Skip to content

Heavy Weather

Heavy Weather

Years ago, I was system engineer and audio crew chief for an outdoor Dan Fogelberg solo show at a winery. It was a beautiful show, but there was lightning across the valley that I could see and hear several seconds later from my mix position perch at the top of the hillside venue. With each flash, I could count: "One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, etc." to gauge the distance, and it was clearly approaching. As we all know, sound travels about 1/5 of a mile per second.

Read More »

Sade’s Soldier of Love Tour

Helen Folasade Adu is widely known by the same name as her band, Sade, and both are on a worldwide tour, on the heels of this year's Ultimate Collection. Last year's Soldier of Love – recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios and only their sixth studio album in a quarter-century – debuted at number one and earned their fourth Grammy. It's been a decade since their last tour, but Sade is selling out arenas. The North American leg launched June 16 in Baltimore and winds up September 12 in Norfolk.

Read More »

SSE Supports Fairport Convention’s Cropredy Festival

Simply called Cropredy Festival for the first three decades, the annual folk-oriented fête is held each August in the fields just east of the village of Cropredy 50 miles south of Birmingham, England, attracts mostly campers to a single stage at the lower end of a sloping arena field flanked by a fabulous assortment of food vendors.

Read More »

Parnelli Audio Innovator Kenton Forsythe

"There is not a professional audio engineer out there today that doesn't touch something Kenton Forsythe is directly responsible for," says Terry Lowe, Parnelli Awards executive producer and publisher of FOH. "We are proud to honor him with the Audio Innovator Award at this year's Parnellis."

Read More »

Superglue Saga, Part 2: Bottle Rockets and “Snow”

We couldn't begin to fit Dave Fletcher's epic "Welcome to my Nightmare" submission in one issue. This is the second part of Fletcher's four-part saga of an escalating series of pranks and counter-pranks. The prankster's "two eyes for an eye" code of justice led to some mass destruction of hotel property, but, thankfully, the war games never degenerated into full-scale missile assaults or nuclear winter. -ed.

Read More »

2011 Sound Company Finalists

The readers have spoken, and the results speak for themselves. What a mix of heroes. Some have never been in the winner's circle, some are returning; some are fairly young companies, some working through their 30-something years. Some are still building up business within the zip code they live, and at least one is outgrowing the "hometown hero" category.

Read More »

Livin’ in Paradise: Larry Epstein of Paradise Show & Design

Like many, Paradise Show & Design founder Larry Epstein started as a freelancer and built a company. Unlike other entrepreneurial hopefuls starting out a quarter century ago, Epstein and his company is still around. One reason for the company's longevity is its ability to adapt to the changing needs of its customers. Epstein can count the clients Paradise Sound has lost on one hand. And for that, he credits his staff.

Read More »

Midas PRO2 and PRO2C

Three years ago at London's PLASA show, Midas introduced the PRO6. Last year, they brought the PRO3 and PRO9, with full compatibility and an upgrade path. At that time, Midas also released the fixed-format DL251 stage-box, the heart of the PRO3, offering the functionality of a Heritage 3000 at a cost-effective price point. This year, Midas introduces the PRO2 and its more-compact cousin, the PRO2C, bringing near-PRO3 functionality down-market, using the same 100-meter 48 x 16 AES50 digital snake.

Read More »

Lab.gruppen E Series Amplifiers

Lab.gruppen made its mark on the world of amplifiers with clean and highly efficient Class TD designs combining Class D efficiency with Class B sonic purity and driven by an optimized Regulated Switch Mode Power Supply (R.SMPS). Five years ago, Lab.gruppen introduced the C Series of 4- and 8-channel lo-Z and hi-Z installation amplifiers ranging from 125W to 2200W per channel.

Read More »