Pearl Jam rolled into town one October night in St. Louis and filled a hockey arena with remarkable clear sound for a sold-out crowd wanting it old school, and getting it. Like all Pearl Jam tours, while the visual elements are pitch-perfect, lighting and sets aren’t overpowering to the point of distraction. This was all about the music, kicked through an L-Acoustics K1 speaker system supplied by Rat Sound who has been working with PJ for 20 years.
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On a cold Dec. 31st at 5 p.m. in 1997, Bob Goldstein stepped off the streets of Times Square, went to his hotel room and told his wife Vivian he was finished as a sound man. He had taken on an impossible assignment, one that others had turned down. And one who did told the Times Square Business Improvement District fella that “there’s a crazy guy in Baltimore that might be able to do it.” Goldstein had agreed to put sound in the square for New Year’s Eve — something that had never been done. There could be no support structures, no wires, no generators, no testing and adjusting and… well, another 146 restrictions.
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Over the past few years, more and more manufacturers have been offering pre-packaged bundles or kits of microphones selected specifically for drum miking. These range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, but all offer a grab-and-go package that offers an easy solution with individual transducers matched for the job at hand.
To download a PDF of the Nov. 2014 FRONT of HOUSE Buyers Guide on Drum Mic Kits, CLICK HERE.
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Back at the NAMM show in 2012, Mackie kicked off a not-too-quiet revolution with its DL1608 iPad-enabled digital live mixer, which had 16 mic/line inputs and eight outputs (six aux sends plus L/R master outs) and a $999 street price. With its touch screen control; full-on snapshot automation/recall; onboard dynamics and 4-band parametric EQ’s; 31-band output graphic EQ’s; onboard reverb and tap delay; and wireless iPad control, the DL1608 was cool.
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Allen & Heath, the company, was founded in 1969, but first rocked the audio world when they built a custom quadraphonic mixing console for Pink Floyd. The MOD1 board was used by Alan Parsons to mix the band’s live shows. British-built Allen & Heath boards were also used by The Who and Genesis, not to mention countless other groups. Since then, the company has earned an enviable reputation for delivering great sounding, rock-solid analog consoles for both studio and live applications.
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In some ways, products are a lot like humans. The final result begins with a idea or concept (i.e., conception) and then follows through a development phase and when it’s ready to debut, the timing of that event is entirely in the hands of the product. With humans, we may want a child to be born on some certain special day, whether it’s a holiday or to coincide with the birthday of someone in the family. In the case of products, a marketing team may prefer that the product launch follows a tradeshow calendar, but it doesn’t always happen that way, and such is the case with Roland’s new M-5000 live mixing console, unveiled on the distinctly non-tradeshow date of Nov. 4, 2014.
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