News June 2009

CATS

The musical Cats, one of the longest-running musicals on Broadway and in London’s West End, is now travelling to Australia. Sound reinforcement for the production is on the Meyer Sound M1D line array loudspeaker system.
The system needed to be reliable as they were going to be away from their support in Australia, it also had to sound great.

Australia-based System Sound, is the tour’s sound provider. The system that they supplied is the Meyer Sound M1D line array loudspeaker system. The low-profile enclosure of the M1D line array loudspeaker was a factor in its choice for the Asian tour. The M1Ds are compact, scalable, and powerful for their size. They are the main vocal speakers for the balcony and/or dress circle, so they’re of critical importance. Their small size allows us to rig them on the advance lighting truss, where space is at a premium. Depending on the configuration of the venue they might be rigged as a center hang of six or seven, or a left/right hang of four each.

With the tight turnaround times for touring productions, the audio crew enjoys uncommon flexibility from the system, which also includes six CQ-1 loudspeakers, two 650-P subwoofers, three UPJ-1P VariO loudspeakers, eight MM-4 loudspeakers, and two UPM-1 loudspeakers, in addition to eight M1D line array loudspeakers. Head of sound on the tour is Jason Graham, who works alongside Kerril Ezzy and Claudia McErlain.

The Wiggles Go Bananas

The Wiggles Go Bananas 2009 tour has been weaving its way through Australia picking up production along the way. Deluxe Audio supplied audio requirements for a couple of the Victoria gigs.

“The sound crew actually don’t specify anything particular for their PA,” said Dave Rees, managing director of Deluxe Audio. “We were contracted by Rob Miles, the production / tour manager, as we’ve done work with him before.”

The Wiggles crew were lucky enough to be supplied with twelve JBL VerTec VT4888 speakers, four VerTec VT4882 sub woofers and JBL VRX932 for infill. And they couldn’t have been happier!

”The crew were extremely happy with the VerTec PA system and their FOH engineer kept remarking about how smooth it was,” commented Dave.  The Wiggles aren’t loud, keeping the volume to about 85 decibels, so you need something that will cover everywhere without blasting the front row. (Article coutesy of Jands)

Good Manners for Techs

Now this might seem a strange title for a post dealing with tech theatre. But it is a fundamental concept that will help to make all techs lives easier. And we all like a hassle free easy way to getting on with our jobs. Has it not annoyed when you step up to the lighting or audio desk only to discover that it still has settings from the previous show and user. With analog audio desks this can be a long process, with some of these desks there are hundreds of controls to return to zero state. Digital desks should also be returned to a standard set up and any show cues etc deleted fro the desk. There is nothing worse than trying to make do with what was previoulsly set  when you are under pressure from a client.

And then there is the lighting desk, with lighting states recorded over loads of pages. Again it only takes a few minutes for the outgoing tech to clear all the states ready for the incoming tech to start with no hassles.

When I use equipment that I have hired I return it to zero for the next customer, nothing worse than turning on a desk and getting something odd because someone else set it up in a strange configuration. I know you should check the desk furst before power up etc., but if you are in a hurry with the client breathing down your neck.

Maybe we should put labels on the equipment reminding technicians to return the desk to standard.

This can also be applied to the venue. Make sure you return the lighting rig to standard and the audio set up to standard. Make sure everything is put back in its correct place. If you do change anything, or something breaks make a note so that the next technician that comes in knows about it. If a lamp blows and you don’t have time to change it make a note, it would be nice if you did change it.

There is nothing worse than spending clients time fixing up problems or returning stuff to standard. Does not make the venue look good and can be taken as a sign of poor customer service.

So the next time you finish think about the next technician that will be doing the next shift.