micing creatively.

At the same gig as i just ranted about, we were very limited with mics and atge room etc. there fore there was no plan to mic amps or drum set or other instruments. ten i decided i would pull a small akg condenser (c430) mic that i have out and whacked it on a stand. it went awesome. we put it first on glocs, and it picked it up flawlessly, from about a foot above. Then we put it over the "band pit", which it worked well, not as well as the glocs though. Then, because the amps and drum weren't really carrying, i placeed it in front of the amps, about an equal distance from each amp, as well as from the drums, and it worked well, with no phase problems, and it picked up everything really well, from the lows of the kick, through the mds of the guitars and the highs of the cymbals. it was fantastic.

ja

People Never Learn

I went and mixed at a local school last night, not the first time for that school. Last time we went they gave me a run sheet, early, so that was good, but it had every item run together, without allowing time for a change over between acts, which meant, that after a late start, we were already running 20 minutes late after only 20 minutes. Last night was their end of year concert, and was almost entirely unrehearsed. This time for a six o'clock start, i was given a run sheet at 5 to 6, after reading through it quickly, i discovered that i didn't have half of the cd's needed, so at 5 past 6, after getting the cd's and not having done a check whether they worked, we started, to discover that the school cd player, which they provided didn't work, so already before starting we were ten minutes late. finally we started the program, with every 5 minute set, running the timing of the whole event back at least 2 minutes. I can live with shows running late and not running to time, thats just standard, but the fact that after the last gig, i sat down with the person in charge and explained to them (the same person as this time) that they needed to leave a small gap for changeovers led me to believe that some people never learn. The stage manager, one of the teachers was fantastic though, and chased up stuff that i needed, so that was fantastic. As we move towards Christmas and the shows we are putting on, i hope these things are things we do well.

Changing things

We have decided it was time to update some policies and bring some new ones online with summer holidays about to start here and bands wanting to practice, we have put some new policies in place governing this, which means there may be more demands on techos, as a band wanting to practice needs someone on the current roster to come and help them if they want to use any of our equipment. This has up and down sides. Upsides in that we know the stuff is being used responsibly, and our techos get some more hands on experience. The downside is it may become more time consuming for techs, particularly people like me.
But it should be good.
On another tech note thinking of starting a page, just for techs at church, so that i can communicate policies, and decisions and news from the industry, as well as each others thoughts etc on issues. We'll see how this goes.

ja

Foldbacks and training

Feel like I've neglected the blog for a while now.
I've been fairly busy. Currently I'm working on a few different projects, including working on a fold back solution for our current building that will not only tide us over to our new auditorium, but also, when the new auditorium is built will serve our current hall when it becomes the children's and youth hall sometime on the next 12 months hopefully.
the other is starting to develop training programs for the next 12 months and thinking about teams as we travel as a church towards our new building. This includes time schedules, when we will start training on the new gear in our current building so that when we move into our new building it will be a smooth transition.

ja