It’s All About the Mix
A couple of weeks ago, I dropped by to visit Ray Benson’s western swing band, Asleep at the Wheel, along with the crew, who were performing at the Bankhead Theatre in Livermore, CA, about a half-hour away from where I live. It’s no megatour — far from that — but I was genuinely excited about seeing the show (see “Production Profile,” Sept. 2014, page 48). I haven’t seen Asleep at the Wheel in a couple of years, and I also wanted to have a chance to check out the venue that’s just 30 miles outside the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Nine Inch Nails’ Arena-Style Tour Fights the Shed Challenges
It’s been a busy summer for Nine Inch Nails. The band recently wrapped a successful tour with a final performance on August 30 at the White River Amphitheater in Auburn, WA, with the memory of countless sheds, arenas and a lot of festivals in their wake. A talented audio crew of four kept the group sonically together from Europe to the left coast. Audio was provided by Firehouse Productions of Red Hook, NY.
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Temples of Technology: Recent House of Worship Projects
The fervor of upgrading sound reinforcement rigs — as well as lighting, video and broadcast systems — in the house of worship market continues at a dizzying pace. Much of this has been fueled by the rise of popularity of high-energy praise bands and choirs that up bring the SPL’s to a level that’s simply heavenly for many parishioners. These days, a 1960s-vintage Lowrey organ and a couple of well-worn Shure Vocal Master columns don’t quite cut it when presenting contemporary music services.
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Event Safety Alliance Moves Into Next Phase
In what began as a conversation involving concerned live event professionals the month after the Indiana State Fair stage collapse in August 2011, the Event Safety Alliance (ESA) is expanding its influence over event safety in North America. As it celebrates its unofficial third year this month (it incorporated in February of 2012), the ESA has made solid progress in their quest to align the industry with best practices in live event safety guidelines. A four-day training session, a new strategic partnership, a new headquarters, and The Event Safety Guide are some of their recent accomplishments.
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The FCC’s Part 74 License
Jim Van Winkle, general manager of Professional Wireless Systems (PWS), wrote this article about navigating the new live event workflow. -ed.
Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced it would soon be taking steps to “recognize the important social, cultural and economic benefits of low-power auxiliary station operations, including wireless microphones, by expanding license eligibility for qualifying users.”
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Asleep at the Wheel
Without a doubt, Asleep at the Wheel founder/frontman Ray Benson is a national treasure. While other live music forms seem to espouse all the amenities of “modern production” — Pro Tools backing tracks, drum machines, loops, beatz, flashy lights, video playback, overblown sets, elaborate staging, pyro effects, legions of dancers, multiple costume changes and the must-have flashing strobes that blind the audience — Asleep at the Wheel just shows up and plays. And no “grueling” 20-stop tours, either: these guys (and gals) are on the road doing between 140 and 200 shows a year to packed houses and festivals, leaving audiences cheering for encore after encore.
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Deployment Techniques for Vertical Arrays, Part 1
From the summer festival setup on a Stageline SL100 mobile stage to shows at a “shed” amphitheater, to the largest arena productions, vertically arrayed speaker deployments increasingly rule the day in pro audio. Vertical arrays have advantages in deployment, sightlines, and dividing the audience into different coverage zones. Here in the pages of FRONT of HOUSE, I have talked about the physical principles of vertical arrays but not about their practical field deployment for the working technician. We will now remedy this situation, as this month’s tech feature is the first in a series that will detail some real-world idiosyncrasies involved in deploying vertical arrays and practical approaches that the system technician can apply to ensure even coverage throughout the audience area.
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DPA d:screet Necklace Microphone
Headworn and lavalier mics continue to gain popularity in applications that go well beyond the typical — i.e., a CEO giving a welcome address at an industrial or corporate presentation or freeing a minister from the pulpit mic for invocations using a wireless system. With the rise of quality in modern miniature capsules, some of these transducers are capable of delivering performance specs that meet or exceed those of a hardwired handheld. At the same time, capsules have gotten smaller, offering near-invisibility from just a few feet away.
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Mackie SRM450v3 and SRM1801 Powered Loudspeakers
I think it’s safe to say that the Mackie SRM450 qualifies as an industry standard. I certainly have encountered my share of them over the past 15 years and often still use some original 450’s that I got circa 1999. But Mackie’s latest revisions to this venerable speaker bring it more in line with modern diversified sound needs. Though at first glance the new 450 may look similar to the previous models, Mackie’s version 3 updates of the SRM450 contain many significant changes.
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Cruising with JT and the Gang
Preceding our European tour in the summer of 2009, with the lyrics of Huey “Piano” Smith’s “Sea Cruise” floating through our minds, the James Taylor crew boarded Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 for a transatlantic crossing. As romantic as this ocean voyage adventure seemed before we cast off in New York harbor, reality presented a rather different version of the story for those of us on the crew. For the majority of the time spent on this legendary luxury ocean liner, we were confined in a cramped salon on the lowest deck of the ship, setting up and working rehearsals with the band. Aside from the two shows James and the band performed on the final days of the voyage, the most memorable highlight of the cruise turned out to be a lengthy tour of the engine room given to us by the chief of engineering.
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