It's been a couple months since the last post. No excuses, but we've been busy and some fairly big things have happened.
On a Sunday night towards the end of November, I got the call that my father was in a hospital in Erie, PA and it was very grim. Things took their course and it came to pass that I was on my way out of town heading up to the hospital when we got the news that he had passed.
The decision to go meant that I would miss a NFL football game at work. This was to be the first big football game I'd miss in several years. I think I've missed two Falcons games in twelve years and the last one was at least six years ago. The "show life" doesn't really allow for one to take off during events.
Fortunately for me, I've got a pretty competent crew this year. Overall, our crew doesn't change that much season-to-season and we were fully staffed. All but one of the crew members had more than one season under their belts and the one newby is a full-time guy so I had some time to fill him in on all the important stuff. I was confident that everything was going to go alright unless something bad happened and we lost some important system. In that case, they'd miss my years of experience with the building, but they'd get by.
Of course, there were some here who needed a little convincing that everything was taken care of. But what are you gonna do if a guy's got a family emergency?
Our General manager used to have an unseemly habit of asking "The Bus Question". In sports terms, he was asking about his team's depth at your position. "Who else knows how to work this if you get hit by a bus?"
I can't tell you how many times I've been hit by Carl's bus but I can say that it has changed the way I think about training my guys. I try to let all of them in on every aspect of the event day requirements. Our crew is small and our building is big. If one guy is out for a day, we're ok because everybody knows what needs to be done to get set-up for the game and everybody can do most every job. Down two guys is a little tight, especially if things don't go right but we can do it.
I guess I'd like for you to think about what you might do if you can't make it to your gig. What's your back-up plan? Do you know another guy who you could recommend in your place? If you're the main guy, can your guys do it without you? If you don't have any guys, do you have a decent relationship with another operator/provider who can take on your gig so your client isn't left in a lurch? Think about it.
It took me a while to make sure my plans were in place and, as it turned-out, my new #2 didn't really have all the contact information he'd need in case he needed help while I was gone. I'd neglected to make certain he had all that.
In the end, I was able to work that game and left for home a couple days afterward. The bus missed me, but I was pretty much prepared for it anyway. I let the guys work the game while I mostly hung around watching. It was good practice for the future.
Be careful out there and remember to look both ways before crossing the street.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Sharpie
The Sharpie.
Incredible tool. Nothing else compares.
It's a must-have product for sound and video guys. Combined with some low-tac white tape, you can use the Sharpie to label damn near anything.
Audio guys *need* labels. Which group did I patch to those front fills? These three 1/3 octave EQs in the rack... which one is the drummer's monitor? Ok, he dropped three lines here. Which one is the intercom?
Sharpie to the rescue!
Sharpie use is a privilege though. It is not a right.
A long time ago, one of the riggers wrote "Bad Motor!" on the chain hoist that didn't work. It was a good thing to know which one we needed to fix but... we fixed it. Nobody used that motor for like three years because it still said "bad" on the case. Who would ever knowingly hang a motor that *might* be bad? I mean, look... It says it's bad right there. Having a bad motor on the ground is a bummer but have you ever had a motor that seemed fine going up decide that it doesn't like coming down? Trust me, it's a huge pain in the ass. I finally painted the case and now nobody knows which one it was.
That story is kinda fun to tell but it's a good illustration of why idiots should not be granted the right to use a permanent marker.
I think of Sharpie usage kinda like the Boy Scouts think of using pocket knives. We were instructed in the proper ways to handle knives, and why other ways are dangerous. We were given no quarter. If you were observed not treating the knife with respect (horsing around), you lost your knife. And that was that.
It's a bit more difficult to take a marker away from a so-called grown-up though. That can be socially embarrassing.
If you're in the sound biz, you need to have a Sharpie close by but for God's sake, be careful with that thing!
Monday, September 22, 2008
The Press Conference
The house audio guy in a multi-purpose stadium works a lot of press conferences. I've done hundreds of them and I've found that there is a certain amount of art in a well produced press event. There is a balance that's present in a good press conference and it's apparently pretty hard for the novice to achieve. That's not to say it's out of the reach of part-timers, but there are several things that one needs to get right for a press event to be really successful and I have a few tips for people involved in producing these things.
Please take just a few moments and teach your presenters a few things about microphones. Which part to talk into is a good start. Tell them not to touch the microphone any more than absolutely necessary. If the speaker is two feet taller than the kid who introduced him, it's probably going to be necessary to adjust the angle of the microphone. Try pointing it at your face, if at all possible. Do not try to switch the mic on. If you try talking but the sound doesn't come out, it's probably because the sound guy didn't know you were about to start. Get his attention and try again. It's pretty unlikely that any even mostly bad sound guy would put a mic on a lectern and leave it switched off. So think about it... If you switch the switch, you're probably going to turn the mic OFF and that will prolong your embarrassment.
This should go without saying but my experience tell me it needs to be said. TURN OFF YOUR RADIOS AND PHONES. I have heard many phones ringing during press events. I'll even admit that MY radio has chirped during a post-game once or twice. It happens and it's mostly forgivable. But I've seen reporters answer their phones and have short conversations (one was talking to his "baby" on SPEAKERPHONE no less). That's just not cool.
If you're a sound guy, you should have a few tools with you so you can get it set-up and verify that it's working. Keep your set-up simple though. If something comes unplugged during the event, it's much easier to figure out what's happened if you have a minimal rig. Do you really need a huge rack of crap anyway?
I've been doing a lot of my post-games with nothing more than a sm58, Whirlwind MD-1 mic-to-line driver, Whirlwind Medusa press mult, and a JBL EON powered speaker. That's about as minimal as it gets. If I need more, it's probably because there are more mics or I really want to have some meters.
I like using our Yamaha 01V but I just got a A&H Mixwizard and it's pretty trick for this application. One thing I like about that mixer is it's internal tone/noise generator. It's pretty nice to have the ability to feed tone to the mult-box so you don't have to do constant mic checks as the camera guys come in. You'll still want to do a couple checks for the camera guys. It makes them feel better when they know the sound they're hearing is really coming from the mics on the stage. It's nice to have a compressor on the line you're feeding to the mult. It can give you a little protection and a more even level for the cameras.
On the topic of mic checks, remember that you're talking to TV camera guys and they could be rolling tape at any moment. You might also be feeding live back to the TV station or even to the whole internet, or at least the guys in the TV truck. So, you know, don't talk out of your ass or say anything you'll regret later when your boss shows you a tape somebody mailed him.
If you're holding a press conference, think about the lighting in the location. If it's a dark place and your presenters are going to be dark-skinned black guys in dark suits, it's probably a good idea to get some lights. That's an exaggeration, I know, but it's a reality that cameras need more light than your eyes to make pretty pictures.
Take two seconds to think about how many chairs you're asking for. Reporters don't mind standing and too many empty chairs looks bad so go with your low estimate on seating. That doesn't mean that you should choose the small room though. What happens when you get a good turn-out and there's no way to get them all in the room?
It's probably contrary to the usual thinking of at a live show, but considering that the TV cameras are potentially going to broadcast the images to a much bigger audience than the few reporters in the room. This means that the feed coming out of your mult-box is actually more important the speakers in the room. It's important that you pay attention to that feed, making sure the levels are consistent and even. You'll know pretty quickly if there's something wrong with your feed because the camera guys won't hesitate to give you a dirty look or even stop the event if it's really bad.
All-in-all, it's not hard to do these shows. There are certainly some things to think about and you can do a bad job, but it's probably a good place to start in the live audio game.
Please take just a few moments and teach your presenters a few things about microphones. Which part to talk into is a good start. Tell them not to touch the microphone any more than absolutely necessary. If the speaker is two feet taller than the kid who introduced him, it's probably going to be necessary to adjust the angle of the microphone. Try pointing it at your face, if at all possible. Do not try to switch the mic on. If you try talking but the sound doesn't come out, it's probably because the sound guy didn't know you were about to start. Get his attention and try again. It's pretty unlikely that any even mostly bad sound guy would put a mic on a lectern and leave it switched off. So think about it... If you switch the switch, you're probably going to turn the mic OFF and that will prolong your embarrassment.
This should go without saying but my experience tell me it needs to be said. TURN OFF YOUR RADIOS AND PHONES. I have heard many phones ringing during press events. I'll even admit that MY radio has chirped during a post-game once or twice. It happens and it's mostly forgivable. But I've seen reporters answer their phones and have short conversations (one was talking to his "baby" on SPEAKERPHONE no less). That's just not cool.
If you're a sound guy, you should have a few tools with you so you can get it set-up and verify that it's working. Keep your set-up simple though. If something comes unplugged during the event, it's much easier to figure out what's happened if you have a minimal rig. Do you really need a huge rack of crap anyway?
I've been doing a lot of my post-games with nothing more than a sm58, Whirlwind MD-1 mic-to-line driver, Whirlwind Medusa press mult, and a JBL EON powered speaker. That's about as minimal as it gets. If I need more, it's probably because there are more mics or I really want to have some meters.
I like using our Yamaha 01V but I just got a A&H Mixwizard and it's pretty trick for this application. One thing I like about that mixer is it's internal tone/noise generator. It's pretty nice to have the ability to feed tone to the mult-box so you don't have to do constant mic checks as the camera guys come in. You'll still want to do a couple checks for the camera guys. It makes them feel better when they know the sound they're hearing is really coming from the mics on the stage. It's nice to have a compressor on the line you're feeding to the mult. It can give you a little protection and a more even level for the cameras.
On the topic of mic checks, remember that you're talking to TV camera guys and they could be rolling tape at any moment. You might also be feeding live back to the TV station or even to the whole internet, or at least the guys in the TV truck. So, you know, don't talk out of your ass or say anything you'll regret later when your boss shows you a tape somebody mailed him.
If you're holding a press conference, think about the lighting in the location. If it's a dark place and your presenters are going to be dark-skinned black guys in dark suits, it's probably a good idea to get some lights. That's an exaggeration, I know, but it's a reality that cameras need more light than your eyes to make pretty pictures.
Take two seconds to think about how many chairs you're asking for. Reporters don't mind standing and too many empty chairs looks bad so go with your low estimate on seating. That doesn't mean that you should choose the small room though. What happens when you get a good turn-out and there's no way to get them all in the room?
It's probably contrary to the usual thinking of at a live show, but considering that the TV cameras are potentially going to broadcast the images to a much bigger audience than the few reporters in the room. This means that the feed coming out of your mult-box is actually more important the speakers in the room. It's important that you pay attention to that feed, making sure the levels are consistent and even. You'll know pretty quickly if there's something wrong with your feed because the camera guys won't hesitate to give you a dirty look or even stop the event if it's really bad.
All-in-all, it's not hard to do these shows. There are certainly some things to think about and you can do a bad job, but it's probably a good place to start in the live audio game.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The 5D Files
We spent a good bit of time in the last two weeks rearranging things in the control room to take advantage of the new Yamaha PM5d digital mixer.
One of the cool things about this mixer was that we really didn't need to change a whole lot to get it up and running. It plugged right up to the old mixer's harness. I think I needed to cut about four wire-ties to make things reach.
Of course, there are some differences that required some re-wiring and patch bay changes (lots of re-labeling). For instance, the new mixer doesn't have insert jacks. We only had twelve inserts wired to the patch bay for use on the PM4000 so we had a total of 24 patch points there to reclaim. I think those all went to the MY8ADDA card that we had installed in the new mixer. That's a card that gives you eight more input points and eight output ports to the mixer, all analog. It doesn't give you any more mixes or channels but you need it if you want to do any inserts or direct outs on the 5d. One advantage of digital mixers is the ability to multi-patch outputs. If you want to send mix 5 to more than one place, you can simply tell the mixer to patch it to the MY card slot in addition to the normal mix output.
I picked-out three MY cards for the 5D. In addition to the MY8ADDA, we got a CobraNet card and the MY 16AE AES I/O card.
The CobraNet card is very handy if you have a computer network around. We are fortunate enough to have a gigabit backbone in our facility and some IT guys who are not adverse to sharing some of their bandwidth with the audio guy. I got them to carve us out a VLan and I have a couple Whirlwind boxes that allow me to get the audio in and out of the Cobranet. We created a little network of our own around the control room and by connecting the feed that the IT guys gave me, I can ship up to 16 channels to and from just about anywhere on the Dome/convention center/park campus. That's a powerful tool, if you ask me. This stuff is all pretty new to us at the moment though so we're reserving judgement until we have used it for a while. I'll be pretty disappointed if we don't find that the CobraNet stuff performs reliably. Given my desire to have total reliability, anything that gives us problems usually ends up on a shelf before long.
The MY16AE has been somewhat of a disappointment so far. The disappointment isn't really the cards fault though as it stems from my limited understanding of the whole sample rate/sync/AES/Word clock world. I have a few digital audio devices in the control room that I figured I'd be able to plug into the AES card. What I failed to realize was that these CD/DAT/MD players and the Instant Replay all pretty much want to run on their own internal clock. If you make the Instant Repay the master, the mixer is fine with that but the CD players won't sync-up. If you change the clock to the CD player, the Instant Replay is grumpy. Even if I hook-up the one CD player that accepts it to the mixer's word clock output, I have to change from 48K to 44.1 to get it to sync-up and then the CobraNet card isn't happy. It's all kind-of a pain. We ended-up putting the two CD players and the Instant Replay on the 2 track Digital inputs of the mixer because they have sample rate conversion. At this point, I'm not sure what I'll be able to use the MY16AE card for. I'm hoping I'll be able to use it when we're re-fitting the video control room next year.
That's it for now. The first game is next weekend so maybe I'll have some notes from that. It took us quite a while to get the mixer set-up in a mix for the NFL games. The differences in the new mixer prompted a number of changes and there were many decisions to make.
CW
One of the cool things about this mixer was that we really didn't need to change a whole lot to get it up and running. It plugged right up to the old mixer's harness. I think I needed to cut about four wire-ties to make things reach.
Of course, there are some differences that required some re-wiring and patch bay changes (lots of re-labeling). For instance, the new mixer doesn't have insert jacks. We only had twelve inserts wired to the patch bay for use on the PM4000 so we had a total of 24 patch points there to reclaim. I think those all went to the MY8ADDA card that we had installed in the new mixer. That's a card that gives you eight more input points and eight output ports to the mixer, all analog. It doesn't give you any more mixes or channels but you need it if you want to do any inserts or direct outs on the 5d. One advantage of digital mixers is the ability to multi-patch outputs. If you want to send mix 5 to more than one place, you can simply tell the mixer to patch it to the MY card slot in addition to the normal mix output.
I picked-out three MY cards for the 5D. In addition to the MY8ADDA, we got a CobraNet card and the MY 16AE AES I/O card.
The CobraNet card is very handy if you have a computer network around. We are fortunate enough to have a gigabit backbone in our facility and some IT guys who are not adverse to sharing some of their bandwidth with the audio guy. I got them to carve us out a VLan and I have a couple Whirlwind boxes that allow me to get the audio in and out of the Cobranet. We created a little network of our own around the control room and by connecting the feed that the IT guys gave me, I can ship up to 16 channels to and from just about anywhere on the Dome/convention center/park campus. That's a powerful tool, if you ask me. This stuff is all pretty new to us at the moment though so we're reserving judgement until we have used it for a while. I'll be pretty disappointed if we don't find that the CobraNet stuff performs reliably. Given my desire to have total reliability, anything that gives us problems usually ends up on a shelf before long.
The MY16AE has been somewhat of a disappointment so far. The disappointment isn't really the cards fault though as it stems from my limited understanding of the whole sample rate/sync/AES/Word clock world. I have a few digital audio devices in the control room that I figured I'd be able to plug into the AES card. What I failed to realize was that these CD/DAT/MD players and the Instant Replay all pretty much want to run on their own internal clock. If you make the Instant Repay the master, the mixer is fine with that but the CD players won't sync-up. If you change the clock to the CD player, the Instant Replay is grumpy. Even if I hook-up the one CD player that accepts it to the mixer's word clock output, I have to change from 48K to 44.1 to get it to sync-up and then the CobraNet card isn't happy. It's all kind-of a pain. We ended-up putting the two CD players and the Instant Replay on the 2 track Digital inputs of the mixer because they have sample rate conversion. At this point, I'm not sure what I'll be able to use the MY16AE card for. I'm hoping I'll be able to use it when we're re-fitting the video control room next year.
That's it for now. The first game is next weekend so maybe I'll have some notes from that. It took us quite a while to get the mixer set-up in a mix for the NFL games. The differences in the new mixer prompted a number of changes and there were many decisions to make.
CW
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Trouble Shoot
Over the last few days we've been very busy.
We had contractors in house re-locating seventeen Soundweb boxes (which means new wires and about 1500 connections), we've been re-configuring things in the control room to accommodate the new PM5D, the construction projects are winding down, there were several events and internal meetings in the building, and we're trying to get ready for the impending football season. We've also had our share of problems.
One of the things that any audio guy needs to know is how to troubleshoot a problem. If you think the sound should come out and it's not, you gotta figure out why. Sometimes you have time to figure that out but it can just as easily happen during the show when the producer or director is shouting something about your overall IQ and family history. You have to have troubleshooting chops to be a good sound guy.
The first step to figure out why your gear isn't doing what you want is figuring out what you know. While that sounds pretty easy, it can often be the hardest part of fixing your problem. It's all too easy to make assumptions based on past experience and those assumptions can lead you on false paths. You know that mic works because you just used it yesterday, right? Prove it. If you can't prove something you think you know, you don't really know it.
You have to think of the system you're checking in terms of signal flow. The sound comes out of some device like a mic or a CD player, travels through some wires and probably some other devices, and then ends in a recorder or falls out of some speakers. You've got to know where you can check the signal or at least see it on a meter. If you can chop the signal path into smaller pieces, it's easier to figure out where the trouble is. You can put the mic cable into a headphone amp, cue the bus you think you're sending the signal out of the mixer on, or see the signal light on the amps for example.
The best approach when troubleshooting is to simplify. The venerable KISS principle is your friend when you're trying to prove that stuff is or isn't working like it should. Are there devices or connections you can remove from the signal chain? Simple circuits have fewer possible points of failure, plain and simple.
I know I said that you really can't assume anything works but you've been around a while and you know that some stuff breaks more often than other stuff. You're probably going to start off by replacing that mic cable, for instance. That's probably a good move since we know that it's more likely to be the problem than the sm57 it's attached to. So you're going to make some assumptions based on your experience but keep in the back of your mind that your A2 might just have dropped that 57 off the golf cart last week... you never know, right?
One assumption I generally make is that it's my fault. I usually think about what I did last. What did I touch? Did I wiggle a cable by accident? Did I hook it up right? Is the selected channel the one I *think* I'm working on? :) (digital mixing update: I EQed the heck out of the wrong channel this weekend wondering all the while why it wasn't doing anything much to fix my slight ring...). In this assumption, I'm right pretty often.
One of the few things I remember from my high school auto shop class is never to assume that something works just because it's new. I've seen new cables with shorts, new power supplies that don't work, new microphones that sound like poo, etc. Always treat new stuff just like anything else. It's junk until you see/hear it working.
What I'm trying to say is that it's OK to make assumptions as long as you know that they are just that, you realize that you might need to go back and prove them out, and you have good reason for them.
You need a few tools to troubleshoot audio issues. Here is a by no means complete list of things that make finding out what's wrong just a bit easier:
A pair of headphones and a decent headphone amp make it much easier to unhook a cable to check for audio.
The Whirlwind Qbox is pretty great for this type of work. It's not great for critical listening but the tone generator and integrated speaker make this box a must for almost any audio job.
A tone/pink noise generator if good to have.
an ipod is good to have as a sound source. It's a good idea to have some speech program (podcast or audio book) loaded into the ipod so you can have somebody talking for a while without making your A2 really grumpy.
You really need a bag of adapters so you can change XLR sex, go to bare wires or well, whatever.
A multi-meter, of course
A known-good mic is a nice thing to have with you. A condenser mic is decent addition too. It's good to know if you can actually provide phantom power.
Some basic hand tools are necessary. You know, wire strippers, screwdrivers, knife, soldering iron with some clamps for holding wires, that kinda stuff.
So keep it simple, know what you know, understand your signal flow, and take a minute (even in the heat of battle) to *think* about what's going on and make a plan to fix it. I've never once found that taking a minute to breath a couple times and think through the situation was a waste of time.
Good luck.
We had contractors in house re-locating seventeen Soundweb boxes (which means new wires and about 1500 connections), we've been re-configuring things in the control room to accommodate the new PM5D, the construction projects are winding down, there were several events and internal meetings in the building, and we're trying to get ready for the impending football season. We've also had our share of problems.
One of the things that any audio guy needs to know is how to troubleshoot a problem. If you think the sound should come out and it's not, you gotta figure out why. Sometimes you have time to figure that out but it can just as easily happen during the show when the producer or director is shouting something about your overall IQ and family history. You have to have troubleshooting chops to be a good sound guy.
The first step to figure out why your gear isn't doing what you want is figuring out what you know. While that sounds pretty easy, it can often be the hardest part of fixing your problem. It's all too easy to make assumptions based on past experience and those assumptions can lead you on false paths. You know that mic works because you just used it yesterday, right? Prove it. If you can't prove something you think you know, you don't really know it.
You have to think of the system you're checking in terms of signal flow. The sound comes out of some device like a mic or a CD player, travels through some wires and probably some other devices, and then ends in a recorder or falls out of some speakers. You've got to know where you can check the signal or at least see it on a meter. If you can chop the signal path into smaller pieces, it's easier to figure out where the trouble is. You can put the mic cable into a headphone amp, cue the bus you think you're sending the signal out of the mixer on, or see the signal light on the amps for example.
The best approach when troubleshooting is to simplify. The venerable KISS principle is your friend when you're trying to prove that stuff is or isn't working like it should. Are there devices or connections you can remove from the signal chain? Simple circuits have fewer possible points of failure, plain and simple.
I know I said that you really can't assume anything works but you've been around a while and you know that some stuff breaks more often than other stuff. You're probably going to start off by replacing that mic cable, for instance. That's probably a good move since we know that it's more likely to be the problem than the sm57 it's attached to. So you're going to make some assumptions based on your experience but keep in the back of your mind that your A2 might just have dropped that 57 off the golf cart last week... you never know, right?
One assumption I generally make is that it's my fault. I usually think about what I did last. What did I touch? Did I wiggle a cable by accident? Did I hook it up right? Is the selected channel the one I *think* I'm working on? :) (digital mixing update: I EQed the heck out of the wrong channel this weekend wondering all the while why it wasn't doing anything much to fix my slight ring...). In this assumption, I'm right pretty often.
One of the few things I remember from my high school auto shop class is never to assume that something works just because it's new. I've seen new cables with shorts, new power supplies that don't work, new microphones that sound like poo, etc. Always treat new stuff just like anything else. It's junk until you see/hear it working.
What I'm trying to say is that it's OK to make assumptions as long as you know that they are just that, you realize that you might need to go back and prove them out, and you have good reason for them.
You need a few tools to troubleshoot audio issues. Here is a by no means complete list of things that make finding out what's wrong just a bit easier:
A pair of headphones and a decent headphone amp make it much easier to unhook a cable to check for audio.
The Whirlwind Qbox is pretty great for this type of work. It's not great for critical listening but the tone generator and integrated speaker make this box a must for almost any audio job.
A tone/pink noise generator if good to have.
an ipod is good to have as a sound source. It's a good idea to have some speech program (podcast or audio book) loaded into the ipod so you can have somebody talking for a while without making your A2 really grumpy.
You really need a bag of adapters so you can change XLR sex, go to bare wires or well, whatever.
A multi-meter, of course
A known-good mic is a nice thing to have with you. A condenser mic is decent addition too. It's good to know if you can actually provide phantom power.
Some basic hand tools are necessary. You know, wire strippers, screwdrivers, knife, soldering iron with some clamps for holding wires, that kinda stuff.
So keep it simple, know what you know, understand your signal flow, and take a minute (even in the heat of battle) to *think* about what's going on and make a plan to fix it. I've never once found that taking a minute to breath a couple times and think through the situation was a waste of time.
Good luck.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Christmas in July
The PM5D is here!
It arrived yesterday, a day early.
In my earlier posts I've commented on the paperwork and processes that accompany many aspects of being the "House Guy". Picking up new and expensive things from the receiving department is no exception. The equipment must be duly logged-in, forms filled out, items must be entered into the inventory, and bar code decals applied. Then and only then can you get the most expensive single piece of equipment under my purview out of their warehouse and into the Dome.
Of course, as son as we got it in the building I was late for a meeting... How about an hour long meeting when there's a brand new digital mixer in the very next room? No thanks man, I'm alright. There was no getting out of it though. So to the meeting I went. I even paid attention, mostly. :)
After the meeting there was some hunting for the appropriate people and equipment to get the large parcel upstairs and across the carpet to the control room. I also had to get the cases for the PM4000 and it's power supply. The venerable old mixer was unceremoniously unhooked, carted out of the room, and laid into it's case for the last time.
I'm going to miss the old 4K. It's a GREAT desk and I feel privileged to have used it for so long. If you read my previous post, you'll understand that I'm going to have a hard time parting with it.
The new mixer was in the room in about ninety minutes. We spent the hour or so before it was time to go home getting it mostly hooked-up. The power supplies went into the adjoining rack. The MY cards were inserted. The wiring harness that was custom made for the 4K had some slight modifications and was mostly plugged right in.
I had some other work to do today but I did get some time to play with the mixer. The mixer even did it's first show tonight. No, I didn't deploy a brand new mixer on a big show on day one. I had a set & forget gig where the internal client needs a mic and a CD player to come out of some speakers we set-up.
I should have more time tomorrow to check out the desk. I'll post some about the check-out and the install over the next few days.
It arrived yesterday, a day early.
In my earlier posts I've commented on the paperwork and processes that accompany many aspects of being the "House Guy". Picking up new and expensive things from the receiving department is no exception. The equipment must be duly logged-in, forms filled out, items must be entered into the inventory, and bar code decals applied. Then and only then can you get the most expensive single piece of equipment under my purview out of their warehouse and into the Dome.
Of course, as son as we got it in the building I was late for a meeting... How about an hour long meeting when there's a brand new digital mixer in the very next room? No thanks man, I'm alright. There was no getting out of it though. So to the meeting I went. I even paid attention, mostly. :)
After the meeting there was some hunting for the appropriate people and equipment to get the large parcel upstairs and across the carpet to the control room. I also had to get the cases for the PM4000 and it's power supply. The venerable old mixer was unceremoniously unhooked, carted out of the room, and laid into it's case for the last time.
I'm going to miss the old 4K. It's a GREAT desk and I feel privileged to have used it for so long. If you read my previous post, you'll understand that I'm going to have a hard time parting with it.
The new mixer was in the room in about ninety minutes. We spent the hour or so before it was time to go home getting it mostly hooked-up. The power supplies went into the adjoining rack. The MY cards were inserted. The wiring harness that was custom made for the 4K had some slight modifications and was mostly plugged right in.
I had some other work to do today but I did get some time to play with the mixer. The mixer even did it's first show tonight. No, I didn't deploy a brand new mixer on a big show on day one. I had a set & forget gig where the internal client needs a mic and a CD player to come out of some speakers we set-up.
I should have more time tomorrow to check out the desk. I'll post some about the check-out and the install over the next few days.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Out With The Old
One of the responsibilities included in managing all the audio and AV gear for an organization is the power to make decisions about what gear to buy and what gear to get rid of. Now, that’s not to say I could just whip out the Master Card and buy a thirty-box line array without any approval. That would be a very unwise choice indeed.
Let’s say though I identify a need for a couple more powered speakers and stands. I can pretty much decide what to buy and initiate the buying process. Being an entity of the state government, this process can be arduous and time consuming but for the most part we get what we asked for as long as it’s within reason and you’re good enough at justification.
This post isn’t about the shiny new gear though; it’s about the other end of the spectrum.
If you have a facility or sound company for long enough, you will undoubtedly have some stuff on shelves in dark corners of your storage rooms that isn’t getting used and probably isn’t going to get used ever again.
If you picture that Beheringer compressor that has one bad channel, you’re on the right track. Here’s a piece of gear that’s not technically worthless (simmer down you guys, I know you don’t like this brand in the first place). It has a working channel, right? But it’s not worthy of your repair budget dollars because of it’s less than stellar lineage and who’s ever going to rack that piece again knowing that one channel is bad? So it sits on the shelf with board tape saying “Left channel NFG” in sharpie stuck to the face. This unit could stay on my shelf for YEARS. It’s silently hoping for the unlikely event to come along where I need “just one more channel of compression”. It’s never going to happen though because we’ve got a stack of dbx 160s sitting right next to it on the shelf.
Given some time, these items can really pile-up. All it takes is an upgrade project or two and you could have a first class yard sale brewing in your back room. Consider the new mixer I’m about to install. How many delays, compressors, and gates will it replace in our control room? Just about all of them, I guess. No real need for the type of commonplace dynamics we have up there when all their functions are included in the mixer, right? Heck, the mixer out guns them ten times over. I could see keeping some of those pieces if they were really special, but our equipment is pretty run of the mill so off to the storage shelves they will go.
Just like buying stuff, the state has procedures to follow for disposing of its property. These too can be tedious and time consuming. For the last few years we’ve been selling all of our old stuff on a web auction site for government surplus property. On these sites you can find pretty much anything you’re interested in but it’s likely to be broken, missing pieces, quite lightly described, and very poorly photographed.
Recently, after much hand wringing, loads of paperwork and prodding of the bureaucracy, we put lots of stuff online. Even harder than working through the sale process though was the process of deciding to actually let go of some of the good stuff. I’m a packrat at heart so it’s not in my nature to let anything go that I think I might need. I also have trouble selling anything that I think is “good” for much less than what I think is a fair price. We decided to sell some pretty nice White and KT EQs, a perfectly good delay, and some other pieces that I felt I’d like to have for myself. We weren’t using those units though so they had to go.
Those good things went together in a fairly large lot of audio and AV related stuff including 16 amplifiers, an overhead projector and a slide projector. The lot sold for only a few hundred dollars. We could have done better if we’d sold the things individually on an audio related site or even Ebay but this is the process and it’s just the way it’s done. Somebody got a bunch of stuff for not a lot of money.
I hope that those EQs will end up in the hands of somebody who needs them and will use them again. They’re meant to be used. They deserve better then the shelf in my office.
Now that we've had our big yard sale, I guess it's time to start the new pile. I need to spend more time on the internet so I can find some new products that we "just gotta have". There's some extra space i nthe storage room now, ya know?
Let’s say though I identify a need for a couple more powered speakers and stands. I can pretty much decide what to buy and initiate the buying process. Being an entity of the state government, this process can be arduous and time consuming but for the most part we get what we asked for as long as it’s within reason and you’re good enough at justification.
This post isn’t about the shiny new gear though; it’s about the other end of the spectrum.
If you have a facility or sound company for long enough, you will undoubtedly have some stuff on shelves in dark corners of your storage rooms that isn’t getting used and probably isn’t going to get used ever again.
If you picture that Beheringer compressor that has one bad channel, you’re on the right track. Here’s a piece of gear that’s not technically worthless (simmer down you guys, I know you don’t like this brand in the first place). It has a working channel, right? But it’s not worthy of your repair budget dollars because of it’s less than stellar lineage and who’s ever going to rack that piece again knowing that one channel is bad? So it sits on the shelf with board tape saying “Left channel NFG” in sharpie stuck to the face. This unit could stay on my shelf for YEARS. It’s silently hoping for the unlikely event to come along where I need “just one more channel of compression”. It’s never going to happen though because we’ve got a stack of dbx 160s sitting right next to it on the shelf.
Given some time, these items can really pile-up. All it takes is an upgrade project or two and you could have a first class yard sale brewing in your back room. Consider the new mixer I’m about to install. How many delays, compressors, and gates will it replace in our control room? Just about all of them, I guess. No real need for the type of commonplace dynamics we have up there when all their functions are included in the mixer, right? Heck, the mixer out guns them ten times over. I could see keeping some of those pieces if they were really special, but our equipment is pretty run of the mill so off to the storage shelves they will go.
Just like buying stuff, the state has procedures to follow for disposing of its property. These too can be tedious and time consuming. For the last few years we’ve been selling all of our old stuff on a web auction site for government surplus property. On these sites you can find pretty much anything you’re interested in but it’s likely to be broken, missing pieces, quite lightly described, and very poorly photographed.
Recently, after much hand wringing, loads of paperwork and prodding of the bureaucracy, we put lots of stuff online. Even harder than working through the sale process though was the process of deciding to actually let go of some of the good stuff. I’m a packrat at heart so it’s not in my nature to let anything go that I think I might need. I also have trouble selling anything that I think is “good” for much less than what I think is a fair price. We decided to sell some pretty nice White and KT EQs, a perfectly good delay, and some other pieces that I felt I’d like to have for myself. We weren’t using those units though so they had to go.
Those good things went together in a fairly large lot of audio and AV related stuff including 16 amplifiers, an overhead projector and a slide projector. The lot sold for only a few hundred dollars. We could have done better if we’d sold the things individually on an audio related site or even Ebay but this is the process and it’s just the way it’s done. Somebody got a bunch of stuff for not a lot of money.
I hope that those EQs will end up in the hands of somebody who needs them and will use them again. They’re meant to be used. They deserve better then the shelf in my office.
Now that we've had our big yard sale, I guess it's time to start the new pile. I need to spend more time on the internet so I can find some new products that we "just gotta have". There's some extra space i nthe storage room now, ya know?
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