Once considered just a “music store” show, NAMM has evolved into a premier showcase for pro products for live sound, touring, and even the installed sound market. We make the annual pilgrimage to Anaheim for the Winter NAMM show after our holiday cheer has worn off and before the Super Bowl and Grammys get us all wound up again.

Blue-collar heartland rocker Bob Seger and his Silver Bullet Band spent last spring and this winter on their first tour since 2006’s Face the Promise tour, earning a spot right in the middle of Pollstar’s Top 25 North American Tours of 2011, selling over a half million tickets for 48 shows in 45 cities, and winding up like many good runs with a stop in my hometown of Jacksonville, FL.

Soundco

Clair

Soundco

Clair

Soundco

Capital Sound Hire

Soundco

Clair

Soundco

Sound Image

Soundco

Morris Light & Sound

Soundcos

Major Tom/Thunder Audio

Soundco

Eighth Day Sound

Soundco

Solotech

Soundco

Black Box Music

To download a PDF of the January 2012 FRONT of HOUSE Buyers Guide, CLICK HERE.

This month’s coverage of PMs includes products from Fidelity, Fit-Ear, Future Sonics, JH Audio, Sensaphonics, Shure, Ultimate Ears and Westone. The TDM Plugins covered this month include software from Crane Song, Eventide, Focusrite, McDSP, SPL, Serato, tc electronic and Waves.

Crown Audio is re-defining professional multi-channel power amplifiers, introducing their new flagship I-Tech HD Series 4x3500HD DriveCore Series 4-channel power amplifier. The “HD4,” as it is nicknamed, incorporates Crown’s sixth-generation Class I engine with DriveCore™ technology to deliver 3,500 watts per channel burst into four or two ohms.

Allen & Heath’s new GLD is a user-friendly, cost effective and expandable live digital mixing system, conceptually based on the successful iLive series of digital consoles. A standard GLD 32 input system provides 28 XLR mic inputs that can be increased to 36 or 44 XLR mic inputs by adding one or two 8x4 expansion frames.

Column loudspeakers have seen a resurgence of use, especially in the installation world. While the basic design dates back to venerable products like the Shure Vocal Master, advances in driver technology put modern column loudspeakers in a very different class from their historic cousins. Broadly, column loudspeakers consist of arrays of many small, closely spaced drivers. These may be full range drivers or multi-way systems. Column loudspeakers are, by nature, tall and narrow. They are usually installed in a vertically-oriented position, such as against the face of a proscenium, or next to a whiteboard.

When I first discovered beyerdynamic microphones in the late 1990s I had no idea that the German company founded by Eugen Beyer has been around since 1924.  I was also clueless to the fact that, by 1937, the beyerdynamic company had been designing and manufacturing microphones, headsets and other audio products. All I can say is that learning this information certainly sharpened my interest in the new Touring Gear mics I received and was about to field test. It just fascinates me that a company can survive and thrive for such a long time. They must be doing something right. That said, let’s take a look at the microphones themselves.

Kaltman Creations has been selling German handheld RF (and EMC) spectrum analyzers from Aaronia for several years now, as well a previous version of Invisible Waves, a Windows-based RF spectrum scanner. The new version, Invisibles Waves X is again comprised of hardware and Windows-based software components, but now the software’s user interface has been improved to provide a better RF command center.

Since the dawn of time, engineers have struggled with the task of getting good guitar sounds on stage. One of the big issues is stage volume: the musician cranks it up to get “their sound” while the engineer and audience get blasted with ear-crushing levels from the stage. Inevitably, the PA has to be cranked up to overcome the stage volume. Let’s assume, for the moment, that the musicians you work with have their stage volume under control (whether it be via volume knob, moving cabinets off-stage, or threats of violence) so that you can actually hear the guitar through the PA and create a mix. There are some tried-and-true methods you can use to get great guitar tones.

In previous columns, various Waves plugins that I use on vocals, horns, violins, electric guitars, bass guitars and drums have been discussed. By now it should be apparent that I like to use a lot of compressors. This current entry will focus on my compressor of choice for the acoustic grand piano: the Waves CLA-2A Classic Compressor.

Happy New Year to all of you. By the time you read this I will either have been to the winter NAMM show or be on my way. The reason I am mentioning NAMM (other than the fact that it takes place in January) is that it is my favorite place to look at new gear for my sound business. I am particularly interested in column speakers this year. (I must mention that InfoComm would also be a great place to look for this type of speaker enclosure.) Anyway, I am specifically looking at architectural speakers that can be installed in a house of worship.

Finding that next (or even first) gig is still a matter of persistence

It’s January, the quiet season for touring — unless your work for the rest of the year isn’t firmed up yet. If that’s the case, this needs to be the busiest part of the year.

The Business of Being Up when Times are Down

Larry Schmidt’s “secret” can be summed up in three words: common business sense.

No fancy MBA here, just some business classes at a junior college and the patience to sit down with a sharpened pencil to just work through it has put him where he is today. It’s a spectacular year (and that’s not even counting the Parnelli Award the company received in 2011 for Hometown Hero Sound Company of the Year!)

I am not a Roman Catholic, but I imagine this is what it feels like to enter the confessional. To expose my sins and hope fervently for the forgiveness that will make the rest of my life livable. What follows is a tale of woe, destruction, humiliation and anguish. I wish I could say it has a happy ending, but it doesn’t.

There is no definitive way of setting up gain structure and mixing a show but, after much time and years of practice, we all learn the right way to go about achieving our desired results. While the “art” of mixing may not be an exact science, there are still many precise and defined rules to which we need to adhere as we master our craft and practice our “art.” The rules that define right from wrong are not only imperatives for mixing, but are also the tenets that extend to every aspect of a given production.

Under its Creation Station brand, Sweetwater is offering MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops with both Windows 7 and OS X Lion operating systems. Designed for audio engineers and musicians, the laptops combine light weight and portability with power, storage, and the ability to run Windows music/audio applications including SONAR, Cubase, Reason, Pro Tools, Live, Sound Forge and more.

CAD Audio is introducing an updated version of its classic E300S Multi-Pattern Large Diaphragm Condenser Mic as part of the Equitek S Series at Winter NAMM 2012. Promising transparent-sounding upper and midrange frequencies, coupled with a smooth low end and exceptional presence, the E300S is designed to be particularly well-suited for use as a vocal microphone in studio and live sound reinforcement applications.

Eventide announced that its 2016 Stereo Room and Omnipressor plugins are available through authorized Eventide software dealers and on eventide.com. The introductory price is $149 (regularly $199) for the 2016 Stereo Room and $99 (regularly $149) for the Omnipressor.

Audix is adding the FP Quad drum mic pack to its Fusion series, positioned as a low-cost alternative to the DP Quad drum mic pack that Audix introduced in 2011. It includes the F6 dynamic microphone for kick drum, the F5 dynamic microphone for snare drum and two F9 condensers microphones for overhead applications.

D.A.S. Audio’s Action Series loudspeakers include six models in active and passive configurations; 12 models in all. They include the Action M12 and powered M12A floor monitors; Action 12 and 12A loudspeakers; Action 15 and 15A loudspeakers; dual-transducer Action 215 and 215A loudspeakers; Action 18 and 18A subwoofers and dual-transducer Action 218 and 218A subwoofers.

American Audio’s SenSeries Speaker System is designed with venues where space and visual aesthetics are at a premium. The series includes the Sense 8, Sense 12 and Sense 15 Speakers, along with the Sense 15B and Sense 18B Subwoofers.