VIDEO: Where the Streets Have No Name

Several have asked for a new mix sample on the new PA, so here you go.  We did this song this past weekend as the service closer.  It kind of puts together a bunch of the techniques and tools I’ve written about recently – D12E on kick and 414s on overheads, guitar mics, upward compression on the drums and vocal, etc.  Check it out!

VIDEOBLOG: Behind the Scenes at Hard Rock

Here’s a video I ran across on Mixonline.com that’s close to my heart. FOH mixer Nick Simons gives a tour of The Joint, the new 4,100-seat performance venue at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas, which features an extensive d&b audiotechnik installation with remote monitoring of all functions, Digidesign D-Show Profile mixers and BSS London control of processing and zone control.

When we started out on the plan to revamp the audio system at Kensington Troy last summer, moving from the Yamaha PM1D to the Digidesign platform, a new PA, new microphones, etc. this is a profile of a similarly designed system. Worth the watch!

Videoblog: PQ Tour

Videoblog: FOH Tour

Easter 09: Behind the Scenes

Here’s a video I shot while we were in the middle of our run with a little backstage tour.  (RSS readers, head to the site to see the video)

It seems the biggest question we’ve gotten is how we did the big screens that move. You see a little bit of them in the video above but I’m not one to focus too much on video! However, those screens were THE set element in the day, so there were a lot of resources dedicated to getting it right. Believe it or not, it’s actually really simple to implement.

First, the projector and screen are mounted to a “wagon” of sorts so they always move together and the alignment remains perfect. That wagon rides on two tracks that are drilled into the stage, one at the front under the screen and one at the back under the projector section. The tracks are just long enough to account for how close and far the screens need to be from each other, with just enough break in the center for the drums and keys decks to fit through, and just enough break on the offstage sides for the Megabeats percussion and Slam Grand piano to get on and off stage. We experimented with a few different castor types and means of moving the wagons to find the smoothest option.

Second, each screen/projector wagon is connected to a long bar that is painted black and runs along the floor to off stage. Each wagon has a stage hand dedicated to it, and they pull or push the bar, moving the screens in and out to spiked positions based on calls from the Stage Manager. Obviously it took some practice to get them to be comfortable moving at the same speed.

Third, the screens are 9ft x 12ft. They are each fed an output from the video switcher, allowing us to feed them video content from 2 discreet Doremi Labs Nugget players (one for each screen) or PVP/Powerpoint. All of the “blended” video content was created in Final Cut and then exported as two discreet video feeds that play in sync with each other through the Nugget.

I think that covers it. If there’s something else I missed, ask away!

Easter 09: Video Part 1

The music for this service has been some of my favorite that we’ve ever done in my time at Kensington.  Today is the elements from the front half of the service, tomorrow is the back half!

The theme for the service was based on 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” God takes the trash and junk of our lives and makes us into new creations every day!

The opener began with this…

Which transitioned into this…

After a drama about life crashing down for a married couple, this song came next leading into the message. This is a KCC original, written by lead vocalist, Danny Cox.

Come back tomorrow for the back half of the service!