Ivan Schwartz: Hi ML! Is the PRISM drive rack all digital now, and if so are you using analog limiters on the outputs?

M.L. Procise: Long time Ivan, how the hell ya doing? How's Babyworld? Another Ft Wayne alumni!

Ivan Schwartz: Got me laughing with that one ML... BIG time! Nice to see you here!

M.L. Procise: PRISM drive rack, the PRISM digital control system, A/D and D/A was also groundbreaking cross over technology. People still don't know what we have accomplished with it. They just hear the results. We do indeed employ the use of analog compressor limitors for band limiting purposes. We chose band limiting as a vehicle to help mold the musical content in each bandwidth versus a dedicated protection device, though it does serve a two fold purpose.

This is the new Clair I/O. A crossover management system. This brand new device was developed by Clair and Lake Technologies with finishing touches by the great Howard Page. I believe they employ the use of limiters in the digital domain. The advantage of the new I/O will eventually eliminate the PRISM digital control system in lieu of a much higher sampling rate of 96K and a 24 bit processor versus the current control system 16 bit processor.

Better signal to noise. It also gives you many other advantages, including the ability to time align and EQ in different zones, turn zones on and off, add zones, etc… by way of wireless handheld technology.

Another Dave: SHOWCO, Rat Sound, and Clair have all become major players with proprietary boxes. This tells me that it's people that make the difference. Do you agree?

M.L. Procise: Absolutely. I believe that it takes much more than a speaker system or amplifiers to make a sound company. Starting with the people, then an intense and determined technical back-up and service platform is most important.

A.V.D.: What got you into doing sound ?

M.L. Procise: My love of music. I was lousy at playing an instrument so I did the next best thing. I became the garage band sound man.

Harry: what do you consider important in a system tech from the client's POV?

M.L. Procise: A professional approach, technically competent, hard working, well-groomed, drug-alcohol free, to be seen and not heard, and the list goes on and on and on.

Jim G: would you discuss some of your techniques for mic-ing electric guitar. I am aware you do some neat stuff with it.

M.L. Procise: Okay. Thank you.

As some of you might know, I divided my mix career into three decades. The first of which spent the majority of my time mixing English, Scottish and Irish rock bands. With some jazz fusion thrown in in the beginning and end.

In the 90's I spent most of my time working with alternative rock bands... the "x" generation. But in the 80's I concentrated primarily on arena guitar bands. ZZ Top, Boston, Guns N Roses.... and the great three guitar band: Rossington/Collins - so I had much experience in ten years of experimentation with my treatment of mic techniques for live electric guitar.

Much experimentation went into the use of different microphones. Also, my discovery of the application and use of the isolation chamber to capture as much of the direct sound of the guitar cabinet as possible. Also, using high quality delay lines to extend a wider stereo image.

Iso chambers for guitars helped in eliminating outside ambience and better control of the presentation. I've found that there's a lot of microphones that work great and there are a lot of microphones that don't. In certain situations I've found the combination of more than one microphone on a cabinet as successful.

But nothing beats a good ole 57.

Teri: ML, this is a very tough business of the ears and you've been doing the loud ones longer than most of us. How does one know if they're suffering frequency loss, when they can't hear the frequencies to begin with?

M.L. Procise: Go get a free hearing screening at one of the Pro-Audio industry trade shows. Or if you are really concerned go to an audiologist and be tested. It would be very unfortunate if you are a professional audio engineer in our business and you don't recognize the possibility of over-exposure and extended exposure to loud music.

Hopefully, if you have a friend, he might be able to tell you if you overtly have a hearing problem, but really I think you do indeed are the first to know. Once the damage is done, its done. Nerve deafness is non-reversible.

Harry: It seems to me Showco kind of pioneered the idea of a dead hang, how was the rigging developed and what were the challenges accoustically speaking?

M.L. Procise: Let me take a shot at this.

One of the design goals was to not have any gaps in the array itself. Because, sound travels above, below, and through the sides.

Which was undesirable. We wanted to isolate the sound of the speaker system so the sound coming off the back of the sound system was minimized. This application created a domino effect.

When you reduce the sound coming off the back of the speaker system then the ME had better control over the level of the monitor system. When the monitor system was under control, it gave the FOH Engineer better control over the FOH mix. Thus, giving him better gain before feedback.

So the pinning system of the PRISM system through the headblock was a stroke of genius and I believe a gentlemen by the name of Gary Taylor (along with the other design engineers) was the woodshop foreman on the project.... came up with the idea of the pinning system.

That's how I remember. You've got to remember, that was nearly eighteen years ago.

Another Dave: Why can't anyone seem to get a guitar D.I. "right"? Any thoughts?

M.L. Procise: I'm not sure they haven't, depending on your application. There has been a lot of speaker emulators and power soaks that have done quite an outstanding job in mimicking the sound of a speaker-mic combination, but they are never the same as the kinetic energy built between speaker and microphone.

Tucci: How well does the PRISM system translate to a differently configured space? If it's not an arena the system still thinks it's in an arena?

M.L. Procise: Good question. The beauty of the PRISM system is its versatility when you break it down into a smaller system. All the same design accomplishments translate into any acoustical environment.

Congratulations Brawley, Powers, Hardesty & Bratcher. Well done.

Jack Arnott: If I can follow up Teri's question. Does Showco take any proactive steps to protect the sytems techs and engineers hearing?

M.L. Procise: We certainly encourage our field technicians to employ the use of hearing protection as much as possible. They are not nearly in as much as risk as the actual mix engineers.

Abdul EQ: Abdul notices the similarity between your speaker boxes and your hairstyle. Hmmm.

Chris Kathman: HOW DID THAT GET IN THERE??

M.L. Procise: Grey and fuzzy, great observation.

Chris Kathman: I'm sorry, ML!

M.L. Procise: Thanks a lot!!!

Chris Kathman: This guy has no class! He is nothing but a pain on the LAB, too, I've asked Dave to block his IP address. What a creep!

<M.L. Procise: don't worry about it, no big deal....

Bart: With the inventories, packaging and company cultures so different, what was the most difficult issue when the two companies merged?

M.L. Procise: Though the company cultures were different in the respect that Showco was more of a corporate environment and Clair was more of a family vibe... both had the same goals in mind. Great service, great back-up, great sound.

The fact that we battled so often, competitively, for the same accounts made it even easier to put a unified team together with the attributes that Showco brought to the table and what existed at Clair Bros already.

Something that, I can say now, as I see it... I am very proud to say is working great, and will work great for years to come.