After Party with Bobby Sanabria

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We recently provided the sound system for the after party of the This Side of Paradise art exhibit and opening.

This event was produced by an organization called No Longer Empty, whose core mission is to widen the audience for contemporary art by presenting high-caliber, site-specific public art exhibitions in the heart of communities. No Longer Empty draws together the vitality of the contemporary art world and the values of building community. This event opened the old Andrew Freedman Home in The Bronx with an art exhibit, food, drinks, music and dance.

Latin Jazz drummer and band leader Bobby Sanabria brought his band to the event and put on two great sets, blending salsa, meringue, jazz, and swing. A native of The Bronx Bobby really knew how to keep the crowd dancing.

Here’s a short video of the party in full swing…. Bobby Sanabria Plays No Longer Empty After Party

It was a great party, but making sure the sound was on point was not necessarily easy. Old buildings in NYC usually mean unreliable power. In preparation for the show we asked the client to provide us with two 20 amp circuits. One to power the main speakers and power amps, and the other to power the six wedges used for monitors, and power for the bass amp, and keyboard amp. The client decided to place a generator outside for us to ensure that there would not be any power issues. This was great because when we got there and saw the ancient breaker box in the room we were relieved the client, although on a very tight budget, was able to secure us a generator. However, when we got to the point where we were ready to test the generator it didn’t work. For whatever reason the generator needed servicing and we were forced to draw power from the wall. Good thing Don Jacobs has 30 years experience working in old buildings in NYC. Our first instinct was to not turn on the subs. However, once Don was able to set his gain structure to a point that the levels on the mixer never went into the yellow we were able to use the extra power overhead to turn on the subs. In the end it worked out and the band sounded great, even though the room was boxy and boomy. Once again this proves that you have to be ready for anything in live audio, and you have the skills to improvise when necessary.

For the sound system we used four 2″X12″ passive Grundt tops powered with a Crown XTi 4000 amp. For the bottom we used two double 10″ Yorkville self powered subwoofers. At front of house Don worked the 24 channel digital Presonus Studio Live mixer. Don was also mixing five monitor mixes from front of house. All was done with a very short sound check, and not a bit of feedback during the show.