Location: Seattle, Washington USA
Moderated by: Dan Mortensen - AES PNW Section Chair
Speaker(s): Christina Moon, Jesse Turner, Vince Agne - Independent LIve Sound Engineers
At our wonderful October meeting about microphones, there was a lively discussion about performers who wrap their hand around the microphone head and thereby simultaneously kill the directionality of the cardioid microphone and degrade the frequency response. Although both those things adversely affect the ability to faithfully reproduce the source signal, the practice continues widespread in certain circles containing widely beloved and respected artists, and the resulting concert experiences repeatedly sell millions of concert tickets all over the world. From the performers' perspective, they are using a comfortable technique that does exactly what they want it to do and gives the look they want, and will most likely have no interest in suggestions from strangers how to better do what they do. Their technique and its results are already known and loved by legions of fans, or else they're emulating other performers who do just that.
With live concert sound being a service industry, it's obvious that if the providers aren't delivering the desired level of service, either in terms of perceived quality or from argumentative bad vibes, the clients will look elsewhere the next time or even at that moment in the case of individual engineers. Engineers who don't want to be sent out of the building have to find a way to do their job.
So how do the monitor and FOH engineers achieve the desired goals and continue working those shows?
We'll find out from a group of respected live sound engineers who work all over the world, and invite you to join us and share your experiences in this area.
Our presenters will be:
Our moderator will be Dan Mortensen, current AES PNW Section Chair and owner of a smallish live sound company for nearly 50 years.
This is a hybrid Zoom and In-Person meeting, with registration for both required through Eventbrite. The in-person part will be at the warehouse of a very large concert PA provider in Seattle, Washington, USA, and if you join us online we will do our best so you can interact with us just as if you were there. Questions will be welcomed at any time, and relevant experiences and arguments will be similarly welcomed. Attendees whether online or in-person must sign up for either free or make-a-donation tickets that are otherwise equal, and make a choice at that time for in-person or online attendance.
Since we may be through with COVID but it is clearly not through with us, all in-person attendees including staff will be required to wear masks appropriately at all times during the meeting. We will provide water, and you can move your mask while the bottle is at your lips. If that's unacceptable, please feel free to join us online.
We will do our best to simulate a live concert experience in the warehouse, and our guests will demonstrate their techniques in real time at real volume levels, so you may want to bring appropriate ear protection for yourself. The room will get loud, since that's a big part of what we're trying to show, how an omni mic, or a bunch of them, can be made to work in the path of a big PA.
We'll have cameras pointing at the presenters and the screens they're operating, so we can see what they are doing as they are doing it, and the audio from the console will be routed into the Zoom (Original Sound ON) so you can hear what they are doing.
If this sounds as much like your idea of fun as it does ours, we hope you'll join us.
Presenter bios, and the EventBrite link can be found at our website.
Posted: Tuesday, January 17, 2023
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