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That Depends on What You Mean by Only

That Depends on What You Mean by Only

You've all heard these phrases: "I only need a small basic sound system." "The band is only playing three songs." "It's only an acoustic act." "It's only a small club." "It's a very important show, but it's only for 100 people." The word "only" when used by a client inquiring about a sound system is usually a code word to let you know that they "only" have limited funds to spend on audio. They mistakenly think that by downplaying the importance of the audio portion of their event, we, the vendor, will give them an inexpensive system. This is a trap that every vendor should learn to avoid. Treat the client the same way that a real estate agent treats his or her clients. Talk to the client and determine exactly what they might need and start by showing them your smaller systems while explaining the system's limitations in regard to the event they are planning. Then proceed to show the client how, for only a few dollars more, they can take the next step up into a true state-of-the-art system.

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Demetrius Blanton and Brennan Houser

Sound reinforcement for a rap artist like Nelly requires some of the same gear as for a rock show, plus some extra gear and some unique mixing talent to get the job done. FOH caught up with Nelly's four-man sound crew at the Northrup Auditorium in Minneapolis, which seats 4,800 and is the smallest venue on the tour of arenas and theaters this spring. The crew is headed by Demetrius Blanton at the FOH console, who has toured with Nelly for the last three years. In taking out a Stanco Audio Systems rig this tour, Stanco veterans Brennan Houser (system engineer), Chris Lightcap (monitor engineer) and Glen Medlin (audio tech) round out the crew, making it happen night after night.

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Madison's Versatile Overture Hall

Overture Hall in Madison, Wisconsin's Overture Center for the Performing Arts Hall is not "tunable" as much as it is transformable. It can sound, according to technical director Steve Schroeder, extremely dry, "like playing into an old sock," or it can be a superior orchestral hall with excellent reverberation and decay time.

Designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates in collaboration with Potter Lawson, Flad & Associates, Theatre Projects Consultants and acoustical consultants Kirkegaard Associates, the new 2,251-seat, multi-purpose hall is the heart of the Overture Center. It literally morphs from an acoustically dead space suited for amplified sound to an acoustically live space, both warm and brilliant, for symphony and opera.

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H.A.S. Productions, Las Vegas NV

There is a part of Vegas known to its denizens, every cab driver in town and a large percentage of male tourists and convention-goers as "The Fun Zone." Once the industrial guts that supported the glitzy Strip, as Vegas has shed its attempt at being a "family" destination and moved ever further in the "what happens here stays here–it's a place for adults to go and be bad" direction, the warehouses, light industrial and machine shops have been joined by a bunch of strip clubs of varying degrees of raunch, debauchery and even attempts at real class. (Not that I know from experience, but I've heard…) It makes getting directions to Larry Hall's HQ a bit more interesting.

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Enter Drunk Idiot, Stage Left

Back in 1978, Mother Blues in Dallas was a great club, and the band Southern Cross was great and very fun to mix. One night, "Tiny" the bouncer tossed a drunk out the front door, but the guy still wanted to rock! Since Tiny was stationed at the front door, the drunk guy couldn't possibly gain entrance there.

Let me digress a bit here: Tiny was huge and really ugly. I have been to a million clubs, and Tiny was the ugliest and meanest bouncer of them all. All the other bouncers together could not hurt Tiny: he could beat them all up at once and would probably enjoy doing it. Tiny was a nice guy, but he still scared me!

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JBL SRX700, Sabine FBX2400, Sencore SP295 and Some Cool Tools

JBL SRX700 Series Speakers

By Mark Amundson

Of all the club rigs I run into, installed or portable, the JBL SR4700 series has been the most frequent occurrence. And no wonder, with large SR4719 subwoofers having dual 18 drivers, and the popular SR4732 tops featuring dual 12-inch mids, 2-inch throat drivers and the very high frequency "baby butt" tweeters, covering the audio bands nicely. But with all this popularity, plus improvements through three updates, where do you go next?

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Get to the Source

Remember in the last article we said, "First, the person can only mix what he gets, and second, he can only mix what he gets!" After much discussion, we decided to add a little more to the subject. Once again, it was off to Ron Ross' home studio to see what we could simplify into a few hundred words–yeah, right.

Keyboards are the subject we seem to get asked about most besides drums. How do we mic them, and how do we mix them? It is immediately important to distinguish between electric pianos, electronic keyboards and acoustic pianos. They may look the same on the stage plot, but getting them hooked up to the FOH console can be very different.

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Fine and Funky Filters

These days, when confronted by a digital speaker processor or digital crossover, you have multiple choices in the high pass, low pass and crossover filter selections. For those not up on filter lingo, words like Butterworth, Chebychev, Bessel, Elliptical and Linkwitz-Riley sound more like European law firms than filter types. So for those of not possessing an electrical engineering degree with a minor in control systems, this article is to introduce basic "pass" filters and help you make some choices in setting up a drive processor.

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David Gotwald on The Producers

The latest trend in Broadway is to take a famous movie, either narrative or musical, and transform it into a lavish stage production. The most successful example of this is The Producers, adapted by comedic filmmaker Mel Brooks from his 1968 movie, in which washed-up Broadway producer Max Bialystock and his frustrated accountant Leo Bloom conjure a scheme to become rich by raising a lot of money, producing a flop, then running off to Rio with the remaining cash. Of course, the film and musical provide their own social commentary, as the duo's abominable play, Springtime For Hitler, satirizes the Third Reich. The insanity translates well to the stage, encompassing everything from dancing and singing stormtroopers to swaying city pigeons that give the Aryan salute.

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Live is More Alive Than Ever

Someone once said, there are three kinds of lies: "lies, damned lies, and statistics". Looking at the stats of the music business in the last couple of years can be dismaying: despite a bit of a bounce last year, CD sales remain relatively stagnant and down more than 20% over the last five years; last year, of course, was a fairly dismal one for pop music concerts, and since neither all the king's horses nor all the king's men can put Ashlee Simpson together again (although CAA will try), it's possible the public's mistrust of when it's live and when it's Memorex could become a hardened attitude.

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Chad Stewart and Michael Hayes

Chad Stewart

President

Stewart Sound

[email protected]

www.stewartsound.net

Quote: Every day is a good day!

Chad Stewart is the touring engineer for the Peter Mayer Group (www.petermayer.com), although he has also worked with artists such as Ricky Skaggs, Arlo Guthrie, the Arden Presbyterian Singing Christmas Tree and Doc Watson. "I am very fortunate to have the Peter Mayer Group position," he comments, "and more importantly, I am blessed to know those guys and call them friends." Chad is also a guitar player and singer, and has two children, Alex and Abby–"the best kids on the planet," he claims.

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Mix & Match Gear

Dear Anklebiters,

After years of working for other outfits, I am finally on my own. The one issue I have run into a few times, however, is not having enough of my own gear for a show and having to rent additional equipment. This in itself is not so bad, but occasionally I have mixed and matched amps, monitors and Front of House speakers. What is your take on this practice?

Charles Leighter

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