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Friday, May 21, 2010
Penn & Teller At The Rio In Vegas: The “Bad Boys” Of Magic Get An RF Makeover
Last year’s DTV re-allotment forced Sound Engineer Wayne Willard to replace the 700 MHz wireless equipment as well as re-engineer his wireless situation
Penn & Teller have performed their unique blend of comedy and illusion for 35 years, combining Teller’s silent magic with Penn Jillette’s storytelling and juggling expertise.
Their controversial Showtime television series “Bullsh*t!” tackles frauds, fakes and urban myths, and starts its eighth season next month.
They’re also a highly successful Las Vegas resident show, appearing for the past eight years at the Rio Hotel & Casino.
Originally called the Samba Theater, the Penn & Teller Theater is a typical proscenium venue, with a balcony and a capacity of about 1,500.
It hosted Danny Gans for four years, followed by 30th anniversary shows for The Price Is Right before the dynamic duo arrived in 2002.
The finals of the World Series of Poker, which the Rio also hosts, are held on its stage.
The main sound reinforcement system, originally installed by Ford Audio-Visual in the 1990s, incorporates Renkus-Heinz 3-way CT9 Series loudspeakers offering a horn-loaded 15-inch and Co-Entrant mid/high horn with dual 10-inch.
They’re positioned in a traditional left-center-right configuration, hung as 2-over-2 left and right, plus a 2-over-3 center cluster.
The system is powered by 30 Crest Audio CKS1200 amplifiers. Six more CKS 800 amplifiers power Renkus- Heinz SR61 2-way under-balcony fills, with a couple of CKV 200 amps for the lobby’s 70-volt loudspeakers.
Also in the basement equipment room are a half-dozen BSS Soundweb 9088 processors for the various zones, with three Klark Teknik DN800 processors for the main arrays.
Penn and Teller Sound Engineer Wayne Willard at his Yamaha PM5D-RH digital console.
Three pairs of Meyer Sound CQ-2 narrow coverage (50-degree horizontal) loudspeakers are flown off-stage as side fills between the curtain legs.
Re-Engineering Challenge
Wayne Willard mixes the show on a Yamaha PM5D digital console, with the majority of sound effects operated from a main (and backup) 360 Systems Instant Replay on his right.
Sony (formerly Sonic Foundry) Sound Forge software is used for one portion of the act that has him recording, editing and playing back a sample a few minutes later.
Willard became a member of IATSE Local 20 in 1984 after working for Southern Thunder Sound and various other Twin Cities regional sound companies.
He also spent a half dozen years with the third national road show of “Phantom” followed by a couple of years traveling with “Mama Mia!” and then staying with it for two more years when it settled in at Mandalay Bay. He’s been with Penn & Teller since 2007, and is also Projects Coordinator for MGM’s Entertainment Projects.
Directly upstage in a chain-link equipment cage is the show’s wireless rack.
Last year’s DTV re-allotment forced Willard to replace the 700 MHz wireless equipment as well as re-engineer his wireless situation, with support from Brooks Schroeder of Professional Wireless Systems (PWS).
The show had accumulated a variety of wireless mics as it grew - besides four channels of legacy Sennheiser ew 500 receivers that were able to be retained, there are also 10 new channels of Shure UHF-R dual receivers.
“I went with Shure as it’s a reliable, affordable product,” Willard notes. “I thought it wise to save the company some money in case I had to repurchase later on.”
The receivers are all fed from two antennas by a blue PWS DB-16 filtered multi-coupler, an active antenna combiner that manages the RF gain going to each receiver that also filters out RF signals that are out of their frequency range.
The DB-16’s inputs are RF band-passed to reduce radio frequencies outside those needed by wireless receivers, nowadays 470 to 698 MHz.
The signals are then buffered and split to 16 BNC outputs, with each output custom filtered to band-limit it appropriate to each receiver.
Mics & Infrastructure
In this case, the new Shure receivers get outputs filtered for their H4 (518-578 MHZ) or L3 (638-698 MHz) bands.
PWS RF Technician Brooks Schroeder shares a laugh with Wayne Willard at the show’s wireless rack.
Similar to filters used in analog audio crossovers, the DB-16’s RF filters are “3-pole,” providing about 10 dB of attenuation when out of band by 10 MHz.
The DB-16 employs redundant international-voltage power supplies and a locking blue Volex IEC power connector.
A front-panel switch can provide 12-volt DC bias power for active antennas that are located a long distance away, but here they’re mounted nearby on the theater’s back wall.
Both are PWS-brand log-periodic dipole antennas (LPDA), nicknamed “bat-wings” or “paddles.”
They provide 6 dB of gain, and are connected with PWS 9046 low-loss coaxial cable that has one-third of the 10 dB/100-feet loss of standard RG-8 or RG-58 cable.
The combination of low-loss cable and directional antennas provides a net gain of several dB without resorting to active antennas that raise the noise floor.
When the doors open, Mike “Jonesy” Jones plays jazz on a Kawai grand piano, accompanied by Jillette on upright bass, and sometimes Teller joins in on vibraphone.
All are mic’ed with wireless lavaliers, and Jillette’s bass returns later in the show, so it is double mic’ed. Jillette is also double-mic’ed with lavs in split bands, so each pack is in a different frequency group.
The dynamic duo in action, performing a blindfold-knife throwing stunt.
Teller doesn’t need a vocal mic because he doesn’t talk. (And yes, he’s legally changed his name to just “Teller” and has a rare single-name U.S. passport.)
The lavalier mics are Swiss-made Voice Technologies VT500 omnis, which are flat with a slight 10 kHz boost.
“They’re about half the price of a Countryman or DPA,” Willard notes. “Again, a money saving effort.”
He uses SM58 capsules on the Shure UR2 handheld transmitters. “The SM58 capsule choice was simple; it’s bulletproof,” he adds. “The handhelds are given to audience members and occasionally get dropped, and I work for a guy who juggles - no-brainer there.”
Penn & Teller have their own iPhone app and meet guests in the lobby after every show. Their schedule has them performing at the Rio Saturdays through Wednesdays and going out of town for one-night engagements on Fridays.
Mark Frink is Editorial Director of Live Sound International.
Q: I know a lot of guys (myself included) who like to run their studio monitors loud.
I like it because it sounds good, you can “feel” it, and clients/musicians are impressed.
However, I always hear people talking about protecting their hearing. Is there a correct volume for studio monitors?
A: Most experts agree that 80-85dB is the best range for monitoring, for two reasons.
First, this level allows you to listen for long periods of time without ear fatigue or danger of hearing damage. Second, this is the volume level at which our ears are most “flat” in their response.
If it sounds good at this volume level, it will sound good at louder or softer levels as well.
Some engineers go so far as to make a mark on their monitor volume control to indicate this level.
We recommend the use of an inexpensive SPL meters to calibrate our monitors, something we double-check in our own studio regularly.
Q: Hi! I’m an intern at Studio Name Omitted and I have a question for you. I love the way a rack of gear looks all lit up, but every so often there are these open spaces.
It seems to me like we’d save a lot of space if we got rid of the blank spaces and condensed the racks. Are these spaces important or something?
A: As you mention, there is a temptation, with an equipment rack in a studio, to pack the entire rack full of gear, top to bottom.
But remember that most gear needs steady airflow to maintain a suitable operating temperature.
Tubes, for example, put out a lot of heat. This heat must flow out of the item to prevent overheating.
If another piece of gear is positioned directly above a heat-producing device, it will also be absorbing the heat from that device.
For that reason, it’s a good idea to leave blank rack spaces above pieces of equipment that get warm or hot. It takes more rack spaces to do this, but your equipment will last longer and perform better if it is kept cool.
A way to handle the aesthetic concerns you’ve mentioned (in your own studio, of course) is to use solid and mesh blank rack panels that can be installed into empty rack spaces. These will hide unsightly cable mess while still maintaining air flow and providing a nice look from the front of the rack.
EQ tips that can easily be applied across your entire workflow.
Having some trouble getting the bass to sit just right in your mix? Veteran Mastering Engineer Bob Katz is here with a brief video tutorial demonstrating bass eq technique that can easily be applied across your entire workflow.
Q: I’ve been helping out with sound at church for a while now, so I feel kind of silly asking this question.
However, I see the abbreviations “TS” and “TRS” on lots of things with 1/4” jacks and plugs.
What do all these different abbreviations mean?
A: Not a silly question at all! Deciphering all the jargon and abbreviations associated with pro audio can indeed be a challenging task.
“TS” stands for “tip-sleeve,” a type of 1/4” phone connector with two sections: the tip (usually carrying the positive signal) and the sleeve (usually connected to ground or shield).
The TS type of connector is used for most instrument connections (guitar, keyboard, bass, etc.) and for single-channel (monophonic) audio signals. It is also referred to as “unbalanced,” since there is no separate conductor carrying the negative polarity signal.
“TRS” stands for “tip-ring-sleeve,” a type of 1/4” connector with three sections: the tip (usually positive), a separate “ring” section (usually carrying the negative polarity signal), and the sleeve (usually connected to ground).
You may also see the TRS type of connector referred to as “balanced,” since the positive, negative, and ground signals are carried separately and can be combined for common mode rejection.
However, TRS connectors can also be used to carry two separate unbalanced signals — a great example is a headphone connector. In this case, the tip carries the positive signal for one audio channel (either right or left) and the ring carries the other channel’s positive signal; the sleeve serves as ground for both channels.
TRS connectors are also sometimes used to carry two completely different signals, as is common with “insert” jacks. These connections use the tip to carry the positive unbalanced signal for input or output, while the ring carries the positive signal for the complementary unbalanced input or output signal. Once again, the sleeve carries ground for both signals.
Video: Dave Rat Shares His Tips For Testing Loudspeakers
"El Raton" share with us his secrets of speaker testing.
Even need to test a speaker in a pinch with no real tools on hand?
Want to verify the polarity of a component on the fly?
Dave Rat, veteran mix engineer and the owner of Rat Sound shares his tips on quickly and easily testing speakers with what you’re likely already carying in your pockets.
Many musicians with electric instruments often play too loud for the small churches they’re in, resulting in a mix that drives the congregation out of the sanctuary, and possibly to another, quieter church. (We know; we’ve been there, done that, both as musicians and sound mixers.)
That being said, let me assure you that I feel your pain. Most small churches have acoustics designed in the early days of pipe organ and choir.
Unfortunately, that sort of thing just doesn’t work well for modern Christian music, with the end result being unhappy musicians as well as an angry congregation. You’re stuck in the middle trying to please everyone, including the preacher.
What’s a church leader to do? First, get an SPL (Sound Pressure Level) meter so you know what’s happening. Radio Shack sells both digital and analog versions for $40 to $60, either of which will work just fine.
You’ll want to pick the A-weighing scale and slow response as and start by measuring the Sound Pressure Level of each of the stage instruments from out in the room without the PA system turned on.
This gives you an idea of how much louder the PA needs to be in order to get over the sound of the stage amplifiers.
Let’s say, for instance, that your guitar player is using a big tube amp cranked up pretty loud, and it’s hitting something like 100 dB SPL in the middle of the room.
Generally speaking in order for you to actually “mix” the rest of the instruments and vocals together, the PA needs to be about 10 dB (decibels) above the SPL output of the stage.
Hmmmmm…. That means you need to build a 110-dB SPL mix just to get the vocals and keyboards above (louder than) the guitar.
But there’s a serious problem.
While an occasional 110-dB concert may only do minor hearing damage, a steady weekly diet of such levels can be devastating to the hearing of both the musicians and the congregation.
Note on the exposure chart below the sidebar how high an SPL a person can tolerate per day before hearing loss begins.
That 110-dB SPL mix in your church is going to start destroying hearing within the first 30 minutes (or sooner) of your music service.
And that doesn’t even take into account the hours of practice your band has been doing at that volume level.
No wonder your ears (and everyone else’s in your congregation) are ringing by the end of the service.
OSHA Sound Exposure Regulations
You can do a great rock mix at around 95 dB SPL (which is safe for up to 4 hours a day exposure) if you have control over the volume of the stage instruments such as electric guitar, bass and drums.
But without having the stage amps playing at a reasonable level to begin with (less than 85-dB SPL in the room) you’ll never be able to do a solid 95-dB SPL mix in the room.
It’s also worth mentioning that the above chart is based upon the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) exposure limits which, while law and the standard I’ve referenced when referring to finite levels, is only one safety standard commonly followed.
NIOSH Sound Exposure Regulations
The chart to the left is produced by the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) uses a more protective exchange rate which results in shorter allowable exposures at high SPL’s levels than the OSHA regulation.
While this chart isn’t the one refered to in the article, it’s worth realizing that the OSHA regulations aren’t the only ones out there, nor are they the regulations recommended by a majority of Audiological Institutes.
While questions regarding the calculation of exposure time are prime subjects for another article, mor information cal always be found on the websites of OSHA, NIOSH, and the House Ear Institute.
In the end, when dealing with loud volumes and competing standards, common sense, good judgement, and strict control of a master fader are your best weapon. Basically, the safe bet is that if it seems too loud to a seasoned professional, it is too loud. After all, is your hearing really worth that extra 3dB?
Up Your Audio: Time For Star Quad Microphone Cable
Nothing that costs so little can make such a difference in sound quality as mic cables.
Many of us work in venues with a fiscal year that ends in June.
The familiar mantra of the annual budget cycle is that you must “use it or lose it.” Some are getting seasonal venues ready.
Others, preparing to tour this summer, have a budget that includes various “consumables” such as tape and batteries.
Whatever the case, consider a new set of star quad microphone cables as the most affordable way to improve sound. Current deliberations about wireless mics remind us of alternatives.
Nothing that costs so little can make such a big difference in the quality of a sound system as its mic cables.
Years ago at a Burbank rehearsal studio, an assistant from the sound company shop was helping “loom up” our drum cables by taping them together with electrical tape.
I commented on his addition of several spare mic cables, and his response was that if one was good, then several were better.
These were made of Belden 8412, an industry standard that employs an inner jute strength member and a braided shield, but these cables were as old as the sound company, perhaps older, as they had famously bought another company in the first of what would become a tradition of mergers and acquisitions in live sound.
Most channels in our input list required phantom power, which places a higher demand on mic cables than simple passive devices.
A couple of troubled line checks into that tour, I told our production manager that I would order a new set of mic cables, and if the tour didn’t want to buy the receipt from me, I would simply take them home at tour’s end. Peter Janis recommended Radial Engineering’s house brand of quad mic cable.
Quad mic cable contains four 24-gauge wires instead of the usual single 22-gauge pair. The four wires spiral together tightly so they alternate plus and minus, creating better “looping” that improves resistance to electromagnetic interference, raising common mode rejection (CMRR) by a factor of 10, or about 20 dB. With today’s growing RF transmissions, quad cables provide increased immunity to radio interference.
Star quad cables can also improve sound quality. Most report clearer highs, less mud in the mid-lows, and a lift of the “haze” associated with previous mixes. Individual channels combine better, take EQ better, and compress better.
Star quad construction reduces the inductive reactance of mic cable.
Replacing a 22-gauge twisted pair with two pairs of 24-gauge conductors connected in parallel produces the same DC resistance, but about half the series inductance.
This provides better clarity without the need for EQ to boost the highs. There’s also an improvement in phase shift at high frequencies, especially in complex waveforms.
Though Canare coined the term star quad, Belden previously came out with the concept in the 1930s for long telephone lines.
There are several “name brands,” but most wire manufacturers and cable fabricators have house brands, which provide similar CMRR improvements, but with varying quality of construction or connectors.
There’s a star quad cable for every budget. Most quad cables employ 24-gauge, 40-strand conductors, are about a quarter-inch in diameter, and cost 50 cents per foot in bulk.
Pre-made cables cost about the same as a roll of gaffe tape or a box of batteries. Dark colors other than black can make identifying your cables a breeze during load-out.
As noted earlier, Radial Engineering sells its own brand of quad mic cable, as does Mogami Neglex, which is more of a studio cable. Mogami has a spiral wrap, or “served” shield, which improves suppleness, but deteriorates with live use.
Pro Co makes Ameriquad with a custom double outer jacket with Kevlar core for added strength, as well as Lifelines quad cable.
Whirlwind offers Canare L-4E6S star quad, while Belden 1192A serves as their “house” quad cable. Belden also makes two smaller sizes of quad cable better suited for patch bays and lavalier mics.
RapcoHorizon sells Mic4, formerly called Quadraplus, and their high-end Dominator SilverFlex quad uses silver-coated copper conductors. Clark Wire & Cable has MINK4 bulk wire with a drain wire that eliminates the extra step of using the shield as a ground wire when terminating.
Gepco has bulk quad star both with and without a drain wire, and Hosa provides their CMI quad-type cables in 10- and 25-foot lengths. Known for their mics, Blue Microphones also offers quad cables.
Mark Frink is Editorial Director of Live Sound International.
We’re glad you tuned back in for the remaining five points in this two-part tech tip. As a refresher, here’s the question we’re answering. Also, make sure to check out the previous five points in the series.
Q: I’m on a committee to purchase a new sound system for my church.
Are there any special considerations that go into this type of installation?”
A: As stated Friday, in many ways, designing an effective system for a house of worship is one of the most demanding jobs in the audio business.
While you are undoubtedly interested in good stewardship of your congregation’s funds, keep in mind that the following points are not “luxuries,” but are essentials for good sound system.
#6 Gain Before Feedback: Whenever a microphone is placed in the same room as a loudspeaker, the potential for feedback exists.
Things that aggravate this further are multiple microphones and long miking distances - necessities for most churches.
Your sound system must be extremely stable, meaning that loudspeaker array design and mic placement are critical to the end result.
Your sound personnel must understand the limitations of the sound system and be trained to manage the open microphones and working distances for people using the system.
#7 Wireless Microphones and RFI: These can adversely affect the performance of a sound system. It must be properly shielded against such, with appropriate filtering devices installed when necessary.
In addition, the operating frequencies for your wireless mics must be carefully selected to work properly in the presence of other RF broadcasts in your area.
#8 “Clean” Installation: An important yet often overlooked aspect of sound system design is the installation. Proper interconnect practices must be carried out, and all applicable electrical codes must be observed.
In addition, a “clean” installation means that wiring has been concealed as much as possible, and that the finished system blends well with the decor of the building.
#9 Professional Equipment: Selecting marginal equipment is usually false economy. You need a system that provides reliable, quality performance for years to come.
It’s best to deal only with companies that provide reliable, repairable products. Loudspeakers should be “stress tested” for safety, so they can be suspended above a congregation with confidence.
#10 Calibration, Training and Documentation: A properly calibrated sound system will be much easier for your personnel to operate. A significant amount of expertise is required to make a system “user friendly.”
Your sanctuary is a critical listening environment for speech and music. Your sound system must provide adequate gain, intelligible speech, even coverage and extended bandwidth to all listener seats. The best value in a sound system is one that meets all of these criteria.
In todays Tech Tip Of The Day we’ve presented five more points to keep in mind when purchasing a sound system for a church. Make sure to check out the previous five in the series.
Where AVB (Audio/Video Bridging) networking is presently at and what it could mean
Why does an industry that already has CobraNet, EtherSound and many more proprietary digital-audi-over-Cat 5 solutions need something else?
Each of these technologies works great, but none has had a true game-changing impact on the professional audio market.
Yet you might have heard about AVB (Audio/Video Bridging), which is a tripod of non-proprietary networking standards.
The basic idea is to empower wired Ethernet to transport “professional quality audio video” - HDTV and multiple channels of uncompressed digital audio - using widely available products like off-the-shelf Ethernet routers and Cat 5 cable.
The two reasons AVB might alter the landscape are a) it’s non-proprietary and b) it is driven by much bigger industries than pro AV. Cisco’s market capitalization is $150 billion, Intel’s $124 billion. Last I looked, the entire pro audio industry was about one-tenth of those figures.
AVB is being defined by an IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802 Task Group. You may be using one or more IEEE 802 standards right now: wired Ethernet is IEEE 802.3, WiFi is 802.11, WiMax is 802.16 and so on.
AVB includes IEEE 802.1Qav: Forwarding and Queuing for Time-Sensitive Streams, along with 802.1Qat: Stream Reservation Protocol, and 802.1AS: Timing and Synchronization for Time- Sensitive Applications. 802.1Qav was ratified and published in January.
“When combined with the almost-finished 802.1Qat Stream Reservation Protocol,” explains Michael Johas Teener, Chairman of the IEEE AVB Task Group. “IEEE 802.1Qav will be the fundamental toolkit to provide the kind of virtual plumbing needed for professional quality audio/video networking.”
Teener also has a day job: he is Technical Director/Plumbing Architect at Broadcom, which makes “networking and communications ICs for data, voice, and video.”
If you own an Ethernet router, you are probably a Broadcom end user. Broadcom is a founding member of the AVnu Alliance, “an industry forum dedicated to the advancement of professional- quality audio video by promoting the adoption of the IEEE 802.1 Audio/Video Bridging (AVB) standards over various networking link-layers.”
The other AVnu founders are Harman, Cisco, Intel, Samsung and Xilinx, while “Promoter” members include Analog Devices, Applied Micro, Audinate, Avid, Barco, Lab X Technologies, Marvell, Meyer Sound, Pelagicore, Sennheiser and Shure.
As you can determine from those names, AVB and the AVnu Alliance encompass consumer electronics, automotive and pro AV markets.
By definition, proprietary technologies are owned by the inventors, who need to create a revenue stream, typically by selling both licenses to use the technology and chipsets that implement it. That creates a vicious cycle: the up-front licensing fees discourage manufacturers from adopting the technology, limiting its usefulness and value.
That in turn limits the demand for products using the technology, which keeps per-unit manufacturing costs high. That, of course, keeps the cost of the products and/or network option high, which further limits demand, raising costs, and so on.
This doesn’t mean that no one is making a living off of digital audio networking. But it does mean that none of these technologies has expanded overall demand for pro AV products and services the way MIDI did in the 1980s and computer-based recording and production did in the 1990s.
Keep in mind that AVB is non-proprietary - no licensing fees. Once consumer electronics and automotive markets come on line, AVB network interfaces will become as cheap as sand, or at least highly refined melted sand (silicon) that embodies a large dollop of intellectual property.
There’s no doubt that, unlike its proprietary predecessors, AVB will change the game. The big questions now are when and how.
Christian Doering, M.B.A., CSI, CDT, provides marketing services to pro AV and lighting companies through his company Me, Ink.
This is the first five in a series of ten points to remember when planing a church sound installation. Make sure to check out the second five points in the series.
Q: I’m on a committee to purchase a new sound system for my church.
Are there any special considerations that go into this type of installation?”
A: In many ways, designing an effective system for a house of worship is one of the most demanding jobs in the audio business.
While you are undoubtedly interested in good stewardship of your congregation’s funds, keep in mind that the following points are not “luxuries,” but are essentials for good sound system.
#1 Dynamic Range: Church sanctuaries are usually quieter than other gathering places. In fact, the noise floor sometimes resembles recording studio environments more than auditoriums.
So, the sound system must be quieter than usual to prevent audible noise in the audience area. You should specify a system with as much as 96dB of dynamic range.
#2 Signal-to-Noise Ratio: Many listening environments have a “sweet spot” for which the sound system performance is optimized. But in a house of worship, every seat must be optimized for adequate signal-to-noise ratio. Generally a minimum of 25dB S/N ratio is appropriate for every seat in the audience area.
#3 Uniform Coverage: Many auditoriums are plagued with “hot” and “cold” spots in sound coverage. This can usually be attributed to interaction between multiple loudspeakers, and is unavoidable when more than one loudspeaker is used to provide sound coverage. A good design assures that there is even coverage in the audience area, and that no seats are unusable because of loudspeaker interaction.
#4 Versatility: While it is possible to design sound systems that are optimized for speech or music, your system must perform well for speech and music. The attributes of these two types of systems are often at odds, so this is a very difficult task.
Your system must have the accuracy and clarity needed for speech reproduction, while maintaining the extended frequency response and power handling required for music.
#5 Hum and Buzz: Audible AC hum is a major detriment to a church sound system. It usually results from improper grounding practices, either in the wiring or the actual equipment. Remember that off-the-shelf equipment must often be modified to work without hum.
Your sanctuary is a critical listening environment for speech and music. Your sound system must provide adequate gain, intelligible speech, even coverage and extended bandwidth to all listener seats. The best value in a sound system is one that meets all of these criteria.
This is the first five in a series of ten points to remember when planing a church sound installation. Make sure to check out the second five points in the series.
Jeff Beck is currently touring in support of “Emotion & Commotion” - his first studio album in 7 years that debuted last month at number 11 on Billboard.
Beck is one of the guitar gods, along with Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, to have played with the Yardbirds.
He left to form The Jeff Beck Group in 1967, with Rod Stewart on vocals and Ronnie Wood on bass.
Beck has gone on to earn five Grammy Awards for “Best Rock Instrumental,” and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year.
A guitarist’s guitarist, he plays his signature Fender Stratocaster with just his fingers, occasionally the vibrato bar and a streamlined pedal board, to produce a wide variety of sounds.
The sound vendor for the tour since 2006 has been Schubert Systems. Headed by Dirk Schubert, the company is celebrating its 30th anniversary at the end of this month.
Mike Gonzales is the tour rep and the system tech is Vince Buller. Front of House Engineer Ben Findlay mixes on a Digidesign (now Avid) Profile.
After a brief spell playing guitar in bands while in school and college, Findlay began mixing live shows with a small PA system co-owned with a friend. He then moved along to work with other PA companies in the Bristol (U.K.) area, with his first tour as House Engineer coming in 1989 for the (then) newly signed band The Blue Aeroplanes.
In 1991 he landed a job at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studio as an assistant engineer, and after a couple of years of frantic work and a steep leaning curve, he became chief engineer of the studio for four years. By 1998 Findley went freelance, continuing to work at Real World as a client and at a variety of other studios in countries around the world.
“In 2003 Peter Gabriel was looking for a FOH Engineer for his ‘Growing Up Live’ tour, and at that time, I had been mixing in the studio for him so he thought I might be able to mix the shows,” Findlay explains.
Jeff Beck performing onstage with drummer Narada Michael Walden.
“I wasn’t sacked, and as a result of the confidence gained mixing a large scale show like that, I took on other live work.”
Along with Gabriel, Findley has also worked with Massive Attack, Youssou N’Dour, Robert Plant and Yusuf Goldfrapp (formerly Cat Stevens).
At the beginning of this year, Beck had a change of lineup for his band, joined by Rhonda Smith on bass and Narada Michael Walden on drums.
This is an overdue reunion for Walden, who received a gold record for the album “Wired,” which he co-wrote with Beck, as well as produced and played drums on 35 years ago. Walden - already a keen user of Audix mics - and Findlay put together a “Rolls Royce” mic package for the current tour.
Enough Punch
Walden’s snare is mic’ed with an Audix i5.
“This is a great sounding mic for the snare as it represents the high end of the spectrum, really naturally, so there is less EQ-ing needed,” Findlay comments.
“The snare is mic’ed underneath with an SM57, which stops the strainer from sounding too aggressive on stage.”
The double kick drums are mic’ed with a combination of Shure Beta 52A and Beta 91.
Audix is deployed on the rest of the drum kit, including D4 hypercardioid dynamics on all toms, twin CX-112 large-format condensers for overheads, and ADX51 pencil condensers on hi-hats and ride cymbal.
Findlay takes advantage of the EQ and dynamics built into the Venue D-Show for channel processing.
Front of House Engineer Ben Findlay with the Avid Profile digital console he’s using for the current Beck tour.
Depending on the resonance of the stage and room, he sets the compressors on the tom channels to a “sort of gate” setting.
“In an ideal world I would never use gates on the kit,” he says. “I prefer the open ring-ey sound, but sometimes it’s the only way you can get enough punch out of the toms with out the ring turning into feedback.”
He then runs the entire kit through a group which he equalizes and compresses according to each song, saving the different settings in each song’s scene.
“I use the Sonnox GML EQ and the Digidesign (Avid) Smack! compressor before the signal is routed back into the left-right mix bus.”
Findlay prefers to keep Beck’s guitar flat with no filters, EQ or dynamics. “Jeff looks after all those elements by the way he plays and interacts with his amp.”
Beck is primarily using a small 15-watt Fender Pro Junior combo amp on stage, custom-loaded with a Jenson P-10 Alnico, the signature speaker from Fender’s legendary Super Reverb, mic’ed with a vintage Sennheiser “Black Fire” 509 microphone.
Keyboard player Jason Rebello outfitteed with an Audix OM7 mic for vocals.
The secondary guitar amp is a Marshall JCM2000, sitting behind the back line and pointing away from the audience.
“This reduces the amount of guitar beaming off the stage into the audience, which gives me more control over the balance, particularly in the quiet numbers.”
The Marshall cabinet is loaded with Celestion G-12M “Greenback” drivers and is mic’ed with an Audix i5 dynamic mic. “This adds bite where necessary in the mix and is used by Jeff as a kind of backwash for the stage.”
Best Results
“This tour has been a bit of a revelation for me,” Findlay notes. “Engineers are instinctively conservative in their mic choices, and when you find a set that works, you tend to stick with it.”
“However, we’ve put together a mic package that is giving the best results I have ever known in the live environment.”
Though the show is primarily instrumental, the vocal mics are all Audix OM7. “I’ve had more compliments about my sound on this tour than I can ever remember!” he says.
“A coincidence? Probably not.” Findlay adds that he’s looking forward to using his mic package in the studio in the near future.
A single Radial J48 DI is the input for Rhonda Smith’s two basses into the stage rack, and Findlay then double patches that input to two channels in the Profile - one set for the her electric Fender Jazz Bass and the other for the pickup on the upright bass.
“I EQ using the console’s onboard processing, but for the Jazz Bass I have a Summit TLA-100 tube leveling amp inserted across the channel to control the pops when she slaps the bass,” he explains. “I found that if I ran the channel at a good operating level for the main bass program, when she slapped the bass, it would peak the channel’s input.
Monitor Engineer Shon HArman with the Midas Heritage 3000 he’s mixing on for the Beck tour.
“This was resolved by setting the input gain on the channel so it didn’t peak when she slapped the bass, then inserting the TLA-100 over the channel and setting the compressor so there’s no more than a -3 dB deflection during normal bass program,” Findlay continues.
“Then I set the gain make-up so it runs back into the insert return at a normal level. I found that when Rhonda slapped the bass, the pops were leveled out.”
On her upright bass, he’s using a Bomb Factory LA-2A plugin. Both basses need a little taming at the top end, but he does this on a song-by-song and venue-by-venue basis. An Audix D6 is applied to one of Smith’s four Mesa double-15 bass cabinets.
“I have two iLoks I carry with me,” Findlay adds. “One has the Digidesign Massive Pack on it, and I carry this for emergencies, in case the one supplied gets lost or broken and there’s a needed plug-in not authorized on the system I’m supplied with.”
He has another with has a bundle of Sonnox licenses. “The main elements I use are the EQ with the GML algorithm and the Inflator,” he says, with the latter being one of his secret weapons.
“It’s very useful for adding sheen and detail to elements of the mix, or even the whole mix.”
Pairs On Stage
Monitor Engineer Shon Hartman is a veteran of Pearl Jam and The Offspring, among others, and he mixes on a Midas Heritage 3000 console with a TC Electronic EQ Station, and has an outboard package comprised of Drawmer DS201 gates, dbx 160A compressors and a pair of Yamaha SPX-990 effects units.
Drummer Narada Michael Walden’s kit is furnished with a wide range of Audix mics, joined by select Shure models.
The band relies on d&b audiotechnik double-12 monitors except for keyboard player Jason Rebello, who uses a stereo pair of d&b M4 single-15 co-axial wedges to back up his Sennheiser G3 IEMs.
Side fills are pairs of L-Acoustics ARCS with dV-DOSC subwoofers, and Walden’s drum mix is another ARCS 2-way enclosure augmented with a third dV-DOSC sub and a Buttkicker.
Beck plays a run of U.S. dates, including Bonnaroo in Franklin, Tennessee in June, before the “Emotion & Commotion” tour heads to Europe in July for the summer.
Walden will also be putting on his music director’s hat on May 13 for Sting’s Rainforest Concert at Carnegie Hall. Check out last year’s “Live at Ronnie Scott’s” DVD, with the version of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” winning Beck a Grammy.
Mark Frink is Editorial Director of Live Sound International.
Q: We’re starting to have some contemporary music at my church and I’m helping with the sound.
For our sound system we’re using a regular stage setup with speakers on stands.
Everything is working ok so far but I had a question about monitors.
Is it true that placing smaller PA speakers behind the main speakers facing the worship team a better solution than using floor monitors?
A: In the simplest terms, no.
Properly placed floor monitors (at the base of the mic stand) project sound at the null region of directional (cardioid) vocal mics, which increases gain before feedback.
If you tried to forego the floor monitors and depend solely on sidefills (the smaller speakers behind the mains you mentioned), you would probably wind up with feedback while trying to get the mix loud enough to satisfy all of the players.
Q: We recently started using In-Ear Monitoring at my church, however, we’ve noticed that the volume is really hard to control.
It’s all over the place, to the point where the volume is almost painfully loud at times! Can you offer any advice?
A: The advantages of in-ear monitoring systems (IEM) are many, which you’ve undoubtedly already found.
The most obvious advantage, of course, is the ability to reduce the high sound pressure levels (SPL) on stage, thereby producing a cleaner FOH mix as well as reducing possible hearing damage from the aforementioned high SPLs.
However, as you’ve found, IEM’s do present their own unique set of challenges.
In fact, hearing damage can still occur with in-ear monitors if loud, uncontrolled signals are sent directly to your ear.
The solution is to use a limiter with extreme settings (referred to as brick-wall limiting) to quickly reduce the level of signals that exceed a safety threshold.
To achieve proper ear-safety, set the limiter’s threshold control to a level well below that at which hearing damage can occur. The ratio should be set as high as possible, with 10:1 being the lowest setting.
A ratio of 20:1 or infinity to one (if the compressor/limiter allows) would be optimal. Also, be careful to set a very fast attack time so that transients are reduced, since they can do the most damage. Release time should be set to allow for a natural overall sound without pumping.
DI Boxes (Direct Instrument or Direct Inject Boxes) are very helpful tools for your live sound system.
The most common type is called a PASSIVE DI, which includes an isolation transformer and ground lift switch.
The primary function of a DI Box is to convert the unbalanced (1/4-inch 2-conductor) phone plug output on your keyboard or guitar into a low-impedance (low-z), balanced (3-conductor) XLR jack, which can be plugged directly into your signal snake without any fidelity loss or hum problems.
Once converted into a balanced signal, you can send it hundreds of feet to the console in the back of the room.
(click to enlarge)
Never try to use a simple 1/4-inch phone to XLR adapter plug (without a transformer) since the hi-impedance (hi-z) output from the passive pickup in your guitar will lose most of its high frequencies on a 100-foot trip down a snake.
Even the 1/4-inch unbalanced (low-z) output of your keyboard can pick up hum down a long snake since there’s an unequal impedance feeding the input stage of the console.
Note that any unbalanced (2-conductor) cables will tend to pick up hum from every electrical appliance in the room including light dimmers and ballasts, so convert to balanced signal as quickly as possible.
(click to enlarge)
The balanced input circuit (XLR Input) in the mixing board effectively nulls out these stray signals if the correct cable type (3-conductor twisted pair) and termination (XLR low-Z) are used.
Also note there’s a second 1/4-inch jack on the input of the DI box which functions to loop-through your signal to a stage amplifier.
It’s NOT used to add the stereo outputs of a keyboard or CD player into a mono signal.
Distortion or oscillation can result from hooking two outputs together without a summing circuit of some kind.
Another function of the DI box is to block phantom power at the mixing board from getting into any instruments. For instance, phantom power will send 48 Volts D.C. back up the snake to power a microphone.
But if you plug in a keyboard or acoustic guitar directly to the snake with only a 1/4-inch phone to XLR adapter plug, that same 48 volts will feed back into the output stage of the musical gear.
Most gear only has 25-volt blocking capacitors on the output, so after a while that 48-volts can cause catastrophic failure resulting in smoke, a dead keyboard, and an expensive repair.
(click to enlarge)
ALWAYS use a DI box to plug any stage instrument with 1/4-inch phone plug outputs into XLR inputs that can have phantom power.
A DI box usually includes a ground-lift switch, which will assist in breaking ground-loops in the system. A ground loop can occur when two pieces of gear are plugged into different electrical outlets.
For example, a keyboard might be plugged into an AC outlet on the stage and the mixing board plugged into an outlet in the back of the room.
Any small difference in the ground voltages between these two outlets will cause a current to travel down the shield of the signal cable connecting them, most commonly the signal snake. This makes for a nasty hum though the whole sound system.
The ground-lift switch will open up this connection and eliminate the hum in all but the worst situations. Also, never try to stop this hum by cutting off the ground lug (third pin) on the power cord of an instrument or amplifier. That can lead to electrocution.
The Whirlwind IMP-2 shown here is a good example of a Passive DI. Costing around $50 and available at most music stores, it will save you time and energy, eliminating ground loops and making your audio system sound as good as possible.
Mike Sokol is the chief instructor of the HOW-TO Church Sound Workshops. He has 40 years of experience as a sound engineer, musician and author. Mike works with HOW-TO Sound Workshop Managing Partner Hector La Torre on the national, 36-city, annual HOW-TO Church Sound Workshop tour. Find out more here.
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