Ultra Music Festival Resistance Stage
It’s (Trade) Showtime!
Last month, I made the statement that money makes the world go round. Maybe I was being hasty in that, but with our staff having endured two not-too-coincident overlapping tradeshows this month (NAB and Musikmesse/Prolight + Sound) on two very separate locations — Frankfurt and Las Vegas — I think that the phrase should be “tradeshows make the world go round.” And maybe there’s a lot — or at least a bit — of truth in that.
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Mixing the Kids: EchoSmith World Tour
It’s sounds like another teen novelty act — and in time it may turn out that way — but the American rock/indie band Echosmith is doing the work, writing great songs and putting on engaging live performances that seems to point that they are more than that. But they are young. The quartet is made of four L.A.-based Sierota siblings: Graham (drums/16), sister Sydney (singer/18), Noah (bass/19), and Jamie (guitar/22).
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Ultra Music Festival
Held in Bayfront Park in downtown Miami from March 27 to 29 — and not-too-coincidentally taking place during spring break and the 2015 Winter Music Conference (the leading industry gathering of EDM and dance music artists and producers) — this year’s Ultra Music Festival continued its 17-year history of success.
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Adamson Systems S-Series Line Array Family
Adamson Systems Engineering has been on a high technology roll over the past few years. The jump kicked off with its flagship E-Series E15 large-format line array system, with its twin 15-inch neodymium woofers flanking the innovative E-Capsule section housing the mid/high components: two 7-inch Kevlar cone mid drivers and two 1.5-inch exit compression drivers mounted on a Co-Linear Drive Module. This was later followed by the smaller, double-12 E12 system, which shared the E15’s voicing, but in a more compact enclosure.
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Boone United Methodist Church Takes Audio to a Higher Level
Located in the mountains near Howard’s Knob in the North Carolina High Country, Boone United Methodist Church has a variety of ministries that address a wide range of worshippers. To ensure their message is delivered clearly and that musical performances are reproduced naturally, the church recently completed a substantial AV upgrade that encompassed a significant sound reinforcement system.
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Klippel Plots: Going Beyond the Thiele-Small Parameters
With the apparent ease of predicting vented loudspeaker response, it is tempting to blindly follow the software and assume that the curve on the screen is representative of what the loudspeaker will produce at any volume level. But the reality of loudspeaker performance is more complicated than is indicated from some piece of software found on the Internet.
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Waves Tracks Live
In the past ten years, the audio industry has witnessed an explosion of multi-track recording software that has become more affordable and accessible to the average audio practitioner. During this same time period, a number of companies have introduced recording software aimed directly at sound reinforcement engineers.
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Avid VENUE | S6L Large Format Live Console
The rumors had been circulating for months, but on the cusp of last month’s NAB and Musikmesse / Prolight + Sound shows, Avid made the first public showing of its new flagship Avid VENUE | S6L, a large-format live consoles with a touch-based interface Ethernet AVB, Dante, MADI and Thunderbolt support, Pro Tools integration, industry-standard plug-ins, over 300 total processing channels and a new Stage 64 I/O rack with high performance preamps and versatile input/output options.
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A Perfect Day Off
While the title of this column is “On the Digital Edge,” there are times when everyone needs to jump away from the edge and relax a bit. Days off while on tour provide this necessary refuge. This precious time is often reserved for sleeping, doing laundry, hitting the hotel gym or doing the little things that help one privately recharge during a 24-hour respite from show day pressures. However, while on tour in Europe, the opportunity to experience many beautiful places and art masterpieces on our days off is, by far, the more attractive choice.
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Please Don’t Go – Not Just Yet
Years ago, when I was still getting on buses and planes to play music instead of write about it, I happened to mention to Allan Pepper (my manager at the time, and owner of the much-missed Bottom Line club in New York) that a lot of people I knew were getting married right around then. I remember myself saying something to the effect of, “Seems like this is the year for marriages.” To which Allan, after waiting the standard two-beat Jewish pre-punch line comedy interval, replied, “Wait ten years — it’ll seem like the year everyone’s getting divorced.”
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Introducing Musicians to Personal Monitors: A Basic Guide
Converting a band from stage wedges to in-ear or “personal” monitors can be a beautiful thing, yielding better front-of-house and monitor mixes, more enjoyable performances and quite possibly, hearing conservation. Unfortunately, some musicians are so unwilling to change their habits that you might have an easier time converting them to a different religion! Here’s how to present the idea in a way that ensures a positive experience for everyone involved.
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