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What's It All About?

What's It All About?

Don't you just hate it when I use this limited amount of space to wax philosophical instead of writing about something cool like gear or new tech? I can hear the groans already. "Oh crap, here he goes again. Can he please just get to the f'ing point? Forget it, maybe I'll just turn to the FOH Interview or the Road Tests."

Sorry, but this is what happens when I actually have a little time to think. A bunch of stuff has gone down in the past couple of months that may seem unrelated, but–at least in my twisted mind–adds up to an important point.

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The Rats Go to "Mousetown" to Explore Lampyland

Why in the heck would Soundies go to LDI? Hellooooo? "Lighting Dimension International," oh boy! Come on, sound people, let's go listen to the lights! You must be joking. After the fifth person asked me, I began to wonder a bit and decided to do some research. Well, actually, I just walked over and asked Jon Rat what the deal was. Turns out that unlike the "real" audio trade shows, these Lampies came up with the idea of setting up a round robin of full-blown sound systems on actual stages all pointed to a central area. Over the course of three hours, you can hear each of the six stages do a 30-minute presentation showing why they are the magic solution to all that is sound.

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Star-Studded Parnelli Honors Industry's Best

"Welcome to the 5th Annual Parnelli Awards," said PLSN and FOH publisher and Parnelli Award dinner host Terry Lowe. And thus began LDI/ETS convention's most anticipated event. Held this year at the beautiful Rosen Centre, the industry's legends, stars, up-and-comers and likely a few ne'er-do-wells came to honor this year's top performers in 18 categories. Additionally, highlights included bestowing achievement awards on Patrick Stansfield and Bruce Jackson.

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Non-Fatal Sound Defense

While riding the train one day in November, I came across an item reported by the News Wire Service and, tucked away in the New York Daily News. The headline over the following article read: "Ship's hi-tech noise turned away pirates."

MIAMI-The crew of a luxury cruise ship used a military-style sonic weapon that blasts beams of ear-splitting noise to ward off a shocking attack over the weekend by a gang of pirates off Africa, the Seabourn Cruise Line revealed yesterday.

The ship, the Seabourn Spirit, had a Long Range Acoustic Device installed to defend itself, said Bruce Good, a company spokesman. The Spirit was 100 miles off Somalia when pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns as they tried to get on board.

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Dave Skaff–Two Decades on the U2 Team

Dave Skaff won the Parnelli Award for Monitor Mixer of the Year in 2005 for his work on the current U2 tour, which is keeping his hands full. In addition to it being a very high profile gig with a band that expects a lot, monitor world is under the stage, so he has to rely on video feeds and a complex talkback system to communicate with his clients. All that and he is using a new console…

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On the Bleeding Edge

It may not be obvious, but the directionality of a sound reinforcement loudspeaker is as important a characteristic as its frequency response or power-handling capability. Control of "spill" is critical for sound reinforcement because the environments we deal with are almost always reverberant. If we cannot control the direction of sound, not only does it miss our audience, but it also does nasty things like bounce off walls, create comb filtering and decrease intelligibility.

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Rick's Cabaret NYC

It's September 21, 2005, and Tim Hannum finds himself among the more than 500 patrons at the opening of one of the most anticipated adult entertainment spots (or "gentlemen's clubs") in Manhattan. Located in the former Paradise Club spot, the building alone cost $7.6 million, plus another $3 million to make it pole-worthy, and it's in the desirable spot between Madison Square Garden and the Empire State Building. It's the 10th club opened by Rick's, a publicly-traded company.

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Heil Sound PR Series Microphones and Electro-Voice Zx4 Speakers

Heil Sound PR Series Microphones

At the AES show, I met a brash older man with some amazing microphones. That man was Bob Heil, a legend in his own right as the owner of a sound company and builder of sound system speakers, amplifiers and mixers years ahead of what has been available from other manufacturers. While most us thought that Heil Sound Limited had faded into history, Heil's other passion of amateur radio has kept his engineering skills sharp. And that sharpness was enough to design microphones for ham operators and broadcast talent that kept Heil innovating in microphone technology. Through the encouragement of collaboration with Heil's longtime amateur radio friend, Joe Walsh of the Eagles, Heil brought forth the PR series of large diaphragm dynamic microphones suitable for live sound applications.

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Beat Mixing in the Sanctuary…

No, it's not what you think. What we're talking about is getting a controlled drum beat we can mix with the rest of the worship band.

It's no secret that many church music programs have been incorporating more aggressive/contemporary live music into some–if not all–of their services over the past several years. While the amplified guitars, bass, keyboards and drums help add energy and passion to a service, many organizations are now fighting a new problem: The problem of overpowering sound levels, with acoustic drums seeming to be the main culprit.

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SPL Computation

One of the things that still aggravates me are questions about loudness that are formatted like; "How many ampli- fier watts per person are needed for a rock 'n' roll show?" And the oft-repeated, "How many speakers do I need for a room of this size?" While the innocent are allowed to ask such questions, I find it disconcerting to hear experienced sound people asking the very same questions. This Theory & Practice column shall attempt to cover the basics on estimating the Sound Pressure Levels provided and–the reverse–to estimate the amount of gear need to achieve a desired SPL.

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What's That Stomping Sound?

One of the most unusual theatre events you'll ever experience is Stomp, a percussion-driven ensemble piece with a great sense of fun and playfulness that has been delighting audiences in Manhattan's East Village for nearly 12 years. During the various acts, eight performers play all manner of objects as instruments– brooms, tubes, lighters, candy boxes, metal objects, poles, pipes, customized percussion kits, even their own bodies. They toss in everything, including four kitchen sinks.

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A Branded Business

Viewers of Rock Star: INXS, the reality show that sought to find a new lead singer for the vocally-decapitated Australian rock band, were getting a little more reality than they might have bargained for. Or a little less.

On the other hand, John Gott had carved out a great niche for himself and should be the envy of every FOH mixer over the age of 30: After mixing live sound for artists including Pat Benatar and the Talking Heads in the 1970s, he combined a technical gift with an entrepreneur's eye to create a few new live sound and lighting products, one of which eventually became SLS Loudspeakers.

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