When it comes to piano miking, miniature mics mounted in the piano are a popular option, such as the DPA d:vote CORE 4099 pair pictured here. But it’s also definitely plausible to capture a piano nicely with a single mic.
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Audio pros may be constantly on the hunt for weird tricks and hacks that, at a stroke, make their jobs infinitely easier. But sometimes there are no easy answers, and you just have to dive in and embrace complexity. That was the case for sound designer Dan Moses Schreier, FOH mixer John Sibley and the rest of the cast and crew for Barry Manilow’s “Harmony, a New Musical” on Broadway. To read about the challenges they faced with the production, which centers on six-part vocal harmonies and a band that required two sound designs, one for when they perform offstage and another for a number during Act II when half of them roll onstage on a wagon, see our Theater Sound article in FOH’s January 2024 issue.
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Michael Brammer, son of Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award winner Jim Brammer, stepped up to the podium on January 26 to present the plaque to his dad. After some private plane piloting and skydiving jokes, Michael quickly disabused the crowd of the notion that his dad is the kind of guy who ever takes on big risks with a backup plan. “He’ll have TEN backup plans,” Michael said, a truth reflected in the panoply of companies now under the Concert Stuff Group (CSG) umbrella, including Special Event Services (SES) and many others.
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Audio pros have expensive toys, and a sad fact of life is that there are unsavory characters who covet those toys. Sometimes shady people steal or try to steal gear in hopes that they can sell it for quick cash. These are the tools we use to earn our living, so it makes sense to thwart these efforts before they happen, and to be prepared in the unfortunate event that they do. There are a number of ways to protect your investment. The first: Don’t advertise the presence of your gear with words like “sound and lighting” on the side of your unattended vehicles. And if you don’t know who’s listening, don’t broadcast the parking or storage locations of your gear.
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It’s hard to believe that another year is disappearing into our collective rear-view mirror and, in three months’ time, we will be marking the fourth anniversary of the Covid shutdown. The shock of March 15, 2020 seems like it was just here, but that year also fell behind us as we drove headlong into a bleak 2021 only to speed through to 2022 and zip into 2023. We are not traveling a straight and narrow path, and the route we have taken has been filled with many obstacles, twists and turns, but we are keeping steady on as we accelerate into 2024.
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When it comes to traditional church services, notes FRONT of HOUSE’s “Sound Sanctuary” columnist John McJunkin, rule number 1 is to “do no harm.” It’s likely that the worship space has reasonably good acoustics that require just a bit of a P.A. assist. If that’s the scenario, he notes, a portable line array system with subs and delay towers might be overkill. Small speakers on sticks can be brought out when necessary, and put away when they’re not.
Read More »If I have one of my boys mixing a Sunday service, they have to know what they are doing and dress for the occasion.
Let me give you my dress code for church gigs (indoors or out).
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