Professional Sound - February 2018 | Page 62

PROJECT FILE Royer Labs’ new R-10 ribbon microphone is currently on tour with two Grammy Award-winning artists: British vocalist Sam Smith and American pop/rock band Maroon 5. Jim Ebdon serves as the FOH engineer for the two acts and in addition to using the R-10 on guitar for both, he is also using the Royer SF-24 phantom powered stereo ribbon microphone and the R-121 Live. “Modern sound systems have become so accurate that microphone type and placement has become more important than ever,” Ebdon says. “I’d been hearing many positive reports about the R-10’s ability to capture electric guitar, so I was eager to give the mic a try. Just like my experience with the R-121 and SF-24, the R-10 is another very capable Royer ribbon.” 62 PROFESSIONAL SOUND Tommy Francis, owner of U.S.-based integrator JTEK Customs, oversees AV and security installations for all Ruth’s Chris Steak House restaurants. For the chain’s new location by Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, he reached out to London, ON-based audio specialist Tomahawk AV to design a multi-zone audio system. “We were looking at a fairly large space with several zones and we needed good clean sound coming out of each one. That meant an amp with a high channel count and plenty of output per channel,” says Toma- hawk’s Eric Sidles. Sidles’ solution was a pair of Powersoft Quattrocanali amplifiers for eight channels of output to power the 36 Community loudspeakers. Thirty of these were D6 in-ceiling loudspeakers for the restaurant’s interior, with six CS6 surface-mounted loudspeakers for the outdoor patio. One of the latest projects for Canadian mix engineer/producer Richard Chycki was a 5.1 mix of The Tragically Hip – A National Celebration. The iconic Canadian band’s final concert performance was originally mixed for a television broadcast prior to the retirement and tragic passing of singer Gord Downie. Chycki’s new stereo and 5.1 mixes were done at his own studio, Street of Dreams, and Noble Street Studios in Toronto on a surround monitoring system from Genelec. The system included three 8351 three-way Smart Active Monitors in an L-C-R array, with 8341s for left and right rear surrounds and a 7370A Subwoofer. “I had been looking for a speaker update that had stronger focus and imaging, and that’s when I spoke with Will Eggleston and John Whitcore of Genelec, both of whom I had known for years, and they said I should check out Genelec’s new The Ones,” says Chycki. “When I first connected them up in my studio, I immediately noticed there’s almost a tactile feeling to the speaker in the imaging where I suddenly felt that I could grab elements — like in a drum kit, the hi-hat is there and I feel like I can just reach out and touch it. I really enjoy that feeling for critical listening where I could experience that amount of imaging to help me make better mix choices.” Tens of thousands of Dutch music fans celebrated the national holiday of Koningsdag in Breda with international EDM superstar Armin Van Buuren and over 20 other artists at the annual 538 Koningsdag festival. As usual, Dutch production rental company Ampco Flashlight was called on to provide the audio and lighting equipment for the event and relied on a loudspeaker system from Adamson Systems Engineering. The system was based on Adamson’s E-Series products, featuring main arrays of 20 E15 three-way, true line source cabinets per side, plus infill arrays with eight E12 three-way, full range cabinets per side and delay hangs of 12 E12s per side. “We had a lineup of leading national artists and DJs, a big crowd, and some of the world’s most skilled engineers asking for a premium PA, and that’s why we have a system like Adamson’s E-Series in our inventory,” says Dennis van der Haagen of Ampco Flashlight.