Sound Crew Volunteers and PA Gear Loans Wanted

djfoxyfox

Greetings,

I've been appointed as the Sound Coordinator. Today, Howard, Greg, and I visited the CAC so I could inspect the facility with an eye on how best to set up sound systems in each performance venue. The venues are, in no particular order:

Each space will need a sound system. If you have gear that you are willing to loan (mixers, amps, speakers, mics, stands, cables, EQs, etc.) or if you wish to volunteer to operate sound systems during electro-music 2005, then please let me know in this forum. I will co-ordinate schedules as to who will be responsible for the PA in each room and make sure that all audio technical needs are met. I will need more than five volunteers so that nobody gets stuck running a PA 100% of the time.

If you are confirmed to perform, speak, or demonstrate, please come prepared to provide the PA with a stereo feed using your own cables. You'll need to tell me in advance of the festival if your output cables are balanced or unbalanced and what type of connectors they are, AMP or 1/4" phone. If you need any microphones and/or microphone stands, you need to let me know. Only the Theater's stage will have a monitor system in addition to House sound.

If you need non-PA gear such as synths, stands, power strips, voltage converters, or anything else, those are outside of my domain and you need to make sure that Howard and Greg know your needs.

This festival is going to be FANTASTIC!!!!!

Cheers,

sparky_a · Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:58 pm Post subject: Sound Volunteers

Hi Billy. I posted in the volunteer forum (also) that I can help run sound for the evenings if you still need help. Preferably for an NM show 'cause that's why I'm coming up.

sparky_a · Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:04 pm Post subject: Addendum

I can bring up a Behringer 2442 mixer and leave it for the weekend if that helps. The only problem is that I cannot leave Baltimore until 5pm Friday. Let me know. If there is someone coming through hewre earlier I can let them take it up.

Also: floor space still needed to sleep Friday and Saturday night. I'll need to leave at 7 am Sat for Virginia and return Sat eve for the concerts.

djfoxyfox · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:34 am Post subject: Re: Sound Volunteers

egw · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:55 am Post subject:

Hi Mark
Glad you can help out.
We will create a mailing list for all of the participants - that will be the place to exchange travel plans and accommodations etc.
I know that there will be several people coming up from the Baltimore area.
As far as NM related shows -
The schedule is not set yet, hopefully will be soon.
Performances that will heavily feature the Nord Modular include Xeroid Entity,
Rob Hordijk, Roland Kuit, and Ambiguous Nouns. Maybe a few others that I don't know about yet. Talks that are NM related include Rob Hordijk, Chet Singer, Dave Peck, and Dean Stiglitz. All of these will be scattered throughout the weekend. After I post the schedule you can work out your preferred time slot with Bill.

sparky_a · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:32 am Post subject: Sounds Great!

Thanks. I'm looking forward to it. Any idea if the night performances will continue into the morning? I may not need to rent a room......

egw · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:31 am Post subject:

The shows will end at midnight.

sparky_a · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:32 pm Post subject: End at midnight!?

I'd prefer to fall asleep to the sound of a smooth noodle at an all-night session! Anyone having a noodle party after the show Saturday night? Laughing

deknow · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:49 pm Post subject:

i will bring my pa for use of the festival

2 mackie srm450's
1 allen and heath mixwizard 14:4:2+ (in an skb case)
xlrs, stands, extension cords...everything from the board out

i'm curious (as my previous mixer was destroyed by a sound company at my last gig) what the provisions are for gear that gets damaged...who will be running it, who will be responsible for it, etc. i can deal with almost any scenereo, i just want to know what it is.

deknow

djfoxyfox · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:38 pm Post subject:

mosc · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 9:07 pm Post subject:

This is a community event. It's great to see so much generosity.

deknow · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:34 am Post subject:

djfoxyfox · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 7:22 am Post subject:

deknow · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 7:30 am Post subject:

...it was plugging the _outputs_ of my mixer to the _inputs_ on their snake that caused the problem. this was a fully analog board and weird things were happening (ie, main bus stopped working, but if i muted a channel, it would come out on the left only in my headphone bus...and there were loud pops when muting, soloing, etc. again, i don't know if they had phantom power on, or if it had to do with the fact that we were running on generator power. whatever it was, it only happend when i connected my outs to their ins. in the end, i used the borrowed mixer with 1/4" outs into di boxes. i'm not sure how well that worked, as the sound was really, really bad the whole time (i have recordings from the board that show we should have sounded good, rather than like crap).

deknow

djfoxyfox · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:19 am Post subject:

deknow · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:30 am Post subject:

..the snake was connected to the inputs of their board. they claimed that there was no phantom power on my channeles, but these were the "helpers", and did not necessarily know what they were doing. this was a high paying, high profile corperate gig, so once we were able to get things to work, having arguments about what was going wrong, and who's fault it was not appropriate.

the reason for the generator is that the building is solar powered (the largest photvoltaic array in boston), and in some cases this can cause problems with the audio. the generators seemed to be run appropriately (they were located in a truck, and had been inspected by the city).

the most unfortuate part of the whole episode is that, in the end, the sound was bad, and it reflected poorly on us. i will be able to get some of those involved in booking us to hear by "off the board" recordings, so they will know, but the higher ups likely don't care, and will assume that we didn't play very well.

deknow

lord · Joined: Feb 20, 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Boston

DJ foxy

I can help with sound sometime (when I'm not playing) Sunday or Saturday. I'm not bringing any PA, but I am an engineer...

djfoxyfox · Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:43 pm Post subject: Re: Can help

deknow · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 8:10 am Post subject:

hi bill,
...i've been figuring things out, and thought i would post an update. ramona and i live about 5 hours away. for fri, sat, and sun nights, we are planning to stay at the roosevelt. tentatively, i think we will leave early on friday morning (which of course, doesn't get my pa there until 10 or 11am).

if someone can provide crash space close to the center or on the way from leominster, ma (we have sleeping bags), and doesn't mind a late night arrival, perhaps after midnight (ramona likely is working on thursday), i can try to arrange to leave on thursday night to make setup a little more relaxed (we tend to wake up on the early side)....i'd just rather not spend the $70 for the extra night in the hotel.

the pa sets up very easily...the mixer is in an skb popup case, the speakers have stands and are self powered (srm450's) and LOUD. i have newish heavy duty extension cords and 50 foot xlrs. i don't have a manual for the mixer (a&h mixwizard 14:4:2+), and there are a few features that i'm not familliar with. there are 6 aux sends and 4 busses. lots of level led's so that gain staging within the mixer is easy. the speakers sound great to about 50-60hz, but doesn't really have a huge "subbass" (i wish i had a subwoofer).

in general, this setup sounds great....the speakers have good dispersion, sound like sweet monitors _and_ they are loud enough to project (there are also good limiters and low end rolloff to prevent clipping in the amps). most of the people i play with are incredibly tone-conscious, and have their sound worked out before they send me a direct signal....i've never found the need to insert an eq or reverb on the main bus, but perhaps some of the performers or engineers are used to a more traditional approach with graphic eq on the busses (the a&h can be patched up to insert a channel of it's eq on the output), or a reverb for a vocalist, or compressors on the inputs (there are inserts for everything)? i have some rack things that i can bring if you think they are necessary (behringer autocom compressor, microverb4, behringer ultragainpro..although i think the a&h pre's are at least as good), and a few cheap behringer mic's, and 2 sm58's (i don't have stands or clips for all of these)....and several newish 50'xlr's.

i'm also happy to volunteer for sound duty...i should say that i do know how to run a board, set levels, solve problems, etc. i don't have a lot of experience running mic's and monitors and such...and i definitely have never mic'd up a drumset. i say this because there are likely others who have those skills, and would be better suited for a more sophisticated setup if there are any.

djfoxyfox · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:21 pm Post subject:

lord · Joined: Feb 20, 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Boston

I'm playing a drum set, but I haven't decided if it needs to be amplified yet. Probably not. It depends on how loud everybody else is Smile

If it does, I guess I'll do the set-up.

The real question is whether there will even be mic lines from the stage?

Foxy, I'll email you.

djfoxyfox · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 2:48 pm Post subject:

egw · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 3:53 pm Post subject:

These rooms are not very large and the sound carries well.
I don't believe drums will need to be amplified.
We are going to try to keep the levels of everything reasonable.
I don't want to see anyone leaving because the volume is above the pain threshold.
I've been to plenty of shows where that has happened and I don't understand why anyone would want to play that loudly.

Please note however, that we want to make recordings of all the performances, so some consideration should be made for the acoustic instruments.

djfoxyfox · Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2005 10:50 pm Post subject:

lord · Joined: Feb 20, 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Boston

In my opinion, the best live recordings are those with a 50/50 mix of straight feed from the board and traditional audience stereo mic. This may be too complex for us to swing, but it does a nice job of getting a clean signal to tape but still sounds "live". It would also pick up unamplified instruments.

Personally, I'd be happy with 100% audience mics, but I know a lot of the other acts would probably prefer a cleaner signal.