Pollstar: U2 is Number 2 - FOH Online

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In The Trenches Gary Thomas Wilson (10/21/1980 – 8/24/05) FOH Engineer, System Supervisor Spellcaster Productions Winslow, NJ http://www.spellcasterpro.com/GaryWilson. htm Quote: Stick with me, I’m gonna learn you something…boy. Services Provided: FOH/monitor audio and lighting duties, inventory management. Clients: Johnny O and the Classic Dogs of Love, the Collective, The Benderz and many more. Personally responsible for mixing FOH at more than 200 events annually. Personal Info: Gary passed away from injuries sustained from a tragic motorcycle accident, so his comrades figured it would be best to let others explain little bit about Gary: “I’ve been playing in a regional cover band for more than 15 years. I have seven or more instruments/vocals in my PM mix at one time. Occasionally, a monitor engineer would try to mix and EQ my monitors while I was playing—with disastrous results. Gary was While doing FOH at an outdoor gig in Victoria, B.C., with a fair-sized (six boxes/side + 6dual 18) EAW rig next to city hall, the local city representative and his trusty Realistic SPL meter came up BE- FORE we turned on the mains and told us to keep it down—the local bylaws say that they have a 90dB limit. The stage sound at FOH was around 90 to 95dB. The local system tech didn’t turn on the system for the first band, and we were the second of three bands in the lineup. Well, I hadn’t seen the city guy in an hour, and figured I could bluff and delay us through a 30-minute set, and mix with adequate volume. This, however, was not the issue. Halfway through the first song, the subs go down. No comms to stage, so I run to the deck and get the system dude to click the breaker back on. Bear in mind that I was peaking at about -6 on the output of the crossover. Went back to FOH and was there for a minute before the subs went down again. As I ran back to the stage, the high/ mids went down. The stage guy said I was pushing it too hard, but my mix was so conservative that there was NO WAY I was close to the red lights. The monitors seemed to be relatively stable, and the band I was working the only person I trusted to adjust levels and tweak EQing on his own while I was playing. He’s made some of the best-sounding monitor mixes I’ve ever heard. And Gary’s FOH mixes made my chest thump—that feeling you had as a kid when you were discovering the power of a live band for the first time.” – Chris Mazzone, The Zone “Gary was one of the MOST professional and dedicated engineers I have ever had the pleasure to work with. After working with Gary once, I called his supervisor to let them know I wanted Gary to handle 100% of our full production shows. He was always on time, always smiling and always getting the BEST mix possible for his bands. Gary was part of our family. He gave us 110% every show...and he made us want to give that right back. He will forever be loved. He will forever be missed.” – Joe Bachman, The Benderz Hobbies: Skiing and motorcycles. Equipment: Midas/Allen & Heath consoles. Yamaha, dbx, TC, Drawmer, etc. Don’t Leave Home Without: Your wallet. Welcome To My Nightmare Power for had been accustomed to no monitors, so I cranked the vox in the wedges and pointed them towards the crowd. The owner of the rig finally showed up and crawled under the deck, played with the distro and all was good. The last twothirds of the set went off without a hitch, at about 105dB at FOH. But during the second-to-last song, the city guy reappears and gives his meter a good, hard look, and glares at me. I held my SPL, and nothing came of it. Had he asked me to turn it down, I may have inserted the meter in him. By the way, I found out later that a construction worker next door had plugged an electric jackhammer into our power distro. Bud, aka sawtoothwave 40 January 2006 www.fohonline.com By AllisonRost Simon Austin Audio Engineer Bellesongs Inc. New York, NY 917.209.5330 bellesongs@yahoo.com Quote: Please, pleeeeease get on the bus/ aircraft/stage. Personal Info: Started out playing in bands, toured for 10 years in bands and crews and settled in NYC, doing FOH in clubs. Started tour and production management two years ago. Services Provided: FOH, monitor and studio engineering, tour and production management, installation and system integration. Clients: Numerous clubs, corporate and industrial clients. Presently touring on three continents with New York art rock band Fischerspooner and getting ready for another year of seven-day weeks doing freelance audio in NYC. Hobbies: Guitar. Equipment: XL4, Heritage, PM5D, D1/D5, Adamson, L-ACOUSTICS and NEXO line arrays, Crown amps, Shure microphones, Klark Teknik and Lexicon outboard. ProTools, Live, SpectraFoo. Don’t Leave Home Without: Obsessively-prepared production plans. If you’d like to see yourself featured in “In the Trenches,” visit www.fohonline.com/trenches to submit your information to FOH, or email arost@fohonline.com for more information. Gigs from Hell. We’ve all had ‘em and the good folks at FOH want to hear about yours. Write it up and send it to us and we’ll illustrate the most worthy. Send your nightmares to bevans@fohonline.com or fax them to 818.654.2485
Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Every soundco has cables, endless numbers of them. From snakes to mic patches to speaker cords to AC power distribution. And like most newbies, you all start with the usual whatever-is-handy approach to transporting them—old roadcases, milk crates, suitcases, steamer trunks, plastic totes, etc. This article describes the art of cable keeping, and how the big soundcos do it. Sometimes we just don’t learn, but typically, plenty of clues are dropped by those witnessing your load-in ritual. Sayings like, “How many trips are you gonna make?” or “Hey, it’s getting cold in here. Wanna hurry up?” What those less-than-polite comments should be telling you is that you are not very efficient in getting your gear from the gig rig into the venue. So to resolve this, the natural way to do it is consolidate those suitcases and tubs into bigger storage items. And the natural path to this involves work trunks, work boxes or work cases. Whatever you call them, it means cases on wheels that hide all those cables for fewer trips in and out. And you do not have to go my way with custom cable trunks, as many case makers and pro sound retailers offer standard-size trunks that are nothing more than spaces to fill with the necessities of gigging. For example, the two figures in this article are cable trunks built for me specifically for stowing cables and related items. For my “C” rig, I have three such cases with nominal dimensions of 22 by 44 by 22 inches tall. They all have dolly boards, and castor cups for stacking; although with cables, it would take two to four roadies to stack them. All these cases are constructed with lower “wells” and two upper trays for smaller items. Cable case one has slotted sides to the well for main snake storage, and the trays mostly hold XLR patch cables and sub-snakes. Case two is everything AC, with bigger 12-gauge AC cables in the well, and short patches and quad box breakouts in the trays. Case three has a well-divider in the long dimension for keeping K&M tripod mic stands on one side, and Speakon patch cables are on the other side (arranged in order of length). The trays on case three hold mic pouches, extra mic clips, windscreens, By using the figure-8 technique, no tangles or twists occur when extracting or retrieving the snake cable. DI boxes and the beloved muso convenience store inventory (spare drum sticks, drum keys, guitar and bass strings, batteries, guitar cables). And the whole mess moves in only three trips using one person. Keeping www.fohonline.com Cable Rolling For smaller cables like XLR patches, I teach my cable-rolling helpers to coil in about 7inch circles using the over/under technique. The technique is better shown than described, but depends on a lot of common sense and a bit of Navy seamanship. Generally, you attempt to get the cable loose from all others and wrangle it somewhat in a straight line. You grab one end with your holding hand, and the other hand grabs about 2 more feet of cable back to the holding hand. As you coil the cable, you alternately twist the cable one way and then the other, with your thumb and fingers making cable half-turns as each coil is formed. You will notice that the far end of the cable will not be twisting if this is done correctly, as it prevents looping and tangles. Now, on to the subject of cable ties. My cable ties have been the evolution of my rolling cables since the early 1970s. Back then, Velcro was still too new and tape left way too much residue. And if you knotted your cables, you quickly found out they would not last very long. But being of practical means—and also an office janitor between gigs—I had a ready supply of yellow Glad garbage bag plastic ties perfect for mic and guitar patch cables. As my occupations improved and my source of free cable ties dwindled, I switched to Velcro ties. But the yellow Glad ties were easy to spot after gigs, and had reasonable life Theory & Practice By MarkAmundson spans; even today, I still have a few in use. But today, I have given up the fancy cable ties for “gecko tape.”My half-inch yellow gecko tape is still made by Rip-Tie Inc., but comes in 150-foot rolls with hooks on one side and loops on the other. By cutting 6-inch lengths of this tape, I have cable ties that cost barely a nickel each and last through dozens of gigs. I make it a habit to stash all ties near the snake patch box for easy tracking at the end of the night. Fig.1 shows my 7-inch coils of XLR patches with yellow ties in the trays. Taming Snakes Coiling up snakes is straight seamanship; just figure-8 the snake in the cable trunk, leaving about 10 to 20 feet of patch box hanging out until the rest of the snake is stowed. Fig. 2 shows my less-than-perfect figure-8 stowage of the snake cable. By using the figure-8 technique, no tangles or twists occur when extracting or retrieving the snake cable. And the extra bit of patch box and cable is for leaving the case at monitor beach and pulling just the required amount of snake to FOH, leaving the rest stowed neatly. AC and Speaker Cable These beefy 12-gauge cables with black jacketing get a similar treatment as XLR patches get, but in a 12- to 15-inch coil size. But I have a little tip to share with you. If you can get some theatrical black “trick” line, cut healthy lengths of it (about 2 feet) and square knot the middle of the trick line on one end of these kinds of cables next to the connector. If you can tie your shoes, then you can tie off the coiled cables quickly and toss them into your cable trunk. If trick line is not handy, then black boot laces will make a nice substitute. January 2006 41
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