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Masque Sound Supports “The Nance” on Broadway

The Nance Braodway Show

Masque Sound Supports “The Nance” on Broadway

NEW YORK—When Sound Designer Leon Rothenberg was tasked with reproducing the post-vaudeville burlesque scene of the 1930s for the new Broadway play, The Nance, he turned to Masque Sound. Rothenberg also worked with Danny Erdberg, Liz Coleman and Marc Salzberg on challenges that ranged from the need to accurately portray vaudeville – which was originally performed without sound reinforcement – and to give the audience the impression of being with the characters “backstage.”

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Zac Brown at BottleRock 2013. Photo by Steve Jennings

BottleRock Napa Valley Festival

For four days in May (9 to 12), 26 acres on the grounds at the Napa Valley Expo fairgrounds in the city of Napa, CA, were transformed into a completely different kind of festival experience. Forget the dusty, crowded fields of many huge tribal rock gatherings. While basking in the glow of the sun that made this area into one of the world’s great wine regions, BottleRock Napa Valley festival attendees could enjoy an amazing culinary experience (supplied by world-class restaurateurs, 60 vintner partners and artisan microbrewers) while taking in performances by some of today’s hottest musical performers and comedians. Very civilized, indeed.

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The Oakland—Alameda County Coliseum, currently also known as the O.co Coliseum

Stadiums and Sports Facilities

Audio installations and upgrades within large sports facilities present sound designers with several challenges, starting with scale — not just the vast, open-air or cavernous spaces, but the challenge of delivering an acceptable listening experience to everyone occupying all those seats and synchronizing the audio with today’s big video screens. Reverberation and intelligibility are huge challenges, particularly for enclosed spaces. Another significant factor that has to be considered is the exuberance of the fans themselves, and the need for the P.A. system to be heard above crowd noise that can peak at 105 dB or more. Last but not least are the challenges of getting the entire installation performed correctly, safely, on time and on budget, when those two invaluable commodities — time and money — are so often in scarce supply.

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Kaltman Creations' Invisible Waves product range.

Kaltman Creations: Innovations in Wireless

Great things sometime spring up out of humble beginnings. And a good example of that is Kaltman Creations, a business that began in 2006 to market the Kaltman Cable Coiler™, a device to speed the coiling of microphone cables after a performance. Yet early on, company founder Mark Kaltman, a musician and studio/touring engineer who also held positions at various pro audio and broadcast companies, including Klotz Digital, Aeta Audio, Denon and Sabine — recognized a growing need in the industry. He applied his keen entrepreneurial sense to eventually develop a line of RF and EMC test and measurement devices that provided practical and cost-effective wireless solutions at the right time and place.

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Adamson Systems gear has been used on recent tours for the band Linkin Park, pictured here.

Milestones: Brock Adamson’s Company Marks 30 Years

Founded in 1983 by Brock Adamson, Ontario-based Adamson Systems has evolved from a small operation into a leading supplier of cutting-edge products for the professional touring and installation market. Today, Adamson products can be found gracing world-class performing facilities, houses of worship and on stages supporting some of the best-known musical acts in the world.

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Control panel of a typical medium-sized production generator — in this case, a 25kW MQ Power WhisperWatt. Note the ground rods stored on the right side of the trailer, above the wheel well.

Generators and Portable AC Power Primer, Part 1

Generators, and portable power distribution in general, are central to professional audio. Electricity is a powerful means of transferring energy; it is the lifeblood of all pro audio gear. While electricity is ever-present, it is rarely discussed technically in print, in part because of the liability that accompanies its underlying power.

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Avid S3L

Avid S3L

It’s been a while since Avid has made a major change or product launch in its highly successful line of live sound consoles. Now, just before InfoComm, Avid has introduced the new S3L, which delivers the sound quality, performance and features of Avid live audio systems in an all-new modular, networked design, supporting Ethernet AVB and EuCon open network standards for professional live sound reinforcement mixing and recording.

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The DML panel is approximately three inches thick.

Tectonic Audio Labs DML Distributed Mode Loudspeakers

I’ve long been fascinated by audio history, which since the earliest days, has borne witness to sweeping changes. Yet one area of that audio chronology which has been the most resistant to change seems to be loudspeakers. In fact, if you look at E.C. Wente and A.L. Thuras’ 1926 patent for the first compression driver (#1,707,544) —which became the Western Electric 555w, you’ll see it used a thin, lightweight aluminum dome diaphragm with a corrugated surround, a phase plug and a threaded mount that allows it be to interchanged on a variety of horns. And the story isn’t much different with Chester Rice and Edward W. Kellogg’s 1925 development of the dynamic loudspeaker, which had a round paper cone (with butyl surround!) and a voice coil that moved within a magnetic gap. Today, some 90 years later, things haven’t really changed that much; we still have voice coils, magnets, cones or diaphragms, so when something truly different comes along, it’s time to take notice.

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Cymatic Audio LR-16 Live Recorder

Cymatic Audio LR-16 Live Recorder

Once upon a time, live recording was a real pain. In the old days, it involved dragging a recorder or rack of ADATs/DA-88s to the FOH position and connecting them via console direct outs. I can even recall shows where large reel-to-reel digital machines (typically a Sony PCM-24 or PCM-48) would be lugged up to sit next to the house console. The alternative was to call a remote recording truck/van, determine the pecking order of analog splitting and then let that crew handle the details.

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Fig. 1: David Morgan’s stage input list for James Taylor at the 2013 Greenwich Town Party event in Greenwich, CT. He provided the asterisked (*) mics.

Preparing for Festivals and One-Offs

I’m on a plane heading back east to work three one-off events with James Taylor. The first is a music festival in Greenwich, CT. James will be the headline act following a full day of entertainment on the main stage. Mr. Taylor will be performing with the full band and singers. The second event is a benefit concert in Newtown, CT. The musicians comprising this performance will be as follows: James on guitar, Larry Goldings on piano/keyboards, Owen Young on cello, Andrea Zonn on violin/vocals and vocalist Kate Markowitz. The third concert will be a multi-performer event at Boston’s TD Garden benefitting Boston Strong. In addition to appearing with the full band and singers, Mr. Taylor will share the stage with Carole King and Jimmy Buffet. Two members of Mr. Buffet’s entourage will also be sitting in during James’ segment of the performance.

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SSL Live console

Solid State Logic Goes “Live”

A well-kept secret  is like a well-told story: its impact lies as much in the surprise as in the narrative itself. Solid State Logic’s introduction of its Live console at the Musikmesse/Prolight + Sound show in Frankfurt in April puts the 44-year-old studio-oriented U.K. company into the live-sound arena in a big way. And the company managed to work on the project for three years without sparking the usual rumor mills.

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