L-Acoustics K1/K2 System Rocks Canada’s Juno Awards
Lectrosonics Venue 2 and HHa Digital Hybrid Wireless
The world of wireless audio for live sound is tough, and truthfully, it’s not getting any easier, with ever-increasing RF traffic, fewer available UHF bands and the uncertainty of a spectra landscape that may (or may not) change at the whim of any future FCC rulings. Specifically designed to address those very issues is Lectrosonics’ Venue 2 Digital Hybrid Wireless modular receiver. Lectrosonics’ Digital Hybrid Wireless process delivers a wide 20 kHz audio bandwidth, compander-free audio and uses an analog FM carrier to transmit a specially encoded signal that delivers digital audio quality while remaining highly spectrum efficient.
Martin Audio MLA Covers Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in Raleigh
RALEIGH, NC – The recent Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in Raleigh, NC – with marathons and half marathon races – culminated in a series of concerts at the Red Hat amphitheater. Gavin DeGraw was the headliner for the first night with opening acts Jason Adamo and Mark Scibilia, followed by St. Lucia, Four Founders and Look Homeward celebrating the close of the marathon run. The challenge to overcome at Red Hat was controlling sound given the venue’s location in the heart of the city opposite the convention center with residential housing located close behind the amphitheater. RMB Audio deployed a Martin Audio MLA Compact system for the event for various reasons.
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Big, Boomy and Cold: The Realities of Arena Sound
Tonight I have a little time off, and I am watching a Stanley Cup playoff game between the San Jose Sharks and the Nashville Predators. The game is being played at the SAP Arena in San Jose, CA. The Sharks’ hockey fans love that building. It’s loud and reverberant, with lots of hard reflective surfaces, and virtually no acoustical treatment — perfect for amplifying crowd noise to intimidate the visiting team. The very conditions that make an arena so perfect for hockey games make it an extremely challenging environment for live music shows. The building makes live music sound hard, unconnected and overly bright. It has never been one of my favorite concert venues. Plus, I am a devout fan of the rival Los Angeles Kings.
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A Treasure Trove of Vintage Live Recordings for Gigs at NYC’s Bottom Line
When the Bottom Line closed, in January, 2004 — a month shy of its 30th anniversary — it marked the decline of the cabaret-style rock venue in New York’s Greenwich Village. In fact, the owners, Allan Pepper and the late Stan Snadowsky, had kept the club going mostly on fumes for its last few years, the sit-down-and-listen format having largely already faded as live music migrated to pricey dance clubs and warehouses in Brooklyn and Queens. The demise of the Old World Order of record labels, which were falling to consolidation as online piracy and file trading undermined their creaky economics, meant they were no longer able to “paper the house,” as Pepper used to call the practice of a label buying out the 400 or so seats for the early show to support an act.
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The Ups and Downs of SPL Restrictions
If you want to keep working, you have to learn how to play nicely with others in the sandbox. Part of those skills may require that at some point or another (for whatever reason), you’ll have to work within an SPL limit. It’s a difficult task, especially with a full band on stage, so let’s take a look at why SPL limitations exist and what you can do to make the best of a quiet situation.
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Listen More, Look Less: How Snapshots Can Improve Your Mix
So your church has made that rather large investment in a digital mixing console. Are you using it to its full potential? One of the most misunderstood and overlooked aspects of digital consoles is snapshot automation. Ironically, over the past decade of teaching digital consoles, I’ve heard people say things like “snapshots are cheating” or “the console is mixing for you.” Those statements couldn’t be further from the truth. Snapshots allow you to focus more on your mix, and less on the tedious process of muting and unmuting channels and getting faders into position. Anything that allows you to “listen more and look less” is a great tool.
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How Would You Like Your Germs Today?
For obvious reasons, some things just don’t lend themselves to being good rental items. It’s not hard to visualize why expendable pieces such as guitar picks, drum sticks and drum heads would not be acceptable for a rental after the first use. Things such as horn reeds and harmonicas have an overt factor of “disgusting” in terms of using them as a rental. These pieces are personal items with which any given musician shares their bodily fluids. Okay, okay, don’t get overly imaginative here. I’m only referring to saliva.
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Radial’s Jensen Twin-Servo 500 PreAmp
VANCOUVER – Radial Engineering Ltd. is now shipping the Jensen Twin-Servo 500 series preamplifier, a remake of Deane Jensen’s original design. This 500 series version is able to deliver up to 60dB of gain. It features a front-panel Neutrik Combo connector with choice of XLR and 1/4″ inputs, a dual-gang potentiometer for level adjustment along with a 10 segment LED meter for viewing. This is supplemented with a 180-degree polarity reverse switch that toggles the absolute phase, a gentle high-pass filter to eliminate excessive resonance, a -15dB pad, and a 48V phantom power activation switch.
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Patti LaBelle Performs on Turntable Stage with EAW Redline Monitor System
WESTBURY, NY – Patti LaBelle recently performed in the 3,000-seat NYCB Theater in Westbury, NY with an EAW Redline monitor system. Ronkonkoma, NY-based Audio Design Group provided eight Redline RL12 loudspeakers used in monitor mode for the in-the-round concert stage. The monitor speakers were distributed around the lip of the venue’s turntable stage. Reuben James, LaBelle’s monitor engineer since 2010, had specified bi-amped wedges for the downstage mix. The EAW Redline RL12 components, he said, were “more than up to the task.”
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