada for<br />
Proel, and will manage their independent<br />
sales rep force. Simeone has a long history<br />
in pro audio, including his role as founder,<br />
CEO and later chairman of TC Electronic<br />
US. The company also promoted Melissa<br />
Zagonel to general manager. Zagonel has<br />
been with Proel America since its inception<br />
in 2008.<br />
Audinate and StageTec Announce Partnership<br />
but have an expert understanding of IP networking as we develop<br />
new products.”<br />
“We are honored to be selected by StageTec as their networking<br />
standard,” said John McMahon, Audinate’s vice president of worldwide<br />
sales and support. “Dante offers the opportunity, to connect<br />
the IP-world to the synchronous world of the classic routing systems,<br />
while de-risking the future by providing a migration path to upgrade<br />
to new standards under development such as Audio Video Bridging<br />
(AVB).”<br />
Portico modules,” said Rupert Neve.<br />
“Yamaha engineers are to be congratulated<br />
on having been able to successfully<br />
emulate that musical sound from my<br />
designs,” Neve added. “It’s a real pleasure<br />
to work with people who are dedicated<br />
and knowledgeable and able to perceive<br />
the sort of things that I’m trying to convey<br />
in my designs.”<br />
Larry Italia, vice president/general<br />
manager of Yamaha Commercial Audio<br />
Systems, said the company was<br />
“extremely fortunate” to have Neve “acknowledge<br />
that our VCM Technology<br />
well represents this classic sound. We<br />
know this will be the first of many joint<br />
efforts between our two companies.”<br />
16<br />
26<br />
Unfettering Alice<br />
in Chains<br />
Tom Abraham<br />
Tom Abraham spent his summer<br />
doing Euro festivals with<br />
Alice In Chains and ended the<br />
tour in Vegas. Which was crazier?<br />
Turn to <strong>FOH</strong> Interview, page 25.<br />
Top 10 Tours of<br />
2010<br />
Among soundcos supporting the<br />
top 10 ticket-selling tours in 2010,<br />
as ranked by Billboard’s annual tally,<br />
Clair dominated with seven tours.<br />
LINDA eVANs<br />
Road Tests<br />
The Audix Fusion FP7 drum package,<br />
reviewed by someone who hates gear<br />
packages, and a thorough review of<br />
Rational Acoustics’ Smaart v7.1.<br />
www.ProAudioSpace.com/join
What’s hot<br />
What’s hot<br />
Top 10 Tours of 2010<br />
Feature<br />
Metallica came in at #8.<br />
16<br />
A gear and crew roundup of the biggest shows of last year.<br />
Production Profile<br />
20<br />
Vince Gill and Amy Grant decked the halls at their annual<br />
Christmas run at the Ryman. And Hugh Johnson was still<br />
behind the console and under the mistletoe.<br />
24 Installations<br />
Features<br />
At the new White Oak Worship Center, the audio<br />
system was more than an afterthought.<br />
25 <strong>FOH</strong> Interview: Tom Abraham<br />
We take a short stogie break with the <strong>FOH</strong>/PM for<br />
Alice In Chains.<br />
26 Road Tests<br />
Audix told us this budget set of drum mics gave 90<br />
percent of the performance of their top-of-the-line<br />
models at half the price. We check that ratio... And a<br />
look at SMAART v7.1.<br />
29 Regional Slants<br />
First time we ran into the Atlanta Sound & Lighting<br />
crew was on a ship sailing out of Miami. A dry-dock<br />
look at a hot company out of Hotlanta.<br />
Letters<br />
No accounting For<br />
Bad taste<br />
Being that it is the season to be jolly, I am a<br />
little behind in my reading. In other words, I just<br />
read “No Accounting For Bad Taste” (<strong>FOH</strong>-at-Large,<br />
Nov. 2010). After damn near soiling myself a second<br />
time and nearly passing out from a lack of oxygen<br />
from laughing so hard, I had to smile. I too see the<br />
absurdity of the world. I truly believe that in our haste<br />
to over-correct for problems, we failed to recognize<br />
30 The Biz<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
JANUARY<br />
2011<br />
Vol. 9.4<br />
Columns<br />
Live sound gear might be acquiring value as<br />
memorabilia.<br />
32 Theory and Practice<br />
Why speakers blow up.<br />
33 Sound Sanctuary<br />
Vowing to do it better in 2011.<br />
36 <strong>FOH</strong> At Large<br />
Baker documents the trials of We Who Take Audio<br />
Where It Does Not Belong.<br />
Departments<br />
4 Editor’s Note<br />
6 News<br />
12 International News<br />
14 On the Move<br />
14 New Gear<br />
28 Welcome to My Nightmare<br />
we have almost “politically corrected” ourselves into<br />
oblivion. I like your idea of “Equal Rights.” It’s a shame<br />
though, even this may not be enough to save us from<br />
ourselves. In the end, we will reach some type of<br />
compromise that will neither solve or make worse the<br />
problem, the American way.<br />
—Tom Stark
4<br />
Editor’s Note<br />
It’s Always Been A<br />
Matter Of Trust<br />
I<br />
got an interesting e-mail last month.<br />
Took me a while to answer. Came<br />
from a kid in a to-remain-unnamed<br />
European country working to make a rep<br />
for himself as a live audio engineer and<br />
service provider. Nice kid. We have corresponded<br />
a few times over several years.<br />
(All via ProAudioSpace, BTW. If you are<br />
still not on it, you are very much missing<br />
out on some good stuff.)<br />
Anyway, he came to me with a conundrum<br />
and for some reason thought<br />
my advice would be worth listening to<br />
(his first mistake...). He had been working<br />
for an established mid-sized company<br />
for a couple of years and had worked up<br />
from the new-kid to the go-to-guy. Important<br />
to note here that he is a freelancer<br />
— does almost all of his work for one<br />
company but is not an actual employee.<br />
Which, I’m sure, sounds familiar to many<br />
reading this. As he got closer to the owner,<br />
he started to relay ideas for ways to<br />
increase business over the long haul and<br />
make the company stronger. And he was<br />
listened to. Sort of.<br />
The problem he was relaying to me<br />
was that the owner — who has been<br />
in the biz for a very long time — would<br />
take the ideas but strip them down to<br />
the ways in which he thought he could<br />
make the greatest short-term return and<br />
discard the long-term parts. The resulting<br />
changes actually weakened the company.<br />
They made a bunch more money<br />
for a little while, but are now losing gigs<br />
to other providers. The owner is not concerned,<br />
because all he is looking for is an<br />
exit strategy, anyway.<br />
So the kid now worries that his rep<br />
is being negatively impacted by his association<br />
with this specific company and<br />
their biz decisions based on short-term<br />
bucks over long-term client retention.<br />
Further, he has clients asking for things<br />
and has ideas on how to provide them,<br />
Trust. It is huge and hard to really define,<br />
harder to earn and very easy to lose.<br />
but is at a point where he does not trust<br />
the provider he is working with to implement<br />
the ideas.<br />
And there we get to the nut of it.<br />
Trust.<br />
In the past month I have seen a bunch<br />
of instances where it all boils down to<br />
that all-too-rare quality. In the <strong>FOH</strong> Interview<br />
in this issue with Tom Abraham, I<br />
asked him about changing out vocal mics<br />
with Alice In Chains and how he walked<br />
that particular tightrope. Answer: They<br />
trust him.<br />
Got to see one of the last truly great<br />
rock bands on the road when the Black<br />
Crowes came through town and, talking<br />
with Drew and Scoobie, that word came<br />
up over and over.<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
By BillEvans<br />
About a week after that, went and saw<br />
a big new Vegas show at the Wynn. Big<br />
dance show with a live big band and original<br />
recorded tracks of Sinatra. Very cool<br />
stuff. Even though they had world-class<br />
sound designers and a great system and<br />
the show had already played Broadway,<br />
Steve Wynn and Nancy Sinatra insisted<br />
on bringing Tom Young in for the final rehearsal<br />
and first week of shows. Why? Tom<br />
had mixed Frank for the last decade of his<br />
career, and Steve knew his work going<br />
back to when he owned the Golden Nugget.<br />
And they both trusted him to make<br />
sure it was right. And it sounded great.<br />
Oh, the kid? I told him to remember he<br />
was a freelancer and to work to earn the<br />
trust of the client. That if the client trusted<br />
him, it would not matter a lot what provider<br />
he was working for, and that if he ever<br />
made the jump to starting his own deal,<br />
that trust would be a big factor in his success.<br />
Hopefully it was decent advice.<br />
Trust. It is huge and hard to really define,<br />
harder to earn and very easy to lose. I<br />
have people I know and have worked with<br />
who I don’t really like much, but who I trust.<br />
And on the other side of the coin, some<br />
folks I like a lot and trust not at all. It is probably<br />
the quality I put the most work into<br />
earning every day. I would rather hear “I<br />
trust him” than “he is really good at what he<br />
does” any day of the week. Of course, hearing<br />
both is nice, but if I had to choose...<br />
Entrust your e-mail to bevans@fohonline.<br />
com. It’s sure to reach Bill — most of the<br />
time.<br />
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6<br />
News<br />
Sennheiser Announces New Organizational Structure<br />
Sennheiser EMB members, from left: Dr. Heinrich Esser, Paul Whiting, Dr. Andreas<br />
Sennheiser, Volker Bartels, Daniel Sennheiser, Peter Callan<br />
WEDEMARK, Germany<br />
— The Supervisory Board for<br />
Sennheiser electronic GmbH<br />
& Co. KG recently approved<br />
a new global organizational<br />
structure separately targeting<br />
consumer electronics,<br />
professional systems and<br />
installed sound.<br />
In all, starting Jan. 1,<br />
2011, there will be seven<br />
divisions: Business Division<br />
Consumer Electronics,<br />
managed by Peter Callan;<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
Business Division Professional Systems, managed<br />
by Dr. Heinrich Esser; Business Division<br />
Installed Sound, ad interim managed by Dr.<br />
Heinrich Esser; Sales Division, managed by<br />
Paul Whiting; Supply Chain Division, managed<br />
by Dr. Andreas Sennheiser; Corporate<br />
Services, managed by Volker Bartels; and<br />
Strategy and Finance, managed by Daniel<br />
Sennheiser.<br />
The managers of these units will form the<br />
new Executive Management Board (EMB) of<br />
the Sennheiser Group, with Volker Bartels as<br />
its spokesperson.<br />
Earthworks Mics<br />
Gain Admission<br />
to The Juilliard<br />
School<br />
NEW YORK — The Juilliard School is picky<br />
about the students they accept — there are<br />
only about 800 undergraduate and graduate<br />
students in the renowned center for dance, drama,<br />
and music studies. Noted alumni include<br />
Patti LuPone, Van Cliburn, Wynton Marsalis<br />
and Henry Mancini. The Julliard School is also<br />
choosy about their gear, and Marc L. Waithe,<br />
chief audio engineer, has opted to use Earthworks<br />
microphones for close to a decade.<br />
Earthworks microphones are a staple for<br />
school performances that require a live sound<br />
setup, such as the resident Juilliard String Quartet.<br />
“The Earthworks microphones not only help<br />
me translate their musical visions transparently<br />
to the audience, they also enable me to expand<br />
the perception of just how good their instruments<br />
can sound in a live, amplified environment,”<br />
Waithe said.<br />
In addition to being responsible for live<br />
sound reinforcement throughout Juilliard’s<br />
main performance spaces, Waithe also oversees<br />
system design, maintenance, mixing, and the<br />
training of staff, interns, and students for all aspects<br />
of the school’s SR (sound reinforcement)<br />
requirements. His inventory of Earthworks microphones<br />
has accumulated over the years.<br />
“At this point in time,” Waithe said, “we have<br />
over 30 Earthworks microphones. Our mic<br />
locker inventory includes the SR69, SR71, two<br />
SR77s, six SR20s and seven SR30/HCs from the<br />
company’s Sound Reinforcement series. For use<br />
with drums and percussion, we also have Earthworks’<br />
CMK4 close mic drum system kit; along<br />
with four DK25L live drum mic systems. Our<br />
podium microphone is an Earthworks FM500,<br />
which the company is retrofitting for me with<br />
a wire-mesh pop screen,” he noted. Waithe also<br />
said that “we use the Earthworks PM40 PianoMic<br />
when piano amplification is required.<br />
“We handle a lot of instrumental miking<br />
when called for in the score,” Waithe added.<br />
“Similarly, we use the microphones for Juilliard<br />
Jazz, foldback applications such as operas, and<br />
a variety of special events. Earthworks’ SR Series<br />
microphones provide incredible off-axis<br />
response, which enables me to mic the various<br />
performers without having to worry about their<br />
movement. This way, the performers aren’t restricted<br />
by the microphone as they play or sing.<br />
The microphones’ extended frequency range<br />
captures every nuance-without compromising<br />
their artistry.” Waithe also credited Earthworks’<br />
PM40 PianoMic system for helping to “bring out<br />
the clarity and beauty” of the school’s Steinway<br />
pianos, miking them with the lids up or down<br />
and eliminating the need for boom stands.<br />
Marc L. Waithe, chief audio engineer at The Juilliard School
8<br />
News<br />
JANUARY 2011<br />
Advertisement<br />
New Yorkers Light the Tree with and Audio Assist from PRG, L-Acoustics, JBL and Sennheiser<br />
PRG turned the ice rink into a stage, with audio support from ground-stacked JBL<br />
VerTec line arrays.<br />
continued from cover<br />
For more than 10<br />
years, Production Resource<br />
Group (PRG) has<br />
handled audio production<br />
duties for the event,<br />
which featured gear from<br />
JBL, Sennheiser and the<br />
debut of L-Acoustics’ new<br />
KARA line source array<br />
system.<br />
This time, the Norway<br />
spruce was flanked on<br />
both sides by six-element<br />
KARA arrays, each flown<br />
over three SB18 subs,<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
stacked in a cardioid configuration and<br />
powered by three LA8 amplified controllers.<br />
PRG also provided two tiny two-element<br />
KIVA clusters pole-mounted below<br />
the tree for fill, while much larger hangs of<br />
12 KIVA plus two KILO powered by two LA4<br />
served as the north and south arrays for<br />
the block. Eight-element dV-DOSC arrays,<br />
also driven by four LA4, provided additional<br />
coverage for the thousands of visitors<br />
spilling out across 49th and 50th Streets.<br />
PRG, which had turned the Rockefeller<br />
Center ice rink into a stage for the national<br />
telecast on NBC, also flanked the stage<br />
with ground-stacked subcompact JBL<br />
VerTec line arrays — four JBL VT4886s atop<br />
two VT4883 subwoofers.<br />
The RF environment for the ceremony<br />
has changed quite a bit since its origins<br />
in 1933, of course. Wireless First has been<br />
providing support with Sennheiser gear<br />
for nine consecutive years. This year’s setup<br />
included 18 channels of Sennheiser’s<br />
EM 3732 wireless receivers, MKE 2 lavalier<br />
mics and SKM 5200 handheld mics, each<br />
with Neumann KK 105 S capsules. Wireless<br />
First also provided 12 G3 wireless personal<br />
monitors and another dozen channels of<br />
receivers.<br />
US Audio and Lighting Expands with L-Acoustics LA-RAK<br />
US Audio and Lighting North Hollywood crew with the new L-Acoustics LA-RAKs. From left:<br />
Brian Murray, John Fogarty, Pete Docter, Dave Reyna and Taylor Meyer<br />
NORTH HOLLY-<br />
WOOD and LATHROP,<br />
CA — After operating<br />
in southern California<br />
for more than 20 years,<br />
US Audio and Lighting<br />
added an office<br />
in Lathrop , CA earlier<br />
this year, and, along<br />
with that expansion,<br />
added four L-Acoustics<br />
LA-RAK touring racks,<br />
each with three LA8<br />
amplified controllers,<br />
to its inventory of gear.<br />
US Audio’s president, Pete Docter, noted<br />
that the soundco had been one of the<br />
first companies to adopt L-Acoustics’ LA8<br />
four years ago, and said the investment in<br />
LA-RAK was part of “a natural progression”<br />
to “transition our entire inventory over to<br />
LA-RAK, which we plan to do over the next<br />
year. It’s a very slick, convenient and wellthought-out<br />
system and we’re very pleased<br />
to have now taken delivery of our initial order.”<br />
US Audio also purchased a dozen L-<br />
Acoustics 112P self-powered coaxial loudspeakers<br />
for front-fill use and other various<br />
applications.<br />
The company keeps its LA8 fleet busy<br />
at the performing arts theaters of several<br />
large Indian casinos in Northern California,<br />
on local festivals like Rock the Bells<br />
and Smokeout and, most recently, with V-<br />
DOSC and KUDO stages at Hornet Stadium<br />
for national acts performing during the<br />
Sacramento Mountain Lions’ home games.<br />
Docter’s company also handles systems<br />
integration work for clients like the<br />
Hollywood Bowl, which enhanced its audio<br />
system this past season with the addition<br />
of a dozen L-Acoustics SB28 subs, 10<br />
ARCS enclosures for front-fill and side-fill<br />
and half a dozen LA8 amplified controllers.
Advertisement<br />
News<br />
Shure Supports Nonprofit Group’s Efforts to Bring Music to City Kids<br />
LOS ANGELES — Not every public school<br />
student has the opportunity to experience<br />
music classes or participate in a band, orchestra,<br />
or chorus. But nonprofit programs such as<br />
The School Tour are trying to help, and Shure<br />
Inc. is lending a helping hand as well.<br />
Since 2004, The School Tour, founded<br />
by Randy Hankins, has provided interactive<br />
shows that promote music, arts, and unity<br />
with the hopes of promoting positive messages<br />
and confront social issues. The nonprofit<br />
group invites pop, rock, R&B, rap artists<br />
and others to perform in front of more than<br />
200,000 students and supporting audiences.<br />
“Seeing these kids react to the shows<br />
is truly amazing,” said The School Tour’s Jud<br />
Nestor. “You just see them light up — seeing a<br />
live performance for the first time is a powerful<br />
experience and we’re hearing from these<br />
kids that they’re being inspired to pursue<br />
their own dreams in the music world. These<br />
shows let them know that no matter how<br />
rough their neighborhoods are, if they have<br />
the talent and the work ethic, they have the<br />
potential to really go places.”<br />
With performances not only at schools<br />
but also at county fairs, parades, convention<br />
centers, nightclubs, and other special events,<br />
the Tour’s audio gear takes a beating, and<br />
after dozens of performances, its organizers<br />
realized they were in need of high-quality microphones<br />
that would stand the test of time.<br />
The School Tour also enables new artists<br />
to begin building their fan base while devel-<br />
oping their craft. The performances enable<br />
up-and-coming artists to connect with other<br />
young people and show them that with hard<br />
work and dedication, anything is possible.<br />
Many of The School Tour’s young artists<br />
have gone on to find professional success in<br />
the music world, signing with major record<br />
labels, touring with top artists, and even placing<br />
on the Billboard R&B sales charts.<br />
Shure was one of a handful of manufacturers<br />
that stepped up and provided gear<br />
to help The Tour continue its mission. Shure<br />
handheld wireless systems and SM58 microphones<br />
are now helping bring The School<br />
Tour’s performances to life.<br />
“Our Company is dedicated to partnering<br />
with worthwhile initiatives like The School<br />
Tour,” said Sandy LaMantia, Shure president<br />
and CEO. “We believe in the power of music<br />
and we’re honored to be playing even a small<br />
part in this program, which is changing lives<br />
and making a positive impact on inner-city<br />
kids.”<br />
“I can’t say enough about Shure and their<br />
commitment to giving back to programs<br />
like ours,” said Nestor. “We went from tapedtogether<br />
scraps of mics to the best of the<br />
best, and you can hear the difference. These<br />
young artists are now performing with topof-the-line,<br />
professional gear — it’s durable,<br />
it’s reliable, and it just sounds great. We’re so<br />
grateful to Shure for making it happen.”<br />
Gand Concert Sound Supplies GEO T, PM5Ds for Snoop Dog Concert<br />
EVANSTON, IL — Gand Concert Sound<br />
recently provided a 42-box flown NEXO<br />
GEO T line array for a concert with Snoop<br />
Dog and opening act Kid Cudi held at<br />
the Welsh-Ryan Arena on the campus of<br />
Northwestern University. The sound system<br />
included 20 NEXO CD18 subwoofers<br />
with PS15 monitors used on stage by the<br />
artists. NEXO Alpha ALEF 3-way side fills<br />
with S2 subs and PS10s were implemented<br />
for front fill on the wide stage for the<br />
dance floor.<br />
“The unusual layout of the venue<br />
was tackled by hanging four columns of<br />
NEXO GEO T boxes with the two offstage<br />
columns being larger to cover additional<br />
side balcony seating,” said Gand’s president,<br />
Gary Gand. Power for the show consisted<br />
of a mix of 36 Camco V6 and V200<br />
on mains, five Yamaha PC9501N amps on<br />
front fills and monitors, all with control<br />
from 12 NEXO NX242ES processors.<br />
Yamaha PM5D digital mixing consoles<br />
were supplied for both front of house and<br />
monitors and mixed by Snoop Dog’s crew,<br />
including Dave “Dizzel” at front of house<br />
and “Kez” on monitors. The mics were all<br />
Shure except for Snoop’s RF, which was a<br />
custom Sennheiser.<br />
Along with the PA, Gand<br />
also provided back line with assistance<br />
from Andy’s Pro Hire.<br />
“We supplied a DJ rig with 2<br />
CDJ 1000 MKIII, two DJM800<br />
mixers, a five-piece DW Collector<br />
Series Drum Kit with Paiste<br />
cymbals, Roland SPDS sampler,<br />
Yamaha Motif ES7, Roland Fantom<br />
X6, and bass rig with GK<br />
2001 RBH and 2 RBH410 cabs,”<br />
noted backline tech Taylor Kat.<br />
The setup at Northwestern’s Welsh-Ryan Arena<br />
www.fohonline.com 2011 JANUARY 9
10<br />
News<br />
Church “Gymnatorium” Equipped with Danley Loudspeakers, Ashly DSP<br />
The Hollowel Brethren in Christ Church “Gymnatorium”<br />
JANUARY 2011<br />
WAYNESBORO,<br />
PA — Steve Christiano<br />
of G.A.D.G.e.T.<br />
Media saw some red<br />
flags when Hollowell<br />
Brethren in Christ<br />
Church opted to<br />
scrap plans for a new<br />
facility in favor of<br />
converting the gymnasium<br />
into a multipurpose<br />
facility.<br />
“To me, the<br />
word ‘gymnatorium’<br />
screams compromise,<br />
as in, ‘does nei-<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
ther one well,’” said Christiano, who ended up<br />
designing and installing all of the project’s<br />
sound, lighting, and projection, as well as<br />
much of the acoustics. “It makes me nervous.”<br />
Adding to Christiano’s anxiety was the<br />
“absolutely amazing ear” of the person who<br />
would judge the project a success or failure:<br />
Paul Beard, maker of top-quality resonator<br />
guitars, who is the senior sound reinforcement<br />
tech at Hollowell.<br />
“People like Jerry Douglas use Paul’s<br />
guitars,” said Christiano. “The system had to<br />
deliver superlative midrange clarity and a<br />
transparent, balanced response from top to<br />
bottom. Paul would be sure to hear any shortcomings,<br />
however minor.”<br />
But careful planning, abundant acoustical<br />
treatment, and top-rate gear, including<br />
Danley Sound Labs loudspeakers and Ashly<br />
DSP, helped the project win Beard’s approval,<br />
and also an award recognizing successful<br />
renovations among churches with 800 seats<br />
or fewer.<br />
Christiano and acoustician Neil Thompson<br />
Shade of akustx developed a plan to<br />
knock the gym’s five-second, 500Hz-centered<br />
reverb down to an even one second. They<br />
built “clouds” of perforated aluminum filled<br />
with twelve-inches of unfaced fiberglass,<br />
which, in addition to damping reflections,<br />
served to protect the lighting and projection<br />
equipment from errant basketballs. In<br />
addition, Shade had the idea of repurposing<br />
an overhang that ran all the way around the<br />
room. The team filled it with four feet of fiberglass<br />
and replaced the sheetrock of the soffit<br />
with perforated aluminum, effectively building<br />
a huge bass trap.<br />
The choice of loudspeakers for Christiano<br />
was an easy one. “I’ve been doing live sound<br />
now for 26 years,” he said. “Danley Sound Labs<br />
builds the very finest sound reinforcement<br />
loudspeakers that I have ever heard. The midrange<br />
clarity, three-dimensional depth, and<br />
separation are fantastic.”<br />
Because of their efficiency, Christiano<br />
only needed two full-range cabinets with fill<br />
from a center cluster of three Fulcrum eightinch<br />
loudspeakers. On either end of the stage,<br />
a flown Danley SH-96 delivers full program<br />
content with stereo imaging. Powersoft K3<br />
and K10 amplifiers provide power.<br />
To provide the system with the modest<br />
conditioning required of the Danley speakers<br />
and, perhaps more importantly, flexibility,<br />
Christiano installed a modular Ashly<br />
ne24.24M DSP with four inputs and eight<br />
outputs. Together with a Crestron touch-panel<br />
interface, the Ashly ne24.24M affords Hollowell<br />
tremendous flexibility to deploy the<br />
technology to match the scale of a particular<br />
event.<br />
“The Ashly programming interface is<br />
remarkably easy,” Christiano said, also crediting<br />
the ne24.24M’s reliability and audio<br />
quality. Because the Ashly ne24.24M is network<br />
ready, Christiano was able to attach the<br />
sound system to the church’s local wireless<br />
network and adjust settings from a netbook.<br />
Consistent with its “gymnatorium” functionality,<br />
Christiano installed a Roland M<br />
400 digital mixer, which is capable of being<br />
disconnected and rolled away in a matter of<br />
moments. The church also opted for Roland’s<br />
on-stage monitoring system, affording each<br />
band member his or her own mix with integrated<br />
ambient mics to facilitate band banter.<br />
“The whole point of doing this was certainly<br />
not to have the technology be an<br />
end unto itself,” said Christiano. “Rather, the<br />
church wanted to be able to communicate in<br />
the most effective way, and they wanted to<br />
be a resource for the community. Perhaps the<br />
coolest testament to their content-centered<br />
vision is the fact that by going with a ‘gymnatorium,’<br />
they ensured that money would<br />
be left over to fund the programming in that<br />
space.<br />
“I think that other churches can learn<br />
from Hollowell’s example,” Christiano continued.<br />
“Often, church leaders are afraid that the<br />
older members will be turned off by technology.<br />
At Hollowell, the exact opposite is true.<br />
The older members enjoy seeing and hearing<br />
clearly, and, perhaps more importantly, they<br />
enjoy seeing the younger members of the<br />
church fully engaged.”
SDI Controls Rooftop Noise Levels Using SymNet at Gansevoort Beach Hotel<br />
MIAMI BEACH, FL — Amenities at the<br />
Gansevoort Miami Beach hotel, spa and<br />
resort included a 55,000 square-foot beach<br />
club, an infinity pool, and an 18th-floor<br />
rooftop oasis and lounge. But it’s not an island<br />
unto itself, and some rooftop parties<br />
have resulted in noise ordinance violations.<br />
“There were two overarching goals<br />
in the original installation at Gansevoort<br />
Miami Beach,” said David Lynn, principal<br />
at Systems Design & Integration, which<br />
had built a sound system based on Symetrix’s<br />
SymNet DSP three years ago and was<br />
called back to deal with the rooftop noise<br />
issues after the system they had originally<br />
installed had gotten surreptitiously circumvented.<br />
“First,” Lynn noted, “the management<br />
wanted a way to seamlessly deliver multiple<br />
customized music playlists to different<br />
zones in the hotel in full fidelity, with<br />
control over content and volume available<br />
from their business PCs at a host of locations<br />
throughout the hotel. Second, the<br />
system had to be fully code-compliant,<br />
meaning both that it coordinated appropriately<br />
with the emergency management<br />
systems and that it regulated output so as<br />
not to violate local noise laws.”<br />
The initial integration three years ago<br />
proved especially challenging, as the building<br />
provided very little in the way of infrastructure.<br />
Lynn, working together with Michael<br />
Chafee of Michael Chafee Enterprises,<br />
selected SymNet Express Cobra DSP hardware<br />
to facilitate audio distribution using<br />
only CAT-5 cable.<br />
“Symetrix and the SymNet brand build<br />
seamless products that are straightforward<br />
to program and backed by reliable manufacturing<br />
practices and faultless technical<br />
support,” said Lynn. “The technology is easy<br />
and fast for me, and building customized<br />
wall panels for the end users is simple. At<br />
Gansevoort Miami Beach, we use a combination<br />
of SymNet ARC push-button wall<br />
panels and Crestron touch-screen displays.”<br />
Four equipment racks, with five SymNet<br />
Express 8x8 Cobra DSPs and one Express<br />
12x4 Cobra DSP between them, form the<br />
sonic heart of Gansevoort Miami Beach.<br />
One rack covers the ballrooms and the mezzanine.<br />
A second rack located in the security<br />
area delivers music to the main lobby,<br />
the common areas, and the entrance. The<br />
third rack feeds the pool deck and mezzanine-level<br />
deck. Finally, a fourth rack covers<br />
the roof deck, the roof lobby, and the<br />
elevators.<br />
EV, ADA, and Bi-Amp amplifiers provide<br />
power to JBL, Bogen-Near and EV<br />
loudspeakers. Crestron touch-panels at the<br />
main lobby desk, elevator control room,<br />
outdoor pool deck, and general managers’<br />
area provide redundant control over every<br />
aspect of the entire system. Strategically located<br />
SymNet ARC push-button wall panels<br />
allow users to select program material and<br />
adjust volume within specific zones.<br />
Lynn had integrated the monitor for the<br />
rooftop portable DJ booth so as to remain<br />
on the right side of the law. The SymNet<br />
hardware put a reliable ceiling on how loud<br />
the DJ could push the monitor. All was well<br />
until someone (who was more concerned<br />
with the vibe of the rooftop parties than<br />
with the ordinances the hotel must abide by)<br />
replaced the rooftop system to circumvent<br />
the controls that Lynn and Chafee had so<br />
carefully engineered. Not surprisingly, Gansevoort<br />
Miami Beach received complaints<br />
and citations. Credit Suisse, the hotel’s current<br />
owner, brought in new management<br />
and called Lynn back to undo the damage.<br />
Lynn, in turn, called back Chafee along<br />
with Don Washburn of The Audio Bug (Hollywood,<br />
Florida). He reinstalled SymNet<br />
components so that the entire hotel would<br />
come back under unified control — again<br />
from any of the hotel’s business PCs. The<br />
team then undertook measurements, limiting<br />
and conditioning the outdoor output<br />
so as to minimize the impact on neighbors<br />
while still delivering as much perceived volume<br />
as possible to the hotel’s hard-partying<br />
guests.<br />
News<br />
Gansevoort Miami Beach’s rooftop lounge.
12<br />
International News<br />
ABBA-Based Show Live On Stage with Riedel RockNet<br />
HAMBURG, Germany — PRG Germany is<br />
supporting a touring replica of ABBA’s 1979<br />
performance at London’s Wembley Arena<br />
called ABBA — The Concert, by AbbAgain.<br />
The tour features more than a dozen musicians<br />
and 150 minutes of ABBA songs, and to<br />
distribute audio at the various tour locations,<br />
the show is using a RockNet digital audio network<br />
from Riedel Communications.<br />
To connect the stage and <strong>FOH</strong> into a<br />
single audio network, PRG Germany is using<br />
a set of three RockNet 100 interfaces, a costefficient<br />
alternative based on RockNet 300<br />
technology. RockNet 100 provides 80 audio<br />
channels with 48 kHz/24 bit digital audio<br />
quality.<br />
The RockNet 100 interfaces are combined<br />
with six RockNet RN.141.MY interface<br />
cards for digital Yamaha consoles.<br />
RockNet‘s Independent Gain feature lets<br />
users control each input independently<br />
from various points of the network. This<br />
means different consoles can use the same<br />
input with different gain settings without a<br />
need for an additional passive splitter, simplifying<br />
installations.<br />
“Using RockNet makes the installation<br />
and configuration of the audio network<br />
for shows a breeze,”<br />
said Marco Mahl, account<br />
manager at PRG<br />
Germany. “The intuitive<br />
user interface of the<br />
devices allows for easy<br />
configuration even without<br />
a PC. Thanks to the<br />
modular approach we<br />
can easily add RockNet<br />
300 modules such as a<br />
digital in/out interface<br />
to handle all our digital<br />
AES signals.”<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
ABBA — The Concert performed by AbbAgain<br />
Rubicon AS Purchases<br />
36-Box Martin Audio<br />
MLA System<br />
OSLO, Norway — Rubicon AS purchased an<br />
MLA rig consisting of 20 MLA top boxes, 12 MLX<br />
subs, and four MLD Downfill enclosures from<br />
their local distributor, em nordic AS. The order<br />
follows major system purchases by launch customers<br />
Complete Audio of Germany and North<br />
Carolina-based Special Event Services (SES).<br />
By purchasing 36 enclosures, Rubicon, which<br />
handles a wide range of assignments from festivals<br />
to corporate events and one-off club gigs,<br />
will be able to divide the rig into two separate<br />
systems where necessary, having doubled up on<br />
the power distribution and control.<br />
Based in Oslo, Rubicon has been a regular<br />
customer of em nordic since the early 1990s.<br />
They were the first rental company in Norway to<br />
purchase a Martin Audio W8LC system, and they<br />
also have a large quantity of LE Series monitors<br />
as well as a W8LM rig.<br />
While they had been considering a larger<br />
main system, they had no immediate plans to<br />
supersede the W8LC — until MLA came along.<br />
As em nordic’s Øystein Wierli noted, he had<br />
the opportunity to hear the MLA at its first demo<br />
at London’s Earls Court a year ago.<br />
“I immediately informed Rubicon head of<br />
sound, Roar Ånestad, that the MLA system broke<br />
new ground and then had many long discussions<br />
with him about upgrading their main PA<br />
system,” said Wierli.<br />
Ånestad himself later attended an MLA<br />
demo and presentation in Antwerp, Belgium,<br />
and by September, the remainder of Rubicon’s<br />
sound department was sold on the system after<br />
attending R&D director Jason Baird’s seminar at<br />
September’s PLASA Show.<br />
By early November, Wierli and Ånestad were<br />
at the Martin Audio factory working out the final<br />
technical details, which would enable them to<br />
cater for smaller venues with the scaled down<br />
rig, while maintaining the capability of handling<br />
large venues like the 9,000-seat Oslo Spektrum<br />
with a single system.<br />
Martin Audio will support Rubicon with<br />
hands-on system training and tour support during<br />
the initial period, after which Øystein Wierli<br />
and his team at em nordic will take over.<br />
From left, Roar Ånestad, Rubicon; Øystein Wierli, em Nordic.
www.fohonline.com<br />
International News<br />
Barcelona’s BAM Festival Stages Use EAW and Lab.gruppen Sound Systems<br />
BARCELONA, Spain — The BAM (Barcelona<br />
Acciò Musical) Festival, which runs concurrently<br />
with the Spanish city’s traditional<br />
La Mercè celebrations, has attracted 120,000<br />
music fans with mostly free, mostly open-air<br />
concerts throughout the downtown area.<br />
This year’s 18th annual BAM Festival included<br />
a host of European and American rock,<br />
hip-hop and dance artists, such as Goldfrapp,<br />
OK Go, Anti-Pop Consortium, Belle & Sebastian<br />
and El Guincho, and featured substantial<br />
Lab.gruppen-powered EAW P.A. systems on<br />
the MTV-BAM and Electro-BAM stages at the<br />
Parc del Fòrum.<br />
For the MTV-BAM stage (larger of the<br />
two), production sound company Focus, S.A.<br />
supplied an EAW speaker system including<br />
12 KF760 long-throw line array modules, four<br />
KF730 compact line array modules and eight<br />
SB730 compact line array subwoofers per<br />
side, all under the control of UX8800 digital<br />
signal processors.<br />
Because of the size of the listening area<br />
that had to be covered, Focus designed the<br />
system to project the low frequencies, taking<br />
advantage of the omni-directional pattern<br />
of the KF760 below 150 Hz to provide additional<br />
coverage control. Alignment of the system<br />
was simplified by keeping the distance<br />
between the KF760/KF730 modules and the<br />
subs to just six feet.<br />
Nobel Peace Prize<br />
Concert Relies on<br />
Midas Consoles<br />
OSLO, Norway — The 2010 Nobel Peace<br />
Prize Concert took place at the Oslo Spektrum<br />
in December, with the live show and<br />
broadcast once again handled by a network<br />
of Midas digital consoles.<br />
Norwegian audio company AVAB-CAC<br />
deployed two Midas XL8 live performance<br />
systems together with two PRO6s and one<br />
PRO9 live audio systems, making use of the<br />
AES50 networking capabilities. The setup was<br />
similar to the 2009 event, with three stages<br />
facilitating the rapid changeovers.<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> duties were handled by two XL8s,<br />
one taking care of the 72-piece Norwegian<br />
Radio Orchestra, leaving the second console<br />
free for visiting engineers and emcees.<br />
AVAB-CAC used 192 channels of Midas<br />
DL431 active mic splitter, plus a number of<br />
Midas DL451 and DL351 modular I/O devices,<br />
totalling nearly 400 inputs, all accessible<br />
to all five consoles via the AES50 network.<br />
Stage sound was provided by two PRO6s<br />
and a PRO9, one for each of the three stages,<br />
supplying numerous in-ear mixes for bands<br />
and orchestra, as well as to the multiple floor<br />
monitors across all three stages.<br />
Midas XL8s at <strong>FOH</strong> for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize concert<br />
Additional ground-stacked EAW subs<br />
boosted the low end. “It was a pop rock festival,<br />
so we designed a cardioid configuration<br />
with a ‘double line arc’ with 16 SB1000z<br />
[large format subwoofers], which delivered<br />
an incredible punch in the central area, where<br />
most of the audience was located,” said Pepe<br />
Ferrer of Focus S.A. The system also included<br />
an infill of KF750 High Output Array Loudspeakers<br />
in a left-right configuration with<br />
four KF730 modules for mono voice front fill.<br />
The entire EAW system was powered by<br />
Lab.gruppen’s FP+ Series and fP Series amplifiers.<br />
Twelve FP 10000Q and pair of FP 13000,<br />
along with several racks each of FP 4000 and<br />
fP 3400, provided over 80<br />
reliable channels of sound<br />
for the main <strong>FOH</strong> system,<br />
including the additional<br />
ground stacked subs. Additional<br />
racks containing a<br />
mix of FP+ and smaller fP<br />
Series models handled the<br />
infill and sidefill arrays and<br />
mono voice front fill.<br />
Both the EAW and Lab.<br />
gruppen products were<br />
supplied to Focus, S.A. by<br />
Spain-based Pro3 & Co.<br />
The MTV-BAM stage at the Barcelona Acciò Musical Festival<br />
2011 JANUARY<br />
13
On the Move<br />
A u d i o -<br />
T e c h n i c a<br />
r e c e n t l y<br />
opened a<br />
new facility,<br />
Technica<br />
Fukui, which<br />
c o m b i n e s Audio-Technica’s new facility in Echizen<br />
three pre-ex- City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan.<br />
isting A-T Fukuokabranches<br />
into one location. The new facility has<br />
a dedicated acoustic lab and an anechoic<br />
chamber designed for audio testing for<br />
spectrum-efficient wireless technologies.<br />
Hosa Technology named Mayumi<br />
Martinez to the newly created position<br />
of executive vice president. Martinez’ appointment<br />
is intended to prepare the company<br />
for the next generation of leadership<br />
14<br />
New Gear<br />
JANUARY 2011<br />
as founding<br />
president Sho<br />
Sato transitions<br />
to ret<br />
i r e m e n t .<br />
Martinez, a<br />
financial specialist<br />
with a<br />
b a c k g round<br />
in mortgage products, will eventually be<br />
responsible for all aspects of the company’s<br />
operations.<br />
Sirius Showequipment AG in Frankfurt<br />
and Amptown-Verleih GmbH & Co.<br />
KG in Hamburg recently announced that<br />
they had joined forces in Sept. 2010. The<br />
two companies also announced plans to<br />
open an office and warehouse location in<br />
Munich in early 2011.<br />
APB ProSpec Rackmount Mixers<br />
APB’s ProSpec mixers are for Mono, Stereo, or LCR mixing<br />
in installations and portable applications. Each of the<br />
ProSpec-1U8M’s 8 mic/line input channels features a Burr-<br />
Brown microphone pre-amplifier with APB-engineered<br />
support electronics, and every input channel has internally-lit<br />
switches for Solo, 48 Volt, Polarity Reverse, and<br />
High-Pass filter functions. A dynamic dual-colored LED is<br />
ProSpec-1U8M Mixer<br />
on each input channel for signal monitoring. Channel<br />
assignment can be selected by an additional per channel-illuminated switch to Left Right (with<br />
pan control) or Center mix buses. Master output level functions are controlled by a single L-C-R<br />
master level control. THAT Corporation OutSmarts line drivers feed individual Left, Right, and<br />
Center output XLR connectors. Output meters are provided to monitor signal levels of Left,<br />
Right and Center, and a switch is provided to sum Left-Right mix buses into a mono signal. An<br />
option linking system is also available. MSRP for ProSpec-1U8M: $990.<br />
apb-dynasonics.com<br />
Bag End Powered Double 10 Bass Systems<br />
Bag End is offering its Infra processor as a built-in option<br />
in its self-powered double 10 subwoofer systems. With Infra<br />
inside, both the IPD10E-I (installation enclosure) and the<br />
IPD10E-R (portable enclosure) can be implemented into a<br />
variety of sound systems. Within the IPD10E-I and IPD10E-R<br />
models, a full range line level signal is sent to the systems input.<br />
The internal Infra integrator, Minima One amplifier and<br />
loudspeaker are designed to process the signal into a flat<br />
response low frequency acoustic output. The dynamic filter<br />
protection threshold is internally preset to eliminate distortion<br />
and accidental overload. The 1,000-watt Minima One<br />
Bag End IPD10E-R<br />
amplifier weighs 5 pounds. Its auto sensing AC line automatically<br />
accepts any line voltage from 88 to 270 volts. Analog InGenius balanced line receiver inputs<br />
provide high common mode rejection and remove unwanted noise, and the high efficiency, lowheat<br />
amplifier design includes remote turn on/off control.<br />
bagend.com<br />
König & Meyer iPad Holder with Prismatic Clamp<br />
Responding to an oft-heard request at InfoComm — an<br />
iPad holder that could be attached to all things musical —<br />
König & Meyer have developed for NAMM an iPad clip fixture<br />
that can secure an iPad to any diameter object, from 7 to 30<br />
mm / .27 to 1.18 inches. The iPad can be clipped into and out<br />
of the frame, which is designed with a wide swing range of<br />
the clamp to enable each user to get their individual position<br />
needed, and the swing movement can be adjusted to<br />
swing easily, or to be held firmly in place (or somewhere in<br />
between). The iPad, of course, can also be turned between portrait and landscape format.<br />
connollymusic.com<br />
Guard Dog Low Profile Cable Protectors with<br />
Added Traction<br />
Guard Dog Low Profile Cable Protectors are now available<br />
with optional Velcro strips for use on carpet and/or<br />
anti-slip rubber pads for use on smooth surfaces. With 1,<br />
2, 3, or 5 channels, these interlocking protectors are 1.25”<br />
high with a .75” channel height. They feature either standard<br />
ramps or low-angle ADA Compliant ramps.<br />
cableprotector.com<br />
S o u n d -<br />
is now vice<br />
craft Studer<br />
president of<br />
has hired<br />
sales and mar-<br />
Garry Blackketing.<br />
Now<br />
more to lead<br />
in charge of<br />
the com-<br />
w o r l d w i d e<br />
pany’s new<br />
sales, he will<br />
Mayumi Martinez<br />
product dev<br />
e l o p m e n t<br />
Garry Blackmore<br />
lead all international<br />
sales,<br />
Paul Roberts<br />
push. Black-<br />
manage U.S.<br />
more, who has a BSC in computer science, regional and international sales representatives,<br />
had worked on developing Xerox’s multi- develop corporate marketing and promotion<br />
function systems and is qualified as a Prince2 strategies and oversee the shipping and techni-<br />
practitioner with experience in electronics cal support departments. Macomber, previous-<br />
design, software development, systems engily inside sales and marketing manager, is now<br />
neering and project management across the director of business development. Macomber,<br />
U.K., U.S. and Asia.<br />
who has been with Symetrix for five years, will<br />
continue to support the company’s inside sales<br />
Symetrix announced the promotions of and marketing efforts, taking on new responsi-<br />
Paul Roberts and Brooke Macomber. Roberts, bilities in the areas of operations and strategic<br />
previously director of sales and marketing, planning.<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
QSC GX7 Amplifier<br />
QSC Audio Products’ GX7 features 725W<br />
per channel at 8-ohms and 1000W per<br />
channel at 4-ohms. The unit features a QSC<br />
PowerLight power supply, and the 120V<br />
version weighs just 15.5 lbs. GX7 is cooled<br />
with a low-noise, variable speed fan with<br />
rear-to-front airflow, and like the GX3 and<br />
GX5, it features XLR, 1/4” TRS and phono input<br />
connectors, Speakon and binding post<br />
outputs, built-in subwoofer/satellite crossover control, detented gain knobs, front-panel<br />
LED indicators and GuardRail amplifier and speaker protection. MSRP: $699.<br />
qscaudio.com<br />
Roland VR-5 PDF<br />
Roland Systems Group’s VR-5 combines<br />
the functionality of a video switcher, audio<br />
mixer, video playback, recorder, preview monitors<br />
and output for web streaming. Features<br />
include 4-channel video switcher; two mono<br />
and five stereo mixable audio channels; builtin<br />
scan converter for PC input; built-in dual<br />
LCD monitors with touch control for easier video<br />
source selection; three video layers which<br />
include two video sources plus DSK (downstream<br />
keyer); MPEG-4 player/recorder; and<br />
USB video/audio class device for web streaming via USTREAM, Stickam, Skype or iChat.<br />
rolandsystemsgroup.com<br />
WorxAudio TrueLine V5<br />
WorxAudio Technologies’ TrueLine V5 Ultra-<br />
Compact Line Array features a medium format<br />
1-inch exit compression driver, a stabilized Flat-<br />
Wave Former wave shaping device, dual 5-inch<br />
cone transducers and an Acoustic Intergrading<br />
Module (A.I.M.). The V5 has a 120-degree<br />
symmetrical horizontal coverage pattern and a<br />
10-degree vertical dispersion pattern arrayable<br />
in 1-degree increments, and serves as a 16-ohm<br />
passive loudspeaker system with the flexibility<br />
of having multiple box setups all driven by a<br />
common amplifier.<br />
worxaudio.com<br />
XTA iCore2<br />
XTA’s iCore2 extends the iCore software<br />
package developed for MC² Audio’s<br />
Ti Series and XTA’s DC1048 integrated audio<br />
management system, supporting all<br />
4Series products. The company has also<br />
added new features to simplify live sound<br />
and installed operating systems, with enhancements<br />
to parameter linking, custom<br />
control panels, application auto-update<br />
and wireless kit compatibility. iCore2 works<br />
with Windows XP, Vista and Win7.<br />
xta.co.uk
16<br />
Showtime TOP<br />
Bon Jovi<br />
Soundco<br />
Clair<br />
Crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineer: Joe O’Herlihy<br />
Monitor Mixers: Dave Skaff, Niall Slevin, Alistair McMillan<br />
Consultant: Robbie Adams<br />
System Engineers: Jo Ravitch (crew chief), David Coyle<br />
Monitor System Engineers: Chris Fulton, Jason O’Dell<br />
Techs: Blocker, Dave Coyle , Hannes Dander, Thomas “Duds”<br />
Ford, Chris Fulton, Kelsey Gingrich, Pascal Harlaut, Joel Merrill,<br />
Jason O’Dell, Vincent Perreux, Jennifer Smola<br />
Gear<br />
<strong>FOH</strong><br />
Console: DiGiCo SD7<br />
Speakers: Clair i-5, i-5b, S-4, FF-2H, BT-218, i-DL<br />
Amps: Lab.gruppen PLM1000, PLM14000, Powersoft K10<br />
AC/DC<br />
Steve JenningS<br />
Soundco<br />
Clair<br />
Crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineer: Horace Ward<br />
Monitor Engineer: Ramon Morales<br />
Systems Engineer: Tony Smith<br />
Crew Chief: Dan Klocker<br />
RF Tech: Bill Flugan<br />
Techs: Jim Allen, Wayne Bacon, James LaMarca, Kevin<br />
Szafraniec<br />
Black Eyed Peas<br />
Soundco<br />
Clair<br />
3<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
10 TOURS<br />
crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineer: Dave Eisenhauer<br />
Monitor Engineers: Glenn Collett, Andy Hill<br />
Crew Chief/System Engineer: Mike Allison<br />
Monitor System Engineer: Dustin Ponscheck<br />
Technician: Chris King<br />
Gear<br />
<strong>FOH</strong><br />
Console: Midas XL4<br />
Speakers: Clair i-5/i-5B, i-3, BT-218, FF-II<br />
Amps: Lab.gruppen<br />
Mics: Sennheiser MD 421, Countryman DI, AKG 414,<br />
Mics: Mics – Shure SM57, SM58, PG58, SM81, Beta 52, Beta<br />
58a, Beta 98, Beta 91, WL184, AKG 414, 451EB, Sennheiser<br />
MKH-416, MD-421, Beyer M88, Audio Technica AT4050, DPA<br />
4088, 4065, Countryman Type 85 DI<br />
Processing: TC Electronic TC 2290, Eventide 3500, Yamaha<br />
SPX1000, Lexicon PCM-70, Summit Audio DCL-200, Avalon<br />
VT-737, Manley Voxbox<br />
MON<br />
Consoles: 2 DiGiCo SD7s, Digidesign D-Show Profile<br />
Speakers: Clair 12AMII, Sennheiser G2 PMs, Future Sonics<br />
PMs<br />
Amps: Lab.gruppen<br />
Crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Mixer: Paul “Pab” Boothroyd<br />
Systems Engineers: Christopher Nichols, Richard<br />
Thompson<br />
Monitor Mixer: Jon Lewis<br />
Monitor Systems Engineers: Kenneth Check, Paul Swan<br />
Techs: Tino Kreischatus, Adam Rebacz, Ricardo Roman,<br />
Andrew Walker<br />
Gear<br />
<strong>FOH</strong><br />
Consoles: Midas Pro 40, Midas Pro6<br />
5<br />
1<br />
Gear<br />
<strong>FOH</strong><br />
Console: Avid VENUE Profile<br />
Speakers: d&b audiotechnik J8 (48), J12 (8), J-SUB (12), B2-<br />
SUB (12), Q10 (8)<br />
Amps: d&b audiotechnik D12<br />
Mics: Sennheiser RF & PMs<br />
Processing: Waves<br />
MON<br />
Console: DiGiCo SD7<br />
Crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineer: David Haines<br />
Monitor Engineers: Kevin Glendinning, Ryan Cecil, Thomas<br />
Huntington<br />
System Engineer/Crew Chief: Dave Moncrieffe<br />
Techs: Sean Baca, Donovan Friedman, Simon Mathews, Jeff<br />
Lutgen, Tzuriel Fenigstein<br />
Gear<br />
<strong>FOH</strong><br />
Console: Avid VENUE D-Show<br />
Speakers: Clair i-5 and i-5B main PA<br />
Amps: Lab.gruppen<br />
2<br />
Shure SM 91, Beta 52, Beta 58A, SM 98, SM 57, SM 58,<br />
Sennheiser MKH-416, AKG 460 (hard-wired); Shure UR<br />
(wireless)<br />
Processing: Aphex 622, TC M5000, TC M2000, Summit<br />
TLA 100, Summit DCL-200, Smart Research C2, Empirical<br />
Labs EL-8, Amek 9098, TC 2290<br />
MON<br />
Console: 2 x Midas Heritage 3000<br />
Speakers: Clair 12am, 212AM, SRM, L3 NT/LF, ML-18<br />
PMs: Shure PSM 600/PSM 700, Sennheiser G2<br />
Amps: Lab.gruppen<br />
Processing: Aphex gates 622, TC Electronics M5000,<br />
Summit DCL 200, Yamaha SPX 990, TC D2, DBX 160A<br />
Speakers: Electro-Voice X-Array, Clair I-5<br />
Amps: Electro-Voice P3000, Crown 3600 Macro-Tech<br />
Mics: Audix, AKG, Shure<br />
Processing: Summit Audio TLA-100, GML 8200, dbx<br />
160SL, Drawmer DS201, TC Electronic M6000<br />
MON<br />
Consoles: Midas Heritage 4000, Midas Pro6<br />
Speakers: Firehouse wedges, X-Array sidefills, Sennheiser<br />
G2, G3 PMs<br />
Amps: Crown 36x12 Macro-Tech, Electro-Voice P3000<br />
4<br />
U2<br />
Soundco<br />
Clair<br />
Lady Gaga Gaga<br />
Mics: Shure, Audio-Technica, AKG, Countryman DI (hardwired);<br />
Shure UR4D (wireless)<br />
Processing: Crane Song Phoenix, TC Electronic TC 2290, TC<br />
Finalizer 96K, Tascam CD-01 and CD/R- RW901<br />
MON<br />
Console: Avid VENUE Profile<br />
Speakers: Prism Blue and Prism Sub sidefills, Prism SRM<br />
floor monitors<br />
PMs: Sennheiser 2000 series, Shure PSM 600 (hard-wired)<br />
Amps: Crown<br />
Photo courteSy of XL video<br />
Soundco<br />
Eighth Day Sound
OF 2010<br />
James Taylor<br />
& Carole King<br />
linDa evans<br />
Soundco<br />
Clair<br />
Crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineer: JD Brill<br />
Systems Engineers: Andrew Baldwin, Michael Conner,<br />
Wade Crawford, Jason Vrobel<br />
Monitor Systems Engineers: Daniel Badorine, David Ferretti,<br />
Christopher Fulton, Spencer Thomason<br />
Techs: Brandon Allison, Ben Blocker, Jeremy Bolton, Kyle<br />
Gish, Carey Hargrove, Corey Harris, Joel Merrill, Matt Patterson,<br />
Erik Swanson, Timothy Winters<br />
Gear<br />
<strong>FOH</strong><br />
Console: Yamaha PM1D<br />
Speakers: Clair i-4, Clair S4 Sub, Clair R4, Clair P4, Clair P2<br />
Metallica<br />
Soundco<br />
Thunder Audio Inc.<br />
Crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineer: Jeff Thomas<br />
Monitor Engineer: Ian Kuhn, Lonnie Quinn<br />
Systems Engineer: Tom Lyon<br />
Production Manager: Steven “Hank” McHugh<br />
Tour Manager: Bill Greer<br />
System Techs: Greg Botimer, Jeff Child, Tony Norris, Joe<br />
Lawlor<br />
Paul McCartney<br />
Brantley Gutierrez<br />
Soundco<br />
Clair<br />
8<br />
10<br />
6<br />
Crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineer: David Morgan<br />
Monitor Engineers: Kevin Kapler, Rolland Ryan<br />
Systems Engineer: Tim Holder<br />
Audio Techs: Austin Dudley, Corey Harris<br />
Gear*<br />
<strong>FOH</strong><br />
Console: Avid VENUE D-Show<br />
Speakers: Clair i3<br />
Amps: Lab.gruppen<br />
Mics: Earthworks, Shure, Telefunken<br />
Amps: Crest, Crown, Powersoft<br />
Processing: BSS DPR-404; Lexicon 960L, PCM 91; Eventide<br />
H3500; TC Electronic TC 2290, TC EQ Station<br />
MON<br />
Consoles: 2 Midas Heritage 3000, Avid VENUE<br />
Speakers: Clair 12AM, Clair ML-18<br />
Amps: Crown<br />
Processing: TC Electronic TC 1128, Lexicon PCM 91<br />
Mics: Shure, Audio Technica, AKG<br />
PMs: Sennheiser G2<br />
RF: Shure<br />
Crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineer: Big Mick Hughes<br />
Monitor Engineer: Bob Cowan<br />
Systems Engineer: Joe Caruso<br />
Production Manager: Arthur Kemish<br />
Tour Manager: Dick Adams<br />
System Techs: Jonathan Day, Jason Mc, Jason McCarrick,<br />
Josh Schitz, Toshi Sugitani, Paul White<br />
Gear<br />
<strong>FOH</strong><br />
Console: Midas XL8<br />
Ranked by total gross earnings, according to Billboard Boxscore,<br />
from Nov. 22, 2009 through Nov. 20, 2010.<br />
Gear<br />
<strong>FOH</strong><br />
Console: Avid VENUE<br />
Speakers: Meyer Sound MILO, MICA, 700-HP subs, MSL-4,<br />
CQ-2, UPJ-1P<br />
Processing: Meyer Sound Galileo, SIM 3, Rational Acoustics<br />
Smaart 7.0, Sennheiser EM 2003, Avid HD3 Pro Tools<br />
MON<br />
Consoles: Avid VENUE Profile, SC-48<br />
Speakers: Meyer Sound MJF-212A, USM-1, UM-1 monitor<br />
wedges; Sensaphonics 2X PMs, Clark Synthesis Tactile<br />
Sound transducer<br />
Amps: Crest 7001, Lab.gruppen fP 2400<br />
Crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineers: Paul “Pab” Boothroyd, Joe Dougherty<br />
Systems Engineers: Wade Crawford, Kevin Gilpatric,<br />
Markus Meyer, Rich Schoenadel, Daniel Taake, Jason Vrobel<br />
Monitor Engineer: John “Grubby” Callis<br />
Monitor Systems Engineers: Donald Baker, James Bump,<br />
Carey Hargrove, Martin Santos, Paul Swan<br />
Techs: Sean Baca, Ben Blocker, Kevin Dennis, Donovan<br />
Friedman, Mike Gamble, Roland Heuberger, Antonius<br />
Joosten, Brian Maher, Joel Merrill, Matt Patterson, Joseph<br />
Pearce, David Quigley, Carlos Sallaberry, Vaitl Hermann,<br />
James Ward II, Randy Weinholtz, Jeff Wuerth<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
Processing: Lake, Pro Tools, TC Electronic, Trillium<br />
Labs, Waves<br />
MON<br />
Console: Avid VENUE Profile<br />
Speakers: Sennheiser G3 IEM, wedges<br />
*Partial List<br />
7<br />
Speakers: Meyer Sound Milo 120 plus 40 HP700 subs<br />
Processing: Galileo<br />
Mics: Audio-Technica, Shure<br />
Rigging: Chain Master<br />
Snake Assemblies: Apogee, LightViper<br />
MON<br />
Console: Midas XL4<br />
Speakers: 24 Meyer Sound MJF-212<br />
PMs: Sennheiser 2000 Series IEMs<br />
9<br />
Gear<br />
<strong>FOH</strong><br />
Console: Avid VENUE Profile<br />
Speakers: Clair i-Series (44 i-5, 36 i-5B subs), iDLs, P2s<br />
(infills)<br />
Amps: Crown, QSC<br />
Mics: Audix, AKG, DPA 4061, Shure Beta58, Beta57, SM57<br />
MON<br />
Consoles: Midas Heritage 3000s (2)<br />
Speakers: Clair SRM wedges (15), R4 Series IIIs (4)<br />
2011 JANUARY<br />
Eagles<br />
Dave Matthews Band<br />
17<br />
Soundco<br />
Clair<br />
Dominic Fanelli<br />
Soundco<br />
Pro Media/Ultrasound
The holiday season has enough stresses<br />
on its own without adding a two-week,<br />
12-show tour with longtime music superstars<br />
Vince Gill and Amy Grant. But Hugh<br />
Johnson, 21-year <strong>FOH</strong> engineer and production<br />
manager for Gill, takes it in stride, delivering<br />
excellence through consistency with a<br />
dedicated production team giving their best<br />
each day.<br />
Catching up with Johnson at Nashville’s<br />
Ryman Auditorium, I got a glimpse into the<br />
Twelve Days of Christmas production and<br />
some of the gear and techniques the crew<br />
uses to ensure that the theater-sized shows<br />
gave audiences the powerful sound yet intimate<br />
feel that Gill and Grant wanted to share<br />
during the holidays. Ranging in size from the<br />
2,300 seat Ryman up to the 4,600 seat Fox<br />
Theater in Atlanta, the tour showcased the<br />
talent of not only the headliners but also<br />
Gill’s top-notch band, including a four-piece<br />
horn section added for the holiday shows.<br />
Sound Image provided all <strong>FOH</strong> and monitor<br />
audio support for the tour, although at<br />
five venues including the Ryman the installed<br />
house PA was used. The Ryman system<br />
is comprised of JBL VerTec line arrays at<br />
left and right with subs in a center cluster<br />
that provide coverage in the balcony and<br />
deck-stacked VerTec speakers and subs for<br />
the floor seating. Front fills include JBL and<br />
Sound Image speakers and a delay ring of<br />
JBL 4212 speakers provide under-balcony<br />
coverage. Crown amps drive all speakers,<br />
and Ryman house audio engineer Les Banks<br />
manages the system through a Lake Contour<br />
wireless speaker controller, which is a<br />
key tool for visiting audio engineers to tune<br />
the room.<br />
Acoustic Challenges <strong>FOH</strong><br />
Johnson has mixed well over a hundred<br />
shows at the Ryman, and is well-accustomed<br />
to the acoustic challenges that the room<br />
presents. The all-wood design (the build-<br />
20<br />
Production Profile<br />
Vince Gill<br />
&<br />
Amy Grant<br />
Twelve Days of Christmas Tour<br />
Story & Photos by GregKopchinski<br />
ing was originally designed as a church and<br />
the audience sits in wood pews throughout<br />
the venue) creates a stark contrast between<br />
sound check and performance due to the<br />
change in high/mid frequency response<br />
when the room fills with people.<br />
Tuning each room for Vince Gill’s shows<br />
is of paramount importance to Johnson,<br />
who depends on his ears and his trustworthy<br />
Klark Teknik DN6000 RTA (paired with<br />
its original room mic) to adjust the system.<br />
Starting with Banks’ house preset, Johnson<br />
walks the upper and lower zones of the<br />
room with the Lake Contour to fine-tune<br />
during sound check, knowing that some adjustments<br />
will need to be made in real-time<br />
during the opening songs to compensate<br />
for the audience. Andrew Dowling and Todd<br />
Wines, assisting in tech duties from Sound<br />
Image, also use a SMAART analyzer to dou-<br />
Besides the atypical acoustics, touring<br />
groups at the Ryman also mix from a unique<br />
position: at the top of the balcony against<br />
the back wall aisle, which remains open for<br />
audience access throughout the show.<br />
ble check the room response throughout<br />
the show.<br />
Besides the atypical acoustics, touring<br />
groups at the Ryman also mix from a unique<br />
position: at the top of the balcony against<br />
the back wall aisle, which remains open for<br />
audience access throughout the show. The<br />
house console sits at center, but many tours<br />
including Gill’s bring in their own <strong>FOH</strong> gear<br />
which is set up in an area to the left of center,<br />
somewhat midway between the left side<br />
array and center subs. The tight fit is a cinch<br />
for Johnson, who pilots an Avid Venue Profile<br />
console and single outboard rack at <strong>FOH</strong>.<br />
Although the mix position is off-axis from<br />
any sweet spot, Johnson knows the sound<br />
differences between his position and the<br />
balcony seats below, and assembles a full<br />
mix through some magical reference offset<br />
in his mind.<br />
The Processing Chain <strong>FOH</strong><br />
To get the consistent, smooth vocal that<br />
Gill’s fans expect, Johnson utilizes his outboard<br />
processing rack, routing the analog<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
From left, crew members Danny Poland, Todd Wines, Hugh Johnson, Sam Parker and Andrew Dowling<br />
signal direct from the Shure KSM 9 mic into<br />
a vintage Summit MPC-100A compressor for<br />
warmth, followed by a BSS 901 multi-band<br />
compressor. Back at the console, the vocals<br />
get final processing with a Waves C4 plugin<br />
at the console. Vince’s vocal turns out to<br />
be the only analog signal (for the band) that<br />
gets snaked to <strong>FOH</strong>; all other vocals and instruments<br />
use the Avid stage rack and digital<br />
snake (the show takes about 60 inputs<br />
from stage to console, about a dozen more<br />
than the usual Gill tour).<br />
The tucked-away <strong>FOH</strong> position at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville<br />
This routing may seem counterintuitive<br />
at first, since the Profile is capable of<br />
duplicating the front-end compression using<br />
plug-ins, but Johnson explains that it<br />
is far more convenient to reach over and<br />
adjust a BSS setting on Gill’s vocal during<br />
song changes rather than juggling control<br />
screens to access a virtual knob and potentially<br />
missing a cue for another event on the<br />
control surface. The proof was obvious during<br />
the show, when Gill would sing with different<br />
vocal stylizations or talk to the audi-
22<br />
Production Profile<br />
Headline<br />
Deck<br />
ence, and Johnson was easily able to make<br />
fine adjustments while advancing his show<br />
snapshot or adjusting another element of<br />
the mix.<br />
The same logic holds for effects, specifically<br />
reverbs on vocals and drums. Since<br />
each song requires some manipulation of<br />
Hugh at the desk<br />
certain parameters, Johnson prefers using a<br />
TC Electronics M5000 inserted in the Profile<br />
channel signal path via AES. This gives him<br />
instant access to the knobs without changing<br />
his main screen view.<br />
For this show, Johnson uses a similar<br />
processing chain using onboard plug-ins for<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
Amy Grant and all other vocalists. (A wide<br />
variety of plug-ins is used on this tour across<br />
vocals and instruments, including the Waves<br />
Platinum bundle, Crane Song Phoenix and<br />
Trillium Lane Labs Space impulse response<br />
reverb.)<br />
Johnson also started using a new mic<br />
Crew<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineer/Production Manager:<br />
Hugh Johnson<br />
Monitor Engineer: Sam Parker<br />
Audio Vendor: Sound Image<br />
Sound Image Crew: Andrew Dowling,<br />
Danny Poland, Todd Wines<br />
combination on Vince Gill’s guitar amps for<br />
this tour. He found that blending the new<br />
Shure KSM313 ribbon microphone with a<br />
standard SM57 captured the full tone from<br />
Gill’s amps with just enough edge to drive<br />
the mix. Besides keeping consistent mic<br />
placement on the amps, Johnson also rides<br />
It is far more convenient to reach over and adjust a BSS setting on Gill’s<br />
vocal during song changes rather than juggling control screens.<br />
The Ryman Auditorium is a converted church, complete with pews.<br />
the faders to get the right balance for each<br />
song, especially given the varied program<br />
on this tour.<br />
Compressed Punch <strong>FOH</strong><br />
Another mix technique used by Johnson<br />
for the drum kit proved very effective. Since<br />
the song styles ranged from driving rock<br />
to smooth jazz and contemplative ballads,<br />
Billy Thomas (Gill’s drummer and occasional<br />
background vocalist) uses sticks and brushes<br />
throughout the program. Johnson fits the<br />
drums in the mix by blending the kit with a<br />
dual-mono compressed drum group, allowing<br />
him to easily add a more compressed<br />
punch to the kit without losing the full<br />
range on more dynamic ballads. In addition,<br />
Johnson dual-mics the kick drum with the<br />
Shure Beta 52 and KSM32 to capture both<br />
the punch and softer low end that keeps the<br />
Vince Gill and Amy Grant<br />
Twelve Days of Christmas<br />
kick in place in the mix.<br />
Gill’s monitor engineer, Sam Parker, also<br />
uses an Avid Profile console to drive 16 monitor<br />
mixes for the band. For this tour, Parker<br />
chose an L-Acoustics 115XT dual wedge<br />
configuration for Gill, and mixed Sound Image<br />
PD15 and PD12 wedges for the band<br />
and background vocalists. Parker also set up<br />
an IEM mix for Amy Grant, which she used<br />
along with the downstage wedge. Even in<br />
Gear<br />
<strong>FOH</strong>/Monitor consoles: Avid Venue Profile<br />
Tour PA: 24 JBL VerTec 4889, 12 JBL VerTec<br />
4880, 2 Sound Image G5, 2 Sound Image<br />
Theater Sub, 8 Sound Image 1160<br />
<strong>FOH</strong>/Monitor Amps: Crown I-Tech HD<br />
12000 w/System Architect<br />
Vince’s Wedges: L-Acoustics 115XT<br />
Band Wedges: Sound Image PD15, Sound<br />
Image PD12<br />
Vocal Mics: Shure KSM 9<br />
Vince’s Guitar Amp Mics: Shure KSM313,<br />
Shure SM57<br />
the relatively small theater setting, Parker’s<br />
stage volume did not bleed into Johnson’s<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> mix on the floor, a testament to his ability<br />
to give the band clean and precise mixes<br />
throughout the show.<br />
Johnson and his team return to the road<br />
with Vince Gill at the end of January, and<br />
are sure to continue delivering a consistent,<br />
powerful sound that keeps Gill’s fans on<br />
their feet.
When the time came to design its new<br />
worship facility, church management<br />
for White Oak Worship Center (formerly<br />
known as Full Gospel Fellowship Church<br />
of Danville, VA) knew that a well-implemented<br />
audio-visual system could do wonders toward<br />
making services more relevant.<br />
By closely coordinating the architectural<br />
process with a seasoned AV integrator, their<br />
new sanctuary is home to a new $300,000<br />
audio-visual system that incorporates multiple<br />
large screen displays, a sophisticated camera<br />
implementation and post production suite to<br />
edit services for broadcast and online streaming.<br />
The new sound reinforcement system<br />
from Greensboro, NC-based WorxAudio Technologies<br />
also plays a key role.<br />
Not an Afterthought <strong>FOH</strong><br />
Burlington NC-based Boone Audio Inc., a<br />
design/build firm specializing in AV integration<br />
for the house of worship, education, and<br />
corporate markets, was contracted to design<br />
and implement White Oak Worship Center’s<br />
new system. Paul Boone, president/CEO, dis-<br />
cussed the nature of the installation and the<br />
challenges it presented.<br />
“White Oak Worship Center’s sanctuary<br />
is 105 feet wide by 96 feet long in a quarterround<br />
configuration with a seating capacity<br />
for approximately 850 people” Boone explains.<br />
“The stage/pulpit area features a uniquely designed<br />
area for the choir that is located over<br />
the orchestra pit. In addition to the main floor<br />
that slopes up toward the back of the room,<br />
there is a balcony at the rear of the sanctuary<br />
that houses the <strong>FOH</strong> (front of house) mix position,<br />
which is equipped with a 64-In / 32-Out<br />
Allen & Heath iLive-T112 digital live audio mixing<br />
console.<br />
24<br />
Installations<br />
At White Oak Worship Center, the System was<br />
By R.Maxwell<br />
Music is Key <strong>FOH</strong><br />
“White Oak Worship Center’s services are<br />
very contemporary in nature,” Boone adds.<br />
“Music plays a prominent role, and church<br />
management made it very clear that, in addition<br />
to displays for visually reinforcing the<br />
message and aiding the congregation with<br />
lyrics, they wanted a top-notch sound system<br />
that delivered first-rate speech intelligibility<br />
while also being capable of handling<br />
high SPL music reproduction. Their worship<br />
services are very upbeat. The church uses<br />
a good-sized praise band to augment the<br />
worship leader and eight backing vocalists,<br />
and they also have a full choir of roughly 40<br />
voices.”<br />
To meet these requirements, Hugh Sarvis,<br />
WorxAudio’s CEO and director of engineering,<br />
penned a sound reinforcement<br />
system that provides for a center cluster<br />
consisting of six WorxAudio TrueLine<br />
V8i-P two-way powered, high efficiency,<br />
compact line array loudspeakers flown at<br />
a height of 24 feet over the front of the<br />
pulpit/stage area. Suspended by WorxAu-<br />
“The fact that we planned the sanctuary’s<br />
AV facilities at an early stage paid huge dividends<br />
on this project.” —Mike Klauss<br />
Anything But An Afterthought<br />
dio’s TrueAim Grid, which utilizes a single,<br />
industry-standard schedule 40 pipe, the<br />
cluster blends in with its surroundings.<br />
Two WorxAudio V5M-P powered enclosures<br />
are used for congregational<br />
frontfill along the left and right edges<br />
of the stage. A seventh TrueLine V8i-P is<br />
mounted to the rear of the TrueAim Grid.<br />
Unlike the six enclosures facing into the<br />
sanctuary, this loudspeaker serves as a<br />
monitor for the choir and is visually hidden<br />
from the congregation.<br />
Submerged Subs <strong>FOH</strong><br />
Low frequency support is provided by<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
Boone Audio Inc. provided the new WorxAudio sound reinforcement system for White Oak Worship Center<br />
two WorxAudio TrueLine TL218SS-P subwoofers<br />
plus a single TL118SS-PMD2 subwoofer.<br />
All three enclosures are housed in<br />
specially designed, recessed cubicles under<br />
the front edge of the stage. With the<br />
two TL218SS-P subwoofers positioned at<br />
the left and right edges of the stage and<br />
the TL118SS-PMD2 enclosure in the center,<br />
these subwoofers provide plenty of<br />
low end punch and smooth bass response<br />
throughout the room while effectively remaining<br />
out of sight. All PA enclosures<br />
are managed by an Ashly Protea 4.8SP 4<br />
Input / 8 Output Digital system controller,<br />
which handles room EQ and time alignments.<br />
Monitor provisions include a combination<br />
of WorxAudio 8M two-way, high<br />
efficiency, passive loudspeakers and Aviom<br />
A-16II in-ear personal mixing systems,<br />
which are used by the front line vocalists<br />
and all musicians. Mike Klauss, lead<br />
sound engineer for White Oak Worship<br />
Center, notes that these personal monitor<br />
systems have been a boon for everyone<br />
involved. “We’re running about 14 Aviom<br />
units,” Klauss reports. “These systems do a<br />
tremendous job of minimizing stage volume,<br />
which helps clean up the sound at<br />
<strong>FOH</strong>.”<br />
All handheld microphones—both<br />
wired and wireless—use Audix OM6 elements.<br />
“We wanted to ensure the best<br />
possible consistency of sound regardless<br />
of which microphone is being used,”<br />
Klauss notes. “Other microphones include<br />
a Countryman E6 earset mic for Pastor<br />
Roger Ewing while the choir is picked up<br />
by Audix MicroBoom microphones.”<br />
Post-Production Remixes <strong>FOH</strong><br />
To support its TV broadcast and Internet<br />
streaming endeavors, White Oak Worship Center<br />
has a dedicated post production suite where all<br />
audio and video is processed. To ensure the best<br />
possible sound quality, the church records to a<br />
Tascam X-48 48-track hard disk workstation. This<br />
workstation takes a combination of analog and<br />
optical digital feeds as direct outputs from the<br />
“They wanted a top-notch sound system<br />
that delivered first-rate speech intelligibility<br />
while also being capable of handling high<br />
SPL music reproduction.” —Paul Boone<br />
Allen & Heath MixRack—the mix engine for the<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> console. “The Tascam X-48 enables us to remix<br />
the audio separately,” says Klauss, “before it is<br />
sync’d with video during post production.”<br />
“The fact that we planned the sanctuary’s AV<br />
facilities at an early stage paid huge dividends<br />
on this project,” Klauss adds. “We began planning<br />
for all this as far back as January of 2009<br />
when the building’s architectural blueprints and<br />
CAD drawings were being finalized. By being involved<br />
early on, we were able to arrange for the<br />
subwoofer cubicles and numerous other aspects<br />
of this project that, ultimately, made it a worldclass<br />
installation. Hugh Sarvis was a tremendous<br />
help—not only in the design of the sound system,<br />
but in its final tuning as well.”<br />
With the new AV system in place and<br />
operational, Klauss reports a positive reaction<br />
from that everyone — from Pastor<br />
Roger Ewing and the praise team to the<br />
congregation. “The church wanted the<br />
sound to be clear, comfortable, and distinct<br />
and that’s exactly what we achieved,” he<br />
says. “We continue to receive compliments<br />
for every aspect of the entire audio-visual<br />
system. Several pastors from various area<br />
churches have visited White Oak Worship<br />
Center to experience the system and have<br />
been very impressed. In my mind, that’s the<br />
best compliment of all.”
Tom<br />
Abraham<br />
An admission. When I put the wheels<br />
in motion to cover Alice in Chains on<br />
their stop in Vegas, my motives were<br />
less-than-transparent. Truth is, <strong>FOH</strong> photographer<br />
and production manager Linda Evans<br />
(who also happens to be my wife) had some<br />
really great shots of the band that she took<br />
at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, and I really<br />
wanted to be able to use them. So I got<br />
with Greg McVeigh of Guesthouse Projects<br />
who had sent me a note about AIC using<br />
some Heil mics and asked for a hookup with<br />
their sound guy.<br />
So when I found out it was Tom Abraham,<br />
I had to do some research. I thought<br />
I did not know Tom but found very quickly<br />
that I had at least 20 e-mails in the past year<br />
that had come from sound guys I respect<br />
a lot and who had sent to a group that included<br />
both Tom and I. So we had numerous<br />
mutual friends.<br />
Then I got his résumé and felt kind of<br />
silly that I did not know him already. It’s a<br />
long and impressive list that includes everything<br />
from symphonies in upstate New York<br />
to stints with Garbage, Shakira and ZZ Top.<br />
He was handed the keys to Alice in Chains by<br />
Showco’s M.L. Procise in 2007 and has been<br />
the band’s <strong>FOH</strong> engineer and production<br />
manager ever since.<br />
A big tip of the hat here. The Vegas date<br />
was the last stop on an 18-month tour. So<br />
in addition to the complications that Sin<br />
City can present, the crew was looking at a<br />
load-out that included a full inventory and<br />
arranging for rented gear to be sent back<br />
to various vendors. Not a night anyone is<br />
enthused about having some dork from<br />
the trade press hanging out. But Tom was<br />
incredibly accommodating and took significant<br />
time — on a day when he really had<br />
none to spare — to talk mics, touring in general<br />
and his hatred of large festivals. Take it<br />
away Tom...<br />
<strong>FOH</strong>: How did you get into the biz? I was<br />
the guy in the band who owned the PA.<br />
Was that your path?<br />
Tom Abraham: Well, I did the “normal”<br />
thing out of high school, went to a state college<br />
in New York and got a degree in com-<br />
puter science, got a job with General Electric<br />
because my Dad worked there, and became<br />
a civilian defense contractor for the Air Force<br />
working on graphics software for radars. This<br />
was old-skool graphics — Fortran code in the<br />
mid-late 1980s.<br />
I was a guitar player in a band in high<br />
school — I quit to go to college and they replaced<br />
me, but I still did sound for them and<br />
other local bands — sorta built a client-base<br />
of upstate New York bar bands. Remember,<br />
that was a time when there was really a good<br />
rock club scene in the late 1980s. I became<br />
the house guy at a craphole called The Lost<br />
Horizon in Syracuse — that was at the time<br />
when it was really happening — we did like<br />
20 bands a week — both national acts and locals.<br />
I did everything — <strong>FOH</strong>, monitors, patch,<br />
maintenance, load-in and out...you name<br />
it. Busted ass there for three years. It was<br />
sorta the place to play in upstate New York. I<br />
worked my 9-to-5 gig at General Electric, then<br />
my 5pm-to-3am gig at the club almost every<br />
day — I was young and had energy then!<br />
One day, a solo shredder guitar player<br />
named Vinnie Moore played and I mixed and<br />
his manager was there. The manager offered<br />
“Those festivals are quantity over quality. No<br />
time at all to put on a quality show — just bang<br />
it out and find a way to leave ASAP. May I quote<br />
fellow engineer Brad Madix? ‘Its like camping,<br />
only camping doesn’t suck.’”<br />
me a two-week run with Vinnie around the<br />
Northeast and Middle Atlantic region. Me<br />
and one other guy doing everything. Anyway,<br />
we did it, and the manager, Pete Morticelli,<br />
said he knew a guy in New York who<br />
dealt with “big bands,” and he was going to<br />
tell him I did a good job. Well, two days later,<br />
phone rings and its Tony D from Q-Prime<br />
Management in New York. Two days later,<br />
I was doing monitors for Dokken. That was<br />
1989 I think...and I was off and running. Quit<br />
the “real job,” and have been engineering<br />
ever since.<br />
How long have you been with AIC?<br />
Got the gig from M.L. at Clair/Showco in<br />
July 2007. Been doing it ever since.<br />
I don’t hear a southern accent, so why<br />
Nashville?<br />
From upstate New York. Lived in Madison<br />
WI for a while due to working with Garbage<br />
for a long time and they were based out of<br />
there. Nashville…Hated winter, girlfriend<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
bailed, had to get away. Nashville seemed<br />
as good as anywhere, and certainly warmer<br />
than what I have become used to.<br />
Give me the lowdown on the gear you<br />
were carrying. Everything but stacks and<br />
racks, or full production?<br />
Well, you saw the Vegas Joint show<br />
which was not normal. We used the house<br />
PA there just to make the day easy, and it’s<br />
a good rig. We were carrying 28 Clair I5s, 24<br />
Clair I3s, 20 Clair B2 subs and 12 Clair FF2<br />
Front Fills. Great sounding rig, every damn<br />
day. All control was two Digidesign Profiles<br />
(<strong>FOH</strong> and Monitors). Besides the Clair controller<br />
for the PA, there really wasn’t anything<br />
else. We used the Clair Lab.gruppen<br />
amps with the Dolby Lake Controllers built<br />
into the amps. Really works great.<br />
How did you make the switch to Heil<br />
mics? And how did the band respond? In<br />
my experience, I can get away with changing<br />
pretty much any mic onstage until it<br />
gets to vocal mics, and then I better have<br />
a good reason and be able to convincingly<br />
make the case. That your experience?<br />
Toby Francis turned me onto Heil in<br />
2007. He introduced me to Bob Heil, and Bob<br />
is so nice and so accommodating. And Bob<br />
actually understands the shit we go through<br />
with certain artists. In the end, Heils sound<br />
better than “the industry standard.” Just listen...let<br />
the band listen. They prove themselves<br />
by using your ears. With AIC — they<br />
trust me to pick what’s going to work best,<br />
so with AIC, it’s no issue making changes.<br />
Why the Venue?<br />
Well, it does everything I need it to...it allows<br />
me to implement my wacky ideas more<br />
than any other desk. That’s the number one<br />
reason I use it. I don’t like the big Venue surface<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Interview<br />
<strong>FOH</strong> Engineer, Unchained By BillEvans<br />
at all, I use the Profile surface — I feel it’s much<br />
better laid out. The big Venue surface is just<br />
WAY too big for what it does. Just wish Digidesign…Avid...would<br />
put some better faders<br />
in the Profile surface. I have literally replaced<br />
20 faders on Profiles just on this last AIC tour<br />
alone. That’s on probably 10 different Profile<br />
surfaces as well. They don’t hold up in the real<br />
world touring beat-down. I have complained a<br />
hundred times...nobody listens. Which I could<br />
switch, but the Venue system allows me to<br />
implement my concepts, and they are easy<br />
to rent in any territory, and that’s important<br />
nowadays, ‘cause nobody flies desks around<br />
anymore — you pick them up territoriality.<br />
What about the festival thing? I know you<br />
guys did Roskilde, and I am under the impression<br />
that you spent much of the summer<br />
on the Euro festival circuit. How big an<br />
adjustment is it to go from the only headliner<br />
to a top band but still one of a dozen on<br />
any given day? What kind of adjustments<br />
and compromises do you find you have to<br />
make?<br />
Don’t get me started. I hate Euro festivals.<br />
And it’s all I seem to do. Those festivals are<br />
quantity over quality. No time at all to put on a<br />
quality show — just bang it out and find a way<br />
to leave ASAP. It’s miserable. And ramming<br />
your control gear in after doors are open and<br />
getting it out before the show is over is pure<br />
joy. May I quote fellow engineer Brad Madix?<br />
“Its like camping, only camping doesn’t suck.”<br />
Festivals are an evil we just have to deal with<br />
nowadays. Its trench warfare mixing. Damage<br />
control mixing. You are just trying to make it<br />
“not suck.” Half of mixing is tweaking/working<br />
with the PA to make it do what you want —<br />
and that is taken away from you at a festival.<br />
The whole deal is crap. Don’t get me started<br />
more than I already have. Headline shows are<br />
PURE JOY, comparatively.<br />
2011 JANUARY<br />
25
The Audix FP7 Fusion Series drum mic<br />
package is a complete mid-level package<br />
designed for both studio and stage<br />
use that offers working drummers and small<br />
soundcos a worthy solution to all their drum<br />
and percussion miking needs.<br />
I’ll be honest — I’m not a drummer, and<br />
as an engineer, I’m pretty much loathe to purchase<br />
“package” anything, more often choosing<br />
to buy mixed and matched in order to get<br />
the best value for my particular needs. So I<br />
turned to gigging drummer Luke Thatcher, a<br />
doctoral candidate in drumming at UNLV and<br />
26<br />
Road Test<br />
Audix FP7 Drum Mics<br />
all around badass dude with sticks to help me<br />
assess the Fusion series package.<br />
What You Get: RT<br />
• Three Fusion f2s — a dynamic, hypercardioid,<br />
frequency response 52 Hz to 15 kHz, max SPL<br />
139, that is voiced for rack and floor toms, congas,<br />
djembe, timbales, bass cabs and brass.<br />
• One Fusion f5 — an all-purpose dynamic mic,<br />
hypercardioid, frequency response 55 Hz to 15<br />
kHz, max SPL 137, voiced for snare, bongos,<br />
timbales, guitar cabs and acoustic instruments.<br />
• One Fusion f6 — a dynamic hypercardioid,<br />
frequency response 40 Hz to 16 kHz, max SPL<br />
140, voiced for kick drum, cajon, and low-end<br />
instruments.<br />
• Two Fusion f9s — a condenser, cardioid, frequency<br />
response 50 Hz to 16 kHz, max SPL<br />
138, for use on cymbals, high hat, overheads<br />
or a room/audience mic.<br />
• Aluminum, custom, foam-equipped carrying<br />
case<br />
• 6 high-impact plastic Dclips<br />
• 1 high-impact plastic MC-1 clip<br />
How It Measures Up RT<br />
All the mics feature sturdy zinc bodies.<br />
The dynamics all include roadworthy steel<br />
grilles that stood up to basic rough stage handling<br />
and stick hits. The aluminum case is your<br />
typical included case lately — not flimsy, but<br />
nowhere close to being indestructible. Hardcore<br />
road warriors would definitely want to<br />
resettle the package into something a little<br />
more rough and tumble, as the case is really<br />
designed for basic studio/weekend warrior<br />
movement.<br />
Maybe it’s the vocalist in me, and the fact<br />
that I’ve never seen a single one last for long<br />
unless they are handled with kid gloves, but<br />
I personally detest high-impact mic clips, and<br />
the FP7’s set of them are no exception. They<br />
lock in nicely on the mics and come with good<br />
quality threaded adaptors on the base, but are<br />
obviously not going to last for the life of the<br />
mics, and since they aren’t easily replaceable<br />
by walking into your nearest corner music<br />
store, they seem a bit stingy. Something in<br />
rubber would have been more appreciated,<br />
particularly since the set is touted primarily as<br />
a tool for live use. But it’s likely that Audix expects<br />
its users to want to invest in the D-vice<br />
gooseneck clips anyway at some point. But if<br />
I was gigging with the set, they would be the<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
By AndreaBensmiller<br />
first thing I either get extras of, or replace altogether.<br />
Soundwise, Luke and I decided to start<br />
with the f6 on his DW kit. It was clear looking at<br />
the frequency response specs that the low end<br />
drop off was a little higher on the spectrum<br />
than we expected, so we started in with some<br />
thumping, but weren’t particularly enamored<br />
of the sound coming off of it at plug and play.<br />
Designed with a huge mid-range scoop and<br />
upper end boost, there was plenty of 2-5 K attack<br />
clarity with a noticeable absence of any<br />
mid-range mud. But the f6 was thin on the low<br />
end (at least to our young hip hop/rap/hard<br />
rock-influenced ears), and delivered nowhere<br />
close to the kind of full, round bottom that<br />
some might be expecting based on the buzz<br />
of the D6. We weren’t sure if the f6 was just the<br />
weak horse in the stable or whether this was<br />
an indication of the overall package, so we<br />
plugged on.<br />
Things started looking up a lot when we<br />
shifted to the f5 on snare, which weighed in<br />
with a clear, present, quiet gain with low feedback<br />
drama and really nice response on both<br />
dynamic and outright loud playing. Clean and<br />
tight, the f5 delivered excellent mid-range pop<br />
and solid ring in the upper ranges. No complaints<br />
from the listening point of view. As a<br />
multi-purpose mic, the f5 has been designed<br />
Audix Fusion FP7<br />
Drum Package<br />
Pros: Great value, good bread and<br />
butter tom sound, durable<br />
Cons: Weak bass mic, flimsy clip<br />
How Much: $550 (MSRP)<br />
with a longer body than expected, which we<br />
found stuck out a lot further than we would<br />
have liked. There’s no doubt you’ll want to upgrade<br />
to a rim clip, because the size of the f5<br />
body once it’s connected doesn’t leave much<br />
space to work with between toms or hat.<br />
We were also very pleased with the f2. On<br />
floor and rack toms, it delivered round upper<br />
range with clean resonance on midtones in<br />
the 3 kHz range. Good bread and butter tom<br />
sound with a nice tight fit for getting them out<br />
of your way.<br />
The two f9s presented us with another<br />
dilemma. Condensor mics typically fall into<br />
one of two categories: really great all purpose<br />
overheads/acoustic mics, or voiced primarily<br />
for cymbals, and the f9s definitely fall into<br />
the latter category. They were clear and present<br />
on crash and ride, hats and tambo, but it’s<br />
hard to imagine using them for anything outside<br />
of that spectrum since they do lack a bit<br />
of warmth.<br />
Luke and I agreed that the overall sound of<br />
the FP7 package is best voiced for drumming<br />
in acoustic, jazz, fusion and small kit situations,<br />
and is perfect for the working percussionist.<br />
Based on the overall lack of round low-end<br />
though, drummers in heavier styles like rock,<br />
metal, hardcore, or even R&B and rappers,<br />
aren’t going to find much use for the f6. They<br />
could, of course, buy a separate D6, and save<br />
the f6 for use on cajon or floor tom, where it<br />
might better find its true calling.<br />
Given the Fusion FP7’s cost, it’s a great value<br />
and worthy tool for those looking for a midrange<br />
set of drum mics that won’t destroy their<br />
bank account. It delivers solid clean signal and<br />
ease of use right out of the box.
Rational Acoustics Smaart v7.1<br />
Editor’s Note: Steve submitted this as his<br />
regular “On the Digital Edge” column for the<br />
January issue of <strong>FOH</strong> but, as it is a pretty extensive<br />
look at the nuts and bolts of a much-used<br />
software program, we are running it as a Road<br />
Test instead. Same stuff, different header.<br />
Getting Smaart RT<br />
The latest revision of Rational Acoustics’<br />
Smaart is v7.1 which runs under Mac OSX (10.5<br />
or 10.6) as well as Windows 7, XP, or Vista. Rational<br />
Acoustics recommends at least a 2 GHz<br />
dual-core processor and Smaart is compatible<br />
with CoreAudio, WAV or ASIO audio drivers. I<br />
ran Smaart on a MacBook 2 GHz Core 2 Duo/4<br />
GB RAM with Digi 002R and MOTU Traveler<br />
interfaces. If you’ve never used Smaart, it’s<br />
worthwhile reviewing the resources available<br />
from the Rational Acoustics web site, particularly<br />
the PowerPoint presentation and basic<br />
setup guide. Reading these documents while<br />
following along with your system can cut<br />
down the learning curve, and since there’s a<br />
lot to learn about Smaart, this idea is… well…<br />
smart.<br />
The Interface RT<br />
Rational Acoustics incorporated many<br />
improvements to the interface of Smaart v7.1,<br />
including a “Capture All” command that stores<br />
all active measurement traces and an improved<br />
trace filing system. A major change is<br />
that this version supports simultaneous measurement<br />
of multiple channels. Other changes<br />
will be discussed below.<br />
Smaart’s primary modes (Real Time and<br />
Impulse Response) include time and frequency<br />
domain measurements, but first you need<br />
to set up your hardware in the audio dialogue.<br />
When Smaart recognizes your interface, it appears<br />
on a menu of available I/Os. You can then<br />
set sample rate, bit-depth (16 or 24) and apply<br />
your own names to the inputs and outputs<br />
(nice for managing multi-channel systems).<br />
Smaart played very well with my Digi 002R at<br />
sample rates of 44.1-, 48- and 96 kHz, though<br />
it does not support 88.2 kHz (which I don’t see<br />
as a problem). I cannot say the same for my<br />
MOTU Traveler, which Smaart did not like very<br />
much. Sometimes Smaart would recognize<br />
the Traveler, and other times — typically after<br />
changing the sample rate — it would not.<br />
Averaging and Weighting RT<br />
Inputs are organized and added into<br />
Groups under the Group Manager, where<br />
you’ll find parameters including averaging<br />
and weighting. Version 7.1 is the first to support<br />
multiple channels, enabling simultaneous<br />
measurement of, for example, console<br />
output, a mic at <strong>FOH</strong>, another mic in the balcony,<br />
etc. Active channels are viewed “overlay”<br />
style; clicking on an input in the Control Strip<br />
brings its trace to the front of a window. It’d be<br />
nice if you could tile the screen into separate<br />
windows for each trace (e.g. four windows of<br />
RTA, each displaying a channel).<br />
One of the few gripes I have with Smaart<br />
is that weighting is neither displayed nor accessible<br />
from the Control Strip, though it is<br />
indicated in the trace area. Figure 1 shows the<br />
Smaart Spectrum (RTA) function. Note that the<br />
Control Strip on the right (detailed in figure 2)<br />
displays the averaging but not the weighting,<br />
which I consider essential [Editor’s note:<br />
the numeric readout at the top of the Control<br />
Strip shows weighting for the dB meter,<br />
not the analysis tool]. The Spectrum display<br />
can show RTA, Spectrograph or both via split<br />
screen (figure 3). All of the screens look great<br />
and are easy to read, but one thing I did not<br />
like is that when you zoom in or out, the scale<br />
of the screen changes, but the resolution of<br />
the grid does not (i.e., you can zoom in as far as<br />
you want, but the grid is still divided into 6 dB<br />
steps). To select an area of a window for zoom,<br />
right-click and drag on it or, on a one-button<br />
mouse, hold + and click<br />
and drag.<br />
Other Functions RT<br />
At the top of the Control Strip is a numeric<br />
indicator that shows dBFS, dB SPL (Smaart<br />
provides calibration for SPL) or dBLEQ. dBLEQ<br />
is capable of long-term SPL monitoring over<br />
a user-defined period (we went as far as six<br />
hours), with user-defined increments. A “logging”<br />
feature creates a text file of these measurements<br />
showing minimum and maximum<br />
SPL as well as the actual SPL at a given date<br />
and time. It’s a very useful tool, especially in<br />
venues where the neighbors make noise complaints.<br />
Smaart’s Transfer Function allows comparison<br />
between a reference signal and the<br />
post-process version of that signal in an audio<br />
system, measurements which reveal interesting<br />
traits. An example is shown in figure 4,<br />
the Transfer Function of a monitor system in<br />
a small control room. This was measured by<br />
generating pink noise (from Smaart’s signal<br />
generator), splitting it and sending it directly<br />
into Smaart on the Reference channel and<br />
also to the monitors. A measurement mic<br />
picked was connected to the Measurement<br />
channel. This comparison involves a delay between<br />
the two signals (the Reference signal<br />
does not travel through the air, and therefore<br />
reaches Smaart faster). To maintain accuracy,<br />
there must be compensation for the delay.<br />
Smaart has an automatic delay finder that calculates<br />
delay, even while you are moving the<br />
mic around the room. It worked perfectly. In<br />
Fig. 4, the lower two windows show Transfer<br />
Function. The middle trace (green) shows frequency<br />
versus phase difference while the bottom<br />
window shows magnitude (green) versus<br />
frequency difference between reference and<br />
measurement mic. The bottom also shows<br />
“Coherence” in red (a discussion of coherence<br />
is beyond the scope of this article, but it points<br />
toward reliability of accumulated data). In this<br />
particular instance we are in Live IR Mode, so<br />
Smaart added a third window at the top of the<br />
screen with amplitude versus time difference<br />
between the two channels. The green spike at<br />
approximately 5.6 mS and the smaller bump<br />
roughly one mS later provide insight as to why<br />
the green trace in the Phase window looks so<br />
erratic (phase problems and comb filtering),<br />
and also why the red trace is not as coherent<br />
as we might like.<br />
Impulse Response RT<br />
Impulse Response measurement is always<br />
tricky, because if measurement parameters<br />
are not set carefully, data acquisition<br />
is inaccurate. The setting for Time Constant<br />
(TC) must be long enough to include the<br />
entire decay time of the system under test.<br />
When capturing the impulse response of a<br />
room with a decay time of 1.5 seconds, a TC<br />
of 682 mS yields inaccurate data, because<br />
Smaart is not given enough time to “hear”<br />
the entire decay. The solution is increased<br />
TC, which also increases the FFT (Fast Fourier<br />
Transform). Processing time increases<br />
with increased TC, so one benefit of using<br />
Fig. 1<br />
The Smaart Spectrum (RTA) function<br />
Fig. 3<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
Split screen view of the Spectrum display.<br />
The Transfer function of a monitor system in a small control room.<br />
shorter TC is that you see the results faster.<br />
Smaart provides TC settings ranging from 2<br />
and 10922 mS, with corresponding FFT sizes<br />
and averaging to improve reliability.<br />
There are a couple of minor things that<br />
I’d like to see tightened up in Smaart. In addition<br />
to the aforementioned difficulty with<br />
the Traveler interface, there is an issue with<br />
using the MacBook’s built-in I/O. Smaart recognizes<br />
the I/O, but at times, attempting to<br />
use it prompts a message stating “Failed to<br />
Start Device.” The folks at Rational Acoustics<br />
are working on solutions to those issues.<br />
Nit-picks aside, there’s no doubt that<br />
Smaart is an extremely powerful software<br />
Road Test<br />
By SteveLaCerra<br />
Fig. 2<br />
tool, in particular for touring sound companies<br />
and installers. It takes a bit of time to become<br />
familiar with all of the capabilities but<br />
should be considered essential for anyone<br />
requiring critical evaluation of audio system<br />
performance. It’s also an excellent teaching<br />
tool, providing a means of illustrating a variety<br />
of acoustic phenomena. A new license<br />
for Smaart runs $895; upgrades from earlier<br />
versions range from $450 to $650.<br />
Steve “Woody” La Cerra is the tour manager<br />
and <strong>FOH</strong> engineer for Blue Öyster Cult. E-mail<br />
him at woody@fohonline.com.<br />
2011 JANUARY<br />
A closer look at the<br />
Control Strip in Fig. 1.<br />
Fig. 4<br />
27
I<br />
was working in the Midwest as a sound<br />
guy for a local bar band. We were playing<br />
at a bar that had a switch installed<br />
onstage so the band could turn the jukebox<br />
off and on before and after each set. The<br />
band was just about ready to kick into the<br />
first song of the night when I realized that<br />
although the room was quiet, it was because<br />
the jukebox was between songs and that<br />
nobody on stage had hit the switch.<br />
I didn’t want the next song on the jukebox<br />
to start just as the band began, so I<br />
jumped up from behind the board to sprint<br />
across the dance floor and hit the switch. I<br />
ran across the bar and jumped into the air to<br />
leap up onto the stage, but the lighting guy<br />
didn’t see me and blacked out the room just<br />
as my feet left the floor.<br />
So now I’m flying through the air, but<br />
I’m also temporarily blinded by the sudden<br />
darkness. I gave it my best guess, but I misjudged<br />
where the front of the stage was, and<br />
instead of landing with my feet onstage, I fell<br />
about a foot short and crashed down with<br />
both shins on the front edge of the stage<br />
and then landed in a heap on the dance<br />
floor.<br />
The lighting guy (and everyone else in<br />
the bar) heard the crash and immediately<br />
turned the lights back on, to reveal me lying<br />
on the floor, holding my shins and cringing<br />
in pain.<br />
The lead singer is leaning over the down-<br />
28<br />
Welcome To My Nightmare<br />
Flying Blind<br />
stage monitors, whispering, “Dude — are<br />
you okay?” And I’m in too much pain to talk<br />
yet, but gesturing wildly to the band so the<br />
crowd will have something ELSE to watch as<br />
I try to crawl back to the board.<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
Later that night, during the second set,<br />
the lead singer decided to leave the stage<br />
through a door he discovered on the back<br />
wall and stepped into the darkness to discover<br />
the room was sunken but had no stairs<br />
down, and fell onto an upside-down pedestal<br />
table, but that’s another story...<br />
— Submitted by Dirk Belling<br />
TONYGLEESON.COM
Hot‘lanta:<br />
ASL Thrives in Active Market<br />
By BlairJackson<br />
From left, Zach Bitterman, Roby Dail, Steve Land (EDA ProGroup), Brian Hatten, Jon Waterbury, Mike Ertle, Scott<br />
Waterbury, Steve May, Jay Easley (Midas USA), Mark Adamson (EDA ProGroup), Tom Smith, Dale Wasson.<br />
Atlanta has been one of the Southeast’s<br />
major entertainment hubs since the late<br />
1960s. It was home to some of the first<br />
large-scale rock festivals, and it has always been<br />
an important stop for any significant touring act.<br />
Along the way, Georgia has spawned its own regional<br />
scenes as well, from early 1970s Southern<br />
rock gods like the Allman Brothers to the New<br />
Wave boom in Athens in the early 1980s (REM,<br />
B-52s, etc.) to today’s explosion in hip-hop and<br />
R&B, Atlanta is home to some of the hottest<br />
producers in the business, and that in turn has<br />
spurred many bands to call the area home, and<br />
clubs and recording studios have sprung up to<br />
accommodate the influx of creative types.<br />
Not surprisingly, there are numerous sound<br />
reinforcement companies in the area competing<br />
for work in what has become one of the most active<br />
entertainment centers in the country. One<br />
mid-size operation that has been around for<br />
more than 30 years, weathered many changes in<br />
the market and always managed to keep moving<br />
forward is Atlanta Sound & Lighting. ASL general<br />
manager Scott Waterbury notes, “One of my<br />
partners had visited SIR [Studio Instrument Rentals]<br />
in L.A. back in the mid-1970s and thought,<br />
‘You know, it would be cool to have something<br />
like that in Atlanta,’ so that was the original focus<br />
of the company — doing rentals and backline.<br />
[That company was known as Soundz Music<br />
Atlanta.] I moved down here from Chicago in<br />
‘78, which was about a year later, and then in ‘79<br />
we incorporated,” then increasingly moved into<br />
event production and sound reinforcement.<br />
Organic Growth <strong>FOH</strong><br />
“We were never really overly funded,” Waterbury<br />
continues with a chuckle, “so the way we<br />
grew our inventory was, we’d have to buy two<br />
of something and later sell them to get three of<br />
something else, and then three would turn into<br />
five, and five would turn into 10, and then we’d<br />
sell 10 and buy something different; it grew naturally<br />
like that. Before long, too, we started building<br />
our own cabinets, but it seemed like we were<br />
better at using stuff than designing and building<br />
it, so we let designers and builders do that and<br />
we just started choosing whose equipment we<br />
wanted to use, and life got a lot easier.”<br />
Through the years, ASL branched off into<br />
many different areas, including large and small<br />
productions in every sized venue imaginable,<br />
from clubs to concert halls to legitimate theaters;<br />
complete SR and lighting for corporate events;<br />
custom installs in restaurants, clubs, houses of<br />
worship and other facilities; political events;<br />
multi-stage fairs; private parties and weddings;<br />
you name it. “I guess our mainstay is musical acts<br />
coming through town,” Waterbury comments,<br />
“but we have guys that are interested and excited<br />
about all those other areas, so when they call<br />
up and need a problem solved — like if a restaurateur<br />
calls up, they get a guy who really understands<br />
restaurant problems and knows what we<br />
have that fixes that problem.<br />
“One of the nice things about my company<br />
is that because we do so many things, and we’re<br />
not 90 percent one thing and 10 percent something<br />
else, we’re not completely dependent on<br />
one market. Like right now, when corporate is<br />
down, there are other markets that have been<br />
up for us. And it also helps that there is that<br />
‘& Lighting’ in our name. There are some tours<br />
where lighting is extremely important and ‘Oh,<br />
by the way, they need a sound system,’ and others<br />
where the sound has be impeccable and<br />
‘Yeah, if the lights would move that would be<br />
cool,’” he laughs. “Clients have all these different<br />
objectives, and what we’ve gotten good at is understanding<br />
what their vision really is and then<br />
helping them forge a path that cost-effectively<br />
takes care of that.”<br />
Not Just About the Gear <strong>FOH</strong><br />
ASL is the rare SR and lighting company that<br />
doesn’t trumpet their massive gear collection on<br />
the their website (atlantasoundandlight.com)<br />
because, Waterbury says, “We’re not about the<br />
equipment any more. About four years ago we<br />
threw away the price book and it’s nothing to do<br />
with gear. It’s all about the end result and the service<br />
people want to get. So we just buy stuff we<br />
believe in and then people hire us because they<br />
believe in us. Yes, it makes a difference what gear<br />
you have, but that’s not what makes the difference.<br />
The difference is the attitude and the effort<br />
that the techs bring with them to the table.”<br />
That said, the folks at ASL are happy to talk<br />
gear and pride themselves in keeping a broad<br />
range of well-maintained equipment for any<br />
application. They also have some favorites, as<br />
Waterbury explains: “A number for years ago,<br />
my rep at Electro-Voice looked at me and said,<br />
‘You’ve got something like 160 lines you’re handling<br />
— five different power amps and 70 different<br />
speaker manufacturers; all these others. You<br />
divide your sales by 160 and to each guy you’re<br />
1/160th of a good customer. But if you spend a lot<br />
of your money with E-V, we’ll think you’re a pretty<br />
big deal.’ It sounded like salesman stuff to me, but<br />
honestly, it changed my life. It turned out that E-V<br />
had something as good or better than anything<br />
I was buying from all these different companies.<br />
So instead of having a low-line contact from one<br />
company and talking to that rep, and a mid-line<br />
contact at another, and so on, E-V had everything<br />
from a mom and pop PA-on-a-stick to full-blown<br />
stadium stuff, and everything in between. So it’s<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
been really good for us. We actually feel like E-V<br />
helped us grow, and in a small part we probably<br />
helped them grow, too.<br />
“I’ve got an X-Array system, and I’ve also<br />
got 30 or 40 ZXA1s — this teeny, eight-pound<br />
speaker, which people really seem to love. I’ve<br />
got Tour X, I’ve got Sx250 systems, I’ve got XLD,<br />
XLE, XLC. When EV was doing Dynacord, I got<br />
Dynacord Cobra and XA systems. It’s worked out<br />
really well for us to stick with one high quality<br />
company instead of bouncing around and trying<br />
mix and match. Their gear is engineered to work<br />
together; it’s fantastic.”<br />
Going Digital <strong>FOH</strong><br />
When it comes to consoles, ASL’s higher end<br />
inventory is still based largely around beloved<br />
analog Midas XL200 and Heritage desks, but recently<br />
they took the plunge into the digital realm<br />
when they purchased the highly-touted Midas<br />
PRO3, which was just announced at InfoComm<br />
this past year. Waterbury says that ASL had<br />
bought digital boards from “the usual suspects”<br />
in the past, but didn’t feel that they were the<br />
Regional Slants<br />
sonic or ergonomic match of their popular analog<br />
boards. The PRO3 changes that, he believes.<br />
ASL currently has 12 full-time and 44 parttime<br />
employees, with most of the latter group<br />
encompassing “specialty guys,” Waterbury says.<br />
“We have someone who makes custom enclosures<br />
or adapts enclosures to environments for<br />
us; somebody else does rigging; somebody else<br />
knows about motors. We try to let people who<br />
really excel at something excel at that area, rather<br />
than forcing them to be good at something they<br />
don’t enjoy. We have a ‘Don’t take the fun out of<br />
it’ attitude. We’ve got great jobs; we get paid to<br />
have a lot of fun.”<br />
And they’ve developed a solid foothold in a<br />
still-growing metropolitan market. “We’re fortunate<br />
in that this little cubby hole of the United<br />
States has been very good to us,” Waterbury offers.<br />
“Most of our guys are married and/or have<br />
children and while we will tour and do tour, it’s<br />
really not our mainstay. There’s enough work<br />
right here in our backyard that we don’t have to<br />
be going more than 200 to 300 miles for work.<br />
This level is working out really well for us.”<br />
2011 JANUARY<br />
29<br />
bill abner
A<br />
turning point in rock ‘n’ roll was surely<br />
the first time some odd piece of it was<br />
transformed from a practical item to a<br />
priceless artifact that was priced, finally, on<br />
the auctioneer’s block. A plain vanilla guitar<br />
pick used by Eric Clapton went from someone’s<br />
personal treasure to becoming part of<br />
someone else’s memorabilia collection. This<br />
has extended to the technology of record<br />
making as well. For instance, Lenny Kravitz<br />
is the proud owner of the 4-track deck used<br />
at Abbey Road Studios to make the Beatles’<br />
Sgt. Pepper.<br />
Quadra-mobilia biz<br />
Plenty of artifacts from the live side of<br />
music have been regulars on the block, from<br />
old Fillmore posters to Eric Clapton’s Stratocaster,<br />
“Blackie.” But rarely would you see<br />
a piece of live sound technology up there.<br />
Well, that changed in December, when the<br />
Bonham’s auction house in London put up<br />
for bids the hand-built quadraphonic mixing<br />
desks used on Pink Floyd’s Momentary<br />
Lapse of Reason and Division Bell world tours.<br />
Britannia Row Productions, the sound company<br />
originally formed and owned by Pink<br />
30<br />
The Biz<br />
On The Block<br />
Floyd, had owned the consoles for the past<br />
26 years.<br />
It seems almost quaint now, but quadraphonic<br />
sound was considered a viable<br />
format in the late 1960s and 1970s. The success<br />
of The Who’s Quadrophenia and Pink<br />
Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon LPs seemed to<br />
indicate that the public was ready to move<br />
on from stereo to one of several competing<br />
technical systems for presenting four<br />
channel sound from a single stereo record<br />
groove, including CD4 and SQ (which had<br />
the advantage that no special needle or<br />
turntable was required to play SQ-encoded<br />
recordings). That surfeit of formats would<br />
ultimately prove to be quadraphonic recording’s<br />
undoing, but while the iron was hot a<br />
number of artists decided to apply the concept<br />
to their live shows as well.<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
The Power of Four biz<br />
All of Pink Floyd’s tours in the late 1960s<br />
and into the early 1970s featured quadraphonic<br />
sound systems, starting with the May<br />
12, 1967 concert that kicked off the Games<br />
For May tour in London’s Queen Elizabeth<br />
Hall. It used the Azimuth Coordinator sound<br />
What is interesting here is the notion that<br />
live sound gear might actually be acquiring<br />
value as memorabilia.<br />
system, devised by an Abbey Road engineer<br />
and utilizing a unique joystick panning system<br />
that used four large rheostats housed in<br />
a large box, converted from 270 degrees rotation<br />
to 90 degrees, to cover all four quadrants.<br />
(Of the two of those Azimuth systems<br />
built, one survives and is on display at the<br />
Victoria and Albert Museum in London as<br />
part of the theater exhibit.) Sound effects<br />
like helicopters and the famous chiming<br />
clocks and gongs of Dark Side of the Moon<br />
were whirled around huge venues using<br />
stacks of loudspeakers positioned in an approximate<br />
diamond layout, with one stack at<br />
the rear facing the stage, the two side stacks<br />
to either side on a line slightly behind the<br />
mixing desk position, and the main left-andright<br />
PA stacks handling the front point of<br />
the diamond. The effects were routed to the<br />
speakers using one of the special hand-built<br />
quadraphonic mixing desks.<br />
Where Pink Floyd’s consoles used joystick<br />
panners, American PA pioneer Bob<br />
Heil’s designs for Pete Townshend’s plan to<br />
take Quadrophenia on the road instead used<br />
four faders to four discrete output busses<br />
that went to four stacks around the venue,<br />
which Heil says provided an excellent panning<br />
effect between the stacks. “Pete said<br />
he wanted to move Roger’s [Daltrey’s] voice<br />
around the room, and that’s just what we<br />
did,” Heil says in a conversation from his office<br />
and workshop in Aurora, IL.<br />
A total of 28 15-channel M.A.V.I.S. (Musical<br />
Augmentation Voicing Instrumentation<br />
System) consoles were ultimately built, according<br />
to a web posting by a member of<br />
The Who’s tour sound crew, who owns one<br />
of the two used on The Who’s Quadrophenia<br />
By DanDaley<br />
tour. The other now resides in the Rock and<br />
Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH. Heil’s is<br />
the only manufacturer brand specifically<br />
represented there as such. Both were used as<br />
the <strong>FOH</strong> consoles for hundreds of concerts<br />
before being retired, says Heil, but most of<br />
those were for stereo or monaural PA systems.<br />
It became evident fairly quickly that<br />
quadraphonic live concert applications<br />
were a tenuous business proposition at<br />
best. “The format was difficult to handle,<br />
and it wasn’t very rewarding for the concertgoers,”<br />
says Heil. “If you were sitting next to<br />
the rear stack on the left side you wouldn’t<br />
hear what was coming out of the others.<br />
It was a little crazy to make a four-channel<br />
sound system for 20,000-seat arenas.”<br />
Traces of Analog biz<br />
Pink Floyd’s Azimuth Coordinator approach<br />
to four-channel live sound went<br />
through six iterations between 1969 and 1994,<br />
each one a bit more sophisticated than the<br />
previous one. Brit Row actually kept them on<br />
active inventory, though they were not actually<br />
let out. As the few remaining traces of<br />
analog technology left in live sound disappear,<br />
the PA supplier decided to put them up for<br />
auction as collectors’ items, with a percentage<br />
of the sale price going to Stage Hand, a U.K.registered<br />
charity supported by the Production<br />
Services Association (PSA).<br />
Quadraphonic live sound was, in the<br />
end, one of the more gloriously egregious<br />
of the spectacular excesses of the golden<br />
age of rock ‘n’ roll. But it was also a totem of<br />
an era when anti-war activists thought they<br />
could levitate the Pentagon with a combination<br />
of love and blotter acid, when an industry<br />
fueled by sudden, massive wealth, which<br />
thought nothing of private jets and sevenfigure<br />
recording budgets simply figured,<br />
“Quadraphonic? Yeah, sure, why not?”<br />
What is interesting here, though, is the<br />
notion that live sound gear might be acquiring<br />
value as memorabilia. It’s great that the<br />
M.A.V.I.S. is in the Hall of Fame, but it would<br />
be just as fitting to see one in a Hard Rock<br />
Café. Having the guitar, the reel of tape and<br />
the live sound board all in one place would<br />
certainly complete the cycle.<br />
Dan Daley’s e-mail collection is at ddaley@<br />
fohon line.com.<br />
Powered vs. Unpowered Loudspeakers<br />
It is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of<br />
N different technologies and make the best choice. Damping factor — which<br />
can be affected by the length of the cable used — is a big selling point for<br />
self-powered loudspeakers. Because the amplifier is right inside the box, a<br />
self-powered loudspeaker has a cable length of no more than a couple of feet.<br />
Self-powered loudspeakers also take up less space in the truck because there is no amp to lug around. But<br />
repair techs will tell you that if a self-powered box amp module fails, and the system is flown, you have to get<br />
a lift and replace the module. If a conventional amp fails, you just move the speaker cable over to another<br />
amp rack. Another advantage of conventionally powered loudspeakers is weight. And the initial cost of a<br />
conventional system may be less than a self-powered system, which has the cost of an amplifier in every box,<br />
instead of using one amplifier to power multiple enclosures.<br />
—Brian Klijanowicz, from “Theory and Practice,” <strong>FOH</strong> Dec. 2010
Why Speakers<br />
Blow Up<br />
32<br />
Theory and Practice<br />
It’s interesting how, just when you think<br />
you have it all figured out, something<br />
breaks and it winds up being something<br />
that you’ve never seen before. Just like the<br />
saying goes, “you learn something new every<br />
day.” I remember when I started in this business,<br />
when something like a speaker would<br />
blow up, the reasoning would be “because it<br />
was driven too hard.” Luckily, my first paying<br />
gig was at a production company that was<br />
also the main re-cone shop in town. Learning<br />
about the fundamentals of loudspeakers<br />
while learning how to make them work on<br />
show site was probably the best combination<br />
one could hope for, especially for being<br />
the young “green” kid. What was once explained<br />
as “because it was driven too hard”<br />
has evolved over time into much more indepth<br />
reasoning. This knowledge can significantly<br />
help when setting system protection,<br />
from the smallest PA-on-a-stick-system to an<br />
arena-sized array.<br />
There are a couple different ways a speaker<br />
can fail. Typically, a driver will thermal-out<br />
or have a mechanical failure that ultimately<br />
destructs the inner parts of the speaker.<br />
Thermal Failure tp<br />
Speaker drivers actually include different<br />
ways to dissipate heat for both low and high<br />
frequency components. Heat sinks, gap ventilation<br />
and ferrofluid are the three main ways<br />
that this is achieved.<br />
Heat sinks are usually built into the magnet<br />
structure on a low-frequency type of component.<br />
High-frequency components will<br />
typically have them built into the back plate<br />
of the driver. These help transfer the heat to<br />
the back of the driver, away from the voice<br />
coil. Gap ventilation is the most common design<br />
to keep the voice coil of a woofer cool<br />
by the means of air movement. The way this<br />
works is that the speaker frame has a series<br />
of holes incorporated in a way that creates air<br />
movement across the voice coil as the cone<br />
moves. So the more the cone moves, more<br />
air moves across the voice coil. The other way<br />
is ferrofluid. This method is not seen as much<br />
in low frequency components these days, but<br />
more so in high frequency components. Ferrofluid<br />
is a black fluid that has iron-oxide particles<br />
in it, making it attracted to the magnetic<br />
field of a speaker’s air gap. Once inserted, this<br />
fluid stays in the gap and helps get heat away<br />
from the voice coil, creating a higher power<br />
handling capability for the coil. Even with all<br />
of these techniques, it is still very possible to<br />
destroy a speaker with too much heat.<br />
Too much heat comes from one main<br />
cause, too much voltage. What this does<br />
to a driver physically is illustrated in Fig. 2.<br />
This speaker had substantially more power<br />
than it was rated for pushed through it. The<br />
voice coil wire is wrapped around the former<br />
(which keeps the voice coil form) and has a<br />
coating on it. When the voice coil got hot<br />
enough, it started to form bubbles in that<br />
coating and the former, which can deform<br />
the coil as well. When a speaker starts to have<br />
that “rubbing” sound, this is usually what has<br />
happened. Some speakers can even get burn<br />
marks on the coil, or the voice coil leads can<br />
burn up all together. Voice coils can get very<br />
hot (upwards of a couple hundred degrees<br />
Fahrenheit), especially with the high-powered<br />
amplifiers that are now on the market.<br />
Mechanical Failure tp<br />
A mechanical failure occurs when one or<br />
more of the moving parts in a speaker (cone,<br />
spider, coil, etc.) come apart or deform, resulting<br />
in the failure of the driver. The cause<br />
of this can be from a couple different things<br />
including improper crossover setup, an improperly<br />
matched speaker to box design/port<br />
tuning, and the infamous “operator error.”<br />
Different types of speakers are designed<br />
for different applications (subwoofer, midrange,<br />
etc.) as well as a certain range of box<br />
volume and porting frequency. There is extensive<br />
research and testing done in these<br />
areas by manufacturers to get the best performance<br />
out of their products. Replacing<br />
the specified driver for any given box can<br />
change the excursion response to a point<br />
at which the driver will not necessarily overheat<br />
from too much voltage, but instead will<br />
bottom out the voice coil. Fig. 3 is an example<br />
of what can happen in this instance.<br />
This type of mechanical failure can also be<br />
caused by crossover points that are too low.<br />
This is not just limited to subwoofers — midrange<br />
and high frequency drivers have this<br />
kind of failure as well. A high-frequency<br />
compression driver is a little different —<br />
the diaphragm will either have a shattered<br />
dome, or the voice coil can become separated<br />
from the dome.<br />
In a previous article, I wrote about generic<br />
parts versus factory parts and the<br />
importance of a good re-coner. The same<br />
principle applies in this situation. The inner<br />
moving parts of a speaker (cone, surround,<br />
spider, voice coil) are all picked specifically<br />
for that driver. The first and most obvious<br />
reason is that the combination of parts<br />
makes the speaker achieve the sonic characteristics<br />
that the designer intended. The<br />
other reason is that the surround, spider<br />
and voice coil are specifically selected and<br />
assembled in a way to work properly with<br />
the air gap depth. For example, take a driver<br />
that has a maximum mechanical excursion<br />
limit (Xlim) of 10mm (sometimes listed as<br />
5+/-mm). When a speaker has no voltage<br />
going through it, it is sitting at a point where<br />
it can push 5mm out or pull 5mm in. It is<br />
very important that all the parts (cone, surround,<br />
spider, voice coil) are all the correct<br />
sizes, properly measured and assembled. If<br />
not, the voice coil has a good chance of either<br />
jumping the air gap or bottoming out<br />
into the back of the magnet structure before<br />
it reaches its full potential. This will wind up<br />
once again looking like Fig. 3.<br />
There are many different ways a component<br />
can blow up; this column just focuses<br />
on two of the more common cases. The trick<br />
is to know what causes speakers to blow up<br />
and to use preventative measures to keep<br />
that from happening. This will lead us to<br />
next month’s topic: different methods of system<br />
limiting.<br />
Rest assured that nothing will explode if you<br />
correspond with Brian Klijanowicz at bk@<br />
fohonline.com.<br />
GASKET<br />
FRAME<br />
OR BASKET<br />
SPIDER<br />
MAGNET<br />
JANUARY 2011 www.fohonline.com<br />
VOICE COIL<br />
By BrianKlijanowicz<br />
SURROUND<br />
DUST CAP<br />
CONE<br />
Fig. 1<br />
Fig. 2<br />
Fig. 3
By JamieRio<br />
I<br />
love the New Year. It’s a chance for us<br />
all to do better than we did during the<br />
last year. This is true for all aspects of<br />
life. However, I am discussing live worship<br />
sound and how you can improve yourself in<br />
that arena this New Year. As for everything<br />
else, there are plenty of TV and radio shrinks<br />
to help you there. So, where do we begin?<br />
200,000 Opportunities <strong>FOH</strong><br />
There is no doubt that worship sound<br />
has continued to be a growing and very<br />
lucrative market. There is more room for<br />
growth in this niche of live sound than any<br />
other that I am aware of. Let me give you a<br />
few statistics; right now there are approximately<br />
38,000 Baptist churches, 37,500<br />
Methodist churches and 23,000 Catholic<br />
churches in America. If you add up all the<br />
religious groups that have gathering places<br />
you will find that there are close to 200,000<br />
houses of worship in the U.S. Compare that<br />
to about 15,500 high school auditoriums<br />
and 7,000 Catholic schools. As you can see,<br />
this is not only a big niche, it is the biggest.<br />
There really is no limit to how much sound<br />
can be poured into these houses of worship.<br />
That said, I have been in this biz for a<br />
decade, and I have seen not only a lot of<br />
growth but also a lot of changes in what a<br />
congregation wants from their sound system<br />
and engineers. I know many of you are<br />
volunteering your time as a worship sound<br />
mixer rather than installing sound systems<br />
and working at a variety of worship houses,<br />
so these statistics may not be of that much<br />
interest to you, but you still need to keep up<br />
with what is new and exciting (and many<br />
times better) in the live sound world.<br />
Ahead of the Curve <strong>FOH</strong><br />
Let me give you a quick example. Just a<br />
few days ago, I used a matched pair of AKG<br />
C214 microphones on a choir and was really<br />
pleased with the overall improvement<br />
in sound quality that the mics delivered.<br />
Diving Into the Big Niche in 2011<br />
The AKGs were simply better than the mics I<br />
had been using for the last few years in that<br />
particular church. There will always be new<br />
gear to check out (or at least read about),<br />
and staying up on the latest and greatest<br />
should be part of your job description.<br />
Actually, the fact that you are reading<br />
this magazine is a good sign that you already<br />
instinctively know this. I realize that<br />
you may not be able to purchase every<br />
new sound toy that you want in your worship<br />
house. But when the time comes, it<br />
will be easy to choose a new piece of gear<br />
if you have kept up with what is available<br />
out there in the audio world.<br />
Besides keeping up on what is new,<br />
having a good reference book (or two) is<br />
always helpful in your quest to do your job<br />
better. My book, House of Worship Sound<br />
Reinforcement, is one example, and it’s<br />
Visit the church next door (or down the<br />
street) and exercise your God-given<br />
ears. There is no doubt that you will learn<br />
something.<br />
worth checking out, (even if the author is<br />
not above using his column in <strong>FOH</strong> for a<br />
shameless plug!).<br />
Get Out Much? <strong>FOH</strong><br />
Now that you have decided to sharpen<br />
your overall knowledge of sound and<br />
equipment, you may want to dial in on the<br />
needs of your own worship house. How<br />
many of you visit other worship houses to<br />
listen to their sound systems? If you are an<br />
installer, you listen to various systems out<br />
of the necessity of your job. However, you<br />
may simply volunteer and mix at the worship<br />
house of which you are a member and<br />
nowhere else. This is great if you want to<br />
become proficient in the operation of your<br />
house system, but at the same time you<br />
may have separated yourself from the rest<br />
of the sound world. It becomes the goldfish<br />
in a bowl syndrome. You are only aware of<br />
the environment immediately around you.<br />
I suggest you get out and listen to some<br />
other worship sound systems as well as<br />
check other house environments. Visit the<br />
church next door (or down the street) and<br />
exercise your God-given ears. There is no<br />
Bill Gibson, an educator, music pastor and technical director for<br />
a large contemporary music-oriented church in the Seattle area, also<br />
N has taught a 12-week-long Live Sound: Mixing and Recording online<br />
course to 20 students or less at Berklee College of Music. He notes advantages<br />
with online education that include the ability for teachers<br />
to give each student more personalized attention and deal with students progressing at different<br />
rates. But an issue that remains is situational consistency — each of 20 students could potentially<br />
be listening to disparate systems in disparate environments, even though the program material<br />
may be the same. Gibson notes that the online courses still meet a key goal: “to learn the importance<br />
of listening.” …Dana Roun, director of audio programs at Full Sail University, observes that<br />
“actually having the gear and venue is important. Do you say, ‘Imagine you are in a concert hall and<br />
imagine the band is a five-piece metal band and you have a giant <strong>FOH</strong> rig. Okay, push your laptop<br />
key and pretend you hear the crowd roar?’ I don’t think so.”<br />
—Dan Daley, from “The Biz,” <strong>FOH</strong>, Dec. 2010<br />
<strong>Online</strong> Education and Live Sound<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
doubt that you will learn something. You<br />
may find out that you rock as a worship<br />
house sound mixer. Or you may hear tones<br />
and frequencies that you never knew existed.<br />
Whatever the outcome, you should find<br />
it enlightening. The more worship systems<br />
you can listen to, the more objective you<br />
can become about your own house system.<br />
Besides, all the listening you do will just improve<br />
your ear training and frequency discernment.<br />
I realize that this exercise will take extra<br />
time and effort on your part, but we already<br />
decided we want to do a better job this<br />
year. Right?<br />
H.O.W. Improvement <strong>FOH</strong><br />
Back to your own worship house. One<br />
of the most common areas of improvement<br />
in any church is the acoustic environment<br />
of the building itself. This will<br />
involve discovering what materials were<br />
used in the construction of your space<br />
and how those materials react to live<br />
sound and all the frequencies that are<br />
produced. Whatever condition your space<br />
is in, I am sure the acoustics can be im-<br />
Sound Sanctuary<br />
proved. And just like new and innovative<br />
audio gear is always being produced, new<br />
sound treatment materials are regularly<br />
introduced into the sound market. The<br />
understanding and treatment of sound<br />
wave frequencies in any space can be a<br />
very deep study. So, you have your work<br />
cut out for you in investigating your own<br />
house of worship.<br />
I think that in the next few months I<br />
will write something on the latest ideas<br />
on acoustically treating your worship<br />
space. For those of you who work with a<br />
variety of worship houses, you need to<br />
read up on what materials and items are<br />
currently available for sound treatment.<br />
As a matter of fact, the more you know<br />
about sound and controlling it, the better<br />
you will be able to do your job and serve<br />
your clients.<br />
If you make a plan to increase your<br />
personal knowledge this year, you will become<br />
a greater asset to you yourself and<br />
to your house of worship. Good luck!<br />
It’s 2011. Resolve to e-mail Jamie Rio at<br />
jrio@fohonline.com.<br />
2011 JANUARY<br />
33
To Advertise in Marketplace, Contact: Jeff • 818.435.2285 • jd@fohonline.com<br />
Jobs for the<br />
Entertainment Production<br />
Technologists,<br />
Practitioners & Educators
To Advertise in Marketplace, Contact: Dan • 415.218.3835 • dh@fohonline.com<br />
Company Page Phone Web Company Page Phone Web<br />
A-Line Acoustics 26 814.663.0600 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-100 Rational Acoustics 28 860.928.7828 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-285<br />
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Ashly Audio 12 585.872.0010 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-222 SLS Audio 21 417.883.4549 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-328<br />
Atlanta Sound & Lighting 25 770.455.7695 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-330 Soundcraft 23 888.251.1852<br />
Checkers Industrial Products 26 800.438.9336 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-215 Sweetwater Sound 31 260.432.8176 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-247<br />
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EAW 3 800.992.5013 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-173 Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems 1 714.522.9011 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-159<br />
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JH Audio C1 866.485.9111 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-264 Blackbox Electrical Products 34 562.602.1799 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-322<br />
Konig & Meyer / Connolly Music 33 631.925.5520 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-256 Carvin/TCS 34 800.854.2235 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-198<br />
L-Acoustics 10 805.278.5887 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-264 Jan-Al Cases 35 800.735.2625 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-323<br />
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QSC Audio Products C4 800.854.4079 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-115 Sound Productions 34 800.203.5611 http://foh.hotims.com/35881-129<br />
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2011 january<br />
35
<strong>FOH</strong>-at-Large<br />
W W B A W I D N B<br />
Those of us in the smaller audio companies<br />
do not usually have the luxury of<br />
loading into a shed or theater that is<br />
set up specifically for musical and theatrical<br />
performance. A good portion of the venues<br />
we end up working are spaces where audio<br />
and lighting are less than a primary consideration.<br />
They are a mere afterthought — if<br />
any thought was put in that direction at all.<br />
A good motto for all of us who are caught in<br />
this predicament might be, “Bringing audio<br />
where it doesn’t belong.” It’s not pretty, but<br />
someone has to do it.<br />
Where It Does Belong <strong>FOH</strong><br />
I mean, seriously, how hard is it to go<br />
into a room that already has grid or designated<br />
hang points? It’s routine — lights and<br />
video in first, after which comes the audio,<br />
and then backline or sets. Run your snake<br />
through the trough; tie into the house delay<br />
system, and, bada bing bada boom, you’re<br />
done. The band gets to do a three-hour<br />
sound check, and then they retire to the<br />
dressing room to relax and enjoy the fruits<br />
of their rider before coming back on stage<br />
to play for an adoring crowd that hangs on<br />
every gorgeous visual and amplified note<br />
emanating from the stage.<br />
At the end of the concert, the crew returns<br />
(the size of crew varies depending<br />
upon the venue), the backline is struck,<br />
the speakers are brought in, the snake and<br />
consoles are packed, the lighting truss is<br />
brought in and struck, the trucks that have<br />
been patiently waiting in the loading dock<br />
are loaded and dispatched, and before the<br />
four hour call is over, the crew is back in the<br />
hotel bar having cocktails and cruising for<br />
everlasting love.<br />
No-Win Spaces <strong>FOH</strong><br />
We Who Bring Audio Where It Does Not<br />
Belong do not have the comfort of loading<br />
into spaces that are actually set up to accommodate<br />
our essence. Hey, it’s not our<br />
fault that some client decides to book a<br />
major recording act into a small, beautiful<br />
restaurant, hotel ballroom or event space in<br />
COMING NEXT<br />
MONTH...<br />
Special H.O.W. Issue<br />
Reviews, features and<br />
tips all about church<br />
sound<br />
NAMM 2011<br />
Scoping out audio<br />
amongst ten thousand<br />
guitars<br />
Buyers Guide<br />
Remember the<br />
“Recording the Gig”<br />
stuff we promised?<br />
We Who Bring Audio Where It Doesn’t<br />
Belong do not have the comfort of loading<br />
into spaces that are actually set up to<br />
accommodate our essence.<br />
order to celebrate some fabulous milestone<br />
in their stupendously wonderful life. That’s<br />
right, it’s not our blunder, but by default, it<br />
certainly becomes our responsibility.<br />
The amazing thing is that some of these<br />
clients are even record companies who, one<br />
would think, would know better, but alas,<br />
they too succumb to the lure of the newest,<br />
nicest and sexiest place to hold their event<br />
without giving any thought as to what<br />
might entail when they book a large nationally<br />
known act as the night’s entertainment.<br />
Not once have these clients or venues<br />
called before booking the bands to inquire<br />
as to any unforeseen problems. They get so<br />
caught up in the fact that they can get “So<br />
and so muckety muck” to play at their event<br />
that they forget to even ask if it is feasible to<br />
do so. The artist, having been made an offer<br />
that they can’t refuse, takes his/her deposit<br />
and passes on the necessary information to<br />
their tour manager, who then becomes accountable<br />
should anything go wrong with<br />
the event.<br />
Specific, Varying Requests <strong>FOH</strong><br />
We — The Company Who Brings Audio<br />
Where It Doesn’t Belong — are then<br />
contacted by the client, the agent, the<br />
venue or all the latter and given very specific,<br />
though varying, requests for what<br />
is needed to make for a successful event.<br />
The artist, of course, is asking for as much<br />
of their concert rider as possible, the<br />
venue is asking for the least amount of<br />
www.fohonline.com<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDY AU<br />
hassle and the agent doesn’t give a crap<br />
as long as he gets paid. The production<br />
company or, We Who Bring Audio Where It<br />
Does Not Belong, having accepted the gig<br />
because work is work, then becomes the<br />
heart of the problem. “Why is the stage so<br />
big?” asks the venue, “Do we need all this<br />
equipment?” they whine. “There’s no room<br />
to store cases so they need to go back on<br />
your truck,” they insist. “Our event starts at<br />
7 p.m., but you can’t load in until after our<br />
luncheon, which ends at 4 p.m.,” they dictate.<br />
“We only have two 20-amp circuits,<br />
and you can’t tie in,” they declare. All this,<br />
and I’m still just working the phone.<br />
I call the band and tell them to work<br />
it out with the client and the venue and<br />
then get back to me. They finally get back<br />
to me. and it seems as though all is well<br />
and good. They have compromised their<br />
stage size, we will be allowed to tie in to a<br />
panel, albeit one that’s 400 feet away from<br />
the stage, and in a great act of generosity,<br />
the venue has agreed to give us another<br />
half-hour for setup and check.<br />
No Easy Answers <strong>FOH</strong><br />
Upon arriving at the venue, we, of<br />
course, find that the loading dock we were<br />
shown during the walk-through is not<br />
available to us, and that the street in front<br />
of the building is a “no parking” or unloading<br />
zone which, due to the Twilight Zonetype<br />
of laws in modern day Manhattan,<br />
carries a $150 fine for all offenders. With<br />
By BakerLee<br />
no other choice but to turn around and go<br />
back to the warehouse, we incur the fine<br />
and unload the truck.<br />
The large freight elevator we scoped<br />
out and were promised is closed for the<br />
day, and the elevator we are allowed to<br />
use is not quite as large as the dysfunctional<br />
one, therefore the load in goes a<br />
bit slower than expected, but we stoically<br />
bully the gear through the basement filled<br />
with garbage and emerge through the<br />
busy kitchen just in time to find out that<br />
the caterer is fully set up, thereby leaving<br />
us no other option but to destroy the<br />
beauty that he has created.<br />
Despite the odds, We Who Bring Audio<br />
Where It Does Not Belong prevail, and<br />
get set up/cases back on truck and sound<br />
checked by the opening of the doors, and<br />
yet “WWBAWIDNB” is still the villain for<br />
taking up too much space and making too<br />
much noise. “Check one two, aw aw.” “Baker,”<br />
one woman says, “No more check one<br />
two’s, okay?” “Hey lady,” I respond, as courteously<br />
as I am able, “I am just a vendor<br />
trying to do my best to satisfy the needs<br />
of our mutual client, who felt the need<br />
to book a big name touring act into your<br />
tiny designer restaurant. I am also trying<br />
to please the big name act that is being<br />
forced to play on an 8-by-12-foot stage.<br />
So, please excuse me while I am in the<br />
middle of being aggravated and go tell it<br />
to the client.”<br />
“Turn It Down!” <strong>FOH</strong><br />
Of course, this is all a precursor to when<br />
the band actually starts to play, and both<br />
the client and venue person come running<br />
up to tell me that the band is too loud. “Turn<br />
it down,” they yell. I show them that there is<br />
nothing in the system and all they are hearing<br />
is the band and the onstage monitors,<br />
but they still insist that I tell the band to turn<br />
down. For the sake of keeping the peace, I<br />
tell the band what the client and venue have<br />
requested, and for about eight bars, the<br />
band’s volume drops, but by the ninth bar,<br />
the band has roared back to their original<br />
sound level.<br />
The venue person returns and this time<br />
she is armed and dangerous. Holding it up<br />
to my ear she points the Radio Shack dB meter<br />
at the band and then shrieks at me “See,<br />
it says 100dB!” Yup, there it was, detailed in<br />
black and white, irrefutable, scientific proof<br />
that the band was too loud and whose fault<br />
is that? Obviously it’s WWBAWIDNB. After<br />
all, the well-known restaurant did its job, the<br />
wealthy client merely booked the band and<br />
was just having a good time, and the band<br />
that is rich and famous is, well, rich and famous.<br />
Fortunately for all parties involved,<br />
the band stopped playing after a half hour.<br />
Unfortunately for us, as soon as the party<br />
ended, the venue opened their doors to the<br />
general dancing public, forcing us to pack<br />
up and load out through a raucous crowd<br />
of party people while the DJ blared through<br />
the house system. Hoo Ha, just another brilliant<br />
day of Bringing Audio Where It Doesn’t<br />
Belong.<br />
If you’re trying to reach Baker Lee, your<br />
e-mail belongs at blee@fohonline.com.