On the Digital Edge

On Jan. 15, the FCC came down from the mountain with a stone tablet upon which was scribed "anyone who uses a wireless microphone (or similar device) that operates in the 700 MHz Band will have to stop operating their wireless microphone (or similar device) no later than June 12, 2010."

We've been seeing tons of hardware audio consoles with sophisticated software. Now here's a twist from RML Labs: a software console that has no hardware. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but let's take a look at a cutting edge audio application that is not tied to a specific piece of hardware. The program is called SAC or Software Audio Console, and it has some pretty impressive features.

In the Oct. 2008 issue of FOH, I relayed a story about an experience I had at the Umatilla County Fair in Hermiston Ore. The long and short of that story was that while attempting a sound check, the area was hit with a nasty hailstorm and winds upwards of 70 miles per hour. The net result was that the tarp blew off the front-of-house position – including a Yamaha PM4000 – and the bucket of the 4K became a bucket full of water.

One of the many strengths of Digidesign's Venue live mixing system is its ability to easily integrate (or one might even say "morph") into a multitrack recording system.

One of the more difficult facets of live sound is managing soundchecks. Most musicians will moan about how they don’t want to be bothered with a sound check, and in the next breath they’ll complain that their monitor mixes weren’t perfect at the start of the show.

An Alternate Look at the Sensaphonics 3D Active Ambient PM System

In the December 2007 issue of FOH magazine, Bill Evans presented a review of the Sensaphonics 3D Active Ambient Personal Monitor System (www.sensaphonics.com). For the complete nuts and bolts of the system you can refer to that review, but this month in On the Digital Edge we’re going to revisit Sensaphonics’ technology from a slightly different perspective. 

Last month, we discussed audio software plug-ins. To refresh your memory, we observed the fact that audio processing is rapidly moving from hardware to software. Just about every digital mixing console currently manufactured includes a plethora of onboard processing such as EQ, dynamics, reverb and delay.

I vaguely recall that sometime in the late 1990s I received an evaluation copy of a piece of software from Digidesign called DINR (Dynamic Intelligent Noise Reduction).  At the time it was one of the earliest (if not the first) software plug-ins I ever encountered, and, to be honest, I didn’t get it.

As our economy continues its spiral flush down the toilet, audio professionals everywhere are hurting, and scrambling for their next gig. More and more it seems that gig has something to do with sound reinforcement — as opposed to recording.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a microphone freak, so any activity involving microphones is at the top of the gear lust chart for me. There are three thing you cannot have enough of: money, microphones and well, you can guess what else.

FOH has written a lot of information over the past year regarding FCC reallocation of the UHF band and how it will affect pro audio wireless. We’re not going to rehash the problems facing the pro audio industry in our efforts to continue using the UHF spectrum for wireless operation. If you missed it, revisit “Bleeding Edge” in the February, June, July, November, December 2007 and October 2008 issues.

The editors of FOH recently received an interesting e-mail from a gentleman who informed us that he was a university student studying computer programming and networking, and that he also did live sound on a part-time basis. He wanted to know if we had any ideas about how he might be able to apply his knowledge in the computer field to audio, enabling him to combine his two interests as a career. If this question was raised barely 10 or 12 years ago, the answer to that question would be an emphatic “no.” However, we’ve seen a long-term trend that goes something like this: Computer hardware and software developers create technology for moving data from place to place, and then the audio industry adapts that technology for use in moving audio from place to place.