Steve The Soundman

W Magazine Event

2008-09-11T00:33:00.003-04:00

So on monday Hudson Terrace hosted an event for W Magazine for fashion week.

I was contracted to provide some extra lighting and generally make sure things went smooth. they set up a number of stations for the different advitisers in the mag and it was my job to light them. i would have taken better pics but i left my POS at home so its just celly pics. there is another event on friday that i m doing.

a little up lighting on the back patio

wide angle of the watches

uplighting of the umbrellas looked good

spot on the florals

more umbrellas

lord and tallor got the stage

the guy with the watches again. turne out the guy i was talking to was actually the CEO really nice guy

some bling

Mr. Hammer VS. Mr. RG8

2008-09-04T21:50:00.004-04:00

So what happens when an a hammer drill

goes against a RG6 Cable

Not a pretty sight. Tormorrow i get the repair the damn thing. A word to the wise when drilling through concrete watch out for rebar. The damn drill bucked and went into the adjecent hole.

The Week of Buzz

2008-08-27T15:48:00.006-04:00

So this week was all about trying to get a bunch of cable box to stop putting a hum in to the system at SideBar. here is a list of things to check if you ever have a problem when you hook the audio out on a cable box:

1. make sure there is a grounding block somewhere on the Coax cable run.

2. make sure all components are on the same electrical circuit.

3. if all else fails get one of these ground loop isolators.

the third sollution is what i had to use and it worked like a charm.

On to the maddness that is Haven @ SideBar

the after work was pretty good . i played a mix of rock,funk and some new funk downtempo that i picked up last week

NTS Rolled in about 10:30 and started to rock out

there was a pretty good looking crowd on friday

alex gettin is pimp on

brandon doing what ever it is that he does

Owner Mike and Chef Jason up to something

then the highlight of the evening we had a suprise guest dj. none other than Zacky Zack

he managed to do in 30 min that nowbody has done since we opened. Blow the Monitors. Regardless everyone was having a good time by that point and was cheering him on.

Switching it up at SideBar

2008-08-17T20:31:00.015-04:00

this week NTS had to roll down to Philly so DJ Peck step in to throw down

started out taking some requests playing some classic hard rock around 10:30 i started in with the funk. by then it was starting to fill up.

about 12:30 we had requests for some house so that called for me jump back on.
fuck what was i using Serato or Scratch.

Rocked out for an hour or so then i turned it over to Peck so he could play some hip hop

The back lounge was getting packed

there where these three girls that where hanging out while i was playing but thing where kinda foggy at that point. as i had started on the Burbon tallboys. i am going to have to stop in on pecks saturday night next week to see what goes on there saturday.

How Many Time Can You Play Lebonese Blond

2008-08-06T20:03:00.003-04:00

I thought i would text NTS and see if he wanted to come to the lingerie party at Hudson Terrace little did i know he was already booked to dj the party. i decided to get to the spot a little early so i could reinstall the rotory unit in the allen & heath xone s2. did that then decided to dj for a while i decided on some downtempo. then they guy from Rosy said to me that this was the music they wanted for the evening. which was strange because the list the gave NTS was all electro. i told him don't worry we got you covered.

NTS rolled in and we talked about music and agreed that it was a night for theivery corperation. little did i know he was going to see how many times he could play Lebenese Blond befor some one noticed. i think the count got to around 8 times in 2 hours. here are the pic from the event.

NTS playing whatelse Lebenese Blond and the pics of the girls

Haven Friday @ Sidebar

2008-08-03T22:25:00.005-04:00

Friday was a fun night but not nearly as crazy as last saturday. it was pretty packed from 5pm on.

i finally got some good pics of the hollosceen in the back lounge area.

here is maragrite the lovely hostess

NTS rocking out

NTS with a yum yum honey

A crowd shot around 12 or so

Oliva taking a break from serving the drinks

Matty, Zak, and Chef Jason chillin by the bar

it was a fun night things just got a little hazy after 12. you have to watch out for those knob creek tallboys. they put you on another planet.

Another Day More Running Around

2008-07-31T16:35:00.003-04:00

I get a call last night saying that one of the Danley SH-100b's is blown. Which is imposible. i have limiters set pretty conservitively and it would take a long time of the amp being in clip for that to happen. the amps can't clip because of the above mentioned limiters. i tell the client that i would stop by durring the day to check it out. on to the days festivities.

Aspen 2
we are finally able to pull the calble for the chauvet colorstrips. was a easy job done in less than an hour. i have no idea how they get materials to the job site the trafic is always like this.

They still have a long ways to go

but the GC say's the there going to start flying. no worries on my end just installing the colorstrips.

Get the car out the garage and head down the street to Hudson Terrace.

turn the system on, crank the volume up and guess what no blow speakers. knowing how to set you limiters will save you and your client money and time. there is no reason in this day and age with digital processors you should ever have a blown speaker. if you do you have not set the processor correctly and need to learn how to. there is a great excel spreadsheet on EAW's website that helps with determining what your limiter setting should be. it is not perfect but give you a good idea.

that finished i had to shoot downtown to the world headquarters for Lewis & Dizon Design to pick up a light that i am converting to a low voltage fixture. i will put some of the pic's up when i do that on sunday.

Whats The Point of HDMI

2008-07-29T21:23:00.007-04:00

So i go back to Southern

to take a second look at what i am dealing with and after poking around i notice that whoever did the original install used HDMI cables. Here are the reasons no one should use HDMI cable's for video routing till all the hardware manufacturers  get on the same page with HDCP Compliance.
1. hardware for HDMI is way to expensive
2. HDMI doesn't look any beter than component video
3. there are no fire rated HDMI cables so you can not install them leagally in a wall or celling.      unless you do you own terminations. store bought cables are not legal.
4. HDCP compliance between manufacturers sucks. it is not worth the headaches.

    Coax is the most cost effective solution, if anyone tells you differently they have not done enough installs to know what they are talking about.

    so now i have to come up with a soultion an to top it off the installer used 2 driverack pa's and ran two of the outputs into the inputs of the other. why the hell would you use a DRPA in a sports bar. for the same price you could have installed a biamp nexia SP and had twice the amount of in's and out's. the proper solution would have been two nexia pm's. you would have ton of in's for the cable box's/video matrix switcher and be good to go.
   The question now becomes do i install a HDMI matrix switcher (expensive) or repull all the cable and install a component switcher(expensive but not as expensive). that headache over i had to shoot down to the boys at HK (39&9th)

To talk some business. seems like the mini Danley system we installed there is working like a champ. So i head down to sidebar to pick up the last of the tools there. 4:30 and i get to leave the city. Rock On.
What the hell is this.

i hate traffic almost as much as i hate fixing someone else's screw ups. so end another day of running round the city.

Monday's Suck

2008-07-28T17:19:00.008-04:00

I hate mondays. they just mean i have to fix anyproblems that people had over the weekend. First up was SideBar. Before i left on sunday i was trying to get the hum from a cable box to go the way of the dodo bird. When i was trouble shooting i forgot to reassign one of the inputs on the matrix mixer.

Moral of the story is do not try to trouble shoot a problem at 5am after drinking. still don't know what caused the hum but its gone now.

I also hate mondays because the mean meetings.Todays was Southern Hospitality up on 76th and 2nd. Nice place but poorly designed from a A/V point of view. The LCD's are poorly located and who ever installed them set the TV's to 4:8 in widescreen mode. talk about the tv adding ten pounds. it isn't a big intstall. only 3 or 4 32"s but they want a matrix switcher and all the cable boxes aren't centraly located so we have to pull a bunch of coax.
Most are here.

Then there are 2 back here.

I love fixing the poor designs of people.
here are some more pic of the place.

So tomorrow i have to look at another place in the 30's and hopefully i can get the guys started on the job at aspen 2 on 47th.

Madness at SideBar

2008-07-27T18:57:00.008-04:00

So i get up saturday at 1 to discover that my cell phone service has been susspended. i can never remeber to pay the bill. i have to get an assistant soon. so pay the bill and call everybody to recap the night. much to my surprise everybody seems to think i am comming in to the city tonight even though i said i was going to the lake.
I throw my lappy in the bag and head off for a night of debauchery. i end up sitting at the holland tunnel for like an hour. i finally get to SideBar and get the laptop setup so i will be ready to dj later.
DJ NTS shows up with his bro so we sit down and have some dinner.

11 rolls around and i jump on and throw down some oldschool hiphop for about an hour. DJ NTS get on and starts bringing it up a bit.

DJ Peck rolls in about a hour later and jumps on.

Meanwhile the place is fucking packed this is the most people we have had here yet.

its hard to believe i finished the install just 5 weeks ago. they really need to hang curtains in the front room so it will cut down the on all the hard surfaces in the room. the back sounds so much better with the curtains in.

mad man zach get in to the shot.

then yells at me to look outside

This line wraps around the building. its getting freaking nuts.

Calling zak to the booth we need drinks

the boys are feeling better now

i go check out the scene in the kitchen and try and grab some eats but thats not what happened.

"i need fives" is all zak is yelling so me and Chef Jason Dive in.

the shit is really going off now.

The boys having fun.

i need to get everybody to keep the booth clean there are too many things that might spill.
I also need to adjust the EQ in the private dinning room

i decided to go see who is over in the vintage side of the venue and look who i run into the hottie olivia.

some of the other boys jump into the pic

so who's she going home with guys?

all in all it was fun night the crowd was a little weird.
(edit) as it turns out this is NTS's cousin and where not going to have any of that stuff around here.