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Adventures In Mixing

For those of you who do not recognize the name Howard Page, you should. His audio credits include Van Halen and Sade, as well as the design and creation of six sound consoles, including the Showco Showconsole, one of the first digital mixing desks (OK, digitally-controlled analog). In addition, Page currently serves as director of engineering for Showco, part of Clair Brothers Audio. In a career measured not in years but in decades, Page has mastered the art of the live mix, so there is little wonder why many in his native Australia refer to him as "The Legend."

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We Are Controlling Transmission

We live in a media saturated environment, where we are constantly receiving and processing excessive amounts of information, which we then file and store away in the recesses of our overworked and over-stimulated brains. Often we disseminate this information as verified knowledge, with, more often than not, only a partial understanding of whatever the subject might be. All of us lead busy lives, and there are only so many hours in the day that can be devoted to following up on all the information we receive in that given time. Between work, family and whatever civic duties one might have it becomes increasingly difficult to find the time for more than the headline news, and even if we find the time to actually read a paper we, more often than not, skim the headlines and give a quick read to the article before moving on to the next headline. With all the information that we are required to process, it's not surprising that we take what we need from any given article or sound bite and then spew it back out with the authority of an expert. It is also not uncommon for us to be a bit cynical about some of this information we receive due to the fact that it is often wrong.

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More Beer! Uh, More Power!

We were playing a street dance, and they told us there was a generator for us to use. When we got there we found that the generator's distro panel was 150 feet from the stage, and the generator was in an alley behind a fence and 12 feet below the street level. Oh, and the generator was being shared by us and all the street vendors. (Uh-oh.)

We got everything plugged in and checked the power meters on the FOH rack, and discovered that the generator was cranked up to 130 volts, so my guy had to walk around two buildings to get to the generator to turn its output down to a reasonable level. We continued with our setup and got ready to start sound check, when the GFI on the distro panel popped.

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Not Dead. But Not Enough.

No, it's not the name of the next band you'll be working with or even a way of looking at the future of analog consoles. I saw that phrase on the cover of a magazine recently. It was a teaser to an interview with the publisher of Wired Magazine, and it referred to the entire idea of print publishing — from its efficiency as a way to disseminate information in a timely manner, to its effectiveness for advertisers seeking to get their stuff seen by the right audience. The phrase has stuck with me because it does a great job of describing the way I have felt but have been unable to express well for the past decade-plus.

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It's the Laws

Okay, time to get up on the soapbox again. It's probably my three quarters electrical engineering circuit analysis education, but why can't most newbie sound people figure out how much power, voltage and current is going into each of their speakers? I mean Ohm's Law and Watt's Law have been around since before Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, Edison sockets (for the light bulbs) and Edison receptacles (for plugging things into). So I guess it is time we had a refresher course on the basic electrical formulas, and those of you who know this stuff can guess the famous dead physicist's names that make up the laws.

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Blood, Torture And Audio Take the Stage

Playwright Martin McDonagh crafted a morbid masterpiece with his Tony-winning drama The Pillowman, which was covered in this column last year. If you thought he couldn't match the intensity of a show about an author of dreary children's stories whose grisly endings are replicated by a real-life murderer, think again. The Lieutenant Of Inishmore, which recently completed a four-and-a-half month run on Broadway, focuses on the fear and anxiety that spreads through a small Irish clan following the death of the cat of the one family member who happens to be a nasty local terrorist. The irony of a brutal killer who loses his marbles over the death of his closest furry friend is rich with irony and very black humor. The production features loud gunfights, hacked limbs, a blood splattered stage and an actual live feline.

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Uncoiling the Constrictor

Dear Fellow Anklebiters, I had a small gig last Saturday. I had several friends helping me setup. The problem was no one knew what to do, so I had to direct all of the activities. When I fired up the system there were many problems with things plugged into the wrong places. Help!

Chris Russo Prescott, Arizona

Paul: I have had this happen a few times as well. I have since tried to fool-proof the system, but I still have some things I need to change. Is it possible to make the connections all different so they won't fit on the wrong place/connector? In my case, I have all NL4 Speakons but I have some marked Low and some marked High. The Lows have a red color on them. I should at least make all Speakons the same so they will fit anywhere on the amp racks or the back of the speakers. The color red is a problem as well. I use red to denote the input for Highs from the drive snake. The color scheme that I use is Blue for Lows, Purple for Mids and Red for Highs. I need to standardize on a universal color scheme for my drive snakes. Brian, what do you do?

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The Year Of the Rat

Dave Rat is sipping on a red wine while absent-mindedly holding a cigarette more like a prop than an outright addiction. He's wearing a rumpled pair of shorts emblazoned with the Union Jack that are tailored more with Benny Hill in mind than the Tour de France. All in all, it could be a relaxing evening almost anywhere. That is, except for the fact that at the moment he happens to be in the center of an FOH and lighting fort in the middle of the Earl's Court venue in London, surrounded by 10,000 screaming fans halfway through a set by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, on the first and ostensibly most nerve-wracking night of a four-show stand. He turns to a visitor and winks, saying in a voice practiced at cutting through the crowd noise without seeming to strain, "I try very had to find ways not to have to really exert myself at a show."

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Don't Get All 60 Hz Now

Throughout my many years sojourn within the world of live audio and production I have noticed, and become very aware of, an underlying hum that seems to permeate this specialized universe we all inhabit. Sometimes it's very quiet and other times it becomes overbearing in its volume, but it is almost always present. I have noticed it at large gigs, and I have heard it rear its ugly little head on small, seemingly simple shows. Often it is hard to pinpoint as it isn't centralized in one location, and frequently it stems from different sources. Many times this hum doesn't stop even after the gig is finished and many times I even hear it going on back at the shop. It's a hum that seems to be prevalent in our business and no, it's not a floating 60-cycle ground hum that I am speaking about, although a certain amount of "grounding" might be just the solution to alleviate this incessant hum that often clutters our best endeavors. What I am referring to is the grumbling and undercurrent of discontent that insidiously seeps into our work space regardless of one's position or capabilities. In the same way that I identify and attach the 2.5k frequency to a person prone to hysteria I also associate the 60Hz frequency with the grumblers and not so forthright complainers.

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Giving Guitar Gods Their Due

Seventy inputs– most of them guitars–are a big enough challenge for any live engineer. Now factor in all of this: Those guitarists are all world-class players doing a show that tracks the history and influence of the guitar. The mix of players changes over the show's three-day run and range from acoustic-based classical and bluegrass to the searing electric vibe of Albert King and Eric Johnson. The show is seen as a possible "audition" for a theatrical run and is being recorded for a DVD. Oh yeah, and you are mixing in surround on some gear that is seeing its first public use in this country.

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Expanding Horizons

The drive behind expanding is varied, but sound companies across the States are looking towards a number of methods to accomplish the goal. This month FOH checks in with three companies who have seen an impressive factor of growth over the past five years, Thunder Audio, Maryland Sound International and Audio Analyst.

These three companies have a number of things in common, including a strong regional presence before jumping into the national spotlight, an approach toward expanding both touring and installation business and a careful and thought out plan before the first step was taken.

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