58 l July 2012
www.prosoundnewseurope.com industrytalk
GERT SANNER has been one of the most renowned FOH and system engineers in the business for more than a decade. He worked with major acts including Slipknot, Alice Cooper, and Alison Moyet, until agreeing to work FOH permanently for legendary British rock band Deep Purple – a position he held for more than six years. Just a couple of months ago, however, Sanner pulled back his faders after being offered a shot at corporate life, courtesy of Harman Pro, and is based out of its UK headquarters.
What’s it like having a real job? A little different and probably a little harder than I thought, but also quite nice in a way – you get your weekends back. My last tour with [Deep] Purple was great, but I knew it wouldn’t get any better than that, and the idea of that part of my life coming to an end at some point got me thinking that an opportunity like this, working for a company like Harman, doesn’t come every day. Oh, and not having to do a tax return anymore is quite nice too!
You must have quite a few stories from your time on the road with Purple – care to share one? Plenty! We were in South America doing a show, and it didn’t go well for me – at all. First, the resident technician did nothing when I informed him that the desk was literally burning; then, when the encore came, I thought ‘I’ll have a beer’, because the heat was so intense and I’d been totally stressed out, so I reached into the coolbox and found that they had all gone. I turned around and saw the technician drinking one; he’d half finished it, and he quickly put it down… right on my laptop! Well, I threw the drink away and got security to kick him out. After the show, I needed to chill
out; I found this fold-up chair. Unfortunately, when I sat down, it collapsed. I was so mad that I threw one of the broken chair legs out of the room. Sadly, this flew some distance and collided with the main table in the catering department opposite, causing that
ADVERTISER INDEX
18 Sound ................................23 AES Pro Audio........................22 AKG........................................16 AllDSP .....................................8 Cadac .....................................54 Canford Audio ........................26
Celestion ................................27 Clear-Com ..............................22 Crown Audio...........................24 DAS Audio................................7 DELEC Audio..........................28 Direct Cable Systems...............19
Really Deep
Paul Watsonfinds out how life is going off the road for new Harman hire Gert Sanner
to immediately collapse too. Man, that was a bad day…
I know you worked on the Mixing with Professionals master classes with Soundcraft, where you taught groups of engineers the workings of the Vi consoles, but how did you end up landing your new role with Harman? I was at Frankfurt in 2011 doing Mixing with Professionals, and Paul Bauman (senior manager, tour sound, JBL) showed up with his new JBL VTX – Scott Robins (VP sales, Harman
Professional) was there too. We all got together in the hotel bar, and they said: ‘Wouldn’t it be fun if you were working for us?’
And what was your initial response? ‘Absolutely no chance!’ But things progressed and I agreed to do the VTX training, then Paul suggested I could teach the training on a freelance basis. I realised that if I could do that on a freelance basis and my work for Soundcraft, then I’d be spending a lot of time at Harman Pro…
Full Fat Audio .........................57 Hand Held Audio .....................31 HHB Communcations...............11 HK Audio ...............................49 IBC.........................................29 JoeCo.....................................43 K-array...................................47 Kv2 Audio ..........................37,51
“When I was out in Europe recently on a JBL job, I was looking at the FOH guy and thought to myself: ‘I really don’t envy his job!’”
Gert Sanner, Harman Pro
I guess your experience on the road makes it easier for an end user to come to you with any issues, too? Yes, although nine out of 10 times there is no issue with the kit; and quite often I can answer those questions there and then. For example, the other day someone asked me: ‘Why can you not insert eight of the Lexicons into each channel of the Vi6?’ Typically in the past that would have involved an email chain to many people to find out the answer, but I just said: ‘Because it makes no sense!’ Job done!
Do you miss the live touring? I was actually quite scared the other day how much I don’t miss it! When I was out in Europe recently on a JBL job, I was looking at the FOH guy and thought to myself, I really don’t envy his job!
thoughts
Now you’re EMEA tour sound market manager, working across all of the brands. What do you think you’ll be able to offer each of them respectively? At the moment it’s very much Soundcraft and JBL, but I’m due to meet with the AKG guys soon. One thing that was important was that I was a fan of all the brands. My role in Harman will include product and end-user training and, in return, user feedback; I’ll filter down what users say to the relevant persons rather than randomly emailing it off.
Martin Audio ..........................55 Microtech Gefell ......................18 Midas ..................................OBC MIPRO...................................40 Noise Control Audio..................6 PLASA....................................13 Primacoustic.............................3 Prism......................................10
This year’s Frankfurt was all about new PA systems, and the two that seemed to really shine were JBL’s VTX and Nexo’s STM; does this spell a new approach to loudspeaker design? Yes. Traditionally, PA systems were built to be specialist tools, so rental companies have always needed a vast amount of systems in their inventory to cater for different applications. I think the new trend is to get the individual cabinet to do more work, because the margins for the rental companies are not getting any bigger. The VTX system is a lot smaller, and has loads of horse power; it can do a lot more jobs individually: theatres, stadiums, and pretty much anything in between.
Finally, I know you’re a bit of an ideas man in terms of new products; how long before we see one of those Gert Sanner light bulb moments come to fruition? Well you’re right, I do have a few ideas – for example, I still think there are vast improvements to be made in loudspeaker control; and I have some ideas about what I think a PA controller should look like. Hopefully someone will build it one day; we’re already talking about it, so you never know… n
www.harmanpro.com
Radial Systems Engineering...IBC Riedel Communications .........IFC Roland ....................................21 Sennheiser ...............................9 Soundcraft .............................39 Waves Audio ..........................33 XTA .........................................4 Yamaha Commercial Audio.....FC
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60