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Crest Audio HP-8 Mixing Console

By Mark Amundson

When the Crest Audio HP-8 Mixing Console was first announced at Winter NAMM 2004, it sparked a great deal of anticipation. Finally, here was a console with pro features at an anklebiter price. But we got through the better part of a year before we actually got our hands on one and, truth is, we were underwhelmed. A call to Crest engineering confirmed that they were aware of the same issues we had noted (manufacturing and not design-related) and said they were being addressed. We opted to wait to review the HP-8 until that happened and it appears to have been worth the wait.

There are a lot of obvious uses for the space in front of a stage at an outdoor music festival. Band-watching and dancing jump to the top of the list, yet at the Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival, those two activities just round out the top five. There, that space is used for the earlymorning launch of hot air balloons.

While the situation might not provide a sonic challenge for the Murrieta, Calif.-based Star Way Productions, it does provide a dramatically colorful backdrop for the bands playing one of the two stages at the festival. The festival celebrated its 22nd anniversary this year, and Star Way handled all aspects of the sound, stage and lighting.

Back in February, at Pro Production 2005, a panel of industry experts held court on "Expanding Your Offerings: Becoming A One-Stop Shop." These high priests of sound and light spoke to what it means to offer sound, lighting, effects and staging under a single tent.

The names have not been changed to protect the innocent, but their quotes will not be identified to protect the guilty. (Actually, what Jerry means is that he was working from an audio tape, where it's hard to match a voice in the dark to a name. Next time, we do video. -Ed.) The panel included Gregg Brunclik of Clearwing Productions, Mark Dodd of Dodd Technologies, Doug Adams of Pyrotek and Tom Sorce and Barry Rackover of PRG. If you were there, you know who said what. If not, try to think of them as Masked Super Heroes of the Convergence. Truthtellers, all.

Getting any of the Affordable Sound & Light team on the phone from now until October might be a bit tough, considering the five-strong crew will be running from music festival to music festival across Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida setting up lights and P.A.s for dozens of acts that span a world of musical genres.

It kicks off in May with the Crawfish Boil in Birmingham and the Jubilee CityFest in Montgomery, goes into June with City Stages in Birmingham, through the summer and then spins down with the Big Spring Jam in Huntsville and BayFest in Mobile, Ala. "It keeps us busy," says ASL vice president Billy Klein. "Most medium-sized towns around here have a two- to three-day street festival with anywhere from two to four stages."

Race C4 Compressor/Limiter

By Jamie Rio

If one compressor is good, then four should be much better… right? Well, I think that more is better, and so does the R&D department at Rane. In reality, four compressor/limiters are not that many and can certainly be used in about any mix situation. But the C4 is much more than just four compressor/limiters. As a matter of fact, this frequency-dependent unit is loaded with lots of very cool and functional features.

There is a part of Vegas known to its denizens, every cab driver in town and a large percentage of male tourists and convention-goers as "The Fun Zone." Once the industrial guts that supported the glitzy Strip, as Vegas has shed its attempt at being a "family" destination and moved ever further in the "what happens here stays here–it's a place for adults to go and be bad" direction, the warehouses, light industrial and machine shops have been joined by a bunch of strip clubs of varying degrees of raunch, debauchery and even attempts at real class. (Not that I know from experience, but I've heard…) It makes getting directions to Larry Hall's HQ a bit more interesting.

Recently I was privileged to sit on a panel at Pro Production 2005 that was moderated by Glenn Goodwin of the Spark Agency, and sat in the company of fellow panelists Sandra Bartsch, Ken Freeman and Pam Scrape. The panel was poised with the question frequently asked by vendors trying to break in to the event production market. "Who do I need to know?" This was an easy topic for me, as I have used a basic philosophy for years.

Community DXP4800 Processor and M12 Monitor

By Mark Amundson

Community Professional Loudspeakers has a long history of creating innovative products for touring and install audio applications. In this latest era, both the DXP4800 Digital System Controller and M12 tour-grade stage monitor are proof that innovation is not the exclusive province of large multi-brand corporations. I received both the DXP4800 and the M12 for this road test review.

There are many people–okay, most–who will say that nothing good came out of the disco era. Jay Rabbitt just might beg to differ, since he spun a late-'70s DJ gig into ownership of a sound company in Doylestown, Pa. "We stopped doing the DJ stuff about 15 years ago, but that's how it all started," Rabbitt explains. "In 1980 I moved to Atlanta, and we've been here for 25 years."