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Bigger Than Life: Audio Production for Madonna’s MDNA Tour

Bigger Than Life: Audio Production for Madonna’s MDNA Tour

A Madonna tour isn’t just an event. It’s an experience, and her MDNA world tour may just be the material girl’s biggest tour ever, breaking box office records and playing to more than 2 million fans throughout the planet and said to be one of the top-grossing tours of all time. And this is truly a world tour, hitting 26 cities in Europe and the Middle East before landing at another 26 North American markets. Add in the shows planned for the South American leg, starting later this month, and the whole tour will have close to 90 shows in all. But for FOH mixer Tim Colvard, the rest of the audio crew and techs from sound company Eighth Day Sound, it’s just another day on the job — wherever they happen to be, whether in Copenhagen or Cleveland.

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The SFJAZZ Center is slated to open in January 2013.

The SFJAZZ Center

Construction is underway with a four-month countdown to a grand opening on Jan. 21, 2013 (Martin Luther King Day) of the SFJAZZ Center, a new performance venue in the heart of San Francisco. Located at 205 Franklin St., the $63 million center is envisioned as a LEED-certified hub of art, music, culture and community in the Civic Center performing arts district, already home to Davies Symphony Hall, the San Francisco Opera House, the Herbst Theatre and the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

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FOH Buyers Guide Nov 2012: Mini Line Arrays

Mini Line Arrays

A year ago in this space, we covered the topic of “compact” line arrays — referring to units where the woofers were nine inches in diameter or less. Of course, some of those entries, particularly three-way systems with dual 8-inch drivers, weighed more than 100 pounds, so the term “compact” had to be used in context to the larger format line arrays presented in the Buyers Guide in our May, 2012 issue. This time, we turned to units that are even smaller, having LF drivers less than seven inches in diameter and one entry even packing a pair of 3.5-inch woofers.

To download a copy of the Nov. 2012 Buyers Guide, CLICK HERE.

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DiGiCo SD7 consoles were used for both house and monitors

Crosby, Stills and Nash 2012

A Conversation with FOH Mixer Kevin Madigan

More than four decades after their first concert as a trio (auspiciously at the legendary Woodstock Festival in 1969), Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash are back out on the road again, with a hot backing band. After doing Australia, New Zealand, and South America, this leg of the tour — simply called CSN 2012 — kicked off June 7 at Philadelphia’s Tower Theatre, with more than 50 stops along the way at venues including The Wang Theater in Boston, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, The Greek Theatre in L.A. and ending up with a string of shows in late October at The Beacon Theatre in New York.

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Pike Performing Arts Center, Indianapolis

Pike Performing Arts Center, Indianapolis

Pike Performing Arts Center (PPAC), located 12 miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis, IN, recently installed a Bose RoomMatch sound reinforcement system in its main auditorium. Besides the 1,449-seat auditorium, the facility also has a smaller a 150-seat Studio Theatre for more intimate performances.

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Countryman H6 Headset Microphone

Countryman H6 Headset Microphone

Earlier this year, when Countryman Associates introduced its latest product, the H6 headset microphone, I wasn’t the only one eager to check it out. After a few months, production ramped up with the demand, and I was finally able to get an evaluation sample.

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Waves Bass Rider Plug-in

Waves Bass Rider Plug-in

After a hiatus that began in February 2011, work has returned me to Las Vegas and the 4,082-seat Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace, where I spent the better part of three years mixing FOH for Cher and Bette Midler. This past month, rehearsals for Shania Twain’s new Still The One show commenced at Solotech in Las Vegas. Ten musicians and three singers will be joining Shania onstage, and sheer numbers are making things very cozy right now in the 45-by-50-foot rehearsal room we now occupy. The Solotech staff has been incredibly helpful and accommodating while our entourage has nearly overrun their facility. This is a fantastic conglomeration of musicians and vocalists, and many of Shania’s amazing songs already sound show-ready after less than two weeks of work.

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Yamaha exec Chris Gero will supervise the media side of the Yamaha Entertainment Group.

Yamaha’s New Media Content Division Puts It on Both Sides of the Board

With record sales in a decade-long slump, this might seem an inauspicious moment to start a record label. Then again, I’m surprised that Warren Buffet didn’t bid on EMI. As the world’s most successful investor has pointed out more than once, look where everyone is running and then run the other way. So perhaps the announcement, in September, that Yamaha was launching its own record label and video production company might not be as puzzling as it first seems.

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Acoustical absorbers (such as the panels shown here) attached to a highly reflective “hard” wall surface can help break up sound waves that strike it, thus reducing echoes for a cleaner sound with improved vocal intelligibility.

Improve The Acoustics, Improve The Sound

Let me begin by saying that 99 percent of the churches that I have I worked in were built before I was born. So what does this little bit of information have to do with this month’s Sound Sanctuary? Well, the fact is that most houses of worship were originally built without much concern for the acoustic environment inside the finished building. And until recently, many of these facilities built in this country (and the world for that matter) were constructed with little or no consideration as to how the spoken word and music will sound during a typical service.

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Illustration by Baker Lee

My Big Idea

Note: Baker Lee was among those East Coasters plunged into darkness via a massive power failure resulting from hurricane Sandy, so his column this month combines some new material and with a bit of a classic “FOH at Large” from 2010. We hope you enjoy this blast from the past. —ed.

Just recently, I had a conversation with a former FRONT of HOUSE editor. We were discussing the particular qualities of the different IEMs on the market and, during the conversation, he mentioned that he was getting a new set of Ultimate Ear monitors that very day. I reminded him that, a few years back, I had received a set of UE earsets and that I was going to write about them in this column.

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