First, a definition from Dictionary.com
intermittent
Pronunciation[in-ter-mit-nt]
–adjective
1. stopping or ceasing for a time; alternately ceasing and beginning again: an intermittent pain.
2. alternately functioning and not functioning or alternately functioning properly and improperly.
You all know something about this. It's the way in which a piece of equipment will work fine, do something unexpected, and then work fine again without anybody fixing it. This is more common with things that are electronic or mechanical in nature. This leads me to believe that intermittency is not natural.
I believe it's evil, actually.
You see, in my world something that's unreliable is the worst sort of problem. We do live shows. There generally aren't any second takes. When you hand the girl the microphone and she starts to sing the National Anthem, the sound needs to come out of the speakers. Now. "It worked fine an hour ago" isn't much consolation when your boss or worse yet the Client is looking at you like the world just fell down on him and it's your fault. Ever been boo-ed by twenty thousand people- on your birthday? I have. There were no T-shirts.
It is hard to explain to somebody who isn't in the event business why a problem that "fixes itself" is so troubling.
Consider this example: During one of the recent graduations, I was playing the National Anthem from the Instant Replay (hard disc recorder). Everything was going just fine when there's a loud POP from the PA and the house system is just gone. There's some question about it now, but I think the stage speakers were still working.
Now, we've got thousands of people in the stands and every one of them is very interested in seeing their family member graduate TODAY. Not to mention the five other events in the next three days that need sound. If the PA is dead... Well, nothing good can come from that.
The song ends (about twenty seconds, but it was a LONG time to me) and we're supposed to roll right into another song with no interlude so I push the faders down fade the IR back up and hit the hot key for the next track. I'm VERY curious, my mind is racing through all the things to check and forming non-existent contingency plans, and the adrenalin is pumping pretty hard. Thankfully the song falls out of the speakers and the show goes on without any further trouble.
Whatever it was, we didn't fix it. It "Fixed Itself".
I've racked my brain trying to figure out what could have caused that temporary outage. Lots of possibilities, to be sure. No real good candidates have come forward though.
What I do know is:
Unless you positively identify the failure point and eliminate it, you are liable to have the problem again.
And
When it does fail again, it will not be at an opportune time for you.
I've spent the better part of a decade finding vulnerabilities in the equipment and practices that we use to put on events in this building. I know that we're much better off than we were years ago. We have more spare parts, better system designs, better equipment, and most of all, more years of experience. I remember the time we got our ass kicked because we hadn't learned "the lesson we learned on that show that time where that stuff didn't work".
And yet, we are still dealing with electronics and physics. We're vulnerable all the time to LOTS of things that could stop the show. And lets remember that without the PA system, you can't put seventy thousand people into this place. It's not safe.
Am I thankful that the system "fixed itself"? Hell yeah!
Do I believe it's "fixed"? Not on your life! I'm waiting for it to happen again. Maybe then we'll scrape together enough data to figure out what happened.
And so I've come to believe:
"Intermittent Failure is the hand of the Devil."
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Let the Commencements End
As it turns out, there are a lot of high schools in the Atlanta area. This is the week that thousands of young men and women are thrust upon the "adult" world in a ceremony known both as commencement and graduation.
We've been doing one high school's graduation for several years now. They were joined by Georgia Tech a few years ago and Georgia State last year. Apparently this year somebody distributed a memo because we're doing no less than EIGHT of these events...More are promised next year.
The high school shows are pretty shoestring events. No line-arrays and delay stacks hanging from the sky here.
There are three to six hundred graduates sitting in chairs on the field with the stage on the field at the 35 yard line. The parents and families sit in the regular end zone seating and are covered by the normal house PA system. We're using speakers on stands to cover the students, any band or performance space adjacent to the stage, and the stage itself. A couple mics are placed on the stage, two for the band, and three or four for the choir, if needed. A 12 or 14 channel snake runs back to the FOH space near the center of the end zone wall.
At FOH I have a CD player and/or Instant Replay, a channel or two of outboard EQ, VOG mic, and the Yamaha 01V96 mixer that we got last year.
I think I'll do a separate post detailing what it's been like for me to adjust from the analog to the digital mixer world but I will say that it's *NICE* to have decent EQ and compression on every channel.
The graduations are all pretty similar but there are variations between the schools. One has a dance ensemble, another has a big choir, while a third had no performers at all, using a CD to play the anthem and pomp.
There's usually no "tech" rehearsal so there are the inevitable surprises: "Oh crap! There's a singer on stage for the Alma Mater." "Woah, the band is playing...no mention of THIS in the program." An MC-like kick-off announcer before the procession? How about the soloist who leaps on stage while the whole class was singing a tribute song and looked for all the world like a hooligan? I kept the mic off but the band director later told me that was part of the show... Who knew?
Fortunately I kept on my toes for the most part and didn't really miss anything.
It was a really good run of shows, actually. I still have trouble getting a loud enough stage volume for the on-stage dignitaries to hear well and still having enough gain before feedback to handle the "quiet talkers" and the ones who don't talk towards the mic. There's always more to learn. But all-in all, I think everybody heard most everything.
It was a good feeling when it was over. That sure was a lot of names...
CW
We've been doing one high school's graduation for several years now. They were joined by Georgia Tech a few years ago and Georgia State last year. Apparently this year somebody distributed a memo because we're doing no less than EIGHT of these events...More are promised next year.
The high school shows are pretty shoestring events. No line-arrays and delay stacks hanging from the sky here.
There are three to six hundred graduates sitting in chairs on the field with the stage on the field at the 35 yard line. The parents and families sit in the regular end zone seating and are covered by the normal house PA system. We're using speakers on stands to cover the students, any band or performance space adjacent to the stage, and the stage itself. A couple mics are placed on the stage, two for the band, and three or four for the choir, if needed. A 12 or 14 channel snake runs back to the FOH space near the center of the end zone wall.
At FOH I have a CD player and/or Instant Replay, a channel or two of outboard EQ, VOG mic, and the Yamaha 01V96 mixer that we got last year.
I think I'll do a separate post detailing what it's been like for me to adjust from the analog to the digital mixer world but I will say that it's *NICE* to have decent EQ and compression on every channel.
The graduations are all pretty similar but there are variations between the schools. One has a dance ensemble, another has a big choir, while a third had no performers at all, using a CD to play the anthem and pomp.
There's usually no "tech" rehearsal so there are the inevitable surprises: "Oh crap! There's a singer on stage for the Alma Mater." "Woah, the band is playing...no mention of THIS in the program." An MC-like kick-off announcer before the procession? How about the soloist who leaps on stage while the whole class was singing a tribute song and looked for all the world like a hooligan? I kept the mic off but the band director later told me that was part of the show... Who knew?
Fortunately I kept on my toes for the most part and didn't really miss anything.
It was a really good run of shows, actually. I still have trouble getting a loud enough stage volume for the on-stage dignitaries to hear well and still having enough gain before feedback to handle the "quiet talkers" and the ones who don't talk towards the mic. There's always more to learn. But all-in all, I think everybody heard most everything.
It was a good feeling when it was over. That sure was a lot of names...
CW
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Upper Level
There's a shot I originally published on the Pentax User's Gallery. I have a few Pentax cameras now and mainly shoot with my K10D digital SLR.
I think it's interesting today because these seats were teal then (about 2001) but they've been replaced this summer with red and black ones. I wonder if I took the picture again with the same film (c41 b&w) how different the image would look.
Coach Com Stories
Reading a post online this morning, I'm reminded of a story from a high school football tournament a couple years ago.
We put the coaches way up in the rafters where they can see the teams formations and whatnot. To communicate to the coaches on the field we have a Telex intercom system. As things progress, even high school coaches have outgrown our simple two channel system. Teams nowadays usually bring their own wireless intercom set-up. Some will use our wired stuff as a back-up or they might augment their system by using ours for their "lessor" coaches. They have several coaches now that all would love to have their own channels.
The tournaments we do are typically four games per day. I really don't know what they do at their home fields but they can be really rough on our gear. It's very common for them to call during a game and need a cable replacement. They're dragging these things up and down the sideline with fifty or sixty kids in cleats doing their best to stand on the cables so that's to be expected. We don't really mind the death of a cable or two. We're making enough to cover that.
Interestingly enough, they're usually pretty irate when the system that they've torn-up doesn't work anymore. It doesn't matter if they're currently winning or losing either. They're just pissed that they can't communicate with the boys upstairs.
There are a few memorable instances:
1. The coach-assistant kid hands me belt pack & headset and says "It quit working". "Where's the cable?" I ask. "It fell out" That's when I notice that the connector is still attached to the belt pack.
Now, I've never had an XLR cable just "fall out" of the connector before but hey, one never knows, right? Riiight, uhhuh. Quizzical look, replace cable, go on about my day.
2. Called to the sideline, I'm confronted by a coach who's livid because he can't talk to his guys anymore like he could in the first quarter. He's on a cell phone with them now.
So, we know it *was* working. I can hear myself in the headset so I know that this end is working. I can also hear that the key upstairs is open and some body's talking in the background. Coaches kid says their guys upstairs both have the headsets on but can't talk to anyone at all. I get one of my guys to go upstairs so we can figure this out. The other team is using their own wireless rig. We quickly learn that something is terribly wrong here.
You see, this being a wired system, it sort-of matters which booth you are in. The booth on the left is wired to the "home" side. The other booth is wired to the "visitor" side. There is no way to talk to the visitor side from the home booth. Probably a good thing, that.
The fix is easy. When the coaches come back after half-time, they switch booths and low, the headsets work now! I'm still wondering who they were talking to in the first quarter :)
3. As I approach the coach, I notice that he's no longer wearing the headset. Unfortunately, he's still wearing the belt pack and it's still attached to the headset which is presently dragging behind the coach on the ground(!). The coach is pretty involved in the game, but I manage to get his attention by tugging gently on the now-destroyed headset (remember the sixty young men with cleats?)
"That damn thing doesn't work!" spits towards me. I'm kinda angry but I manage to ask what happened. No usable information comes from the coach so I politely inform him that I'll be a few minutes fetching another headset and cable. I also let him know that he'll be charged for the replacement of the gear he's ruined. He literally throws the junked headset and belt pack at me. "We aint payin, tha fuckin thing didn't work anyway!" he yells.
Its a funny thing, but that replacement headset we have on hand wasn't where we usually keep it. We're not sure how it got misplaced... Too bad about the loss, coach.
(no football teams were actually harmed in the making of this post, honest)
We put the coaches way up in the rafters where they can see the teams formations and whatnot. To communicate to the coaches on the field we have a Telex intercom system. As things progress, even high school coaches have outgrown our simple two channel system. Teams nowadays usually bring their own wireless intercom set-up. Some will use our wired stuff as a back-up or they might augment their system by using ours for their "lessor" coaches. They have several coaches now that all would love to have their own channels.
The tournaments we do are typically four games per day. I really don't know what they do at their home fields but they can be really rough on our gear. It's very common for them to call during a game and need a cable replacement. They're dragging these things up and down the sideline with fifty or sixty kids in cleats doing their best to stand on the cables so that's to be expected. We don't really mind the death of a cable or two. We're making enough to cover that.
Interestingly enough, they're usually pretty irate when the system that they've torn-up doesn't work anymore. It doesn't matter if they're currently winning or losing either. They're just pissed that they can't communicate with the boys upstairs.
There are a few memorable instances:
1. The coach-assistant kid hands me belt pack & headset and says "It quit working". "Where's the cable?" I ask. "It fell out" That's when I notice that the connector is still attached to the belt pack.
Now, I've never had an XLR cable just "fall out" of the connector before but hey, one never knows, right? Riiight, uhhuh. Quizzical look, replace cable, go on about my day.
2. Called to the sideline, I'm confronted by a coach who's livid because he can't talk to his guys anymore like he could in the first quarter. He's on a cell phone with them now.
So, we know it *was* working. I can hear myself in the headset so I know that this end is working. I can also hear that the key upstairs is open and some body's talking in the background. Coaches kid says their guys upstairs both have the headsets on but can't talk to anyone at all. I get one of my guys to go upstairs so we can figure this out. The other team is using their own wireless rig. We quickly learn that something is terribly wrong here.
You see, this being a wired system, it sort-of matters which booth you are in. The booth on the left is wired to the "home" side. The other booth is wired to the "visitor" side. There is no way to talk to the visitor side from the home booth. Probably a good thing, that.
The fix is easy. When the coaches come back after half-time, they switch booths and low, the headsets work now! I'm still wondering who they were talking to in the first quarter :)
3. As I approach the coach, I notice that he's no longer wearing the headset. Unfortunately, he's still wearing the belt pack and it's still attached to the headset which is presently dragging behind the coach on the ground(!). The coach is pretty involved in the game, but I manage to get his attention by tugging gently on the now-destroyed headset (remember the sixty young men with cleats?)
"That damn thing doesn't work!" spits towards me. I'm kinda angry but I manage to ask what happened. No usable information comes from the coach so I politely inform him that I'll be a few minutes fetching another headset and cable. I also let him know that he'll be charged for the replacement of the gear he's ruined. He literally throws the junked headset and belt pack at me. "We aint payin, tha fuckin thing didn't work anyway!" he yells.
Its a funny thing, but that replacement headset we have on hand wasn't where we usually keep it. We're not sure how it got misplaced... Too bad about the loss, coach.
(no football teams were actually harmed in the making of this post, honest)
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Whatsamatta Lav?
Today's wedding went ok. There were a couple hitches (pun?) but the happy couple were married and all is well.
Nobody remembered to go tell the preacher that they were ready. He's happily reading scriptures in the Green Room while everyone else is precessing down the aisle... Bride and groom were waiting while the harpist played the same song over and over.(!)
They went without a microphone at the last minute. They thought they would be using the harpist's PA system but she refused to let them plug their wireless receivers into the mixer/amp. Apparently at some point in the past somebody plugged their wireless lav mic into her gear and something bad happened to her amp. She was totally fine with them plugging a handheld wireless mic into her gear, even if it was the same receiver... She had some sort of little powered mixer & speaker combo that would certainly have worked just fine with the Shure econo-wireless mics but I made the decision that it was just easier to let it go. I offered to hook them up with some of our gear. Heck, I offered them a handheld WIRED mic and stand. They declined. I guess it went ok. Like I said, they got married. They're happy as clams up there in the In Zone at the reception.
Nobody remembered to go tell the preacher that they were ready. He's happily reading scriptures in the Green Room while everyone else is precessing down the aisle... Bride and groom were waiting while the harpist played the same song over and over.(!)
They went without a microphone at the last minute. They thought they would be using the harpist's PA system but she refused to let them plug their wireless receivers into the mixer/amp. Apparently at some point in the past somebody plugged their wireless lav mic into her gear and something bad happened to her amp. She was totally fine with them plugging a handheld wireless mic into her gear, even if it was the same receiver... She had some sort of little powered mixer & speaker combo that would certainly have worked just fine with the Shure econo-wireless mics but I made the decision that it was just easier to let it go. I offered to hook them up with some of our gear. Heck, I offered them a handheld WIRED mic and stand. They declined. I guess it went ok. Like I said, they got married. They're happy as clams up there in the In Zone at the reception.
Black & White EQ
An artsy shot of some EQs that were previously installed in the PA system at the Dome but now reside on a shelf in my office.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Just Catching Up
Don't expect there to be posts two times a day or anything. In reality, I made the decision to start this blog and several ideas came to mind for things I could post about. I'm sure it will taper off once I get caught up.
Today's event is a Punt, Pass & Kick. I think it's a corporate team building thing. We do these from time to time. There are three varieties of these PPKs: The honest to goodness kids PPK event, the "lets get everyone in the office together and have some fun so we can WORK better together" kind, and the "lets pay for all our distributors to come out and have a little fun (and maybe get drunk) so they'll like us and buy more of our products" kind. I think this one is the second variety.
Usually I just have to put out a couple speakers and play some music for them. Maybe they'll want a mic so they can give out awards or ridicule their friends. I usually have to put up the field goal nets. These are the nets behind the goals that catch the balls if by some miracle someone can actually kick it through the uprights.
The "Audio" guy is in charge of rigging too :(
Today's event is from like noon till two or something and then we have the wedding rehearsal.
That should be interesting. It's going to be the third wedding we've had here. One was a construction worker before the building was finished (that's B.C. or Before Cory). The second was this dude who got married up in the east end zone seats, went to take a nap, and then roller-bladed his way into the Guinness Book of World Records. He set the mark for the longest distance "bladed" in a twenty-four hour period.
I like to think I was instrumental in his quest for the record. After all, I put the CD player out and tied it into the concourse sound system. Without me, he could have had to wear a Discman (it was before the MP3 revolution) if he wanted music all the way around the circuit he was skating day and night. That extra weight and drag could very well have cost him the record!
OK, so I'm a little deluded sometimes... So what? It's more fun my way.
Today's event is a Punt, Pass & Kick. I think it's a corporate team building thing. We do these from time to time. There are three varieties of these PPKs: The honest to goodness kids PPK event, the "lets get everyone in the office together and have some fun so we can WORK better together" kind, and the "lets pay for all our distributors to come out and have a little fun (and maybe get drunk) so they'll like us and buy more of our products" kind. I think this one is the second variety.
Usually I just have to put out a couple speakers and play some music for them. Maybe they'll want a mic so they can give out awards or ridicule their friends. I usually have to put up the field goal nets. These are the nets behind the goals that catch the balls if by some miracle someone can actually kick it through the uprights.
The "Audio" guy is in charge of rigging too :(
Today's event is from like noon till two or something and then we have the wedding rehearsal.
That should be interesting. It's going to be the third wedding we've had here. One was a construction worker before the building was finished (that's B.C. or Before Cory). The second was this dude who got married up in the east end zone seats, went to take a nap, and then roller-bladed his way into the Guinness Book of World Records. He set the mark for the longest distance "bladed" in a twenty-four hour period.
I like to think I was instrumental in his quest for the record. After all, I put the CD player out and tied it into the concourse sound system. Without me, he could have had to wear a Discman (it was before the MP3 revolution) if he wanted music all the way around the circuit he was skating day and night. That extra weight and drag could very well have cost him the record!
OK, so I'm a little deluded sometimes... So what? It's more fun my way.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A few words about me and this blog:
I'm the "Senior Audio/Video Technician" at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. It's a 71 thousand seat dome that's the home of the Atlanta Falcons. I've been here since just before the 1996 Summer Olympics. In that time We've done hundreds and hundreds of shows. The highlight list includes NFL games (duh), NFL playoff games, NBA regular season and playoff games including the NBA's record for the game with the highest attendance, The Basketball, Gymnastics, and Team Handball finals of the Olympic Games, The Super Bowl, NCAA Men's and Women's Final Four, The Peach Bowl, The Sugar Bowl, SEC and ACC Men's Basketball tournaments, and the SEC Football Championship. We also have Monster Trucks, Supercross, marching bands, high school football tournaments, huge church shows, concerts, and corprate events all the time.
Sounds pretty impressive, but it's really not all that... honestly :)
I'm 36. I'm from Michigan but I've been here in Atlanta since 1995. I have a wife, two kids and a dog. I like camping, cars, racing, computers, photography, and TV. I have a bachelor's degree in Broadcasting from Northern Michigan University and I'm a graduate of the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Tempe, AZ.
The point of this blog is to help capture the stories, and thoughts of a staff sound/video/tech guy. I'm also going to try to capture some of the things I've learned over the years. I'll try not to wander too far off topic.
Feel free to contact me if you have questions or job opportunities :)
Cory
I'm the "Senior Audio/Video Technician" at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. It's a 71 thousand seat dome that's the home of the Atlanta Falcons. I've been here since just before the 1996 Summer Olympics. In that time We've done hundreds and hundreds of shows. The highlight list includes NFL games (duh), NFL playoff games, NBA regular season and playoff games including the NBA's record for the game with the highest attendance, The Basketball, Gymnastics, and Team Handball finals of the Olympic Games, The Super Bowl, NCAA Men's and Women's Final Four, The Peach Bowl, The Sugar Bowl, SEC and ACC Men's Basketball tournaments, and the SEC Football Championship. We also have Monster Trucks, Supercross, marching bands, high school football tournaments, huge church shows, concerts, and corprate events all the time.
Sounds pretty impressive, but it's really not all that... honestly :)
I'm 36. I'm from Michigan but I've been here in Atlanta since 1995. I have a wife, two kids and a dog. I like camping, cars, racing, computers, photography, and TV. I have a bachelor's degree in Broadcasting from Northern Michigan University and I'm a graduate of the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Tempe, AZ.
The point of this blog is to help capture the stories, and thoughts of a staff sound/video/tech guy. I'm also going to try to capture some of the things I've learned over the years. I'll try not to wander too far off topic.
Feel free to contact me if you have questions or job opportunities :)
Cory
We start in the middle, the beginning was a long time ago
It's fitting that this blog starts while I'm in a meeting.
I've been going to these Thursday afternoon construction meeting on and off (more ON than Off)for two years or more. This one is going pretty smoothly but it's not really anything that I'm needed for. Presently, they're talking about some repair work on a large marquee sign outside. It was damaged recently by a tornado that bounced off our building during the SEC Men's Basketball tournament.
I'm here because this project has some components that tie-into my areas of responsibility. Namely there are a ton of televisions that are being moved from the suites to the concourses and then replaced by new TVs that need to work with the new cable TV elements to allow us to have the NFL Sunday Ticket games available in HD on the suite TVs. Whether or not anybody in the suites even cares if those games are there is unsure as far as I know.
The House "Audio" Guy is responsable for all the TVs and the cable TV system too.
Welcome to the blog. I'll do an introduction post in the next day or two.
I've been going to these Thursday afternoon construction meeting on and off (more ON than Off)for two years or more. This one is going pretty smoothly but it's not really anything that I'm needed for. Presently, they're talking about some repair work on a large marquee sign outside. It was damaged recently by a tornado that bounced off our building during the SEC Men's Basketball tournament.
I'm here because this project has some components that tie-into my areas of responsibility. Namely there are a ton of televisions that are being moved from the suites to the concourses and then replaced by new TVs that need to work with the new cable TV elements to allow us to have the NFL Sunday Ticket games available in HD on the suite TVs. Whether or not anybody in the suites even cares if those games are there is unsure as far as I know.
The House "Audio" Guy is responsable for all the TVs and the cable TV system too.
Welcome to the blog. I'll do an introduction post in the next day or two.
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