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Outline Arrays Fielded For Rome’s Circus Maximus Event

Outline at Circus Maximus.

Outline Arrays Fielded For Rome’s Circus Maximus Event

ROME – Circus Maximus, a stadium dating back to 7 B.C., was known for chariot races, simulated battles with infantry, cavalry and elephants, which once drew an enormous number of spectators in ancient Rome. Today the challenges are a different sort. At 680 yards long, the challenge was ensuring perfect intelligibility for speakers covering delicate topics during “Family Day,” one of the many large rallies throughout Italy for and against the proposed law regarding same-sex civil unions and adoptions. Cipiesse, a contractor from Rezzato,  took up the audio gauntlet.

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FRONT of HOUSE editor George Petersen

The Arena Experience

You may have noticed a basketball arena on the cover of this month’s issue — specifically San Antonio’s AT&T Center, which now features a 72-box L-Acoustics Kudo system, as part of its recent $110-million revamp. That is one of the new sports facility installations we’ve spotlighted, beginning on page 36 (you can link to the story here). And there’s a good reason to have that as a focus this month.

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The Arcs tour photo by Steve Jennings

The Arcs Keep Their New Music Old School

It’s essentially a band of producers,” says FOH engineer Neal Jensen of The Arcs. “All five of them are really experienced beyond just being great musicians, and it’s a powerful formula. They are pulling a lot from old-school R&B and blues, taking a step back for the roots of it all, particularly Dan, who is really having fun playing the songs that got him interested in music in the first place.” In this case, Dan is Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, and while The Arcs is officially a “side project,” it’s certainly taking on a life of its own on its current tour. Besides a performance at Coachella, they are hitting the theaters and mid-sized venues performing songs of their first album, Yours, Dreamily, which has original songs from each of the band’s five members.

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Sports Facility Projects

When it comes to acoustics, designers and AV pros often complain about theaters, music venues and house of worship spaces, but if truth be told, sports facilities offer an enormous challenge to delivering clean intelligible audio to the fans. And with good reason, as venues such as basketball arenas, stadiums and hockey rinks just weren’t designed with wide bandwidth, high-SPL audio in mind.

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Shane Filan just wrapped a 20-date U.K. tour

Shane Filan’s ‘Right Here’ Tour

Long known for his vocals with Irish boy band Westlife, Shane Filan continued after the band’s breakup in 2012 with a successful solo career. The singer/songwriter’s first post-Westlife release was the 2013 You and Me CD on Capitol Records, and he followed up that album with his Right Here CD that debuted in late September of 2015.

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Future powering? Renovagen’s RollArray system is a roll-deployed photovoltaic (PV) solar system, designed to be quickly unfurled, providing up to 100kW (or more) of power from a transportable container.

Portable Power: A Future Perspective

Generators and portable power distribution are central to professional audio. Electricity is the preferred means of transferring energy. It is the lifeblood of all pro audio gear. The specific details of portable power distribution for pro audio are often outside the daily interactions of the local electrician. In these circumstances, it can fall to the audio practitioner to clarify the relevant codes and procedures to the electrical professionals in the name of event safety. A solid conceptual understanding of portable electrical power distribution should be a goal for all pro audio professionals.

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Fig. 1: Applying the inverse distance law shows that sound bleed reaching the figure-8 mic on a guitar cabinet placed 16-feet back from a 96 dB stage wedge is down to 70 dB SPL. Graphic courtesey Phil Selman

Utilizing Ribbon Mics for Live Sound

I discovered ribbon mics late in my career, after I’d been engineering for 20 years. I only knew the classics before that, such as the RCA 44 and 77-DX, which looked great in glass cases or featured in photos of music stars of previous generations. About 2001 I started using some of the newer generation of ribbon mics and I fell in love with them: the Royer R-121 and R-122, the AEA R84 and R88, along with standards such as the Coles 4038 and Beyerdynamic M160 and M500. I was hooked, with my ribbon mic collection eventually topping out over a dozen mics, ranging in date of origin from 1932 all the way to the present. But I used them primarily in the studio and became very familiar with their strengths. I learned to love the figure-8 pattern and recognize where it truly excelled.

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Sommer HQ-HDMI cables.

Sommer HQ-HDMI 4K Cable

LAS VEGAS – Sommer Cable America is introducing at the upcoming InfoComm 2016 the new HQ-HDMI cable, designed for loss-free transmission of digital UHD video and multi-channel HD audio data. With a maximum bandwidth of 18 Gbit/s, the 1080p HD video signals will be supported as well as UHD 4K resolutions up to 4096 x 2160 pixels, including the data transfer rates required by HDR.

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The main sanctuary at Hendersonville First Baptist Church, as seen from the balcony. All photos by Chris Demonbreun

First Baptist Church Hendersonville

Once named as one of the “ten best cities for families” by Family Circle magazine, Henderson, TN is a small town that’s just 18 miles northeast of Nashville. While officially part of the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area, Henderson still retains a small town feel, yet with that kind of proximity to Music City USA, residents there are very attuned to sonic quality — especially as part of their worship experience.

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The DiGiCo SD7 console providing the house mix at Atlanta’s Philips Arena for Passion 2016

The Heart of Passion 2016

Simulcast Audio Solutions for 40,000 Attendees in Three Arenas in Two States

Since they began in 1997, the Passion Conferences have long served to bring college students together for worship with a lineup of concerts and speakers. Over the years, they have expanded, with events and tours around the U.S. and the entire world. This year, with the promise that “three locations will be connected across two cities with a single heartbeat,” the conference was held simultaneously at three large venues in two different cities, all linked together to share content via an Optocore digital fiber network and satellite redundancy. The three-day conference saw attendance at more then 40,000 people, with six bands and six guest speakers to entertain the crowds in all three cities.

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Telstra Insight Center.

Meyer Sound Constellation Provides Acoustical Flexibility For Australian Telecom Company

SYDNEY – A Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system is helping Telstra, one of Australia’s largest telecommunications and media companies, to inform and educate visitors at its Customer Insight Center (CIC) in Sydney. Installed in a 300-seat theatre, Constellation provides Telstra with the acoustical flexibility to hold meetings, concerts and multimedia presentations in the same space, helping to connect customers with the company’s range of cross-platform technology solutions.

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