Skip to content

Reach Out

Reach Out

Are you familiar with the term outreach? If you work in the worship business, especially the Christian end of this business, you will recognize the aforementioned term as a description of reaching out into the local community, professing and often demonstrating the teachings of God. This outreach can take many forms. The act of taking meals to elderly folks or helping someone in the community (regardless of their religious beliefs) with the most basic aspects of living is a popular charitable act and sponsored by many churches.

Read More »

Roland Systems S-1608 Digital Snake System

We have said it often enough that it is likely sounding like a broken record (remember those? They sound a lot different than a skipping CD), but the world is getting increasingly digital, and live event audio is no exception. First, digital processing moved from the studio to the stage. Then it was consoles. The only reason someone is not hawking a digital loudspeaker is ‘cuz until we all have direct-inject jacks that go straight into the cerebral cortex,  the laws of physics dictate that you have to actually move air to create sound. The latest part of the signal chain to get the ol’ ones-and-zeroes treatment is the venerable snake.

Read More »

SMAART Version 6

The sixth version of System Measurement Audio Analysis Real-Time (SMAART) is the charm for EAW, a division of Loud Technologies. Having enjoyed SMAART Live 5.0 for a while, bringing in version 6 begs the question, “Why upgrade?” Well the answer is that SMAART v.6 is a complete house cleaning of the SMAART software, with patches and expansions shaken out and put together correctly and efficiently. The kludging is gone — the new SMAART looks clean, familiar and professional looking, as it means business to those who use it. 

Read More »

The Golden Audio Rule

 Endeavor Audio & Lighting Systems gets to market by treating others right. 

There comes a point, it seems, when the thought of another club date in a town just south of nowhere is less than attractive. When Jason Oakey and Chris Menichetti hit that point, they decided to get off the road and start their own audio and lighting company.

Read More »

Bringing In The Sound

Ryan Greene has been spending the past 15 years or so working on his studio tan, helping an assortment of punk rock bands such as NOFX, Lagwagon, No Use for a Name, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes record their best offerings.

Before that run of studio work, Greene learned about audio by standing in front of bands at the front of house position with a mixing board under his hands. His first FOH gigs came in Los Angeles during the ‘80s, and he worked with such bands as Poison and Warrant, as well as a handful of local bands at venues like The Troubadour, The Roxy and The Whisky.

A couple of years ago, Greene moved to Scottsdale, Ariz., and opened Crush Recording. There, he continued to work with dozens of rock bands willing to travel to his studio. After one session, a band that he worked with was about to hit the stage and was looking for someone to mix a live show. Greene jumped at the chance.

Read More »

Going to NEW JERSEY, Just for the VIBE

The community’s response to the closing of the John Harms Center in 2003 was swift and not positive. In fact, citizens from around northern New Jersey joined to let the powers-that-be know that they wanted a local regional arts center to serve the cultural needs of the area.
 

Read More »

Parnelli 2007 Audio Innovator: Bob Heil

From P.A.'s for The Who and The Dead to Talk Boxes for Joe Walsh and Peter Frampton, to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It is All Based on a Love of Music, Between Hearing and Listening.  

No one seems more surprised at Bob Heil’s success than Bob Heil.

Wide-eyed, a face pre-amped with a perpetual smile, the over-caffeinated Dr. Pepper-swigging Heil is that rare breed who is as liked as much as he is admired. Peter Frampton calls him one of the most sincere guys in the business, and in a business that is often short on sincerity, it is perhaps the highest compliment.

Read More »

Is There Integrity at the Mall?

The band was Korn, and the record label decided to hold a press conference on Military Island, which is a tiny triangle of real estate in the middle of Times Square. Someone in marketing had the brilliant idea of creating a corn field, for obvious reasons I suppose, complete with bales of hay. All was going well until the mounted police arrived and couldn’t keep their horses from snacking on the aforementioned bales of hay. Not a disaster by any means, but I’m sure that the label’s marketing department did not intend to have the New York mounted police and their hungry horses in the cornfield with Korn as they held a press conference in Manhattan. And so it goes with the best laid plans.…

Read More »

Hearing the Light

Back in the early 1990s when Alesis introduced the first ADAT machines, I wonder if their development engineers envisioned how important those tiny optical ports on the rear panel would become to the pro audio world. The ADAT optical I/O has not only been adopted by countless other companies as a means of multichannel digital audio transport, but has paved the way for more comprehensive forms of fiber optic transmission of digital audio.

Read More »

The Long Tail

By now most people are familiar with the concept of  “the long tail” — Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson’s digital-era economics theory that busi-nesses with significant distribution capability — like online businesses — can sell a greater number of items at small volumes than of popular items at large volumes. Anderson argues — and not many people have argued back — that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collec-tively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds that of the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough.

Read More »

Pollyanna Has Nothing on These Guys

Brian: So here’s what I want to know: You’re already all set up and you are in the rehearsal, and everything goes downhill from the word go. And none of it is your fault — it’s the client. They are beyond unorganized. You realize that you really don’t want to do the show. It’s going to be a disaster, but you’re already in too deep. What do you do? 

Read More »