Nice Mike!

Lee Brenkman

Lee Brenkman

Junior
Jan 13, 2011
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Oakland California USA
So tonight's concert is a recreation of the Charlie Parker "Bird With Strings" recording.

The saxophonist/band leader wanted to use his vintage RCA 77DX for the alto sax BUT he forgot to bring it to the rehearsal/soundcheck.

His wife was supposed to bring it in before showtime.

At showtime I run out to FOH and turn on the mic for the MC

After the MC introduces the show the sax player walks out with his sax in one hand and the RCA in the other.

I run to the stage and swap out the RCA for the Heil that was there and run back to FOH, flatten the EQ and we're off and running!

Sounds great but my heart rate is just now going down....
 
Re: Nice Mike!

I've only gotten to play with one 77DX before, and it was from the local community theatre that had been using it as a stage prop for radio shows for years. They have two of them, and didn't realize their worth.

The sound was pretty nice for the short while I used it for.
 
Re: Nice Mike!

I inherited a couple of them when I took over my company, and I love the opportunity to put them to use. Nothing sounds better on clarinet, and the overall tone is perfect for almost any jazz instrument. Just gotta keep people from blowing in them, although these days most people tend to treat them as they would any fine museum piece. I've never ever had any musician not want to use one when appropriate.
 

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Re: Nice Mike!

Dick Rees said:
Wow. Is that a Showmobile inside a steel building? Some venue........
Click to expand...

It's not as bad as you'd think. It's actually the big hangar at the Commemorative Air Force http://www.commemorativeairforce.org, and it's the only venue large enough for the local symphony's pops series concerts that is located between the two cities (Midland & Odessa, TX). Sound is actually quite good in there once there's an audience. The showmobile is there both for staging reasons and passive acoustical reasons.

I've attached a wider shot taken during afternoon rehearsals. That's FIFI (the once-again flying B-29) peaking out from behind the stage.
 

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Re: Nice Mike!

If you're asking me, this was a concert at the Stanford Jazz Festival last Saturday.
http://stanfordjazz.org/jazz-festival/events/bird-with-strings-featuring-andrew-speight/

In addition to mixing the live sound, I was also recording the concert for a future broadcast of a radio show called "In The Moment". go here and scroll down..
http://kcsm.org/jazz91/highlights.php

FOH looked like this:

That's where, now the mics

Piano - 2 Audix SCX-25
Bass - Electrovoice RE-20 & direct but the DI wasn't used at all
Drums - Audix D6 and 2 M-Audio Pulsar II
Flute - AKG D224E
Violins - 3 Cascade Audio FatHeads
Viola - AKG D224E
Cello - Beyer M201
Alto Saxopnone - RCA 77DX (through a Summit Tube Mic Pre)
replacing the Heil PR 30 used for sound check and rehearsal as described in the original post
MC - Sennheiser EW135 G3

So without consciously trying, the stage was a "Shure Free" zone.

If you were asking Milt about HIS gigs, you'll have to wait for him to report back :-)
 

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Re: Nice Mike!

I've got a sick HD24 that may be a a candidate for replacement and was thinking of one of them as the Alesis system is getting a little old now. It'll all come down to money I guess, as usual. G
 
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