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Future powering? Renovagen’s RollArray system is a roll-deployed photovoltaic (PV) solar system, designed to be quickly unfurled, providing up to 100kW (or more) of power from a transportable container.

Portable Power: A Future Perspective

Generators and portable power distribution are central to professional audio. Electricity is the preferred means of transferring energy. It is the lifeblood of all pro audio gear. The specific details of portable power distribution for pro audio are often outside the daily interactions of the local electrician. In these circumstances, it can fall to the audio practitioner to clarify the relevant codes and procedures to the electrical professionals in the name of event safety. A solid conceptual understanding of portable electrical power distribution should be a goal for all pro audio professionals.

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Fig. 1: Applying the inverse distance law shows that sound bleed reaching the figure-8 mic on a guitar cabinet placed 16-feet back from a 96 dB stage wedge is down to 70 dB SPL. Graphic courtesey Phil Selman

Utilizing Ribbon Mics for Live Sound

I discovered ribbon mics late in my career, after I’d been engineering for 20 years. I only knew the classics before that, such as the RCA 44 and 77-DX, which looked great in glass cases or featured in photos of music stars of previous generations. About 2001 I started using some of the newer generation of ribbon mics and I fell in love with them: the Royer R-121 and R-122, the AEA R84 and R88, along with standards such as the Coles 4038 and Beyerdynamic M160 and M500. I was hooked, with my ribbon mic collection eventually topping out over a dozen mics, ranging in date of origin from 1932 all the way to the present. But I used them primarily in the studio and became very familiar with their strengths. I learned to love the figure-8 pattern and recognize where it truly excelled.

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The main sanctuary at Hendersonville First Baptist Church, as seen from the balcony. All photos by Chris Demonbreun

First Baptist Church Hendersonville

Once named as one of the “ten best cities for families” by Family Circle magazine, Henderson, TN is a small town that’s just 18 miles northeast of Nashville. While officially part of the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area, Henderson still retains a small town feel, yet with that kind of proximity to Music City USA, residents there are very attuned to sonic quality — especially as part of their worship experience.

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The DiGiCo SD7 console providing the house mix at Atlanta’s Philips Arena for Passion 2016

The Heart of Passion 2016

Simulcast Audio Solutions for 40,000 Attendees in Three Arenas in Two States

Since they began in 1997, the Passion Conferences have long served to bring college students together for worship with a lineup of concerts and speakers. Over the years, they have expanded, with events and tours around the U.S. and the entire world. This year, with the promise that “three locations will be connected across two cities with a single heartbeat,” the conference was held simultaneously at three large venues in two different cities, all linked together to share content via an Optocore digital fiber network and satellite redundancy. The three-day conference saw attendance at more then 40,000 people, with six bands and six guest speakers to entertain the crowds in all three cities.

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The Venue 2 receiver

Lectrosonics Venue 2 and HHa Digital Hybrid Wireless

The world of wireless audio for live sound is tough, and truthfully, it’s not getting any easier, with ever-increasing RF traffic, fewer available UHF bands and the uncertainty of a spectra landscape that may (or may not) change at the whim of any future FCC rulings. Specifically designed to address those very issues is Lectrosonics’ Venue 2 Digital Hybrid Wireless modular receiver. Lectrosonics’ Digital Hybrid Wireless process delivers a wide 20 kHz audio bandwidth, compander-free audio and uses an analog FM carrier to transmit a specially encoded signal that delivers digital audio quality while remaining highly spectrum efficient.

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The San Jose Sharks make their traditional shark’s mouth entrance onto the ice at the SAP Arena in San Jose — a multipurpose facility that doubles as a concert venue.

Big, Boomy and Cold: The Realities of Arena Sound

Tonight I have a little time off, and I am watching a Stanley Cup playoff game between the San Jose Sharks and the Nashville Predators. The game is being played at the SAP Arena in San Jose, CA. The Sharks’ hockey fans love that building. It’s loud and reverberant, with lots of hard reflective surfaces, and virtually no acoustical treatment — perfect for amplifying crowd noise to intimidate the visiting team. The very conditions that make an arena so perfect for hockey games make it an extremely challenging environment for live music shows. The building makes live music sound hard, unconnected and overly bright. It has never been one of my favorite concert venues. Plus, I am a devout fan of the rival Los Angeles Kings.

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Bruce Springsteen was among the long list of performers that graced the Bottom Line. This poster promoted a five-date run at the venue, just a week before his landmark Born To Run album debuted on August 25, 1975.

A Treasure Trove of Vintage Live Recordings for Gigs at NYC’s Bottom Line

When the Bottom Line closed, in January, 2004 — a month shy of its 30th anniversary — it marked the decline of the cabaret-style rock venue in New York’s Greenwich Village. In fact, the owners, Allan Pepper and the late Stan Snadowsky, had kept the club going mostly on fumes for its last few years, the sit-down-and-listen format having largely already faded as live music migrated to pricey dance clubs and warehouses in Brooklyn and Queens. The demise of the Old World Order of record labels, which were falling to consolidation as online piracy and file trading undermined their creaky economics, meant they were no longer able to “paper the house,” as Pepper used to call the practice of a label buying out the 400 or so seats for the early show to support an act.

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The Sound Level Predictor from NTI (nti-audio.com) is a free PC-based app that works in conjunction with the company’s XL2 audio analyzer for SPL monitoring. It is designed to give the FOH mixer a prediction of sound levels over the next 10 minutes based on past history.

The Ups and Downs of SPL Restrictions

If you want to keep working, you have to learn how to play nicely with others in the sandbox. Part of those skills may require that at some point or another (for whatever reason), you’ll have to work within an SPL limit. It’s a difficult task, especially with a full band on stage, so let’s take a look at why SPL limitations exist and what you can do to make the best of a quiet situation.

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A well-organized snapshot list need not be complicated and can simplify your production tasks.

Listen More, Look Less: How Snapshots Can Improve Your Mix

So your church has made that rather large investment in a digital mixing console. Are you using it to its full potential? One of the most misunderstood and overlooked aspects of digital consoles is snapshot automation. Ironically, over the past decade of teaching digital consoles, I’ve heard people say things like “snapshots are cheating” or “the console is mixing for you.” Those statements couldn’t be further from the truth. Snapshots allow you to focus more on your mix, and less on the tedious process of muting and unmuting channels and getting faders into position. Anything that allows you to “listen more and look less” is a great tool.

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Illustration by Andy Au

How Would You Like Your Germs Today?

For obvious reasons, some things just don’t lend themselves to being good rental items. It’s not hard to visualize why expendable pieces such as guitar picks, drum sticks and drum heads would not be acceptable for a rental after the first use. Things such as horn reeds and harmonicas have an overt factor of “disgusting” in terms of using them as a rental. These pieces are personal items with which any given musician shares their bodily fluids. Okay, okay, don’t get overly imaginative here. I’m only referring to saliva.

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