SAC At The MGM Grand Arena.

[Bob L]

Well... it has been a busy week... started the load-in last monday morning and have been at it for the last five days....

If you are in Vegas tonight (03/27/10) you can hear SAC at its finest...

We are doing the live sound for the Michel Legrand 50 Year Celebration of his music and movies event at the MGM Grand Arena (yes SAC in a stadium venue) with special guest performers, Dionne Warwick, Melissa Manchester, Patti Page, Frank Sinatra Jr, Andy Williams, Steve Lawrence, George Benson, Jon Voight, Jennifer Oneil, Jerry Lewis... and more....

www.mgmlegrand.com

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010...barbra-streis/

http://www.marketwire.com/press-rele...M1-1130893.htm

Lee Pepper is doing the FOH mix and I am doing the monitors... all from one SAC system, setup backstage.

It has been quite an incredible experience so far... as the behind the scenes setup for this event has been massive.

It will be a full broadcast television shoot as well and the amount of technology involved in the venue is just amazing to witness.

SAC has been incredible so far... it sits behind the stage with me... we have two large 56 pair mic splitters and we have almost used all 112 inputs... there are only a few spares... we are using a Midas Heritage 4000 analog console (no added latency) to stem down the strings, woodwinds and horns to 16 bus groups... these groups feed back into SAC and everything else is a direct input to SAC... we have used all 52 inputs on the Midas and I think we have about 2 left on our 64 input SAC rig.

We are splitting off to the video truck and an audio broadcast mix and recording truck parked outside the rear of the venue.... and we really are amazed that we have no noise... hums or buzzes... everything is so clean you can not tell if the system is ON when it is sitting idle.

Lee is at FOH position only taking up about 8 feet of space, which the producers loved by the way (less prime seating space lost)... he is using a hardwired remote setup with two large monitors and two MotorMix controllers... we ran a small 12 pair snake for solo monitoring and communications... the FOH mix sounds incredible... very smooth and warm... and even with the +100 open mics (many of them consenders), the entire thing sounds incredibly acoustic rather then electric... perfect for this type of orchestral music... and we have received quite a few thumbs up by those involved in the production.

I am handling 1 monitor mix for me as well as 6 stage monitor mixes for the performers... I think the orchestra count is about 68 players... I do know it is a massive maze of cables and bodies crammed onto the stage set... the producers wanted all direct micing with clip-on mics so no visible overhead mic stands were crowding the look of the stage amongst the huge string section... this, of course, complicated our setup drastically...

We are using all D&B speaker system cabinets, which sound amazing, as well as the smaller D&B monitor wedges... which sound more like studio monitors to me than floor wedges... incredible.... the motor count for the rigging for the set and lights and sound was something like 76 motors... the main clusters are powered from amp racks which were flown as well to keep the cable runs manageable...

I am feeding separate zones of wedges for the different performer staging positions, as well as a stereo mix from wedges sitting on either side of Michel at his piano, and a hanging D&B cluster on each side of the stage for side fills... the stage coverage is really awesome... also involved are direct in-ear mixes to the drums, bass and keyboard/synth player.

We have caused quite a commotion, so far, with the arena audio department, as well as other visiting engineers who have come down to take a look at a SAC rig in action...

Bill Evans from FOH magazine came by for a visit and seemed seriously impressed with what he witnessed... he is supposed to cover the event in FOH magaine, so we'll hear directly from him what his final impressions are after tonight.

Yesterday was the television blocking and rehearsal with all the stars and it was quite a hectic one for me... I hardly was able to catch my breath... running around like a madman with my netbook in hand, adjusting the monitor mixes for each of the stars, standing side by side in their staging positions hearing exactly what they were hearing from where they were staged... it was an awesome way to work...

I am soon off again this morning for the final tweaks and setup changes and then the show tonight... I feel truly blessed to have been handed this incredible oportunity to expose the professional audio community to the SAC experience... wish me luck for a successful event.

PS: I did take some video of the entire 5 day install and can't wait to finish the editing and share it with you all.

Bob L

[Leadfoot]

That's fantastic. Nice job and I wish you the best. Sounds like a high pressure must win situation.. for all of our sakes

[Ogmeister]

Way to go Bob! You deserve this. All of you hard work is starting to pay off.
Can't wait to see the video of the setup.

OGO

[dgrimm]

Congats Bob !!! I sure with you and Lee at the helm , the event will go off without a hitch. More & more high caliber entertainers are being exposed to the power of the SAC way of mixing. Looking forward to see the videos, now we need to design some SWAG !!!!!

[IraSeigel]

Congrats, Bob.
Just curious - who is the overall PM for the event? And Stage Manager? And who is the PA supplier?

[Bob L]

Lee knows all that info... I just learned first names so we could communicate and get the job done.

I think one of the links above gives you all that info.

Bob L

[MMP]

Way to go Bob! Break a leg.

Regards,

MM

[venez03]

That's awesome Bob!! Looking forward to the Video and FOH magazine write-up.

CONGRATS!!

[UpTilDawn]

Fantastic!
How thrilling it must be to see all this come together!
Good luck tonight Bob!

[soundguy81]

That is awesome, Bob! I know my band loves SAC's sound. I can't wait to see the video. Bob, did you see the story in this month's (March) of FOH? I saw that Bill wrote a story about "SAC Making Inroads." I hope he writes a story about the MGM Grand gig. Again Bob that is awesome and you have made an great product!