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Friday, October 07, 2011
Bruce Main
10/07/11 08:20 AM,
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Another touring season is windking down. The gear has been hustled in and out of the trucks, up and down the ramps and suffered through the mud and dust and rain, and well, frankly, some of it’s looking a little tired. At least the super glue held that knob on the compressor through the summer and there were enough working snake channels left for the last big festival. But now it’s time to take inventory and decide what has some…
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Thursday, September 08, 2011
Bruce Main
09/08/11 07:48 AM,
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For many sound hire companies, things will be slowing down soon after a busy summer season. Yes, these are the days that turn sound company owner and manager thoughts to Alternative Revenue Sources (ARS). The contracting/install market is generally one of first potential ARS markets that come to mind. There’s that club downtown that wants to stop renting and buy a system. And one of the churches that use your rental stock and services for the Christian rock festival now…
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Monday, June 20, 2011
Bruce Main
06/20/11 11:18 AM,
So there I was, system engineer at a county fair gig. The act of the day was a traveling ’60s reviews with three or four artists who were, shall we say, past their prime. They weren’t carrying engineers, so we got the duty. Soundcheck went fine. The artists cruised through their paces and the hired back-up band was surprisingly good. Nothing to do but hit catering and wait for the “white hair, blue hair and no hair” crowd to show…
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Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Bruce Main
06/07/11 07:44 AM,
0 Comments
Several years ago I was managing a touring sound company, and we decided to take a stab at contracting. Because our expertise was in large systems, we focused on big installations like stadiums. In those days, most sports facilities were being designed with 12-channel boards, wimpy amplification and loudspeaker clusters kindly called “flying junkyards.” We perceived a huge gap between what was being offered to the average sports fan and what we were consistently providing to other entertainment patrons at…
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Friday, June 03, 2011
Bruce Main
06/03/11 05:35 PM,
It wasn’t too many years ago that most shows were supported with trapezoidal point-source loudspeakers that were either horn loaded or front loaded. There were numerous touring companies providing proprietary loudspeaker systems, some well engineered and some not so well. Rigging was often an afterthought, and many systems were ground stacked. Companies sprang up that did nothing but design and build aftermarket flying hardware to support both proprietary and manufacturer loudspeakers. Depending on the combination of rigging and loudspeakers, the…
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Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Bruce Main
09/01/10 01:00 PM,
1 Comment
Many of us make our livings providing concert-goers with the best live music experience possible. We deploy high-fidelity loudspeaker systems and microphones with the latest in digital effects and studio-quality processing in an effort to make the live show sound “just like the record.” Only better, of course, because the excitement, visual elements, crowd response and performance spontaneity are impossible to reproduce in someone’s living room. Or is it? Let’s step back in time and examine our progress in the…
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