Editor’s Note

First of all, Happy New Year to everyone! By now, I’m sure you’re aware that 2016 is an election year. But whatever your party/candidate inclinations, 2016 brings great news, as political rallies and events all generate much needed $$$ into the pockets of sound companies paid to spread the message. So get out and be a part of the process (and collect some cash along the way) while helping create a piece of history.

Like all of you, we at FRONT of HOUSE were shocked and saddened by the events in Paris on Friday November 13. [For more on the aftermath of the terror attacks, see related stories here and here.] The extensive news coverage and interviews of witnesses and survivors painted a horrific picture, but what hits home is that so-called “soft” targets — such as music venues, trains and restaurants are added to a growing list that once was largely confined to airports, embassies and military installations.

Mention “social networking,” and the first thing that comes to mind is staring at your computer or smartphone screen for hours on end, sharing cat pictures or a video of some guy riding a bicycle into a swimming pool. And as cool as this may be to the hipster set, it’s no replacement for an actual (not virtual) experience with actual humans, or as the late, great Marvin Gaye once put it: “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing, Baby.”

In between mixing FOH for (and tour managing) Blue Öyster Cult, our ace correspondent Steve La Cerra comes up with some highly utile — and always entertaining — writings on audio basics in his “Theory & Practice” column, found on page 57. A couple weeks ago, we chatted about a topic for this month’s entry and decided that something about gain structure and dynamic range would be appropriate. After all, these are two fundamentals that play an essential role in achieving good sound, yet sometime cause confusion when mixing (pardon the pun) reality with theoretical abstracts.

All faiths share a common thread of spreading the message. Now exactly what that message is may vary considerably among church members and different religions, but every church can be helped in that endeavor with a sound system that provides clarity and intelligibility to the message and ensuring that every member of the congregation can receive the word.

It’s hard to believe, but the 2015 Parnelli Awards season is almost upon us. So far, FRONT of HOUSE readers have already stepped up to select the finalists vying for the top regional sound company honor — the Hometown Hero Award. These include DBS Audio (Coatesville, PA), Mid-Coast Sound (Nashville), Clearwing Productions (Milwaukee), Spider Ranch Productions (South San Francisco), Onstage Systems (Dallas) and Toronto’s Sound Art. Congratulations to all!

I just flew in from the InfoComm 2015 — and boy, are my arms tired. You can read all the highlights and hot product picks starting on page 22. But I’m not much of a fan of the show. Actually, I really like InfoComm and I even like Orlando, but the combination of both in mid-June is a recipe for disaster. The weather is bad. Sure, Las Vegas (where the show alternates) is also hot, but at least it’s not humid, and when the humidity rises, it rains.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the sound industry is just getting past school graduations, which mark the official start of the busy summer season. As anybody who works at a local soundco can testify, handling two weeks of back-to-back college and high school graduations can make for some crazy times. In a busy scholastic market, like the San Francisco Bay Area where I live, there are at least a dozen or more colleges and a multitude of high schools that all seem to schedule their commencement exercises the same week. Trying to juggle coverage and setups of all that can equate to a logistical nightmare.

Last month, I made the statement that money makes the world go round. Maybe I was being hasty in that, but with our staff having endured two not-too-coincident overlapping tradeshows this month (NAB and Musikmesse/Prolight + Sound) on two very separate locations — Frankfurt and Las Vegas — I think that the phrase should be “tradeshows make the world go round.” And maybe there’s a lot — or at least a bit — of truth in that.

Audio people tend to be a nerdy bunch. Last month on March 14, we all celebrated “Pi Day.” In case you missed the hoopla, it’s that rare occurrence on the third month on the 14th day of the 15th year of a century at 9:26 am, or 3/14/15 9:26. This was as all nerdy types (myself included) took a few seconds away from Facebook to celebrate stardate 3.1415926 — equating to a mathematical constant we all learned in calculating the circumference (2π r) or area (π r²) of a circle. Easy enough.

We spend a lot of time listening; in fact, it’s a process that continues during most of our waking hours — unless you happen to be a college student dozing off during a lecture on 17th Century Planar Existentialism, in which case, all bets are off. However, according to research, we also even spend a fair amount of time listening while sleeping. So, unless you put in some hours in a sensory deprivation tank or possibly sleeping in anechoic chambers, listening is a 24/7 thing.

About a month ago, I was researching the article for the January issue of FRONT of HOUSE on Shure products that had made their mark on the sound reinforcement industry during the company’s 90-year history. While doing that, I pulled some files from of my archives on the 1967 debut of the Shure Vocal Master, which was described at the time as the first “portable total sound system.” In truth, it actually was pretty cool for its time, and was quite successful, but what struck a chord in me was the absolute proliferation these had in the house of worship market. And it always amazes me how many times — even in recent years — I could walk into a church somewhere (or a lodge hall or city council chamber, for that matter) and still see those 63-inch silver gray columns in use. The “transistorized” Vocal Master mixer/amps may have long since faded into the sunset, but the transducers live on.