In Memoriam: Steven Vandervort
Steven Vandervort, a Las Vegas-based sound engineer and AV consultant, died June 5 after a long illness. He was 51.
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Adopting Technology and Adapting to Change
I'll never forget my first Heritage 3000; actually it was the first in the US. My friend George Relles saw it introduced at the 1999 Los Angeles NAMM show, pulled out his checkbook and told Bob Doyle he would buy one if they'd take off the handles and end-caps so it would turn it in a 90-inch wide bob-tail truck. It first appeared at a festival where I was mixing monitors for four bands, with no warning, no manual and no time to study it. Each band fit onto a 24×8 section of the console, which I simply routed through the matrix, with side-fills on L/R, so I didn't have to chart a thing. It was love at first sight.
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OSA and SES Support “Oprah’s Surprise Spectacular”
The gear supported the last episodes of the 25-year-old show, produced before a live audience of 13,000 people.
With combined production support from Special Event Services (SES) and On Stage Audio (OSA), Oprah's Surprise Spectacular was taped May 17 before 13,000 lucky fans, bringing together some of the biggest names in movies, music and television in a one-time-only farewell to celebrate the 25-year legacy of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
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Eminence D-fend for Loudspeaker Protection
There's nothing more frustrating (and embarrassing) than equipment failure during a show. Bands and audiences take it for granted that loudspeakers will work perfectly every time, but sound engineers know it doesn't always happen that way.
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Kenny Chesney’s Crew Tames Cowboys Stadium
John Mills, third from left, with the Kenny Chesney audio crew
Morris Light & Sound Combines Touring and Installed Electro-Voice X-Line Systems
This year's top country tour, Kenny Chesney, has filled many arenas, amphitheaters, and stadiums over the last decade. But the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, next to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, TX and host to last year's Super Bowl, is the largest.
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Raising Clarity to New Heights
DSAs are Improving Intelligibility at Europe's Landmark Churches
They were built centuries ago for a higher purpose, and their beauty has endured. The challenge for today's audio system designers and installers is to preserve the aesthetics of the past while helping speech and song to be heard and understood better than ever before in these venerable spaces. Digital tools – including digitally steerable arrays (DSAs) from RCF and Renkus-Heinz – are succeeding in raising intelligibility to new heights.
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NOLA French Quarter Music Festival
Audio "Team of Rivals" Join Staging Company in Supporting Four-Day Festival
When you think of New Orleans music festival, you think of the Jazz & Heritage. But for locals, there's one that's as dear to their hearts as Du Monde coffee and beignets: The French Quarter Music Festival. This year was the 28th, and over four days in April, 260 local bands performed on 20 stages spread throughout the French Quarter for 533,000 music fans. From brass bands to Zydeco, classical to classic jazz, country to rock, it is a potpourri assault on the senses – the good kind.
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Yamaha StageMix iPad App for LS9 Digital Consoles
Yamaha introduced their popular StageMix iPad application for their M7CL at PLASA last fall, and there's been strong interest in an LS9 version since. Released at Frankfurt's Prolight + Sound in April, it's a free download on Apple's iTunes store. I got the call from IATSE steward Susan Phillips to work at Florida State College's Wilson Center with the school's nationally recognized jazz band. Because they have an LS9-32 in a typical performing arts center control booth, I knew this was a great test for the LS9 app.
Read More »Digitally Steerable Arrays
Digitally Steerable Arrays ("DSA") are a relatively new type of loudspeaker system that are not only self-powered, but also employ individual processing for each transducer to control the coverage of the entire array. Using advanced, but well-known techniques of gain-, delay- and frequency-shading, the polar response of an array of transducers can be steered differently than it would behave passively. Steve "Woody" LaCerra discussed DSAs at length in last month's issue.
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Yamaha DSR Powered Speakers
As I sit here contemplating this review, it occurred to me that I have been writing about Yamaha gear for over 15 years now. Not that this really matters for my DSR review, but, just as a reference point, I have seen a lot of innovation come out of Yamaha over the last decade and a half.
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Brantley Sound Soldiers On with New Digs, Gigs
Bobby Brantley, standing, with, from left, Keith Beck, Colleen Cussick and Dario Ceragioli
The Nashville Soundco Invests in Gear, Staff
Colleen Cussick stood on the crest of the May 2010 floodwaters that decimated downtown Nashville and took pictures of a waterlogged building and building lot on her cell phone. But it wasn't just any building. Until very recently, it was home to where she worked – Brantley Sound Associates (BSA).
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Waves Plugins: Snare Drum (Part 2)
In last month's issue (FOH, May 2011), I discussed using the Waves C4 multiband compressor as an insert on the snare drum top mic – in my case, an Earthworks DP25C. This column will tackle the snare bottom mic and the Waves C1 compressor/gate plugin.
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