Besides, the January weather in Anaheim was warm and sunny—a stark contrast to the blizzard conditions throughout most of the rest of the country. Given that tough assignment, I went looking for interesting sound reinforcement products. You can see my full report in the February issue of SVC, but to get you in the mood, I’ll let you in on one of NAMM’s big surprises. POWER AMPS!

Amps Gone Wild!
With a lot of speakers are going the self-powered route, power amps rarely get the spotlight. But there are still lots of pro applications requiring external power amps, and these were big news at NAMM, especially in lightweight/high-power packages.

The iNUKE Series amps from Behringer (behringer.com) use Class-D technology to put 1,000 to 6,000 watts into 7- or 12-pound packages. Also available are onboard DSP versions with 24-bit/96 kHz converters, delay-line compensation, crossovers, dynamics, parametric EQs and front-panel or Mac/PC access via USB.

Carver Professional (carver-audio.com) is back. The company showed its new Xi Series amps, which offer 370 to 870 w/channel into 4-ohms, with variable speed fans, LED status indicators, and rear-panel DIP switches for highpass/lowpass filters, soft-knee clip limiters and soft-startup limiting.

Crest Audio’s (crestaudio.com) Pro-LITE 2.0 and Pro-LITE 2.0 DSP amps feature a Class-D design and stable performance into 2-ohms. The Pro-LITE 2.0 and Pro-LITE 2.0 DSP boast 985 watts/channel, weigh less than 10 pounds, and are rock-solid in parallel, stereo and bridged modes.

The latest in QSC’s (qscaudio.com) GX Series, the GX7 has 1,000 w/ch at 4 ohms from a two-tier Class-H design weighing 15.5 pounds. It also has a low-noise, variable speed fan, built-in subwoofer/satellite crossover control, detented gain knobs, front-panel LED indicators and GuardRail amplifier and speaker protection. MSRP is $699.

The Crown (crownaudio.com) XTi 2 has enhanced control with Crown PeakX Plus limiters, crossovers, parametric EQ, delay, 30 onboard presets and an improved subharmonic synthesizer. Available in models from 500 to 2,100 w/channel (at 4 ohms), XTi 2 amps are also compatible with HiQnet Band Manager, a free app with a sleek function-driven interface that simplifies system setup/management.

Crown System Control App for iPhone/iPad

Got Wi-Fi?
And speaking of apps, if you don’t have an Apple iPad/iPhone, you might consider getting one soon, with all the pro apps for live sound users. There were plenty of clever new iPad remote controller apps at NAMM. And one of the most useful was the new Crown System Control App, which offers full control and monitoring of its networked I-Tech, I-Tech HD, CTs (with network PIP) and Macro Tech I amps, Ethernet-enabled devices and JBL Drivepack DPDA models. Its slick control includes the ability to select and import any desired controls from HiQnet System Architect custom panels.

The app is free from the Apple iTunes Store, There is a catch, however. As the Crown System Control App communicates via Wi-Fi, setting up a SECURE wireless network is a really good idea, to prevent unwanted control and monitoring of your system from others with this app. It’s good advice on any rig.

Drew began building hi-fi audio kits at age six and worked his way through college building amps for Gene Czwerinski at Vega (later Cerwin-Vega). In 1969, he mixed Procol Harum and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at the Palm Springs Pop Festival. An in-demand performer himself, Daniels was the musical director, singer and bass player in The New Christy Minstrels from 1971 to 1974. In 1974, Drew was hired at the renowned Sound Factory Recording studios, building electronics, maintaining equipment, designing acoustic echo chambers and engineering for recording artists such as Donovan, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor.

His long association with JBL began in 1976, with three years in the transducer laboratory doing laser holographic interferometry, acoustical modeling, prototyping and pattern making. From 1979 to 1983 Drew was applications engineer/technical specialist for TASCAM, and later wrote audio manuals for Gary Davis Associates, which led to being technical training manager for Fender’s pro sound division.

In 1985, he returned to JBL, serving five years as an applications engineer for JBL Professional. While at JBL, he consulted on sound system designs and designed audio systems for clients including television networks, performing arts auditoriums, municipal stadiums, amusement parks, and hundreds of large and small churches across the U.S. In 1989, he was recruited to do R&D at Walt Disney Imagineering and later became principal electroacoustic engineer in the Imagineering A/V department and designed park-wide audio systems for (and worked at) EuroDisney outside Paris.

The Educator

Drew was twice elected chairman of the Audio Engineering Society’s Los Angeles section (1983 and 1991), presented numerous AES Convention technical papers/workshops and produced and served as convention chair of technical tours and loudspeaker workshops. He taught performance sound system design and audio engineering at the Aspen Recording Institute, was a staff instructor of loudspeaker and acoustics technologies at USC, and taught physics, electronics, audio engineering and recording engineering at UCLA Extension for 15 years.

In 1992, Drew formed a consulting firm, Sound Path Labs, that specializing in electroacoustical component and system design, test and measurement, having three patents to his credit including a stereo-in-a-box technology he licensed to Fender Musical Instruments, and a super-woofer loudspeaker designed to replace three of conventional units, the subject of patents for Aura Systems. Sound Path Labs developed into a commercial recording/mastering studio and post facility having released or mastered hundreds of CDs.

Drew Daniels “was truly a “one of a kind” and will long be remembered by his many friends and associates in the audio industry and surely be missed by all.

Vintage Sennheiser MD-421

THERE AREN’T MANY LIVE SOUND MIC DESIGNS that are still being used a half-century later, but the Sennheiser MD-421 is just as useable today as it was on its debut in 1960. And now, some 50 years later, it’s still a favorite mic for drums, percussion, horns, guitar cabinets and vocals.

THE PREDECESSOR… Introduced in 1953, Sennheiser’s MD-21 dynamic microphone was rugged, reliable, good sounding and available in available in five colors. It remained in production for decades. However, the basic, no-frills MD-21 was an omnidirectional model, so in 1959, company founder Dr. Fritz Sennheiser worked with design engineers Paul-Friedrich Warning and Johann-Friedrich Fischer to take the design to the next step.

NEW MIC ON THE BLOCK… The project was the MD-421, a rugged dynamic mic that could provide a tight cardioid directivity pattern that was consistent at nearly all frequencies. It also featured the capability to handle extremely high sound pressure levels (up to 175 dB!), a hum compensation coil to prevent EMI/RFI interference and a 5-step low-frequency attenuation circuit for tweaking bass response.

The MD-421 had to provide studio-quality frequency response (30 Hz to 17 kHz) and be able to be manufactured in relatively large quantities. It was a tall order, but the development team went to work.

In any pro mic design, the capsule and electronics are the most difficult part of the design process, but with the MD-421, extreme attention was also paid to controlling low frequency directivity and assuring consistent polar response. This was accomplished using four rear vents near the rear of the mic, felt damping at the rear of the mic body, internal damping within the capsule and a bass pre-emphasis tube that provided airflow between the capsule interior and a large air chamber within the mic body. A cutaway diagram of the MD-421 reveals the complexity of a design that resembles a jet engine more than a dynamic microphone, with multiple air chambers, venting tubes and dampening material used inside the body cavity. Download this cutaway diagram of the MD-421 for a look into the complexity of the mic’s design.

The MD-421′s body was made of DuPont Delrin polymer resin, which had just become available the year before, and 50 years later, the MD-421 remains one of the few professional audio microphones featuring a molded (now glass composite) body.

The MD-421 was launched at Germany’s Hannover Fair in 1960 and carried a price tag of 180 Deutschmarks (about $45 USD). The original version was available with Tuchel or DIN output connectors; an XLR model followed years later. But in any version, the MD-421 was an instant success.

THE PRESENT AND BEYOND… Today, the next-generation MD-421-II incorporates improvements such as a metal inner chassis for better weight distribution, a shorter, sleeker housing and self-sealing (non-adhesive) acoustic connections for improved serviceability. And with some 500,000 units in use since 1960, the MD-421 has definitely earned the well-deserved distinction of an audio classic. Read about the current Sennheiser MD-421-II.
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George Petersen’s most recent project is co-producing Chelle and Friends’ “Voodooville: A Celebration of New Orleans,” a surround-audio DVD of funk/blues/jazz insired from The Big Easy.

Recycle, reuse: A great new life for an old vending machine

ONCE UPON A TIME, THEY WERE EVERYWHERE, but these days, about the only place you’ll see a cigarette vending machine is in a bar, strip club or other business that restricts admission to minors. Other than those few exceptions, I occasionally run across old cigarette machines—usually rusting away in backroom storage areas and basements of clubs and older movie theaters.

Recently I was amused by a photo sent to me by my friend Steve Savanyu, who’s the Director of Educational Services for audio manufacturer Audio-Technica. Steve’s also an adjunct professor at Kent State University’s school of journalism/mass communication. He’s a smart guy and whenever he has something to say, it’s worth hearing.

Back to our story… A while ago, Steve was backstage at the Blossom Music Center, a large, state-of-the-art performing arts complex in Cuyahoga Falls Ohio. He forwarded me this intriguing photo, that showed where some enterprising individual converted an old, obsolete (50-cent/pack) cigarette machine to a new functionality: Selling disposable foam earplugs to stagehands and crew members who may have forgotten to bring their own plugs to setups and soundchecks. At $0.50/pair, there’s no huge profit potential here, but as a public service, the idea’s brilliant and has a lot of merit.

With the very real risk of hearing loss to patrons (as well as crews) at today’s way-too-loud shows and performances, maybe other people could pick up on this great notion—and place these in prominent public areas at venues. But either way, a pack of earplugs is definitely more healthy than a pack of smokes. Definitely.

Live mixer extraordinaire Buford Jones (far right) hosts a lively panel discussion at Mix Nashville 2009.

THIS WAS A TOUGH YEAR FOR MIDDLE TENNESSEE. And it was especially hard on Soundcheck, Nashville’s premiere live sound showcase for tour rehearsals, with off-the-road storage for instruments and backline for major tours, and on-site offices for leading companies such as Meyer Sound, Shure, Digital Console Rentals, Fender, Peavey, Tour Supply Inc., and others. And back in mid-May, when the once-in-a-century rains caused the Cumberland River to rise well over its flood stages, Soundcheck was at ground zero, and in a matter of hours was completely submerged. We had planned to host our sister publication’s annual Mix Nashville live sound and recording series just days later, and postponed the event until September 13 and 14, 2010.

Meanwhile in those months since the waters subsided, Soundcheck has been going nearly 24/7 to get back on line, pulling out drenched sheetrock, tearing out soaked carpeting, re-wiring and re-building, while rare guitars and amps went into a dry triage facility, where world-class restoration specialists went to work. Now, after this almost Herculean effort, Soundcheck is back.

It took a while to line up new dates for Mix Nashville that would work for sponsors, attendees and, most importantly, Nashville’s audio community. But we’re moving full-steam ahead with our favorite event of the year. Nashville is a recording town and there are plenty of programs catering to the studio crowd, but we’re also offering expanded programming, with two full days of presentations and panels focusing on live sound.

Hosted by Meyer Sound and Yamaha, Soundcheck’s Studio D will be the central point for all things Live, with three presentations each day from the sponsors, and I’ll be moderating two stellar industry panels featuring top-level industry pros offering advice and insights from their years of experience. The first, on Monday afternoon at 2:30pm, is “Sound System Meets Venue—Selecting The Right Playback Package,â€? which given the selection of range of gear available today, will look into answering some tough questions about creating the right system for any installation. At 2:30pm on Tuesday, the topic will shift to “What’s Next? Technologies That Will Drive the Next Five Years in Sound Reinforcement.â€? And with all that’s going on—from consoles to plug-ins to processors to snakes to system control to wireless—this should provide a fascinating glimpse into determining what’s around the corner and on the horizon.

Best of all, the event is FREE to all greater Nashville residents, and a mere $39 for earlybird registrants from outside Davidson County. Visit the Mix Nashville website today for all information and links to registration. Hope to see you there!

He experimented with capsules having front and rear openings that allowed sound waves to reach the diaphragm. Partially blocking the rear openings created a short phase delay that effectively cancelled the sounds from the rear. Varying the rear port resistance created various directional patterns—cardioid, hypercardioid and supercardioid—and the Unidyne was born. In 1939, Shure announced its model Unidyne 55.

The model 55 was an immediate hit. With its clear sound, high feedback resistance and rugged dynamic capsule the 55 became accepted as a standard for decades to come. Numerous improvements followed, and with its popularity in the early days of rock, the 55 eventually took on the nickname “the Elvis mic,� even being immortalized on a portrait of The King on a U.S. postage stamp in 1994. With retro looks fully in vogue, Shure rechristened the mic as the 55SH Series II in 1996, bearing the model 55S body introduced in 1951, but with a modern SM48-style element. And like the 1939 version, the 55SH Series II was also a hit, with the showing up on stages, music videos, movies, TV shows—just about everywhere.

ENTER THE SUPER 55
Now, the 55 enters its latest generation as the Super 55, which keeps the cool chrome-plated, die-cast zinc body, but updates the mic with a new supercardioid capsule based on Shure’s successful Beta 58A. The Super 55 has a sensitivity of -53 dBV/Pa, resulting an output that’s approximately 5dB hotter than that of the 55SH II for increased gain-before-feedback. As another plus, the frequency response extends out to 17kHz, providing some extra air and articulation. At the other end, the Super 55’s bass response is smoother and seems more controlled, while the mic retains the 6k to 7 kHz presence boost that helps vocals cut through the mix. One change I appreciated was the omission of the on/off switch, which more often than not, would inadvertently get switched off, leaving vocalists starting a show with no audio. I’m definitely a fan of the “no switch/no problem� approach.

With its blue internal foam windscreen, the Super 55 retails at $311 ($249/street) and the original SH55 II remains in production at $199. And just last week, Shure announced the Special Edition Super 55 ($299 retail) a version with striking black body and red windscreen and offered exclusively through Guitar Center. But whichever model you pick, Shure is definitely making it easy to stay cool this summer.

Click here for more info on the Shure Super 55.

The CTS Certified Technology Specialist Exam Guide will cover all exam content outline objectives and will include objective callouts at the beginning of each chapter, exam tips, and practice questions with in-depth explanations. Featuring more than 300 photos and illustrations, the 816-page book will come with a CD-ROM containing two practice exams and an e-book.

The CTS Certified Technology Specialist Exam Guide is slated for a December 2010 release, and will be available at major booksellers. It’s definitely a step in the right direction. Bravo!

Founded just a year ago—and celebrating its first birthday at InfoComm—the AVnu Alliance is dedicated to advancing pro-quality audio video by promoting IEEE 802.1 Audio/Video Bridging (AVB) standards over various networking link-layers. AVnu promotes the benefits of AVB technologies and will create compliance test procedures and processes that insure AVB interoperability of networked A/V devices, with the goal of better A/V experiences for end users. For anyone involved in the installation/manufacturing/sales/distribution/operation of A/V products—meaning everybody in our industry—AVnu is a good thing.

And learning more about AVB is a good thing. This month’s InfoComm show is the ideal opportunity for contractors to learn more about the practical benefits of the emerging AVB standards. To that end, the alliance will host a technology and product pavilion in the main hall at Booth C7934 on the show floor with various Alliance companies demonstrating their use of AVB. The Alliance members also invite all InfoComm attendees to their first-birthday celebration at the pavilion on Thursday, June 10 at 4:00 pm.

Keeping with education theme, “Designing The World’s First Ethernet AVB Systems with HiQnet System Architect�—a training session hosted by Harman—will focus on configuring an Ethernet AVB system in a House of Worship system design. It happens Wednesday June 9 from 2:30 to 4:30 at Room N208.

Also not to be missed is a panel discussion on Friday, June 11 moderated by InfoComm’s Dan Goldstein, presenting a detailed explanation of AVB, the advantages of this open, non-proprietary technology and the importance of a compliance program in promoting the interoperability of AVB devices.

For more information about AVnu, AVB, and the AVnu Alliance—including detailed white papers on various aspects of the technology—visit www.AVnu.org. For more information about Infocomm, go to www.infocommshow.org.

Dr. Fritz Sennheiser
Born in Berlin on May 9, 1912, Fritz Sennheiser’s father wanted him to study landscape architecture, but with the 1929 stock market crash, the 17-year-old saw little future in landscaping during those perilous times and instead entered the electrical engineering/telecommunications program at Berlin’s Technical University. After attaining his PhD, World War II broke out and Dr. Sennheiser continued his research, heading the Institute for Radio Frequency Engineering and Electroacoustics in Hannover.

In 1945, post-war Germany was in shambles. In June of that year, Sennheiser founded Laboratorium Wennebostel (“Labor W�) with a staff of seven employees in an abandoned laboratory of Hanover’s Technical University. German scientists were then prohibited from doing radio technology research, so Sennheiser used his savings to create a business making millivoltmeters for Siemens.

Soon after, Labor W was contracted to build microphones for Siemens. Later, the team designed its own mic, debuting the MD2 dynamic in 1947. The company expanded into other products, such as amps, intercoms, transformers, and headphone capsules. Based on a lab model developed in 1949, the 1956 MD 82 was the first shotgun mic. A move into wireless mics followed a year later.

By 1958, the company had 450 employees and changed its name to Sennheiser Electronic. Sales grew tenfold, but Sennheiser always returned to the community, splitting his time between running the company and teaching at Hannover Technical University—a tradition continued by his son, current company chairman, Prof. Dr. Jörg Sennheiser.

In 1982 on Dr. Fritz Sennheiser’s 70th birthday, the management of the company was transferred from father to son, but this did not change Sennheiser Electronic’s role as a technology leader. The company has received numerous accolades in this regard, including a 1987 award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for the industry-standard MKH 816 shotgun mic, and a 1996 Emmy for developments in RF wireless.

Sennheiser Electronics is successful, but the business integrity instilled by Dr. Fritz Sennheiser remains a priority. Son Jörg Sennheiser once refused a lucrative deal to produce 200,000 weatherproof mic capsules when he realized they were to be used as land mine triggers. Yet this concern for others has always been the company way, a policy dating back to the early days of Labor W, when Dr. Fritz Sennheiser invested his savings to create jobs for his co-workers.

Dr. Fritz Sennheiser’s years of innovation, combined with a sense of caring and creating a family atmosphere at work live on in the company he started 65 years ago. He will not be forgotten.

DiGiCo came on strong with its (www.digico.biz) SD9, a small-footprint 32-in, 16-out (expandable to 64×32) digital live console that can simultaneously record 56 channels directly to multitrack software or DAW.

Need bass? The M421 from McCauley Sound (www.mccauleysound.com) is a sub box with four 21-inch woofers. Specs include 13,000-watt handling and 146dB max SPL peaks.

Designed for front-fill, under-balcony and small theater systems, Meyer Sound’s (www.meyersound.com) low-profile Mina curvilinear array is a 1.5-foot long, 47-pound package that outputs up to 128 dB.

Musikmesse/ProLight+Sound returns to Frankfurt next year April 6 to 9, 2011. Meanwhile, for more Musikmesse fun—including video demos from the show floor from our sister publications Mix and Electronic Musician—visit www.emusician.com/musikmesse_2010. Auf Wiedersehen!