paulears

Looks normal - sounds not right, but better than mine when the thing started making that clicking continually and then died - and I couldn't get the spares to fix it.

I wondered about this too, it’s also a very expensive solution. Usually some photos or a video and the. A phone/zoom chat would be sufficient. Can’t see there being a cost effective solution to this one, unless somebody is willing to spend £200 plus on a chat that didn’t need to happen in person? without more info, it’s got warning bells attached.

Audition has been working perfectly on my 10 install ever since it came out and none of the regular upgrades was any hassle. However, my audition hasn’t looked like that for years? If that is really the first version, I’m surprised it runs at all!

I've still got Trantec and Sennheisers. The Trantec packs are more plasticky, but this hasn't proven a problem. Sennheisers are more frequency agile - I lost the software to program the Trantecs years ago, so I'm stuck with what are in the banks, so when I mix them it's the Sennheisers that get frequencies moved. The Trantec is pretty much lacking user adjustments, so what you feed in, you get out, while Sennheisers can have the two channels panned and blended from the panel. The Sennheisers will receive the Trantec transmitter in mono for emergencies. The Trantec antennas get damaged more than the Sennheiser, but when you do damage the Sennheisers, they're harder to dismantle and fix. The Trantec antennas have the little hex section at the bottom you can just solder on a new wire to, and heatshrink. I've noticed nothing different I can really notice on audio quality or reception issues.

I upgraded my BT line to fibre - with a competitor. Cheaper and of course mega fast up and down - BUT - forgot about the phone line, so went with a voip provider, and it works fine, until yesterday when somebody messed up and fibre died in the town - mine was off for 16 hours - restoring at midnight. My burglar alarm started to get cross because the net connection was gone, and was working on the cellular backup - but phone service here can be a bit tricky - the office and studio is in a basement. What a pain. No comms or anything. I sat there and it suddenly clicked - if I fell, or was ill, I was totally stuck. Eggs in one basket for me on my own is one thing, but for a bigger building with higher risks and more people, having no communications at all is quite scary.

I just found on an old hard drive this word document - something I wrote 25 years ago. As many folk are less old than this, they might be interested in the 'history' of the big shows. Some interesting content is total number of DMX channels and the audio system - plus the fact that there were some 115V, series wired Parcans! I seem to think it was in one of the magazines of that period, not sure which one. B&BREP1.docx

I know we should not be making judgements nowadays on first impressions or pictures we see on the net, but if we work with people who have safety as their job function, they usually look like their job role. Here, if you go on a course involving safety of any kind - rigging, pyro, working at height, anything powered and lifting etc etc, the instructors look ‘right’. They also sound ‘right’. Anyone probably 30+ reads people well. We do it on every production when we meet the, for the first time. We have three categories we put people in. Ok, jury is out and idiot. People often move category as work progresses. Fight directors are good examples. Your initial rating often changes once they start and mostly goes into the top box. My spidey senses tingle when they don’t hit that box straight away, and I’ll often spend more time in that location till it does, the. I go away happy. Looking at some of the pictures of this ‘armourer’ something isnt quite right, especially the one posing with two guns. That’s very uncommon isnt it? If the production company were shoddy, it’s not impossible they just gave an assistant the top job because she worked cheap and did what they told her. We’ve all seen that’s when you have to work with some people. Larking about is normal, but rarely with the safety centred people, who often have no sense of humour at all. Have you ever seen a police officer with a weapon who did not look comfortable with it and had the don’t mess with me attitude? I’ve never seen one of them pose with a weapon.

Just before the Covid pandemic, I flew back to the UK from Berlin and discovered I still had my leatherman on my belt when it dug into me putting my seatbelt on! Somehow I had gone through security, with it under a fleece, and the beeping was me forgetting to take my watch off - and seeing be struggle to wiggle it off my thin wrist and big hands, the security guy waved me through. I had a bit of a panic - here I was on the airplane with a knife, and then wracking my brains to think if they x-rayed when you get off a plane? Would customs pick me and find it, and hand me over, should I own up to the cabin crew, should I transfer it to my laptop bag and plead ignorance - but then how did that get through security etc etc. In the end, I left it where it was, told nobody and tried to act normally, and if stopped, be as amazed as them. I've never been so pleased to walk out into the sunlight in my life! Since then, I have actually stopped wearing it - and the Blackbelt Barrister's video convinced me further. I miss the thing, but the plane thing really scared me.

I'm not completely sold on the dire doom and gloom interpretation. You often hear the current handling scenario and the dangerousness of sharing grounds, but we don't do it for audio equipment - which also has mains voltages present and common grounding systems, so if it is so dangerous for lights, then it is as dangerous for audio equipment - and we now distribute mains and data to powered speakers in line arrays, don't we? There's no difference in risk assessment. I suspect the problem with DMX is the interference to the data stream from the circulating currents that can get superimposed and because of the daisy-chaining, so hard to fault-find. Pin one problems with chassis bonding are well discussed in audio circles - why do we attach danger to life to lighting kit? Weird!

Surely, 12 appliances = major incident and security should have got everyone totally away - possibly even a site wide evac, depending on the reality and location. Having people that close and videoing is something that really should have been sorted.

What ribbon microphone don't have a transformer? The damage to ribbons is much more likely (not sure how common) with T-Powering [quote] From the manual Never plug the STC/Coles 4038 into T-Powered or Phantom Powered Mic Inputs. T-Power will instantly destroy a ribbon (and also can hurt a dynamic mic). Phantom power can do the same if you have a bad mic cable. It is best to play it safe by turning off the mic powering and waiting a minute. After this it is safe to plug in your ribbon mic. This will allow both of the mic preamps' input capacitors to discharge fully after you turn phantom powering off)[/quote] This is from an American distributors version of the manual, and I don't think it featured in the original STC document. Interesting though. T

My experience of Zello was moderately good. On proper walkie-talkies using PoC or phones, and mobile units. The radios are the most reliable. Phones seem to allow other apps precedence even when you think they’re off and brief calls can not wake them up. The biggest snag with all of them is the need to wait for access. You press the real PTT or the onscreen one, and often it takes up to a second for the system to connect and the audio to go end to end. The IP based systems are always trying to find better routes, totally out of your control and pressing the button and saying “go” often results in nothing at all the other end. Pressing the button, and saying”………………….go” might. You can also have fights with others when people press at the same time, and you don’t know which of you won! I can’t comment on anything apart from Zello.

The cheap ones from Thomann are less then ten quid - link here. I discovered that feeding the output of Soundcraft mixers into another mixer that had phantom turned on didn't do any damage - due to the differential outputs, but it did leak into the LED metering and every output LED ladder lit up!

'Take something out'? How? If mixers use global phantom power, the voltage is applied to each XLR input individually, through the usual two resistors across pins 2 and 3 of each input channel. If you did short it out by using a cable that has the pin one of each XLR connected to pin 2 (or 3) then the other channels will be fine. The downside is about half the 48V goes to the computer - but death is not assured, only possible. The safest option is to use a DI box as the transformer breaks the path for the voltage, and helps with the impedance mismatch. You could buy two really cheap ones instead of a stereo one -- for less than ten quid each. AND they'll be useful for other things too!

I'd not even thought of return for service issues! On my VAT query, the accountant advises that I must create a bill entry, for £0.00 but with the VAT amount based on what I actually paid - so if the item cost a grand, then I create an entry for VAT of £200. Then when the item sells, the VAT in that transaction is reduced by the amount in the bill entry (the input tax). If I didn't do this, the VAT paid to HMRC would be exactly the same - but I need to show it. A lot of work for no real purpose.

2 productions a year really means buying is a bad investment for anything where a warranty would be handy. Forget you are talking about mics, ask the question "why do you want to own something you use twice a year?" If you have an accountant in the organisation ask them what they advise for twice a year purchases? I bet they say hire. Doesn't matter if it's two hundred quid, or for radio mics 4 grand or so? Keep in mind that expensive radio mic systems can be wiped out in two years time by a Government change of frequency - it's happened before. Running costs for radio can be expensive. Your cast, through so many reasons, can wreck the headset mics of a radio system. Replacements will be VERY expensive. If you hire, you pay for these too, so it's a constant cost no matter how you fund them. Many people turn to low price headsets to cut down the running costs. If you spend a few hundred on a hire - a replacement mic bill might be manageable, but if you invest thousands, will the committee still be happy with regular repair budgets? Of course if all you need are a couple of stand mics, then they're much less money, and have a long life - so buying is sensible. Seriously though - ask your accountant (every group seems to have one). My view is that they're nice to own, and that's sensible if you doing a production every month, averaged over a year. For 6 outing or less a year, the warranty is pointless and they're a risk.

What do you reckon Gary? Very close - so either the same, or a similar model?

Check the wiring int the ballast connector - there were two incompatible types and sometimes they just arc in there too, sapping the oomph at the right end, same again in the lamp socket. other than that, I suspect it's the ballast. We have two complete ones, but only one now functions, the other does exactly what you are getting and swapping the ballast showed where the problem was. Oddly - CSI or CID lamps both worked fine I found?

I've got half a dozen 190's with XLRs - oddly, I've never had them with the other connector!

Sorry to dredge this up again, but we missed this mic out. It's in a lot of pictures and the front basket is similar to the CK5 for the AKG, but the tube is much thicker and it looks like a Tuschel or DIN connector. It is in lots of photos from the 70s and 80s?

It’s a little uncertain now if we are all potentially waiting for a bill. The suppliers pay the VAT due on import, for us. No doubt the big firms do, but you need to be very careful. Looking at one invoice with VAT at 20% shown clearly on it comes from one of the Nordic countries. I see no GB VAT number, just a mention of VAT. Could it be their VAT? If so, I’ve not paid UK VAT at all. I buy lots of stock from China and some have my VAT number, so don’t add VAT at their end, but that delivery that used to mean parcelforce or UPD wanted money from me, now arrives without VAT sometimes. I used to get small 2Kg packages in a big box, maybe ten or twenty in each one, and these always had VAT added by the carrier paid before or after delivery. Shipping costs now mean I get from two suppliers, individual parcels as it’s now cheaper by a long way. This means a four grand order should have £800 due in VAT, and nobody is collecting it? In my accounting software, I’m not actually sure how I account for this? I suppose I could raise an invoice for zero, and manually add a VAT amount, but surely there should be a demand for the tax, not a reliance on the purchaser to add it and pay it? If at the end of march, I suddenly get an invoice from UPS for the past three months deliveries, how would I then cancel my own voluntary payment? It’s a mess.

I get you. I picked orbital as a good example because their people often get mixed up with crews working either as individuals as employees or as sole traders, invoicing and I seems to work. At least now there is, with the status of the tool, some peace of mind.

That particular test only works where they are operating as an employee - and you are the employer, so in the typical entertainment industry scenario, it's doubtful if the answers will be binary - in terms of the questionnaire allowing HMRC to change their mind. There is a great deal of interpretation so this particular 'test' is prone to produce wrong answers. The usual process of people doing things to instruction normally determines the people as employees. In our industry working to instructions is a different process. Construction Industry modes of operation have crept in. Consider two scenarios - you hire a load of equipment from somebody like say, Orbital, and a person to run FOH. The invoice says hire of XXXXXXXXXX and operator. That person works for Orbital - as a staffer, or self-employed person, you maybe don't even know their status. You have an invoice from a large Ltd Company for equipment and services. Or, you went to the local audio firm, a much smaller concern but a Ltd company with just one employee - the front of house person. That test on the HMRC site will produce identical results. You get equipment and a person. You give that person instructions, you tell them what time to arrive. The purpose of that test is to give certain types of business protection from the HMRC coming back afterwards. It might determine you are the employer of the person who works for Orbital? They will presumably disagree you are that staff member's employer? The hierarchical system we use makes the questionnaire fail? We can't have a system that says a big firm get a different decision to a small one, and if it is a one man band, that person is still an employee of their own company - and HMRC will be collecting tax and NI from them already, and it will be detailed on their own self-assessment. Can a single person be employed by two entities for the same work at the same time? If you determine they are your employee, and their own company also determine that they are theirs - that cannot work. Using this new 'test' will generate very complicated status reports - the intermediary determination is not how our usual tax system works - we don't have them. The construction industry do, along with a few others, but our way of working - which is known to HMRC doesn't fit the system, now HMRC are using it for authenticated decision making - it sort of guarantees a false result? I've always done what Kerry does - make sure the people I use are 'real' self-employed people. If the answer to "what is your UTR?" is "what's that mean?" it's too risky. Other than that, I'll take the risk.

Two runs of that cable is 300 quid! You could get a decent multi for that and put the receivers where they should be.

I think the car is probably worth more than 1% Tom?