研究 show production at 满帆 can prepare students for careers in live event production with hands-on experience using the same tools they will use out in the industry. One of the classes students will take is Audio Measurement Systems, a course where they learn how to tune a sound system using computers and digital signal processing. Instructor Mike Stewart guides students through the four-week course, applying his decades of experience working with artists.

Having worked on audio systems for a variety of acts including Genesis, 的Fugees, 詹姆斯埃特, 和武唐派, Mike’s career saw some incredible highs before he came to teach at 满帆 nearly 25 years ago. Mike describes his course – one of the original components of show production studies at 满帆 – as a special complement to the skills students have been learning since the beginning of the program, 说, “如果你喜欢苹果派的话, 苹果派太棒了, 确实如此. But, man, you put some ice cream on it? 它的岩石! 我们是冰淇淋.”

A sweet addition to any live production, audio measurement systems help balance sound in a space, allowing for an optimal audio experience. 在迈克的课上, he leaves no stone unturned, preparing students for a variety of variables with hands-on labs.

“We're hands-on out in our live rooms,” shares Mike. “We do cardioid subs labs where you set the subwoofers up in a certain configuration…and you have a distance between them and you delay them or reverse polarity so that all the energy is out front, but you walk around behind it and there is no energy, 几乎没有, which keeps all that low-end energy off the stage. [The course is about] getting the system right, 不只是打开它, not just throwing up speakers in the air.”

Mike’s labs focus on utilizing industry-standard software including Smaart and Q-SYS to deliver stellar sound in any venue. “[With Q-SYS], we go in and manipulate it all in the software. 我们加入搅拌器. We can do snakes, can send off into different rooms. 我们可以做房间组合, we can do echo cancellation, 我们可以添加效果, we can add parametric EQs and graphic EQs, 我们可以做交叉,他说.

“Because we're talking about measuring things down to a hundredth of a millisecond, even one millisecond of time offset will cause 24 to 30 dB of cancellation at 500 hertz, 只有一毫秒. So, that's how crucial it is to get everything working together.”

Despite leaving the touring life in the past, Mike finds a great reward in watching his students as their careers unfold. “I always felt that my students will do more than me, 我知道，我很高兴, 我真的很高兴, I don't begrudge them at all. It's really cool when I look at them on 脸谱网 and see all these big concerts and stuff that they're doing…I never feel like I'm in danger that I'll expose too much to them and I'll be lesser. No, no, no, I hope you do better than me, I really do.”