Skip to content

Articles

Around and About In Albuquerque

I first met Karl Winkler on a trip to Spain to check out the facilities for speaker maker D.A.S. Karl worked for Sennheiser US, which had recently started distributing D.A.S. product in the States, and Karl was in charge of marketing that brand. On that trip, we spent four days being wined and dined (back in the days when I still wined…), watching nightly fireworks displays and touring the huge temporary statues around Valencia in a celebration known as Fallas.

Read More »

My Field Trip to the Grammys

Did you see this year's Grammys? I did, and it was packed with fantastic talent, visual extravaganzas and great dance (not to mention the Muppets). The fact of the matter is that I have seen at least 30 Grammy Award shows (this was number 53), and this was probably the best.

Read More »

Super Bowl XLV Gets Slammed by Mother Nature

Aside from everything that FOH readers have already tweeted, texted, blogged, posted and/or uploaded regarding the 12 minutes that was the Bridgestone Super Bowl XLV Halftime Show featuring the Black Eyed Peas, Slash and Usher, what follows here is a recap of the week that led up to that moment (and others) in and around Arlington's Cowboys Stadium.

Read More »

Teatro ZinZanni

Dreams and divas, music and madmen, cirque and sensuality – this is Teatro ZinZanni. Originating in Seattle by Pacific Northwest nonprofit arts and events producer One Reel in 1998, Teatro ZinZanni is now also set along San Francisco's historic waterfront on Pier 29 at the Embarcadero.

Read More »

KRK ERGO

In the studio world, everyone faces the same challenge of referencing. All of us have spent God-knows how many hours tweaking and EQing to get our mix to sound the best it possibly can. Then you finally burn the masterpiece to a CD and put it in the car to hear it and, lo and behold, your face is melted with 4k. Or you have a wonderful 120Hz roar. What happened? Your wonderful studio monitors, that's what.

Read More »

Sound On Stage Rolls with the Changes

From Huey Lewis to a birthday party for a one year old; from a wedding featuring a rock legend to a 2,000-person corporate party; from a six-stage music festival to celebrating the world champion San Francisco Giants – Sound on Stage has been through it all, and then some.

Read More »

A Sh*tty Request

Back in the late 1970s, I was doing semi-permanent house sound at a club in Cleveland, OH. They were pretty eclectic in what they presented, with a few days a month being dedicated to punk. With all the bands that were boiling out of nearby Akron, we got a lot that went on to national level. Well, one night we were headlining the Dead Boys.

Read More »

Pro Audio, Meet NAMM

Jane Kaczmarek, the actress, said, "Awards shows are my greatest inducement to get back into shape." Awards shows are as much about looking good as doing well in the estimation of your peers, but they also are a reflection of the industries they celebrate. So it was meaningful when, last January, the TEC Awards program, which had been a fixture at the AES Show since its inception 26 years ago, moved instead to the Winter NAMM Show.

Read More »

How Long Is It?

About a month ago, I worked on a show in a ballroom that measured about 300 feet by 200 feet. The mix position was placed at the back of the room. Our system was fairly large and included an AVID Venue digital console with a digital snake, which was a beautiful thing, considering that the length of the snake tapped out at over 400 feet.

Read More »