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Getting RodeoHouston Live and On-Air

Posted on June 1, 2023 by Steve Harvey

Setting up the NRG Stadium rodeo ring for lights, cameras and additional loudspeakers. PHOTO: Courtesy of RodeoHouston — Setting up the NRG Stadium rodeo ring for lights, cameras and extra loudspeakers. PHOTO: Courtesy of RodeoHouston

Houston, TX (May 31, 2023)—It has usually been mentioned that all the things is greater in Texas, and the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is right here to show it. Held over three weeks starting in late February, the occasion attracts properly over 2 million guests yearly and presents a rodeo competitors purse of greater than $2 million, the most important on the championship circuit. Oh, yeah, and the nightly concert events can draw greater than 70,000 music followers.

RodeoHouston is a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association cash occasion, which implies that the prize cash—the measure by which opponents are ranked—counts towards eligibility to compete within the National Finals Rodeo. To attain rodeo followers past Houston’s NRG Stadium, the place saddle bronc using, steer wrestling, tie-down roping and different occasions are held, the Cowboy Channel, regional sports activities community Bally Sports Southwest and TeleXitos Houston, a sister station to Telemundo Houston, broadcast the 2 hours of competitors dwell nightly.

“We have to be the very best rodeo broadcast there may be—and I feel we’re,” says James Davidson, Managing Director, Broadcast and Audio Visual, a 25-year veteran with the HLSR.

To obtain that purpose, Davidson says, he brings in folks reminiscent of Jason Martin of Jason Martin Audio, a supplier of A1 broadcast distant audio companies and a boutique RF gear rental home. As an skilled sports activities broadcast A1, Martin “brings to us the newest broadcast strategies, little tips and new gimmicks that maintain the viewers engaged,” Davidson says. “I’ve received the equal of Jason on the manufacturing aspect, sports activities producers who weave a narrative in order that even in case you’re not a rodeo fan, you may maintain observe of what’s taking place. That’s how I maintain our present and our manufacturing strategies present with the remainder of sports activities manufacturing.”

Those strategies are supported by the newest know-how, which this yr included the set up of an 80-fader SSL System T S500 mixing console within the broadcast manufacturing management room close to the stadium. Last yr, HLSR added a 48-fader model of the desk in a music management room the place Malcolm Harper, proprietor and operator of Reelsound Recording, combined the concert events nightly—as he has for almost 30 years— for distribution across the 350-acre NRG Park and to a multitrack recording system.

Audio A1 Jason Martin, of Jason Martin Audio, mixes the broadcast at an 80-fader SSL System T S500 console in the broadcast production control room. — Audio A1 Jason Martin, of Jason Martin Audio, mixes the published at an 80-fader SSL System T S500 console within the broadcast manufacturing management room.

“You give a man like that the fitting instruments to make use of and the outcomes are going to be nice,” Davidson says. “We had a very good expertise with Malcolm’s desk and thought we must always return and do the subsequent room with the identical system.” Both techniques have been built-in by Bill McKee and his crew at Houston-based Broadcast Technical Services.

This yr’s occasion was Martin’s first expertise with the System T. “It was difficult in that it’s a Dante-integrated desk and there was rather a lot to wrap my head round,” says the A1, who has combined the RodeoHouston broadcast for greater than 25 years. “But it was a really comprehensible workflow.”

Back when the pandemic first impacted dwell occasions, Martin started collaborating on the present with one other A1, Terry Sanders, with whom he additionally works on NBA, MLB and different main sports activities broadcasts. “He was invaluable in serving to make selections, how we have been going to do issues and closing compression, EQ and dynamics settings,” Martin says.

THE AUDIO BACKBONE

The newly put in SSL console platform helps 420 paths, into which Marin launched about 215 inputs, over two dozen greater than the earlier desk within the room might deal with. In configuring the System T for 10 stereo teams and a few mono announce teams, he says, “We created two mono packages, 4 stereo packages and a 5.1 program.”

Davidson and his crew applied a big fiber optic community when the primary System T was put in, linking I/O on the stage and within the announce cubicles and patch room within the stadium with the constructing housing the published and music combine rooms. “We at all times knew that Dante was an inevitability. We simply didn’t know we’d be doing it in an enormous method this quickly,” he says. “When we began designing a sign circulation to accommodate the brand new System T, we ended up with this huge community—and also you higher have redundancy in-built, so we constructed two parallel networks.”

At the SSL console, Martin and Sanders have been within the eye of the storm, pulling in sources reminiscent of announce, crowd and results microphones from the stadium and across the complicated over the community, together with mic sources from LD Systems, the Houston-based AVL supplier, within the rodeo ring. “There are fairly a number of issues going , relying on the necessities of the present,” Martin confirms. “Oftentimes, whereas the live performance’s occurring, I’m additionally doing a submix of one other wrap-up present.”

Riding the Mix at RodeoHouston

For the primary time, the A1s additionally managed the IFBs and manufacturing comms by way of Dante interface playing cards within the desk. “That was most likely one of many more difficult facets of the present,” Martin reveals. “I’ll say this—in Dante Controller, while you label the transmits and receives, it mechanically reveals up on the labeling on the desk. There was nonetheless numerous paperwork to be completed, however that helped rather a lot.”

Dante-enabled Glensound announcer packing containers, one other first this yr, have been additionally managed by means of the desk, together with routing the talkback circuits in order that announcers might speak to one another. “Being in a position to distant management all entry of the packing containers by way of GUI was a pleasure,” Martin provides. “Not solely do they deal with the audio properly, however the headphone drivers on the different finish sounded actually good, too.”

Martin’s greatest problem was that the announcers and the results are additionally within the P.A. “My announcers are usually not within the P.A. for many of the work I do,” he explains, “so we’re doing all the things we are able to to take the P.A. out of the combination. We use a mix of de-essers and enhancers; we play with a Rupert Neve enhancer on a few of the RF microphones on the grime or on the sector announcers.”

MIKING THE RODEO RING

Martin used numerous mono and stereo shotgun mics and RF gear, equipped by means of his personal firm, from Audio-Technica, Lectrosonics, Sennheiser and Shure, based on the applying. Like any massive metropolis, Houston has a dense RF atmosphere. “We moved all of our announcers’ wi-fi microphones to the 941 band, which allowed us to don’t have any worries about interference,” he studies.

Mix engineer Malcolm Harper, of Reelsound Recording, mixed the nightly music performances on a 48-fader SSL System T S500 console. — Mix engineer Malcolm Harper, of Reelsound Recording, combined the nightly music performances on a 48-fader SSL System T S500 console.

He paired a mono Sennheiser MKH 60 shotgun, in an RF configuration for mobility, and a stereo Audio-Technica BP 4029 digicam mic on the chutes, the place the riders put together to be launched into the ring. “We discovered that stereo shotguns on the hand held cameras, particularly within the bull using and horse occasions, have been nice,” he says. “You have folks speaking to the athlete on the opposite aspect of the digicam, so it actually enhances the stereo picture.”

Eight auto-mixed dynamic mics have been positioned low to the bottom on the chutes, he continues: “You hear the animals bellowing or kicking. I’ll maintain these mics open to offer a generic enviornment sound, they’re so unidirectional. They’re gated, so I’m not getting the P.A.; I’m getting extra pronounced sounds.”

In truth, he continues, “There are 10 or 14 mics I’m in a position to go away open with out getting numerous P.A. leakage. It’s usually just some microphones at a time the place I’m challenged with leakage. Unfortunately, that features the group mics. I are likely to dip the group actual low once I’m into extra intimate moments. The opponents speak actually low and so they’re stoic, and so they’ll go from nearly whispering to slapping themselves.

“There have been a few events the place the bulls have been bellowing and making numerous noise. One cowboy turned to his companion and mentioned, ‘Thanks for the directions,’ simply clear as day. He was joking. That was actually a key second. There was some neat audio this yr.”

World News

The Left-Right Brain of Shadow Hills Industries’ Peter Reardon

Posted on April 27, 2023 by Steve Harvey

The Shadow Hills founder and a peacock chick. Photo: Courtesy of Peter Reardon. — The Shadow Hills Industries founder and a peacock chick. Photo: Courtesy of Peter Reardon.

Austin, TX (April 27, 2023)—You could have seen Peter Reardon at a NAMM Show or AES Convention, dressed to the nines and chopping a Robert Palmer-like determine. The man has a particular aesthetic, as evidenced by the merchandise that his firm, Shadow Hills Industries, creates—large, black, retro-futuristic bins with chunky rotary switches, glowing inexperienced lights and stark, white, engraved front-panel legends, redolent of a Cold War-era bomber.

Shadow Hills gear just isn’t low-cost in any sense of the phrase, however you get what you pay for, with the corporate’s modest vary of painstakingly designed compressors, microphone preamps and different gadgets filled with high quality elements that supply performance and tone for days.

You wouldn’t comprehend it to take a look at him now, however Reardon began out as a punk rocker in Eighties Houston, Texas, the place he grew up. He grew to become acquainted with the internal workings of a recording studio by his late teenagers; attached with Southern hip-hop report label Rap-a-Lot as an engineer, producer and remixer; then relocated to Los Angeles, the place he headed up the Waxploitation imprint at WEA’s Elektra Records. He was consistently within the studio with the label’s artists, all of the whereas designing customized gear that might permit him—and, as phrase of his creations unfold, different engineers—new prospects for shaping sound.

These days, Reardon runs Shadow Hills Industries out of the Texas Hill Country near Austin, the place he’s as prone to be discovered hanging out along with his eight peacocks as engaged on his subsequent product design.

STUDIO PUNK DIY

In the early Eighties, Houston Community College had a music program arrange by an enterprising latest graduate from the University of Florida, Mark Erickson, that included eight hours of studio time each week in Carole King’s former facility, which she had donated to the varsity. That suited Reardon and his Crowd Control bandmates simply fantastic.

Peter Reardon, on lead vocal, and his Houston-area punk band Crowd Control, circa 1981. Photo: Courtesy of Peter Reardon.

“Our aspiration was to not solely make a report, however put it out and to do it ourselves,” he says, noting that they misplaced entry to the studio when their engineer buddy, Keith Christiansen, graduated. “The band had a gathering and determined that I’d drop out of highschool and take his place at recording faculty. So I did.”

He remembers being very decided at school, sitting at school and pondering, “I’ve acquired to get within the studio. Please cease speaking; simply give me the keys and go away!” The studio expertise was invaluable, he says, not least as a result of he realized to handle challenges equivalent to tape machine alignment and kit restore: “These issues are damaged; what can we do to repair them?”

Reardon additionally labored for a time at Houston’s Rap-a-Lot report label, whose flagship act was the Ghetto (later, Geto) Boys, appearing as engineer and producer and serving to the label’s songwriters and beatmakers see their visions by way of to a completed product. “I’d do engineering, recording and mixing,” he says, “after which I’d do all of the album covers and the grasp—I assume they name it manufacturing supervision. It was a very wild time, with some uncommon individuals.”

He went on to work as president of Elektra’s Waxploitation label, dwelling of Chris Vrenna’s Tweaker challenge, amongst others. “But the inventive, enjoyable issues for me had been mixing records and making my very own gear, simply because I needed to do one thing completely different,” Reardon explains. The solely drawback, he provides, was that inevitably somebody on the studio would fall in love along with his newest piece of drugs and demand that he depart it behind—so he’d should make one other.

At the time, Reardon was haunting army and take a look at gear surplus homes with their racks of Cold War-era gear sturdy sufficient to face up to a nuclear apocalypse. “Even in these days, the late ’90s and really starting of the 2000s, the entire gear that I used to be making regarded precisely the way in which it does now. Someone described it as having come out of the cockpit of a B-52.”

It wasn’t simply the aesthetics of the gear of that period but in addition the efficiency of the basic items of audio electronics from the interval that he discovered inspiring. “This concept that electronics might rework the decision of your materials and will additionally impart a attribute that was not simply delicate, was a really vibrant set of sonic doorways to undergo,” he says. “It would simply instantly take you to a spot of what a report feels like.”

BECOMING A BUSINESS

Reardon had primarily been making customized mastering consoles on the time, and by his estimation, there may be nonetheless “a pair dozen of them on the earth.” However, issues took a flip when he obtained a name from Jeff Ehrenberg, co-owner, with Pete Lyman, of Infrasonic Mastering and senior gross sales guide at then-recent startup retailer Vintage King Audio.

Reardon remembers: “Jeff mentioned, ‘I perceive that you’ve these mastering consoles and other people actually like them. I’m going to be doing a microphone shootout at my studio. Would you thoughts loaning me one?’ At the tip of it, I went to select it up and he mentioned, ‘I’m so sorry, Peter; I offered it.’ He’d tricked me into being a enterprise— as a result of that’s what he’d needed the entire time!”

Ehrenberg wasn’t completed. Noting that mic preamps offered nicely for Vintage King, he requested Reardon if he had thought of making one.

“I mentioned, ‘I’d by no means make a mic pre; there are such a lot of nice mic pre’s that I actually get pleasure from available on the market—but when I did, there are some transformers that I’m actually interested by and that I developed. I believe I’d make a matrix that might swap between them.’ Jeff mentioned, ‘Would you make them for me, only for my studio?’”

Ever the snappy dresser, Reardon hosts a webinar for dealers during the pandemic. Photo: Courtesy of Peter Reardon. — Ever the snappy dresser, Shadown Hills founder Peter Reardon hosts a webinar for sellers throughout the pandemic. Photo: Courtesy of Peter Reardon.

When Reardon realized that WEA label executives weren’t taking the specter of the Napster file-sharing app critically, he took the chance to depart Waxploitation and begin his personal gear manufacturing enterprise. When Ehrenberg identified that he wanted an organization identify, Reardon regarded to his mastering console with the Forties classic VU meters made by Weston Industries. “My studio was in Shadow Hills, California,” he says merely. “I’ll be Shadow Hills Industries.”

Plus, he says, “In my punk rock days, I was actually into Big Black and Steve Albini, and would observe the bands he produced,” together with UK punk/industrial band Head of David. “They had a track referred to as ‘Shadow Hills California,’ and I at all times thought that was such a cool track.”

DESIGNING QUALITY

“It’s vital to restrict the variety of issues that change on the similar time,” Reardon says of his iterative course of in designing merchandise. “Numerous it includes super-critical listening to program materials and having actually pure paths the place nothing else is altering or influencing issues.” It’s simple to be deceived by degree modifications or by the point it takes to patch between two choices, he says. “You have to precisely match to a tenth of a decibel after which discern variations, hear in a number of environments, then hear over time and ensure issues proceed to carry up the way in which you anticipate. It’s a bunch of labor, however it may be very rewarding.”

Everything is achieved utilizing attenuators and precise iron, he says, “so it’s going to should be a sure manner. It’s not going to be software program or a whole lot of built-in circuits doing modeling or simulation. Our modeling is, ‘It’s a bodily object.’” Speaking of iron, the guts of virtually each Shadow Hills product is that transformer switching matrix he instructed Ehrenberg about. It works just like the pickup swap on an electrical guitar, permitting a person to flip between three transformers—nickel, iron and metal.

Review: Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor

“The concept behind the matrix was that it will be from the least distorted, the least quantity of harmonic saturation and the very best constancy, right down to the grittiest, saturated metal transformer,” Reardon explains.

The switching matrix permits an engineer to flip between transformers with out shifting from the monitor candy spot. “To actually make discerning decisions, it’s good to listen to issues on the similar degree and with out shifting your head,” Reardon provides. “To be capable to swap between the transformers, although it’s a delicate change, is one thing that’s worthwhile—and I put it in there, identical to many of the features, as a result of I needed it.”

THE SUPPORT TEAM

Inevitably, there are cheerleaders who assist put any firm on the highway to success. One such particular person for Reardon was engineer and producer Rich Mouser, at whose L.A. studio— The Mouse House—he usually labored. “He was so inspirational; I realized a lot from him and the way in which he listens that carried over into audio design,” Reardon says.

An early champion of Shadow Hills merchandise was combine engineer Michael Brauer. “Michael is an actual true believer,” Reardon says. “He ordered our first mastering compressor, sight unseen.” Those early models had “100 miles of wire” in them, he says, and had been labor intensive. The drawback—and it was a great drawback—was that orders had been streaming in, so the corporate needed to develop methods to get merchandise out the door sooner with out compromising high quality. “It was an actual journey,” he says.

Pete Lyman, Ehrenberg’s studio companion, was one other early supporter. “He purchased one thing that changed into the mastering compressor; his was the very first industrial one offered,” Reardon notes, including that it was proper on the time that Vintage King was getting underway. “We had been one of many principal manufacturers that helped to construct their model.” Subscribers to the GearSlutz discussion board had been additionally beginning to discuss Shadow Hills gear. (Shadow Hills gear is accessible domestically solely through Vintage King and Sweetwater.)

Peter Reardon, left, with mix engineer Chris Lord-Alge at NAMM 2016. Photo: Courtesy of Peter Reardon. — Peter Reardon, left, with combine engineer Chris Lord-Alge at NAMM 2016. Photo: Courtesy of Peter Reardon.

Brauer purchased all of Shadow Hills’ merchandise over time. “He’d convey individuals over at commerce reveals. Chris Lord-Alge did the identical. They had been all very beneficiant with their accolades and appreciation. It’s vital to not take that with no consideration or monetize the individuals who love our gear,” Reardon says.

Guitar-maker Paul Reed Smith, one other Shadow Hills fan, impressed the most recent addition to the product line, which is able to debut on the 2023 NAMM Show. Reardon had heard that Smith and others appreciated to run indicators by way of two Shadow Hills compressors to mix completely different transformers’ tones. “I needed to see what Paul Reed Smith was speaking about, and it’s fairly cool,” he says.

As a end result, Reardon has now added a fourth place on the matrix to mix the transformers and can debut it on a limited-edition 500 Series Mono Gamma Golden Age mic-pre module at NAMM this month. “It can have an engraved copper entrance panel like a kind of wild, outdated Fairchilds, with a fantastic patina.”

THE SOUND OF HARDWARE

With the invoice of supplies alone costing greater than the retail value of many compressors, Reardon was open to the creation of an inexpensive software program emulation of his Mastering Compressor. “It appeared prefer it could possibly be a approach to do advertising with out having to position adverts in magazines; a approach to prolong my attain,” he says.

As for the way it compares to the {hardware} unit, a field costing within the excessive four-figures, “It’s a very completely different factor, however one thing that’s vital for accessibility and for individuals to search out out about. My concept was that we might make one thing actually nice that might be a terrific expertise and that’s an actual Shadow Hills product.”

That’s as a result of finally, Reardon stresses, Shadow Hills merchandise are meant to encourage customers and assist convey their creations to fruition. “What we’re targeted on is making one thing an increasing number of sound like a report; that’s actually our job,” he says.

“The end result now could be that a lot of records have a bit piece of me on them. I’m grateful for that; it’s actually heartwarming. I do know it sounds corny, nevertheless it’s true, as a result of these are all my kids they usually have a lot of me in them. That Shadow Hills merchandise are ravenously appreciated is an extremely fulfilling expertise and far more than I believed I’d ever have from dropping out of highschool to make some wild punk rock recordings.”

World News

The Left-Right Brain of Shadow Hills Industries’ Peter Reardon

Posted on April 27, 2023 by Steve Harvey

Austin, TX (April 27, 2023)—You might have seen Peter Reardon at a NAMM Show or AES Convention, dressed to the nines and reducing a Robert Palmer-like determine. The man has a particular aesthetic, as evidenced by the merchandise that his firm, Shadow Hills Industries, creates—large, black, retro-futuristic containers with chunky rotary switches, glowing inexperienced lights and stark, white, engraved front-panel legends, redolent of a Cold War-era bomber.

Shadow Hills gear will not be low-cost in any sense of the phrase, however you get what you pay for, with the corporate’s modest vary of painstakingly designed compressors, microphone preamps and different units full of high quality parts that provide performance and tone for days.

You wouldn’t comprehend it to have a look at him now, however Reardon began out as a punk rocker in Eighties Houston, Texas, the place he grew up. He turned aware of the interior workings of a recording studio by his late teenagers; connected with Southern hip-hop file label Rap-a-Lot as an engineer, producer and remixer; then relocated to Los Angeles, the place he headed up the Waxploitation imprint at WEA’s Elektra Records. He was consistently within the studio with the label’s artists, all of the whereas designing customized gear that will enable him—and, as phrase of his creations unfold, different engineers—new prospects for shaping sound.

These days, Reardon runs Shadow Hills Industries out of the Texas Hill Country near Austin, the place he’s as prone to be discovered hanging out together with his eight peacocks as engaged on his subsequent product design.