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Bruno Mars with a Sennheiser SKM 5200 transmitter fitted with an MD 5235 capsule. Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.

Super Bowl Gets Top Sound to Match its Ratings

It never got as cold as predicted, but that didn’t make the Super Bowl XLVIII Halftime Show any easier.

It was the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show in history, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Bruno Mars, the diminutive ball of vocal dynamite whose ability to avoid controversy made him the NFL’s pick for the halftime show at Super Bowl XLVIII, delivered an estimated 115.3 million viewers for the Feb. 2 event. They watched him and his hand-picked “special guests,” the Red Hot Chili Peppers rip though a 12-minute set at MetLife Stadium, which was prepared for sub-freezing temperatures but at showtime, Mars’ gold lamé jacket may have been plenty against what turned out to be an almost pleasant evening, with temps around the 40°F. range.

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Redemption Church installed Martin Audio’s MLA Compact system

House of Worship Installation Showcase

Redemption Church, Gilbert, AZ

When Redemption Church recently committed to an expansion and retrofit of their multipurpose conference and worship center, they wanted an audio, video and lighting system that would provide a truly meaningful experience for their members.

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Fig. 1: Comparison of the polar response at the crossover frequency of a single woofer and HF driver (top) that are misaligned, versus an axis-symmetric dual woofer configuration (bottom). The axis-symmetric configuration creates an inherently symmetric polar response. Image from Wikipedia.com

One Woofer or Two?

Typically, most professional loudspeakers have been comprised of a low frequency driver and a high frequency driver paired together in the manner common to speakers on sticks. Today though, manufacturers have branched out into many different driver orientations in the search for better performance, better coverage, more output and reduced footprint.

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Allen & Heath Qu-16

Allen & Heath Qu-16

Allen & Heath has built a good reputation and become popular with their larger digital consoles. Now they have taken a lot of the technology that has served them well with their iLive and GLD series mixing boards and incorporated it into the Qu-16 (and recently introduced 24-channel Qu-24) consoles.

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Meyer Sound LYON Linear Line Array

Meyer Sound LYON Linear Line Array

The newest addition to the LEO speaker family from Meyer Sound, the self-powered LYON linear sound reinforcement system officially debuts this month at the I.S.E. Convention in Amsterdam. Incorporating the technology of the LEO family in a lighter, more compact package, the LYON line array loudspeaker system extends the advantages of highly linear self-powered systems to a broader range of venues and applications.

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Winter NAMM 2014

Show Report: Product Hits of Winter NAMM

ANAHEIM, CA — A total of 96,129 music and audio pros were registered for the 2014 edition of Winter NAMM to see the latest from 1,533 exhibiting companies. One of those attendees was FRONT of HOUSE editor George Petersen, who had a much easier time traveling to the show than others arriving from snow-blasted regions of the U.S. His show report, which is also featured in the Feb. 2014 issue of FOH Magazine, follows.

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David Morgan

One Night in Lagos, Part 2

Part 1 of this anecdotal tale relating our experiences in Lagos, Nigeria (FOH, Jan. 2014, page 39) ended at the moment we discovered that the Mariah Carey production crew had become secondary players in a turf war between the Eko Hotel special events staff and an outside vendor. The conflict over which party could best provide the stage sound equipment and band gear had caused our production schedule to succumb as collateral damage. It was a struggle that the better-prepared hotel staff was most certainly going to win. The outside supplier was well intentioned but very much out of his depth — obviously under-experienced and woefully under-supplied.

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Site of the 2014 Super Bowl, the 82,500-capacity MetLife Stadium (East Rutherford, NJ) is shown here prior to its special accouterments added for the big game. Photo Courtesy Section215

The Super Bowl Exemplifies Live Music’s Long Relationship with Sports

The halftime show at the Super Bowl has been a music extravaganza in recent years, one with its own set of cycles. After Janet Jackson’s 2004 “wardrobe malfunction,” we went into a wave of classic rock acts, including McCartney, Springsteen and The Who, followed by a round of hip-pop with Madonna, Black Eyed Peas, Beyoncé, LMFAO, Nicki Minaj and Cee Lo Green. This year finds Bruno Mars the star of the halftime show, seemingly a continuation of the last two years’ trend with (only slightly) more testosterone.

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Steve La Cerra

No Excuse for Poor Sound

Whether you’re a musician, a sound engineer or a major league baseball player, everyone has a bad day once in a while. But in these twenty-teens, technology has reached the point where there’s little excuse for bad sound. I just mixed a show at a major casino stop on the East Coast. Names and locations are withheld to prevent the guilty from personal injury and humiliation.

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FOH Sound Sanctuary Feb. 2014 - Training Volunteer Techs

Training Volunteer Techs

One of the greatest things about being the head of the audio department at a large or medium sized church is that there are usually a lot of people from the congregation who want to volunteer their services in the audio department. One of the worst things about being the head of the audio department at a large or medium size church is that there are a lot of people in the congregation who want to volunteer their services in the audio department.

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Illustration by Andy Au

The Doldrums

The doldrums are upon us and the wind has gone out of the sails of our good ship audio as we drift listlessly in a sea of calm. We have powered ourselves at a breakneck pace out of the old year and into the new and, as always, our charted course delivers us directly into a dead calm where we will drift for approximately two months or so while our live sound industry moves forward at a languid pace. Although the newer seafarers might be surprised by the seasonal torpor, the more experienced salty dogs among us know the drill and prepare accordingly. Arrgh matey, that just isn’t true and you know it!

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George Petersen, Editor, FOH Magazine

Just One More for 2-0-1-4: The Big “U”

Welcome to 2014. I’m not sure where 2013 went, but around here, time moves much faster than 1,126 feet/second, and it seems like yesterday that I was penning some kind of welcome address to 2013. This is always the time when journalists everywhere reflect on the past year, but I’m mostly gonna skip that and get to the chase. That said, you don’t want to miss our annual look back at the “Top Tours of 2013” in our expanded “Showtime” edition starting on page 22. (Click HERE to scroll down to the tour listings)

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