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Mary McFadden and Chicago

Mary McFadden and Chicago

How much abuse can a traveling analog FOH console take before it expires? Mary McFadden knows the answer. The sound engineer for the national touring company of the hit musical Chicago dealt with that issue recently after spending two years on the road with a faltering analog board sandwiched within digital gear.

The Tony Award-winning Chicago is already a challenging show with its concertstyle production where the bandstand with full band onstage, also the centerpiece of the scenic design, is a substitute for the traditional pit orchestra. A little over a year ago, McFadden and Chicago's sound system designer, Scott Lehrer, decided to remove a badly limping analog FOH console for Yamaha's digital PM5D desk. The touring show's production package was a more modest adaptation of a system designed for the 1,587-seat Schubert Theater in Manhattan. At the start of the national tour in May 2003, a Yamaha DM2000 sidecar was substituted into the system to replace an analog board, and it was joined to a smaller mainframe analog desk, to shrink the mix-position footprint in the smaller venue. But within two years, the analog desk began to develop problems that eventually required its retirement.

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Winter NAMM 2006

FOH was well represented at Winter NAMM with as many as six of us on the floor at times (OK, that six includes the ad folks, but ours are not weasels, so we can include them). While there was nothing really earth-shattering, there was some cool stuff, and some of it in unexpected places. Each of us had our favorites, but a couple of things caught everyone's eye. I have yet to talk to a soundguy at any level from regional on down who wasn't jazzed by the Peavey Distro, and their line array created quite a buzz as well. A couple of us saw some not-yet-released EV stuff that we can't talk about without an automatic contract going out on all of us and our families, but it will be worth talking about eventually.

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But Will It Sell in Omaha?

"Omaha, somewhere in middle America…"

When Adam Duritz of Counting Crows fame penned these words in 1993, he probably didn't know that we'd still be hearing them on the radio more than a decade later. And yet, for many people, this chorus may be the first thing that comes to mind when we hear mention of this Midwest city. David Lemke is one of many people working to change all of our minds.

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Regional Slants: Guest Engineers: Their Toys…and Their Riders!

A little history about HAS Productions: I started this company about 10 years ago as a "small club/anklebiter"-size house. As time progressed, I realized what a gear whore I was! I wanted bigger, better toys, and with that, you need bigger, better gigs to pay for them. At this point, this seems to be a FULL-TIME TREND! Every time you get that next toy, you need another.

But with all of that, in the beginning, the issue of a guest engineer never came up, or it was never an issue.

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SPROING!

About 1986, I was working a multiple- stage event at Marineland (which is now closed). We had six systems up and running at any one time, although mostly it was two or three with everyone else on break. It was during one of these periods when I was at the main stage (the Dolphin Show arena). We had a 30-bottom three-way system up and running, and Robbie Edwards was mixing FOH on an older Tangent console. What Robbie didn't know was that this particular console (from circa 1980) had an INTERNAL spring reverb! We weren't using it, and he didn't ask.

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A Revolution of Sound and Spirit

As most people will acknowledge, we live in challenging times– fraught with obstacles that can cause even the most steadfast among us to stumble. In its ongoing effort to help today's youth "face and defeat the everyday 'giants' they encounter," Christian organization Dare 2 Share, in association with Focus on the Family, is sponsoring the Revolution tour–a 10-city circuit spanning the continental U.S. that includes motivational speakers, skits and musical performances by artists Danny Oertli and Starfield.

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Mid-Market Digital Consoles

Call it a testament to just how much mind-share has been gained by makers of digital consoles for live use, but this is the third time in 25 months that FOH has done a product gallery dedicated to this slice of the market. The first one in Jan. 2004 featured 14 models from six companies, and the prices ranged from less than $5,000 to nearly a quarter of a million dollars to "if you have to ask, you can't afford it."

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Yamaha M7CL Digital Mixing Console, ISP Technologies GSL12 Mongoose Speaker System, Lectrosonics R40

The Yamaha M7CL Digital Mixing Console

By Paul Overson

Have you ever fallen in love with a piece of gear to the point where you would want to marry it? This didn't quite happen (good thing, because it is probably illegal in most states…), but we did love the Yamaha M7CL enough to want to buy it. It is the fastest, most versatile and user-friendly and has the best value of any digital console we've used to date.

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Downsize Your Gear

It's a New Year and it might be time to rethink what's in your rack. There is something always exciting about cleaning out an old closet, giving away what you don't really need and finding a whole lot of space. The same can be done with that audio rack!

I think you'll see that if you are tired of overprocessing and getting poor results, it might be time to go digital. There are exceptions to every case, and I don't deny that an extra piece of outboard gear at FOH can be handy for the experienced technician. What I am talking about is a paradigm shift in technology and equipment management, not the odd "what if…?" situation.

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Instrument Frequencies

When putting together a mix, it is handy to have knowledge of your sound sources and the frequencies generated by each. This article is intended to be a quick reference (with a table) to frequency bandwidths of various music sources.

Drums

Starting with the traditional left side of the console, drums are usually tuned to resonance from about 160Hz to 800Hz. But the total bandwidth of each drum can range from two octaves below to batter head sounds (click) into the presence bands (2 to 8KHz). For example, a 22-inch kick drum batter head is typically tuned to E3 or 164Hz. But sub-harmonics are given off at 82Hz and 41Hz, with these becoming the chest "thump" that should felt more than heard. And with the second harmonic suppressed (328Hz) to make room for other instruments, all that is left is the "click" around 3KHz Other drums are typically tuned a bit higher, like a 16-inch floor tom resonance at C4 (261Hz), 14-inch floor tom at F4 (349Hz), 12-inch rack tom at A4 (440Hz), 10-inch rack tom at D5 (587Hz) and a snare at G5 (783Hz). If you set drum gates, then the first suboctave below the batter head resonance is usually where the frequency band is set. From the above example for drum tunings, the kick is at 82Hz, 16-inch floor tom at 130Hz, 14-inch floor tom at 175Hz, 12-inch rack tom at 220Hz, 10-inch rack tom at 293Hz and snare at 366Hz.

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2005: Box Office Bonanza

While the movie industry claimed it was in a slump (not factoring in mega DVD sales) and the music industry was hurting, Broadway had its best year on record in 2005, raking in more than $825 million in ticket sales, a whopping 10% over the previous year. In fact, according to Broadway.com, the week ending Jan. 1 was the best ever in the history of the Great White Way, with $25.2 million in gross sales and an average capacity of 93.9%. No wonder Hollywood brought out big-screen adaptations of Rent and The Producers (which, ironically, was a movie in the first place).

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