paulears

I've had Sennheiser and Trantec kit now for over 20 years and have no problems with their products, and they've been reliable and solid. When you say you were concerned? I assume you meant it did not give decent audio in the workshop? I wasn't talking about gain before feedback, just audio quality, end to end. If it is an audio feedback issue that's something different. Audio feedback could be the normal type, or some kind of fault that has a big peak in the response curve triggering audio feedback, or even something microphonic? The test is to stick earphones in, stuff audio through and see what it sounds like - if it sounds clean and natural, it's probably not the unit - if it sounds strange tonally, then that sounds like a real fault, or perhaps even a dodgy mic?

If you open the box at home, connect the receiver to an amp of some kind and speak into the mic with the transmitter close to the receiver - do you get crystal clear audio that is stable and trouble free? If you don't, it's faulty. It's possible the programming is wrong - maybe the supplier has put two different versions together (maybe one that has been reprogrammed for some reason). If you can get access to something like a radio scanner, other receiver or even an SDR into a computer you can determine if the problem is with the receiver, or the transmitter. If close to each other there is a problem, then distance and location changes won't make it better.

It really is such a terrible disease - doesn't matter if you have been good or bad, careful or careless, it just storms in and wrecks things. Brian had helped me so many times since the Blue Room started, it's hard to put a value on how useful people are, but Brian was somebody I could ask questions of and get honest sensible answers, and I hope that when it was the other way around, he got something from me. A really nice fella - I shall miss him! Paul

Not sure what happened here - but the post sort of replicated itself multiple time - I've removed all the duplicates.

Over the past few months, I've been working on a collection of old lighting - a sort of heritage project, and have discovered that apart from the very well known old British designs, there were also plenty of prototypes and modifications. We have this notion that certain products are clearly rubbish and others wonderful, but I'm realising now that it's actually always been this way. Terrible light sources and horrible controls. After seeing so many examples of these I've also discovered that repairs to some needed a level of engineering equipment that few people have now. I've seen some really lovely kit that is junk because it needs a lamp no longer available, or a new reflector that needs skills no longer with us. Focus mechanisms that require somebody to sand cast replacement parts - as you cannot 3D print something designed to run so hot. Swap a lamp type - not even to LED, and the whole magic vanishes. I've stuck LED into quite a few tungsten sources and none match the originals in any way. Looking at my wash lights - I'm now trying to see if the original supplier has any complete LED panels that will fit - if they don't then it's the junk pile. Sunray's £60 plus ten hours for 14 working seems a good balance. I spent a couple of days last week putting powercon in and out on some plastic PARs and despite forgetting the length of the powercon would mess up certain angles (as in straight up), they were useful - until the box they were in fell off a case and half of them broke the yoke attachment point - but that's another story. My cost is about £20 plus 12 hours for one! that's clearly not going to work.

I decided it was about time to look at the pile of dead and faulty gear - mostly lighting. First thing was to avoid the old discharge movers - taken to bits before Covid and then sidelined, they're in bits, and I can't see any of the nuts, bolts, screws and stuff - so they'll be scrapped. It still left me with a pile of Chinese moving head washes - now 8 years old. Most common fault is no red. These are wired in two chains, so some have green, blue, white and half red, but most have no red at all. I suspect they lost one half first, then the other went too. There was one non-wash in the pile, a rotating bee eye still fixture, the first one of this type to have failed. I started on this and after finally getting all the screws out, there were two capacitors loose inside the case. Their leads were soldered, so it seemed odd they'd fallen out of the board. However, this was majorly frazzled - the PCB burnt and discoloured and it looks like it was hot enough to actually melt the solder, and being upside down, they fell out! I suspect that at some point, water had got inside. I don't know if pigeons and gulls wee, but based on the the outside, I suspect it had been a roost during covid close down, when the building was shut, but somebody left a window open and it became an aviary for a year. On the board, many of the wire links were completely corroded and near the capacitors there was the remains of some kind of device. Maybe an inductor, or possibly a small choke - I couldn't tell it crumbled away as I touched it and the board wasn't marked. If I can source a power supply that will fit, maybe it can be resurrected? The washes all had similar faults - open circuit LEDs. Virtually all red, but there was one open circuit green. I took me 6 hours to dismantle two, and use one as a donor - the idea being to use it for parts. At the point I stopped, the best was Red, Green and half blue and half white. Desoldering the faulty 8 leg devices, due to my less than good skills lifting the legs from the pads, mean that the chips from the donor needed jumpers to link across to the next device when the copper pads lifted. It was really thin and fragile. I've been looking at the time taken to get the things apart, source the spares and fit them, then do a test on each DMX channel. If I use my day rate fixing these things is out of proportion to their value. Does anyone have a plan they use for assessing repair or scrap. I really cannot afford in time, let alone money, to waste over a week on what is essentially old for a mover.

Oddly - the 'China Export' explanation of a convenient get around of CE marks is actually untrue. My Chinese factory contents were mystified when I asked a question about China Export marking? The CE marks on many imported goods are simply a copy of the real CE mark - but often with imperfect font reproductions. We sort of created an alternate explanation. The CE marks applied to many products are simply what customers ask for. As in "Is it CE marked?"- which generates a question. "Do you want it to be CE marked?" We say yes, and all they do is screen print it on. It's particularly relevant to LED lighting. Most is made (as I've explained before) in very large breeder unit factories. The building is full of small businesses. One does injection moulding, another produces circuit boards. Another does optics. Others specialise in servos, control systems and programming. Power supplies come from another, and there are even businesses who do packaging who pass the boxes on to those who specialise in dispatch and shipping. The upshot is that somebody sits in an office and has an idea for a new light. I'll use an example of mine. A moving head fixture with 7 bee eye style rotating lenses. Capable of near parallel beam or a wide wash. RGBW and a zoom feature. They source every part from within the facility and sell them to people like me. Buy ten, need eight - but get tempted to use the two spares. The product has a CE mark, and a nice certificate. There is no way to get a CE mark for a product run of at the most, a few hundred. The CE mark is for something similar, but not the same thing at all. In my case, 7 LED modules was too much for the drivers and lots have now died. I thought I'd order another 10 and take a chance again - they've lasted three years. No - the thing has been scrapped. Probably too many failures, I don't know. The new version has 6 LED modules, not 7, but is the same housing and parts, but with the centre lens missing. No doubt the new version will also have a CE mark, because we ask for it! Remember that we ask, they try to supply, and often have no clue about the product or what we actually want. I asked a supplier I have used many times if they had some microphones for two-way radios. The pictures they sent were of an Icom branded product. I asked them if they could do the same for Kenwood? They responded asking if I wanted "For Kenwood" - so I said yes. This is what arrived. If I had said I need CE marking, the same thing would happen. The China Export explanation is something we have invented. They just do what we ask for - the idea it signifies anything is an illusion.

School lighting, since the 50s, has always been a teacher led project, that goes badly wrong when they leave. An enthusiast who got the funding, and then a new teacher with different interests allows it to die. Some truly excellent installs just left to fester and die. In honesty, unless teachers pick certain extra modules or pathways, it rarely generates extra marks, so is just nice to have, like extra thick gym mats, or ethnic percussion to give to the kids who can’t play tuned instruments. So often you see schools with great lights or sound, computer controlled lathes, art studios with proper colour balanced lighting, catering quality kitchens for student use etc etc. often mothballed and unused when an NQT is put in charge of that area and has never taught the subject before. Safety often means restrictions, so no ladders, which means dead lights. If a new teacher inherits a complex system, it also means extra work. Balance is tricky.

Dead right Gareth - no way we would be in that arena - but the recharge thing is a big problem now. So many venues recharging at ridiculous rates - and the not passing it on bit is a separate issue and perhaps even dishonest? If the venue say we will recharge X and Y the production company may simply not take the show there. If they don't notice, or even read the terms and conditions that's then a big shock. One this year asked one question - what is the size of the get-in door. That was the only question, bar the width of the stage. Not asked any questions about anything else at all? At my venue they won't get hit for recharges because we don't do them, save the occasional hire in item. We hear crazy items being recharged now apart from the usual stuff. Follow spots are rarely part of one-nighters now because of excessive fees for using them. Ours are free - but often don't get used because they've not been built into the show. Phantom people - like "do you want to use the XYZ?" kerchunk - that's a two people charge. Do you want follow spots? Kerchunk again, that's another two people and how about internet? Getting the password gets a charge. Even electricity being charged for due to the cost of it. "Do you want some water in the dressing room?" That's another charge, drunk or not. Sometimes I hear they've had six people's charges on the settlement, but there were only two physical people there! Hire charges for rubber cable to put lights or sound at certain parts of the stage is another one, with sometimes a charge for an 'electrician' to turn it on and off. The venues need more than their cut, so fire it back at the incoming people. We see production companies turning up in three sprinters, each with two people, then 8 in the band and a couple of other bods - A one night show with impractical numbers of people. I've been putting together a tribute band and I'm not convinced I can make it pay. I always mentally add the people up, multiply it by their typical day rate and compare it with the ticket sales - I really don't know why they do it - so many shows just cannot pay. With some touring shows doing two houses (2800 people in our case, at £34 a ticket) they only have two people - the star and the tour manager, then we get a show selling maybe 700 at £25 with 4 top turns, 5 in the band, 1 doing wardrobe and a crew of 4. It makes no sense!

Er, USB output on computer, dongle plugs in and has a 3 or 5 pin output that goes into your socket on the wall. Your snag of course is that somebody will need to tell the control software how to work the lights - they all have certain functions on certain channels - and these are never the same - so each light might use between say 2 and 20 channels. Somebody needs to do this for you - local amdram, local theatre, colleague at another school - local blue room member? No reason a primary teacher can't do it. My grandson's teacher has a few wiggle movers and some cheap washes and a laptop - works fine. I've recently been to a school to fix their broken control - it wasn't broken, the kids had simply pressed buttons.

Some theatres have never done a TMA rate getup ever, others are rigid and follow agreements signed in good faith. My view is that this isn't really anything to do with the people who do the work. It is a management function - the people who deal with contracts. So many shows our one nighter venue receive stipulate no crew are required at all. The powers that be accept this, and realise they're penny pinching crafty production companies - and in mine, we fund our staff - no contras. Hours worked all at one rate for the hourly paid folk and the freelancers at the agreed rate for the job. I'm told by these companies that despite asking for no crew, they still need them, and get them, just at no cost to them. Our summer venue always over crew from the riders - so if they ask for two get in crew, they actually get 6 - simply because we know how long our ins and out take due to the long pushes. Get out gives them usually 7 - which means outs are quicker. Sometimes though, not quick enough. Last year, last show, the out was still not quick enough and while we were all doing a push, somebody on their crew decided they would fly the LX bars in to remove their lights. Our cradle loading is from stage level only, so a heavy bar might need 3 hauls in and out while rigging to keep adding weights. We came back to see all the bars empty, grumbled about impatience and only then discovered they'd brought the bars in, removed the lights and then took the brakes off and the things rocketed upwards, and they probably slammed the rope lock brake lever sin quickly which bounced the bars and they managed to bounce the steel rope off the pulleys in the grid, jamming them solid. We didn't notice till we were in again, preparing for the winter closure. No get in/out crew required is so common now - because the TMA rates are unaffordable for many venues. TMA on a two week run is very different to TMA every show. I'm not against TMA rates, far from it - but sometimes you get a choice - the production company or the venue has to fund it - The venue's 30% or whatever can't absorb it, and the production company's percentage struggles too. The maths is easy to do - we can all look at ticket price, sold seats and count staff - stage, FOH, management. We can do it for the production company and see how the figures just don't work. TMA rates or no TMA rate, the books have to balance, and often it's very marginal. My own figures for the show tomorrow suggest we will lose money. I think many people's shows must be close to the edge, and TMA breaks the bank.

No = that's exactly how it works. Most manufacturers have a dongle based USB stick type device - Chamsys, is my favourite and you can do it very cheaply with free software, with limited features and a time limit, or a bit more expensive and a few more features unlocked - but the free software and cheap dongle will do a great job. DMX lighting should use 5 pin sockets and plugs, but loads of lights use 3 pin, mic type connectors. You can buy 3 to 5 and 5 to 3 very cheaply on sites like CPC, who your school probably already deals with. Your technical people, if there are any, could easily make a connector cable for you - the wiring in the 3 and 5 pin versions just connects 1 to 1, the 2 to 2 and 3 to 3 - as easy as that. Download the Chamsys Magicq software and have a play with it.

Frankly, I'm amazed by the backlash and vitriol here and all over the net. In the past - no system for warning the populace of anything serious. Go back to the 50s and the floods, then the Cold War. The only system was to alert a small number of people, and then they would try to spread the word - apart from the messages on BBC TV and radio and later, independent TV. Now - somebody had the idea to use a product practically everyone has in their pockets, owned and operated by companies in competition with each other, using multiple networks. It seems to me that the only way anyone could think a public safety system is a BAD thing is if they are frankly a bit paranoid. No system surely must be infinitely worse than any system? I fail to see why it's politicised? Somebody had the idea. They managed to get the comms companies to agree on it, and we had a test. The weird thing is that we are all in the business of making kit talk to each other. We are also well used to our cunning plans not working. All the plans, diagrams, manuals and bits of paper. We plug them up and discover we forgot something. Wrong universe, wrong node, conflicting IPs - strange fixtures that are the mk 2 version of the attribute chart you used. Yet, we expected the new emergency system to work, and as out did not, that is somebodies fault - and most comments suggest it was the Government's. This is just ridiculous. The test did exactly what we all do all the time!! Plug it in and press a button. Then we fix the things that didn't work at all, or change things that sort of half worked. If we have an emergency system that works, we are all better served. If it's via cellular, then we could warn people in a local area far better than knocking on doors! Near me, they discovered a large WW2 bomb. Thousands of people living right next door almost, had to be evacuated and more needed to be told to stay in their homes. The end result was a blown up robot when it went off unexpectedly. The local press had loads of people complaining they didn't know. As I understand the new system, it can work locally, regionally or nationally. Is this not a positive. It's not big brother, it's not government interference and it's not political, it is social. Protect and Survive Mk II. I'm glad it went wrong, it needed to - it was a test,

Pretty common, sadly. The stereo is sort of pseudo stereo. I've had two Roland's and a Korg that responded badly to being manually mono'd, or using their mono output. They seem to like messing with phase to widen and thicken things like the strings and piano - so in mono, the things closer to dead centre cancel out! It's a real pain.

I really can't see why any emergency system to tell people vital info generated so much bad feeling. Where I live, there were very severe floods in 1953, and so many people lost homes and even a few lives because they didn't not know to move to higher ground. This system to me is just common sense, and even if a few don't get the message, enough will to make it work.

The drone operator will be on one side of a hill, and a cameraman on the other needs to know when it will pop up. Radio should be easy, but the camera position is next to a rather nasty pager site and it wipes out VHF, and the third harmonic also spaces around on UHF - UHF works but is a bit unpredictable. Network radio, with a Vox could be a solution.

With the slight delay, does this wipe out vox operation? I’ve got a little job coming up where I need a radio to transmit where the user will not have a free hand. It’s a drone pilot who needs to give a cue to a distant camera, and the path is marginal. With the need to listen for the system open beep, is vox even possible?

In Belfast, I got into serious trouble because we didn't have a licence for the panto pyros. The Police Service of Northern Ireland take explosives extremely seriously, and I did my best to comply with their regulations, and they supervise. It's necessary to let them know exactly what you have, and how it will be re-stocked - so the NEQ levels are not exceeded, and they visit to spot check. In addition, the explosives licence is in my name, not the production company's so that tends to focus the responsibility. It's not my finger on the button, but if anyone was hurt, or, I suppose if the stock was stolen, then it is me to carry the can. Le Maitre were equally unaware of the different law in NI, and they'd been shipping product to the province for years without licences. My history was big tins of powder, a teaspoon or so of it in a hollow banged into a piece of 2x2 with a hammer with a piece of mic cable braid as a fuse under the powder, fired with mains. I don't even remember who showed me how to even do this? Pods were a novel introduction. I never gave any thought to the factory that produced them.

I suppose some careers put you in more danger than others. You can take as many precautions as you like, but some professions have higher injury rates than others that risk assessment cannot do anything about. One of my family members got a kettle of boiling water in the face when the door was opened. Luckily his eye will mend they think. Munitions workers in WW2 got blown up fairly often. However, most employers have their staff covered, insurance wise. In the case we are discussing, one thing jumps out. Insurance - if it was in place at the time, then the insurance should have covered this, even if the company later shut down. Not having appropriate insurance would indicate that the directors in place at the time should have been responsible individually. It would also seem to be linked to the fact the Directors were not disqualified - so one wonders if the blame is not so pointed as we are assuming. Frankly, we are guessing, and surely the HSE would have prevented the issue of any licences if they were concerned?

It's probably about time that the Government reviewed the phoenix resurrections, especially now the process of shutting a debt ridden company down and starting again, debt free - the so called SpongeBob Plan, is so common. I suppose the entire point of a limited liability company is that the directors are NOT responsible for the debts of the company - The outlay to start a Ltd Company has always been dirt cheap, ever since you did it through Exchange & Mart newspaper for a few pounds. Nothing has really changed in at least 50 years. What has changed is that doing this is now a standard business practice, and my only big debt after being self-employed for over 20 years was where a company did this, then tried to get me to work for them again - same people, same business, same phone numbers. The inference was that if I did more work, I might get some of the amount owed -although that was 'goodwill' - not a right of course. I rejected the offer. They genuinely did not think they had done anything wrong? I think that unless the Directors operated illegally, or while knowing they were insolvent there is anything legally wrong with what they did. Moral or ethical considerations are not really reasons to disbar somebody from Directorship. It stinks. However, it's not a legal stink. Customers have choice. If this topic generates business for the competitors of Le Maitre, so be it.

I think it was post covid that backstage for some shows was just over my own comfort level, and I dragged out a pair of formula1 pit lane headphones and went radio comms. Foam protectors did little - but it took a while to get used to having a vice clamping your head. This topic has reminded me to get the spare pair terminated in a Tecpro plug - radio band limiting is also hard on the ears so going back wired with full frequency response might be even better.

Audiences also choose to expose themselves, staff have little choice. However - loudness is always relative without a meter. I remember an old lady coming up to me and demanding it should be turned down, because it was far too loud. This was a bit odd, because it was a big band gig, and it was one of the realistic recreations, so the only mics were the one for the singers, and the between number chat by the band leader. I pointed out that not only was it not amplified, but asked her if she saw this orchestra when they were playing during the war? She said she hadn't seen these, but had seen Glenn Miller's Orchestra. I mentioned that he had about 50% more musicians, so her war time experience would have been louder than this one!

It really was like Dad's Army. All parties would meet occasionally and 'update' plans. One of the senior people was a retired army officer and was fixated on commandeering things - like lorries, boats, helicopters. My role was communications, so Plan 24C would be opened and the scenario talked through. Invariably, he manage to commandeer a few things - like a fishing boat and a helicopter normally tasked with North Sea gas/oil personnel transport. So he'd talk about the commandeered helicopter talking to the fishing boat on the radio and I'd step in and point out the fishing boat could not talk to the helicopter. He'd talk down to me like Captain Square in Dad's Army - clearly I had no idea, but I would have to point out the fishing boat had a marine radio and the helicopter had an aviation one. He then had a Police officer talking to the ambulance and I'd wave a hand again. Other participants would do the same when their specialities got mangled, like the Police vehicle guy trying to explain they only had petrol, not diesel at that unit. We never made progress. I've so many crazy stories from that time. Even getting threatened by the security services for not keeping secrets, and then them discovering none of us had signed the forms we'd been told we had to sign, but that had never arrived. We were really poorly trained and it was for many of us a social thing. In a bunker one day, the Police officer did a straw poll on which of us would actually be here if the sh*t hit the fan for real - The general consensus was we'd all be with our families taking our chances than being in the bunker with them left outside. The scientists who worked for the local Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture who did the fallout monitoring and calculations didn't even want to be there - they'd just been sent. The fella in the ROC who was with us was extremely odd, had terminal BO and drove a Brown Skoda - which in the 80s/90s was not considered a car of choice for many. The joke was nobody wanted to be shut up with him. The County Emergency Planning Officer was a bit scary, but he had a very responsible job. His function now is simply part of the role of a recent graduate who seems to know very little about emergency planning.

Ha! That was my world in the 80s and 90s. I think ynot too? Civil defence college at easingwold, and police officers delivering PJ996 batteries and maroons to post offices and pubs in the villages. I had to retrain one postmaster, because he organised a test. He pretended the ticking box shouted out an alert, let off his maroons and wound the handle on his siren. Warned all the locals and did his own little exercise. Missing the point that it was supposed to be secret, until needed. Few younger people know that at the police station was the gizmo with two red telephone handsets, where the officer would have pressed the button and said attack warning red. I got sent to a small town fifteen miles away to collect a green goddess control room with pump up masts and radios. It lived in a lock-up had an MOT each year and from the 50s when new, had been kept, just in case. Back in the 90s I thought this fun. Looking back, it was pure dad’s army.

Over the years it’s been pretty obvious that few teachers understand the roles that support actors, dancers and singers. The use of ‘stage manager’ as a term sort of shows their knowledge of how productions are put on. How many musicals in the paid entertainment industry feature that role? Very few now I think, or for the past 25 years. Smaller am dram and dance shows have them. The poor person tasked with the producer’s understanding of the word. The truth in education is that the grades come from performance. Back stage roles were added in the 90s because for the performers to get their grades, somebody had to do the production roles, and they needed grades. They were laughable as options in GCSE and A Level, and OK in National Diplomas in the full version, vastly watered down in the other versions. The system coped with schools and colleges with excellent facilities and also useless ones. Useless with kit and useless with staff. Both turned out ALL the grades. It sounds like at least the OP tried to find a source of the info, but has come across problems with teaching. I thought my old college did it normally, but working for the boards discovered we were not typical at all. Then I did some supply work in schools and discovered that was in general, terrible, explaining why the kids coming to my college were so bad. I had a group from the local college in, with the intention of pinching the best for paid work this summer. The year before I didn’t take any and I suspect the same may happen this year. Some people from this process in the past are now doing stuff all over the world at a really high level, but in my own area, this has just stopped.