Mixing from a Book

So you want to mix sound for a band. But were do you start? Does this plug into that? And what is that god awful noise?
These and many other questions can be answered by author Duncan R  Fry in his book “Live Sound Mixing”. This guy,please forgive, has been around for many,many years in the audio game. Duncan also write for CX magazine, a popular magazine run by Julius Grafton. He is also the one to blame for the ARX website as well. Duncan has a huge wealth of information about the art of mixing and from reading this book you realise that he is very happy to pass that knowledge on. The book is extremely easy to read. If you are a newbie or a seasoned pro, you will find this book very helpful.

The book is very informative, and written in a no nonsense style. There is no pages and pages of technical theory, just lots of practical information. It is all presented in a friendly manner with some great illustrations. After reading this book in reality you could set up a PA and get a reasonable sound. Even for people who have been doing sound for a few years it is a great refresher course.

Duncan takes you from basic principles, through what each piece of equipment is and how it works, to the actual process of mixing. There is a problem solving chapter which helps solve some of the most common problems. I identified with quite a few of these. The book also includes some handy hints on soldering, wiring cables up and how to set out your console.

I thoroughly recommend that all audio people sit down with a nice cup of coffee, not instant, and have a read of this book.

Duncan’s web page is a good place to purchase this book  Dunkworld

The State of Theatre in South Australia

After reading a couple of articles in the local newspaper it got me thinking about the real state of theatre in Adelaide and South Australia as a whole. It started with an article on Sunday that quoted Paul Grabowsky saying ” Adelaide needed to overhaul many existing venues to attract cutting edge works in the future”. And well known Thespian Frank Ford stated that “that some acts were not able to perform in SA due to lack of appropriate venues”. Well we all knew about the Scott theatre, part of Adelaide University, being refurbished as a lecture hall and being available for for very limited times when it re-opens next year. Then the article on Tuesday by Samela Harris about the closure of the Union Hall, another venue on Adelaide University’s campus. Yes it certainly does look like Adelaide is going to have a shortage of venues in the city centre. This is really appalling when you consider that for many years SA has been considered the Festival State, in fact the Festival of Arts will be 50 years old in 2010. And when you consider the discussions in parliament about building new swimming pools and sports stadium, would it not be nice for the government to look at really what is happening in the arts and put some more money into it. They could build or convert buildings into new performance spaces. We not only need to to feed the physical side of the human condition with sport but also the artistic side.People need to be entertained and have their minds stimulated by the arts.

The more I thought about this the more I thought about the rest of the state. We seem to be concentrating the arts to only one location in South Australia and that is the city of Adelaide. What about the rest of South Australia. Believe it or not but the surrounding suburbs of Adelaide hold many fine and reasonably price venues. does the Adelaide Festival of Arts and the Fringe Festival need to be totally based in the centre. Should not the arts go out to the people. If we want the state of South Australia be known as the “Festival State”, we need to take the arts to the people. Suburban venues usually have free parking and lots of it. To get people interested and involved in the Arts we need to take it to them. Lets make the arts accessible for everybody no matter how rich or poor they are. When you look further a field in regional South Australia you will find that there are a lot of pretty great country towns with venues. Now these are services by CountryArts SA, but they deserve to see what we in the suburbs and cities see. We need them to see what is happening duirng festival times. The power brokers of the arts world need to realise that everybody pays taxes so they are all entitled to seeing the art that is created by these government funds.

We need to simulate the people were they live, and not just with money, but with the intangible. We need to put into the arts what we are putting into sports.

It is time that the public started to ask for the arts to come to a venue near them.

“Light Plot Deconstructed” by Gregg Hillmar – A Review

When I was offered this book for review, I jumped at it.  Vectorworks is one of my favoured piece of CAD software, due to the lighting design
component.To me this made the software an attractive alternative to AutoCad.  Gregg Hillmar is a busy scenic and lighting designer who has been using Vectorworks for many years. And he has used the skills that he has learnt over these years to put together this book.  His book looks at how he uses Vectorworks to draft lighting plots. His writing style is friendly and easy to read. It is in fact pleasurable to to read what is essentially a technical book.  This book is a great companion for the lighting or scenic designer who has decided that Vectorworks is the way to go. If you look at the layout of the book, Greeg explains how he uses the various elements of the software to his advantage.  It takes you through the process of using Vectorworks, but also helps you customise the way you use the software to make you more efficient. In fact it has made me rethink how I use this software. You could say that this book is the missing manual. From this book I have learnt a few tricks and tips. This book would make a good text for any college/school with technical theatre courses. Unfortunately I am not using Vectorworks 2009, but using an older version, Vectorworks 11. But a lot of the information  is relevant, especially the thinking process. I also enjoyed reading how another designer goes about the task of designing, I can always learn from others in the industry. As you read through the book you come to understand the various elements of the software in relation to theatre. It also gives you ideas on how to set up your program to make your work flow smoother. From this book with its easy to understand language you will gain an insight to how a designer works and and to use this program.You can tell from the writings that this author knows his subject and also knows how to impart the information to us other users and students. I know I lent a lot from this book. I also intend in the future to upgrade my version of Vectorworks to the latest version. Greg has inspired me to improve my Vectorwork skills.

The author, Gregg Hillmar

So users of Vectorworks should get themselves a copy of this book. This book is relevant for new users and season users of this software. I look forward to his next version of this text. It might be an idea to include a disk with some sample files that match the text.

Gregg 10/10 for a great, informative book. I just wish it had more.

Useful links:  Amazon (Were you can purchase the book)

Vectorworks (Homepage)

Light Plot Deconstructed

Light Plot Deconstructed on Facebook

I-Phone Revisited

When I posted my article listing some apps for the I-Phone I did not realise how popular the story would be. since then I have been reminded of a couple of applications that I missed. So I thought I would add a few more.

The first one to mention is one that I have been using for a little while.

iGobo (Free) – Rosco Labs

This is a rather neat gobo selection tool, that includes the complete Rosco range of gobo. A handy feature is you can rotate the gobo to see what it looks like. This is my personal favourite

ShowTool LD ($4.99 AU) – Daniel Murfin

ShowTool LD is an easy to use, yet powerful suite of utilities for Lighting Designers and Electricians.
BEAM CALC The beam calculator comes in 2 modes, Simple and Accurate. It also allows for specifying two angles for Pars etc.
GEL CUTS The gel cuts calculator provides powerful functionality for calculating the number of cuts and wastage from all major gel manufacturers and a wide range of frame sizes.
DIPS CALC The dip switch calculator allows inputting of DMX values and sets up the dip switches live in front of you! Works with both 1 = All off and 512 = All off dip switch setups.
DMX CALC The DMX calculator allows you to set the local address and universe to see the global DMX address, or set the global address to see the local address and universe simply and swiftly.

BeamCalc ($2.49 AU) – Westside Systems

BeamCalc calculates spotlight beam geometry. Enter the light’s height above the target and distance across the floor. BeamCalc shows the resulting throw distance and elevation angle. Enter the light’s beam size in degrees to calculate the pool width. Adjust beam size or location to achieve required pool size. BeamCalc works with any units: feet, inches, centimeters, … even miles.

PowerCalc($1.19 AU) – Westside Systems

PowerCalc calculates electrical power loads. Enter a wattage to determine the electrical current in amps. Or enter rated ampacity of a device and see maximum wattage load. Works for any voltage. Select two or three phase service to see amps per leg and total wattage for a multiphase power distribution. AC Inductive mode allows setting of power factor and selection of single phase or three phase motor power calculations.

DMXCalc ($1.19 AU) – Westside Systems

DMXCalc helps you with all basic DMX address arithmetic for entertainment lighting system setup.

GoboLand (Free) – Goboland

It is Gobolands full catalogue. very handy if you want to preview gobos.

I am sure there are more, but I will keep those for another post. Feel free to send me suggestions on apps you thinks techies will love and enjoy.

Cheers, Stephen

Bleeding on Cue

I have often been asked by groups that are to lazy to use Google how to make fake blood. So here I have publisheda couple of recipes for those people.

Realistic Looking Blood (that also tastes good – handy for vampires)

• 2/3 cup Corn Syrup
• 1/3 cup Water
• 5 Tablespoons Corn Starch
• 3 to 5 Teaspoons Red Food Coloring
• 2 or 3 Drops Green Food Coloring
• 1 Drop Peppermint extract, if desired.

Mix the Corn starch thoroughly with the water. Add the Corn Syrup. Mix well. Add red food coloring into the mixture, using only 3 tsp at first. Then add a couple drops of green food colouring to take the ‘pink’ edge off the red coloring. If the mixture is too light, add one or two teapoons more red food colouring. Add an extra drop of green food colouring if the mixture gets too pink again (Real blood is slightly on the dark red to reddish brown side, when its not fresh from the heart). Add one drop of Peppermint extract if you wish a fresh minty blood mixture. The concoction tastes quite pleasant, and can be used as makeup or a “Glass of Wine” for your vampire to drink.

Milk can be added (instead of or with the cornstarch) to keep the blood from being too transparent.

Edible Stage Blood

This recipe makes 1.5 litres of edible, sweet-tasting stage blood, handy for oh-so-many uses around the home. The blood is based on sugar syrup and will keep for ages (it’s so sweet that it is actually toxic to mould), it tastes nice and most importantly, it is cheap and easy to make. There’s just one safety note: Because this blood is almost pure sugar, make sure you don’t inadvertantly feed it to a diabetic player!

Like all other stage blood varieties, it stains, so use stain-proof kitchen gear to make it and make sure that you don’t get too much on player’s expensive kit. To make this blood you will need a large saucepan (at least 3 litres capacity), 1.5 litres’ of bottles with really good caps or stoppers, a funnel, something to stir it with, and a set of teaspoon-type measures.

Ingredients

* 1 litre water

* 1.25 kg white granulated sugar

* 3 x 28ml bottles  scarlet food colouring

* 1 teaspoon raspberry food colouring

* Half a teaspoon  green food colouring

Method

1. Bring the water to the boil in a large saucepan.

2. Gradually add the sugar, stirring until it is all dissolved. There is a lot of sugar in this recipe, but trust me, it will all dissolve in the end.

3. Return to the boil.

4. Boil gently for 10-12 minutes. Remember that boiling sugar can exceed 100oC, so do not leave this unattended and do not do this when there are small children or the pathologically clumsy around. If the pan looks like it will boil over, take it off the heat rather than turning the heat down – it’s far faster.

5. Leave the syrup to cool to room temperature. This could take an hour or two.

6. Stir in the scarlet, raspberry and green food colouring. The green takes the ‘fake red’ edge off the colour. Test the colour of the blood against your hand by running a little down a finger to see if it looks like a nasty cut.

7. When you’re happy with the colour, pour the blood into bottles and seal. It should keep for at least a year.

And for those that want to make break away glass here is a recipe for Sugar Glass

SUGAR GLASS

70/30 sugar/corn syrup
20% water
dissolve at 107degC
boil to 138degC
———-
Brown corn syrup will give an OK brown glass colour…clear syrup with food colour for anything else. Remove from the
heat and let stand until it just begins to solidify then pour into your mold (see below), cork and rotate all around to keep
the surface evenly coated (wear gloves!). The solution will begin to harden on the walls of the mold and when you have
sufficient build up (experiment is required!) pour off excess liquid and keep turning until cool enough not to slump (I
have someone spray water or just pass it under running water a few times. Remove from mold. We have made glasses
by this method that actors actually drank out of before breaking.
——–
Materials:
Cooking pot
Stove Top
Candy Thermometer
2 c. Water
1 c. White Corn Syrup (Karo)
3 1/2 c. Sugar
1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar
Steps:
1) Mix the water, corn syrup, sugar and tartar together in the pot and bring it to a boil on the stove (at about 220 F).
2) Leave it boiling until it reaches 300 F, which will take about 45 minutes. The mixture should be thick, with almost all
the

water boiled off.

3) As soon as it hits 300 F, pour it into whatever mold you’re using and let it cool.

Notes:

- Sugar glass doesn’t last long (warps or goes sticky) so make it close to the time when you plan to use it.

- Keep it out of moist areas and direct sun. The same as a lolipop it will melt or go gooey.

- The sugar can attract ants and other bugs so keep it packaged in plastic, etc. until you use it.

- Though only sugar, the glass can have sharp edges/points when broken, so be careful when handling.

- For more information on breakaway glass, molding, and casting of other kinds, I recommend this book:

The Prop Builder’s Molding & Casting Handbook

by Thurston James

ISBN 1-55870-128-1

I – Phone apps for Theatre

I recently got a Apple I-Phone 3gs 16gB so I have decided to see what software applications are available for the entertainment industry. so below is a list with links and a brief summary. and were I have used it personally what I think of the app.

Lighting

Gel (Color), Gobo Libraries, and Reference Tools

• Gel Swatch Library ($12.99 AU) -Wybron, Inc
  • Has library of Lee, Rosco, GAM  Apollogels, showing a preview of the gel and also showing transmission and SED graphs. A very handy utility that is a great tool for lighting designers. Also usrful for finding an equivelent gel colour.
• Moiré Gobo Library ($12.99 AU) -Wybron, Inc.
  • Displays 3,300 gobos from APOLLO, GAM, INLIGHT, and LEE, with more to come. Lets you spin, blur, and overlap gobos to see how they’d look onstage. Not only fun but useful.
• CXI Color Calculator ($5.99 AU ) -Wybron, Inc.
  • Allows LDs to find colors for the CXI dual-gelstring color changer. It also gives the values needed to replicate some of the GAM, Lee, and Rosco gels.
• GelCalc ($5.99) -Michael Zinman
  • GelCalc allows Lighting Techniciana & Lighting Designer’s work out the number of sheets of gel needed, best cutting direction, most frames per sheet & pricing.
• ML Finder Pro ($47.99 AU) -Michael Zinman
  • ML Finder Pro contains information on over 500 DMX devices: Moving Lights, LED Fixtures, media services, et cetera, including DMX mapping.

  ML Finder (Free) – Michael Zinman

  • A lite version of ML Finder Pro

Technical Calculators

• Light Calc and Light Calc Lite(5.99 and Free for Lite) -D!HV Lighting
  • Photometric calculation tool for LD’s and Electricians. It holds a database of fixtures that tells you the: Type, Beam Angle, Field Angle, Candela, Lumens & Lamp.
• ProjectorCalc ($5.99) -D!HV Lighting
  • Software designed to determine the size of a projected image, given the variables such as length away from screen, lens ect. It also estimates the amount of keystoning needed for such a result.
• DipSwitch (Free) -Tom Weber
  • Lets users enter a DMX channel and it shows the Dip Switch setting needed to achieve that channel. Works in reverse as well. Will also show next Dip Switch based on next address via an offset.
• iSwitch DMX ($5.99) -Michael Zinman
  • Lets users enter a DMX channel and it shows the Dip Switch setting needed to achieve that channel.
• PocketLD ($23.99) -Michael Zinman
  • Photometric Database & calculation tool for theatrical, TV and film professionals. Users enter throw distance, select manufacturer, fixture & lamp to calculate beam/field dameter & footcandles/lux.
• iResist (Free) -Flying Monkey Enterprises
  • Electrical Resistance Calculator.

Console Control

• GrandMA Remote (Free) – GrandMA Lighting GmbH
  • Remote control of your GrandMA Console, works as a Remote Focus Remote.
• Luminair (DMX Remote) ($99.99 US) -Synthe FX
  • This app allows users to control, view, record & manage DMX devices, consoles, media servers and other software directly from there iPhone/iPod touch.
  • Requires Art-Net Nodes, and wireless Network.
• The ETC Ion/EOS/Element iRFR features full control (as demoed at USITT) and all proceeds will got to the Behind The Scenes or Light Relief charities.

Sound

One of the major audio apps developers is Studio Six Digital. This company has produced some very useful apps that replace a case of little black boxs.

• SPL ($9.99 AU) -Studio Six Digital
  • SPL is a professional-grade sound level meter for your iPhone. It incorporates all the features of a real SPL meter — ANSI modes Slow, Fast, Impulse, Peak, and Leq, A and C weighting, Octave band filters, and the ability to be calibrated.
• SPL Meter ($1.99 AU) -Studio Six Digital
  • SPL Meter is a professional-grade sound level meter, also known as a decibel or dB meter, for your iPhone or iPod touch. Modeled after a traditional analog SPL meter, we have faithfully reproduced all the characteristics and qualities found in those meters, including the ballistics, ranges, filters, and decay rates.
• RTA ($12.99 AU ) -Studio Six Digital
  • RTA is a full-featured one-third octave Real Time Analyzer, available for the iPhone 3G or the second-generation iPod Touch. Note that you must be running iPhone software version 2.2, you will have to upgrade your iPhone if you have an earlier version installed.
• Generator($5.99) -Studio Six Digital
  • Generator is a highly accurate and versatile audio signal generator. It generates sine waves, square waves, white noise, and pink noise. The white and pink noise can optionally be octave-band filtered. All waveforms are highly accurate and low-distortion, created with real-time 64-bit floating point math and ANSI / IEC type 1 filters.
• Speaker Pop ($4.99 AU) -Studio Six Digital
  • Speaker Pop is an iPhone app that tests a speaker for correct polarity (sometimes called “phase”).

• FFT($23.99 AU ) -Studio Six Digital
  • RTA is a full-featured one-third octave Real Time Analyzer, available for the iPhone 3G or the second-generation iPod Touch. Note that you must be running iPhone software version 2.2, you will have to upgrade your iPhone if you have an earlier version installed.
• ETC ($5.99) -Studio Six Digital
  • ETC measures room decay time graphically, by showing the decay of a pulse over time. Typically, you will make an impulse sound by clapping your hands, popping a balloon, or even snapping your fingers. The graph will show the decay of this signal over time, and from this, the RT60 time can be computed.

Remotes

• ProRemote and ProRemote Lite ($199.99) -Far Out Labs
  • This software allows you to remotely view & control Apple’s ProTools, Apple Logic, Ableton Live & Soundtrack Pro.

DB Meters

• Decibel ($1.99) -Gadget Fronteer
  • Allows users to get a DB reading, including Max. I have used this one a few times and have found it very useful.
• Decibel Meter ($2.99) -Future Apps Inc
  • Allows users to get a DB reading, including Max.

Useful Apps

• Flashlight (Free) -John Haney Software
  • Fills screen with bright white light to work as a torch. Can use the colour of your choice, chasers & strobe modes.
• Stanley Level (Free) ($1.99) Stanley Inc.
  • Works like a spirit level, showing degrees. The most accurate angle finder to date.
• Bolt & Nut ($0.99 US) Ryan Newsome
  • Use to determine size and thread pitch of nuts and bolts.

As you can see there are quiet a few apps for the i-phone that are very useful and rather cool. It turns that games machine/ phone in to a handy tax deduction.

What Clients should expect

What should a client get when they hire a venue for their production.  Well the first thing they should expect is quality customer service. They should be treated as important in the scheme of things. Yes we may have other shows on our mind but they usually only have the one production to think about. And this production is the most important to them. So we also have to treat it like that as well. Clients should be made aware of what they will receive for their money and also what possible extra charges they may be up for. You will occasionally find a venue that will charge you for each piece of equipment that you use. This is really bizarre and maybe a venue that clients keep clear of. Most venues come with a reasonable range of equipment and it is all included in the price. Things like microphones, chairs etc. Also you should be quoted a rough price for the technician and the approximate hours that they are going to work. The technical support hours are going to be the one variable in the equation, it is not possible to give an accurate figure because of the variable nature of a production. The venue should be clean and tidy. The equipment that is listed in the technical specifications should all be working or a substitute organised by the venue. The lighting and audio should also be in its standard configuration. Basicly the venue should ready for the client at their appointed time of arrival. They should not have to wait around for the venue to get its act together.

Yamaha LS 9 digital console – a review

Yamaha ls-9.

Yamaha LS-9

I have been using the ls9 for a few days and it seems to do it’s job capably. The model I have been using is the ls9-16, which it designation implies is the 16 channel version. There is also a 32 channel version of this console. The unit that I am using has a small footprint, it will sit comfortably on a standard 19″ rack. Since I have always used analog consoles this was a bit daunting to start of with. You soon realise that it has the same features as an analog desk plus a lot more. All the feature you expect are found in the menu structure or on the front panel. In fact it does not take long to get a simple mix happening.

LS-9 Rear Panel

On the back panel there are all of the inputs and outputs. 16 inputs and 8 omni outputs along with word clock in and out, midi in and out and 2track digital in and out. The LS9 is 16-bus, eight-matrix to stereo and mono, which can also be configured as LCR. All outputs have to be routed to the “Omni” outs. There is also an Ethernet port for attaching a computer to the system. There is also a slot for inserting digital in/out cards to expand the number of inputs. On the right-hand side you will also find a port for a usb stick. With this you can record the mix or playback music from it. You can also save your own personal settings for the desk.

The front panel contains all of the faders and controls you need to get to set up the desk and get a mix happening. Each channel also features a motorised fader, a LED meter, and buttons for channel on, SEL and cue.

Home Page View

When you turn the desk on the screen will default to the “home” page and you can always return to this page when you press the Home button on the front panel. If you look carefully at the screen it contains a lot of info. The information that is displayed is related to which channel you have selected. So if you press the select button above the channel 1 fader the screen will display info about the channel. The info will include eq settings, send levels etc. It does not take long to connect this mixer to your system. There is no real need for an effects rack as the desk contains a reasonable amount of processing within its software. You can patch the built in effects and graphics to any input or output.  One useful feature would be that the screen was a touch screen like Yamaha’s bigger brothers.  To the right of the display are a bunch of controls that adjust the various parameters of what you have selected. When you have a channel selected you can from these controls adjust the eq, head amp, sends to the mix/ matrix(when you use selectors on the left), al of the mono channels have 2 dynamic processors. There is also a rotary encoder to adjust levels, an up/down and left/right navigation keys. Also there is a INC and DEC buttons.

On the left hand side of the screen. you will find the display access controls, layer controls and the mix/matrix selectors. The Diplay access control allow you to access preferences, set

Yamaha showing USB

up menus for the desk. There is also access to the graphics/effects rack, these can assigned to any input and output. Using the 31-band graphic EQs was facilitated by switching the EQ to Fader Assign mode, in which the faders function like the sliders on a graphic EQ. The layers controls are two input layers — a “master” layer and a custom layer — where you can mix and match any combination of input, output and matrix channels or mix masters. If you want the star channel, two aux masters and a matrix master on one layer, you can have that. Pressing any Mix button once tells the LS9 which send you want to address using the Selected Send rotary in the selected channel section.  If you press the Mix button a second time, then the desk enters Sends on Faders mode, in which the faders control send level.

In use this console is pretty good. You patch in mics into the channels, connect the FOH amps to omni outs 7and 8 and then maybe 2  foldback sends on omni’s 1 and 2. Working with channel 1 you press the select button and ON button and adjust the Headroom amp to get a nice signal, you then wind up the master until you have sound happening. You can now adjust the EQ, add any dynamic effects. You press the mix/matrix button 1 and you can now send your signal to this output, in the intial setting of the desk this signal is PFL but this can be changed if you so desire. You do this now for all channels and you have a rudimentary mix. happening. You can then assign the graphics to the outputs, you have 4 31band graphics which can be changed to 8 15band graphics. You can assign also several effects to various channels. You would use the mix matrix buttons and assign one or more to send a signal to the internal effects and return the effects on one of the stereo returns or a desk channel.

With this desk you can also store scenes, that is you can record changes in levels, channels on and off etc., for later recall. This is very handy for theatre style shows or musicals, especially if the have radio mics in them. With this feature you can turn radio mic channels on and off in the correct scenes.

Next to the faders on the front panel you will notice a set of 12 buttons, these are the user definable keys. These are extremely useful, you can make them mute buttons or scene go buttons. Basicly any function of the desk can be assigned to these keys.

One of the LS9 features is a built-in USB recording/playback device. The USB port accepts a standard memory stick (up to 2 GB) and allows you to record the desk’s output to MP3 files. You can record audio from any bus on the console.  The USB recorder can also play MP3s that are stored on the stick. MP3s may be linked to scenes so that when a scene is recalled, a specific MP3 plays automatically.  This feature will be a boon in theatre applications.

The more you use this desk the more you will discover want it can do. Coming from an analog desk to this digital console was an eye opener. This desk is very versatile. No longer do you need to cart a van load of gear with you. You can carry this desk under your arm to the gig. For its small size this console packs a punch. This is a pleasant but powerful console to use. As you use it you will find more and more functions that you can use to make your task easier therefore concentrating on the task at hand- making the show sound great.

Overall I rate this device as a 8/10

Basic Overview

• 16 or 32 mono mic/line input channels plus 4 stereo input channels, expandable up to 32 or 64 channels in two layers.

Desk in use

• 16 mix buses, 8 matrix buses, plus stereo and mono buses with LCR mode.
• Top-performance analog mic/line preamplifiers.
• Compact and light enough for one person to move and set up easily.
• Yamaha Selected Channel interface allows smooth, intuitive access to detailed channel functions via a color LCD display and
logically arranged encoders.
• Extensive gating, compression, and equalization facilities.
• Built-in USB memory recorder/player for recording or BGM playback.
• Virtual Rack packed with effects and EQ for just about any processing requirements.
• Scene memory for instant store and recall of all console parameters, including head amp gain.
• Advanced access management includes user keys (standard USB memory devices) that can be issued with different access levels for
different users.
• LS9 Editor Software for enhanced operability and programmability.

Technical Specifications

Stage Management no-no’s

The life of a theatre technician can be interesting and frustrating all at the same time. Have you ever had someone call a show who had no idea? How about a Director  who calls a show, who was more interested in the performance rather calling the cues correctly. Or those temporary SM’s that call cues the wrong and differently each time.  Or the worse possible situation a show without a Stage Manager, the client hands you a script and expects you to operate the equipment, read the script and follow the action on stage. They must think that we are supermen. The cast of course consists of members that cannot project their voices beyond the first row, so we are suppose to hear them with the sound of equipment buzzing in our ears is beyond me.  This particular scenario is one that I don’t recommend no matter what the event is or how simple it might seem. You need to be in contact with someone backstage in case something goes wrong or changes. All venues should have a policy about always having a responsible person in contact with the technician at all times, it really becomes an Occupational Health and Safety issue. We also need to instil in the client a correct way of calling cues, don’t you just hate the statement  ” GO   LX 45″ or just plain “GO” . What can make it even worse is there is no standby or “Standby..GO LX” – that will keep you on your toes. Or the long standby, were you drift of into another world waiting for the GO cue. And there is my particular favourite – my son/daughter will call the show,they have seen me do it since they were 9. Now they are 14 and do ont realise the responsibility that has been thrust upon by their parent. And even worse they are now going to be in charge of their friends and peers possibly.

We certainly did not get into this job for the glamour.

We are really Teachers

I have come to the conclusion that theatre technicians and venue technicians in particular are really there to teach clients about the processes of theatre. We often have clients that have very little or slightly dodgy understanding of theatre , its processes and some of it traditions.  They have the impression that it all happens like magic and that anything they ask for can happen in a minute or 2. They don’t realise that at times that things can take a while to set up. You might get a statement like “can I have spotlight on that person now”, unfortunately that cast member is not in the path of a spotlight and you say that to the client.  And one of the reactions is will can you bring one up and then you go into a discussion about the fact that you can re-focus a light on that cast member but it will take a bit of time. some people do not realise that some of these tasks will take time and that it is going to eat into the time that they have in the venue. Must not also not forget about the programming of lighting and audio consoles. You set up the show to run smoothly on the consoles and the client wants to change the order of the show as you are running. It becomes interesting, very interesting.This can lead to conflict and a few upset people including you.

So a way to overcome these sort of problems, is to sit down with the client and educate them in the way you work and the way the equipment and venue work. You need to explain that somethings are going to take a bit of time and that there are going to be a time when they cannot make changes to the show.  They are going to appreciate that you take the time to explain the way of the theatre with them. This is just another part of customer service. It will make your job easier and it will make it easier on the client.