Sound

Work log, March 22-April 27 2013

Hoooo boy, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it?  I’ve quit spending as much time online as I used to and I’ve been really enjoying that, so I’m not going to apologize for going so long between logs.  Expect that to continue, at least for the foreseeable future.

March 22nd was a pretty basic corporate presentation for the rental company I work for: in a small room for a small audience, so not much sound reinforcement required, but we were mainly there to videorecord it, so there was also a feed to our recording computer as well.  As I’ve said before, whenever I’m doing a recording feed or a streaming feed, I treat that feed as an entirely separate mix: just taking a matrix or feed off the main L/R sounds OK, but never good in my experience.  It’s important, particularly in situations where companies don’t want to pay money for post-processing (and that’s most companies!), to get a really good-sounding recording at close to “broadcast” levels, and achieving that result requires a radically different approach than just doing sound reinforcement in a 120-seat theater.

March 23rd was another day for the rental company - basically a day of panel discussions at the big closing day of a book festival.  Nothing terribly exciting to note there.

The 25th was a continuation of the event on the 22nd: same room, same company, mostly the same people.

The 26th was spent doing work for a sound design for a play that was approaching at the venue where I work.

The 27th was basically spent driving equipment around for the rental company I work for, then I had a production meeting re: the play at the venue where I work.

The 28th was spent doing an event for the rental company that was just a bunch of short presentations: it was basically a bunch of lavs in a medium-sized (~800-person) venue.  Thankfully I had decent speakers - sometimes clients want really low-profile speakers that are too small for the space, then complain that the sound isn’t loud enough or doesn’t reach the back rows.

And the 29th was a simple video-playback-related babysitting job at the venue where I work.

The 30th was a dance show at the venue where I work, for a company that I’d worked with last year when they performed with the Dalai Lama.  They’re nice people - it was good to see them again.

Sometime during March 31st and April 1st I finalized all the sound cues and recorded voiceovers for the play.  I also drew up a detailed signal-flow diagram, input list, &etc. for a big out-of-town show I’d be doing the following weekend with the rental company - it was a big, obscenely expensive wedding-slash-concert where I was trying to fulfill a rider that was asking for a whole bunch of analog equipment (including something like 13 channels of 31-band graphic EQs), and the company I work for is pretty much all digital.  (I mean, c’mon, in this day and age: 13 outboard EQs and 14 DBX 160s?)  The rider asked for a very specific and kind of weird signal flow, but with some creative soft-patching I figured out how to fulfill the rider with a minimum of added outboard gear.

April 2nd was a day of programming the mixing board and soldering cable in preparation for the coming out-of-town show, and the 3rd was spent finalizing plans and packing the truck for it.  The 4th was spent driving, unloading, and doing basic prep setup, the 5th was spent setting the show, the 6th was the show, and the 7th was spent striking and driving back.  A few notes: it was wet.  Very wet, and very muddy.  And bands who don’t update their riders suck.  The band I’d gone through all the trouble to give their touring engineer his incredibly specific and weird signal flow turned out to NOT TOUR WITH THAT ENGINEER ANYMORE.  Or ANY engineer.  So I mixed the show on this other engineer’s weird and pointlessly complex setup.  I was able to simplify the signal flow a bit, but it was still really, really stupid - if I’d known I’d be mixing the show I would’ve brought mics I like, I would’ve set the console up completely differently, etc. etc. etc.  If you’re in a band or are part of any group that tours: make your fucking rider and stage plots accurate, please.  You all waste so many people’s fucking time and energy by not doing that.

The 8th was tech day at the venue where I work for the play I was sound-designing.  It went well.

The 9th was final dress, which also went well. 

The 10th was a pretty tame day - I did sound for a panel discussion about alternative medicine for the rental company.

The 11th was a day of loading for a big, out-of-town corporate event for the rental company.  The 12th was setup for that event, the 13th was the day of the event, and the 14th was strike and return.  There really isn’t that much to report - it all went well.  Audio-wise it was fairly simple: a podium mic, a feed from 2 video playback computers, and a couple lavs put on speakers (“speakers” as in presenters, not transducers) in the audience.  There were also mics for a small jazz band.  I also ended up wiring a lav beltpack and receiver backwards to feed a powered speaker the event coordinator wanted at the other end of the tent - it’s easier to do that than run 300’+ of XLR.

The 15th was a day very similar to March 22nd/25th - different venue, but same idea.

The 17th was the first production meeting regarding sound design for a play I was offered but won’t be able to do.

The 18th was a podium-mic-babysitting event at the venue where I work.

The 19th was a bizarre recruiting event at the venue where I work (a couple wireless handhelds, some video, and a podium - nothing special) in the morning, then setup for a TEDx event for the rental company in the evening.  And the 20th was the TEDx event.  It went pretty well - we did live sound for the room in addition to recording it and streaming it, so I did separate mixes for all those things.  And then I had to rush to another event for the rental company - a wedding.  It’s getting to be that season again…  At least it was a really nice day (it was outdoors).

On the 21st I recorded the local municipal band at the venue where I work.  An easy gig - for them I’ve basically settled on a main stereo cardioid pair in NOS or ORTF depending on my mood, then a M/S room mic at the very back of the room to make the most of the fantastic-sounding room and to make the applause sound a little more exciting (M/S room mics at the back of a room are great audience/applause mics - the only place I prefer M/S over other stereo techniques).

After a couple much-needed days off (the laundry doesn’t do itself!), I set up for a medium-sized event for the rental company on the 24th, then ran it on the 25th.  It went well, despite the fact that I was parked behind the stage, and therefore the mains.  I’m sure it could’ve sounded better, though - I’m actually price-shopping various measurement mics right now so next time that happens I can park one in the crowd and actually hear what the mix sounds like in the house.

The 26th was a long day: it started with a couple panel discussions (lots of lavs) at the same venue I mentioned March 28.  Again, decent speakers so it was a nice-sounding, easy gig.  Then I did a babysitting job at the venue where I work in the evening.

On the morning of the 27th I did a small job for the rental company: an outside breakfast thank-you-to-important-donors sort of event.  Then I did a babysitting gig at the venue where I work in the evening: mostly video playback, then a couple wireless handhelds and a podium for panel discussion.  Pretty basic - the exciting thing that happened was that our main DVD player (a really nice one too) wigged out at the beginning of the event and I had to switch to our backup player on the fly.  Everything tested fine, but for some reason it just started skipping horribly until I switched over to our other player.

Anyway…that’s it!  Pictures will hopefully be forthcoming, but I need to check my various devices to track them all down.

Work log, Feb 15 -March 21

Well, I’ve been a fucking slacker about this whole posting regularly thing, haven’t I?  Apologies - I’ll try to be better for the next little while. :(

Without further ado, let’s begin with a relatively boring day over a month ago: the 15th of Feb.  I helped set up for a big fundraising event that the rental company I work for was contracted to set up.  A couple big video screens, a bunch of lights and projectors rigged in hotel ballroom airwall tracks…the usual.

The 16th was a dance rental at the venue where I work: it was basic playback and a lavalier mic for one performer, who narrated the whole children’s ballet.  There were a couple performances that day - it was a long day, but the whole thing was pretty low-key.

On the 17th, I was subcontracted by a guy I know to record an orchestra for him - he’d taken the gig months earlier but a conflict had come up, so he asked me to do it.  We pooled gear and wound up with a pretty spiffy collection of stuff, he helped me set up and do soundcheck (he was mixing it, so he showed me how he likes things done - and I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert orchestral recordist and he certainly is, so he taught me a shitload too), then I recorded it.  Between the 2 of us we had a completely redundant setup (SOME kind of backup when you’re doing live stuff is always a necessity, but between the 2 of us we managed to hit complete redundancy which is something I’d never had the resources or budget to do before in that kind of situation).  That turned out to be a good thing - his laptop with Pro Tools froze up for no apparent reason during the show.  I had it up and running again in seconds - we only lost about 15 seconds of the show, but that’s enough to ruin it.  Thankfully, my trusty HD24 caught every last note and didn’t crash once.  Ha!

I did some general work and cleaning up at the venue where I work on the 18th - nothing noteworthy or terribly exciting.  At least, not that I remember.

On the 20th I did sound for a large swanky dinner meeting of very important people.  It was one of those annoying corporate-type events where they want it loud but don’t want to see any speakers.  Thankfully, the room was small enough to make that doable.

I did some straightening of my personal mixing room/workspace on the 21st, and on the 22nd I had a simple babysitting job for the venue where I work.

On the 23rd, I got to do something I don’t think many engineers get to do: I worked with an old friend/ex-sometime-employer whom I get along with really well both personally and professionally.  We rented him and some of his equipment for a show at the venue where I work.

The reason I enjoy working with him so much is because we’re totally ego-less around each other: we trust each other implicitly and we know all each other’s strengths and weaknesses.  We literally pass the mixer back and forth all night long, which is a kind of relationship I’ve never even come close to having with anyone else.  It’s always really fun.

That said: he’s switched to just mixing with an ipad, and I have to say: I don’t like it.  I don’t mind digital technology at all or anything like that, but I need some fucking faders, man.  When a group you’ve never mixed starts a song, and three people start singing at once, it takes you literally 10 times longer to get their volume balance right than it would with faders.  The reaction time, and tactile response, just isn’t there yet IMO.

Switching gears entirely: on the 24th to the 27th, I did a show for a very secretive corporation.  I’ve already written about working for them relatively recently, so just go here - this handful of days was basically the same as that handful of days.

And on the 28th, I honestly don’t remember.  There’s a note on my calendar about that day, but I don’t remember what it refers to.  I did something for the rental company I work for.  I do remember that I got brutally sick that night.  And I stayed sick, so sick that I ended up calling in sick for work on March 2nd (missing a show!  Only the 3rd show I’ve called in sick for in almost 10 years).

On the 4th, I set up for a big dance show.  And on the 5th, we loaded them in.  Their rider didn’t really match what they actually needed, so I had to do some re-figuring, and unfortunately that meant running a pair of audio lines all the way around the entire fucking stage (there was no other way).  Over 175 feet of cable, past all the lighting instruments and dimmers.  This venue (that I do contract work for once or twice a year) has cabling of, shall we say, mixed quality, so needless to say, both channels hummed like a motherfucker, although one hummed worse than the other.  After doing a little troubleshooting I figured out that the cable was indeed the culprit, so I got 2 of the venue’s wireless beltpacks and hooked those up to the computer they needed sound for.  And voila!  Problem solved.  I didn’t try that first because, as they say, a $10,000 wireless system is as reliable as a good cable, but I clearly wasn’t using good cable, so…

Then the show was supposed to be on the 6th, but it got snowed out.  They decided to postpone the show a day, but I couldn’t do the show (I had a gig scheduled on the 7th), so the production manager and I made some frantic phone calls on the 6th to find a replacement for me.  We found one, and I showed him how to use all the venue’s gear early on the morning of the 7th.  Of course, then and only then did I get a call telling me that the gig I was supposed to do that night had been cancelled due to snow, so I just ran some errands during the day, then came back and saw the show and helped with strike.

On the 8th, I did some preparing for a sound design class that I’d been asked to teach at a local community theater the next day.  Then, on the 9th, I taught that class.  It was insanely fun and it went really well - “teach theatrical sound design in 2 hours!  Go!” sounded like a really huge undertaking to me at first, but it made me focus on what I felt really mattered.

On the 11th, I did some stuff at the venue where I work for a touring company whose sound guy is a friend of mine - we see each other once a year at this gig (his group comes through once a year), occasionally slightly more often.  He’s a great guy and a very creative engineer and musician - I really enjoy hanging out with him and working with him.

The 13th was a pretty brutally long work day at the rental company.  We did a big corporate show for a big company.

Then I had the weekend off, probably for the first time since Christmas-ish.  That was really nice - I got to work on some of my music and turn the dirty laundry pile into an entirely clean laundry pile.

On the 18th I opened up a power amp that had blown up at the venue where I work to try to figure out what had happened.  It had a couple breakers in it - I reset them and then it worked!

The 19th was a day at the rental company: a day of misc. small shows and running equipment all over town.

The 20th was a meeting for a play I’m sound-designing that opens in a little less than a month.  It’s not too intense design-wise (for me), but I need to make sure I have all my ducks in a row well ahead of time because I’m going to have to be out of town during tech, for work with the rental company.

The 21st was the Day to Put Purchase Requests In at the venue where I work, so I spent all day researching gear and getting a wish list to my boss.  I doubt we’ll buy it all in one go, but I think we’ll be buying 2/3rds of it now and 1/3rd of it in May.

Gah!  I think I might have a few pictures somewhere - I’ll check.

Not dead yet…

Sorry for the extended absence - I’ve had quite the flu, and am just now getting over it.  Hopefully.  Updates and work logs will come, but it could easily be another week before they do.

Work log, Feb 2-13 2013

Sorry for the lack of posts - life’s been busy and I’ve been a little ill.

The 2nd was a day of work on a play that I was then in the process of sound-designing (set to open the 7th).  I had the 3rd off, then did a lot more work on the play on the 4th, basically finalizing everything and getting all the director’s level tweak requests taken care of (although those continued on throughout the week, as well).  I’ve written about this play before relatively recently: go here and/or here if you missed it.

On the 5th, I set up for a big corporate event for the rental company I work for - it wasn’t that big in scale, but it was a big deal: a famous company opening a new plant, and I was doing sound for the opening ceremony thingy.  Doing sound in a huge factory usually sucks, but this factory actually didn’t sound that bad.  The 5th was the day of setup for that, and the morning of the 6th was the day of the show.  The show went well.

On the evening of the 6th, I did sound at a venue where my friend TDs (I’ve written about this before).  It was a pretty basic show - a schoolchildren’s performance - but it was fun in a get-this-up-and-running-and-sounding-good-in-no-time-flat kind of way, and it sounded good all things considered.

On the 7th, I had a meeting about teaching a brief sound design class at a local community theater.  Looks like it’s a go, so that’ll be fun!  (And: ahem!  I haven’t received many answers, and I’d love some more input.)

On the 9th, there were a couple tweaks that I had to do on the play’s sound design, but other than that I spent the 8th and 9th resting and doing a little bit of mixing at home.

Oh, and I almost forgot: on the 9th, I also had a meeting with an acquantence about an orchestral recording I’m going to be subcontracting for him (he got hired to do it awhile ago but now can’t do the date, so he’s hired me to track it for him).  It should be a fun show - I don’t do that much orchestral recording, so talking shop about it with someone so knowledgeable was great.  It’ll be a pretty simple setup - a pair of spaced omnis for mains, a pair of cardioids to reinforce the woodwinds, and a spot mic for soloists on a couple pieces.

The 11th was a pretty basic workday at the venue where I work: I did a little cleaning, played catchup with office-y stuff (email, etc.), and went over the revised schedule with the venue’s supervisor.

On the 12th I recorded a panel discussion for the rental company where I work.  4 58s on table stands - a pretty straightforward gig.  Although I’d like to make a point that I’ve made before but that is always worth making again: if you find yourself in a situation where you’re expected to mix both FOH and record at the same time and off the same board, make sure you either a) let the client know that one or the other is inevitably going to suffer a little in quality, or b) suck it up and do 2 totally separate mixes.  I always choose option b.

The 13th was another day like the 11th - catchup day at the office of the venue where I work.  And that was my week(plus).  Apologies about the lack of pictures - I either forgot or there wasn’t anything interesting to photo.

Teaching copyright/fair use law

Serious question here!  I’d love any and all input you have to give.

So, in about a month I’m going to be teaching an “intro to theatrical sound design” class at a local community theater.  It’s going to be between 2 and 4 hours long (still waiting to hear back on that), and I have the format pretty solidly set, except for one thing: copyright.  I’m not sure how to approach that, or if I should even mention it.

In terms of incidental music, most venues do (and all are required to by law) pay ASCAP and BMI fees, so that’s probably taken care of without the designer having to think about it.  Copyrighted music isn’t really an issue in that context anymore - probably best to leave it alone.

Sound effects are another thing entirely.  If you’ve purchased a sound library (or 3, or 4, or more {if you’re me}), you can clearly use the sounds from that without any issues, but most people at the community theater level don’t own sound libraries - they get their sound off the internet, freesound.org &etc.  Most of the stuff on freesound.org is “free-with-credit,” but I’ve almost never seen credit given.  Should I bring that up?  I feel like that might be counterproductive: we live in an era of entitled jackasses who think all music and software should be free, and they might not take what I say as a whole seriously if they get butt-hurt when I insult them for pirating software and sound effects.  On the other hand, I almost don’t care - if they can’t deal with reality and want to ignore everything I say because of their ignorant and misguided views on one of the subjects I discuss, maybe they should just remain crappy, novice designers.  Maybe I shouldn’t try to protect them.

And then there’s the issue of limited time - if the class is only 2 hours long, I don’t want to spend 15 minutes of that on copyright law (it is a little confusing, unfortunately).

What do you think?  Should I just leave the subject alone, or should I try to talk about it?   If you think I should, what angle of approach should I use?

Work log, Jan 25-Jan 31 2013

All right!  Busy week (and busy doing mostly one thing, which is unusual), so let’s get to it.

On the 25th I spent a little time doing some QLab programming &etc. for a play I’m sound-designing at the venue where I work.  The dry tech was going to be on the 26th, so I made sure I was ready for that.  After that, there was a very simple event at the venue (play a movie!  Just push play and sit there), an event of the sort that I call a babysitting job.  It went fine.

And the late morning/early afternoon of the 26th was dry tech for the play.  That went very smoothly, actually - the director did the design, really, and I was just facilitating it.  There were a number of cues that needed some EQ work (and a few cues that needed a little more than that, in particular a certain voiceover that was recorded on a laptop’s mic - yuck!), but the programming and marking-script parts went very well.  The evening was spent doing sound for a comedy show at the venue where I work.  It went fine, but it was a little disorganized - the performer emailed me the opening music literally five minutes before he went onstage, for example.  (For a show that had very minimal technical needs, it was a relatively stressful one.)

The 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st were all spent on the sound design for that play.  I honestly don’t remember what I did on which day, but I did do the following things: edit, EQ, and add noise reduction to sound cues that needed it; did quite a bit more QLab programming (this director isn’t used to using cuing systems like QLab, so there were a ton of ways we could simplify the cues that he wasn’t thinking of because he’s used to lower-tech ways of doing things); wrote up cue sheets &etc. and marked scripts for the sound board op; sat in on rehearsals and ran the sound; ran sound for wet tech (that was the 28th, I’m pretty sure); and more, I’m sure, but those are the main things.

A couple pictures of those proceedings here and here.

I was also offered a few freelance jobs through the course of the week: a couple from some old friends I’ve worked with and for many times previously; one from someone local I met once who needs some help, asked around, and was referred to me; and one from a total stranger from halfway across the country who wanted some vocals edited and tweezed.  I’m taking two of the jobs and am checking schedules and negotiating about the other two.

Also, I’ve been offered more and more gigs as a musician recently.  I said, long ago, that I wouldn’t write about my own music because this is, ostensibly, supposed to be “my professional blog” that my personal life doesn’t encroach on, but I wonder…if that side of my life continues to grow at the rate that it seems to be (i.e. much faster than I ever would’ve anticipated), would any of y’all be interested in hearing about that as well, or should I keep the content strictly to the other side of the glass, so to speak?

A quick spammy update

So, I’m neck deep in a theatrical sound design right now, I’m in the midst of lining up a pretty cool subcontracted orchestral recording gig where I’ll get to borrow some of a classical recording company’s really nice gear (mid-February), and I may be teaching a theatrical sound design class at a community theater (mid-March).  Plus all the usual stuff at the traveling company where I work and the venue where I work.  All of this will be reported on this blog at the sluggish, a-detailed-post-about-every-ten-days speed I’ve been going at for awhile.

In the meantime: I have a twitter account now, where I’ll be posting far more frequently (and, given the word count, probably far more cryptically…but hopefully that’s part of the fun).  I figured it’d be easier to keep up a daily stream of activity over there than the post-a-workday I tried (and failed) to do here.  Also, if you’re tired by my admittedly somewhat obnoxious tendency to avoid mentioning specific gear on here: that isn’t going to be the case over there.

Work log, Jan 15-24 2013

The 15th thru 17th were inventory days at the rental company where I work.  God that sucked!  Picture.  The good thing about it was that we were able to totally rearrange and clean the shop, and we have a new supervisor who basically let me rearrange the audio isles to my liking.  Yay!  But it was still mostly 3 days of counting ALL the company’s rigging hardware, pipe and drape, and every-fucking-thing else.

On the evening of the 16th we had a post-mortem about the last play I sound-designed, the one I talked about striking in my last work log.  A post-mortem is where a group of actors and production staff get together and talk about what went right in the production of the play and what went wrong or could be improved.  For obvious reasons I’m not going to elaborate on exactly what was talked about, but it was a productive meeting.

On the 18th, I played a show (as a musician!), something I don’t do too much anymore.  If that was all I’d done, mentioning it would violate one of the original ground rules I laid out for myself a long time ago, but I also recorded the show, and it came out pretty good.  A little rough-sounding, but in a good way; I like recordings of live shows that sound like live shows and aren’t too polished.  If it was a recording I made for someone else I might feel obliged to clean it up a bit more but it’s certainly an accurate representation of what the show sounded like, and that’s exactly what I was going for.  Only regret was that I borrowed a friend’s amp rather than bring my own, and it turned out to be kinda noisy.  IF YOU’RE RECORDING: you should make sure your amp and instruments are well-maintained and quiet.  They shouldn’t buzz, shouldn’t hum, and shouldn’t crackle.  I’d normally never use an amp that wasn’t mine for something that was being recorded, but my car was being worked on and I was using a borrowed one that couldn’t fit all my gear: it was either my recording gear or my amp, and a slightly noisy recording is better than no recording at all.

On the 19th I did a SERIOUS reorganization of my little mixing/studio space.  And on the 20th I did a little more.  I need another patchbay and some more decent, short 1/4”-1/4” TRS snakes, but workflow is much, much better and more efficient now.

On the 22nd I did some freelance work for a friend who’s Technical Director at a large venue in town.  Crappy picture.  It was a very low-key show - I think he was sort of testing me out to see if he wanted to hire me for further shows.  Anyway, the 22nd was just setup/rehearsal/soundcheck day.  Then that evening I had a production meeting about a play I’m sound-designing whose tech starts on the 26th.  It’s gonna be a pretty easy show: the director had actually already picked out all the music and the vast majority of the cues and gave them to me that day.  Some of them need to be a little gussied up, but I love having a director who’s so hands-on; it’s like mixing an album that you haven’t recorded.

And the 23rd was another day of freelance work for/with my friend.  Two shows, one in the morning and one in the evening.  They both went very well; he expressed interest in hiring me again if/when he found need.  He might’ve just been being nice, but I’d like to think he wasn’t (there certainly wasn’t anything technically wrong with my mixing; I did a good job).  We’ll see.

On the 24th I did some work for the rental company I work for - we have a rental and staging division, which is where I work 99.9% of the time, but we also have an install division and I occasionally tune sound systems with them.  The 24th was one of those tune-a-system days.  We’d installed a large system in a church almost a year and a half ago, and it had gotten a little wonky, so the company owner and I went in to fix it.  Turns out ALL the tuning that had originally been done in the speakers had somehow been wiped (and this is a Renkus-Heinz Iconyx system, so there’s a lot of information lost when the onboard DSP goes).  In addition, one of the four mains had blown up somehow and wasn’t working (the Iconyx have a bad habit of blowing their onboard power amps - we assume that’s what happened, but we don’t know yet).  So, we did a little preliminary re-tuning of the still-working Iconyx stack and adjusted the other side so it wasn’t quite so bad, took the serial number of the one that wasn’t working, and called it a day.  What we’d done would work well enough on Sunday and we couldn’t reach anyone at Renkus-Heinz because it was NAMM day, so we’ll go back sometime next week and totally re-tune the system.  Here’s a picture from the church: not of the sound system, but I found it amusing nonetheless (no, it’s not doctored or posed in any way). :)