TomHoward

Does anyone rate the Sennheiser XSW range? The XSW-1 (internal antennas admittedly) is £359 per channel with a headset mic. The XSW-2 is £415 per channel (headset) with a external antennas so you could get 75%-ish of the amount of channels in Sennheiser. It's not massively more expensive than the budget ranges really...

Hayworth Theatre at Woolverstone Hall (now Ipswich High School) has a large removable wall behind the cyc, conventional tiered room seats about 350 and the sports hall behind serves as a bigger venue using the same stage for speech days etc or the stage can be extended backwards into hall for large truck storage.. I believe this one is regularly used in both config.

If you buy the Sennheiser XSW-1 Instrument set and buy a couple of the cheap CPC headsets you should come out at about the same money as you're not spending on the Sennheiser mic. They're still plastic bodied etc but at least more recognisable. https://www.thomann.de/gb/sennheiser_xsw_1_cl1_gb_band_instrument.htm They do make a Sennheiser dual system but rarely does it work out cheaper than 2 singles. You can also buy the sennheiser handhelds separately - I haven't compared buying an instrument set and adding a handheld cost compared to buying an 825/835 handheld set and adding a belt pack. HOWEVER as you already have Sennheiser, if tuning is a problem then you'll still need to set them up properly. Stick to the presents - 1-1, 1-2 etc, don't free tune them.

I had fallen into the trap of confusing gasket/suspension foam and grill foam. On a slightly larger scale we’ve used some Nexo Alpha E with some aged foam on the front & on a reggae gig the subs started blowing little hexagons of foam off the grill. They were everywhere by the end….

I always found the gaskets of early Control 1s were particularly prone to it. Loads of control 1s with a floating central cone around.

I think there usually is - the Facebook groups are where we have picked up in the past. How many have you got and have you got a price in mind?

I've seen similar handset setups used by our local volunteer Search & Rescue guys, where they've moved from UHF to 4G. I had a look at one of their handsets and also with them, the handsets were not a major cost factor but the server / central cloud service they all connected to was. I didn't have a close look at them, but I did wonder whether it'd be viable to host your own server for these? I assume the working is somewhat like streaming, is there a standard protocol they work on that maybe one day the software licensing won't be needed as an ongoing cost or you could self host? Obviously a feature set in a pro environment with all the permissions etc you're still going to need a more complete package, but for less professional / more back-to-back UHF replacement without all the trunking is it viable to program/host your own?

The JST connectors that come on the strip could be the easiest , but rather than terminating them I’d buy extension cables, cut them in half and terminate half on each strip.

I've had good service with Behringer parts from https://www.electronicmusicservices.co.uk before, and they're listed as a Service Centre on the Midas website: https://www.midasconsoles.com/buy.html?type=POS They may be able to advise on supply of parts.. there's one in Ireland as well listed as a service centre http://www.fixtronix.ie/ but I've not used them compared to EMS and also no idea if UK or Ireland is easier for you. No comment on the analogue desk BUT if you have still got the multitrack firewire working that is impressive - we had an F32 which was great but it was keeping the firewire interface working on a modern Mac that saw it off for us. It went off to a PC based studio.

If you can attach a half coupler to the PTZ presumably it has a 10mm hole, 1m length of M10 studding in a half coupler or hook clamp at the top? Put a bolt both sides at the top & bottom obviously to make both connections tight.. This may vibrate under movement though, in which case budget options may involve scaffolding couplers or Unistrut.

You could have a plug in timer on the DMX desk - leave it at zero, turn the desk off, turn the desk to full when not powered and put it on the timer plug. At 6pm the DMX value comes on when the desk powers up. crude but low cost, as long as the desk is something simple like a sixer it may work.

5m x 3m isn't really small scale... you don't tend to see those sized back projections done well at am dram level as far as I am aware? If you can add some side wings and reduce the image size to 3m wide or so some options might open up as well.

It’s definitely the fixing spinning freely and not the studding turning with the bolt attached out of the taper bolt at the back of the fixing? If that were the case it should spin right out a few turns later. (It may leave some semi-loose steel fastening in the hole to fall out later on audience though depending on location)

What's the 8x8 matrix? If there's only 4 outputs on an 8x8 matrix, and they know how to use the matrix, can you just put one local monitor on output 8 and just check the channel on that before you change it? That's how ours works, we have a sports pavilion with 4x4 Kramer, 3 zone outputs (although many TVs on a zone), 4 inputs, and the spare output has a monitor on the wall by the rack for checking the PC etc before going full screen via the matrix OR if you want to eat up all 4 matrix outputs and don't plan expanding it in future you could route all 4 inputs into a cheap multi viewer via outputs 5-8 and let the matrix do the splitting?

Out of interest what are you using them for? Laptop to projector for live event, or backstage TVs etc?

Is anyone using QLab with NDI video outputs on live events? Is the latency usable for playback for video in either music concerts (say excerpts between songs), or live event awards / theatre shows / lectures? What hardware are you using to bridge from NDI back to HDMI? We are looking at buying one of the new M2 Mac minis but it only supports 2x display outputs where our current has more, can NDI make up for this shortfall and avoid the faff of long distance HDMI / SDI distribution - and can an entry level M2 Mac mini cope with the output? I suspect I'm going to have to buy one to try but be glad to hear of any success or horror stories.

Depending on what you are trying to do, can you make do with 2ch of output by using mono sources? Eg, if you currently have 2ch for stereo Left & Right at the front, and you are wanting one more channel for a spot effect on stage, can you get away with running the FOH speakers in mono, routing the left output from your Qlab to both, and using the right for on-stage? Doesn't get you a lot but could work in a simple setup.

Apologies for the hijack but have you compared the Polar 8s, are they usably loud, or any other seriously compact stick systems? (Ie smaller than Polar 10)

Thanks for this. I'd found a bit on the Hoist UK pile winds but this looks like who to speak to. Above the grid is a loft space full of criss-crossing RSJs that the existing bars and motors bolt back to - moving bars back to diverter pulleys and pile wound hoists and dead bars the wires just fix back to the RSJs on eye bolts. I'm thinking more now having thought about it and looked at it that installing something like this in the loft above the grid with diverter pulleys and installing the screen as an independent drop between two existing bars might be the best option, rather than rigging off the bar.

I’d thought I’d seen those long drop screens before but I couldn’t find much either. Currently we could fit the existing screen too, either it could be something 48mm mounted under the roof or something mounted in the loft also where the winches for the existing bars are. This would never move in a show or with anyone underneath and we have annual LOLER inspections already, as we have 10x electric hoist bars plus some manual bars and a collection of loose kit. The screen is currently mounted on one of these 10x winch bars but it always uses up an upstage bar where we are a bit short.

Does anyone have any advice on what could be used to raise and lower on a whole screen on a non-moving 48mm bar? The screen is a 4m electric roller screen, weighs around say 40kg. Two hanging points on shackles / wire rope. Currently the screen is on a winch bar but this is a pain as it takes up a bar that is often needed for rigging / tabs etc. I am aware of the double-drop screens that essentially use a second motorised mechanism to drop the first, but as an independent point is there anything off the shelf that could run this and all be mounted onto the 48mm bar? The drop to operating position is maybe 2-3m and the drop to the floor if it were to reach all the way down is around 6m. Something like a small winch drum motor with 2x wires, a couple of pulleys, off the shelf with limit switches somehow, wired back to a 240v switch? Or any recommendations of companies for such a small job?

We deal with requests as they come in, so if they are late but we can handle it we do, but have a rule that “last minute planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on ours” so there’s no panic on our part even if you’ve got an audience waiting. A few years ago we trialled last minute requests needing an email request cc’ing in an appropriate teacher/course leader or line manager for staff before they would be actioned, which was quite good at highlighting repeat offenders rather than them just being let off the hook under the radar.

Do you reckon you can get away with a mic splitter on the one channel or I fit a redundant one to the other?

There's angled wall plates as well - either euro modules with the passthrough at an angle so the cable inside the box is neater, or passthroughs with a 90degree turn in to use a shallower box.

Solder is not common on HDMI, you can do that you describe but use a flying lead one to avoid the big hole, or you can use a cable with a right angle connector to reduce the depth a bit. You don't have to chisel out the whole box, if you are relatively accurate you can holesaw a hole in the back of the back box, and use a 20/30mm SDS drill just to make a deep-ish hole just behind the connector, then loop the cable back into the box. Not neat but it works.