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Slinging Sound for Spidey

There's no denying it: Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark is a monster musical on every level, from the massive lighting rig to the extensive projections to the booming, heavily layered sound design. Taking the gargantuan $75 million production from conception to execution has been quite a challenge for everyone involved, and it event underwent a last-minute reboot to transform it from an admirable but complex show into a more streamlined, tourist-friendly piece.

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An Overall Overhaul

AV Pro Inc. Upgrades Sound along with Lighting and Rigging at TSU/San Marcos' Mainstage Theatre

 

When Texas State University/San Marcos first opened the doors to its castle-like "Old Main" building in 1903, the 300 new students didn't have to spend much time located the structure on the university's campus. It was the only building on campus.

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Dowlen Sound: Providing Rocky Mountain Highs

At Red Rocks with Sarah McLachlan and the Colorado Symphony

Bret Dowlen has spent more than 30 years building sound systems, creating synergy between components and generally making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

"It doesn't matter if you hire us to do one show, a tour, or an entire sound system installation, you will always receive the same level of engineering and attention to detail that I've built this company's reputation on," he notes.

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Iron Maiden: The 2011 Final Frontier World Tour

Photo by John McMurtrie, (c) Iron Maiden Holdings Ltd

ML Executives of Kent, England successfully completed Iron Maiden's 2011 world tour in support of last year's critically acclaimed, Grammy-winning album, The Final Frontier, providing the "universal" package, as well as a complete Eastern Acoustic Works KF760 line array system with the new flown SB1002 subs for the stadium and arena shows in Florida and Europe. Managing Director Gary Marks' production company has been servicing the British metal veterans for the last decade of their three-dozen years on the road.

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Waves Plugins Part 6: Renaissance Compressor

When I first loaded Waves Live onto my Avid VENUE console, my primary goal was to discover a compressor that exerted subtle dynamic control while adding strength, body and drive to the three rawest and most elemental sounds in a rock performance – kick drum, bass guitar and electric guitar. To be sure, I had my favorites in the analog world, but I had not yet found a plugin that knocked my socks off for these particular applications.

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Rule the (Sound) Waves

It has been about two years since I wrote on compressors. I am re-addressing this subject because, in the last two years, I have learned a lot about the use of this piece of outboard gear, and I would like to share that information with you all. I think of myself as a sound expert, but that doesn't mean I am not constantly striving to improve my audio techniques. Very much like faith, audio is not stagnant. We should all be learning more and honing our skills as long as we are in the biz.

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“I’ll Vaporize You With My Space Modulator”

Several times over the past few months we've briefly mentioned the idea of modulation as an effect parameter. Now it's time to take a closer look. Modulation is often applied to delay for creating a wide variety of time-based effects, such as flange and chorus. The word "modulate" means to change, and in this case, we are referring to a change in delay time.

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The Future is Now

One nice aspect of getting older is that one gains perspective through a personal history. The downside to this new outlook is that it is as humbling as it is enlightening, especially when it comes to technology. I remember a moment in time when we started to replace our black and white televisions with color. Having grown up with a black and white TV set, I took television itself for granted, but as archaic as it sounds now, color TV was a new and transformational technology that changed the average viewer's life.

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