Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Progress in the new shops

Hi Folks,

Hope all your summers are going well. Just a quick blog post to update the progress that is going on here.

With the help of Stephen, Marshal, and 101 Rachael, we got the new workshop (3036) BLUE! It's very pretty! And getting real close to time to move the shop from the basement up to 3036.

We have also made some progress in the storage room (3026). The cable hook wall was installed last week.
Here is a picture of Joe pulling a "Palmer" trying to find the studs. Seems they aren't evenly spaced in that room.











The bottom row is up! Jeff collapses in the corner as Joe gets ready to hang the next one.












Jeff investigates the gizmos hiding above the drop ceiling. Oh, and look at that, the second row is up!












Here the third row is in! The wall is complete!




















The speaker rack is started! The wall anchors are in, the uprights are up! All that is left is to fill those last cheeseboro's with the last pipe.










The pipe is in! Jeff is checking that it's level, as Joe tightens the nuts.













And it's up! Jeff gives a last twist, as Joe checks out the handy work. Now, all we need to do is hang some speakers on it! It will be jam packed!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

from Germany with Love!

Our Neumann M149 microphone arrived today! It is love (well, at least I am in love with it). It came on a very slow boat from Germany - 2 months in the waiting. Joy!!!

Speaker Shootout

We were very fortunate to have Scott Esterson (the Western Sales Manager for Genelec) bring down a set of Genelec 8250 and 8240 monitors for a demo. He was also very kind to let us do a critical listening shootout against our existing arsenal of near-fields.

The 8250s are tricked out! They come with self-analysis software and a measurement mic. Their system is much like like the JBL one but much better implemented and offering multiple bands of EQ.

How do they sound, you ask? Well... they have the classic Genelec sound profile - very pleasing top-end, really wide soundstage, and a clean low-mid range. Very nice monitors. The subwoofer offers some serious LF extension and couples about as well as I have ever heard (their control software phase-aligns the LF as well).

Who won the shootout? Lets just say that if I put that much DSP on the HD-1s that they would sound similar. Out of the box - and flat - well... that's not really fair for me to say! Go to your local dealer and listen for yourself ;)

Scott is a super nice guy, very generous with his time and truly believes in the product. Many thanks!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Spelling Bee

Congratulations to Jeff Polunas (MFA-2) on his sound design for "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee". Jeff also received a positive mention in the Stage Scene LA review:


Hopefully Jeff will be willing to share his design here on the blog(?)...