On the Digital Edge

In his April FOH Theory and Practice, Brian Klijanowicz discussed the concept of word clock. If you missed class that day, here is a brief recap: Every digital device employs an internal word clock circuit as a timing mechanism. Word clock determines sample rate, and its accuracy is paramount to audio quality.

Those of us who tour without production endure the interesting daily experience I refer to as "PA dú jour" – basically we get whatever equipment has been provided by the promoter at a given venue.

On Jan. 15, the FCC came down from the mountain with a stone tablet upon which was scribed "anyone who uses a wireless microphone (or similar device) that operates in the 700 MHz Band will have to stop operating their wireless microphone (or similar device) no later than June 12, 2010."

We've been seeing tons of hardware audio consoles with sophisticated software. Now here's a twist from RML Labs: a software console that has no hardware. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but let's take a look at a cutting edge audio application that is not tied to a specific piece of hardware. The program is called SAC or Software Audio Console, and it has some pretty impressive features.

In the Oct. 2008 issue of FOH, I relayed a story about an experience I had at the Umatilla County Fair in Hermiston Ore. The long and short of that story was that while attempting a sound check, the area was hit with a nasty hailstorm and winds upwards of 70 miles per hour. The net result was that the tarp blew off the front-of-house position – including a Yamaha PM4000 – and the bucket of the 4K became a bucket full of water.

One of the many strengths of Digidesign's Venue live mixing system is its ability to easily integrate (or one might even say "morph") into a multitrack recording system.

One of the more difficult facets of live sound is managing soundchecks. Most musicians will moan about how they don’t want to be bothered with a sound check, and in the next breath they’ll complain that their monitor mixes weren’t perfect at the start of the show.

An Alternate Look at the Sensaphonics 3D Active Ambient PM System

In the December 2007 issue of FOH magazine, Bill Evans presented a review of the Sensaphonics 3D Active Ambient Personal Monitor System (www.sensaphonics.com). For the complete nuts and bolts of the system you can refer to that review, but this month in On the Digital Edge we’re going to revisit Sensaphonics’ technology from a slightly different perspective. 

Last month, we discussed audio software plug-ins. To refresh your memory, we observed the fact that audio processing is rapidly moving from hardware to software. Just about every digital mixing console currently manufactured includes a plethora of onboard processing such as EQ, dynamics, reverb and delay.

I vaguely recall that sometime in the late 1990s I received an evaluation copy of a piece of software from Digidesign called DINR (Dynamic Intelligent Noise Reduction).  At the time it was one of the earliest (if not the first) software plug-ins I ever encountered, and, to be honest, I didn’t get it.

As our economy continues its spiral flush down the toilet, audio professionals everywhere are hurting, and scrambling for their next gig. More and more it seems that gig has something to do with sound reinforcement — as opposed to recording.