Category Archives: Gear for Sound and Lighting

Reviews and opinions regarding audio and lighting equipment.

I Don’t Understand The Pricing

Why is a lackluster control surface so expensive?

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

 
Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

Last week, I had the privilege of working on a new, all original show at a large arts facility downtown. They have lots of nifty toys in that place, even in the small theater, including an Avid Venue mixing system.

I’ve talked about Venue consoles before. They’re certainly nice, but they have one heck of a price tag. In some ways I get it, and in some ways I don’t.

Here’s what I really don’t get, though. The S3 control surface used for the console in the small theater is a $5000 object.

I didn’t mistype that.

For $5000, you can get an entire Midas console that has all its I/O onboard AND a pretty darn nice surface attached – a surface that’s made for live use. The S3 is just a surface with minimal, “courtesy” I/O. On top of that, it’s just…

*Sigh*

I don’t have this site just to complain, but…

The S3 just doesn’t seem to be all that great in general, and especially not great for live audio.

It’s not that the faders are poor, or anything like that, but they’re faders like any other. There’s nothing exotic about them. You’re not going to have a religious experience manipulating the things. They’re fine, but that’s all.

The rest of the unit is very clearly (by my opinionation, anyway) for a small studio. The rotary encoders are too diminutive. The buttons are disappointingly lacking in surface area as well, and ambiguously labeled because of the S3 having to be usable in many different contexts (rather than being purpose-built for one). There are too many “select” buttons, again, because of the S3 having to handle studio and live duties, and it doesn’t handle its context intelligently: Avid could have built things such that a “select” button without some other corresponding function would just make the associated channel active. That’s not what they did, though. If you want to make a channel active, you have to hit select next to the fader – no other select button will do, even if that button is unassociated.

And about that ambiguous labeling? It’s hard to read because it’s both too small and lacking in contrast. It’s sort of okay when the booth is brightly lit, but when the lights go down you’ll be wondering where things are.

The show I was working on was another case of me bringing an X32 and just using the Venue as an interface to the theater’s FOH rig. As such, I was saved from having to truly lean on the house console. Even so, I saw enough to know that I was glad to not be reliant on the S3. The Avid Venue ACS system (mouse and keyboard control via a monitor) continues to be my preferred method for getting around on Venue consoles…doubly or triply so if an S3 is the provided surface.

To be brutally frank, I don’t understand why the facility spent the money on the surface. The ACS is a million times better. They should have gone for a 40″ TV to display the console interface on, with a really nice mouse and keyboard for manipulation, and then taken everybody on staff out to lunch a couple of times.

Seth Godin would tell me that the S3 isn’t “for me,” and I can respect that. I’m not a physical control surface sort of guy anyway. Even with that, though, I think it’s fair to opine that the S3 doesn’t seem to be for live use, yet it connects to a live-audio system, and GEEZE do they want a bunch of money for what it is.

It’s Terrible And The Best

Some gear is genuinely bad, but no gear is genuinely the best.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

I’ve owned mics and speakers that were objectively poor performers: Lots of distortion, terrible frequency response, power handling in the double digits, no wind-noise rejection, the ability to transmit every tiny vibration of the chassis…you get the idea. I’ve also owned various bits of gear that I’ve loved, and other people just couldn’t find a way to like. They worked for me, but not for someone else.

When it comes down to it, that’s the rub with the perennial question of, “What’s the best [audioGearObject]?” There isn’t a best. Your desires and applications will line up with some products, and miss others by light years. For example, listening to the Sweetwater Kick Drum Mic Shootout, I preferred the Sennheiser E602 to the Shure Beta 52. Is the 602 the best, then? No – not if I have to worry about filling tech riders, which will probably specify Audix D6s or Beta 52s. It’s not the best if you want the Beta 52 “mountain peak” at 4 kHz. It’s not the best if you want a Telefunken M82, which is a $400 kick mic that I really do NOT like the sound of very much.

Similarly, I’ve had occasion to mix on a system which had an output side built of JBL Vertec modules. It sure did sound good when tuned, and it sure was capable of effortless volume. Such a setup wouldn’t be “the best” for most of the shows I work on, though, because the rigging requirements would blast most of my time restraints out of the water. Also, the transportation needs aren’t realistic for me. The story is similar for consoles. An Avid SC48 is a much more expensive, expandable, and high-level accepted console than my X32s, yet its high mass, bulky frame, and lack of real remote control make it completely unattractive in my context.

The question “What’s the best…” really should be “What’s the best for this specific application?” If we narrow the scope of the query, an answer can be meaningful. If we don’t carefully define the domain of the question, then we end up with a pile of opinions and caveats that have to be picked through and examined for hours upon hours. Of course, if we want to have a free-for-all, we can still ask, “What’s your favorite…?” That prompt will still generate a gargantuan haystack of responses, but at least the output expectation is opinions and not something we’ll try to factualize.

The Skeptic’s Guide To Reading A Music Store Catalog

Suspicion as recreation.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

 
Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

I really don’t want to be too hard on the folks that write advertising copy. I did for a while, and it involved some truly sour moments of needing to fill space while also not having anything meaningful to say. So – I get it, but at the same time, because I get it, the more sensitive I am to filler and hype when they show up. I also have a special place in my heart for filler and hype that are related to music gear, because the more I know about it, the less I’m willing to “play ball.”

Hence, from that special place in my heart, I’ve decided to take a read through a quarterly musical catalog and make a little catalog of my own: Answers to the various bits and pieces of product blurbs that I perceive as unnecessary, overwrought, fluff, divorced from reality, or just plain deserving of a wisecrack in return.

Also, please refrain from getting the wrong impression here. I do appreciate good design and good quality – but I appreciate it when it actually makes my life easier, or makes something sound significantly better, or is truly an innovative solution. My problem with a lot of spendy music artifacts is that they don’t really do those things. They charge a premium, and lean on nostalgia for old technology, but that’s about it. I don’t need anything that’s heavy, hot, finicky, or prone to distortion, and I boggle at how many dollars are demanded for items that seem to exist mostly to have those features.

More seriously, I’d like to suggest that you look for the patterns in these claims about music gear: The attempts to make “vanity” features valuable, or giving a basic function a fancy name, or trying to pass off a mundane attribute as being notable. It’s everywhere in music-catalog ad copy.

Guitars And Basses

What They Print

What They Mean

“Period correct components.”

Old technology was less reliable and didn’t really sound better, but we’ll charge you extra for saying we used it.

“Legendary sparkle.”

This thing clangs like a chunk of steel dropped 30 feet onto a concrete floor.

“Simple electronics that let you focus on your playing.”

It was cheaper to build this way.

“Spank.”

Another word for single-coil clang.

“Standard sealed tuners.”

This is the cheap version, but we had to write it up like it was something special.

“Classic vibe.”

It looks old. Maybe it will sound better. Or just look old. Who knows?

“Innovative wiring.”

You can’t hear the difference, but we had to write something.

“Delivers the look and feel of…”

This whole guitar cost us $10 to make, but it’s sort of shaped like a famous one, so there ya go.

“Custom fret wire.”

You won’t notice a difference, but we’ll charge you an extra $200.

“Neck features a wide-thin shape.”

We compromised so that nobody would like playing this thing.

“Mini toggle switches…”

You will constantly be hitting these at all the wrong moments.

“Highly playable.”

The same as everything else.

“Improves the natural intonation of the instrument by creating a more synergistic response from the soundboard.”

Nobody told us that intonation and tonality aren’t interchangeable terms.

“Defined tone.”

It sounds like a guitar.

“Narrow-wasted…”

When we’re wasted, we prefer to be wide, but whatever you’re into, Dude.

“Liquid midrange.”

We’re not sure if this is better or worse than gaseous midrange.

“Old school low end.”

The definition of “old-school” is so amorphous that nobody will ever be able to call us on this one.

“…provides tones perfect for any genre.”

You’ll buy this without trying it first, and the tone will only have a 50% chance of being right for you.

“[Company] let [artist] specify everything.”

Do you want expensive guitars? This how you get expensive guitars.

“EQ instantly optimizes your bass for different playing styles.”

By instant, what we mean is that you’ll have to futz with all the knobs for at least an hour to start, and then agonize over them for 20 minutes at every gig thereafter.

“Has the look you need to dominate the stage.”

There are a lot of sharp edges on this instrument. Wear long sleeves and gloves.

“You can’t argue with the amazing sound…”

There’s an entire Facebook group dedicated to hating the sound of this thing.

“The proprietary neck has zero dead spots.”

Unlike this town after 10PM, AM I RIGHT?

Amps And Effects

What They Print

What They Mean

"[Artist’s] signature speaker."

We can’t think of anything else to write to sell this thing to you. It probably sounds like 90% of the other guitar speakers out there.

“Classic, American tone.”

We don’t really know what that is, and we’re hoping you don’t have a very clear idea about it either.

“Modern-vintage vibe.”

There is nothing we can meaningfully say about this thing.

“Focused articulation.”

This thing also produces higher frequencies.

“The power and performance you need on any stage.”

Too loud for anything but an arena. Also too loud there.

“Handcrafted.”

More expensive.

“All tube spring reverb.”

Expensive, but still a spring reverb.

“Liquid tone and smooth feel.”

I wish I was drinking a fine scotch, but I’m sitting here writing copy for a giant book of music gear.

“Class A”

Costs more, may also be useful as a space heater.

“Amazing headroom…”

It’s really FREAKING LOUD. Guaranteed to be misused.

“Utilizes a redesigned volume circuit.”

They picked a potentiometer taper that’s actually useful this time.

“Special edition.”

Exactly the same performance, but $500 more, in a color you’ll hate in a year, and with a fancy badge on the front.

“Your full-stack dream rig…”

We’ll also sell you the 12” combo that you’ll actually gig with and secretly prefer the sound of.

“Active guitar monitor.”

Overpriced combo amp with no tone controls.

“High density enclosure.”

Low resonance sounds great, if you can lift it.

“Nothing but a volume control between you and your tone.”

We don’t know why this thing costs so much after they left out the EQ section on purpose.

“Boutique.”

This thing costs as much your amp and all your guitars put together, but you’ll still have to pay extra for a matching cab.

“Nearly indestructible.”

You’ll scuff it up at the first gig.

“[Artist] signature model.”

Take out a home-equity line of credit to buy this dinky little combo.

“Recording amp.”

If we say this one is specifically for recording, you might spend money on it (even though the amp you have now is just fine).

“Faithfully models 60 amplifiers!”

You’ll only care about one or two.

“Organic, lush delay”

There’s a low-pass filter in the circuit somewhere.

“12 reverb types”

The first day, you’ll play around with all of them. After that, you’ll park the selector somewhere and never move it again.

“Studio-grade”

No noticeable sonic advantage. Costs $50 – $100 more.

“Juicy”

With strong notes of tolex, aromas of chicken-head knobs, and a mild aftertaste of distortion.

“Basking Shark/ Electric Banana/ Chromatic Dragon/ Seductive Marmoset”

Why couldn’t they just have called these things a compressor, distortion, EQ, and reverb, so it was easy to figure out what they do?

“Modern, high-gain tones.”

More fizz than a soda.

“100% discrete.”

Our excuse for making a really simple thing into an expensive, simple thing.

“Power and tone to rule any size venue.”

Spend thousands of dollars! Alienate your entire band instantly!

“Specially voiced for matching amps and processing.”

Awful for anything else. Hope you don’t change your mind later!

Keyboard Instruments

What They Print

What They Mean

“Classic analog oscillators.”

You ever see a keyboard that goes out of tune, son? I have.

“Sizable patchbay”

In about a week, you’ll realize what a pain it is to use this thing.

“Built-in vocoder and mic.”

You ever see a keyboard that can cause feedback on stage, son? I have.

“Natural-touch, velocity-sensitive, semi-weighted keybed.”

Like most other models, it pretty much feels like a keyboard and gets louder when you play harder.

“Raw, vintage-style synth.”

Cooked synths have fewer nutrients and less fiber. Make the natural choice – stay regular.

“100 drum rhythms onboard.”

Please send us the video of you accidentally triggering one during a church service. A funeral would be best.

“Almost as good as the real thing.”

We’re not saying you’re cheaping out, it’s just that…you’re cheaping out.

“Offers endless fun.”

Until the batteries die.

Drums

What They Print

What They Mean

“Acoustic-style 22-inch kick.”

We partially undid the compactness advantage of electronic drums in an effort to look cool. It also costs more.

“Collectible, throwback script badges.”

This shell-pack is $200 more expensive than the other one, which is otherwise the same.

“Velvety low-end.”

Those other drumkits have very coarse low-end, which can irritate the skin.

“Not abrasive or tinny as you might expect.”

We ordered a grundle of these, and can’t sell any. Please buy one. Please.

“A floor tom with legs.”

We had to say SOMETHING about it.

“Won’t take over a mix.”

The guitar player and bassist will flatten you like you’re a slow squirrel trying to dart across an interstate highway.

“Broadband maple.”

1000X the download speed of dialup maple.

“Rich, lingering sustain.”

You’ll spend at least a year trying to kill some of that lingering sustain.

“Complex bite and sensitivity.”

This snare drum is really FREAKING LOUD.

“[Artist’s] signature laser-engraved…”

Nobody but you will know or care about this, but we’ll charge you an extra $100 to buy this thing.

“DynaZip system.”

It’s a zipper, like you have on your hoodie.

“Delightfully pliable feel.”

These cymbals will get wrecked in a week. Watch.

Microphones

What They Print

What They Mean

“A locking case, shockmount, and wooden box are included.”

They better be – this mic costs $9000.

“Particularly remarkable as a matched pair.”

Also, buy our book, “How To Get Someone To Drop $18000 On A Pair Of Microphones.”

“Genuine tube for added vintage character.”

Vintage character = distortion.

“Vintage sound and modern technology.”

It’s a large diaphragm condenser with solid-state electronics.

“A bit of a departure from the bright, upfront sound…”

$10 says you’ll EQ that back in.

“Has a drive setting to add vibrant harmonic complexity.”

Pay extra on an expensive mic so that you can distort the signal.

“Fat switch boosts low frequencies.”

You could do the same thing for free with your EQ, but why?

“Sound quality typically found in larger, more expensive mics.”

Because mics are really well understood at this point, so spending a huge premium for a certain name probably isn’t worth it.

“Dual backplate/ dual membrane design is key to the sound.”

The same as every other mic with a pattern switch.

“Multi-voicing technology for forward, neutral, and gentle responses.”

The new version will also have reverse, 4X4 Lo, and manual mode with F1-inspired paddle shifters.

“Low-mass diaphragm.”

Just like any other condenser mic we’ve ever sold, or ever will sell.

“Realism.”

We’re still waiting for a mic from the impressionism school.

“Figure-8 pattern is great at picking up environmental sounds.”

Hope you REALLY like the sound of your room!

“Captures acoustic complexity out of the reach of other mics.”

That acoustic complexity is also out of the reach of human hearing.

“Uses the 2.4 GHz band to avoid interference.”

Except the firestorm of interference in the 2.4 GHz band due to a squazillion smartphones and Wi-Fi access points being everywhere.

Signal Processing

What They Print

What They Mean

“Completely transparent top-end presence boost.”

We’re not sure how an EQ change that you don’t notice is useful, but selling you an $800 EQ module is great for us, so…

“The more you crank it, the more color you get.”

Just like everything else, you get more distortion the harder your drive the electronics.

“Ultra-high-speed front end.”

It handles audio frequencies.

“Forgiving overload tolerance.”

Your terrible gain structure might sound less bad if you buy this.

“None of the bells and whistles that crowd out the most important circuitry.”

Pay a premium, but for fewer features.

“The sound that only analog circuitry can deliver.”

Until you realize that the same transfer-function is totally possible in a digital system for a fraction of the cost.

“The controls you need, including makeup gain…”

Just like every other compressor, except this one costs $1700 per channel.

“Variable silk”

Distortion with a fancy name.

“Active monitor controller with pristine transparency and low noise.”

You’re about to pay $1600 for a volume knob and output routing.

“Audiophile-grade.”

The manufacturer wanted to pay slightly more for capacitors and inductors, and then charge you a huge premium.

“One channel of do-it-all compression.”

There are 32-input consoles with flexible compression on each channel that cost less and consume the same amount of rackspace as this thing.

“Mastering-grade.”

Extremely expensive, with knobs that have click-stops.

“Mojo.”

Mostly just wider EQ bands and a bit of distortion, if we’re honest.

“Proprietary, feed-forward detection topology.”

The same as many other modern compressor designs.

“Elma switches.”

You won’t notice a difference, but you’ll pay more.

“Pure, active, analog summing.”

Every analog mixer does the same thing.

“Diamond-buffer based headphone amplifiers.”

It’s a very basic and common circuit design, but we’re hyping it up.

Studio Monitoring

What They Print

What They Mean

“Tri-amped design gives these monitors an amazingly natural sound.”

There’s nothing inherently more natural about a tri-amped design, but we needed to make this blurb longer.

“Amplified by a custom, discrete MOSFET class AB triamp pack.”

Has solid-state amplifiers that won’t blow up the drivers easily.

“Truly impressive, even in less than ideal rooms.”

Most decent loudspeakers can achieve this.

“Sonic reach outside the range of your own hearing.”

No practical application outside of us making more money.

“Flax-sandwich cones.”

Gluten-free, with dijon mustard. Hold the mayo.

“Extended linear excursion.”

The woofers can move more.

“Mathematically Modeled Dispersion.”

Everybody designs their waveguides and horns using numbers.

“Acoustically concealed woofer.”

It really means optically concealed, but this is music, so we say “acoustically”.

“Innovative class AB amplifier.”

Class AB amplification has been around for a very long time, but we’ve got to hype this thing.

“Low-mass tweeter.”

All tweeters are low-mass, especially when compared to drivers for lower-frequency passbands.

“A no-compromise studio monitor.”

There’s no such thing.

“Features a no-crossover design.”

It’s only got one driver, so of course there’s no crossover.

“Broad, deep soundstage.”

Unquantifiable claim.

“Varimotion transducer.”

Yup, it’s a loudspeaker.

“Untouchable frequency response.”

Except for all the other headphones that can reproduce the entire audible spectrum.

“Amps with wide frequency response.”

Any modern amplifier will do 20 Hz – 20 kHz just fine.

Computer-Based Audio

What They Print

What They Mean

“Boutique transformers.”

You’ll pay more, and you’ll try to convince yourself that you hear a difference.

“Streamlined version.”

“Crippled” version.

“Premium mic-preamps.”

Sounds the same as everything else.

“Unbeatable conversion.”

It gets signals into your computer and back out again.

“Tackle sample-rates up to 768 kHz.”

Our favority frequency is 384 kHz. You’ve probably never heard it before.

“Independent controls for input and monitoring levels.”

There’s nothing interesting to say about this thing.

“Unlimited track count.”

The manufacturer finally discovered that people hate paying more for what software should have always done.

“May be the best DAW you ever buy.”

Unquantifiable!

“Record, edit, arrange, mix, and master like never before.”

Just like every other DAW with a new version this year.

“SSL modeled console.”

It looks like an old mixing desk, so it must sound better, right?

“Flagship control surface.”

Because you haven’t spent that million-dollar inheritance yet.

“Do anything you could use a mouse and keyboard for.”

Except you’ll spend $5000 instead of $100.

“[Artist]/[Producer]/[Engineer] Signature Plug-In Pack”

The same EQ, dynamics, and reverb processing as everything else, but with the interface tweaked for faster access to certain settings.

Live Sound

What They Print

What They Mean

“[Proprietary Name For System Tuning].”

Like every other half-decent powered speaker, this was equalized and time-aligned by the manufacturer.

“Abundant bass, due to frequency shading technology.”

Has a passive crossover with the tweeter padded down appropriately.

“1200 watts of power.”

Compared to the common 1000 watts, it’s less than a decibel difference.

“Hybrid amplification…”

A class D amplifier for LF with an AB for HF is pretty mundane, in truth.

“Up to 2000 watts peak power capacity.”

Put 2000 watts into one of these for more than a second, and you’ll be buying a new one.

“Low-profile design.”

High-profile price relative to overall performance.

“180 degree dispersion at all frequencies.”

Splattering sound everywhere seems like a good idea until you’re in a real room.

“Warm, musical EQ.”

Wide filters with no Q control.

“1-4 multitouch screens.”

How much money you got?

“Enough I/O to get started.”

But not enough I/O to finish. You’ll need the spendy expansion unit for that.

“Remote control via iOS devices.”

Oh, you’re invested in Android tablets? Too bad.

“Completely compatible with any device sporting an AES50 connection.”

Unless the console only works at 96k sampling, which means you’re totally out of luck.

“Won’t clutter up a house mix with too much volume.”

Doesn’t get loud enough for anything but a jazz gig.

AI?

There’s a lot of stuff we can automate, and it’s really cool even if it’s not really AI.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

 
Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

If you haven’t heard, there’s a new Midas Heritage-D console being released. (Video here.) It looks, to use academic parlance, “pretty rad, Dude.” In particular, it has tons of advertised I/O capability, which is exciting to me as a co-producer on a Pink Floyd tribute that is continually growing its mix-output count. Not that we can afford the $70,000 price tag for two tour-packs, but maybe there will be a spillover effect to new, affordable offerings down the line.

Anyway.

A feature being touted on the new desk is an AI assist for things like compression. Provide the system a set of directives on what you want, and your console works to create a compression solution on the channel which satisfies those aims. (It’s probably something like “fast attack relative to the program material, slow release relative to the same, use a low ratio, and try for an average gain reduction of 3dB.”)

Now, I don’t want to poo-poo something without a caveat. I think it’s possible that some sort of AI technology is involved…but my strong suspicion is that the “AI” label is mostly marketing. Do you remember when high-def TV was a new thing? And everything else started having “HD” added to the model numbers? My guess is that “AI” actually refers to an algorithm-driven automation system.

I mean, we’ve had program-dependent attack and release for a long time. They existed almost 20 years ago, when I was in school for audio, and were handled with both digital logic and analog circuits. This isn’t some sort of miraculous thing. Further, my slowly-clarifying definition of AI is that it’s a network of process nodes that can communicate with each other, and independently form a solution to a problem based on training data. You don’t need that for a well-defined process, like setting a compressor such that the peak gain reduction across some number “n” of gain reduction events averages out to, say, 6 dB. That’s just simple arithmetic and access to the threshold knob, when you look at it.

But that doesn’t make an algorithmic assist any less cool! The coolness is in the automation, utility, and the ability to save the EFFECT of a processing solution, rather than the CAUSE.

I mean, let’s say I have a preferred spectral content for vocals. Which I do. Definitely. And so do you, I’m sure. I can’t graph it, but I know it when I hear it.

Somebody starts singing into a mic, and what do you do? You grab the channel EQ and go to work, trying to make the tonality of the vocal match your preference. Upon success, we may save the curve as a preset. Later, we recall that curve on similar setups, hoping for a sound that’s essentially the same. This works because the whole signal chain greatly resembles our original solution: A person sings at some reasonable distance from a mic we’re familiar with, and that mic is connected to either a FOH PA we know, or one we’ve tuned to sound rather like what we know.

Even though the applied EQ curve on the channel is a cause (a change to a transfer function) rather than an effect (the actual spectral content of the channel), we can get close to a desired result when the other parameters are well controlled. Our results skew, though, when the other causes (microphone choice, singer distance, etc) no longer resemble what we worked with when we saved the channel EQ curve.

But what if we didn’t save the curve? What if we saved the effect of the EQ settings, which is a vocal channel that has a certain magnitude response when averaged over some specified time period? What if we could press a button on the console that allowed the internal software to compare the live, average magnitude curve of the channel with what we stored, and then  auto-adjust the channel EQ to seek that target? What if we could do that with with any EQ, including whatever is available on our outputs?

Do you see how powerful that could be?

There are algorithms available right now that can do this kind of work, it’s just that they’re not natively available to any consoles that I know of.

And hey, maybe Midas has done some AI development on pre-training a system to use parametric and graphic EQs in a reasonable way to accomplish such a task. AI doesn’t have to running live to be impressive.

So, anyway, whether there’s live AI running inside a new Heritage-D (or any other console) or no real AI at all, the ability to ask the console to help you match an outcome, rather than just a set of parameters, is a very nifty thing indeed.

Generational Poverty

A story about a lack of reliable power.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

Want to use this image for something else? Great! Click it for the link to a high-res or resolution-independent version.

“I need the [REDACTED] generator here, now!” called the production director over the radio. It was dark on Utah’s mini-playa, and not simply because we were just that much more removed from substantial bits of civilization in Tooele county. It was dark because the main-stage generator had just died for the third or fourth time in quick succession, and even a person with only marginal experience in portable power would have recognized the sound of an engine that was running with difficulty.

In fairness, the generator had been just fine for some hours before. DJ and hip-hop sets had gone off without any perceptible trouble. Now, though, the time had come. It was irrelevant as to whether or not the failures could be directly attributed to running more dynamically now that bands were in the picture, or to the extra, big-ticket lighting fixtures now in play. All that mattered was a stopped show and a gennie that wouldn’t stay up.

(…and yes, it was a “real” generator. Real generators sit on trailers that are pulled by cars and trucks, and this unit was one of those.)

We had all the big, cool toys. We had completely solid power distribution boxes at both steps from the generator – the first step being the primary distro, and the second step being our audio distro that tied into the primary. We had Lab Gruppen amps driving a really substantial pile of JBL noise-louderizing cabinets.

We had it all, yet we were poor, because there was no electricity we could count on.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t worry about production very much anymore. The artistic part of a show of any scale is simply an act of doing your homework, then sourcing the right equipment and deploying it in accordance with what amounts to basic rules of physics. What I DO worry about are the “supports” which make that possible:

Where’s the power, and how much of it is there?

How are we going to get all the pieces and people to the location in question?

Where do we park?

Who can get us into all the things we need to get into?

Do we have enough execution time available?

If you don’t have electricity, you don’t have a show. If you don’t have reliable electricity, you don’t have a show. Supply electricity is the source of all PA activity. If that goes away, nothing else carries any importance whatsoever.

The arrival of the new generator was a wondrous thing. The unit was very clean; Pristine, when compared to the original. It started right up and hummed along without a care in the world. FOH would dig into a solid peak and the engine wouldn’t even throttle up noticeably. After about an hour, we didn’t have to expend any mental energy on worrying over the power situation.

Now, we were rich.

The desert doesn’t care about sound reinforcement. It was fine without it before you drove up, and it will be fine without it when you leave. Pro audio is a feature of civilization, and when you go out into the boonies the only civilization you get is what comes with you. If that piece of civilization is shaky, everything up the chain is shaky to the same degree.

Fun With A VRX Monoblock

It works because a JBL VRX module is a point-source box.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

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At a recent gig celebrating our country’s independence from a country that spells certain words with an extra “u,” we deployed a VRX system by stacking it upon SRX subwoofers.

As the picture shows, though, the stack was horizontal instead of vertical.

Was this “wrong?”

No.

It was unorthodox, but it was 100% in accordance with the fundamental design of JBL’s VRX modules. That is, a VRX system’s top-level design orthodoxy is for a vertically oriented array of modules…but remove the specialized hardware and each module is just a point-source box.

A VRX system is not a line array. I know people call it that. I know JBL’s own website uses “line array” in the descriptive blurbs. It’s called a line array because that’s what people search for, and buy, and market to their end clients. The modules can be hung or mounted vertically, and the result looks like the down-fire coverage of those big hangs at concerts, and that impresses people, and they hire you again, and they recommend you to their friends.

That’s all fine.

But a VRX system is not a line array. It’s not built such that several modules together combine to radiate in a pattern that’s more cylindrical than spherical. It’s built such that any particular listener is meant to be hearing as few boxes at a time as possible – ideally, only one box. Of course, the low-frequency sections interact pretty strongly. There’s nothing that can be done about that, because there’s nothing about a VRX box that can give you tight pattern control below about 2kHz anyway.

So, anyway, a VRX system is a point-source system. It’s just that, module per module, the vertical HF coverage is quite tight – about 30 degrees at 2kHz, narrowing to 15 degrees by the time you get to 5kHz or thereabouts. The problem, then, is if you turn the box on its side, you don’t get much coverage in the horizontal plane. Even three boxes together only get you 45 degrees of “guaranteed” coverage through the entire VRX bandwidth.

At such a point, you’ve got a choice. If you’ve brought 8 VRX modules to the show, and want to go horizontal, you could do two arrays of four. Your consistent coverage angle with the boxes on their sides is then 60 degrees per cluster. To handle a need for wider coverage, you then have to crossfire the clusters somewhat (or use center fills). That’s not a horrible thing, but there is another choice if you aren’t really attached to:

A) Stereo, or

B) Having things look normal.

That other choice is a monoblock. Pile all the subwoofers together, and array 7 VRX modules in a big arc on top. You get more output, because the tight-packed enclosures are more in phase with each other, more overall coherence because of the same thing, and your full-bandwidth coverage is 100 degrees by 100 degrees. The folks to the sides get some attention, and the folks up the hill also stay in the pattern.

Are there issues? Sure. Anytime you have multiple sources you will get some interference weirdness at certain places and frequencies. You’ll get swishing when the wind blows. That happens with orthodox deployments and unorthodox deployments. What changes is the specifics. In any case, you decide what you can live with and what you can’t, try to tune the system so that the majority of the audience is getting a nice show, and shrug your shoulders about everything else. The monoblock was definitely crispy up close, and also high-mid hot when you walked away up the hill. That aggressiveness had to be tamed with EQ – but it could be tamed.

Unorthodox isn’t a synonym for “wrong,” although there are plenty of unorthodox deployments that are very bad ideas. In this case, though, the system 100% supported what we were doing, and I felt that the results worked out well. We could have done something traditional by center-clustering the subs and running side-by-side mounts of two boxes per stick, plus outfills…

…but that would have been boring, and it wouldn’t have worked any better. To be frank, if we had the resources to fly the monoblock array over downstage center, I’d probably push for that as a common way of us doing things. One big source that’s more coherent because all the elements are closer together? Yes, please.

Keep Your Canopies

When it comes to things that catch the wind, anchor the sail – not the legs.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

 
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The summertime show season is upon us, and that means a great number of people will be breaking – or outright losing – pop-up shelters.

For some of you, the whys and wherefores of this phenomenon are well known and obvious, but they aren’t always apparent to folks just getting started…or even more seasoned people.

The problem is this: People anchor the feet and/ or legs of their shelter, and then the wind kicks up. The canopy catches the wind, applies a proportionally large force to the legs and their fittings, and that’s all she wrote. Something in the frame deforms, or downright breaks. Alternatively, you may experience the unbridled hilarity of the pop-up becoming airborne.

YEEEEEHAAAAWWW!

It doesn’t help that manufacturers supply consumers of pop-ups with stakes for the feet. This provides a subtle bit of (incorrect) encouragement that an adequate anchoring method is to prevent the feet from moving. Staking the feet is good for keeping things in order against an errant foot or soccer ball, but not much else.

So, what’s the key? The key is to prevent movement of the system component that imparts force to the rest of the system. In the case of wind, the legs impart very little force to everything else. The canopy cover itself, though, is capable of tearing the whole mess to pieces when it gets moving. Expressed as a simple machine, the cover is the arm of a lever. If you want to stop a lever from moving, you prevent movement at the arm – not the fulcrum.

Thus, what you want to anchor is the canopy cover, or the part of the frame that supports the cover. If that doesn’t move, then nothing else will move, and your canopy will live to fight another day.

 

The Network Around The Corner

We might be moving towards an abstract future.

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

 
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I once wrote an article on this site about how I don’t feel like I can predict the future of live audio. I still don’t think I can predict it. Even so, I may have had a flash of inspiration lately, stemming from a conversation I had some months ago.

We were setting up for the Samba Fogo show run, and Jeff, the lighting designer and operator, reacted to something I said.

“Look at where digital consoles are now, relative to the start of your career. Lots of things are going to change.”

Well now – that got the juices flowing, even though I wasn’t consciously aware of it.

Those juices were working their way through my system a few days ago, when suddenly it hit me:

What it we’re moving toward a future where everything is networked and essentially abstract? Consoles and system management devices use networked audio right now. More speakers (some already do this) would have network ports to handle audio and remote management.

The only thing missing is the input side.

Microphones and DI boxes themselves could house a sub-miniature preamp and network interface, connecting via cables with Ethercon ends. Power-over-ethernet is already a real and mature technology, so the problem of needing bias voltage is essentially solved.

We might encounter a world, not too far distant, where the channel number is essentially obsolete. Sure, the input devices would tag what port they’re connected to, so that multiples of the same model could be sorted out. In the end, though, a device connects to the network, IDs itself, locks to the network clock, and then you just put it on your console’s input list. Because it’s all abstract, the patching order ceases to matter. You just drag and drop whatever channel you want into any position you want. It would no longer be a case of “Vocal 2 is on input 10 which is patched to channel 4.” The situation would be “The vocal 2 channel is currently at this place on the screen.”

It’s similar with output patching. You could just say something like, “Main LR to Yamaha DZR 1/2,” and that would be the end of it.

This doesn’t solve every problem, of course, and it has complexities that are all its own, but I see it as perfectly viable and a way that things might go.

 

 

Why We Didn’t Use The EAWs

We already had a solution, why waste it?

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The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

 
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I have plenty to say about a recent foray into a decidedly NOT small venue. Pigs Over The Horizon got booked into The Depot for a night of Pink Floyd madness, and it was astoundingly fun. (That the place was full certainly helped.) I thought I’d start with an absolutely critical piece of the show’s success: Monitor world.

The captain of monitor beach for Pigs is Jason Knoell, not me. As I’ve said before, my job when it comes to Jason is to provide a good starting point. After that, getting out of the way is my major calling.

Now, The Depot is home to a significant collection of EAW JFX260 monitors. We didn’t use any of them. Instead, we brought in our own solution of Yamaha DBR12s and Alto TS312s for most onstage noises, with a “Frankensteined” drumfill of Turbosound subs and JBL Eon tops.

Why? Why forgo some “pro-touring” grade boxes for units you can buy at Guitar Center for a few hundred smackers a piece? Well, it comes down to two things, really:

1. We had a solution already.

I’ll talk more about the specifics of the solution at a later time, but this was the major driver behind my decision. We had a good two days of tech rehearsal before the show, and for me, the best use of that time was to get an onstage solution dialed up. That way, we would be as far along as possible once we got into the real venue; Not starting from scratch, in other words. Jason could recall his monitor mix, and it would be mostly correct. Some tweaks might be necessary due to a transfer into a different acoustical environment. That’s an inescapable thing…but a 100% escapable thing is changing over to different boxes.

Don’t get me wrong, here. I have tons of confidence that an EAW monitor is a well-behaved, easily tuned loudspeaker enclosure. The point is that I knew that what we already had was working exactly as people wanted. I also knew that we wanted to spend the absolute minimum time in the venue “fiddling.” Moving to a different box would likely be a step backward in both respects. We could certainly have a chance at getting lucky and not having any issues, but luck is not how complex shows end up coming off well.

2. The improvement from the EAWs would only have been marginal.

We’re at a point now where internal powering and processing makes affordable loudspeakers pretty darn good. Would the EAWs have gotten louder? Maybe, but likely only by a couple of dB – and we weren’t running anything into its limiters anyway. As such, more level would have been a moot point. Would a JFX260 have sounded better? Again…maybe? Or maybe not, depending on the preferences of the musicians. The Altos and Yammies are tuned well enough out of the box that running them flat and getting good results isn’t a struggle. I don’t think Jason had to fight their transfer functions at any point. It’s not like we were having trouble with unruly monitors, where an EAW would have made an ocean of difference. The potential upgrade would have been minor, and mostly aesthetic, and nobody was complaining anyway.

When you add it all up, moving to the in-house monitor wedges would have been mostly an “on-paper” upgrade of questionable effectiveness. JFX260 enclosures are certainly classier than what we brought in, but going with what we knew and had dialed up to our precise specifications was (in my mind) the smart play.

 

 


I’ve Never Disliked The Sound Of A Console

There are plenty of controls I didn’t like, though…

Please Remember:

The opinions expressed are mine only. These opinions do not necessarily reflect anybody else’s opinions. I do not own, operate, manage, or represent any band, venue, or company that I talk about, unless explicitly noted.

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I’ve talked about this before, but it’s on my mind again.

As of today, I’ve clocked nearly 24 years of involvement in live audio. In that time, I’ve had hands-on time with mixers by Ramsa, Peavey, JBL, Behringer, Soundcraft, A&H, Yamaha, Tascam, Avid, Solid State Logic, Amek, Neve, and…ah…and…at least one more that I can’t remember for some reason. Some of them were worth tens of dollars. Some of them were worth tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of them were analog. Some of them were digital.

I never once had a problem with how any of them “sounded.” I have never been in a situation with a real band in a real room and said to myself, “Gee, this would sound so much better if I had a [consoleName].”

I’ve disliked control layouts, though. I’ve wondered why the big, fancy, industry darling didn’t have conveniences that a console costing less than 1/10th of it had. I’ve encountered fixed-width midrange EQs that were metaphorical equivalents to carving a turkey with a tractor-trailer hauling 17 tons of other, very alive and extremely enraged turkeys bent on world domination HUMANS, YOUR HUBRIS WILL END YOU! WE ARE COMING! GOBBLEGOBBLEGOBBLE!

Sorry, what were we talking about?

Yes, I’ve encountered some consoles that sounded terrible because an internal connection had worked loose, or a button contact was grunged up. When everything was working, though, all the mixers in my experience have passed audio just as well as anything else. Then, that audio hit outboard processing, loudspeakers, and acoustical environments, and all bets were off. There are plenty of people who might ask, “What console do we need to buy to make this place sound better?” and I might answer:

“Forget the console. You need a bulldozer, municipal construction permits, an architecture firm, and a bunch of money to build a room that’s actually suited to live music.”

I can not recall a single instance in my life where I disliked the sound of a show and could confidently attribute that dislike to a deficiency in the basic audio-handling properties of a mixing desk. Operators, input/ output transduction, and environmental factors are sonic influencers possessing orders of magnitude more significance.