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New Gear

New Gear

Digidesign D-Show Profile Mix Rack System

Developed specifically for small- and mid-sized performance venues, houses-of-worship, touring and fixed installations, or as an upgrade for existing analog systems, the D-Show Profile Mix Rack System combines a D-Show Profile console with the new Mix Rack, a compact 11-space rack enclosure that incorporates all audio I/O (stage and local) and DSP into a single chassis. The resulting system combination is designed to offer a compact, portable and cost-effective way to take advantage of the power and flexibility of VENUE, including native control of a vast library of TDM plug-ins and tight integration with Pro Tools software for live multitrack recording and playback. www.digidesign.com/venue

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3-Ring Charity Circus

www.tonygleeson.com

So, there I was, minding my own business eating dinner at around 7:30 at night when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number on my caller ID, and thought to myself, maybe a new client. I answer the phone, and they began to tell me that they were promoting a show in my area. I asked for some details. They told me they needed a PA for four bands, and that it was to be held in a giant “steel” circus tent.

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Ravinia: Good People, Good Times, Good Music

Pictured at Ravinia Festival FOH position are, (L to R): Will Huffman, Local 2 monitor engineer; Tom Carlson, A Sound Choice FOH system tech; Mike Gotshall, A Sound Choice president; Norm Krueger, Local 2 FOH engineer; Tim Christenson, A Sound Choice monitor system technician; and Sam Amodeo, Local 2 master sound technician.

With a history of more than 100 years, Chicago’s Ravinia is unlike any festival out there.

Most festivals are just shows with a few more acts and a somewhat longer run. But Chicago’s Ravinia is not just another festival. Opening in May and ending in October with multiple acts almost every day, it is really more of an install — kind of semi-temporary, but an install all the same.

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Gary Brunclik and Adrian Louw

Gary Brunclik

Gary Brunclik
Project Manager
Clearwing Productions, Inc.
Phoenix, AZ
www.clearwing.com
602.850.6333
[email protected]

Services Provided: Audio, lighting, backline, production services.

Clients: Southern Comfort Music Experience, NFL Tailgate Party, Tempe Music Festival, Apple River Country Splash, Country USA, Kevin Costner, Guantanamo Bay concert series, Milwaukee Summerfest, Matthew Sweet, Soul Asylum, EWF.

Quote: “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”

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Brand Names

By Andy Au

What’s in a name? We live in a culture of branding and brand names. We wear company logos and names on practically every piece of clothing we own. From bags and jewelry to T-shirts, jeans and footwear, we have all become walking advertisements for clothing manufacturers, loudspeaker companies, microphone producers, bands, audio consoles, speaker cables, beer, motorcycles, cars, sports franchises, cymbal makers and on and on ad infinitum. In the last millennium, there was a phrase, “you are what you eat,” which was used to describe the pitfalls of choosing the wrong diet.

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Lars Brogaard: “What Else Are We Gonna Do? Stay Home and Watch TV?”

Lars Brogaard

Rod Stewart’s FOH mixer Lars Brogaard keeps busy on the road.

He is one of the principal owners of one of Great Britain’s largest sound companies, Major Tom (as in “ground control to…”), he has his hands in system and console development, and he has been the front-of-house guy for Rod Stewart for 23 years. This is one guy who has no time for TV watching. FOH caught up with Lars Brogaard on Rod’s “Greatest Hits 2008” tour stop in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand where he was using a DiGiCo SD7 (backed up by a D5) to drive a Meyer Milo rig for a sold-out crowd.

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Too Connected?

I got a couple of reminders in the past weeks about just how small a business this is and the importance of personal connections. But this time there was a twist. First, one is more music-oriented. As I have written about before, I am one of those stupid guys who refuse to give up playing music in addition to magazines and Web stuff and the occasional audio gig.

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Heroes and Villians

Before I jump into our usual high-tech trash talk, I have to relate a recent story regarding what could have been a complete audio disaster. We were doing a show at the Umatilla County Fair in Hermiston Ore., on a hot August day. As is often the case, heat + humidity = a multitude of weather-related anomalies including (but certainly not limited to) thunderstorms and hail. When my crew and I arrived for load-in, we were warned that there was a good chance for a hailstorm with 70-mph winds. In fact, there was a tornado warning for a few of the surrounding counties. We proceeded with our setup knowing that if a storm came we’d have to lower the roof of the stage and wrap up the PA system to protect the gear.

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Case Studies

The most trenchant clues to the state of the industry are often seen from the most oblique angles. Manufacturers of flight and road cases for the touring sound business are getting hit by many of the same economic forces as the rest of the live sound industry, mostly in the form of higher costs of materials, stemming from a combination of products such as foam padding, which some case makers report as having doubled in the last year, to increases due to the cost of shipping both materials and finished goods. “The cost of the metals and the foam has gone sky high,” says Mark DeHart, president of Rock Hard Road Cases in Albany, Ore. “All of the aluminum and casters are up, as are the foam costs.”

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Meyer Sound 500-HP Compact High-Power Subwoofer

Meyer Sound has announced the new 500-HP compact high-power subwoofer. The self-powered loudspeaker brings the power-to-size ratio and low-distortion of Meyer Sound subwoofers to a package designed for rigging with the M’elodie line array loudspeaker or used in groundstacked configurations. The 500-HP is best suited for enhancing low-frequency headroom in applications such as small-to-medium theaters and clubs, houses of worship, and portable and installed AV systems. 

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Paramore Takes to the Streets with L-ACOUSTICS

OXNARD, Calif. — Although Nashville has long been best known as a country music Mecca, fast-rising pop-punk bands like Paramore are diversifying the image of Music City USA. Recently coming off the road with its final tour in support of the band’s second album, Riot!, the group’s engineers used Rat Sound’s L-ACOUSTICS loudspeaker rig, which the band had been carrying for the first time.

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Dragonforce Brings “No-Nonsense Rock ‘n’ Roll” with Adlib

ENGLAND — Adlib is supplying audio equipment and crew for the current Dragonforce UK tour mixed by Bruce Reiter. Adlib is supplying a NEXO Alpha system, with the standard configuration of 18 M3 mid high boxes, 12 B1 bass cabinets and 10 S2 subs. Playing a wide variety of venues, they’re flying where possible and ground-stacking the rest of the time. For general infills, they are using four Adlib AA122s.

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