Boston, MA, May 15, 2013 – Eastern Acoustic Works® (EAW®) delivered a temporary sound system to the House of Blues in Boston for a one-night performance by alt-rock powerhouse Paramore, whose front-of-house engineer Eddie Mapp (photo at left) requested the opportunity to use the system. According to EAW President Jeff Rocha, Mapp had visited EAW’s Whitinsville, MA factory during Anya’s development and had heard the system at Coachella, but schedules prevented him from using the system in a live performance.

“Eddie gave us valuable insight during the development process for Anya,” Rocha said. “When we saw that Paramore’s schedule brought them through Boston, we reached out to the House of Blues to see if we could get Eddie a chance to mix on Anya. The team at House of Blues was fantastic about this unusual request, and the result has been great.”

Like many large concert halls, the House of Blues in Boston features a large, steeply-raked balcony notorious for challenging sound reinforcement systems, particularly in that it reaches high above the PA. Many traditional line array systems struggle to cover areas “above the hang”….

In Part 1, we discussed why datasheets can be misleading and why, even though an industry standard is not realistic, EAW needed to develop a rock-solid internal standard that enabled us to move into more advanced areas of development.

In Part 2, we will discuss these more advanced design tools in some detail. While most of the industry knows that Resolution™ is our modeling software system, only a certain portion is aware of a piece of software called F-Chart™ that is the mathematical genius behind our entire process.

How F-Chart Works

In 1997, when EAW was developing the KF900 system, we relied on a new piece of EAW-produced software called F-Chart. F-Chart enabled EAW engineers to combine data from multiple drivers as would occur in an array and predict total array response at a range of points along the vertical axis.

The key to this process as outlined in the KF900 / Phased Point Source Technology white paper was to accurately capture in situ data from each individually processed transducer at each of the points…

Indio, CA, April 12, 2013 – Influential sound reinforcement company Rat Sound deployed the new Anya  ™ system from Eastern Acoustic Works® (EAW®) at the Coachella Festival’s Gobi tent. The system employed seven Anya modules per side with a single out fill module flanking a main column of six. This was the first use of the new Anya system for a public event, and the Coachella Festival is one of the largest and best known in the world.

Rat Sound principals Dave Rat and Jon Monson, who worked with EAW to develop the MicroWedge™ line of stage monitors, contributed throughout the research and development process for Anya. According to EAW President Jeff Rocha, the decision to deploy the initial pilot build for the high-profile event came relatively late in the planning cycle.

“When Dave and Jon came to the factory to work with the final engineering prototypes, they asked if they could use the first 16-module build live at Coachella,” Rocha said. “Naturally, we were thrilled to showcase our new product at one of our industry’s most important and demanding events.”

The Coachella Festival,…

In the marketing silliness running up to Anya’s debut at the Coachella Festival, we said, “There is no datasheet. There can never be a datasheet. It’s all very Zen.”

While, of course, we will have a datasheet very soon, the reality of adequately documenting Anya is proving difficult. In order to understand what an “Anya datasheet” means, we need to review what these documents represent to the market and how they are created.

Long story short: they don’t tell you a lot and may well be misleading.

Even within our own hallways, even with our rigorous S3 process, high-level executives recently had a conversation about positioning the JF213 vs. the JFL210. How could we say that the JFL213, with its lower HF section maximum output, delivered more HF compared to the JFL210? The answer is that the JFL213’s HF section delivers more even broadband response, especially in the top octave but at a slightly lower average level compared to the JFL210′s HF section, which is a little “peakier” and rolls off a little faster through the…

All operations are go. Rogue protocol ends at zero hour. Maintain deniability. Prepare for declassification.

The agent organizes assets and reports to control. Control provides operational parameters. On command, the agent carries out the operation. During the operation, continuous communication ensures that control achieves maximum effect from the agent.

Anya™ is the agent.

What is Anya?

Anya is not a product, not a thing. Or if she is a thing, she is many things.

The module is not Anya, but Anya is the module. Resolution™ software is not Anya, but Anya is Resolution.

Anya is neither the module nor Resolution, but she is both the module and Resolution. Anya is the intelligence that connects these two things and makes them something new.

As we said before, it’s all very Zen.

Anya Knows Who She Is

As soon as you give her power, Anya organizes the modules in all the arrays and presents them to Resolution software as complex but unified entities. Through Anya, each module, each transducer understands its location in relation to all other modules or transducers.

Except by user choice, Resolution only addresses Anya arrays as unified entities. Anya identifies and addresses individual modules. It is, amongst other things, her job.

Anya Can Self-Assess

Each module carries a set of self-diagnostic tools, both electronic and acoustic….

Infiltrators discovered preparatory materials. Redaction has occurred, but the exposure is serious.

It’s true. Her name is Anya™, and you are about to fall in love.

Falling in Love

Everything about Anya is designed to make you fall in love with her. She is everything you could possibly want. Smart, beautiful, tough, a little bit dangerous but loyal and a hard worker.

When you work with her – like when you fall in love – you will experience a strange familiarity; you’ll immediately know what to do. But it will also be new and amazing. Like falling in love.

You will fall in love with Anya because she returns your affection by making your world a lot simpler.

What is “Simple”?

On the back of an Anya module, there’s a touch pad. No lights are on. One of the lights is marked “Test”, and it is connected to a button that says “Press”.

1. What do you do?
2. What are the two most likely outcomes?

(3 minutes. Show all work.)

Every single aspect is like this – spectacularly simple and familiar. Anya is amazing, but she’s not baffling. She’s mostly a normal PA, except that she’s not. Her normal components, though, are completely normal.

Normal connectors. Normal transducers and horns, or at least “EAW…

Rogue Protocol is now in effect. Encrypt all messages. Operational directives will come from a contact known to you but not from within your own cell. Use red cipher.

It’s no secret that EAW has a secret or that EAW has had a secret for quite a long time. I hate to disappoint you, but it’s still a secret.

EAW Admits to Product Development

For the better part of three years, EAW Engineering has been working on a very “EAW” kind of idea. And by “EAW”, I mean crazy. It’s the kind of idea that sensible companies discard immediately as an impractical R&D nightmare.

But if you’re reading this blog post, you already know that impractical R&D nightmares are the very life blood of EAW. EAW President Jeff Rocha is himself an engineer, as is LOUD Technologies CEO Mark Graham. How could we _not_ do it, right?

Thanks to fantastic support from Mark and the new team at LOUD, we have been able to complete this impractical R&D nightmare to stunning result.

So, yes, it’s all true. We have made a very interesting machine.

Further Confession: It Makes Sound

This one you probably guessed already from Dave Rat’s post on…

 On Day Two, we brought in our Avalon by EAW system for DJs and EDM performers, comprising a pair of SUB.two’s and a pair of CLUB.three’s in Polar white and Machine grey. We also spent some more time tuning the main KF740 PA. That night we enjoyed some great sets by Tall, Tall Trees and Kishi Bashi. (Photo at left shows Kishibashi with Tall Tall Trees (at right).)

But this still wasn’t South by Southwest.

South by… For Real

The real SXSW events started on Day Three with a massive party thrown by local arts and entertainment website Do512. Four bands, mostly new folk acts, played the main stage with DJ Kidslyce covering the changeovers.

The photo at left can’t express the degree to which everybody everywhere was having a wild-good time. The line stretched around the block for hours and still had 20 people at midnight. And when those Avalon subs got to thumpin’…well, you know what can happen.

Day Four Preview

Tonight’s party, thrown by interactive marketers MRY, features only two DJs on the main stage, so we brought the…

Load-in, Part 1

Even though the first part of South by Southwest – the Interactive Conference – doesn’t start until Friday, the first wave of EAW staff and our associated partners are already onsite at The Belmont. The first order of business is to strike the existing PA so we can fly the temporary KF740 rig supplied by our long-standing partner Gemini Light, Sound & Video from Dallas. (Photo at left: Gemini’s Chad Cain cables the stage right array.)

Our regional factory representative firm Aldridge Marketing pitched in with some NTS250 powered subwoofer systems they had in their inventory as well as a wicked cool matrix to help us manage signal flow amongst the three separate PAs we’ll have set up.

Local riggers Shur-Rig have supplied new, safety-rated rigging points to set the main arrays as far to the corners of the stage as possible, opening up sightlines for the large numbers of video cameras that will record and potentially televise some of these events.

Austin-based Big House Sound, who installed the existing PA and have worked with the venue for years…

Yesterday, we posted to Facebook about a story we saw announcing that DJ Magazine has moved their Winter Music Conference pool parties to the Delano Hotel. Again for 2013, EAW will supply the Delano with a world-class Avalon by EAW™ sound system. (Photo: Benny Benassi at WMC 2012)

Unlike last year, we will have four SUB.two hybrid subwoofer systems to power the dance floor. And, unlike last year, the Delano will run programming for the entire WMC event. Keep any eye on DJ Magazine for more info on their events.

South by Southwest

Before we can get to the Delano, however, we will spend the better part of two weeks in Austin, TX, where we’ll bring a KF740 systems and a separate Avalon by EAW system to The Belmont for their South by Southwest events.

The Belmont is a “buy-out” venue, meaning that client organizations book the venue for one or more days to produce their concerts. One client that has already announced their line up is The Warner Sound. They will be showcasing acts…