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There's No Crying in Monitors!

There's No Crying in Monitors!

My friend Abby, who is Cyndi Lauper's tour manager, called me the other day and asked if I would like to do a one-night stand minding the monitors for Ms. Lauper and her band. The show was to be at the new Time Warner Center in New York City, and we were to play The Rose Theater as part of the Pride Week celebration. Ms. Lauper and her band were to close the show with three songs after a variety of acts from Broadway singers to dancers, all backed by a small orchestra. Rose Hall, which holds the theatre, is a brilliant architectural structure that can supposedly shape-shift and transform into the perfect venue for any style of gig. I think the intention was that it could morph into a larger or smaller jazz venue, and not necessarily a rock 'n' roll venue.

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Billy Huelin and John Adair

It is going to sound like a cliché (or B.S., take your pick), but for the band and crew for Hootie and the Blowfish, it really is a family affair. Ten years after their debut record exploded out of South Carolina to sell something like 16 million copies, the same four guys are in the band with auxiliary players who have been with them for years. And back at the bus, you'll find much of the same crew that started with them. That includes FOH mixer Billy Huelin, who has been at the console for 13 years ("since they were doing frat parties"), and monitor guy John Adair, who has been at side of stage for seven years.

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Two Words: Underwater Monitoring

Le Rêve: A Small Collection of Imperfect Dreams debuted in April at the fabulous new Wynn Las Vegas, Steve Wynn's $2.7 billion entry as the latest and greatest on the Las Vegas Strip. Created by Franco Dragone, formerly of Cirque du Soleil and the man behind such legendary shows as O, Alegria and Celine Dion's A New Day, Le Rêve is an acrobatic water show that pushes technology and technologists to new heights–and new depths.

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Up, Up and Away

There are a lot of obvious uses for the space in front of a stage at an outdoor music festival. Band-watching and dancing jump to the top of the list, yet at the Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival, those two activities just round out the top five. There, that space is used for the earlymorning launch of hot air balloons.

While the situation might not provide a sonic challenge for the Murrieta, Calif.-based Star Way Productions, it does provide a dramatically colorful backdrop for the bands playing one of the two stages at the festival. The festival celebrated its 22nd anniversary this year, and Star Way handled all aspects of the sound, stage and lighting.

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All Wet

I learned the hard way to never lend out gear to your friends. My good friend came to me to borrow my new FOH board and new monitor mixer. He needed it for his friend who was doing a show out of town, so I said "OK, but I need it back in time for my show on the following day, at the exact time I am to set up."

The day of the gig, they rushed in, dropped off the boards and took off right away, which was curious. My head tech pulled the board out of its road case to find it dripping with water, and the case itself had absorbed a lot of water as well. My tech phoned me where I was working on another job, and I had to rent my old board that I had just replaced with the new board, the one that was now soaking wet. I was so embarrassed. Especially after bragging to the customer on how good the new FOH board was and how the built-in effects were just beautiful for what they needed. Boy, did I have egg on my face.

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Bigfoot Found and Captured! French Array Avoids Radar!

Not a line array? A tangent array system? Maybe they should just call it French.

The new NEXO GEO T speakers are not boxes, as we would typically assume a speaker enclosure to be. They look more like something out of a futuristic Spielberg movie. They are small, very small, and shaped like a mini stealth fighter. The rigging looks weird, very weird, but extremely functional. Like stealth fighters, they are light and weigh less than 100 lbs, or 45 kilograms, as the French would have it (that's 99.2 lbs). Radar does not bounce off them, and they have been flying over the United States undetected now for sometime…

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Mackie Onyx 80 Mixing Consoles, DAS Compact Series, LightViper 1832 Snake

Mackie Onyx 80 Mixing Console

By Mark Amundson

If you grew up on a Mackie mixing console, and the two of you parted ways as you matured, I believe the Mackie Onyx 80 series is going to make you at least think about coming back. Yes, it was a long time coming, but not only did Mackie get it right on the electronics and feature set, but the rugged construction and the painstaking attention to ergonomic detail puts to shame other mixing consoles with price tags four times as much.

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On the Move

Many months ago, we discussed the challenges that churches go through when moving from temporary facilities to permanent locations. This is typically a challenge, both in adjusting operational methods and taking equipment out of road cases and bolting it down (or hanging it up) properly, safely and efficiently. I'd like to take one look even further back and see how we got the gear going in the first place.

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Rack Case Design

I believe the role of road cases is critically important to the profitability of a sound company. But not every case made out there is really road-worthy. A lot of my anklebiter friends think I am insane to pay $600 or more on semi-custom rack cases to haul power amplifiers and signal processing gear. I look at it as cheap insurance to keep the gear performing throughout its scheduled life, and to put more gear on wheels instead of having my back do the lifting. So this month's installment is about rack road cases, and a guide to getting them built and maintained.

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The Sound of Sweet Charity

A revival of Bob Fosse's 1966 musical, which he later adapted into a movie, Sweet Charity follows the misadventures of dance hall hostess Charity Hope Valentine as she hopelessly searches for the right man to help her escape her life of misery–and a chance meeting with a shy, awkward accountant named Oscar may be her chance for happiness. Yeah, it's definitely dated in its concept, but headliner Christina Applegate proves that she is far more talented than many would give her credit for as she sings and dances her heart out and makes Charity her own, while the show itself offers the razzle-dazzle that choreographer Fosse was known for. This modern production features some fantastic sets, costumes and music, particularly one groovy club sequence drenched in purple ("Rich Man's Frug") that shirks lyrics and is all about the dance.

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Yamaha Makes a Major Move

The ongoing consolidation of the audio business took another giant step forward in June when Yamaha announced that it had established a joint venture with French line array and live sound technology developer NEXO. The agreement calls for the two companies to join forces in future product development and gives NEXO's line arrays and other high-end PS products a much deeper reach in the critical American and Asian markets via Yamaha's distribution and marketing capabilities. Good for NEXO, which has long made what many in the industry feel is a quality, competitive product that has been hamstrung by a marketing culture out of its depth here.

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Dennis Cooper and Rob Mondora

Dennis Cooper

Production Manager

Production Support Group, Inc.

Tallahassee, FL 850.562.1070

[email protected]

Quote: One hundred feet away and in the dark, they'll never know the difference.

Services Provided: Full service production company. Sound, lighting, stage, AV.

Clients: 53rd Annual Florida Folk Festival, Celebrate America 4th of July featuring Andy Griggs, Florida State University's Last Call Before Fall featuring Jimmy Eat World, Freightliner and Kohler Industries sales meetings and trade shows, Swamp Stomp

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