Bobbit Jacinto, President and founder of Concert Tech of Manila in the Philippines.

The evolution from guitar player into professional soundman. How often has this transformation taken place? The differences between the two career ambitions are easily defined: respectively, one career is without salary, the other is sometimes without salary. "There are a lot of guitar players and club bands out there. The opportunity for consistent work was greater as a soundman than as a guitarist," notes Bobbit Jacinto, President and founder of Concert Tech of Manila in the Philippines.

In the twenty years of Concert Tech has been in business, Mr. Jacinto's company has become one of the leading sound rental firms in the Philippines. "It was just a natural transition going from guitarist to sound technician. I was always very interested in professional sound equipment and I enjoyed tinkering with all of the gear when the band wasn't playing. I've never had any formal training in any aspect of sound reinforcement." Bobbit finally got to the point where he realized he was more advanced as a sound technician then a guitar player. Plus, Bobbit notes, "the money was significantly better."

Being "real-world" oriented and having learned his trade by trial-and-error, Bobbit believes the lack of formal training has not stymied his ability to handle any type of live sound event or situation. In fact, it has given him an edge in the business. "Every piece of equipment imaginable will eventually come through the Philippines. Manila is a major city, but it's not like New York where you can find a replacement for something if it should fail two hours before show time. You have to know how to make everything work, and make it work fast."

Bobbit recollects, "About thirty years ago, I invested in my own second-hand sound system and worked with every national and international band that came through the Philippines. Looking that far back into my professional history, I really can't remember the name brands of the equipment I owned, nor all of the top American and European acts my company worked with. I'm not really enamored with the glamour aspect of the business, it's just another show. After they leave town and I'm paid, I'm onto the next job. I don't keep a mental record of who I've worked with, until they come back to the Philippines and request my services again. Then I remember who they are."

Concert Tech was recently hired to supply all of the sound services for the Broadway production of Grease at the Meralco Theater in Manila. "It was a wonderful sold out production," notes Bobbit. "To determine what would be needed for this show, I watched a few of the rehearsals to get a feel for the music and singing. After we installed the sound system, we did only three technical rehearsals and then the show opened."

"Recently, The Phantom of the Opera tour came to Manila and performed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. They were using a small distributed Ramsa sound system that sounded great. The sound was even, smooth and very, very clear. I wanted to accomplish these same goals for the Grease production. The audience seems to be more involved and attentive when the music is all around them. The music of Grease is very up tempo Rock and Roll and I wanted to bathe the audience in sound from all around. The last thing I wanted to do was blast them out of their seats with a standard front-of-house sound system." Bobbit choose to use forty-eight JBL Control Series One loudspeakers in a distributed system, powered by six Rane MA-6 power amps.

Four JBL Control One loudspeakers were mounted on the orchestra pit rail for front fill and the remaining forty-four JBLs were distributed along the sides of the theater. Time delay was provided by two Rane AD-22s and power was supplied by six Rane MA-6 power amps. According to Bobbit, "Since the show was on a budget, as all shows are, the Rane MA-6s were the logical choice for me. It actually came out cheaper with the Rane power amps than purchasing stereo amplifiers. I also like the built-in compressors in the MA-6s. That saved the producers some more money since they didn't have to purchase additional compressors."

For the Grease performance Bobbit used a new Allen & Heath GL-4 thirty-two by eight mixing console. "The Allen & Heath GL-4 is a compact mixer that's convertible into a stage monitor mixer, recording mixer or a front of house mixer," notes Bobbit. "It served it's purpose very well for the Grease show and I'll probably be working with it in the future."

When asked about effects processing for this particular performance, Bobbit replies, "I ran the show without any effect support. We ran it completely dry. Right from the beginning, everything came out very natural sounding and everyone loved it. There was no reason to add anything else. Only one Stereo BSS FCS-360 EQ is utilized for both the house and monitor mix. I have four monitor mixes, one for the stage and the other three for the band."

Microphones for the eleven piece live band and four additional back-up singers are Shure SM-57s and SM-58s. Eighteen customized Nady 950GS UHF wireless units with Nady E-701 lavaliere microphones and Nady LT-60 body packs handle all of the on-stage performers. Bobbit states, "When the play first opened in the Meralco Theater we were in a very densely populated urban area. Within a two block radius there are over twenty radio stations, not to mention the heavy cellular traffic. The Nadys were customized in the United States to meet the very unique set of frequencies we're faced with in this area. Nady did a great job of customizing the 950s and they have performed extremely well the whole time." * (Note Sidebar.)

To assure the prevention of sound bleeding from the monitors, Bobbit chose to Galaxy Hotspot monitors. A total of sixteen Galaxys were utilized and supplied only the vocals to the band and stage performers. Four Galaxys provide foldback across the front of the stage and two additional Galaxys on each side of the stage provide side fill.

"The play is a complete success," notes Bobbit. After four weeks of sold out performances in the 1,500 seat Meralco Theater, the play was moved to the nearby 2,000 seat Diliman Theater to meet the additional demand for tickets. "Fortunately, we got out of the high RF area. Even though the Nadys never cross-talked on me, I felt I could worry less about that possible eventuality and concentrate on the performance at hand."

Concert Tech can easily provide sound for an event up to 50,000 people and maintains a staff of eight full time people should the need arise. For larger jobs, additional staff is contracted out. Bobbit's loudspeaker preferences for large scale events are handled by TurboSound and amplifiers are a mixture of Crest and QSC. When asked about his choice of TurboSound for his loudspeaker needs, Bobbit notes TurboSound won the sale almost by default. "When I was in the market to purchase a new sound system, I went with the TurboSound loudspeakers since they were the only speaker manufacturer to be properly represented here in the Philippines." Currently, Bobbit maintains twenty-four older TurboSound full range cabinets. "I don't know the model numbers, I'm more concerned with how well they do the job. I recently purchased sixteen of the TurboSound Floodlights and an additional sixteen of the matching subwoofers." Bobbit continues, "I really like the compactness and the sound quality of the Floodlights. When I'm hired to provide sound for the larger stadiums, I can go to several other sound houses in and around Manila and augment my existing TurboSound rig. I know I'll be able to provide quality sound since it seems everyone in the Philippines has TurboSound these days. For the Pope's recent visit to the Philippines, every single sound company was called upon to supply equipment. I used my complete TurboSound system for select parts of the Pope's visit and it performed very, very well."

Concert Tech also maintains a few Apogee Sound Artist Systems speakers in their inventory and call on them for smaller hotel or corporate functions. "I have two Apogee Artist model 5000 subwoofers and a two of the model 4200 full range cabinets. I find the Apogee Sound Artist Systems loudspeakers to perform very well for my smaller rental jobs."

When asked about what the future holds for Concert Tech, Bobbit replies, "The Grease producers were very happy with the show's sound. If the Grease show goes on tour, we will probably be using the same sound system configuration again. There are a few projects that are in the works. A few large shows, concerts and Broadway style productions. The performances I'm hired to provided equipment for are getting more and more diversified," Bobbit notes. "We recently provided sound for Barry Manilow, Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavoratti. Janet Jackson is performing in Manila on March 3, and Concert Tech will be supplying the sound system. I'm flying to Singapore in a day or two to sit-in on a Janet Jackson concert so I can be fully prepared for everything her show will need. There seems to be plenty of work to go around and I'm fortunate I'm usually the first one called."

*SIDEBAR: Budget, reliability and flexibility were the primary factors in choosing the eighteen Nady 950GS UHF wireless systems for the Grease performance. Frank Offenstein of Filament Pro Audio in San Dimas, California states, "Nady was great. The Nady 950GS units are so flexible, they basically have a system to fit any frequency requirement between 490 megahertz and 950 megahertz. We were called on to provide a wireless system that could operate below all of the heavy cellular frequencies in the area of the theater. Due to the very eccentric frequencies, the field of wireless systems to chose from was immediately narrowed down to Nady and two other manufacturers. No one else that could meet the shows RF specifications. When we were informed of the budget for the wireless systems, Nady won hands down. Of the two other competing wireless systems, one system was double the price of the Nady 950GS units. The least expensive, comparable tunable wireless system was still $4,500.00. Even if I were to sell him the least expensive comparable wireless system at cost, he could purchase the Nady 950GS units at full list and still save hundreds of dollars on the deal. That was one of the reasons that steered him to the Nadys."

Frank concludes, "Plus, Nady took the care of checking each and every component and making sure it all worked together before letting the order leave their factory."

Pete Valdez, Grease executive co-producer, was responsible for determining which wireless system could meet Bobbit Jacinto's specific needs. Mr. Valdez sums up his feelings on his decision to use Nady for the plays wireless requirements, "I don't believe I would have received the same kind of service from another manufacturer as I did from Nady. Especially with the budget and time constraints for the job." Pete continues, "The Nady units have performed flawlessly since opening day. We're even getting a lot of requests from other sound rental companies in Manila who want to rent the Nadys because they perform so well. There's been no cut-outs or drop-outs and the audible difference is very noticeable from other wireless systems we have used in the past. I'm bringing Paul Anka and Billy Preston to the Philippines in the very near future and the Nadys are going with us on those tours."