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The Joy of Being Drumstruck

The Joy of Being Drumstruck

One of the most dynamic theatre experiences in New York is Drumstruck. If you liked Stomp, you'll certainly enjoy this show, which features a South African troupe that plays drums, sings and educates the audience about their musical legacy and heritage. But there's a twist: Every audience member gets a hand drum to play along during many sequences. It's fun for attendees, but undoubtedly a challenge for live engineer Kevin Brubaker, not to mention sound designer Tom Morse, who helped Brubaker land his first gigs in New York.

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Live Nation's CD Bust

A couple of years ago, I wrote about an emerging trend that would have CDs of live concerts burned and ready for distribution just as the last notes were ringing from the stage. Three companies were vying to get this concept off the ground–a couple of indies and Clear Channel.

Today, Clear Channel is out of the concert business. Its entertainment holdings, ranging from Ozzfest to Jason Giambi's supermarket-opening appearances, are now part of Live Nation, a publicly-traded spin-off venture. It also inherited Clear Channel's CD-burning venture, Instant Live, which has been used on a slew of shows in the last year, including Hall and Oates, O.A.R., Black Crowes, Big Head Todd and the Monsters and The Cult.

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Managing Monitors

Dear Anklebiters,

When you are mixing monitors for musicians (regardless of whether you mix them from a dedicated monitor desk or from FOH), isn't it really up to the engineer to decide what the musicians should hear in their on stage monitor mixes?

Thanks,

Clayton Bennett

Lincoln, NE

Brian Cassell: While it is physically up to the engineer to make the adjustments, I don't think it's really up to him or her to decide what should or shouldn't be in a musician's monitor mix. An engineer really needs to communicate clearly with the musicians to know what they need to hear. And from my experience, the musicians are the only ones who really know what they need to hear. After all, they are the ones who need to stay in tempo and stay in pitch with the other performers onstage. Now, an experienced engineer may have a rough idea of what each musician may need to hear in their monitors, but I find this to be no more than a good starting point.

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People, Get Ready…

Change is, once again, in the air. There has been so much happening in the past month or so, and so many things in flux that I am finding it impossible to put it into any kind of coherative narrative (I know, that should be coherent, but it just sounds so much cooler the other way…), so I think the best approach this time is just to throw out a bunch of bullet-point ideas and see what makes sense in the end.

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What's in a Name?

I remember the first time I mixed sound at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland. I was the engineer for a Brazilian jazz artist and The Hague in Holland was the first stop of a three-week European tour. Also, I might add, this was my maiden voyage into the world of being a touring engineer. I was enthralled to say the least, by everything and everyone around me. The atmosphere was electric, and I could think of being nowhere else as I was sure that I had arrived at my own personal nirvana. I was feeling alive and energized to be a part of an international, artistically vibrant music scene that touted a who's who in the world of jazz and blues, and I was particularly elated to be rubbing shoulders with some of the most famous and talented musicians on the planet.

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Cirque du Soleil's Delirium

Cirque Du Soleil may like tents, but they dispense with the notion of three rings. In fact, their first arena tour (called Delirium) features a stage that cuts every venue in half so that the show is viewed from two different sides of an auditorium. It's a giant catwalk that allows performers and musicians to prowl across the expanse of an arena, and it's also a huge challenge for the sound designer, line engineer and every technical person involved.

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Regional Slants: A Little Guy in the Land of Giants

So, is this what it means to go from anklebiter to regional guy? I mean, I have received the odd invite to industry events before, but never anything on this level. Every year, the Harman Pro Group hosts a three-day event for their dealers, select soundcos and press people where they get an in-depth look into the technology and marketing plans for Harman's current crop of gear. (For the record, the actual title was the Harman Professional 2006 Global Business and Technology Conference. Harman Camp is shorter.) And all of this just prior to the Winter NAMM show.

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Hairspray is Here to Stay

It's out with the Blue and in with new as Las Vegas's Luxor Hotel bids farewell to its azure-painted performers The Blue Man Group and makes way for a brand-new draw–the hit Broadway show Hairspray. The musical turns the back the clock to 1962 when big 'dos ruled and plus-sized trend setter Tracy Turnblad just wanted to dance on a local Baltimore television show.

The show, which opened on Feb. 15, is a shortened, 90-minute reprisal of the multi- Tony-winning Broadway adaptation of the John Waters film that came out in 1988 and made actress and talk-show host Ricki Lake into an instant star.

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On the Bleeding Edge

I have such warm memories of my first audio spectrum analyzer. It was in a box the size of a small television–a tube television, that is. The screen of the analyzer was a matrix of red LEDs that turned on or off to indicate signal level at 1/3-octave frequencies across the spectrum. It worked very well and was easy to read in dark clubs, though it wasn't very useful in daylight. I guess you could say it was portable because it came with a small carrying case for transport, but it weighed about the same as I did in those days. It ran strictly on 120 volts AC and employed a separate measurement microphone that connected via XLR cable. I wonder if those warm fuzzy feelings came from the heat that thing threw off the top of the rack…

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The Vinyl is Tucked and Rolled…And On Fire!

Back in the day, Crown created a startling audio development with their pressure zone boundary microphone design. The PZM-30D was brand-new on the market. I had seen them in use at South Street Seaport–12 of them on Plexiglass plates in front of a choir standing on risers! My God, the sound was crystal clear, uncolored and beautiful! I had to have a pair for hanging on our stage. No more dangling microphones over the heads of actors! This was going to be the best!

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Inside the 48th Annual Grammys

It was Super Bowl Sunday and the freeways of Los Angeles were surprisingly forgiving. While most citizens were settling in for a long day of chicken wings and clever commercials, I was tooling toward Ground Zero for the music industry: the Staples Center, home to the 48th Annual Grammy Awards.

Despite the tranquility of downtown L.A. that morning, as I approached the Staples/ Convention Center staging area, I could literally feel the hum of activity in the hive. It was the first of three days of rehearsals, the technical shakedown before Wednesday's live broadcast of "Music's Biggest Night."

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