Meyer Sound's business will be anchored there by tour liaison Buford Jones, a veteran front-of-house engineer whose credits include Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, James Taylor and Faith Hill. Greg McVeigh, Meyer Sound's vice-president of sales and special projects, will also be in regular attendance. Eric Wade, president of DiGiCo US, and Taidus Vallandi (technical sales) will spearhead DiGiCo's presence at the facility.
Jones and McVeigh expect the new office at Soundcheck to boost Meyer Sound's expanding presence in both the regional and national touring markets. "An enormous amount of music industry traffic goes in and out of Soundcheck," Jones notes, "and keeping an office there will make personal contact with key people in the industry much easier. I'll be setting up a network to help artists and tour management develop plans and schedules for picking up Meyer systems as needed, anywhere they're going in the United States or Canada."
The office will feature a permanent 5.1 surround system consisting of Meyer Sound's self-powered UPJ-1P compact VariO loudspeakers and a USW-1P compact subwoofer connected to a D5 Live console. The facility will have appropriate acoustical treatment and be wired with optical fibre. DiGiCo plans to install its DiGiTRACS hard-disk recording system at the facility, allowing up to 56 tracks to be recorded and then auditioned through the D5 and Meyer Sound playback system at the press of a single button. Future Meyer Sound plans call for stocking sample M Series curvilinear array systems for examination and evaluation, and bringing in full touring rigs for demo sessions in Soundcheck's larger rehearsal rooms as the occasion warrants.
Tim Chapman, Meyer Sound's director of marketing, emphasizes that the Nashville office is continental in scope and serves a touring-specific liaison role only for Meyer Sound, with no direct sales functions. Sales will continue to be administered by Rick Coleman, Meyer Sound sales manager for the Southeastern region, from his main office in Florida.
(Lee Baldock)
