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A highlight of the special Christmas performance was an appearance by the Muppets — and plenty of inputs for all, including the 360-voice choir, orchestra soloists and special performers. Photos by Edgar Thompson

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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The elements of the human ear — a series of complex components that define and enable exactly how we perceive sounds.

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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The DMSTetrad Vocal Set includes a D5 mic transmitter and the rack mountable receiver

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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PreSonus RM16AI with large touch screen

PreSonus RM-Series Digital Mixers

About a year ago, I had a hands-on introduction to the wonders of PreSonus’ Active Integration technology when I reviewed the StudioLive 32.4.2AI digital console (FRONT of HOUSE, Nov. 2013). The system — with iPad control via the Universal Control-AI app — was one of the easiest digital console interfaces I had ever encountered. It was quite literally play and go, right from the start, quickly accessing the power of the system with hardly a need to consult the manual at all.

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Terry (TJ) Jackson

A Boost for Headphones; Tips for Wintry Weather

Live audio pros can be a resourceful lot. They’re also willing to share the cool ideas they come across so that their fellow sound reinforcement pros can benefit from solutions that can make the next gig easier, knowing that they, in turn, will be able to benefit from the ideas shared by others. We came across a number of interesting solutions recently. The first is from FOH engineer Terry “TJ” Jackson, who credits Mo-Fi powered headphones from Blue Microphones for giving him a reference point he can rely on in a variety of large venues. Separately, we listened in on the discussions Pro Audio Space (proaudiospace.com) members were having about practical solutions to the seasonal challenges posed by wintry weather conditions. Enjoy!

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Downtime Projects

As I write this, 2014 is coming to a close and I am slowly but steadily re-acclimating to life off the road. This long but extremely rewarding touring year extended all the way to Christmas, concluding with a long flight home from Moscow on Dec. 23. On that same day, my son drove down from Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, CA, and completed our holiday family reunion. Usually, I go through a “Don’t talk to me!” phase for a couple of days upon returning from a tour, but this year’s travel schedule thrust me straight into holiday cheer. Thankfully, we had a very laid back, simple celebration with friends and family coming to our house, allowing both my readjustment from road mentality and recovery from jet lag to be gentle, pleasant experiences.

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The Biz, FOH, Jan 2015. Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Resident (NOT) Evil

Three years ago, Celine Dion was named by Pollstar as the 10th highest-grossing North American touring artist of 2011. In doing so, Ms. Dion barely moved a muscle, figuratively speaking. The $41.2 million she took in from live shows that year were virtually all attributable to the first year of a three-year residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, which ended late last year, her second long-term stand there.

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Fig. 1: A L/R stereo feed from the console feeds an external system processor that divides the signal to the subwoofers and full range speakers.

Techniques for Feeding Subwoofers

Low-frequency content is an extremely important part of live sound for most modern music. The physical impact created by air movement helps make live music exciting, so even in small clubs, it almost goes without saying that subwoofers are a requirement. There are a few different ways to route audio into subwoofers, each having advantages and disadvantages. Let’s have a look.

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ClearSonic Manufacturing’s IsoPac acrylic sound control panel helps keep house of worship stage volume manageable.

SPL’s: Sometimes, Less is More

Happy New Year to all of you, and I hope you have big plans for 2015. I love the New Year. It gives us all a fresh start at doing better and being better in the coming year. I will assume we all want to improve (myself included) as audio engineers. Whether in the worship world or in the secular world, we all want to mix the best we can.

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Illustration by Andy Au

Common Sense-ism

These days, it seems, time moves faster than it did in previous years. While I haven’t yet backed up this theorem with any scientific evidence, I’m sure that many folks would agree that the speed of light has sped up. Now, the distinction between me receiving a Nobel Prize (or being called a kook) for this brilliant theory is evidence. To be sure, this type of solid confirmation can be an obstacle, but it’s merely a small impediment I am working to overcome.

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