Are You Listening?
We spend a lot of time listening; in fact, it’s a process that continues during most of our waking hours — unless you happen to be a college student dozing off during a lecture on 17th Century Planar Existentialism, in which case, all bets are off. However, according to research, we also even spend a fair amount of time listening while sleeping. So, unless you put in some hours in a sensory deprivation tank or possibly sleeping in anechoic chambers, listening is a 24/7 thing.
Read More »Eric Church’s “The Outsiders” World Tour
Eric Church has a reputation for putting on rowdy, high-energy shows that were relatively simple. This time he went out with all the energy and all the frills. The country star puts on a rock act, almost like a southern Bruce Springsteen, though an encore can include just him and an acoustic guitar (at a show that spans almost two and a half hours, he doesn’t always need one).
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Theater Installation Showcase
Once considered a dying art, live performance theater today is a thriving and growing industry. And where once a simple sound system would suffice in a theatrical setting, venues have been upgrading, expanding and enhancing their audio capabilities. This stems not only from the high standards set by Broadway-caliber productions — both in established theater centers such as London, and New York, but also from myriad touring casts that bring recent hit shows and original casts to secondary markets.
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Neutrik – 40 Years of Making Connections
Founded in 1975, today Neutrik AG, is recognized globally as the leading supplier of robust, reliable professional connectivity solutions for audio, video, and data, and this year, is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Ironically, if you ask most people in the pro audio industry, it’s probably a safe bet that few are familiar with Neutrik’s home country of Liechtenstein — a tiny nation that’s about the land area of Washington, D.C., and bordered by Switzerland and Austria. Far better known is the Neutrik name, as the leading provider of audio, coaxial, power and circular connectors.
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Ultimate Ears Pro Sound Guard
In-ear monitors are becoming more and more ubiquitous every day and wireless hardware systems are coming down in price, opening the market to a wide range of users, some fairly sophisticated about audio and other not so knowledgeable. In the hands of a trained pro monitor mixer who understands the needs and limitations of IEM systems (and users) the need for an in-line brick wall protection limiter may not be so important.
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Blue Mo-Fi Headphones
One of the most essential, yet often overlooked items in the toolkit of any live sound pro is a good set of headphones. And if truth be told, there are a lot of headphones on the market, ranging from less expensive options to some awful-sounding, yet very pricey models that come emblazoned with the name of some famous music celebrity. However, the headphone needs of a sound reinforcement mixer (FOH or monitors) are quite different from those of a typical consumer — or for that matter, a studio engineer.
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Reverberation and RT60
In this month’s tech column, we unpack the concept of reverberation, and the measurement known as RT60. Commonly bandied about by audio professionals, these terms are frequently misapplied or misunderstood. Often when we say reverberation, we mean discrete echoes. Leading into the discussion of reverberation, we will review some general acoustics concepts, and then apply those concepts to the dictionary definition of reverberation. Then we’ll talk practically about applying equalization, and the effect of volume on our perception of reverberation.
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Point Source Audio CM-i3 Comm Headset
If you ever needed to use a communications headset in a loud environment, you know that any headset that provides isolation is usually rather bulky. These aviation-inspired headsets do a great job for followspot operators working a loud performance, but they can be heavy and cumbersome. Point Source Audio offers a lightweight alternative with its new CM-i3 intercom headset.
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Inside Rock Lititz
In close proximity to Lancaster, PA, there is Lititz, a town of about 9,000 that’s home to The Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery and the Wilbur Chocolate Factory. Surrounded by dairy farms and cornfields, Lititz is also located in Pennsylvania Dutch country, an area closely associated with the Amish, known for their simpler way of living, horse and carriages, quilts, suspenders and the shunning of the public power grid and modern appliances.
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Speakers Dominate the Conversation These Days
If the first decade of this century was about microphones, this next one seems to be about speakers. Neither trend fits exactly into such a neat chronology, of course; the explosive growth of the boutique microphone category was already underway when Prince was singing about the future of “1999.” But it certainly became fully formed in the aughts, when blinged-out handheld wireless mics became the must-have accessory for the fashion-conscious at the edge of the stage.
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Manic Compression, Part 2
Last month, we visited the nuts and bolts of compression. This time, let’s take a look at compression settings for a few specific instruments. As with many things audio-related, these suggestions should be treated as a starting point for your own techniques.
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