–ASR ProEvents & Martin Audio Back Legendary Singer-Guitarist‘s Annual Florida Tour–

When Jose Feliciano tours Florida every year, ASR ProEvents in Orlando provides full audio and backline support. ASR, a successful production company that works with most of the leading artists appearing in the Sunshine State and throughout the South, invariably relies on a complement of Martin Audio speakers and monitor wedges to ensure the level of sound quality expected by their high profile clients.

Feliciano, the prodigiously gifted singer/guitarist with a string of international hits such as his inimitable versions of “Light My Fire,” “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” and the Holiday classic, “Feliz Navidad,” keeps things fresh for his audience by rarely repeating the same song in successive concerts.

According to ASR‘s Director of Audio Productions Sergio Leenen who served as Monitor engineer, “Jose‘s shows are always very cool. He never works from a set list and loves to change things around. In the three days we worked with him, he only repeated two songs, offering his audience a variety of different material to keep things fresh and interesting.”

For this tour, two keyboardists, a percussionist, drummer and bass player backed Jose‘s incandescent guitar playing and vocals. He appeared at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Center in Sarasota (1736 seats), the Sunrise Theatre in Fort Pierce (1200 seats) and the King Performing Arts Center in Melbourne, Florida (2000 seats). According to Leenen, concertgoers included “a wide variety of people from young kids to older folks and everything in between. Jose obviously attracts a lot of Spanish-speaking fans as well.”

Leenen acknowledges that some of the venues presented unique acoustic challenges but that “ASR‘s experience in these theaters with rigs that have been flown and ground-stacked has taught us what we need to get an optimum sound.”

The FOH system for the first show consisted of 10 Martin Audio W8LC line array enclosures ground-stacked 5 per side; with two Martin WSX subs per side and two W8LMD mini downfill speakers for front fills. Other key components included a Yamaha PMSD-RH digital console, QSC PowerLight and Crown amplification, a KT DN9848 digital system controller and KT DN3600 equalizer. FOH engineer was Jim Durkin, Feliciano‘s Technical Director.

For Monitors, the system consisted of 8 Martin Audio LE1200 and two LE2100 high performance, high output wedges, along with a Yamaha PM5D and QSC amplification. Asked about the monitors, Leenen responded, “Working with Martin Audio is always a breeze. Jose has perfect pitch and hears everything on stage, and he kept saying throughout the shows that the monitors sounded awesome. And we wouldn‘t want it any other way.”

Seattle, WA–Combining creativity and optimal equipment usage, owner Dan Mortensen of Dansound Inc. recently used two APB Dynasonics ProRack-House H1020 mixers in linked mode to create a compact, fully functional 24 mono/8 stereo input console.

This highly effective setup proved to be ideal for the Fountain Lawn Stage at the 2007 Bum-bershoot music and arts festival at the Seattle Center. Overall attendance for the festival was well over 100,000. Artists performing at the Fountain Lawn Stage included the Vau de Vire So-ciety, Loop Station, Gooferman, and the Can Can Follies in a myriad, ever-changing program of music, dance, acrobatics, and feats of strength and skill.

Dansound Inc. owner Dan Mortensen comments, “The sound and feature set of these mixers is remarkable for a rackmount product, and we completely filled them up, using all 24 mono and 8 stereo inputs, Left and Right outputs, 5 monitor mixes, and 2 effects outputs. We still could have fit something on the Center output, but maybe next year. Having 8 available subgroups was a bonus.”

–Asbury Audio And Matching APB-DynaSonics Spectra Consoles Ensure High Quality Sound For WHY-Chapin Awards Dinner at New York‘s Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers–

New York, NY– WHY (World Hunger Year) recently held their annual WHY-Chapin Awards Dinner at New York‘s Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers. WHY, founded in 1975 by singer activist Harry Chapin and current executive director Bill Ayres, is a leading advocate for innovative, community-based solutions to hunger and poverty. WHY challenges society to confront these problems by advancing models that create self-reliance, economic justice, and equal access to nutritious and affordable food.

Jason Dermer, a WHY Hungerthon Supervisor, Harry Chapin Foundation Board member, and owner of Asbury Audio, provided technical support for the event. The annual WHY-Chapin Awards Dinner heralds the achievements of people whose everyday work represents the best anti-poverty efforts promoted by WHY. This year‘s event also honored Jackson Browne and Jon Landau Management for their work towards similar goals through the years.

With a bill that featured three-time Grammy Award winner and WHY board member Tom Chapin as the evening‘s host, as well as other A-list performers, the challenge for front of house engineer Dermer and systems/monitor engineer Bennett Prescott was typical of a corporate event in a ballroom venue. As Dermer recounts, “You end up with very little time to figure out where to set up FOH while keeping everyone happy. We went in at eight AM and had the PA and lighting in the air by quarter after ten, but we couldn‘t set up FOH until a half hour before the three PM sound check due to the changing needs of table setup and hospitality.”

Equipped with APB-DynaSonics Spectra Ti 48 consoles for FOH and monitors, Dermer and Prescott were off to a good start. As Dermer puts it, “The consoles worked perfectly. I‘ve been using the Spectra at my house gig in the Stone Pony for a little over a year and it‘s phenomenal. The sound quality, the feature set is everything you could possibly need in an analog console that is used primarily for mid-scale concert production.”

Dermer continued, “When I was looking to upgrade my console, I found that my market was not quite ready for digital, and I had to find an analog solution that offered superb quality in the under $30,000 price range. I had heard all of the great comments APB had been getting on Prosoundweb, and since they‘re a local company located just a few miles north of me, I called them up and arranged for a demo. Ultimately, I was blown away that a console in this range could have great sound, as good if not better than consoles costing twice as much, while still offering the feature set to deal with even the most critical engineers.”

Concluding, Dermer adds, “On this job, the Spectra consoles gave us everything we needed. We were dealing with artists and engineers who are used to carrying their own consoles and full production from some of the largest providers in the world, and we were able to come in with consoles from a small manufacturer that met every need for the entire show. There were no hitches or hiccups, everything went off really smoothly.”

As to the production itself, Prescott explains, “Everyone was extremely pleased. The PA setup itself wasn’t that complicated. We had two hangs of line arrays and four delay zones–to the left and right of the stage because of the U-shaped audience area. Then we ran a delay out to the bar area, which is separated from the audience area by glass. The room was also of L shaped, as well, so we used another delay speaker to fill in there.”

The actual speaker complement included eight flown EONA ADRaudio L 2821 HH line array modules; four EONA ADRaudio U 103 HH trap full-range boxes for delays and fill; six EONA ADRaudio M 1225 HH monitors, 5 on deck and one cue (for Prescott at monitors), and two EONA ADRaudio ATA 618C HH cardioid subwoofers, stacked stage right. Also part of the system was two Dolby Lake Processors with tablet for all speaker control (one 4×12 and one 8×8); several J48 Radial Direct Injectors and a mix of Audix, Sennheiser and Neumann microphones. BSS equalizers, DBX and Drawmer compressors, Drawmer gates, and TC Electronics effects were used for outboard processing.

Prescott is also enthusiastic in his evaluation of the Spectra consoles‘ performance at the benefit. “What‘s really remarkable is that, with matching Spectra Ti 48s for both FOH and Monitors, the show was as easy to work at monitors as I imagine it was at FOH. I purchased my Spectra Ti primarily for FOH, but I‘ve mixed monitors on it a couple of times and it‘s a very smooth there as well…the flexibility is exceptional.”

Madison, WI–One of several musical events sponsored by Southern Comfort across the country, the SoCo Music Experience in Madison was a seamless blend of rock festival and corporate branding that made perfect sense in terms of context and style.

Situated at Willow Island, an outdoor festival ground with ponds and grassy expanses on the grounds of Madison‘s Alliant Energy Center, the show featured a high-energy alternative rock lineup that included Flaming Lips, Cold War Kids, Cowboy Mouth, Sick Puppies and Goat Motor. Festival attendees had to be 21 to get in, no surprise considering the sponsor.

Technotrix, a multifaceted production company out of Bourbonnais, Illinois who had already done staging and lighting for the SCMX event in Atlanta, was hired to handle full production and lighting for Madison.

Asked about the challenges at SoCo, company account manager Kevin Kiefer explains, “Festival jobs aren‘t that difficult for us because we do them all of the time. What‘s different about these ‘corporate festivals‘ is that we bring someone like Southern Comfort a system you‘d use for a medium-sized rock music show, but the main focus becomes the branding and promotion of a particular corporate brand, something we do well.”

“There are corporate production companies who have gear for doing speeches, but not a rock show,” Kiefer continues. “And there are festival guys who have the equipment for a rock show, but don‘t know how to focus on the branding and corporate entity.”

“Technotrix provides equipment for a lot of festivals, so we came up with this combination platter for companies like Nike, Netflix or Southern Comfort to put the corporate brand into the rock environment and make them look good.”

In this case, Kevin and crew supplied a 45 by 45 foot concert roof system by Xtreme Structures for the lighting and audio. To ensure maximum coverage for an area roughly 200 by 250 feet, they used Martin Audio throughout: 12 W8LC enclosures hung left and right of the stage with 18 ground-stacked WSX subs, four WT2‘s for front fill, and LE12JB monitors on stage. In addition to Martin Audio amplifiers, the system consisted of Yamaha PM5DRH FOH and Monitor consoles and XTA processing. The lighting system featured Martin MAC700 profiles.

Commenting on the setup, Kevin explains, “basically, we set up the sound and lighting the day before. Load in and sound check started at 8 in the morning, and the gates opened about four in the afternoon. The only odd thing was getting through the sound checks for all five bands.”

“As it turned out, I was very happy with the sound and so was our client, Mowalla Productions who told us that Southern Comfort was pleased as well. In fact, they‘ve asked us back to do another event in St. Louis. The person we were working with from Mowalla hadn‘t used Martin Audio before, but he ended up being a fan. So we‘ll probably do more of these shows next year, which is best end result we could have hoped for.”

Madison, WI–One of several musical events sponsored by Southern Comfort across the country, the SoCo Music Experience in Madison was a seamless blend of rock festival and corporate branding that made perfect sense in terms of context and style.

Situated at Willow Island, an outdoor festival ground with ponds and grassy expanses on the grounds of Madison‘s Alliant Energy Center, the show featured a high-energy alternative rock lineup that included Flaming Lips, Cold War Kids, Cowboy Mouth, Sick Puppies and Goat Motor. Festival attendees had to be 21 to get in, no surprise considering the sponsor.

Technotrix, a multifaceted production company out of Bourbonnais, Illinois who had already done staging and lighting for the SCMX event in Atlanta, was hired to handle full production and lighting for Madison.

Asked about the challenges at SoCo, company account manager Kevin Kiefer explains, “Festival jobs aren‘t that difficult for us because we do them all of the time. What‘s different about these ‘corporate festivals‘ is that we bring someone like Southern Comfort a system you‘d use for a medium-sized rock music show, but the main focus becomes the branding and promotion of a particular corporate brand, something we do well.”

“There are corporate production companies who have gear for doing speeches, but not a rock show,” Kiefer continues. “And there are festival guys who have the equipment for a rock show, but don‘t know how to focus on the branding and corporate entity.”

“Technotrix provides equipment for a lot of festivals, so we came up with this combination platter for companies like Nike, Netflix or Southern Comfort to put the corporate brand into the rock environment and make them look good.”

In this case, Kevin and crew supplied a 45 by 45 foot concert roof system by Xtreme Structures for the lighting and audio. To ensure maximum coverage for an area roughly 200 by 250 feet, they used Martin Audio throughout: 12 W8LC enclosures hung left and right of the stage with 18 ground-stacked WSX subs, four WT2‘s for front fill, and LE12JB monitors on stage. In addition to Martin Audio amplifiers, the system consisted of Yamaha PM5DRH FOH and Monitor consoles and XTA processing. The lighting system featured Martin MAC700 profiles.

Commenting on the setup, Kevin explains, “basically, we set up the sound and lighting the day before. Load in and sound check started at 8 in the morning, and the gates opened about four in the afternoon. The only odd thing was getting through the sound checks for all five bands.”

“As it turned out, I was very happy with the sound and so was our client, Mowalla Productions who told us that Southern Comfort was pleased as well. In fact, they‘ve asked us back to do another event in St. Louis. The person we were working with from Mowalla hadn‘t used Martin Audio before, but he ended up being a fan. So we‘ll probably do more of these shows next year, which is best end result we could have hoped for.”

–RMB Combines Mobile Stage & Martin Audio W8LC Arrays For Maximum Sight & Sound At North Carolina Blues Festival–

Durham, North Carolina–Presented by the St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation, Inc., the 20 annual Bull Durham Blues Festival was held at the Historic Durham Athletic Park in downtown Durham and featured an impressive lineup of blues and R&B legends including Buddy Guy, Booker T. & The MG‘s, Percy Sledge, Shemekiah Copeland, Big Bill Morganfield (Muddy Waters‘ son), Betty Pride and a host of stellar North Carolina blues artists.

According to Raleigh Music Brokerage‘s Cooper Cannady, a longtime audio provider for the festival, “the weather was excellent and on Friday night, they set a record for attendance with 12,800 people filling the entire park. The night before, they had an excellent tribute show at another venue celebrating the 20th year of the festival, which honored Piedmont and Carolina blues legends John Dee Holman, Joe Thompson and the late Etta Baker. Opening was this really unique and fantastic group, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an African-American string-band under the tutelage of Joe Thompson, the last of the great North Carolina string-band players.”

Asked about the audio challenges for this year‘s blues and roots music get-together, Cannady describes one significant change: “We had been talking to the client about reconsidering everything, a new look, new stage, everything. After a course of three years, we finally got them into a mobile stage, which tightened up the sightlines, gave us more room and brought the visual focus into the stage. And with that stage, we could fly line arrays without having them look obtrusive. It gave us a nice clean look, with excellent access and the company we used for the mobile stage, Main Stage, did a terrific job.”

In order to provide maximum audio quality and coverage from the front to the back of the crowd, RMB flew nine Martin Audio W8LC compact line arrays.

As Cooper explains, “We really needed coverage from fifteen feet in front of the stage at the barricade lip to 400 ft. back, and we didn‘t even need to go that far because we wanted to keep it enclosed in the park. Nine W8LCs gave us a very comfortable level and everywhere you walked the coverage was absolutely seamless. It really sounded exceptional, all the way to 400 feet back within the park without any of the concert sound going into the neighborhood, which was important. The nice part was that the sound stayed on the field and all the seats.”

In addition to six Martin Audio W8S subs a side, LE700 biamped wedges and S18 drum subs, the sound system consisted of Yamaha M7CL consoles for Front of House and Monitoring. Lab Gruppen and Chevin Research amps, BSS Minidrives and a microphone complement that included Shure UHF wireless with Beta 87 capsules, Shure Beyer, Sennheiser, Crown and AKG.