There's nothing more frustrating (and embarrassing) than equipment failure during a show. Bands and audiences take it for granted that loudspeakers will work perfectly every time, but sound engineers know it doesn't always happen that way.
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Morris Light & Sound Combines Touring and Installed Electro-Voice X-Line Systems
This year's top country tour, Kenny Chesney, has filled many arenas, amphitheaters, and stadiums over the last decade. But the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, next to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, TX and host to last year's Super Bowl, is the largest.
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DSAs are Improving Intelligibility at Europe's Landmark Churches
They were built centuries ago for a higher purpose, and their beauty has endured. The challenge for today's audio system designers and installers is to preserve the aesthetics of the past while helping speech and song to be heard and understood better than ever before in these venerable spaces. Digital tools – including digitally steerable arrays (DSAs) from RCF and Renkus-Heinz – are succeeding in raising intelligibility to new heights.
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Audio "Team of Rivals" Join Staging Company in Supporting Four-Day Festival
When you think of New Orleans music festival, you think of the Jazz & Heritage. But for locals, there's one that's as dear to their hearts as Du Monde coffee and beignets: The French Quarter Music Festival. This year was the 28th, and over four days in April, 260 local bands performed on 20 stages spread throughout the French Quarter for 533,000 music fans. From brass bands to Zydeco, classical to classic jazz, country to rock, it is a potpourri assault on the senses – the good kind.
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Yamaha introduced their popular StageMix iPad application for their M7CL at PLASA last fall, and there's been strong interest in an LS9 version since. Released at Frankfurt's Prolight + Sound in April, it's a free download on Apple's iTunes store. I got the call from IATSE steward Susan Phillips to work at Florida State College's Wilson Center with the school's nationally recognized jazz band. Because they have an LS9-32 in a typical performing arts center control booth, I knew this was a great test for the LS9 app.
Read More »Digitally Steerable Arrays ("DSA") are a relatively new type of loudspeaker system that are not only self-powered, but also employ individual processing for each transducer to control the coverage of the entire array. Using advanced, but well-known techniques of gain-, delay- and frequency-shading, the polar response of an array of transducers can be steered differently than it would behave passively. Steve "Woody" LaCerra discussed DSAs at length in last month's issue.
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As I sit here contemplating this review, it occurred to me that I have been writing about Yamaha gear for over 15 years now. Not that this really matters for my DSR review, but, just as a reference point, I have seen a lot of innovation come out of Yamaha over the last decade and a half.
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The Nashville Soundco Invests in Gear, Staff
Colleen Cussick stood on the crest of the May 2010 floodwaters that decimated downtown Nashville and took pictures of a waterlogged building and building lot on her cell phone. But it wasn't just any building. Until very recently, it was home to where she worked – Brantley Sound Associates (BSA).
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In last month's issue (FOH, May 2011), I discussed using the Waves C4 multiband compressor as an insert on the snare drum top mic – in my case, an Earthworks DP25C. This column will tackle the snare bottom mic and the Waves C1 compressor/gate plugin.
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The ability to integrate software-based audio recording systems into FOH racks has put pressure on the conventional remote recording sector. As discussed here previously, the golden era of live recordings has passed, an era capped perhaps by the best-selling live album of all time, Garth Brooks' 21 million-plus Double Live LP in 1998.
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One of the less-clear concepts in audio is that of serial versus parallel processing. As is the case with series and parallel electrical circuits, serial processing provides a single path for an audio signal on its way to the mix bus, while parallel processing allows multiple paths through which an audio signal may reach the mix bus. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses, and knowing when to apply either of the two (or in some cases, both) facilitates better control over your mix.
Read More »This month's Sound Sanctuary is not really about the omnipotent nature of God. We all know that God is everywhere (no matter what God you believe in). This month, I would like to talk about expanding your worship house sound system to other parts of your house and into other buildings that may exist on your church's grounds.
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