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Roderick

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  • Member Status
    Working in the industry
  • Current Employment or place of study
    After almost 30 years on tour as LD / PM / TM and managing a 5500 pax concert venue, I now run a small company focussing on improving safety in the entertainment industry.
  • Professional organisation membership
    VMA (Australia) NSCA RMIA
  • Full Name
    Roderick van Gelder

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  • Website URL
    http://www.stagesafety.com

Profile Information

  • Location
    Sydney, Australia

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  1. It is working! And I know why; I had just been running it as 'offline' without the dongle because I wasn't actually outputting DMX. Looking at the "diagnostic" screen and pressing 'Network' I noticed it reported 'offline'. Plugged in the dongle, rebooted Nomad and bingo, all works smoothly! Nomad without a dongle will not respond to OSC, go figure. Certainly one to remember. Thank you all for your assistance!
  2. I think it is more a ETC Nomad problem than Qlab. OSC Monitor shows the TX messages from Qlab but they don't show up in Nomad Diagnostics. At the same time, OSC TX from Nomad shows up in Diagnostics but not anywhere in OSC Monitor.
  3. Thanks Al, I'll give that a try soon. Tried everything suggested on FB, still no joy so widening the circle...
  4. A little stuck with a project just for me at the moment. In the past I have run ETC desks controlled from Qlab, both MSC and OSC, never a problem. But to compact things I'd like to run both of the same machine. Installed Qlab and ETC Eos on a Mac running Mojave. Both running fine but I can't trigger Eos from Qlab. I have run a OSC sniffer that shows OSC commands at the port, yet nothing happening in Eos land. Here are screen shots from the set-up. What am I missing to make this work? http://www.rvg-lighting.com.au/MacScreen/Qlab1.jpg http://www.rvg-lighting.com.au/MacScreen/Qlab2.jpg http://www.rvg-lighting.com.au/MacScreen/OSCMon.jpg http://www.rvg-lighting.com.au/MacScreen/Eos1.jpg http://www.rvg-lighting.com.au/MacScreen/Eos2.jpg
  5. The pro-active approach by the orchestra is well known and that would be the deciding factor IF it ever was challenged. But because this is a public forum I had to point out that handing someone a pair of earplugs does not discharge your duty of care. With WHS more so than many things in life, the devil is in the detail. Cut'n'Paste solutions without any follow-up or structure are sadly too common in our industry. Certainly the Australian legislation recognises that things can go wrong despite the best efforts, it is important to be able to show that sound (no pun intended) systems are in place. What counts most is having systems in place that consult with all workers and find the best possible option.
  6. Allow me to weigh in with some specific Australian requirements. Division 5 of the WHS Regulation, Clause 44(3)(a)stipulates that the PPE is "(I) suitable having regard to the nature of the work and any hazard associated with the work, and (ii)a suitable size and fit and reasonably comfortable for the worker who is to use or wear it,". From the description of the issue I would suggest that an earplug is not a suitable option. Providing something that isn't fully suitable for the work to be done, and it makes no difference if that is jackhammering or playing an instrument, means that the responsibility still remains with the PCBU, not the worker. In this case it is clearly not suitable because it prevents him from doing the work, playing his instrument. So therefore the problem returns to the orchestra and an alternative solution must be found. Have you tried earmuffs for instance? Maybe not visually attractive but that is of little concern in matters WHS....
  7. It looks like much of the problem was with the Fixture library. Had to manually edit the profiles generated by the Jands Editor which enforces an Intensity entry that can't be edited - unless you open the file in Notepad. One weird thing, although it may be purely accidental, to make everything work smoothly I need to patch a GoldenScan 3 too. There are no GS3 in the rig, it is just a dummyload in a corner of the desk but now all is fine. Halfway through programming, I am not game to change anything.
  8. Both the 'Fixture' and the 'Grand Master' faders are up...
  9. Ok, this has me baffled. Recently acquired a Jands Event 408 console for a small production I am working on. All the equipment are LED so I wrote the fixture profiles for each piece of equipment. Using the programmer, select a fixture form the palette and all works smoothly, colours come up under Colour. Record everything in a memory, so far so good. But when I then try to load a memory in a Assign Fader, it will bring up all the colour details but not the 'intensity' channel. As a result it remains rather dark on stage... Pretty sure it is an operator error, it has been 15 years, but can't work out what I am doing wrong. Any help out there? Roderick
  10. How loud can an uanmplified orchestra hit, with kettle drums, or original thunder roll effects ? Flying heavy sets goes back a lot more than 100 years. Main problem is still theatre owners, then and now, have deep pockets and short arms... Whilst not disputing the shortness of theatre owners arms, or as I recently heard one described 'wouldn't put his hand in his pocket to keep it warm', I still argue that today's productions put a lot more pressure on venues than they used to. Even in my humble 35 years in the industry I have seen a change from backdrops and timber frames flats to much more steel. Kettle drum may produce the decibels, they don't have the contact with the building vibrating sub-woofers have. Over the years all these things add up and may weaken the structure.
  11. And we should also consider the current use of these ageing theatres in a way that was never intended or expected when they were build. I am mostly thinking about low frequency audio at levels unimaginable 100 years ago. Or the increased structural pressure caused by heavy sets, lighting and audio equipment.
  12. Thanks Kerry! I am really hoping that the Event Safety Alliance concept becomes a worldwide organisation. We all face the same risks and problems, let's share the solutions. There was one comment on the article I found very interesting. It stated that it may be acceptable that temporary structures not always survive extreme weather but the lack of warnings to the public and performers is unacceptable. I very much agree with that. There is only so much you can do to maintain structural integrity, not having procedures in place to deal with inclement weather is unforgivable. One of the areas I really hope to focus on is the inclusion of a chapter on emergency procedures in the Australian Event Safety Guide. For the Australian viewers, please have a look here and register your interest! Event Safety Alliance Australia
  13. That is not what Kerry suggested. There are things, such as complex roof structures, that probably should not be available for a dry-hire. Unless you know exactly how to construct it and what to check to confirm it has been build correctly, you are asking for trouble. You wouldn't allow anyone to drive away in your car if you didn't know they had a license, would you. Plant is fairly easy to manage by checking people have to required training and tickets. Stage structures are a lot different with too many options to do it incorrectly.
  14. And we are back to 'who to blame'. Blame is not important. Blame is not going to bring Scott back. Blame is not going to fix the problem. What is important in these sad matters is understanding how it happened, understanding what went wrong. Understanding and recognizing warning signs. Learn from these things is what we should be doing, then we can prevent them from happening again. Stop the fingerpointing, it serves no purpose unless you are in the news or legal industry. As theatre technicians we should focus on the how and why.
  15. I believe the focus should be 'why' and not 'who'. Personally I don't care who did or didn't do what, but I am very interested in what happened that caused things to go wrong. In recent years I have done research into the Love Parade tragedy in Duisburg and the collapse in Indianapolis. And I have presented my findings at the VMA Congress in Australia and to anyone who would listen. My aim is not to point fingers, the courts can sort that bit out, but to plant seeds in people's minds for things to look out for. And encourage people to ask questions. Too often there is still an attitude 'they're the professional, they know what they are doing'. Professionals they may be but they are also human, and humans make mistakes for a myriad of reasons. If one person asking one question that may trigger another look at things and prevent an incident by asking that question it is a good thing. Safety is not something that can be assigned to any one person, it is a collective responsibility to look out for ourselves and everyone we work with. If you see something you are not sure about, ask! I strongly believe in asking questions, if there is an immediate answer then things are probably thought about but if there is a hesitation and head scratching then maybe you have spotted something that was overlooked. The secret then is to leave it with the people in charge, don't go running around yelling "Look what I just spotted", 'cause that doesn't help anyone. Stop the blame game, but don't stop talking about things. Analysis of failures is a complicated matter and often little suggestions or ideas may just open up a new line of thought. I have had lengthy conversations with the engineer who wrote the report on the Indianapolis collapse which opened up a whole new world for me. Sadly it is very rare that such in-depth reports are made public. There is still no definitive answer on what happened in Duisburg which killed 27 people. But that shouldn't mean we can't learn lessons from it.
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