SSL (Solid State Logic) Announces LIVE Console

SSL launch first ever live sound console at Prolight + Sound 2013



“We are very confident that we have created a console engineers will fall in love with.”

Expectations of a Soundman!

Countryman E6 Headphone/Earset Mic

Feedback Problems with E6 earset mic
I've had some questions about the feedback issue with this mic.  
After inquiring about the model of E6, I discovered the problem, they bought the Omni version of this mic. 
To get the best possible result from the E6 mic it has to be the directional version of this mic. When you order the directional version, you get a couple of capsule covers:  a cardiod pattern and a hyper-cardiod pattern. This is the only version of this mic that I recommend.
                                                                                                        

Sound System Training Test

I’ve added a link to the online interactive version of the “Test” ( see link in sidebar) or you can take the Test right here right now. Here is the “Test”




The online version does not have any questions from page 3 of the downloadable PDF file but is quite entertaining. It will give you a grade when you are done.

New Active 6" Line Array System

I recently visited the my distributor of light and sound products and Burt showed me a bunch of great new products.

Lights
A new robotic light in both spot and wash versions. Now these lights are going to take the market in a whole new direction. They are about the size of a big coffee can with a price point (under $1K retail) that will make it great for Houses of Worship, DJ, Club, and Touring applications (believe me they are bright enough). The great thing about these LED lights is the capability to have 32 fixtures on one 20 amp circuit.

I will post picture as soon as they go on sale.

Speakers

The Omnisistem B3 R6/R12 Line Array will be available in an active version within the next 2 weeks. Great news for churches with up to 2000 people/seats. they can be configured as follows:
these arrays are extremely compact and with the addition of subs on the floor give you a 5 way system. more....

Home Recording Studio Drum Platform Design

Controlling drum leakage in your recording space, is probably the biggest problem in the home recording studio.
One way to solve the problem is to record the drums in the studio area while the rest of the band is recording in the control room. No more leakage but the scratch tracks are pretty much useless because of the leakage in the control room.
One problem solved and another problem is created. There has to be a better way.
If you isolate the drums properly, the leakage in the adjacent mics is not a problem. So what is the best way to isolate the drums?

The Solution: Build This

Mini Line Arrays Part 2 update

Now we have the trusses up and the mini line arrays in their right location. Here was the sequence of events.

We started the install on Thursday with the 2 uprights and finished the rest of the truss on Friday.

Drum Surround DIY Diagram

Here is the "Live Stage" version of the Studio Gobo design.

The panel is 1/2 the density of the Studio Gobo design. You should notice that the surround uses two panel sizes. One 48" panel and four 36" panels to make the surround.
There are a couple of other things to notice as well, wheels that help you move the panels around and the space it provides for cable management.

Again I must point out that the most important ingredient to this design is the use of "Quietrock".





Get the full size image here....

Home Recording Studio DIY Gobo Design Diagram

Here is a gobo design that I put together for a home recording studio. It can also be used for live applications (drum surround).

The most important part of the design is the use of "Quietrock 525" you cannot scrimp on this, it costs about $65.00 per sheet (4' x 8') but it makes all the difference.

Line Arrays for Small Churches

Here is a temporary install of a mini line array for a small church in Tacoma WA. It is a temporary install because they are putting in a truss system very shortly and the speakers are not in the optimum position right now.

Here is a render of the future truss system with the speakers hanging in future location & a picture of where they are right now:

Church Sound

Church Systems



Most church buildings today are not designed for sound, so even the smallest church building needs a sound system. Therefore the sound system is the cornerstone of every local church.

Why do churches go through at least 2 sound systems before they get one that really works?

First Baptist Church in Tacoma -Sound Booth Complete

As you can see the site lines to the platform are none existent. The new design will fix that. In total they only had 29 rack spaces for the entire sound booth.

Here the sound man is making some adjustments. He has to stand on his toes to see down to the platform. The sound entering the booth was blocked by the huge video rack to the left and there was a balcony railing with a glass insert on the right side of the booth.

This is what my iPhone took when I held it over the video rack. The worship team is on the floor in front of the platform.

Here we started to build up the floor. We raised it one step (approx. 7"). We also got our electrician in to make sure we had 4 20 amp dedicated circuits.

these are the feed wires from the platform and the floor pockets under the first row of pews.

The raw frame of the booth starts to take shape. Under the tabletop there is a 6" trough thats runs the full width of the booth. We painted the trough and the wall black to hide all the cables

Here it is all populated with equipment. The new booth has 55 rack spaces and now they have clear site lines to the platform.

Here is the computer/video side of the booth. The cables just above the remotes are to plug in a laptop to the video system. They use a Apple laptop for special videos.

The video section. The middle rack has four 7" monitors and the DVD recorder. One for each camera and one for each Roland V4 switcher output. We doubled the video feed of all the devices to feed each V4. One V4 sends signal to main screen and the other to the back screen which is on the balcony face.

Here is the audio setup. On the left is the CD/Cassette playback, in the middle is a power-strip, verb, and an audio distribution amp. The right side has the patch-bays. The 1/4" patchbay is used to bring all the playback devices into the system and the TT (tiny telephone) patchbay connects the platform feed to the channels in the board

all pictures were taken with a first generation iPhone. We prebuilt the parts for the booth and installed it from a Thursday morning through to Saturday at about 8:00 pm.

First Baptist Church in Tacoma - Sound Booth Overhaul

The First Baptist Church in Tacoma gets a Sound/Video Booth overhaul. They have a very tight space and a lot of gear. We took their equipment list and put together a very efficient design. The install takes place from Jan 21 - 23. We are also raising the floor one step (7”) to get better visibility for the sound/video personnel.



Phase One of the overhaul was to move the monitors amps down to the platform. We did that in Nov ’09. The amps for the mains are still in the booth (as you can see on the audio rack on the right side of the booth).

Phase Two - the design, construction, fabrication and install of new booth.

Once the install is done I will post an update.

First Baptist Church in Tacoma - System Rewire

Chris Pak from First Baptist church in Tacoma contacted me about their system a few weeks ago. They felt that the system was not operating properly and there were some wiring issues regarding hum in the system. I don’t know who designed the system but I did meet the installer. The amplifiers were placed in the sound booth under the mixer, feeding the monitors and the main speakers from the balcony. The system design consisted of a center cluster with additional speakers for side fills all located behind the suspended ceiling.
The cluster: 6 boxes of McCauley M120 speakers, and 2 subs cabinets (mounted one on each side of the array) not sure what the side fills are.
The processing for the system: DBX Driverack PA The driverack was set to a JBL 3 way speaker system with subs. (The McCauley system is a 2-way box)
The sound was very thin and I could tell that the mids where none existent.

We programed a custom setting in the driverack and the speakers came alive with all kinds of good sound.

How Important is it to Aim Speakers?

I just finished correcting a problem at the St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Issaquah. The problem was a very reverberant space with lots of echo. In the sanctuary there wasn’t a lot sound absorbing materials, tile floors, plaster walls in a basic rectangular shaped room. The 4 speakers providing sound to the 4 seating areas were located in the skylight structure. see pics

ISP in Idaho

We just finished doing an install of a pair of ISP HDM 115 speakers in the All Saints Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho. We had to create special brackets for the beams in the sanctuary. As you can see from the pictures, the beams have different angles from one side to the other. Here is a picture with the old speakers (Mackie SRM 450) and what it looks like now.

United Church Complete

Well here we are all finished with the install. We moved some of the equipment we replaced (with the new equipment) downstairs to a multifunction room. Put it all in a rack (see above pics) We also brought a feed down from the sanctuary so they could use this room as an overflow.


We installed a custom plate that they can plug the mics directly into and the speaker cables with a choice of spring clip or speakon connectors. Here is the back end of the rack with all the cables neatly in place.

United Church ISP Install

We just finished the install at the United Church in University Place, WA. We changed the location of the speakers along with new ISP Speakers. The front pews really don’t need re-enforcement because they are close enough to hear everything naturally. That allowed us to install 2 overhead choir mics for the choir. The comments from he congregation were “I could hear everything clearly for the first time in years” “I sit in the back and I could hear the choir” (they were not able to mic the choir before because of the old speaker location) The choir is located between the 2 arches on the right side. Between the old speaker location and the new speaker location



Here is a picture of the old board and the new board. We changed out the old board for a Behringer Xenyx 2442 FX, and the recording device to a Tascam CC-222SL CD/Cass recorder. We installed a stagebox with 6 XLR and 2 monitor jacks to the right of the platform.


The church will replace the FOH cabinet so they can enclose the board to lock it up. All in all this was a very clean install. We also added a monitor and a Sennheiser mic for Jeff the worship leader

ISP Speaker Upgrade Complete

Wednesday, January 7, 2009
I just finished installing a pair of ISP HDM112 speakers for the First Baptist church in Twins Falls, Idaho. The original system consisted of an Allen Heath GL 3200 32 channel board and a LCR speaker system with Mackie (RCF) 300A for the Left and Right and 2 Community cabs for the cluster. We replaced the RCF speakers with the ISP HDM112. The difference was amazing. The thing that I notice about these speakers is their ability to project sound and their clarity. In a narrow (39’ wide and 39’ ceiling height) room like this its important to have a system that can project to the back of the room without being incredibly loud at the front.

With these speakers we maintained the same level from the first pew to the face of the balcony. Under the balcony we only lost 3 dB. What is really amazing is that these speakers are one of speakers in ISPs monitor speaker lines. The old sound system used a delay and a small set of EV speakers for the under balcony fills to cover the back of the room. Now with the ISPs we don’t need the under balcony fills. These ISP speakers need a sub for good punch. I installed EV active subs on the original install and we left them as is. You can see the subs at the corners of the platform, they are small but pack a good punch in the low end. I used the Peavey speaker mount as these speakers are pretty heavy ( 63 lbs) and the Peavey mount can handle a 100 lb speaker.
Tuning the system
We originally installed 8 channels of Ashly Protea EQs and they came in very handy for tuning the system. The interesting thing I noticed about the tuning was that this room really likes 100Hz, we had to take it out completely on all 3 channels L-C-R. The rest of the frequencies required very little adjustment. This is by far the easiest system to tune. Mike Redmond (the Worship Leader) said that it even change to sound on the platform. He could heard things he has never heard before. He said his guitar actually sounds like he is playing through his amplifier. (he runs direct from his pedal)
Comment from Mike Redmond
To Whom it May Concern:

Wow! That was my first reaction when we turned the ISP speakers on. I had kept my expectations low because our old speakers were quite good. Unless you put speakers side by side you often don’t hear the difference. However, in this case, there was such a remarkable difference, I was shocked. Even from the stage we could hear things we have never heard before. I felt foolish when I found myself looking for a leak when I heard our rain stick playing through the right speaker!

We assumed that only those directly interested in sound would really notice the difference. Instead, the first Sunday several people (3 of them musicians who are not on our team) made a point to come talk to me and with all the superlatives they all used the same word: “clear.” Every comment was positive. One of our elderly members said he heard everything for the first time in years.

These HDM112s could be used in a much bigger facility. We have seats for 300 and a traditional high ceiling (40 ft), and the speakers are on the lowest volume setting. Even at that level we could blow the windows out of the building. Most remarkable is the violation of the law of inverse square law. One of our team members kept walking up to the speakers and then to the back of the room because he couldn’t believe the sound level never changed. Even under our balcony (which reflects sound) the level only drops 3 db.

My only complaint is now we have to be better. Every mistake can be heard! Of course, so can all the great stuff that God produces.

We have been blessed from the first day we met Tom Hautka (Soundoc.net), and we are doubly blessed that he made it possible for us to own these outstanding speakers. I seriously doubt if there is another sound system to match ours within 100 miles.

Mike Redman
Worship Leader

ISP SPeaker Upgrade

Heading back to Twin Falls ID. This time it's to fix a system that I installed a few years ago. The system consisted of a pair of Mackie (RCF 300A) speakers. This was when Mackie had just bought RCF, and had not taken over production from Italy yet.

Side Note: Mackie had a hard time meeting demand with the factory in Italy so they took over production and eventually outsourced to China. This was bad for the church. Now it is really hard to get service, and we don't have access to RCF components. I have tried to get parts directly from RCF to no avail.

Someone tweaked the settings on the Ashley Protea EQ and blew out one of the Woofers. Mackie replaced it once with the speaker that they use now, but with the bad settings that one blew up also. Now they (the church) would like to upgrade to a better speaker. I recommended the ISP HDM112. The improvements will be really noticed in the mid range where guitars and vocals live. The ISPs are a 3 way speaker with 2 x 2" compression drivers for the mid range. This will give them clarity that a 2 way system could not produce. I will post pictures when I get back from the install. I will be conducting 2 days of training for the new sound personnel.

The install that we did a few years ago really improved the sound for the worship team. I left the existing cluster in place and used that as the center channel of the system. We configured the system into a LCR setup (Left Center Right). We set it up the center channel on a separate control from the Left and Right.
The cluster was only used during the preaching and the L & R only for the worship. During the preaching and announcements the L & R speakers were turned down. Also the original sound booth was in the balcony and the sound personnel had a hard time mixing. We moved the booth down to the main setting area just ahead of the face of the balcony.