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THE CRÜE RUNS WITH SpectraFoo
HOPEWELL JUNCTION, NEW YORK: Front-of-house engineer Jon Lemon, a veteran of tours with such musical heavyweights as Oasis, nine inch nails, Beck, The Cure, and Depeche Mode, is currently on the road with the recently reunited
Mötley Crüe, and has his trusty Metric Halo Mobile I/O rig running SpectraFoo analysis software by his side at every show. According to Lemon, the setup is fully complementary with his preferred digital mixing console and digital loudspeaker processors, allowing him to optimize the sound
system in each venue on the tour in a matter of minutes.
"I use SpectraFoo every day for lining-up the system," says Lemon.
"When you use line arrays you have that problem of lining up the bass stack
on the ground to the flown speakers and the side hangs. I've been a SpectraFoo
user for a long time now, so for me it's very fast. I'll time-align the bass
stacks and the flown part of the system first, using music and SpectraFoo's
transfer function. That literally takes two minutes. From there, I'll noise
the system using the Spectragram page and find any room anomalies."
Veteran FOH engineer, Jon Lemon, finds Metric Halo's
SpectraFoo a great analysis tool for optimizing the sound system during Mötley
Crüe's current tour.
An early adopter of digital audio technology, Lemon typically tours with a
digital mixing console. "I try to keep everything in the digital domain.
I
come out of the console into the Metric Halo Mobile I/O 2882+DSP and then
out of that into my Macintosh laptop running SpectraFoo. I also have a mic
for the room going through the MIO. The guys at Metric Halo are moving their
product forward all the time, which is terrific, especially since I am a
Macintosh user."
Lemon says of SpectraFoo, "It's a really useful tool. You can do it all
by
ear but it takes longer, and there's some uncertainty. When you know the
software is responding correctly and there are no reflections - and
obviously there is a bit of experience involved with setting everything up
correctly - the software speeds the whole process up. I can pretty easily
tune the system in the space of 15 to 20 minutes in most arenas."
Mötley Crüe's "Red, White & Crüe Tour 2005: Better
Live Than Dead,"
presented by VH1 and VH1 Classic, marks the first time the band has played
together in six years, and has been one of the biggest box office draws of
this year. The current U.S. leg of the tour passes through over 40
amphitheaters and arenas, finishing with two shows with the Rolling Stones.
The tour then moves on to Japan and Australia in November and December.
Lemon says that he would eventually like to use his Metric Halo setup for
more than just analysis. "I'd like to have more MIOs and do some hard disc
recording one day."
Metric Halo provides the world with high-resolution metering, analysis,
recording and processing solutions with award-winning software and hardware.
As a proven industry leader, Metric Halo has developed a product line so
powerful and versatile, its applications range from live sound
reinforcement, CD/DVD mixing and mastering, film and broadcast production to
airline safety investigation, medical research, and designing the next
generation Ferrari and BMW automobiles. Metric Halo products have been used
on a diverse range of projects, including music creation and playback for
the 2004 Summer Olympics, a high resolution recording of the Space Shuttle
Discovery liftoff at Kennedy Space Center, as well as continuing efforts
involving homeland security, military and forensic intelligence gathering,
and teaching the next generation of audio engineers at prestigious schools
the world over.
www.mhlabs.com
