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Behind The Board – NEXT Charity Concert Series And Captain Lawrence Brewery

In a couple days, we will be working at a new venue (as previously mentioned) with the NEXT Music Charity Concert Series. We’re really excited by this one. We will be working at the Captain Lawrence Brewery in Elmsford, NY on August 23rd, inside the brewery enjoying craft beers and one of America’s greatest bands, Black Taxi. Originally this was scheduled to be outside, but there are a few factors preventing an outside show there at the moment. We  are working towards returning to that plan, but in the mean time we have a huge warehouse full of beer to play with!

This will however, present us with some new challenges as we will be in quite the harsh environment  for a sound production company. Nothing we can’t handle! Most specifically, we need to dial in a venue that is designed for brewing beer and storing boxes. Concrete floors and metal ceilings. Brewing vats and countless bottles and kegs everywhere. Reflections will have to be dealt with from numerous areas. Environments like these have a tendency to reflect severely high notes. One factor that will help is cardboard. The stage area is actually going to have stacks of cardboard boxes on both sides. Equalization will be vital here. There will be sections in the sounds you hear that will be drastically reigned in, while others are severely boosted. We’ll follow up after the first show on this blog.

Black Taxi, in case you are severely musically challenged enough to not have heard of them, are the modern answer to the Rolling Stones. Dance-able, creative song writing with high entertainment value. These guys are a lot of fun to watch. Honestly, if you don’t know who Black Taxi is, then you’re definitely not listening to NEXT Music on the radio or on ITunes. So head on over to www.allthingsnext.com and click on “podcast”. Pick your preferred method of listening (Stitcher, ITunes, Stream it right from NEXT) and catch up already! You’ve got till Thursday!

Here’s a little help:

 

Food will be provided by Bridgeview Tavern and The Cookery pizza truck.  So, you got great freaking beer, an awesome band, great eats, and Chris Bro to talk music with. Why  anyone would stay home this Thursday I do not know! It’s kind of like the keg parties of our youth. Only! We’ll be partying at the kegs house. And with better food than most parties.

*Captain Lawrence Brewery is so easy to find you have to be careful not to drive past it. (Come on. Admit it. You’ve done that before!) 444 Saw Mill River Road, Elmsford‎ NY. Exit 2 on I-287 West (Route 9A).

 

 

*Black Taxi is managed by the super capable Nicole at MezzoForte Productions . Please visit their website if you book bands. She works with some great talent.

 

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Behind The Board – A Great New Change To NEXT Charity Concert Series

We are really excited by the change of venue to the NEXT Charity Concert Series! REALLY!!! When is the last time you got to hold a monthly party/concert at a brewery? Yep..unless you own one yourself, NEVER!!! But that is the new change to the already awesome NEXT Charity Concert Series. We’re moving to the Captain Lawrence Brewery! While the weather is good and warm, we’ll be outside celebrating music and charity! And when the weather begins to become cold we’ll head inside.

Chris Bro of NEXT has begun putting together a stellar line-up and chose an incredible way to start off at the new venue:

8/23 Black Taxi

9/21 My Pet Dragon

Black Taxi is well known to our area and if  you’ve attended the NEXT Charity Concert Series with any regularity then you’ve heard/seen them a few times. My Pet Dragon put on an incredible set at Paulie’s for NEXT earlier this year, but if you have been attending the Alive @ Five in Stamford, CT then you saw them put on a stellar performance that had Columbus Park dancing away!

We’re especially excited for this show as we get to really use our sound systems. Most of you have heard the awesomeness of the BNK sound rig, but not all of you have heard the outdoor rig! (PCTV we did not use the outdoor format although it was outside).

So mark it on your calendars to be at the Captain Lawrence Brewery 444 Saw Mill River Road in Elmsford, NY (so easy to get to!) and join us for the NEXT Charity Concert Series!!!

 

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Sound Advice

As a sound tech, the one thing I see the most that I find strange is vocalists who do not carry their own microphones.  Guitarists, Bassists, and Drummers all spend countless moments getting familiar with their equipment to develop their sound yet many vocalists  in club gigging bands will just rely on some cheap old mic that’s been sitting behind the bar and used 2 or more times a week by other singers. It’s been dropped and spit on, who knows what else. But what’s worse is the vocalist didn’t spend the countless moments that other musicians spend picking the right microphone to present their instrument out to the world.

Lets think about this here. A vocalist’s voice is their instrument. Everyone sounds different and some are more distinguishable from others. There are tones, and over tones. Nuances that make you sound like you.  Last thing a vocalist should be is content with just “whatever you got”.  

Now this isn’t just a quality of equipment situation. Or a health one (We’ve seen the nasty things that happen to house mics!). Just like other instruments there are different factors that effect tone and character with microphones. Better quality mics are more consistent sure, but they all pick things out of the air differently. Certain tones will be stronger on some than on others. Some are edgy with more bite, while others are stronger in the low end and may be boomier.

A vocalist needs to visit a bunch of music stores and ask to try some microphones out. Have them set you up with a professional PA amp and speakers. if any eq, it should be set flat. Stand in front of the speakers with a low volume and sing through a bunch of mics while listening to yourself. (Stand indirectly away to avoid feedback.) Which one do you like your sound on? That’s the one you want! Look for stores that carry Shure, AKG, Audix, and Sennheiser. These are the more common quality brands. Once you’ve picked your mic, look on Ebay or some other online stores for cleaning/sterilizing kits to help you maintain your mic and you’re all set. Now when you show up for a gig hand the sound guy your mic. An experienced sound tech has worked with most mics and is familiar with their characteristics. He’ll then eq your mics balance into his system. Take good care of your mic and it will last a long time.

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Behind The Board – Tales From The Other Side of The Board

So, (some of you may be familiar with this from my live tweeting) as I was attending a marketing seminar last month, I had the chance to prove our point about “Be Effective – Be Heard”. The house provided a little self powered, 2 speaker sound system for the speaker to use. He also used a screen and projector to show videos from his laptop computer. Said laptop was also connected to the little sound system. Add in a wireless lavalier microphone of questionable quality and no experience with the equipment and you have a recipe for disaster. (Side note, this was a seminar about using today’s technology to market your company.) So the seminar starts with a video. The video showed up on the screen but all you heard was crackling noise  as the wire he was given to connect his laptop to the sound system was a bad one. When he got it to work, there was so much bass you couldn’t understand. I actually looked outside for a thunderstorm first (legitimate thought as it was storming that day). Then he began to speak. This guy was a large man with an average male low voice. Here, he sounded like an AM radio (for the kids, that was what they listened to before streaming internet and podcasts). Static, no depth, hissing, all the things we pick on the fast food drive through for. Once in a while the mic would cut out. As a sound tech, I was out of my mind. But, let me be objective and look at what others reaction might be. Looking around the hall, I could see only about 40% of the attendees actually looking ahead. Afterwards, I asked a couple people the straight question “what did you think?” The first three told me they couldn’t hear it. Moral of this story. How can you get your point across, if you’re not getting your point out to their ears? People are pre-programmed to block out bad sounds. Extraneous noises get ignored by most people. Sound Techs on the other hand get annoyed by it. HAHA. If you sound badly, people will begin to tune you out.45 mins of listening to hiss is not most people’s idea of effective. Let alone the embarrassment of all your equipment failures. You’re supposed to be a professional?

A proper sound technician would have checked all the equipment prior to embarrassment. They would set up better equipment under a proper budget. They would have tested your sound prior to show and set the tone reaction between you and the microphone properly to give you clarity with the right amount of strength. 

If you’re doing a speaking engagement anytime soon and you’re in our area, give us a call. It’s a lot more expensive to fail to reach people than it is to hire us to set you up right. Or in any other area, look up “sound technician” or “sound engineer” in Google for that area. It’s really not that expensive in the long run, and you look more professional than this guy who was less effective than the girl at the Wendy’s drive thru I went to earlier for lunch!