I'm finding it more and more common here in spain around the local techs that during or before a sound check etc they are either using a recording or a "live" vocal anoucement every few mins for public awareness....

Generally I'm seeing it in the jobs during the summer when we are working on local fiestas and festivals...
I infact have one extremely good technician I use as my runner/rigger/helper etc etc whos responce to "go speak into that mic" is "this is a test of <insert name of mic> microphone and public address system for <insert name of job>." Except in spanish.....
Makes a great change from "1-2-1-1-1-1-22--1-1-1-2-2- ye ye ye ye oh oh oh ye oh ye si si si"


Anyone else come accross this as a "standard practice"?
Just got our first summer job comming up and I'm thinking of hijacking the dubbing studio tomorrow to record myself some.... So thought I'd throw the topic out there.

Cue the old 1-2-testing joke

Why can sound engineers only count to two...

Yeah, I know,

The only time I have been warned/heard an announcement has been "We are about to ring out the PA/Play white/pink/red/green/purple/puce noise at obnoxious levels" announcements. Never for 1,2,1,2shh,ta,ta,test,test,est,st,st,st

I often specify a channel routing or whatever on a test ("Left Left Left....Right Right Right.....Monitor 1 Monitor 1 Monitor 1") or microphone number ("Radio 12 Radio 12") etc. but that's about it. I've never encoutered naming the event to "introduce" a sound check though I can possibly see that for corporate stuff if there are company "minders" there watching what you're doing.

Bob

Hey , where can I get some purple noise ?

All the times I've ever seen it done were in public squares etc which are generally open to public during rig/rehersal times...

Its the norm over here to have it all open.. and the public asking u every 2 secs what were doing/when does it sart/ what times the bus at.....

I guess it's a good way of advertising your event for free.

One of the sound guys I have worked with gets the talent to say who they are (character's name) and what mic number they have. So it could be 'this is Random Pimp 3 on Radio 5' or whatever. Means you can double check that the talent has picked up the right mic. Mostly appropriate for community theatre I guess.

Ben

When we were live I always did the 1,2 thing.

Not only was I checking that the mic is on and works, the '1' for me was mid - lF, the '2' or teh, teh, was used for mid- HF.
Also good practice is to play with the lead at the XLR to check for any cracks, pops, or problems with the connection.
Most of the time if anyone was in the room you would hear, .....3,4, from some really funny person. hey, Iv'e never had that before!

since moving to a yammy ls9 we use 1 10 1 1 10 10 1

Is it sad that I chuckled at that?

I know someone who used to use the phrase "I used to be a parrot, but it's okay now."

EDIT: a little OT but kinda related and entertaining, just found this on YouTube

"One-one was a racehorse; One-two was one too; One-one won one race; One-two won two."

Sad but true.

Maybe, but you are not alone!

I was told that the "one" was to listen for boominess, and the "two" was to pick up undue sibilance due to the plosive T.

The truth I'll never find now, He worked at Kingswood Warren then.

I tend to just talk rubbish. I'm quite good at it. Also, I try and have a conversation with people. As it tests what might be happening on a mic. I had a chat with the first 500 or so people on Jazz world last year, apparently they were enjoying it. (only the first 500 out of probably 30,000 as FOH was off so it was only those that could hear the monitors and side fills, although given that they were the loudest and best sounding side fills I've used..... probably... ever I'm surprised it wasn't more people. I learnt alot from that gig. EV make some damn good monitors, and I was reminded that Xarray is still bloody good.

500 people could hear you from just the side fills and monitors?
Wow Rob, that must have been very loud!!

What did you talk about?
Also, are you going to be stocking EV then Rob?

They were loud. Then again it was me asking for them louder as I knew the act to follow was to roam about the stage a little so would require lots of side fill for vocals not just in the wedges.

I don't remember what I talked about.

No I won't be stocking EV, I (we) live in an area dominated by Turbosound, to stock anything else would destroy the flexibility of cross hiring capabilities. Added to that, the X array and S122 (?) Are the only 2 boxes / range of boxes in the case of Xarray that I like from them. I tolerate Xline with some mountainous eq curves. All subjective of course. The old EV box on stick idea didn't sound too American, and Xarray, well, you'd think that was a British box if you didn't know.

Also, remember, the side fills were equal to a system that a medium company would take out to a festival for say 1500 people. Powered properly. 2 Stacks PER SIDE of Xarray, Xb and X..n I think. Matt will confirm. Not sure how well the Xcn box in the middle worked as a spacer last year, hint.

Some things never change eh Rob!

Testies, testies, 1, 2,

A few 'Luke I am your farther's

'Bring on the trumpets'

Maybe a quick rendition of 'just the way you are' Barry white style


Do all of that to win the respect of your workmates

CB

Another add to smart comments:

once saying '1, 2. 1, 2'
I heard 'wan*er, wan*er'

Ive seen/heard the Monty Python and the Holy Grail swedish subtitles used at my school on a couple of occasions.

I do a lot of calls I give it a mic test 1, 2

because im at a college they all look at me funny go 'what are you doing' lol

Moderation: From 'Replying to Threads - The Blue Room Way' filed under 'Issues' :

QUOTE

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I once asked a roadie to count to 4 through the main vocal mic for me but all he could say was "one, two, three, lift" , "one, two, three, lift"

(Sorry)

thebundy kinda beat me to it here, but last time I sound checked a mic and counted to '3' the crew picked up random bits of kit and started loading them into the truck....

I've done a few Jehovah Witness conventions, and they read from the bible!

On a recent show I was working we had 22 radio mics plus a couple of spare packs and capsules. Since it was the first time I'd used this particular hire company, I want to test each of them before we got into mounting them on the cast.

My A2 was helping with this and, rather than just the usual 1-2 1-2 she picked up the book she had to hand and started reading from that. Unfortunately, she was at a rather...er...interesting part of the book and when our testing was done there were many calls of "you can't stop THERE!" from the rest of the crew who were working on the rig....

It became the running joke of that show that we gave them a bit more of that particular chapter each mic test.

Bob

One of the funniest ones I've seen was a TM who picked up the channel list sheet and read it very slowly is a series of different voices.

One, box A, channel 1, bass drum, SM91, phantom, no stand....
Two, box A, channel 2, snare top, SM57, no phantom,short boom...................
Three,...........................(you get the point)


I guess you had to be there though

One of the musos I work with tends to run through brand names of pro audio equipment. I quite like it in a sort of closet geeky way.

M

In reply to the OP, on a couple of jobs, useing the same production comapany, before running up an arena rig, considering the aount of people in diverse employment likely to be in the space, the risk assesment for noise at work stated that we should make an announcement prior to any nnoise being made above the action threshold for hearing protection, so a bit of pink, and time allignment didn't need it, but before voicing and eqing, anf indeed soundchecking, a short pre recorded anouncment was played, stipulating the approcimate levels to be expected, and to wait for an all done message too. Thought this was a very good idea to be honest.