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Distortion: How Much Is Too Much?

Distortion: How Much Is Too Much?

Audio distortion is one of those topics that has been so perjured in the last couple decades that most engineers have either ignored the specifications on their equipment or just had their eyes glaze over as they were given the data. The real question is how much distortion is too much? And the second question is, does a much lower distortion specification really justify the extra cost or other performance compromises such as power efficiency or power output?

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See Tom Mix. Mix, Tom! Mix!

Training HOW Staff in the Basic Tenets of Good Sound — And Make a Profit Doing It

A few months back, I wrote a Sound Sanctuary article titled “Training The Faithful.” I mostly discussed working with and teaching all those nice house-of-worship volunteers how to take over mixing duties after I did an install or updated a church sound system. Unfortunately, I have failed miserably in my efforts to turn everyday, well-meaning and good-hearted churchgoing volunteers into respectable sound technicians. Not only have I failed personally, but the worship sound install industry is failing in general.

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Dynacord PowerH 2500 and 5000 Power Amplifiers

It is not often that Dynacord comes out with a new high-end audio power amplifier, but when it happens, it is usually a real technological marvel. The PowerH 2500 and 5000 power amplifiers are designed by the same German engineering team that produced the legendary L 2400 (P3000) concert sound amplifier.  For over 60 years, amplifiers from that location have proven to be the finest and most reliable components one could possibly find.

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Dolby Lake Processor

So, unless you have been living under a rock somewhere, you know about the Dolby Lake Processor — at least you know it exists. Quick review: The Dolby Lake grew out of a unit called the Lake Contour, also known in a modified form as the Clair I/O. It was the first speaker processor to offer the ability to run using a wireless tablet computer so you could make adjustments from anywhere in the room. It won a ton of awards and eve-rybody wanted one. Sidenote: The development was led by legendary audio designer Bruce Jackson — and Bruce does not make stuff that sucks.

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Klondike Sound Makes Magic

Owner John “Klondike” Koehler’s passion for pro audio comes from a deeper level — the magic behind the music.

The question of what attracts people to a profession in pro audio elicits a wide variety of responses. John “Klondike” Koehler, owner/operator of Klondike Sound Co. in Greenfield, Massachusetts takes the answer to a whole other level.

“I’ve always been interested in energy transfer, whether it was turning the key on the dashboard and hearing an engine roar to life or putting your foot down to the floor and feeling energy applied to the rear wheels,” he says. “There was just something fascinating about the way that energy, and in this case specifically, electrical energy could move columns of air and bring people to share an emotional experience. It was really something close to Wizard of Oz magic.”

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Winter NAMM 2008 Still Not an Audio Show, But…

FOH hit the convention floor for a firsthand tour of new gear that stood out in the crowd.

OK, so for an MI guitar show there was a respectable amount of new audio gear at Winter NAMM. Nothing earth-shattering, but enough to keep things interesting. Here is some of what floated our boats…

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Big Mick Hughes Gives Zeppelin The “Full Roar” Treatment

“I remember 1977. I started going to concerts and I saw the Led Zeppelin. I got a guitar on Christmas day. I dreamed that Jimmy Page would come from Santa Monica and teach me to play…”

“AM Radio”— Everclear

Like Art Alexakis, I saw Zeppelin in ’77 and can still close my eyes and put myself in that room again. This is a band that is so big and revered by so many that I have actually had a hard time getting myself into the space to get this piece put together. Imagine what it must have been like to actually mix the show.

Big Mick knows what that is like. The iconic FOH engineer, best known for his 20+ years mixing Metallica, was one of two engineers behind the desk at the reunion show at the O2 Arena in London. Mick handled the band — Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and second-generation drummer Jason Bonham — while Robert Plant’s long-time FOH guy Roy Williams minded the lead vocalist’s channel and some of the 40 effects returns. Monitors — and there were a ton of Turbosound wedges and sidefills — were wrangled by Dee Miller, Mick and Roy drove a Midas XL8 feeding an army of Meyer Milo line array cabs. And the show was — by every account I have been able to find —nothing short of spectacular. The Hammer of the Gods swings again.

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MSM Systems Creates a Concert-Friendly Church

La Fe en Jesucristo Church Embraces the Music

With an energetic congregation and 10-piece band, the La Fe en Jesucristo Church attracts international attention. Despite its location in a small Hispanic neighborhood of Kansas City, Kan., well-known Hispanic Christian bands regularly visit the church to perform during worship services. When the church moved into a larger facility (the church consolidated its worship facility from a previous two locations to one), Church Trustee Noe Aguilar wanted a state-of-the-art sound system to accommodate the array of culturally diverse music, which includes everything from heavy metal and rock to soulful tenors and traditional hymns. “We didn’t have the space and we didn’t have the sound system,” says Aguilar. “We had to rent auditorium space and equipment to accommodate the different styles of music. This time around, we wanted a concert-friendly church.”

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Bringing the Salt Lake Tabernacle Into the 21st Century

The two-year renovation involved mixing modernization and preservation

Certainly any kind of installation work demands a high attention to detail, and everyone from architect to designer to installer to end user needs to be on the same page. The team that worked on the two-year renovation of the Mormon Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, took that pressure, doubled it and then doubled it again.

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Dennis Mortson and Tony Cianciotto

Dennis Mortson

FOH Mixer/Tour Manager
Freelance
London, Canada
519.670.1969
[email protected]
www.myspace.com/micmixer
    
Service Provided: FOH, monitor mixing, tour management
    
Clients: Evans Blue, Alannah Myles, Bowfire, The Trews
    
Quote: “What’s the budget?”  
    
Personal Info: Going on 20 years in the sound reinforcement industry.

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A Culture of Cheating?

Audio, music, baseball (New York Yankees) and girls are pretty much all I think about and not necessarily in that order. Well, not really girls since I’m married, but something like it. Believe me, I’m not trying to imply that I’m shallow…OK, I’m a superficial scum, so sue me, but they do all go together, although maybe not in this article. So, just for expediency, if I forget about the girls, it leaves audio, music and baseball. That brings to mind the steroid scandal of 2007, and boy does that upset me! Not because of the obvious reasons, such as drug use or that George Mitchell is the director of the Boston Red Sox and not one Red Sox player was named in his report. Nope. The cause of my distress is that the steroid scandal makes me think of politics, technology and ethics, and that gets in the way of my important thoughts about audio, music, baseball and girls (or in my case, my wife). 

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What Have YOU DONE To CHANGE Someone’s Life Lately?

Don’t know why really, but the coverage in this issue of the recent Led Zeppelin show caused a bit of an “I remember when” kind of nostalgia among most everyone I talked to about it. Love ‘em (me) or hate ‘em (my wife), you could not ignore them. Yes, they were horrendous live at times, but just like the generation of rockers who came up in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s and point to seeing Elvis or The Beatles as their “I wanna play guitar” moment, an awful lot of next-generation players point to Zep as their reason for doing what they do. 

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