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Waves Plugins (Part 3): H-Comp, Hybrid Compressor

Waves Hybrid Compressor (H-Comp) offers ways for users to achieve dynamic control over horn sources.

To quote Adrian Monk, one of my favorite TV characters, "Here's the thing." Horns are cool. They add excitement, movement, color and personality to arrangements. But horns can be loud. Horns can take over mixes in seconds. Horns need to be respected, but horns need to be respectfully controlled. It's necessary to compress horns, but dynamic control has to be implemented without repressing their timbre, vitality and energy.

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The Big Picture

From the FOH position, you can pretty accurately gauge the impact the show is having on the house, but what if you want to gauge the effect your industry is having on the economy? That's something that your U.K. counterparts have a better handle on now, thanks to a survey from UK Music, an umbrella organization representing the collective interests of a broad range of sectors of the U.K.'s commercial music industry. The report found that large-scale live music events, such as festivals, are contributing over £1.4 billion a year – that's $2.3 billion – to the U.K. economy from all sources, including ticket sales and travel to the event locations.

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Your Heavenly Tool Box

Before we get into this month's writings, I want to make a few shout-outs to some of the readers. It always amazes me how intelligent and thoughtful "Sound Sanctuary" readers are. I know we all want to do a good job at our individual houses of worship, but maybe we all work a little harder because of Who we are really working for.

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Parallel Compression, a.k.a. NYCT

Last month, we looked at the differences between serial and parallel processing and applications for each. We examined the idea that, generally, serial processing is applied in situations where you want 100 percent of a signal to be processed, while parallel processing is applied in situations where you want to add an effect into the mix along with the original signal. We also examined why we typically use serial processing for dynamic effects but use parallel processing for time-based effects such as reverb and delay. Now let's take a closer look at compression in particular, and twist some of the rules.

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A Profession and a Lifestyle

In a few months I will be 60 years of age and, as in the past, I usually spend the year before these milestone birthdays acclimating myself to my new surroundings by reminiscing about the past and trying to map out the future. Recollecting the history of my triumphs and failures is the easy part of the equation; disseminating all the previous information and trying to create a cohesive plan for the imminent change becomes the challenge. Nevertheless, by the time of my birthday, I have already accepted and settled into my new decade armed with the wisdom of the past and a blueprint for the upcoming years. Ha ha ha! As John Lennon once said "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."

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Adopting Technology and Adapting to Change

I'll never forget my first Heritage 3000; actually it was the first in the US. My friend George Relles saw it introduced at the 1999 Los Angeles NAMM show, pulled out his checkbook and told Bob Doyle he would buy one if they'd take off the handles and end-caps so it would turn it in a 90-inch wide bob-tail truck. It first appeared at a festival where I was mixing monitors for four bands, with no warning, no manual and no time to study it. Each band fit onto a 24×8 section of the console, which I simply routed through the matrix, with side-fills on L/R, so I didn't have to chart a thing. It was love at first sight.

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OSA and SES Support “Oprah’s Surprise Spectacular”

The gear supported the last episodes of the 25-year-old show, produced before a live audience of 13,000 people.

With combined production support from Special Event Services (SES) and On Stage Audio (OSA), Oprah's Surprise Spectacular was taped May 17 before 13,000 lucky fans, bringing together some of the biggest names in movies, music and television in a one-time-only farewell to celebrate the 25-year legacy of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

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Kenny Chesney’s Crew Tames Cowboys Stadium

John Mills, third from left, with the Kenny Chesney audio crew

Morris Light & Sound Combines Touring and Installed Electro-Voice X-Line Systems

 

This year's top country tour, Kenny Chesney, has filled many arenas, amphitheaters, and stadiums over the last decade. But the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium, next to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, TX and host to last year's Super Bowl, is the largest.

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Raising Clarity to New Heights

DSAs are Improving Intelligibility at Europe's Landmark Churches

 

They were built centuries ago for a higher purpose, and their beauty has endured. The challenge for today's audio system designers and installers is to preserve the aesthetics of the past while helping speech and song to be heard and understood better than ever before in these venerable spaces. Digital tools – including digitally steerable arrays (DSAs) from RCF and Renkus-Heinz – are succeeding in raising intelligibility to new heights. 

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NOLA French Quarter Music Festival

Audio "Team of Rivals" Join Staging Company in Supporting Four-Day Festival

When you think of New Orleans music festival, you think of the Jazz & Heritage. But for locals, there's one that's as dear to their hearts as Du Monde coffee and beignets: The French Quarter Music Festival. This year was the 28th, and over four days in April, 260 local bands performed on 20 stages spread throughout the French Quarter for 533,000 music fans. From brass bands to Zydeco, classical to classic jazz, country to rock, it is a potpourri assault on the senses – the good kind. 

 

 

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Yamaha StageMix iPad App for LS9 Digital Consoles

Yamaha introduced their popular StageMix iPad application for their M7CL at PLASA last fall, and there's been strong interest in an LS9 version since. Released at Frankfurt's Prolight + Sound in April, it's a free download on Apple's iTunes store. I got the call from IATSE steward Susan Phillips to work at Florida State College's Wilson Center with the school's nationally recognized jazz band. Because they have an LS9-32 in a typical performing arts center control booth, I knew this was a great test for the LS9 app.

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