Posted from: Long Beach, CA
Next tour stop: San Diego, CA
I was re-reading a previous tip, “A Healthy Kind of Glow,” and realized that while I briefly mentioned board/console tape in it, I didn’t actually explain what it is, and some of you may not be familiar with it. So, with that in mind, here are two quick tips, both relating to tape for labeling consoles. One many of you will already know, one you may not.
Posted from: Thousand Oaks, CA
Next tour stop: Long Beach, CA
Here’s another quick ClearCom tip, this one submitted by reader Bob Schwarz.
Bob e-mailed to suggest that he carries a 4-pin male-to-female barrel adapter
with a normally closed footswitch wired across pins 1 and 2. What this does,
for those who aren’t already smiling to themselves, is give you a push-to-talk
footswitch when you plug it inline with a headset (it normally shorts the two
wires of the mic together, opening it up allows signal to pass). Give it to
your light op, and she can leave her talk switch latched on, and then just press
the footswitch to talk, no hands to worry about and no fumbling with the talk
switch.
Posted from: Portland, OR
Next tour stop: Denver, CO
Okay, so keep this travel tip to yourselves, and don’t go telling everybody and ruining it for all of us, got it? Good…so, I’m sure I’m not the only one here who’s left a hotel and realized, days later, that I left the phone charger plugged into the wall (usually about the same time the low battery alarm goes off on said phone). That’s it, you can admit it, don’t be ashamed. Everybody does it, especially if they’re touring and living out of hotels 40+ weeks a year. And that is exactly what makes this tip work.
Posted from: Portland, OR
Next tour stop: Denver, CO
The gang at TerraLux
are at it again, and this time, they’ve breathed new life into the smaller,
penlight sized AAA MiniMag flashlight with the MicroStar1. I teased you all
about this a few weeks ago, but now I’ve actually had a chance to use it, and
it’s just as cool as I expected. I’m not going to do a detailed, blow-by-blow
review, since it’s pretty similar to the MiniStar2, so I’ll just note the key
differences.
Posted from: Portland, OR
Next tour stop: Denver, CO
This one’s for the sound guys–something that I was reminded of this last week
when I had the pleasure to mix on the house console, an Amek Recall, at the
Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Being on an analog console with Neve preamps was
a nice change of pace from the Yamaha 02R I normally mix this tour on, for sure,
and I ended up making use of a little trick that you can’t do with motorized
faders.
Posted from: Hollywood, CA
Next tour stop: Portland, OR
Over the time I’ve been working and playing in this field, it’s become very
easy to tell when using products designed for use in sound reinforcement whether
they were designed by people who actually use these things in the field (like,
say, the DiGiCo consoles) or those who sit in a conference room figuring out
how to make the box do what the guys in the field told them they wanted (like,
say, the Yamaha PM1D). Even if it weren’t designed by Dave Rat, owner of Rat
Sound and FOH engineer for (among many others) the Red Hot Chili Peppers, just
a few minutes checking out the Rat
Sniffer cable tester would make it obvious that this is a device truly designed
to be useful out in the field, when the show’s on the line. It may be a cable
tester, but oh, what a cable tester.