[Editor's Note: At FOH, we find very few things more valuable than a combination of knowledge and passion. So, when we have a passionate, knowledgeable reader with something on his or her mind, we try to find space to print it. In the coming months, you will see more of this kind of content on the fohonline.com Web site and in some new electronic projects we are getting ready to unveil. In the meantime, check out what one reader has to say about stadium sound systems.]
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The band had just finished a 7:00 p.m. setup and sound check at a really cool club in Texas. It's a large stage with huge P.A. system, monitors, stands, mics, sound guy, etc. Most of the band took off to get a little rest before the gig while the guitar player stayed back to watch their equipment and warm-up.
So picture this: The amps are off. The place is starting to get a few people. He's in the dark back corner of the club strumming away, making no sound. Suddenly, everyone hears very loud guitar tuning over the canned house music .
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Concert sound isn't usually a matter of life or death, but leave it to Iron Maiden to be the exception. The iconic metal band's recent "Matter Of Life Or Death" world tour proves that after more than 30 years, they haven't slowed down a tick and still demand a P.A. that permeates sold-out arenas with full-range output, while also upholding the first commandment of metal: Make it loud.
Read More »One of these days we'll get it right. We usually do an updated look at digital consoles in the January issue of FOH and last year (Or was it the year before? They're all kind of running together…) we tried to do something called "Digital Consoles for the Rest of Us" and to focus on products that you could afford even if you were not doing national tours and high-profile corporates. But, as we quickly learned, there just weren't any to be found in the price range we set.
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Yamaha EMX 5016CF Powered Mixer
By Jamie Rio
I think it has been as least eight years since I reviewed the first Yamaha EMX board. It was nice, but really didn't have enough features and horsepower to propel a band or sound company into the big leagues. So here I am nearly a decade later. I don't know how many versions of this mixer have been produced, but I haven't reviewed one since the first incarnation. So, let's take a look at this unit.
Read More »Generally speaking, when we think of house of worship installs, we envision FOH speakers, monitors, outboard gear, mics and a mixing console. That is obviously a very simplistic vision, but it does cover the basics. Well, a short time ago I discovered the "other buildings." Just about every church, temple, synagogue, etc., has additional multi-use buildings at the same location.
I got a call to give a bid on a portable sound system for the youth house of a church in Glendora, Calif. This building was a former home that the church had purchased and set up for the youth of their congregation. The youth pastor wanted a small system to be set up in the living room area with additional speakers to be installed out in the patio area. He also wanted this system to be portable so that, for various events, it could be set up out in the back yard of the house. However, the main use of this system was to provide programmed music for the youth who visited and volunteered at the house.
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While it is much lower in the procurement priority list, procuring and using digital effects processors is still something that requires a bit of thought. For professionals, choosing the right effects processor is more than the strength of the preset list or the user interface; it is a long-term investment and a gamble that the effects purchased will continue to be popular for many years of touring usage. Take the ubiquitous Yamaha SPX-90 effects processor; while very technically obsolete, it is still found today in many club installs, and the outboard racks of many regional and touring soundcos. Ditto for the Lexicon PCM-81, Roland SDE-1000, TC Electronic 2090 and Yamaha SPX-990.
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This month, we go way Off-Broadway to the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., and their co-production with Toneelgroep Amsterdam of Wings of Desire, a play based upon the famous Wim Wenders film about an angel (Damiel) who seeks to become human so that he can spend his life with a beautiful trapeze artist (Marion). The show uses a lot of sound, from an audio montage of the inner thoughts of citizens to an occasionally noisy two-piece group (guitar, bass, vocals), to help recreate the world of the epic film, and trapeze artist Mam Smith elegantly performs with silks to poetic effect.
Read More »"Sector overlap" is the somewhat clinical term for what happens when technology creates a convergence between areas of expertise. For instance, going back a few decades for a more dramatic instance, what happened when you converged a pilot and a physicist is you got an astronaut.
An area of nascent convergence at the moment is in the domains of live event audio and fixed installation media. The taxonomy would seem to place them on one side of the aisle or the other: live sound moves around a lot and installed sound doesn't. But definitions can be deceiving. In fact, the overlap between the skill sets, both technical and business, in live touring sound and installed sound have more in common now than a decade ago, and in the process have actually diverged from music recording.
Read More »John Ryan
Self-employed
FOH Sound Engineer/Consultant
Naples, Italy
Bi lingual, fluent in Italian and English. My main jobs lie within Italy, but I also work with international artists involved in European tours. I work with All Areas, a company that provides manpower for heavy touring and gigs.
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LONDON — The Sugababes recently played at the 100 Club in London's Oxford Street, and Concert Sound (Luton), the show's equipment organizer, chose HK Audio's ConTour Array, brought in from London-based ConTour users, Euroscope TV and Picture It Facilities Ltd. FOH engineer was Chris Madden.
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TUCSON, AZ — As of January 1, 2007, all orders for TRUE Systems products are to be placed directly with TRUE Systems through their Tucson headquarters, as Sennheiser Electronic Corporation (SEC) is no longer the exclusive U.S. distributor for TRUE.
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