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Who the Hell Is Widespread Panic and Why Do They Keep Following Me Around?

Who the Hell Is Widespread Panic and Why Do They Keep Following Me Around?

Chris Raboid and Brad Blettenberg are a good team. Covering FOH and MON plus production for Southern rock jam band Widespread Panic, they have become "part of the family" with a band known for going through sound guys with almost Prince-like regularity — Chris has helmed FOH for five years, and Brad has been camped out at the side of the stage for a decade. FOH caught up with the daring duo on the band's Halloween show in Las Vegas (you can't tell, but the singer is wearing a chicken suit in the pics) and got a glimpse of a crew that has both the chops and the balls to hang with a band that regularly takes things to the edge of the musical abyss without ever falling over. And this band that has never had a radio hit was touring with one of the most cutting-edge and best-sounding systems we have heard in a long time. Here's how they do it.

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Still Signature Cirque – 6000 Shows Later

In the relatively complex audio world of live performance theatre and non-touring based performances, Meyer Sound has emerged as the loudspeaker of choice. But in the late '80s, it was a different story. In the late '80s, CD players were just taking hold, iPods were sciencefiction conceits and the Rolling Stones were the biggest touring act out there. OK, so that last one hasn't changed, but just about everything else in the world of live audio has. Got digital?

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The Goose Is Loose

Produced over the course of the Halloween weekend, the Vegoose music festival in Las Vegas, Nev., featured jam bands, punk bands, fringe bands and mainstream headliners spread out over three days and the city of Vegas. Bands such as Widespread Panic and the String Cheese Incident played out in late night gigs at clubs closer to the casinos [Interview with Chris Raboid And Brad Blettenberg of Widespread Panic is on page 26 –ed.], while the main show was concentrated on the grounds of Sam Boyd stadium in the city's southwest corner.

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SLS 8290 Dual-Purpose PA Box and MC2 Audio E45 Power Amplifier

SLS 8290 Dual-Purpose PA Box

How many times have you been shown a vaguely trapezoidal box and then been promised that it can serve as a mid-high box or a full-range monitor? And how many times have you actually dared use the "multipurpose" box as a monitor and then as a house box? And how often do you keep using it for two different applications? The point here is that, multi-purpose or not, a box will generally end up only getting used for whatever it's best at — no matter what the manufacturer says. So let's say we are skeptical when we take a multipurpose box out on both MON and FOH duty.

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The Devil Is In the Details

Hey, friends, if you are reading this article because you missed church last Sunday, you've come to the wrong place. Even though I attend church regularly, I cannot offer any absolution for your sins. However, if you want to create better sound at your home church or get some valuable insight into the mechanics of house of worship installations, you're talking to the right guy.

In this particular issue we will be looking at personal monitors (a descriptive term for monitoring headphones that fit inside the ear canal) for the worship team (that would be a descriptive term for the musicians/singers that lead the congregation in worship songs). There are a variety of PM products available on the market, and certainly PMs are by no means new phenomena. So I am not going to explore the different manufacturers or the pros and cons of wired versus wireless systems. You get out there and do your homework on what products will serve your particular client, and I will try to add some insight to the rest of the process.

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GFCI and Sound Systems

Any sound person who has been in the biz for a while usually has a GFCI tale of woe to tell. Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters (GFCIs) are those pesky receptacles found in bathrooms, kitchens and outdoor locations to prevent a shock hazard when water and electricity could mix. Unfortunately, the National Electric Code (NEC) requires GFCI circuits if the public (read: musicians) has access to outdoor electricity. There are exceptions on GFCI usage for carnival vendors, sound and lighting gear and other utilizations where the public normally is not likely to engage electrical appliances directly.

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Working in a Wireless Wonderland

Already a classic children's book and animated television program, Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas! also became a hit movie with Jim Carrey and a popular musical theatre production that has run seasonally in San Diego for eight years in a row. Now, Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical is tantalizing Broadway in its first holiday run. The Grinch team does a great job of replicating the look of the book, collecting a good ensemble cast, and delivering a charismatic Grinch (Patrick Page). Sound designer Tom Clark, one of the powerful triumvirate that is Acme Sound Partners, took on the show without having been involved with the original production. He treated The Grinch as if it was a brand new show. The 70- minute production moves quickly but does not overwhelm the audience, nor does the unobtrusive, but well-layered, sound design.

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Academia Heats Up for Live Sound

You can tell you've got a growth sector when more people want to sell services and products around it. For instance, there's a business in iPod accoutrements that's almost as big as iPod sales themselves. If the education sector is any indication — and it is — then live sound is a bull market.

Several key college and universitylevel media technology operations have been ratcheting up their live sound offerings. Full Sail in Orlando has a training area about the size of an airplane hangar to support the show production and touring courses that they upgraded in 1998, from a component of the audio engineering path to its own 13-month degree program.

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d&b's Js deliver 50 Cent rap in Helsinki

HELSINKI, FINLAND — 50 Cent performed two nights, in front of 17,000 fans, at Helsinki's largest venue, the Hartwall Arena. Since 50 Cent was not on tour, the Hartwall concerts were a one-off event, so his production used local services, calling upon Akun Tehdas, Finland's leading equipment rental provider, to supply all 50 Cent's sound requirements. "This was a typical large scale event for us," said Timo Liski of Akun Tehdas.

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Meyer Sound MILO Helps Megadeth Rock, Rattle, and Rumble

BERKELEY, CA — On this year's "Gigantour 2," Megadeth's tour with opening acts Lamb of God, Opeth, Overkill and Arch Enemy, the central philosophy was clear: loud is good, but louder with clarity is better, and with that in mind, tour sound providers Thunder Audio turned to Meyer Sound's MILO curvilinear array loudspeaker to do the job. Thunder vice president Paul Owen reports that, initially, not everyone realized what MILO could do. But Owen, who has mixed monitors for Metallica and worked on tours by AC/DC, Disturbed, Slipknot and Mudvayne, was quite confident about his specification.

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EAW to Offshore Manufacturing Operations

WHITINSVILLE, MA — If you have been involved in live audio for any significant period of time there are a few companies that you probably think of as forming the foundation of the business in the U.S. One of those "foundation" companies, Eastern Acoustic Works, better known as EAW, has joined that steady stream of U.S. manufacturing concerns packing up their domestic operations and shipping them off to Asia.

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Tempo Turns to Adamson for Tempo Turns One

ST CROIX, VIRGIN ISLANDS – Thousands of people flocked and flew into the island of St Croix, US Virgin Islands, to attend Tempo's one-year birthday bash, for which Adamson speakers played a key role. The Caribbean lifestyle TV channel, from MTV Networks, explores the Caribbean culture. Its musical programming is mainly Caribbean music including Calypso, Dancehall, Punta rock, Soca and Reggae. Tempo celebrated with a birthday concert named "Tempo Turns One" on November 4th, and Frontline Systems, a locally-based production company, got the call.

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