New Year’s Resolutions – The Other Side
Welcome to 2015. A new year, a new beginning, and perhaps a time to reflect on how to improve, prosper and grow in the coming 12 months. If you’re a live sound pro or soundco, January provides a great chance to relax a bit and recover from the heavy schedule of extra concerts, parties and events that came with the annual December holiday work crunch.
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Usher’s North American Tour Closes on a High Note
“It’s involved,” system tech Frank Sgambellone says, of Usher’s “The UR Experience” tour, in what appears to be an epic understatement. “It’s large, and definitely a show — that’s for sure.” By all measures, the 27-date North American arena tour was a huge success, kicking off from Montreal’s Bell Centre Nov. 1 and wrapping up Dec. 14 at Amalie Arena in Tampa, FL. A well-deserved break ensues before starting up again in Europe and the U.K. in February and March.
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Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 Experience World Tour
If there’s such a thing as a modern Renaissance man, Justin Timberlake comes pretty close to fitting the description. From his early days as a child star on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club and youngest member of heartthrob boy band *NSYNC to his more recent years as a respected actor (The Social Network, Trouble With The Curve) and Grammy Award-winning solo artist, one starts to get the distinct impression that everything he touches turns to gold. Or quadruple platinum, more likely.
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Historic Webster Hall Gets a Sonic Makeover
Webster Hall, the venerable music venue in New York City’s East Village, has been many things to many people over the years. Starting in the late 19th century as a hub for bohemians, artists and anarchists, it became a hangout for hoodlums during Prohibition, including a purported ownership stint by Al Capone himself. During the 1950s, the facility did a turn as Webster Hall Studios, operating as RCA’s East Coast recording studio, where Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra and countless other icons recorded albums on the Grand Ballroom stage.
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Shure: 1925 to 2015, and Beyond
90 Years of Innovation in Technology
This year, Shure marks a significant milestone, celebrating 90 years since founder Sidney N. Shure began the Shure Radio Company on April 25, 1925. Certainly in the years since that day, Shure has developed into a world leader in technology — and covering it all could consume an entire library, so we’ll focus on a few key products that helped shape the development of the sound reinforcement industry today. But first, a little history…
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LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City Gets Major Digital Upgrade
Every year, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints present a Christmas show with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Orchestra at Temple Square and Bells on Temple Square. The event takes place over three evenings at the LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. This year’s series of shows included special guest Santino Fontana, the Sesame Street Muppets and also myself. Of course, I wasn’t in the show, but I had an amazing time watching and listening to this incredible event.
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Mixing With Your Brain
Psychoacoustics and the Mix Process
Our brains are adept at ignoring enormous swaths of visual and auditory information as we process the world. We are so used to this pre-processing that it likely rarely occurs to us that we are missing anything. And yet we are great at ignoring many acoustic problems. Reflections, comb filters, level differences, etc. are smoothed over by our brains.
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AKG DMSTetrad Digital Wireless
During last summer’s InfoComm show, AKG introduced the DMSTetrad, a four-channel 2.4 GHz digital wireless microphone system for live sound, corporate events, church and industrial installations. It is designed to be set-up quickly and be simple to use. And from a first glance at the receiver, it is indeed very streamlined looking with a knob, a volume pot and three LEDs per channel. Pretty straightforward.
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