Brad Higbee and Company prove there’s more to Idaho than potatoes.
So many successful business stories start with the line, “I was asked to…” that it should almost be considered a cliché. So when Voltstar Productions president Brad Higbee reports that he got his start when someone asked for sound and lighting help, it’s not a shocker.
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The High-Stakes Game of Vegas Entertainment Takes on Another Player in the Palms.
Las Vegas suffers from no shortage of performance venues. Throughout its history as a resort destination, performers have made their way to Vegas to play any one of the many hotels and casinos that call Sin City home, but the Palms hotel and casino has upped the ante with the addition of their new venue, The Pearl.
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A Console Company Glows and Grows
Who: APB-DynaSonics, Inc.
What: Manufacturer of analog audio consoles and mixers and related products (MixSwitch)
Where: Totowa, New Jersey (about 20 minutesfrom Manhattan)
When: Founded in December 2004
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QSC HPR-Powered Loudspeakers
By Jamie Rio
When my fearless leader and editor Bill Evans called me to review the new QSC HPR powered series loud speakers, I was pretty excited. When he told me I had to test the hell out of them and have the piece done in a little more than a week, my excitement began to wane. However, the first real amplifier I ever bought was a QSC, and to this day I have a great deal of respect for the company. I honestly don’t know how long they have been building amps, but I think Noah had a rack of them on the ark. In other words, this company is an icon in this biz and I expected to field test some high-quality gear.
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Seger’s Crew Details How They Handle Working with an Old-School Rock ‘n’ Roll Legend.
Last November, Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band launched their first concert tour in 10 years at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich. They kept on trucking right on through spring, when FOH caught up with crewmembers Brad Divens (FOH), Peter Thompson (monitors) and Paul Jump (systems engineer/crew chief). The three talked to us about their equipment, their experiences, and what it takes to produce a tour of this magnitude.
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How does a groundbreaking artist with more money than God spend his leisure time? How about a short run of shows in unexpected venues just for the fun of it?
There are a few people in the production community who I like enough to take their calls no matter what else is going on. So, even though we were deep into Production Hell on an issue of FOH and PLSN, I picked up when my phone said that Dave Tennent was on the line. Dave is the TD at The Cannery in North Las Vegas, an unexpectedly cool venue given the location — An “A” level room in a “C” part of town. (We wrote up the venue in the June 2006 issue of FOH. You can find it online if you missed it.)
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Bartha Audio/Visual Helps a Skin-Care Firm Pull Out All the Stops for Its Annual Celebration.
Corporate gigs don’t have the glamour of a rock show, but they also don’t have the same requirements — a lot of times they have more. Corporate events aren’t only about pumping lung-crushing SPLs — trying to maintain intelligibility and fidelity with a larger dynamic range than a rock show, while battling video, and lighting, is where the skill portion comes in. Bartha Audio/Visual recently used all its skills to turn the MGM Garden Arena into a convention hall for skin-care firm Arbonne’s annual National Training Celebration, and then reinforced a marching band to rock out the attendees.
Read More »Trade shows, like everything else in the industry, are facing their next evolution.
The “L” in trade show LDI’s name once stood for “lighting” (more recently it was changed to “live”). In the future, it might also stand for “Lots of other stuff, too, including audio.” At a time when much of the commercial landscape in the media technology world is moving toward a niche-based paradigm, some of the trade shows that have acted as hubs have sought to become more comprehensive. This is, in part, to address the effects of convergence — as more media technologies become digitally based, their operation and functions increasingly overlap, such as having both Final Cut Pro and Garageband on a single laptop, for example. Additionally, it is an attempt to stem losses from exhibitors that are increasingly taking their products out on “road shows” — demonstrating wares across the country unilaterally or in conjunction with complementary partners.
Read More »Is it time to trade in your wedges for more racks?
So you have been hanging on to the simplicity of wedge monitor mixing, but you are ready to take the plunge into the wild side of personal monitors. Welcome to the brave new world. Yeah, I like the thought of not lugging heavy wood wedges, long lengths of Speakon patches, racks of graphic EQs and power amplifiers as much as the next guy, but what replaces this?
Read More »No miracle required, just hard work.
Most of the work I get with regards to worship sound comes from referrals. What I would like to talk about this month is how to get yourself into a position where you receive an abundance of referrals. It’s like Jesus with the loaves and fishes (John 6:10). Somebody had to give him the first fish and the first loaf to get the ball rolling. So, maybe I can help you get that first fish.
Read More »There’s nothing common about common sense.
Ken: So Brian, here’s how it goes: I’m usually a vendor coming into someone’s venue. When I get there, I have trouble keeping the reins on the folks around me — getting them to do what’s best for the show. There always seems to be simple, common sense problems with the venue’s representative or another vendor. And they’re usually doing something wrong that eventually becomes dangerous. I try to give them suggestions, but the trouble usually starts when one of these guys feels the need to give me his verbal resume to convince me of something that I know is a bad idea. Saying “I told you so” just makes me the asshole. Putting this problem on paper makes me sound conceited, but what is a guy supposed to do?
Read More »Several months ago in "The Bleeding Edge," we discussed the pending problem with the FCC’s threatened release of “White Space” broadcast frequencies for wireless broadband use and unlicensed transmission. [Check out www. fohonline.com/whitespace for a complete rundown —ed.] While this directly impacts wireless pro audio systems, any increased activity in the airwaves — such as that from microwaves, cell phone signals, and emergency-band communications systems — presents a threat to our never-ending quest for interference-free audio. Any wire that is carrying low-level audio — such as from a microphone or mixing console — acts like an antenna, and may actually attract radio interference. Furthermore, junctions where the audio system may have gaps in its shielding — such as where a cable is connected to the chassis of an audio device — are an invitation for EMI to weasel its way in. Several manufacturers are addressing these concerns with new ways of battling RFI and EMI to keep it out of wired audio.
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