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March 1997

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HEY BUDDY! OVER HERE!
By Nort Johnson

A Job Well Done A Flashback from the Golden Years: It was a cold, rainy Sunday night in the winter/spring of 1984. We had been waiting in an alley on East Hubbard Street in Chicago. Finally a rented Ryder truck arrived, and we quickly unloaded the shipment directly into the small freight elevator and finally into the basement.

Weapons? Not Contraband? Not Hardly!

No, nothing that exotic. The cargo was nine Malcomb Hill M-3 loudspeakers. And during the next four days, in that same basement, my old buddy Rod Nesbitt and I modified and refitted the mammoth Hill boxes with new Renkus-Heinz horns and drivers.

Then we moved the entire lot to the VIC Theater on Sheffield Avenue as part of a state-of-the-art installation that included the finest electronics money could buy. Heading the project was the legendary Jack Alexander, Todd Johnson (currently dB Sound) and a crew of audio degenerates that would make Edison sit up in his grave.

Eventually the M-3's were flown stage left, stage right, center and three per side on the VIC’s stage. And to us at the time, they were killers.

Ah, what a different world it was back then! Hell, there wasn’t even a LIVE SOUND! magazine to read. But wait, time’s up! This flashback is over!

New EAW
Everything Changes

The Hill system days are long gone having been replaced by brand new EAW 850s installed by Blue Audio of Chicago. Brian Anderson, Blue Audio President, explained the EAW specifications this way, “Pat Blake, one of the owners of The VIC, happened to see a show at the Metro. The Jesus and Mary Chain and the band was carrying an EAW system and used it. He was really impressed and called us.

“It’s probably the best venue in the city and it deserved a quality system. We also use EV DML’s for balcony fill and they do an excellent job upstairs as well.”

The entire system manifest is pretty impressive and it looks like this:

Console & Processing
(1X) One Soundcraft 500 (40-Ch)
(2X) Two dbx 166 Stereo Limiters
(4X) Four Aphex 9611 Gates
(4X) Four Aphex 9651 Expressors
(1X) One Aphex 9251 Enhancer
(1X) One Aphex 9901A Parametric EQ
(1X) One Aphex 9000 Rack with Power Supply
(1X) One Yamaha REV5 Digital Reverb
(1X) One Yamaha SPX990 Digital Reverb
(1X) One Roland SDE9000 Digital Delay

Loudspeakers, Controllers & Power Amplification
(8X) Eight EAW KF850 Mid / Hi Cabinets
(4X) Four EAW SB850 LF Cabinets
(1X) One EAW MX800 Processor
(1X) One Custom 40-Channel Splitter System
(3X) Three EV DML 1152 Cabinets
(1X) One EV DMC 1152 Controller
(3X) Three Crest 8001 Power Amp
(1X) One Crest 8001 Power Amp/Spare
(1X) One Crest 7001 Power Amp
(1X) One Crest 4601 Power Amp

Microphones & DIs
(1X) One Mic Briefcase
(6X) Six Shure Beta 58 mics
(4X) Four Shure SM57 mics
(10X) Ten Shure SM57 mics
(2X) Two AKG D11P
(5X) Five EV ND408
(1X) One Shure SM58
(1X) One Shure SM81
(3X) Three Shure SM81
(4X) Four Whirlwind Direct Boxes
(2X) Two Whirlwind Hot Boxes

Monitors are supplies on a per show basis by Blue Audio.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in the May/June, 1996, issue of Live Sound! International. Brian Anderson can be contacted at Blue Audio at 312/421-1004.

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