HONOLULU — It’s not often a sound company is asked to specify a full PA system and backline for a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, let alone to look after it on its cruise from Hawaii to San Diego, but that’s exactly what Southern California-based audio providers Mambo Sound and Broadcast Support were tasked with last month, and they chose dB Technologies for the job.
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A Conversation with FOH Mixer John Cooper and Solotech’s Mario Leccese
A Bruce Springsteen tour isn’t just an event; it is a movement celebrated by fans in packed venues around the world. And in an era when groups are scaling down with smaller ensembles, acoustic shows and looking at “more intimate” venues, Springsteen brings his own version of intimacy to stadiums and arenas, staying just as much in touch with audience members in the front row as the people in row YY on the second deck.
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It’s always best to have a separate monitor mix system and a dedicated monitor engineer. But let’s face it — what you want and what you get are often two completely different things, and in many smaller venue/smaller budget gigs, those two jobs will be handled by the same person… namely you.
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Neodymium (Nd) is one of the chemical elements employed for the high-strength, permanent magnets in high-output/low-weight loudspeakers. Over the past several years, the small, tight-knit pro audio industry has seen volatile neodymium price changes on the global commodities market. And with Nd becoming an important component of modern, high-performance loudspeakers (particularly in flying systems), this price volatility has created uncertainty in end-user pricing of loudspeaker systems.
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It’s no secret — for the past 10 years or so, line arrays have been the hottest ticket in live sound systems. And one of… Read More »Large Format Line Arrays
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A World-Class Performing Arts Venue in Las Vegas
The mere mention of the words “Las Vegas show” usually conjures up a few images. Yet what probably doesn’t come to mind is a stand-alone, performing arts center serving as a home to the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the Nevada Ballet Theatre, a Broadway touring house, classical music venue, jazz speakeasy and rock or country roadhouse. The new Smith Center for the Performing Arts aims to change all that, and to place Las Vegas alongside Vienna, Paris and New York as a city with a world-class performing arts center built for the ages.
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Innovation — and being first to break new technologies — isn’t always easy. History is filled with examples of pioneers who dared to try something “different” and out of the ordinary, when, years later, their principles were eventually accepted as the industry norm. And such is the case with L-Acoustics founder Dr. Christian Heil, who presented his research on Wavefront Sculpture Technology™ (WST) at the 1992 AES convention in Vienna and followed that up with the debut of the revolutionary V-DOSC line array two years later.
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Radial Engineering has earned an enviable reputation for the performance of its high quality direct boxes, Now from Radial comes the JDX Reactor™, a guitar amplifier direct box that takes a new slant to capturing guitar tones onstage.
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For the last two decades, I’ve been mixing at churches and installing house of worship sound systems (among other audio adventures). During this time, I’ve seen — and heard — a continuous evolution in the microphones that ministers prefer and use. For years, I would typically be asked to set up a stationary wired mic at a podium or — if the pastor/preacher went wireless — they might use a lavalier model.
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A stellar history filled with steady growth, a recent move into a 225,000-foot facility, and several awards — including a 2008 Parnelli for Best Regional Sound Company in North America — keep the people at Tour Tech East busy. Owner Peter Hendrickson knows he’s not gotten where he is by accident, and this affable Canadian keeps his sense of humor on at all times and his ego in check.
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Ahhhhhh, spring, when a boy’s thoughts turn to… events!
In the last four weeks, I’ve seen successes and debacles across a variety of events and venues, and this rant may be a way to get it out of my head, while giving you some food for thought.
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Proel has recently re-introduced its direct boxes to the U.S. market. The affordably-priced line includes the DB1P (passive, $89 MSRP) and DB1A (active, $108 MSRP) models. All feature large, high quality transformers with mu-metal used in both the external shielding as well as the inner cores.
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