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…

We’re going to Seattle for the Decibel Festival! EAW has agreed to provide two very different PAs for two very different venues at this week-long electronic music conflagration held each year on the last week in September in our other hometown, Seattle, WA, USA.

Last week in September…right, that’s this week! We better pack.

We’ve talked amongst ourselves about working with dB for a couple of years, and this year we found a way to make it work. We’re totally geeked!

Here’s the basics. For headliner Orbital (Thu.) and The Cannabinoids featuring Erykah Badu (Fri.) at the Paramount Theater, we’re partnering with HAS Productions – the first Red Certified™ KF740 provider – to deliver an innovative solution to this notoriously difficult movie palace converted into concert venue.

And in Neumos, typically a rock club, we’re bringing our own Avalon by EAW™ system for the whole shebang –five showcase performances, Wednesday through Sunday. Each showcase features a different style of music, so we’ll get a wide range of opinions on how the system performs.

Dealing with a Movie Palace

Many…

KF740s to Power Paramount Theater’s HeadlineActs – Avalon by EAW™ to Destroy Neumos

We’ve just sent out a press release announcing that Eastern Acoustic Works® (EAW™) will deliver sound reinforcement solutions for two key venues at the Decibel Festival™, an annual electronic music event held in Seattle, Washington, USA. EAW’s KF740 line array system will serve as front-of-house PA for Decibel’s headline events in the acoustically notorious Paramount Theater. EAW will partner with Las Vegas-based Hall Audio Systems, the first-ever EAW Red Certified™ Company. Separately, EAW’s Application Support Group will install a temporary Avalon by EAW™ dance club system in Neumos, where VIP parties will proceed five nights of performance sets and after parties. The release was sent out to EAW’s current editorial media list. If you are a journalist or editor and would like to receive our press releases, please email EAW PR.

This past week, I had the great fortune to attend the very first of EAW’s new KF740 Red Certification training program at the H.A.S. Productions shop in Las Vegas NV.

Presented by EAW’s veteran audio instructor Bernie Broderick, this 2-day instructional program included everything from basic audio physics, hands-on rigging and assembly of the KF740 line array to an in-depth study and hands-on training with both of EAW’s revolutionary software systems: Resolution™ and Pilot™.

The class provided me with a hard-copy manual covering the entire content of the training course, which included some very cool real-world, value-added audio tips as well.

I found the Red Certification training manual to be both extremely well written and easy to understand and follow. Lot’s of helpful illustrations too!

The class included a complete step-by-step PowerPoint presentation, whereby questions from attendees were strongly encouraged at all times. Yes, we had plenty of questions!

I was most impressed by how easy both the Resolution and Pilot…

Call them “post-grunge”; call them “alternative metal”. Whatever genre you put Filter in, the fact remains that this band is loud and aggressive. It’s not likely that this act would be satisfied with a PA that’s anything short of explosive.

So it might be somewhat meaningful that after their recent gig at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel’s Rehab Pool, Filter front-of-house engineer Jack Saurez said:

Such a small box with so much power - I can’t imagine doing another gig without a KF740 rig. It just wouldn’t be the same. And the bottom end is amazing!! (Jack’s exclamation points, not ours. Ed.)

Once again, Larry Hall and his team at H. A. S. Productions (HAS) delivered a PA that added yet another top FOH engineer to the list of audio pros that love the KF740.

For this gig, Larry’s Resolution™ models showed that he only needed six KF740 modules per side to blast the outdoor, poolside venue with, well, Filter. We should note that the 12 SB2001 dual-21 inch subwoofers, arranged in Larry’s bent cardioid array detailed here, might have influenced Mr. Suarez’s opinion of the bottom end.

For front fill, HAS used a pair of KF200NT compact, self-powered, three-way systems that he…

Our friends at Dallas-based Gemini Light, Sound & Video just returned from a month-long tour with four superstars of old-school soul and R & B on the Summer Fest tour. Hitting 17 dates over 33 days, Summer Fest featured Frankie Beverly, Patti LaBelle, Babyface and The O’Jays.

To power these performers in the large-scale venues that booked the tour, Gemini used arrays comprising 16 KF740 three-way, line array modules per side. Four KF730 three-way systems distributed as single elements across the stage lip provided immediate front fill. Finally, left and right 3-high by 4-wide arrays of SB1000 dual 18-in subwoofers delivered the bottom end.

The photo at left shows the tour in a semi-enclosed amphitheater (aka, a shed). These venues did not require any side fill arrays because the KF740′s true 90 degree horizontal dispersion ensured adequate coverage of the wings. In other venues such as indoor arenas with seating to the side of the stage, arrays comprising 8 KF740s per side delivered extreme side fill coverage.

Gemini powered all these loudspeaker systems with Powersoft K2 and K3 amps, using…

Bernie Broderick, Technical Training Manager with EAW’s Application Support Group, has delivered the first day of the first-ever Red Certification training program at H.A.S. Productions in Bernie’s adopted hometown of Las Vegas, NV, USA. In addition to the crew at HAS, audio luminary and front-of-house engineer extraordinaire Martin Frey is taking the class.

As you can see from the photo above, the first day includes a healthy dose of hands-on EAW Resolution™ training. By the way, photo credits here go to none other than Martin Frey.

It says quite a bit about Martin that, even though he enjoys a stellar reputation as an absolute master of live concert sound and one of the most knowledgeable engineers in the industry, he insisted that he be part of the first group to take this class. That’s how seriously he takes the craft: if there’s something to learn, he wants to learn it.

But it also says something about Bernie and the Red Certification training. Martin Frey is not going to take just _any_ audio training; Martin wants to learn something new, something to expand the…

Since the spring, hip hop artist Mac Miller has been wowwing audiences with a KF740 line array system provided by Showtime Sound. We recently caught up with the production house to pull together a press release. Showtime President Scott Tydings says:

“The system was perfect right out of the box. We knew what would work well for Mac’s tour, and the EAW equipment was the perfect choice for it. The bottom end was exceptionally good. It just sounded great, no matter what size or type venue we were working in, from 1,500 people to 6,500. It was such a flexible PA that sounded great in any configuration, which is exactly what you want when you have an artist who is on his way up and the venues will be varied from night to night.”

In addition to the KF740 main arrays, the full system includes KF750/KF755 outfills, SB1000z subwoofers and JF80 stage lip fills. It’s all powered by Lab.gruppen PLM Series amps with onboard…

Eastern Acoustic Works® is thrilled to announce that world-renowned FOH mix engineer Martin Frey has endorsed EAW® Red Certified KF740 arrays for main PA loudspeakers.

From the press release:

“Martin Frey is known for working with artists with an extraordinary commitment to delivering top-quality live sound in large-scale venues,” EAW President Jeff Rocha said. “That he chooses to specify EAW Red Certified KF740 systems shows that proper use of the complete EAW tool kit ensures that KF740 owners can deliver consistent performance that is second to none.”

“The KF740 is one of the best line array loudspeakers I’ve ever used,” Frey said, “but that’s not enough to get me to endorse a product. Between Resolution software, the Powercubes with on-board DSP amps, the Greybox DSP approach and the Powertools tool kit, choosing a Red Certified PA vendor becomes a zero-risk decision. If you follow the step-by-step process to design, implement and optimize the system, you’re virtually guaranteed a good result.”

“For me, the learning never ends,” Frey continued. “Acoustical science is a complex field, and sound reinforcement technology continues to advance. Nobody can claim to be fully trained. EAW Red Certification…

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When we left Las Vegas after InfoComm 2012, we left 8 pairs of the new KF740 Zero Degree Adapters with our friends at H. A. S. Productions. They’re getting used pretty much constantly, but this photo really caught our eye.

This is a 3 Doors Down show held July 4, 2012 at the Fremont Street Experience, which is kind of like a street, except it’s covered with a giant roof and there aren’t any cars. It is, in fact, Fremont Street or what used to be Fremont Street, but it’s, well…maybe you better go to Las Vegas and check it out for yourself.

This array flies 16x KF740 modules per side, with the top 4 modules ‘flat-fronted’ to generate on-axis projection. At around 106 lbs per module, that’s just over 1.5 tons of main loudspeakers to cover 15,000 listeners. Not too shabby from a cost:benefit angle, is it?

This other photo…