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DiGiCo SD7 consoles were used for both house and monitors

Crosby, Stills and Nash 2012

A Conversation with FOH Mixer Kevin Madigan

More than four decades after their first concert as a trio (auspiciously at the legendary Woodstock Festival in 1969), Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash are back out on the road again, with a hot backing band. After doing Australia, New Zealand, and South America, this leg of the tour — simply called CSN 2012 — kicked off June 7 at Philadelphia’s Tower Theatre, with more than 50 stops along the way at venues including The Wang Theater in Boston, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, The Greek Theatre in L.A. and ending up with a string of shows in late October at The Beacon Theatre in New York.

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Pike Performing Arts Center, Indianapolis

Pike Performing Arts Center, Indianapolis

Pike Performing Arts Center (PPAC), located 12 miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis, IN, recently installed a Bose RoomMatch sound reinforcement system in its main auditorium. Besides the 1,449-seat auditorium, the facility also has a smaller a 150-seat Studio Theatre for more intimate performances.

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Countryman H6 Headset Microphone

Countryman H6 Headset Microphone

Earlier this year, when Countryman Associates introduced its latest product, the H6 headset microphone, I wasn’t the only one eager to check it out. After a few months, production ramped up with the demand, and I was finally able to get an evaluation sample.

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Waves Bass Rider Plug-in

Waves Bass Rider Plug-in

After a hiatus that began in February 2011, work has returned me to Las Vegas and the 4,082-seat Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace, where I spent the better part of three years mixing FOH for Cher and Bette Midler. This past month, rehearsals for Shania Twain’s new Still The One show commenced at Solotech in Las Vegas. Ten musicians and three singers will be joining Shania onstage, and sheer numbers are making things very cozy right now in the 45-by-50-foot rehearsal room we now occupy. The Solotech staff has been incredibly helpful and accommodating while our entourage has nearly overrun their facility. This is a fantastic conglomeration of musicians and vocalists, and many of Shania’s amazing songs already sound show-ready after less than two weeks of work.

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Yamaha exec Chris Gero will supervise the media side of the Yamaha Entertainment Group.

Yamaha’s New Media Content Division Puts It on Both Sides of the Board

With record sales in a decade-long slump, this might seem an inauspicious moment to start a record label. Then again, I’m surprised that Warren Buffet didn’t bid on EMI. As the world’s most successful investor has pointed out more than once, look where everyone is running and then run the other way. So perhaps the announcement, in September, that Yamaha was launching its own record label and video production company might not be as puzzling as it first seems.

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Acoustical absorbers (such as the panels shown here) attached to a highly reflective “hard” wall surface can help break up sound waves that strike it, thus reducing echoes for a cleaner sound with improved vocal intelligibility.

Improve The Acoustics, Improve The Sound

Let me begin by saying that 99 percent of the churches that I have I worked in were built before I was born. So what does this little bit of information have to do with this month’s Sound Sanctuary? Well, the fact is that most houses of worship were originally built without much concern for the acoustic environment inside the finished building. And until recently, many of these facilities built in this country (and the world for that matter) were constructed with little or no consideration as to how the spoken word and music will sound during a typical service.

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Illustration by Baker Lee

My Big Idea

Note: Baker Lee was among those East Coasters plunged into darkness via a massive power failure resulting from hurricane Sandy, so his column this month combines some new material and with a bit of a classic “FOH at Large” from 2010. We hope you enjoy this blast from the past. —ed.

Just recently, I had a conversation with a former FRONT of HOUSE editor. We were discussing the particular qualities of the different IEMs on the market and, during the conversation, he mentioned that he was getting a new set of Ultimate Ear monitors that very day. I reminded him that, a few years back, I had received a set of UE earsets and that I was going to write about them in this column.

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Charlie Hernandez at the 2012 Parnelli Awards

Parnelli Awards Dazzles, Surprises, Inspires

The one thing you can expect at the Parnelli Awards is the unexpected. That was certainly true at the 12th Annual Parnelli Awards gala held Oct. 20, 2012 at the Mirage Las Vegas when Jake Berry (Tour Manager for Madonna, U2) showed up, followed by rocker Billy Squier, who spoke briefly and then thrilled the audience with a spirited performance of some of his songs. Both wanted to surprise Lifetime Achievement Honoree Charlie Hernandez, and that they did (and everyone else).

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AES 2012 in San Francisco

Show Report: AES San Francisco 2012

The Audio Engineering Society (www.aes.org) show came to San Francisco from October 26 to 29 during a wild week marked by the SF Giants sweeping the World Series. Meanwhile, on the eastern seaboard, hurricane Sandy left an unprecedented wake of destruction, disrupted travel, closed major airports and left many east coasters stranded on the left coast after the show.

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Tale of Two Tradeshows

This month, the audio tradeshow season finally wraps up, with the LDI Show in Las Vegas (Oct. 15 to 21) and the AES Convention in San Francisco (Oct 26 to 29). Maybe “season” is the wrong word for a period that kicks off in January at Winter NAMM, (followed by Musikmesse/PL+S, NAB, InfoComm, PALM, Summer NAMM, PALA, PLASA, LDI and AES) and extends well into October. That 10-month period actually eclipses the length of the NBA season (quite a feat), and if you add in regional/specialized events — such as Sweetwater GearFest or PreSonuSphere — you’re never really very far away (in time or distance) from some kind of event or tradeshow having to do with pro audio.

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