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Please Re-Lease Me

Please Re-Lease Me

Something I have said often is that many churches are willing to pay for a new sound and lighting system, but few are willing to actually own it. At the time, I was discussing the lack of willingness to train staff and really get involved in overall technical learning. But there may be different reasons why not owning is a good thing.

Depending on the financial organization of a church, especially if it's reasonably healthy, there are options available other than paying cash for technical systems. Using the credit card may lessen the burden on cash flow–and garner enough travel points to help a sponsor a long-desired mission trip or church retreat–or you may consider leasing (and making the payments with the credit card).

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Hum Busting

I don't mean to brag, but the world of hum has been an absent partner for all my recent gigs. While I tackled hum back in the "good ol' days" at my local soundco, I now look back on how I was inflicting hum and noise problems onto myself. This diatribe is meant to bust the demons of hum out of your system, but also outlines how to take preventive measures and minimize its occurrence.

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Monty Python's Spamalot

A cute killer bunny rabbit with big, sharp, pointy teeth. A homicidal Sir Lancelot and a wimpy Sir Robin. A Camelot that resembles a medieval Las Vegas. And a guest appearance by the feet of God, all on stage in the same show.

Inspired by the classic cult film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python's Spamalot is certainly one of the most irreverent shows to hit the Great White Way during the past few years, and solid word-of-mouth from its Chicago previews–and a stellar cast that has included Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce, Sara Ramirez and Hank Azaria–helped transform the $11 million production into a massive hit that's sold out well into the fall. The show has also won three Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Direction of a Musical (Mike Nichols) and Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical, for Ramirez vamping it up diva-style as the Lady of the Lake.

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Stop, Thief!

The word "counterfeit" is easily associated with "money." But dead presidents are not the only things that whet the appetites of commercial criminals around the world today. Common counterfeit products include auto parts, airplane parts, apparel, cosmetics, sunglasses, computer software, fragrances, children's toys, medicines, health and beauty aids and food products. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, losses to U.S. businesses from the counterfeiting of trademarked consumer products are estimated at $200 billion a year, and professional audio products are a slice of that cake.

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Letting Your Crew Stand on Their Own

Hi Guys,

First, I want to say that I read Anklebiters every month and have gotten tons of insight from your experiences. So thanks. Now here is my dilemma: I have more work than I can personally handle. I have enough gear to do multiple shows on a given day, and I have a crew, but I am afraid to send out my guys on their own. I know this is the next step in my businesses evolution. However, the fear of my techs blowing it at a show is stopping my forward movement. Got any suggestions?

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Thinking It Through

Some years back, when I was the editor of a magazine for musicians, we got a press release for a new product that I thought was a brilliant idea. Someone had come up with a couple of adapters that plugged into both ends of a standard AC extension cord and turned it into a speaker cable terminating in 1/4-inch connectors. Being a musician that dabbled in sound (who is slowly growing up to be a sound guy who still plays a few gigs), I thought this was completely cool.

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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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