MILTON KEYNES, UK– SSE Audio Group rocked more than 60,000 heavy metal and rock fans at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes, reinforcing legendary performers such as Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Queensryche, Journey, Thunder and Ted Nugent with 85 boxes in a NEXO GEO T line array system at the Monsters of Rock festival.
Read More »I am finding myself in a frustrating situation. I've been doing sound for my friend's band for about a year, and some other local bands have approached me to do the same for them. My dilemma is that these other acts want me to provide more equipment than I currently have. I'm willing to make the investment, but the brands of equipment that fit the budget don't meet my expectations of quality. How can I provide what these clients want, and do it with respectable equipment?
Read More »As I have mentioned here before, my wife is the queen of reality shows. I give a nod of gratitude to whatever power controls such things, as I am fortunate in that she has not gotten into the really bad ones. No Swan or Bachelor or Date My Dad or whatever the true dreck is. But we do get plenty of Survivor, The Amazing Race and American Idol. What can I tell you? Her latest thing, more of a game than a reality show, is Deal or No Deal. If you have missed it, there is a big, tiered stage with a bunch of hot model chicks, each with a briefcase that holds a placard with a dollar figure on it. The player picks one case which becomes theirs, and then starts having the models open cases, hoping for low numbers and that their own case holds the big money. After every few cases, the host calls an offstage "banker" who figures the odds based on the cases already opened and offers to buy the contestant's case for an amount somewhere between the lowest and highest numbers still in play. The host tells the contestant the amount the bank is willing to pay for their still unopened case and says "deal or no deal." Hence the name. The contestant has to decide if they want to take the amount offered, or chance opening more cases and finding out that their own case holds a buck. (Side note, the host is a comedian named Howie Mandel who is, these days, a pretty big deal. In the late '70s, I saw Howie Mandel at the Comedy Store in Westwood, CA and he was way weirder than his current image would suggest. Weird–and funny–enough that I still remember it.)
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Your mission, (should you choose to accept it) is: Get a gig in Mexico (preferably on the Baja Peninsula); transport yourself, a rig and a crew to the gig; do the show; get paid, have fun and go home. Or, better yet, start up a sound reinforcement company in Baja, around the Cabo San Lucas/ La Paz area and work there a few months out of the year. Actually, this has been my mission or dream for the last year or so. It all started when I went to Cabo San Lucas for the first time in 1991. I immediately fell in love with the place. Soon I found an outdoor bar that made excellent margaritas, and within a few days I got a gig there playing acoustic guitar and singing. I had that gig for five years, traveling down south once or twice a year to play music, lay in the sun, boat, eat, fish etc. During this time I never made any real money but I got free trips and had a ton of fun. And more importantly, I planted the seeds for my dream of having a viable sound company south of the border. The following writings are my experiences, subjections and observations with regards to the pursuit of live sound in Baja California. However, I believe you can use this information for a variety of business ventures not to mention general travel. So, let's go:
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You have to be insane to own a studio or an audio rental house, or, if not crazy to begin with, the insanity will slowly overtake the unsuspecting entrepreneur as they realize the money pit they've fallen into. For audiophiles and providers everywhere the lure of the next piece of equipment is not merely a vanity, but a necessity when trying to compete with and stay ahead of all the latest breakthroughs in audio technology. Digital technology has made access to great sounding gear much easier than it was even five years ago and any engineer will attest to the fact that with all the available options, one's dream studio or sound system is only limited by one's budget.
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Balance is a tough thing. At FOH we are constantly being bombarded with requests/ideas/suggestions for sound guys to interview. Lots of good guys out there and who gets in is as much an issue of timing as anything else. But sometimes we will have to choose between a couple of interesting candidates. Like this month. On the one hand, we've got a young guy by the name of Kyle Chirnside who has gone with Fall Out Boy from clubs to arenas in a year. On the other, Brian Ruggles–who has been at the desk with Billy Joel for 35 years and who is one of the really great live engineers still working–was going to be in town. What to do? How about both? Call it a generational thing or a passing of the torch or just a cop-out on our part but we decided to talk to both of them. And, age and experience notwithstanding, they both had some interesting thoughts on the current state of live event audio.
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As I was making my way to North Las Vegas to check out this room I have to admit that I was a bit torn. On one hand, I had recently met the technical director and A-1, and they were the kind of production guys I like to hang with–dedicated, down-to-earth and without any "don't you know who I am?" BS. Other production folks in town that I had talked to described The Club at the Cannery as an "A" room in a local casino in the "C" part of town. The important part, they stressed, was that it really was an A-level room.
Read More »It was a January rap show in a club on the East side of Buffalo. Load in was at 1 a.m., the band was scheduled to arrive around 3 p.m., show at 9 p.m. The FOH engineer Brandon and I set up the rig and waited patiently next to mammoth propane heaters for the band to arrive. 3 p.m. came and went, and then 4, 5 and 6 p.m. respectively. Finally, at 10 p.m., two hours after doors, and one hour after the show was to have started, the band shows up, takes one look at the stage and asks where all their backline is. A few frantic phone calls later, we discover that there was a miscommunication at the shop and the backline was never advanced. "No problem" we say, "we'll just go get it."
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Live music is already a challenge in the modern world of multimedia concerts. Dealing with a new venue every night, multiple crews, gear issues and the requirements of different artists is certainly not easy. Now imagine you're on a tour with the Black Eyed Peas, a hot hip-hop crossover group that in concert features four singers, four live musicians, backing tracks, samples and a variety of instruments. Then imagine that there are almost no soundchecks ever.
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When I first reviewed the Dynacord Cobra Speaker System, the product literally fit the definition of the European over-designed "Uber-system" with a price tag to match. While many Cobra systems were sold, a number of potential customers could not make the investment, even with its plug and play abilities. So the Dynacord Xa Speaker now comes along to address the market's desire for a cost-sensitive, plug and play speaker system at home with corporate gigs, DJ-work, and live music performances.
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The Pastor wants them, the choir wants them, every musician in the worship band wants them (drummers like two), and the FOH person frequently wishes they didn't exist at all. We are talking, of course, about stage monitors or wedges. They are on my "Three Evils of Church Audio" list for several reasons, and unfortunately in this case evil is many times tangible and audible. Let's take a brief look and listen…
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Back in the early 1980s, when I was still in college chasing my electrical engineering degree, I volunteered to be a stage hand for a 24-hour charity dancea- thon at the college field house. Being a reasonably good musician and a novice sound person, I did not vie for the coveted Front of House mix position, as every wannabe techhead was already competing to "hang-out" at Front of House and hoping that the hourly change in bands was not accompanied by band engineers. But I had a blast practicing change-overs onstage, calling out new patches on a new-fangled wireless intercom and keeping the less-than-reliable racks and stacks working around the clock.
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