Tips & Tricks

As a sales manager with the permanent installation division of an audio rental house, I have assisted clients with audio system upgrades of everything from grade schools and universities to churches, theaters and ballparks. When it comes to planning an upgrade, the technical aspects of a microphone, speaker or console are not of particular importance to me. That is the concern of our engineers. I’m most interested in addressing the needs of my clients within a manageable time frame and budget. Here are some helpful tips I’ve gleaned over the years on how to do this when assisting with an audio upgrade for a house of worship.

As front of house engineer for Rob Zombie’s Twins of Evil tour, I was mixing a very complex, chaotic, and often unpredictable show. I didn’t have the luxury of knowing what might happen next, so the last thing I needed was a complicated setup that would require me to take my hands off the console to cue different functions and effects.

What to do before you reach for the EQ

As usual, I enjoyed reading Mark Amundson’s May 2007 FOH “Theory and Practice” article about the EQ strip. The article was well written and informative.

However, the subject matter really cried out for a prequel article. An EQ is, in a cosmic way, a distortion device. It distorts the harmonic order of a sig-nal. Also, on analog EQs, the circuits use phase shifting in their designs — coloring sound by smearing, so to speak. Many engineers hear something they don’t like and immediately reach for the EQ knob as a cure-all — sometimes with good results, sometimes they get frustrated. There are other solutions… 

Concentrating on people and product over price brings success in Nashville.

In a town where you can find a sound company on just about every other corner, the team at Hugh Bennett Productions has made its mark in Nashville as one of the region’s top companies. Michael Allen, who was serving as the company’s supervisor before purchasing it in May, attributes the company’s lon-gevity to concentrating on people and product over price.