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Mix Blog Live: It Ain’t The Gig, It’s the Commute
Steve La Cerra just had his second gig since the Covid outbreak, and while it went better in the house, the same could not...
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Mix Blog Live: My First Indoor Gig, Front to Back
In his first indoor gig of the Covid era, Steve La Cerra finds that while the crew and backstage areas followed protocol, it was...
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Mix Blog Live: Memories of Bruce Swedien
Steve La Cerra recalls the human side of Bruce Swedien, how they met over a story about Neumann M49s and how he ended up...
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Mix Blog Live: Holding My Breath
With only a few weeks to go in the semester, Steve La Cerra is crossing his fingers that the classrooms at Mercy College stay...
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Mix Blog Live: Business as Unusual
Steve La Cerra jumped on a plane last week, headed for Pittsburgh on his first fly-date since the shutdown in March. The airports, he...
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Mix Blog Live: A Steep Climb
With The Met canceling its entire Fall Season, along with others across the country, it's looking more and more like mid- to late-2021 for...
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Mix Blog Live: Which Group Am I In?
Steve La Cerra returned to school last week, and everything you've been reading about education during the pandemic is true; but he's making it...
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Mix Blog Live: Surviving Sturgis
To find out what concert one-offs are actually like these days, Steve La Cerra called a friend who mixed front of house in mid-August...
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Mix Blog Live: We Need the Good Kind of PR
With uncertainty growing ever greater in the concert touring industry, Steve La Cerra finds that cluster parties and pop-up live events can be damaging...
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Mix Blog Live: Check Your Wireless Inventory
As of July, time's up on the 600 MHz band for wireless system users, and Steve La Cerra looks at options out there as...
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Mix Blog Live: Flash Your Headlights
Steve La Cerra worked last weekend! And he found that while the logistics of prepping for a live "drive-in concert" were a bit nerve-racking,...
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Mix Blog Live: The Real Numbers
Steve La Cerra looks at a couple of surveys taken during the pandemic and is crushed to learn of the value the average consumer...
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Mix Blog Live: Meet Me at the Drive-In
The hunger for live music is real, and with very few outlets outside of looking at a screen, artists and fans are turning to...
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Mix Blog Live: A Slice and a Coke
When the 2020 concert season was canceled, it left a lot of supporting businesses throughout the country in a tight spot, including some favorite...
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Mix Blog Live: Rise Up, New York!
The city of New York sure knows how to rally in times of adversity, from supporting front-line workers to helping the poor when they...
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Mix Blog Live: Zooming High(er)-Quality Audio
Besides spending many weekends on the road at front of house, Steve La Cerra is an audio educator; over the the last month he...
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Mix Blog Live: A Concert in Your Living Room?
The coronavirus COVID-19 has essentially shut down the 2020 summer touring season—and cost Steve La Cerra his usual weekend gig. So are stay-at-home, "intimate"...
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Mix Blog Live: Coronavirus Fallout
“All New York City Public Schools are closed.” When I hear those words, it usually means there’s a significant snowfall in the area and...
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Mix Blog Live: What’s With the Tape on the C#?
Frustration with a show’s backline provider led to a couple trips back to the warehouse, an angry phone call and, ultimately, resolution. A normal...
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Mix Blog Live: Rack Toms for Everyone
When a Rack Tom channel on a rented digital console started showing up across multiple scribble strips during soundcheck, Steve La Cerra did everything...
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Mix Blog Live: TLC for an XK-1c
Steve La Cerra knows that after years on the road, gear can take a beating. So when possible, he likes to take out some...
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Mix Blog Live: Lessons From The Professor
Steve La Cerra mourns the loss of one of his real heroes, the drummer Neil Peart, who lived life with passion and grace, not...
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Mix Blog Live: Resurrecting an Audio Dinosaur, The Final Chapter
The Ampex 351 was working, but relatively noisy, so Steve La Cerra started replacing tubes; he found that not all tubes are created equal.
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Mix Blog Live: Music for the Holiday Mood
Having a tough time staying in the holiday spirit? Here’s some music to lighten your mood, in no particular order… The Christmas Song, The...
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Mix Blog Live: Resurrecting an Audio Dinosaur, Episode 4
Has it really been three months since we last visited the Ampex 351 Audio Dinosaur? I estimate that I’ve logged 200,000 miles since the...
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Mix Blog Live: Newberry Opera House
Eighteen eighty-one, United States. President James Garfield is assassinated. Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company. Billy the Kid escapes...
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Mix Blog Live: Back to the Future
Most audio engineers are familiar with the term snapshot memory, a method by which all (or at least most) of the settings of a...
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Mix Blog Live: Is It Live, Or Is It???
A few nights ago, some of my coworkers were discussing the song “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish, the video for which has collected more...
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Mix Blog Live: Best Show Ever
I’m lucky to have a close-knit family and we often find excuses to get together, whether it be for a holiday, a birthday or...
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Mix Blog Live: The Expensive Seats Aren’t Always the Best
One of the issues that I deal with on a constant basis is making a P.A. sound good for the front rows of a...
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Mix Blog Live: No Excuses
I almost never have the luxury of touring with production, so on any given show there are a ton of variables in the P.A....
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Mix Blog Live: Resurrecting an Audio Dinosaur, Part 3
When last we left my Ampex 351 Audio Dinosaur, I had installed a newly rebuilt power supply, ensuring that all sections of the 351...
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Mix Blog Live: The Power of Chicken Nuggets
July 5, 2019, 11:30 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time I return to my hotel room after a gig at the Rialto Theatre in Tucson, Ariz....
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Mix Blog Live: Resurrecting an Audio Dinosaur, Part 2
At the close of the first episode of “Resurrecting an Audio Dinosaur,” my lovely Ampex 351 tape machine channel was alive and working—though I...
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Mix Blog Live: Resurrecting an Audio Dinosaur
You’re looking at the electronics for a single channel of an Ampex 351 tape machine that was built in the early 1950s. Ampex manufactured...
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Mix Blog Live: Victor Jay Solotoff, 1945 – 2019
Brooklyn, N.Y., 1979 My friend John is a year ahead of me in the same school: John Dewey High School in Brooklyn. At the...
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Mix Blog Live: O Ware, O Where
The wheels of progress never stop grinding, especially when it comes to digital audio, so it’s no surprise when manufacturers of digital gear introduce...
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Mix Blog Live: Formation, Transformation and Deformation
On April 17, 2019, one of my classes had the opportunity to participate in a very special event. Held in the Rotunda, Mercy Hall...
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Mix Blog Live: Sonic Limitations
I don’t like surprises, at least not while I’m working. I think a lot of engineers feel that way, and that’s part of the...
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Mix Blog Live: A Tale of Two P.A.s (In the Same Room)
February 27, 2019: Tonight I’m working the O2 Institute in Birmingham, England. Originally constructed in the early 1900s as a Methodist congregational chapel, the...
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Mix Blog Live: Follow That Plow!
Friday, January 18, 2019, 2:00 PM I hate touring in the winter. A projected Snowpocalypse has the media in a frenzy. I’m worried about...
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Mix Blog Live: AES@NAMM Goes Big
It’s been a few years since I’ve been to a NAMM Show, though throughout that time I’ve consistently attended annual AES Conventions. What I...