One From The Road
Tools, Toys, and Tales for the Theatrical Technician

Just a quick heads up, Rat Sound is starting a monthly 1 day, 1 item half-price sale on the first of every month. (actually it’s one apparel item and one “gadget” This month, it starts on April Fool’s Day (I know, but as far as I know, it’s legit), with the Rat Sniffer/Sender pair (which I raved about here 4 years ago, which makes me feel old) for an amazing $27. It’s a bargain at the usual $45, so if you don’t already have one, get a steal on it tomorrow while it lasts!

http://www.ratsoundsales.com/1_day.html –Andy

Just a quick pointer for those who service Midas consoles…conveniently, the two Torx bits in a Klein 32477 10-in-1 Screwdriver/Nut Driver (my daily go-to screwdriver, I love that thing) are the two sizes you need for a Midas, the larger one to get modules out, and the smaller to get faders out.

I just made a quick stop by Graffletopia to see what was new, and found three new stencil sets of interest to the sound and props guys doing pit layouts and system diagrams in OmniGraffle:

Yamaha Gear

Musical Instruments

Stage Sound

The first and last are a little two photo-realistic for my tastes for system diagrams, but they may be of use to others, and the instruments would do really well for pit diagrams!

–Andy

Hey guys, This is actually two in one. First, a little known Word fact–if you add in lines, arrows, etc as drawing elements in Word, they’ll maintain their relationship to the text you place them near, even if they’re floating above the text, and not in-line with the text.

Second, a cool big-but-little trick I discovered that makes notating scripts in word super easy. In the “Table” menu, there’s a sub-menu labeled “Convert". If you go into that, you can choose to convert your selected text to a table. Once you’ve made your initial edits to the script, and are ready to start dropping notations in, use this feature, telling it to divide cells based on paragraphs. It’ll turn your script into a table, dividing rows roughly after each character name and line. Then, by adding columns to the left and right, as needed, it’s super easy to add notes that stay in line with the text, without having to mess with text boxes and stuff like that. It’s also easy to bulk-format those notes, since you can select an entire column. This is what I do to add VCA number notations in the left margin of my mixing scripts, but it’s pretty useful for all sorts of notations for SMs, too.

–Andy, who now is headed back to his current script-notation session in Word, and cursing at the wonkiness of how Word 2008 inserts graphic elements and text boxes. Aargh.

Hi everybody, At the prodding of my hosting service, I’m doing a long-overdue upgrade to the version of WordPress that runs the site. So if it looks weird for a day or so, that’s why! I’ll need to do some work, I believe, to restore the template, although I might just do a re-design I’ve wanted to for a long time. We’ll see…

–A

I’ve linked to Jason Pritchard’s great site, Bright and Loud, in the blogroll for a long time, but I realized I’ve never actually linked to any of his articles before. I just came across this article browsing around his site, and wanted to call attention to it. A huge amount of this business, especially sound (althought truly all disciplines) comes down to people skills and psychology, and not technical skills. Jason provides some great examples, including a detailed examination of something I’ve run into many times, in translating actor-speak to sound-guy-speak*.

–Andy

*-I’m specifically referring to the fact that on musicals, we don’t put actors’ mics in monitors, as Jason details in his article. So, as a result, we need to understand that from an actor-centric point of view, if they can’t hear themselves singing comfortably onstage, they’re going to ask for “more of myself in the monitors". It’s the sound designer/engineer’s responsibility, however, to know that in almost all cases, they don’t actually mean that they want more of themselves in the monitors, just that they want to be able to hear themselves more clearly. In other words, they’re actually asking for “less of everything else in the monitors". Turn down the band a little, and they’ll be happy, and probably won’t even know they’re not going through the monitors at all.

This is a preview of A Great Article on Perspectives. Read the full post (428 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

I realized it’s been forever since I posted a restaurant review, mostly since I have been parked in NYC for a while, and not travelling. That said, here’s one you should all hit up next time you’re in the city…Paul’s Da Burger Joint, on 2nd Ave, just south of St. Mark’s Place. These burgers are truly addictive. A full half-pound, and crazy inexpensive for NYC (a cheeseburger costs $6.10 if you upgrade to cheddar or jack).

These are not your average burgers, they take a huge handful of ground beef, toss it on the grill, and cover it with a metal bowl; no packing the meat down into a tight patty. The end result is that the burger is really fluffy and juicy, it almost melts in your mouth. Also, a trademark of Paul’s is that they use really basic, wimpy buns, so the longer you wait to eat it, the soggier the bun gets. It sounded bad when I heard it described, but it’s really good, and the soggy bun is sorta part of the magic! Seriously, these things are addictive.

The Cajun fries and sweet potato fries are also equally great. I’ve had many a dinner from Paul’s where I ended up splitting the huge pile of fries with most of the cast and crew around the green room, and they’re always a hit.

If you want a truly decadent experience, though, get takeout, and combine with Belgina fries from Pommes Frites, at south end of the same block on 2nd. Holy crap. Just don’t go late at night on a weekend, you may be waiting on line for a while. And then, since I’m evil like that, get dessert from the Dessert Truck, outside the Starbucks over by Astor Pl.

This is a preview of Paul’s Da Burger Joint. Read the full post (305 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

According to the founder of Home Depot, CEOs who don’t fight the Employee Free Choice Act “should be shot.” I guess Lowes it is now, when the local guy doesn’t have what I need…

I’ve lately been reading “Flying With Fish", a blog by professional photographer Stephen Frischling; it’s aimed primarily at travelling photographers, but is also of interest to anybody who travels regularly. Recently, he posted this article on avoiding theft at the airport security checkpoints, and this one on the anatomy of a security check point. I think both are must-reads for all my touring and travelling friends.

–A

Since these tips seem to be pretty popular, here’s a little known tip for those with ClearCom RS-502 two-channel beltpacks.

As some of you may have discovered, default from the factory, these packs came set so you could only talk to one channel at a time; activitating the other channel deactivates the current one. Much to the frustration of many a user. What you may not know, however, is that a quick minute or two modification–that’s factory authorized and doesn’t even involve a soldering iron–can fix this and allow simultaneous use of both channels.

Open up the pack by removing the four screws in the corners of the end of the pack (the fifth screw can stay in). The end pieces gently pull apart JUST enough to get the two black side pieces out. Look out for the label, belt clip, and insulating sheet when they fall out. Trust me, they’ll fall out and if you’re not expecting them, you’ll lose the label and/or clip.

Then, look at the bottom end of the pack, where the soldered ribbon cables holding the end to the main circuit board are. Under that folded over ribbon, you’ll see a row of pairs of solder “jumper” points, labeled J1-J5. Some are pre-traced, others are open waiting for you to wire a jumper in. Find J4, and using a straight razor blade (knives or tiny screwdrivers can work, but if you have one, use the razor, you’re less likely to either stab yourself or slip and cut more than one trace), scratch the trace between the two points for that jumper open on the under side of the board. Plug the pack in, and test to make sure that you can now talk on both channels at once (trust me, much better to test before reassembling than to wrangle the clip and label an extra time when you find out you didn’t cut the trace all the way.

This is a preview of Another Quick ClearCom Tip. Read the full post (368 words, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

(Argh. Somebody hacked the site, buried spam links in lots of posts, and (inadvertently, I think) moved some of the posts to draft status. Trying to clean up the mess, and will do a security upgrade that was long overdue as soon as I have a chance…here’s this post again.)

A couple quick thoughts that I was indirectly reminded of this weekend, whilst doing an emergency cover of a show I used to mix while the regular guy was awaiting surgery…

1) If you’re mixing a show, remember that just because the cue light is flashing rapidly, and we’re conditioned to associate flashing light with “emergency, must respond immediately!” you DON’T need to respond immediately. Your PSM understands that you’re busy mixing, so wait until you’ve got a stretch you can manage with half attention before you answer. Answering com, even an emergency, isn’t an excuse for missing a pickup.

2) If you’re the A2, and the A1 calls you on com, answer ASAP. He’s probably only got a few seconds to let you know what he needs from you before he has to put the handset down and get back to mixing. And, more than anything else, as the A2, you’re the A1’s barback. Your biggest job is to make sure that he never finds out about problems, so when a problem pops up faster/in a situation where you can’t shield him from it, make sure you’re there to fix it as soon as you can :-)

–Andy

This is a preview of Some Quick Com/Mixing Etiquette Thoughts. Read the full post (1401 words, estimated 5:36 mins reading time)

I just tripped over this pretty cool idea for an easy to make, easy to travel vocal booth while doing my quasi-daily browse of MAKE’s blog:

See this article for details.

I’m not sure what’s more frustrating, that I didn’t think of this or have one handy on any of the countless shows I’ve worked on where I’ve had to do on-site VO recordings at the theatre, or that I had two or three of those collapsible containers in my old apartment, and I’m pretty sure I got rid of them when I moved last fall! (He says, contemplating digging through boxes stored under the bed to be sure…)

(via MAKE)

I haven’t tried it, so I can’t vouch for it, but this seems like it’d be a nice thing to have around the shop, even if it’s more of a nice thing to have and not a necessity. (Via Toolmonger)

Toolmonger � Blog Archive � Universal Battery Charger

Ok, I spent enough time bitching about my miserable customer service experiences last year, so I figured I’d do the right thing and give a shout out to the business sales office at the 5th Ave Apple Store here in NY. At work, I was building a new QLab playback rig (a redundant rig with two Mac Mini’s that’s quite sexy, if I might be so bold), and I called the Apple Store to arrange a purchase of a new Mac Mini, including an upgrade to 2 GB of RAM.

The guy I spoke to told me that they couldn’t hold the computer or RAM upgrade for me (I even offered to pay over the phone, but they wouldn’t do that), but assured me that they had it in stock, no problem. I made it clear that sending a fairly highly paid union scale technician over to pick it up was going to be expensive, especially since I had to wait for the RAM to be upgraded about an hour (and had to do it after hours in OT because we were crazy busy), so I couldn’t afford to send somebody on a wild goose chase if they didn’t have it, and he again assured me that it would be no problem.

Of course, I get there, and they’ve got the computer, but, “Oh, we’re out of the RAM for that machine. We might be able to get it by Thursday (this was Tues), but we can’t promise.” After a bit of back and forth, they agreed to waive the upgrade fee if I had to come back at a later time for the upgrade, or get it from another store (normally, it’s installed free with purchase of the machine, but after the fact, there’s an install charge to upgrade).

This is a preview of Great Customer Service!. Read the full post (604 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

Since getting packages delivered to an apartment when you’re not home is nearly always an adventure in head-bashing-against-brick-walls, most of us at the shop get the occasional mail order item delivered to us at work. On Friday, our apprentice extraordinaire, Jay, got a package from Cabela’s, with a new waterproof work jacket they had on sale for stupid cheap.

I’d been looking for a good work jacket for next fall and winter, since I’m tired of getting my everyday jacket filthy at the shop all the time. I had been considering the Carrhart version of this sort of jacket, but that was more than twice this price. I had Jay send me a link to the site, and thought you guys would appreciate it, too.

–A, who is trying to stock up on some new posts for y’all as fast as he can, it’s been way too long that he’s let the site sit dormant!

I just posted a “question of the day” over at Control Booth, a message board aimed at high school and college students interested in theatre tech, with a case study from a service call I did earlier this afternoon troubleshooting some “awful buzz” on a client’s intercom system. Since there’s been such good receipt of my past ClearCom tips and advice here on OFTR, I thought some of you might be interested in checking it out, too.

-A

Time for a simple recipe, that was a hit on tour when we had kitchens in extended stay hotels, and just about everywhere else I’ve made ‘em. And even a dope like me can make them…

Get:
-One box of Pillsbury Devil’s Food Cake mix (the kind with the pudding in it)
-Two eggs
-1/3 cup oil
-A cup or so of Ghirardelli 60% cacao dark chocolate chips

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix all the ingredients together until all the mix is, uh, mixed. Place heaping teaspoon size globs of the resulting dough on cookie sheets (for best results, cover the sheets with parchment, makes cleanup crazy easy, and keeps the bottoms from burning).

Bake ‘em for 15-20 minutes.

Let ‘em cool, and enjoy!

For extra credit, pretty much any other standard cake mix works well (although it’s my personal belief that the magic is in the mixes with pudding!). If you prefer a thinner cookie, you can go up to 1/2 cup of oil. Don’t make the mistake I did once, transpose the measurements of 1/3 to 1/2 cup as 1/2 to 2/3 cup. They were edible, but very messy!

–Andy

P.S.-Shouldn’t they be called bakies?

In an attempt to finally start posting more frequently, here are two OS X utilities I’ve stumbled across or been pointed to recently that have made my life on various shows measurably easier:

First, there’s Martian LifeBoat, which lets you define a thumbdrive (or any removable drive) as a “lifeboat", with a predetermined backup set. From then on, any time you plug that drive into the computer, it automatically backs that set of files/folders up onto the drive (with an option to skip the update if you desire) and then (again optionally) unmounts the drive. When you need it, the data’s there as a disk image, ready to be restored or transferred. During tech, I’ve found it useful for keeping offsite backups of my QLab files and cues. I’d love to find something (or see an update to Lifeboat) that can sync the copy on the removable media instead of just a one-way backup, but the price is right, and it’s incredibly useful as is.

Second, I’ve been in the midst of reorganizing all my effects libraries onto an external drive, and I needed something that would let me take a text file track list and rename a directory of WAV or AIFF files based on that list. After asking the folks on the Theatre-Sound List for recommendations, I was unanimously pointed towards A Better Finder Rename. After a quick demo, I was won over, it does this easily, as well as just about any other bulk renaming task you can throw at it. Again, very reasonably priced, so be sure to check it out! Although I haven’t tried it myself, they’ve also got A Better File Rename for Windows, that those of you who aren’t on Macs can try, too.

This is a preview of Two awesome Mac utilities (and one for Windows). Read the full post (306 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

Hey everybody, Just wanted to let y’all know that the site isn’t dead, I’ve just been a bit slammed lately. Show that teched in August, previews got extended two weeks to late September, and then have been doing that 8x a week in two languages since then, on top of the shop gig. And now factor in fulfilling my obligations to Local 1 on the picket lines, and things are more than a little nuts.

But I’ve got some tips, some stories, and more, all coming as soon as I have a chance to breathe and type them up. Including, in the very near future, a showdown on at least 3 (and maybe more, depending on what I can track down/scare up) models of sub $200 in-ears, and one mid-range pair, some of which are truly astouding, even compared to ones more than double the cost.

–A

Sorry for the long absence…previews of my new night/weekend gig (and day gig most days, till we open) got extended a few weeks for some reworking, so I’ve been pretty slammed.

Here’s one from the archives that I can’t believe I never posted before.

Let’s see…conductor shot? Check. Overhead shot? Check. FOH Infrared? Check. Simpsons? Check!

When I was out as the A2 for The Full Monty, our last tour stop had their own permanent color camera for a FOH shot, which they ran through a VCR to modulate it to Ch 3 for easy distrubution via the building’s cable system. Since it was a much better shot than the color camera we toured with, I tied into their system for our color shot. Since it did actually get TV signal, we couldn’t resist throwing “The Simpsons” up on the PSM’s console during some downtime between shows. Maybe next time we need to pack an antenna…

(And yes, those are moving lights in the overhead shot. Real estate was tight. I had to play lots of Bogen 3D mount games the first couple in’s until I get the art of getting a clear enough shot down, and even then it was a good thing the PSM didn’t need it during the big flashy numbers, since those two wigglies were dancing their little hearts out.)