Live Musical Multimedia Open plus Steven Tyler at CES

January, 2005

This year was probably one of the most fun for me because finally after so many years working on the CES events in one capacity or another, I would have a chance to show my Rock “chops” in a corporate environment. Not just lav’s and video tape here; this year the presentation for Intel opened with a fully composed, arranged/orchestrated piece of music to be performed by a combination of live and pre-recorded elements. The composer had given me a full ProTools file (about 75 tracks) of the piece with which I deconstructed with Live Music Supervisor Deborah Hurwitz and laid out into 16 tracks of playback. Ten of these would be used live and the remaining six would be click and live backup. The entire band were dressed in beautiful costumes signifying cultures from around the world. The music reflected this as well. The whole thing was driven by a Watchout video system pushing time code to the audio machine. To top it off, we had Steven Tyler come out and sing a few bars of “Walk This Way” which required us to have monitors that would support him. This is what I do! So about a hundred inputs on the PM1D and two shows later, my clients saw the other side of sound that I did before I ever started doing corporate events. It was very satisfying.

WB Upfront and Lenny Kravitz

May, 2004

This year's show was a massive undertaking at New York City's Madison Square Garden. We were faced with the challenges of getting in a very large show in a very short amount or time. We had about 2 days to load-in and set up the stage, sound, lights, and all the video elements including large-scale projection and LCD screens. At front-of-house there were both a Midas Heritage 4000 and 3000 providing around 110 inputs for the show. The 4000 handled production duties such as all the radio microphones for the talent, playback elements including digicarts and ProTools, three video decks including one digi beta and two Profile hard drives, all supplying multi-channel outputs. Video was controlled from a Clark Media truck on the street and was fed to and from via Telecast fiber systems. Entertainment segments featured appearences from all talent from the WB's shows and music performances were by Lenny Kravitz (3 songs) and Gavin DeGraw (one song.) I had the pleasure of designing the full system based around a V'Dosc/dV'Dosc sound system and also took care of all of the show's FOH mixing. Monitors were mixed for Lenny on a Digico D5 and for Gavin on a Midas H3000. We had to provide over 65 drops of intercom including 16 drops of wireless. It was chaotic, but was a huge success. Steve Oliker technical directed, and The WB's own Dean Norris, Neal Roscoe and Jessica Ripoll produced the show. Adam Loesch was V'Dosc extrodinare once again, Pete Erskine manned the radios and intercom, Patrick Healy was the lead system engineer and Kris Umezawa was on Monitors for Gavin Degraw.

December, 2003

This is a refreshing and fun holiday show performed by the up-and-coming rock group, GrooveLily (Brendan Milburn on Keys, Valerie Vigoda on Electric Violin and Gene Lewin on Drums.) This unique show blends the contemporary tale of a grumpy guy home alone on New Year’s Eve, with Hans Christian Andersen's “The Little Match Girl.” Filled with smart pop writing, virtuoso musicianship and riveting vocals by all three performers, this charming production gives audiences a fun twist on the holidays along with an enchanting concert evening with GrooveLily!

This production was done at the highly acclaimed Old Globe Theater in San Diego. Previously done at the Prince Theater in Philadelphia, the creators were excited to expand on the show's production value. Director Ted Sperling and playwright Rachel Sheinkin have reprised their roles in San Diego with added design staff Michael Gilliam (lighting), David Ledsinger (set) and Shelly Williams (costumes.)

"...Their lyrics are fresh, clever and evocative. The words also are easy to understand despite the amplified instruments in a small space. Praise be to sound designer Robert J. Killenberger." Don Shirley, LA Times. Look here for this full review.

Zanna Don't!

Spring, 2003

Zanna Don't is a hip musical fairy tale about a matchmaking teen who turns relationships upside down, challenges our point of view and changes the world forever. With a little magic and a fresh pop score, Zanna celebrates the discovery of true love. I was the sound designer for the workshop at the American Theater of Actors, Chernuchin Theater; for the limited-run, Off-Off-Broadway AMAS production at Theater Row's Kirk Theater on 42nd street; and for the Off-Broadway Production at the John Houseman Theater on 42nd street. The show recieved many award nominations and won multiple awards as well as rave reviews from most of the major publications in New York and online.

Intel Keynotes

Over the past few years I have done a number of Intel keynotes supporting CEO Craig Barrett. We have taken this show all over the world, to places like Amman Jordan, Paris, Santiago Chile, Lima Peru, Sao Paulo, and many locations in the US as well. Some are simple presentations with demonstrations of cutting edge computer hardware and software, and some are more complex. An example of the latter would be at one year's CES convention: we had an Elvis presentation/performance with three actors portraying the legend, followed by demonstrations; some including the Flying Karamosov Brothers, a multi-media juggling presentation. At another CES convention, Blue Man Group joined us for a wild performance integrated into Dr. Barrett's presentation. Scroll Down for more on this one.

Microsoft Professional Developers Conference

October, 2001

The Professional Developers Conference, or PDC, is a huge convention hosted by Microsoft. This year it was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, which is adjacent to the Staple's Center arena. Here, thousand of software developers came to hear about new products and changes made to products in the home and professional computing and electronics markets.

We provided sound for the keynote speeches in the main keynote room of the convention center. This room seated approximately 8000 people for these sessions.

Uncle Junior Sings

June 27, 2001

Dominic Chianese is the actor that plays mob boss Uncle Junior on HBO's "The Sopranos." He has just released a new CD cleverly titled "Hits." For the record release party, the label chose NYC venue Twirl, which is normally a loungy nightclub. There were challenges associated with this venue that required some creative design to make this event happen with regard to the sound of his performance.

First, the club is on the ground level of a residence; so the volume level is always required to be low. The house sound system is very small and focused toward the center of the room. For Dominic's performance, we needed to cover the entire venue with clear, high-fidelity sound. He was playing an acoustic guitar with no pickup (a pickup is standard for live acoustic guitar performance). This meant that we needed to mic the guitar, which was already being played quietly. Also, Dominic has a mellow voice and there was concern about hearing the lyrics.

I brought in Mount Vernon-based ProMix to provide the speakers and amps. I ordered a pair of Meyer UPA-1P's, a USW-1P and a pair of UPM-1P's. I provided all FOH control, effects & processing as well as the pair of Neumann KMS105 handheld mics. The guitar had an AKG 460/CK61 and the piano had a pair of KSM32's. Doug Katsaros played the piano, Claudia Koal of K2 Productions produced the show and Mike Frank assisted me.

Choir Sings Praises of Washington Mutual

March, 2001

On March 15th and 22nd, I went to Pasadena and Atlanta respectively to do a show with Washington Mutual. The theme of the show was "We're gonna take you higher." The show included a 30-person gospel choir and a 3-piece band, including drummer, bass player and B3 organist. Each choir member had a DPA 4065 miniature headset microphone on.

As with any other corporate-style meeting,this one for the bank's lending and mortgage banking divisions contained all the standard elements of a large-scale corporate show. There were plenty of high-powered videos shown and a list of speakers to present them. This client likes excitement in its presentations. This is something that has been consistent from show to show. This one, however, added an extra level of excitement with the inclusion of a first-class gospel choir. The show had a powerful church-like theme, but was in no way religious. Michelle Johnson-Littleton music-directed, and Don Lewis played the organ. Steve Oliker of Oligopoly Productions (based in Hermosa Beach, CA) handled the production management, perfectly as always.

The sound vendor on this show was Las Vegas-based Electrotec-ProMix, led into battle by Jerry Harvey. The sound system for this show was somewhat sizeable. We had (12) V'Dosc cabinets, (6) dV'Dosc cabinets, (8) 2x18 Aura subs and many smaller speakers throughout as front/side fill systems, under balcony and foldback for the musicians. Control was provided by two Yamaha PM 4000's linked together at FOH. The 48+4 was the primary production/band console and the 40+4 was the choir mixer. The system was controlled by (3) BSS Omnidrives and (14) channels of BSS varicurve EQ's with system delay through (5) BSS 804's. I also utilized both engines on a a Lexicon 480 for choir and vocal reverbs as well as an SPX 990 for drum effects. Compression was (12) channels of DBX and a Summit DCL200.

The first show in Pasadena was held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. The venue's scheduling presented the audio crew with a very difficult scenario: the venue got double-booked and we were required to strike all front-of-house control gear, projection equipment, screens and pretty much anything that was downstage of the lineset containing the downstage scrim. Despite these challenges, the sound system needed to be designed as a tightly packaged rig, with all connections in a mult.

Jerry Harvey and his crew, Forrest Rowles, Orris Henry and Doug Kimbal did a stellar job executing this show. Click here to get an MP3 sample of the closing choir performance from Pasadena. I took some pictures at this event.

Bill Gates Announces Windows XP

Seattle; Feb 13, 2001

It's six o'clock pm in Seattle at the Experience Music Project, where crews are arriving and preparing to load in a great deal of video and audio gear for the worldwide announcement of Windows XP. Jim Allchin, group vice president of Microsoft's platform division, joined Bill Gates to make the announcement to a room full of press. If you want to read more about the OS, click here, then choose one of the many stories on the announcement dated Feb 13.

Because of the show's high-profile nature, all facets of the audio and video had to be on track and working perfectly, and in record time. This posed a particular challenge due to all the electrics and electronics in such a small space. In addition to all the usual video and audio supplied by Seattle-based Staging Techniques, a satellite truck was employed to uplink the announcement live. The sound system was as follows: PM3000, Meyer UPA's, integration to the SoundWeb/JBL system in the Sky Church, SONY RF with my Shure MX184 supercardioid lavs (2 of which are seen here pinned on Mr. Gates). Processing included Klark Teknik EQ's, dbx compression, Gentner hybrids and a Dugan automixer.

Roland 2001 Musical Instrument Presentation

Long Beach CA; Jan 17 & 18, 2001

This was my second year handling the sound design for this show. Anyone that has anything to do with the music business knows Roland well. The company manufactures electronic musical instruments such as keyboards, samplers, electronic drums and recording equipment as well as a wide range of electronic organs.

The "musical instrument product premiere" was a show that highlighted all the company's new models that were to debut at this year's NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) convention. Artists like Omar Hakim demonstrated various instruments with other demo artists from Roland. The second day was slated for an organ concert featuring different organs, ranging from smaller home organs to large, classic, multi-manual organs designed to simulate that of a theater or church pipe organ. Rodgers Instruments is a subsidiary of Roland which is the manufacturer of most of these organs. They utilize the latest digital processing and play through a series of small speakers located all around the theater. The system incorporates a DSP multi-channel reverb unit called RSS, which simulates different acoustic spaces and distributes the reverb sounds to many different speakers around the room. The system creates an extremely realistic acoustic space simulation.

Gear for the show was provided by Burbank-based Audiotek with: John Protzco as the crew chief/system engineer; Drew Aldridge, system engineer; Steve Kallos, monitor engineer; Chuck Orozco, stage tech; and Jack Bowling handling intercom and RF. This team performed a stellar job and made the sound department shine. The system was centered around a V'Dosc PA with a PM4000 out front. Monitors were mixed on a PM4000M with ATK's M2 wedges. Processing was all KT, dbx and Drawmer.

The production company for this was Campos Creative Works. I so thoroughly enjoy working with this client due to both the high demand for exceptional sound quality and the utter gratitude bestowed upon the production staff by the President of Roland USA, Dennis Houlihan. Following is an e-mail I received from him after this year's show:

Hi, Rob - Sorry for the delay in getting this to you - but, nonetheless, a most sincere "Thank You" for making the sound so great at our Roland MI Product Premier and the Organ Power concert. You have spoiled me "big time"!!!!! Everything was so perfect!!!!! I really appreciate and respect your patient, thorough approach to making everything sound so good and function so smoothly. Looking forward to working with you again in the future. Meanwhile, thanks again for all your hard work and extra effort on our behalf.

Best regards,
Dennis Houlihan,
Roland Corporation U.S.

Blue Man Group Take CES Keynotes By Storm

Las Vegas; Jan 5, 2001

This show took place at the Las Vegas Hilton Theater, former home of Starlight Express, when Staging Techniques brought me in to handle sound design and mixing for this year's Consumer Electronics Show keynotes. This was my second time doing this show. As always, "this year needed to top the last."

It was double duty for me since I was taking care of Blue Man Group for Intel's keynote as well as coordinating all the sound for all the other keynotes and presentations. This was also an input-heavy show. Blue Man Group had 46 from the stage; Intel and Microsoft combined had 76 from the stage for a total of 122. The show was filled with lots of demo computer inputs and RF mics. The patch was hellish, but Jay Roberts, head of sound at the Hilton Theater, handled it effortlessly. We needed to fit all three presentations on the consoles at the same time due to the fact that Blue Man Group's performance was integrated into Craig Barrett's (Intel CEO) keynote presentation. Also, Microsoft's rehearsal was in between Intel's rehearsal and Intel's show.

I have to say, the Blue Men rocked! Gear for the show consisted of a full sound system in-house at the Hilton Theater and other gear brought in for Blue Man from Electrotec ProMix in Vegas. Blue Man was designed and mixed by Ross Humphrey with the system engineered by Kevin Harvey. The Hilton system was a Crown IQ controlled EAW KF850 system driven by two PM4000's. The system had a ridiculous array of processing. In the end, it was a very big sound show, and everyone was very pleased.