GC Pro Unveils Spanish-Language Microsite

GC Pro Spanish Homepage Screenshot.

— Featuring many of the same resources as its English-language counterpart, GC Pro’s new Spanish page is geared toward the growing Latino audio community —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, December 4, 2014 — Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, announces a new Spanish-language microsite at GCPro.com. Intended to serve the U.S.’s growing Latino audio community, the new section of the site will be updated regularly and will offer the same types of resources as its English-language counterpart: GC Pro installation profiles, account manager contact information, product spotlights and more. The microsite is accessible by clicking on “GC Pro en Español” on the right-hand side of the English-language main page.

Derek Snyder, GC Pro Director, Western Region, notes, “A cool feature of the site allows Spanish speakers to either chat live with one of our GC Pro call center associates or be connected to six regionally positioned account managers who are fluent in both the Spanish language and the unique needs of Latin American music professionals.”

“In an effort to better serve Spanish-speaking producers, engineers, artists, studio owners and GC Pro affiliates, we have introduced this new section of our site,” stated Rick Plushner, GC Pro Vice President. “We are a strong supporter of all types and traditions of music-making, and the Latin music scene in the U.S. has grown from a niche market to a mainstream juggernaut. We have built a firm relationship with this community – for instance, GC Pro was a proud sponsor of the recent ‘En La Mezcla’ Latin GRAMMY® Week P&E Wing event at Studio at the Palms in Las Vegas – and we look forward to continuing to serve this community for years to come – on our site, in our physical GC Pro locations and in the field.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

Global Harvest Church Gets Help from GC Pro

Global Harvest Church in Carrollton, Texas, featuring upgraded AV components sourced through GC Pro.

— GC Pro shows the value of relationships as it helps Global Harvest Church move to its new space with the right technology, installation and service —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, December 1, 2014 — As churches expand, break off, or move into new spaces, they often need help finding the right mix of AV technology to let them get off the ground as successfully as possible. That’s exactly what Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, was able to do for the new Global Harvest Church, in Carrollton, Texas, earlier this year.

For years, Global Harvest Church shared worship spaces with the New Song Church, also in Carrollton, but more recently members of the existing congregation sought to express their own worship style with their own separate worship facility. New Song Church has been a long-time customer of GC Pro, which had sourced audio and video products for the church in the past. Thus, the founders of Global Harvest Church became familiar with GC Pro’s vast inventory, competitive pricing and extensive knowledge of the entire AV spectrum of technology, and in particular with GC Pro’s Affiliate Program, which pairs clients who need AV installation/integration services with vendors with specific capabilities to fit those needs. In this case, the nascent church’s leadership approached GC Pro’s Dallas office with their plan, and GC Pro stepped up to help them accomplish this smoothly.

Beginning a year ago, GC Pro Senior Account Manager Jeffrey McDaniel began coordinating between the church and Omnicoustics, a local AV integration company that is a member of the GC Pro Affiliates Program. As plans with the new church’s architects began to come together, GC Pro and Omnicoustics owner Adrian Gamez developed AV systems designs that would perfectly integrate into the church’s physical architecture. These include a sound system featuring a DB Technologies DVA T4 powered line array, two DB DVA-S20DP Dual 18-inch powered subwoofers, a Symetrix SymNet® Open Architecture Dante® Scalable DSP processor, and Sennheiser handheld wireless microphone and in-ear monitor systems. Video components include a Blackmagic Designs router and SDI converters and Panasonic cameras, and three Apple iMac Quad Core computers, as well as lighting components from Chauvet.

“We’d had a lot of time to get to know them,” McDaniel says of the founders of the new church. “And they knew us from all the work we had done together at New Song over the years. We knew each other as people as well as professionals, and that makes a huge difference, especially in the house-of-worship category, where trust in who you’re dealing with is everything.”

The choice of Omnicoustics proved to be a good one for the church. Company owner Adrian Gamez recalls that the church, which has a fairly low ceiling, specifically wanted a line array sound system. “That’s usually not a good combination,” says Gamez, who analyzed the space using EASE software and determined that the DB Technologies T4 line array would be a good solution. “GC Pro sourced that for us, as well as all the other equipment and products we needed,” he says. “There’s a good balance between what we do and what GC Pro is best at that really delivers a great end result for the client.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

State Theatre Updates Audio Systems with GC Pro

The front-of-house engineer position at State Theatre in Falls Church, Virginia, featuring gear sourced through GC Pro.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, November 24, 2014 — The nearly century-old venue State Theatre in Falls Church, Virginia, opened its doors in 1936 but closed down in 1988. Luckily, it later underwent a multi-million-dollar restoration and renovation that both buffed up its Art Deco design elements and added modern sound and lights with a 20-foot video screen, turning it into one of the leading live music venues in the region, sporting a wide-open dance floor and 200 seats in the restored balconies. The State Theatre just got another upgrade, this one to its audio and lighting systems, with all components sourced through Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users.

The new audio and lighting components include an RCF dual-hang line array sound system, managed by a dbx DriveRack 4800 speaker processor and mixed through an Avid SC48 VENUE digital FOH console. There is also a new High End Systems Road Hog 4 lighting control console and 16 new Chauvet LED and PAR lighting fixtures. All of these components were installed by Koko Brothers Entertainment, a proud member of the GC Pro Affiliate Program.

“That’s one of the things we love about working with GC Pro — any product we think we might need on a job, GC Pro will always be able to get it for us,” says Angelo Kokkinakos, who with his brother Lou owns and operates Koko Brothers Entertainment. The Baltimore-based firm is one of an elite group of approved vendors in the GC Pro Affiliate Program, which includes a growing number of award-winning companies and individuals who specialize in key areas of professional audio systems design, integration and installation.

“There were a couple of challenges,” says Angelo Kokkinakos. “It’s an old, landmarked building, so there’s not much you can do from an acoustics point of view, because the historical nature of the interior must be maintained. The owner” — Thomas Carter, who with a partner bought the State Theatre and brought it back to life — “wanted better sound. What had been in there was a ground-stacked system, which was good, but the coverage was uneven; it needed a number of under-balcony fills to make it work. Working with Jonah [Joffe, GC Pro Account Manager based at the Washington, D.C.-area office], we determined that a flown line array would be the best choice.”

State Theatre in Falls Church, Virginia, featuring gear sourced through GC Pro.

“When we explored the different options and prices [for the P.A. system], the RCF came up as the right solution for the job,” says Angelo. “And once we had it installed, it really exceeded our high expectations. And that’s what I mean about working with GC Pro: whatever we might ask for, they’ll always tell us, ‘No problem! We can get that!’ And if something comes up in the middle of the project, like it did here when we discovered that the crawl space between the FOH position and the stage was longer than the snake we had specified, no problem — GC Pro and Whirlwind worked together to get us the items we needed to modify the snake.”

On working with GC Pro, Angelo notes, ““It’s a great partnership,” says Angelo Kokkinakos. “Every project has turned out exactly the way it’s supposed to. Clients love that!”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

Perry, Georgia’s New Hope Baptist Church

Perry, Georgia’s New Hope Church, featuring upgraded audio, video and lighting solutions designed by and sourced through GC Pro.

— GC Pro acts as a one-stop shop for church’s AVL needs, including systems design and integration, readying the facility for a new generation of worshipers —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, November 20, 2014 — The New Hope Baptist Church of Perry, Georgia, intimately understands the need for AV technology for communicating its message. But like many churches, New Hope needed help figuring out what would best suit its needs. That’s where Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, came into the picture. GC Pro account manager Brad Lyons met with the church’s leaders and offered a turnkey solution that comprehensively addressed audio, video and lighting in a single package.

GC Pro brought in one of its Affiliate Program members, locally-based Commercial Sound and Video, to implement all of these integrated solutions. They included a single-point line JBL VRX932 line array above the church’s front area with JBL CBT70J side-fills on each side. Three JBL PRX718XLF self-powered subwoofers were cut into the stage and installed. The choir monitor is a single JBL CTB70J1 line array cabinet behind the VRX line array. This is all powered by nine Crown XTI2002, XTI4002 and XLS1500 power amps. A new 32-channel Soundcraft Expression console with a 32x8 stage box is connected via CAT5.

Congregants gathered at Perry, Georgia’s New Hope Church, featuring upgraded audio, video and lighting solutions designed by and sourced through GC Pro.

“The best feature is we put this on a wireless network, allowing control from the floor and on-stage with an iPad, especially useful considering the booth is a room in the upstairs back corner part of the sanctuary,” explains Lyons. “Another huge feature was being able to program the console and lock-out controls for the volunteer team so that they have perfect sound every week.”

For video, two new Panasonic PTDW640 projectors now illuminate a pair of new 12-foot-wide Da-Lite screens. A newly installed Blackmagic ATEM1/ME video switcher has become the centerpiece of the entire facility. “We re-purposed an old projector and screen to be used as a rear-wall confidence monitor,” Lyons explains. “The Blackmagic allows us to send independent video sources to the two front screens as well as the rear-screen. This has really increased the effectiveness of the church’s video system.” In addition, a new Blonder Tongue QME Modulator allows them to distribute live video and audio to previously installed televisions in the foyer, kitchen, pastor’s office, treasurer’s office, fellowship hall and other overflow areas. A new lighting package consists of two Chauvet Ovation 165w LED fresnels and a Chauvet Ovation 190 ellipsoidal that now provide a dramatic improvement to lighting the pulpit.

What really made the difference for New Hope Baptist Church was how GC Pro was able to offer a comprehensive solutions approach for all of the church’s AVL needs. “The great thing is that Brad [Lyons] speaks their language,” says Nathan Miller, owner of Commercial Sound and Video. “Churches aren’t residential or commercial — they are their own category and have unique needs and requirements. GC Pro understands that, and that’s why they’ve been so successful in this category. We ‘get’ what churches need. And only GC Pro is positioned, through its sales, inventory, sourcing and integration resources, to provide that kind of service.”

Willie Williams, long-time member and project manager for New Hope, went on to say, “We couldn’t be more pleased with the upgrade investment our church has made. In fact, we continue to receive compliments on just how much better everything looks and sounds. There are a few more projects we need to tackle, but we are happy and excited to be working on these projects with both GC Pro and Commercial Sound and Video.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

GC Pro Helps Engineer/Producer Mark Lienhart

The control room of the new space of One Louder Studio in Hamilton, Ohio, with gear sourced through GC Pro. Photo credit: Rudy Harris Photography

— The latest upgrade to Lienhart’s One Louder Studio features state-of-the-art Slate Pro Audio RAVEN MTX console and tons of other gear sourced through GC Pro —

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, November 12, 2014 — Cincinnati’s One Louder Studio represents the fulfilled dreams of owner and engineer/producer Mark Lienhart. The studio has grown organically since its origins in its first location in Hamilton, Ohio, with Lienhart upgrading gear along the way, remodeling his space and finally moving to a larger permanent space, where he has achieved sonic nirvana with a workflow that results in the sound he’s always strived for but could never quite attain. “I always wondered how the major-label engineers got that last 10% or so of sound quality. I worked and worked, studying the science and art of recording, but I just couldn’t quite get there. As much as people say that the gear doesn’t matter, they’re wrong – the gear is that last 10%! Nothing I did would make the sound perfect until I found the gear that complemented what I was doing.” And this gear has been assembled in Lienhart’s new space thanks to a close relationship with Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users – specifically with GC Pro Sales rep Jim Kinney, who has worked with Lienhart at every step of the way in outfitting the new facility.

Lienhart’s tenure as a studio owner has humble beginnings – a few mics and an interface, purchased at the grand re-opening of Cincinnati’s Guitar Center in 2007 or so. As he recorded more and more in his band’s rehearsal space, he started to get calls from other acts in the area. Word was spreading, and the records were getting better and better. Before long, Lienhart and his wife made the decision to take the studio to the next level. After moving to a space near the University of Cincinnati, he made a significant upgrade to his setup, working with Kinney to set the facility apart from other mid-sized studios in the area. But the biggest shift was yet to come – moving into and outfitting yet another space, his current one. It’s been an inarguably fast rise, and GC Pro has been his number-one resource for the right gear and service.

The centerpiece of the new facility, in operation since June 2014, is the Slate Pro Audio RAVEN MTX console, an acclaimed, state-of-the-art multi-touch touchscreen interface. “We were considering several great options for consoles, but Jim was wise enough to take the conversation in another direction – ‘Have you ever considered the RAVEN?’ – and he set up a demo for me at GC Pro’s Hollywood showroom with some sessions I had tracked. I got behind that console, and it was absolutely the most intuitive way to mix. I immediately understood how it worked. The tactile response is extraordinary. I was able to edit and mix right there at the demo session. Saying that I was sold on the idea right away is an understatement. It was a revelation.” Kinney and Lienhart interfaced the RAVEN MTX, running Pro Tools HDX, with a custom analog board that they designed themselves with all of Lienhart’s favorite outboard gear – pre-amps, EQs, compressors and the like. Lienhart adds, “We created a setup that blends analog outboard gear, Pro Tools and the RAVEN MTX interface. I have so many flavors to choose from, and all these elements work together marvelously.” The setup is complemented by Genelec 8050 Active Monitors, also sourced through GC Pro, and the classic Yamaha NS10’s, which Lienhart acquired from a retiring prominent voice actress who had used them for years in her home recording space – but uniquely, never for music.

A final touch was acoustical treatment. Lienhart recalls, “Jim arranged for Jay Porter from Radial and Prime Acoustics to do a 3D rendering of the room, based on the architects drawings and our specs, and he recommended several pieces of Prime Acoustics treatment, strategically placed in just the right spots. It was the perfect solution for controlling the sound in the control room and the tracking room.”

Lienhart is thrilled with the results: “The undertaking of rebuilding my studio and workflow from the ground up was hard work, but the records we’re making now – the sound is incredible. I listen to them and literally can’t believe we made that happen at our facility. I definitely could not have done it without the help of Jim and GC Pro, because at every turn, if I had a question, Jim had the answer, or knew how to get it. The last high-profile client I had, he got choked up and said that we brought to life the sound in his head, which is the biggest compliment you can get as an engineer or producer.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

Helping Light the Gas Monkey Bar N’ Grill

— Martin Lighting’s new Rush Series of cost-effective LED fixtures makes this barbecue-and-music destination a real Discovery —
You wanted cast-off hot cars brought back to life before your very eyes? Gas Monkey Garage proprietor Richard Rawlings’ reality-TV hit Fast N’ Loud has done exactly that for four seasons on the Discovery Channel. You wanted to chow down on Texas brisket in a place like that? Rawlings brought the Gas Monkey Bar N’ Grill, his Dallas barbecue emporium and live-music destination, to life last year. The Gas Monkey Bar N’ Grill combines two of reality television’s biggest draws — food and cars — into a major-league music venue with world-class sound, video and lights, with all systems designed and installed through GC Pro’s Dallas office.

What touring artists like Anvil and Uncle Kracker — both of whom visited the club this year — will find at GMBG, as the place has come to be known, is rider-ready equipment such as the 180-degree, 32,000-watt D.A.S. Aero line array sound system capable of hitting 121 dB and composed of two Aero 40A cabinets, four WR6412DX weatherized enclosures, a dozen D.A.S. Road low-profile monitors and two D.A.S. Avant 118 subwoofers. These cover an outdoor concert area that can hold as many as 1,500 people. Inside, eight D.A.S. Aero 8A compact line array columns and four D.A.S. LX215 subwoofers keep crowds in the 19,000-square-foot dining space amply entertained. Music is mixed through a Behringer X32 FOH console indoors and a Midas Pro 2 digital desk outdoors.

Hot Lights
Matching the sound is world-class lighting, with one of the first major installations of Martin Lighting’s new Rush Series of products. These include six Rush MH1 profile moving-head LED fixtures, six Rush MH2 wash moving-head LED fixtures, and four Rush MH3 beam moving-head fixtures. These and other fixtures are controlled through a Martin M1 lighting console with a built in folding touchscreen. The emphasis on LED lighting is what makes GMBG as flexible as it needs to be — you never know when Rawlings and company will show up with cameras ready to show that barbecue is done and the joint is rocked.

But lighting of this level of sophistication wasn’t this readily accessible or this affordable before Martin’s Rush Series became available last year through GC Pro. “This is a great match: Martin’s Rush and GC Pro,” observes Greg Jones, senior manager for installation products for the Harman Pro Group, which acquired Martin Lighting in 2013. Martin Rush fixtures hit a home run with target markets such as small to mid-sized venues like GMBG that need sophisticated LED and moving-head fixtures. The Martin brand and reputation is recognizable and acceptable to compete for national touring acts, and with the NEW RUSH line by Martin it is now possible to keep costs reasonable. They’re a perfect fit, too, for GC Pro’s broad market that ranges from small cafés to large clubs that can handle national concert acts and more.

“We were originally contacted by one of GC’s Lighting Champions, GC Pro Account manager Jeff McDaniels, who brought this opportunity to the table,” says Jones. “Sometimes timing is everything. With the recent launch of the Martin RUSH Line, the new Partnership between Martin and GC and the fact that GMBG was looking for a professional system that delivered and met every expectation, it all seemed to fall into place. We are very excited to work with the likes of Jeff and the rest of the GC Pro team on many projects to come. If GMBG is an example of what’s ahead then who wouldn’t be!” GMBG was also sold on the Martin Rush two-tear warranty. Alex Mendonsa, General Manager of the Gas Monkey Bar N’ Grill and a veteran of high-profile multi-use venues (having managed the House of Blues in Las Vegas), knows the value that products like Martin Rush can bring to a complex AVL project. “It’s been a seamless experience, thanks to GC Pro, and GC Pro Affiliate Program Member Trinity Group International, which also installed the audio components,” Mendonsa notes, though he adds that there were plenty of twists and turns. “For instance, we had to raise the roof on the stage, and we needed custom trussing fabricated for it. No problem for GC Pro. They got us out of a pinch on several occasions.”

Jones says that the Martin Rush Series fixtures are at the leading edge of a revolution in entertainment lighting, not unlike what the advent of affordable digital audio technology has been for music recording and production. “LED technology is exponentially making lighting better, replacing the discharge systems that had been the standard for decades. LED has allowed an option that is lower in weight and power consumption, smaller in size, and affordable without sacrificing features. With products like Rush that really leverage the power and price-performance of LED, we’ve got a whole new market of venues, like Gas Monkey Bar N’ Grill, open to us. And through GC Pro, we now also have a way to find them. Instead of clubs having to wait until they were working on a national level to be able to afford Martin lighting, now Martin can be their first lighting system and follow them as they expand. GC Pro has become our gateway into that market.”

As it turns out, the Gas Monkey Bar N’ Grill has been greenlit for its own reality-TV pilot on the Discovery Channel. And thanks to GC Pro, the club has the entire package it needs to make Gas Monkey Bar N’ Grill as ready to rock as it is to cook.

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

Central Baptist Church Gets a Makeover with GC Pro

— GC Pro Account Manager Brad Lyons and GC Pro Affiliate Program Member Commercial Sound And Video take Central Baptist Church into the era of contemporary worship with new sound system including digital audio console, in-ear monitoring and upgraded backline —

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, October 29, 2014 — The last time the Central Baptist Church of Americus, Georgia, got a new sound system, the church’s music was focused around the traditional elements of choir and organ. Times changed, and so did the church’s style of worship, which has expanded to encompass more contemporary forms of praise and worship music, with electric guitars and drums joining the joyful noise. These changes, however, made the inadequacy of the original sound system readily apparent. That led the church to Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users.

Atlanta-based GC Pro Account Manager Brad Lyons spent time listening to the needs of the church and helped design a completely new sound system, including connecting them with locally based AV systems integrator Commercial Sound And Video, which provided installation services. And it was a big project. Lyons summarized the situation: “Some areas were too loud, others you could barely hear anything at all, and no bass response,” he says of the sanctuary’s sound system. “On-stage monitoring for the band was a hodge-podge at best. We transformed their entire sound system, customizing it to the unique challenges in their large worship space, but we also re-designed the stage layout and provided a state-of-the-art personal monitoring system for the large praise team and orchestra.”

A new system using four Electro-Voice EVF1152D 15-inch cabinets was flown above the main floor in a 90x60 coverage pattern, and each with an Electro-Voice EVU1082 8-inch downfill cabinet mounted. A total of eight Electro-Voice EVU1082 fill cabinets were placed in the balcony, four per side. A pair of Electro-Voice EVF2151D Dual 15inch subwoofers fills the entire sanctuary with powerful bass. The power amps are Electro-Voice CPS-series power amps, with control using an Electro-Voice DC-ONE system processor. The existing 48-channel analog mixer (with 16-channel auxiliary mixer) was replaced with a 64-channel AVID S3L console with four independent stage boxes. Three racks on-stage and one at the FOH booth completely bypass the original analog patching system, providing a superior upgrade in sound and eliminating cable mess on the stage. The AVID S3L also provides 64-tracks recording to Pro Tools connected via CAT5 to the supplied Apple iMac computer and Glyph hard-drive, designed for playback in virtual sound check mode. This allows them to record rehearsals, then play the tracks back to fine-tune the individual channel settings for a better mix.

“With the S3L there is full recall of all settings and scenes,” stated Lyons. “Every Easter they have a big production and this will allow them to have total control of the production.”

Based on Lyons’ design, Commercial Sound And Video installed a PIVITEC 32-input personal monitor system controlled via Apple iPad Minis with a total of nine independent mix stations and the ability to add as many more as they wish. There were many custom touches, with the goal of making the operation as simple as possible. One such feature was a customized patch panel consisting of eight XLR Male and eight SPEAKON connectors that took the guesswork out of connecting a stage monitor into the system.

Lyons adds, “Although the PIVITEC in-ear system was an amazing upgrade for the worship band, we still needed to provide traditional monitors to the choir, instruments, lead vocals and other musicians. Typically I would have to go find a speaker, a power amp and the cables, route a channel out of the console into the amp, connect a speaker cable to the speaker, and so forth. But here I designed the panel to take any confusion or error out of the situation. The process is simple really — I designed eight specific outputs from the VENE S3L console for MONITOR MIX OUTPUTS, labeled MONITOR 1 through MONITOR 8. Patching into any of the XLR Inputs of the panel fed directly to a specific amplifier channel on the Electro-Voice CPS8.5 power amp (eight channels at 500-watts power per channel), and that speaker output then fed back to the SPEAKON out below the XLR connector. You can simply plug in a speaker cable to the desired speaker, and voila!”

The result was a total success and everyone associated with the church is extremely happy with the new system.

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

Best of AES 2014: Mackie DL32R

GC Pro has returned from a tremendously successful 2014 Audio Engineering Society (AES) show, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center not very far from our headquarters in Westlake Village, CA. We'll be taking a closer look at a number of products that we found especially interesting, useful, or just plain cool. Here's a new product that encompasses all three qualities: the Mackie DL32R 32-channel wireless digital mixer with iPad control.

Everything from Anywhere
We live in amazing times, especially if you work in pro audio and live sound. Take the Mackie DL32R... a 32-channel digital mixer that you control via your iPad. But wait; it's also a direct-to-drive multitrack recorder/playback tool. But wait; it's also jam-packed with digital signal processing. But wait; the whole thing is contained in a 3U rackmount enclosure. So while we were a bit skeptical toward Mackie's "Control everything from anywhere" claim with the DL32R, we have to admit: that's pretty much exactly what it does, and now your live sound venue, house of worship, or studio can do it too.

32-channel wireless digital mixer
The DL32R starts with 32 Onyx+ recallable mic pres with wireless control. It's got the professional interfacing you need, including 14 fully-assignable XLR outputs and a stereo AES digital output. All settings on the DL32R can be recalled for future use. Its 3U rackmount design is perfect for both touring or a permanent installation, and it has an expansion card slot.

Wireless Mixing: the FOH mix position is now wherever you are
You can ditch that cable snake, because you're not going to be tied down to anything with the DL32R. The reason? It operates wirelessly, giving you complete control from your iPad. Need to walk around the room and check null points and dead spots? Carry your iPad and adjust your mix while you move through the room. Need to set up a personal monitor mix? You can use multiple iPads, iPhones, or iPod touches (up to 10 separate iOS devices at once), and let the performers tweak their own IEM or stage wedge mix. Now your only question is where to put that mixer (answer: wherever you want).

Multi-track recording & playback
The DL32R offers 32x32 USB 2.0 audio interfaces for Mac or PC, as well as 24x24 recording/playback direct to USB 2.0 hard drive. Do you get wireless control over all direct-to-disk recording/playback functions via the iPad? Of course you do. And how can you use this capability? How about recording your live shows for later mixdown? Or perhaps playing back intermission music and backing tracks? Or doing virtual sound checks to tune the venue before the band has even arrived? This capability might allow the DL32R to be the centerpiece of your studio. You can even use Mac or PC audio plug-ins in a live environment.

DSP? Yeah baby!
The DL32R is packed with digital signal processing and flexible routing that you'll need for live sound, including 36 input channels with 4-band PEQ + HPF, gate and compression. You also get 32 stereo-linkable input channels, 28 output busses with 4-band PEQ + HPF/LPF, 31-band GEQ, comp/limiter and alignment delay, and much more.

Master Fader control app
Your main way of connecting your ears and your brain to the DL32R is via the Master Fader app, an intuitive and easy-to-master app for your iPad. You get fast navigation with view groups and overview, and a quick setup with tons of factory and user-definable presets. You can limit access as needed to prevent any unwanted adjustments (like, by the guy who wants to use your iPad to update Twitter). And like any app, Mackie can quickly offer updates via the Apple App Store.

About the only thing you need to provide to take advantage of the DL32R is an iPad and a Wi-Fi router. Along with those, you really can control everything from anywhere. Well, reasonably speaking. Don't try and mix a show in Cleveland from Chicago. That's just bad form.

GC Pro Knows Live Sound!
From bars and nightclubs to restaurants and houses of worship, GC Pro's representatives are experts on helping you put together the ultimate live sound system within your budget. The Mackie DL32R seems like an excellent addition to just about any live sound environment, so contact us now and get more information, or pre-order it today!

Best of AES 2014: Neumann U 47 fet

GC Pro has returned from a tremendously successful 2014 Audio Engineering Society (AES) show, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center not very far from our headquarters in Westlake Village, CA. We'll be taking a closer look at a number of products that we found especially interesting, useful, or just plain cool. The first is the new U 47 fet from one of the most respected and venerable names in audio technology: Neumann.

The History
The Neumann U 47 is perhaps the most respected professional studio microphone in history. Produced from 1949-1965, the original U 47 was a tube-based microphone, and its legendary status was cemented by the recordings of an entire generation of singers and bands. From 1972-1986, Neumann manufactured a new transistor-powered version of the U 47 which also was tremendously popular, and became the mic of choice for such varied artists as AC/DC, Kate Bush, Bruce Springsteen, R.E.M., the Pretenders, a-ha, Dire Straits, Metallica, and many others. More than a vocal microphone, the U 47 fet gained an excellent reputation for handling the low end on sources like kick drums, basses, and even guitar amp cabinets. Since that time frame in the mid-80s, there have been many mics that have tried to emulate the distinctive response of the U 47 fet, with varying degrees of success.

The Return
Launched at AES, the new U 47 fet Collectors Edition was created by Neumann's design team, who went back to the original production documents and schematics for this modern classic. As a mic designed for collectors, it includes a special wooden case, and a certificate of authenticity with each mic. As you'd suspect, the new U 47 is a condenser microphone with a set cardioid direction, and uses fet 80 circuitry like its predecessor. Neumann has once again turned to the classic K 47 large-diaphragm capsule that was used in both the original tube and fet-based version of the mic. This K 47 capsule offers well-known the pleasing bump in the range above 2kHz which seems to work sparkly magic on everything that runs through it.

The U 47 fet also includes a low-cut filter at 140Hz to get rid of unwanted rumble, and a -10db pad to work with high SPL sources. Finally, it has the integrated bracket that's made it so recognizable in studios around the world, as well as the classic nickel finish.

GC Pro: Your Classic (and New Classic) Microphone Resource
The new Neumann U 47 fet is already destined to continue the legendary status of its forerunners, and GC Pro will have a limited number of these top-tier studio mics available soon. To set up a demo, or to inquire about any of our wide range of world-class mics in the GC Pro mic locker, contact your GC Pro representative now.

GC Pro Helps DCP Productions

The interior of the mobile rig for DCP Productions, outfitted with gear sourced through GC Pro.

— Boutique Baltimore commercial production house created a mobile production rig that, like their six-suite studio, was built with both equipment and expertise from GC Pro —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, September 22, 2014 — Don Cherel, the Founder and Director/Producer with DCP Productions, created the iconic Motorcycle Money Man for commercial client GEICO, along with spots for Planet Fitness, the Washington Nationals MLB team and the Washington Capitals NHL team. Now DCP Productions, like their mobile GEICO creation, itself is ready to go on the road, with a flypack rig that will let it shoot, record, edit and mix on location, vastly increasing the boutique shop’s productivity while giving it access to new sights, sounds and talent. And that road rig, like DCP Productions’ six-room video and audio production facility in Baltimore, was sourced with a combination of technology and expertise provided by Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users.

Eight-year-old DCP Productions’ business model is predicated on Cherel’s “concept to completion” notion, which enables clients to work with one entity for concept creation; original music creation; and pre-, field- and post-production. “By simply eliminating the layers of multiple companies in the advertising development process, DCP is able to create content and transform it into quality advertising media much less expensively and faster than traditional ad agencies,” Cherel explains. “That savings is passed on to the client.”

The new mobile rig, which tackles its first official project in July for the next GEICO campaign, is made up of two 12-space racks that hold gear including a Universal Audio® Apollo high-resolution interface, an Avid Pro Tools system with Thunderbolt connectivity, an Avid MC Mix controller, an API 550 EQ, Crane Song Falcon compressor and two Rupert Neve Designs 542 tape emulators.

All of this equipment was sourced through GC Pro Account Manager Mitch Shaivitz at GC Pro’s Baltimore-area office. The mobile rig’s make-up grew from Shaivitz’s conversations with Cherel about what the producer/director wanted to accomplish. “I called up Mitch and said, here’s what I want to do,’ and he came back with equipment suggestions that matched our workflow at the studio,” Cherel explains. “This mix of equipment and systems really make the mobile rig an extension of the studio — our workflow remains the same on the road and in the studio, so the end product is totally consistent.”

“Every product choice was well thought-out,” says Cherel. “With the exception of cameras and lenses, virtually every piece of equipment we have, in the studio and on the road, came through GC Pro. “They have the products and the expertise. But mostly, they get what we’re trying to do.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

GC Pro Chosen to Design Extensive A/V Setup

The Platinum Club at Guitar Center’s new flagship Times Square store.

— Guitar Center looks in-house to its professional division, who helped design and install the A/V complement for the new superstore, with the help of GC Pro Affiliate Program member Malvicino Design Group —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, September 15, 2014 — Guitar Center recently opened the doors on its new flagship location in New York City’s Times Square with a star-studded opening weekend and a level of spectacle right at home in what is arguably Manhattan’s busiest and most conspicuous district. Guitar Center’s 262nd retail location is an ultra-modern musical instrument and technology center covering over 28,000 square feet. In-store elements include Guitar Center’s Platinum Club (showcasing high-end luxury guitars, along with a live performance venue and control room); a Fender custom shop where unique guitars are featured; a full DJ experience department; a boutique pedal selection in a stunning 360-degree display; and 28,000 square feet of guitars, drums, keys, DJ, recording, live sound and more. The store also now serves as the permanent home to two legendary pieces of rock history: Eric Clapton’s iconic “Blackie” Fender Stratocaster and ES-335.

For the complicated task of helping design, manage and install the A/V components to meet the needs of such a technology-specific space, Guitar Center sought an organization with the right expertise to get the job done, on budget and on time – luckily, they had one in-house: Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Throughout the project, GC Pro worked with Affiliate Program member Horacio Malvicino and his firm Malvicino Design Group, who designed and installed the detailed A/V setup.

“Guitar Center management asked to have GC Pro involved in order to ensure a proper customer experience from an audio-visual point of view,” stated GC Pro Vice President Rick Plushner. “We were honored and excited to be asked. Times Square is the crossroads of the world, where people from all over the planet come to visit and shop. Horacio came in early on in the project and knew exactly what we were trying to accomplish, and he designed the backbone and the technology infrastructure in a superb way.”

A multi-screen Panasonic video display graces the outside of the building on 44th St., composed of screens sourced through GC Pro. Upon entering, visitors begin to descend an escalator, immersed in the sights and sounds of an excited crowd waiting for their star to take the stage. A complement of QSC speakers and a Q-Sys system, along with a massive LED display screen, helped create this effect. “It’s as if you’re a rock star coming into a stadium to perform, and so we were asked to help create that experience,” stated Plushner.

Within the store is the Platinum Club, which features a live stage and full control room for multi-track A/V recording and production. GC Pro furnished an Avid S3L console and JBL monitors/loudspeakers for the live space, with an Avid S6 console in the control room. “There’s a whole host of digital and analog outboard gear in there as well, with proper monitoring,” added Plushner. “It’s a real control room to do proper recording, and we’re excited about what opportunities that’s going to bring for the company.”

Malvicino stated, “I’ve been lucky to work with GC Pro on several major design and installation jobs over the years, and it has been a great experience for me personally and professionally. This Times Square GC project presented some new opportunities and challenges, and I’m proud to have been able to help bring make their vision a reality.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

GC Pro Helps Mitch Cox at Conclave Studios

The console and engineer control center for New York City’s new Conclave Studios, with a gear setup designed by Malvicino Design Group and outfitted by GC Pro. Photo courtesy of Malvicino Design Group. © 2014.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, July 22, 2014 — New York City has lots of recording studios — the Williamsburg district of Brooklyn alone reportedly has 60 or more. But Mitch Cox hadn’t found one that catered to heavy metal and hard rock the way the aspiring record producer and entrepreneur wanted to, so he set out to build one. “When you’re designing a studio for maximum flexibility, to try to please everyone, you make design and equipment choices based on that, and those are inevitably compromises,” says Cox, “In this studio [Conclave Studios], we made design and equipment choices around the classic metal sounds.” Assisting Cox in his vision has been Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Conclave Studios came about around a meeting between Cox and Milo Pullman, a GC Pro Account Manager working out of Guitar Center’s Union Square store location. After listening to Cox’s vision for his studio and his business, Pullman suggested a meeting with Horacio Malvicino, a noted recording studio designer and a GC Pro Affiliate Program member. Within a matter of weeks, what had been Cox’s vision suddenly had a team to build it. After several months of searching, they found a former recording studio on the far edge of Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, in a massive, glass-walled building overlooking the Hudson River.

Horacio Malvicino – whose Malvicino Design Group has done nearly two dozen studio designs as an Affiliate of GC Pro, including Live’s new Think Loud residential facility in York, Pennsylvania, the newly completed Seven Pillars near Abilene, Texas, and Noisematch Studios in Miami, saw Conclave Studios as a unique task – “It’s always a challenge designing a facility in a big city, where isolation and sound control are critical. Especially,” he adds, “if you’re talking about heavy metal music.” The overarching lesson that Malvicino took away from his research comes down to a single word: diffusion. Custom-made diffusors line the wall and ceiling of the 22x14-foot recording room, which also features acoustical clouds suspended from the ceiling with absorptive inserts, controlling flutter reflections between the floor and ceiling; the room also has reversible panels that have absorptive material on one side and reflective surfaces on the others, providing variable acoustics that let the room’s inherent reverb time vary between 0.7 and 0.95 seconds. (Not a huge range, says Malvicino, but enough for the type of music the room is intended for.)

The tracking room at New York City’s new Conclave Studios, with a gear setup designed by Malvicino Design Group and outfitted by GC Pro. Photo courtesy of Malvicino Design Group. © 2014.

As Malvicino worked on the studio’s design, he also consulted with Cox, Lagudi and Pullman on what technologies to include in the studio. While there’s gear in there that any recording pro would appreciate – including Focusrite and Midas mic preamps, dbx and Empirical Labs compressors, and a microphone closet filled with names like Sennheiser, AKG, Neumann and Audio-Technica – there’s plenty of digital real estate, too, including an Avid Pro Tools HD Native system and plug-ins from Waves, Antares, Sonnox and Metric-Halo. And although they looked at vintage consoles, the team decided on something more modern for the 23x18-foot control room: a 24-channel Neve Genesys desk with 1073 pre-amps, 1084 EQs and Encore automation with Total Recall. Monitoring is handled by two Genelec 1037C Tri-amplified Monitors for mains and Yamaha NS10's for nearfields.

Cox, who is driven and was tracking within days after the facility’s completion, cites the studio’s dbx and Empirical Labs compressors, which he says give metal and hard rock drums and guitars their edge. Conclave Studios offers Cox’s interpretation of a metalhead’s dream signal chain, starting with a Peavey 6505 amp head through a Mesa Boogie 4x12 cabinet. But he’s not dogmatic about it. “We just want to become the center of metal here,” he states. “It’s not about making money; it’s about the music, so we’re here to accommodate whatever these artists need and what best suits their sound.”

Cox appreciates the input he’s gotten from Pullman and GC Pro. “They’re exceptionally knowledgeable and flexible, but what I especially like is that they stay with you,” he says. “They understand that the process of building a studio from the ground up is a long-term relationship and requires patience. If someone’s just trying to sell you a product, that’s not going to work. So much of this was working through all the details and nuances of the design. That’s what Milo and Horacio did.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

GC Pro Helps Faith Church Make a Quick Move

The new Faith Church location in Hammond, Indiana, featuring acoustical treatment and other gear sourced through GC Pro. Photo by Ryan Nigh, GC Pro. © 2014

— NW Indiana’s multi-site Faith Church was moving to a new location on a tight deadline, and GC Pro helped the church convert a reverberant rented gym into a highly intelligible worship space —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, July 15, 2014 — Faith Church was originally founded in 1963 in South Holland, Illinois, and like many growing churches these days, its expansions have taken the form of additional “satellite” locations instead of ever-larger main church buildings. They moved to Dyer, Indiana, in 2002 and launched their first satellite location in September 2007 in Cedar Lake, Indiana. A second satellite launched in the spring of 2009 in Valparaiso, Indiana, and two years later on Easter 2011, they opened a campus in Hammond, Indiana; in September 2012, Faith Church crossed over the state line to launch its campus in Beecher, Illinois. Most recently, the church changed locations in Hammond, moving from its original rental space there to a larger one at the Hammond Academy of Science and Technology, where they have contracted to use the school’s gymnasium on Sundays for services. “We have six locations now, and while four of them are in buildings that we own, in two of them we have a rental model, which we find works well at a time when construction costs are rising,” explains Bryan Ford, Faith Church’s Technical Operations Manager. “It gives us a lot more flexibility as we grow.”

Like most gyms, the Hammond Academy’s acoustics are highly reverberant, the opposite of the kind of extremely intelligible environment needed for worship services. Faith Church turned to Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, for a solution. GC Pro brought in Accutronics LLC, a regional acoustical consultancy and A/V installer, which along with GC Pro Account Manager Ryan Nigh evaluated the location’s acoustical needs. GC Pro then specified, and Accutronics designed the layout for and installed, nearly 100 Auralex ELITE ProPanel and Cloud ProPanel acoustical panels on the 120 X 80-foot gym’s walls and ceiling.

“It worked out perfectly, and the entire process was transparent to the client,” says Mike Love, Owner of Accutronics. “We looked at the building, Ryan drew up a proposal and sent it to Auralex, which sent us back a list of the right product materials and placement patterns to use for this specific project, and we installed them without hassle.”

Of a total of 95 Auralex acoustical panels, Accutronics installed 40 of them on the gym’s ceiling to reduce flutter echoes and the rest on the walls to absorb reflected sound. As a result, the gym’s reverb time dropped from eight seconds to 1.3 seconds. “That’s a huge reduction in reverb time,” says Love. “And that‘s the kind of result you get when you work with an organization like GC Pro. In this case, the client got an accurate assessment of their situation, an expert solution design, exactly the right products to address the problem and expert installation. Only a company like GC Pro can provide that kind of comprehensive service.”

Faith Church’s Bryan Ford could not agree more: “The difference in the sound is enormous — it’s dramatically improved. They were able handle the entire project from start to finish, and they were also able to meet a very tight deadline and get us into our new church on time. When we opened three weeks ago, we got comments on how good the sound was. We have a lot of music, so we needed to control the sound as much as possible. That’s exactly what happened, so we’re glad we picked GC Pro.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

GC Pro Helps Yaniv Farber Outfit His New Studio

The control room of Yaniv’s Studio, the new facility run by Yaniv Farber in Southern California and outfitted by equipment sourced through GC Pro. Photo courtesy of Yaniv Farber © 2014.

— Farber is translating his success in the tile and stone business in Southern California into an expanded professional recording studio enterprise, and GC Pro is there to outfit the new facility from start to finish —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, July 9, 2014 — For over 20 years, Yaniv Farber’s main business has been Sandy Ceramic, Inc., a high-end tile, granite and marble installer in Southern California. But aside from that, Farber's passion has been music, which he had recorded and edited on small home studio platforms. This year, he decided to make a big move; in a renovated building on his property he created the elegant facility Yaniv’s Studio. And it was outfitted from top to bottom with equipment sourced through Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users.

Products purchased for the studio by Farber through GC Pro include an Avid Pro Tools HDX system, Apogee I/O converters, Tube Tech MP2A dual-channel tube mic pre, Focal SM9 monitors and a microphone collection that includes a pair of AKG C414 XLII’s and a C 451 B 65th Anniversary model; a Blue Bottle Mic; Neumann TLM 49, U 87 AI, TLM 67 and M 147 mics; a Sterling Audio ST6050 Ocean Way Signature Series Microphone; and Sennheiser MD 441 and MD 421-II microphones.

The live/tracking room of Yaniv’s Studio, the new facility run by Yaniv Farber in Southern California and outfitted by equipment sourced through GC Pro. Photo courtesy of Yaniv Farber © 2014.

“I decided to go for it,” Farber says, simply and earnestly. “I’m trying to make a business of it.” He has a lot of personal resources: in addition to his experience as a musician, engineer, editor and producer, his time in the construction business included working on other studios as they were being built, which gave him knowledge and insights for his own studio design, which includes a vocal booth and several iso booths. “It’s designed for my work but also to be available for other artists, engineers and producers to work in,” he says. “Most importantly, we can do live sessions here. It’s a great-sounding room to record in.”

What’s also great, Farber adds, was working with GC Pro. “Ziv Gross at GC Pro, he’s my man!” he exclaims, noting that the GC Pro Account Manager helped him choose gear, tweak his acoustical design and assemble some of the systems. “Then there’s the technical support, which is always there. Working with GC Pro has been a great experience.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

GC Pro Works with Make-A-Wish®

Make-A-Wish® Southern Nevada program participant Diego, performing with his new DJ gear at a recent 5K event held by the organization. Photo courtesy of Make-A-Wish® Southern Nevada.

— GC Pro uses its incredible depth of inventory, its vast resources and the compassion of its employees to provide accessible products for children in the Make-A-Wish® program —

— Two young aspiring DJs now have professional-level rigs that they’re already putting to use at gigs, with all equipment, assembly and training
provided by GC Pro —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, June 27, 2014 — Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, has been regularly collaborating with Make-A-Wish® Southern Nevada, a chapter of the national organization that grants the wishes of children diagnosed with life-threatening medical conditions in the United States and its territories, to provide access to musical instruments and professional audio equipment for children in the program. Most recently, the GC Pro office in Las Vegas worked with the southern Nevada chapter to make the dreams of two young DJs come true. In the cases of Kyle and Diego, two youngsters suffering from debilitating, life-threatening conditions, GC Pro fulfilled their wish list.

The new rigs for each DJ now include a Numark NS7II DJ Controller with case and stand, QSC K12 powered speakers and KW181 powered subwoofer, an Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer, Pioneer HDJ2000 professional headphones, Ableton Live 9 software, a Sennheiser E835 microphone and an Akai Professional EIE PRO 24-bit Audio/MIDI interface with USB hub. All of this equipment was provided fully assembled, configured and installed by Michael “Mickey” Lomboy, a member of the GC Pro Affiliates Program, with training also provided by GC Pro personnel – all part of how GC Pro supports Make-A-Wish’s acclaimed charity work.

“These kids are amazing,” says John Stevens, the Account Manager at GC Pro’s Las Vegas office who acted as the liaison for the project and for other similar collaborations since June of 2013. “They’re up against some serious illnesses — Kyle is permanently in a wheelchair and Diego has a serious neurological condition. But they are both really focused on becoming DJs. We wanted them to have the tools to achieve those dreams.” And that’s exactly what’s happened — both kids are already using the gear to play shows and concerts in front of substantial crowds.

Miriam Ceballos, Wish Granting Coordinator at Make-A-Wish Southern Nevada, had praise for GC Pro’s contributions to their cause. “We work with many vendors on these projects, and I can say that every time we’ve worked with GC Pro it’s been a pleasant and fulfilling experience, for us and for the kids,” she says. “DJ wishes have become very popular lately, and GC Pro knows exactly what the kids want and need, and it’s always right there when you need it. Sometimes the kids know what they want, and whatever it is, you know GC Pro has it in stock. And if the kids aren’t sure, GC Pro is there to help them figure out what works best for them.”

John Stevens notes that working at GC Pro is always fulfilling because, he says, “Every day you’re making someone’s dream come true, to be an artist, an engineer, a producer, a DJ. But with Make-A-Wish, it takes that feeling to a whole new level. When you see the kids smile and light up when they get that equipment, it pulls at your heartstrings. It’s the best feeling I’ve ever gotten here at GC Pro.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

Heitor Pereira Creates “World Cup, It’s Time!”

The FIFA World Cup is one of international sports' biggest events, happening every four years and garnering a massive audience of soccer (aka "football" outside the USA) fans around the world. Beginning June 12, the 2014 World Cup will be held in Brazil, one of the sport's biggest hot spots. It's only fitting that longtime GC Pro customer and friend, Brazilian composer Heitor Pereira, was tapped to help create a special song for the event.

Working with ASCAP, Pereira co-wrote and created the song “World Cup, It’s Time!” as part of the ASCAP Songwriter Residency, a partnership with acclaimed after-school program America SCORES. Heitor Pereira is more well known as a blockbuster film composer (The Smurfs, Despicable Me), as well as the guitarist of English soul band Simply Red. He recorded the song with twenty 6th grade America SCORES students from Charnock Elementary School in Los Angeles, CA. “World Cup, It’s Time!” was recorded at Remote Control Productions, the renowned Santa Monica scoring company owned by Hans Zimmer, and is available to stream or download for free with the rest of the "ASCAP Songwriter Residency: Volume 6" album here.

Enjoy the video of the song's creation and learn more about the project below.

Oscar-winner Steve Maslow Plugs In Penteo 4 Pro

Pictured in a Warner Bros. session is award-winning re-recording mixer Steve Maslow. Photo by David Goggin.

-- Upmixer Now Supports AAX --
Los Angeles, CA, April 24, 2014 -- Multiple Oscar- and Bafta-winning re-recording mixer Steve Maslow has upgraded to the new Penteo 4 Pro plug-in that discretely converts stereo to 5.1, offering exacting control over sound image placement to create high-quality, natural-sounding surround.

"If I get 2-track source music, I use Penteo," Maslow comments. "It's impressive to take a 2-channel mix and make it come out of 5 speakers. I just finished a film called 'Tammy'. Every cue in that movie, from source needle drops to music score was all 2-track. The opening cue was a stereo record by the Allman Brothers that was released in 1986, and it worked great. I used Penteo from reel 1 to reel 6 and everything worked flawlessly."

When asked how he previously accomplished upmixing from stereo to surround, Maslow explained, "I would take the left and right track of a 2-track and run them through a couple of panners, fold it in a little bit so the left and right contributed to the center just a little bit. Then I would take a boom box, take a feed from the left and the right and return it to a fader to get the bottom end for the boom. That would give me left, center, right, boom. For left surround, right surround I would try to get a very short reverb to feed to the surrounds. That was the problem -- it would always put some sort of echo into the track."

Maslow, who is a 3-time Oscar winner and 2-time Bafta-winner, has worked on hundreds of films, including the recent "Non-Stop," starring Liam Neesen, last year's "The Great Gatsby," and classics such "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "The Empire Strikes Back", and "The Last Waltz."

"I used Penteo on last year's 'RED 2' with Bruce Willis and Hellen Mirren," Maslow recalls. "There was a lot of 2-track source music and even some of the score was 2-track. For me, Penteo is a very useful tool. I wouldn't do another film without it if 2-track music comes in. It really makes you look good when you can take a 2-track mix and create a 5-channel mix."

Maslow elaborates on the use of Penteo 4 Pro, "For the film I'm working on now, the music was 2-track strings, 2-tracks brass, 2-track percussion, so then I have to think about how I'm going to work with that. I can't just put them all left-right. Sometimes I used to take the percussion and put it in the center, but with Penteo, I just feed all the 2-channel mixes in and it comes out as a 5.1 score. That's what I want and it really sounds good."

In addition to mouse-operated controls, Penteo 4 Pro is the first up-mixer to support multi-touch controls, allowing a sound designer to control more than one Penteo feature at once, thereby creating a natural mixing experience through simple hand contact. Penteo 4 Pro is the world's first multi-touch plug-in designed for use with the Raven MTX Surround console.

"I find that a lot of 2-track mixes are very narrow and by using Penteo it gives me the hard center that I like," says Maslow. "When you're playing with a 2-track you just get left and right and a phantom center, not a hard center. Penteo gives me a hard center with that bottom end that I like, and it just fills the room up better than a 2-track does. Any two track that comes to me now is going through Penteo."

It is customary for a re-recording mixer to deliver a preliminary mix and then get feedback on revisions. "I usually am asked to make changes, but on the last show I just finished, I didn't get one note from the music department. Not one comment when we screened the film and they listened to it. Usually I would get some notes, but I got nothing, no critical notes at all. They loved everything, so it does make me look a little better because of the way the music comes out."

Once a film with a surround soundtrack is ready for distribution, it must also be compatible in stereo, as well. Penteo 4 Pro is 100-percent ITU down-mix compatible to the original stereo. The plug-in features an intuitive visual interface modeled after vintage gear, and offers six automated preset modes as well as advanced manual controls for fine-tuning.

For more information on Penteo 4 Pro, please contact your GC Pro representative here.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

About Audiotech Digital Limited (ADL)
Penteo transforms any stereo recording, soundtrack, DJ mix or live television broadcast into perfect 5.1 surround sound. Developed by ADL, Penteo 4 Pro remains faithful to the original stereo mix; no artificial sound manipulation is used. The Penteo 4 Pro plug-in creates a perfect surround experience for all stereo media with zero sonic artifacts, crisp and discrete center-channel, and only Penteo is 100% ITU down-mix compatible to the original stereo. Penteo has been used by major studios on hundreds of films, TV shows and music recordings and supports AAX64, RTAS, VST and AU formats. Discover the world of Penteo at perfectsurround.com.

GC Pro Revs Up the Audio for Shelby American Bash

Few names in high-performance automotive design carry the weight of Shelby American. The company has been creating high-performance cars since the early 1960s, after founder Carroll Shelby retired from his brief racing career. Since then, cars like the Shelby Cobra as well as his famous Ford Mustang-based Shelby GT350 and Shelby GT500 have set the benchmarks for drivers with the need for speed.

Each year at the Shelby Motor Company headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada, the company holds an annual event called the Shelby American Bash, where Shelby vehicle owners from across the country can come together and compare their vintage and new Shelby models. The event features live music and other events where audio needs to be loud and clear over the roaring of those race engines. For the past two years, GC Pro along with Guitar Center's Las Vegas Townsquare location have supplied the audio and lighting gear to make the event a huge success. Additionally, GC Pro staff assisted in setting up and doing the live sound engineering for bands performing at the event.

The 2014 Shelby Bash was particularly significant, with this being the 50th anniversary of the Ford Mustang. This year's event also commemorated the first time the Shelby Bash has been held in the newly relocated headquarters of Shelby American. Shelby's new HQ is located just off the strip, next door to Guitar Center’s Townsquare location. The new facility houses all operations of the Shelby American Motor Company, consolidating multiple buildings near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway into one single location that is easily accessible to tourists and motor enthusiasts.

For more information on Shelby American, click here. To learn how GC Pro can provide the gear and services you need for your most important live sound events, visit gcpro.com.

ShootersINC Streamlines Workflow with Slate RAVEN

— Integrated production company now runs an all-RAVEN facility —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, March 20, 2014 — Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, is proud to be the exclusive U.S. dealer of the RAVEN MTX Multi-Touch Production Console by Slate Pro Audio. By getting the RAVEN MTX into the hands of top pros, GC Pro is helping leading facilities move to their next generation workflow – a recent prime example of which is the Philadelphia-based integrated production company ShootersINC.

Bob Schachner, the senior audio designer at ShootersINC, has worked on most of the company’s iconic content, from prime-time spots for clients including A&E, Lexus, The Weinstein Company, and Scripps Networks Interactive, to the original content they’ve been helping develop, such as the Food Network's hit Restaurant: Impossible. After keeping his Avid Pro Control working in one of Shooters’ three audio control rooms for nearly a decade after Avid announced it would discontinue the platform, he knew he had to move on. In doing so, he faced the same dilemma every working professional does when their most familiar tools approach obsolescence: finding new ones that are compatible with all of their other systems but that also manage to let them manage their workflow just as they had before. Schachner says he found that in the Slate Digital RAVEN MTX console, the third of which was installed at Shooters in November.

He and Brad Petrella, manager of engineering services at Shooters, had been on the lookout for a good replacement platform that would work for Schachner and Shooters’ other audio engineers. Then, last year, Schachner says he saw a video of the RAVEN MTX and was intrigued by its interface: a 46-inch LED backlit touch-sensitive display with 1920 X 1080 HD resolution and integrated compatibility with the HD3 Pro Tools systems Shooters uses. “Steven Slate had a good reputation for his plugins; I liked the way he made his graphical user interfaces for them,” says Schachner. “So we went to a demo of the RAVEN at GC Pro and thought it had the potential to do what I needed it to do.”

Schachner was curious whether the console, which had been aimed at the music production market, would meet his workflow needs in audio post. He was not disappointed: “I live in the edit window in post, not on the faders and knobs,” he explains. “So the transition to the touchscreen was perfect. On a touchscreen work surface, there’s nothing that I lose and I gain this huge screen, which makes everything on it easy to see and access. I found myself transitioning from the trackball to the touchscreen quickly – the RAVEN was installed on a Monday, I was working on it by Tuesday and was fully up to speed on it by Wednesday. There wasn’t any slowdown in the workflow.”

Within a month of the first console being installed, the entire facility had RAVEN MTX workstations in all three control rooms, and everyone was conversant with the RAVEN’s operation. “One of our guys is in a band and his engineer did some overdubs,” Schachner recalls. “I loaded his work into the system and gave him a quick two-minute tutorial on it. He had no problem with it at all. Basically, if you can work Pro Tools, the RAVEN MTX is going to be very familiar to you.”

“What we like about the RAVEN MTX is that it doesn’t demand that you learn it – it accommodates how you work, for instance, by letting you get started quickly and then allowing you to learn different shortcuts and other things at your own pace, as you need them,” observes Brad Petrella.

In the space of barely two months, Schachner says the RAVEN MTX has changed his work patterns for the better. “When you have faders, you’re constantly reaching all over the board, and that causes your head to be constantly moving, which affects your ability to monitor accurately,” he explains. “With the touchscreen in the center, I find that monitoring is much easier since I don’t have to move as much. Plus, with the Pro Tools screen on the console display and so much easier to see, I can see the waveforms better; I can read the plugins easier. Pro Tools is part of the console now. I feel more connected to the entire process. You don’t realize that that’s happening until it hits you. This is a great way to work.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.