Features

On Feb. 6, Shure counsel Bingham McCutchen led a group of microphone manufacturers, top frequency coordinators and broadcast network representatives to Washington, DC to meet with some FCC Commissioners and the Incentive Auction Task Force — essentially those working on FCC guidelines regarding the proposed sale of the 600 MHz band, currently slated for mid-2015.

ANAHEIM, CA — A total of 96,129 music and audio pros were registered for the 2014 edition of Winter NAMM to see the latest from 1,533 exhibiting companies. One of those attendees was FRONT of HOUSE editor George Petersen, who had a much easier time traveling to the show than others arriving from snow-blasted regions of the U.S. His show report, which is also featured in the Feb. 2014 issue of FOH Magazine, follows.

Dave Rat on EAW’s Latest Line Array System

It’s no secret that Rat Sound has a long association with Eastern Acoustic Works. Company principals Dave Rat and Jon Monson worked closely with EAW in the creation of the successful MicroWedge stage monitors line and then contributed throughout the research and development process for Anya, EAW’s latest line array product.

If you weren’t among the record-breaking crowd of nearly 700 top industry pros attending the 2013 Parnelli Awards there, you really should have been. The 2013 Parnellis had it all — there were jokes about the crazy world that is live events, honors and accolades given the amazing talent who excel in their field this year, and even some quiet moments of remembrance of those who have passed.

Veteran concert touring entertainment professional Mo Morrison was the inaugural inductee going into the newly formed Parnelli Hall of Fame. Morrison, sometimes known as “Momo” or “Uncle Mo,” has spent the past 40 years working in the concert touring and event production industry with much television work along the way. Currently,  Morrison is the tour director for Lady Gaga worldwide, handling all touring, television and promo presentations.

SECU Arena is Towson University’s new 5,200-seat state-of-the-art athletics and entertainment venue in Towson, MD. Although primarily for sports, the multi-purpose venue is also designed to host concerts, meetings, commencement ceremonies and conventions. Key to the success of the new venue was the sound system, which had to provide both high-SPL, full-response reproduction for music events, as well as excellent detail and articulation to maximize intelligibility in the large space.

The pro audio world is filled with clichés. On the one hand, you’ve got the “mad scientist” type who toils away at the workbench creating seemingly magical solutions. The other is the funny, gregarious marketing guy who can price a product to sell. Now what if there was someone who was both of those things? Mark Engebretson. The 2013 recipient of the Parnelli Audio Innovator Award, Engebretson is likely the most influential pro sound engineer you’ve never heard of.

NEW YORK CITY — Bucking the trend of past shows, the 135th convention of the Audio Engineering Society, held from October 17 to 20, 2013 at the Javits Convention Center in New York City, was an overwhelming success on every level. After a disappointing turnout at last year’s show — that unfortunately coincided with Hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of the East Coast and played havoc with air travelers throughout much of the country — AES rebounded this time with its highest attendance in five years, drawing some 18,453 registrants.

They make up 49.7 percent of the earth’s population. Among U.S. doctors, their ratio is 31 percent. They even account for 19 percent of the elected officials in Congress. But the percentage of live sound engineers who are women is closer to the 5 percent mark.

Two members of this rarified group, Karrie Keyes and Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato, were panelists for the “Women of Professional Concert Sound” seminar at AES 2012 in San Francisco, hosted by the recording industry group, Women’s Audio Mission (WAM, womensaudiomission.org). The panel was moderated by WAM founder Terri Winston and also included Claudia Engelhart, Deanne Franklin and Jeri Palumbo.

George Travis knows who the real boss is.

“You end up being part of this little touring group that can be a tight, dysfunctional family that shares one goal: putting on a good show,” he says. “We have to remember that when the music starts, we have 8,000 to 80,000 bosses who are the audience. The biggest excitement in this business is when the concert starts. Then you have your immediate reward… or you can also have your immediate judgment!”

This year’s lot of regional winners is a good mix of those companies across North America that are serving their communities and beyond. It’s one thing to be a guy with some gear that fits in a pickup and is stored in a garage, and it’s another to be a huge national company with loads of resources at your fingertips — that’s how we imagine it, anyway! But it’s those in the “middle” who can (and have the nerve to) invest in the gear to keep their company relevant and also surround themselves with an exceptionally talented crew.Anybody in this category is a hero in our book. The people and companies that follow got an extra nod of approval from FRONT of HOUSE readers — including many of their peers.

From June 8 through 14, 2013, more than 35,000 audio-visual professionals made the trek to Orlando for the annual InfoComm conference and expo. This year’s event had more than 900 exhibitors and an attendance increase of 2.5 percent over last year — definitely positive signs of overall health and good times ahead as the industry moves forward. All eyes (and ears) were on the three days of exhibits, although the audio demo rooms were also open the day before the exhibit hall debuted, giving showgoers an additional day to actually hear systems in a slightly more realistic environment. The show occupied a massive 470,000 net square feet of exhibit and expo space. And with more than 200 audio exhibitors present, we uncovered a wealth of new products of interest to sound reinforcement and audio installation professionals.