paulears

I’m looking forward to sizewell 3 which will be great for the local economy, despite the obvious road congestion. A speculative rail terminal in my town next to the harbour looks set to be used taking lots of lorry movements away. It seems popular to target people’s entertainment rather than other areas. I doubt practically every statistic and official data source now I’m afraid.

I'm afraid for me, the pressure for carbon neutrality has persuaded me that some people demand progress at a rate that is impossible.I understand the reasons, but I'm beginning to resent the people who initiate these plans. The minute I now see 'University Study', 'Professor" and the BBC in one cluster I know it will be shady in the extreme - the intelligence and evidence gathering, the conclusions and of course the BBC's cherry picking by media graduates with no experience or history. Bike parking just made me smile. The notion of no international touring will be next. There will be a distance from your home, over which you cannot travel. Clearly, all festivals will need to be shifted to a geographically convenient location. That will be disputed by the Scots, considered unfair by the Welsh and Irish and like everything nowadays, history sacrificed for trendyism. NOBODY likes the locations, the travelling, the mud, and of course the expense - not the performers, workers or audience - but festivals are what people like - a community event. Turning them into something less is plain nonsense. Entertainment has already chopped huge holes in the footprint - now they want to ban headliners flying in from Australia and making them come by train?

Amazon are having trouble with their Italian site supplying to the uk, it’s reported the uk vat is charged, but so is Italian vat, and Amazon are struggling to fix it.

No I would have promoted him to be balance manager, had him develop hand signals then stand at the very back and signal to the others to push or pull their section levels. He would have felt important, been totally ignored and be nowhere near a microphone!

I recorded an amateur choir a week or two ago and knew from the off the guy on the front row who had a voice like a foghorn and sang his own version of the tune would be an issue. The conductor asked if I could work magic and remove him. I couldn’t and I felt her look at me in disbelief! Surely technology must be able to remove one person in a group?

We've had some success with LED Light bars either on the floor or hung on mic stands - they take up little van space too. The T-bars I bought were a total pain - far less useful than we thought, never ever able to be in the right place.

What did Scotty say? "Ye can break the laws of physics Captain". I have got quite a few shotguns - short shotguns like Sennheiser 416s, AKG 451+CK8 and even the stupidly long CK9, plus Audio Technica and a couple of others - and NONE of them will do what you want. You can put them on the floor on suspension mounts, clip them to poles, dangle them from girders - anything, but when you turn the level up till it feeds back, then back it off till stable you will find hardly anything coming out of the speakers. Shotgun mics are best viewed as torches. Imagine the mic is a torch with different beam widths from medium to quite narrow. Anything in the beam will be amplified. Not just the person, but the floor, the walls, other people and you hear whatever is in the field. Given the choice of boundary mics or shotguns I stopped using shotguns as soon as I got the first boundaries. The often reported comment about the floor noise is perfectly true, but it's two things - the airborne sound of the feet and the vibration through the floor. A thin bit of foam sorts the structural stuff, but feet do make noises, and shotguns pointing at a floor pick this up just the same as the boundaries. Shotguns pointing up at the mouth do work - BUT - there's always a gap where if you have more than one, they overlap. Odd numbers work best, but when all the faders are up there's a nasty comb filtering going on and a kind of hollow sound. The advice to make them speak up/sing out really is the best solution. It's basically signal to noise - maximum voice to minimum noise. In my summer seasonal theatre with 1400 seats, people often insisted on using shotguns - 5 across the 12 m pros opening. You would always hear perfectly the person on row three singing loudly out of tune, and nothing of the ones on row one singing quietly. In a play, with the faders just under the feedback point, muting them often did nothing at all, unless you choreograph the entire blocking of the show to make the weak people stand in front of one. It's a futile exercise for PA - but recording with them can be really good. They're just rubbish for amplification.

Hmm I’m not remotely experienced with glass gobos in these but I did not adjust the peaking in the S4. In the cantata the gobo was in facing the lens not lamp. I’m wondering if the gobo was just a little tight in the holder and the heating bent it a little? It’ll probably be another ten years till we get given another do no opportunity to experiment sadly. It was apparently sharp and clear in an s4 at the next venue!

Supplied recently with a B size glass gobo, I was somewhat unimpressed with the performance, and the light output from the Source 4 was pretty poor and worse, trying one in a Cantata cracked the glass. The show tours the gobos and I couldn't get any brightness from the Source 4 zoom, and while the Cantata was a bit brighter - wrecking the gobo was embarrassing - what did I do wrong?

I bought these for radios used in airsoft team games - they have been solid - decent length of time on a full charge and all seem to last the same time.

The switchable patterns would do it for me. I used to buy mics direct from, I'm pretty sure, the same source. I gave up when Thomann took their entire production. They were rather nice sounding and brighter than I thought. I'd happily use them at that price. The SE is not a large diaphragm mic I think it's 15mm, so not really the same thing. Just a kind of half-way house. Thomann have some of these smaller capsules in some of their larger mics too. The Mackie may or may not be a full size diaphragm mic. Their own specs are very vague on it, but their description of 'cardioid' shows as a supercardioid in the downloaded spec polar diagram and that's more typical of the smaller size one. I wonder if +10mm counts as 'large' - in my suspicious head. This just confirms my gut reaction to go with Thomann.

What interests me is that the venue charge appears to cover the lighting they supply, and then they charge you for repairs. I assume you are the only user - clearly they couldn't charge you for other people using the equipment. It would seem that if you are the only user, then this needs to be contractually looked at by the legal folk. I supply equipment for a venue, and it lives there permanently. A few pre 1994 lights are still in use. My contract makes the theatre responsible for replacement of lamps, not me - but failures to my equipment are firmly my responsibility. To my way of thinking, you hope the venue with an inventory of equipment in working and safe order. If repairs have become your responsibility because they purchased it, but don't like the running costs, this requirement for you to repair their equipment needs looking at. There is another aspect. These failures could be a safety risk. If you focus one of them and get a shock, if you have accepted, perhaps by not rejecting the repair charge demands, responsibility - then that could be something your insurance company will reject. A death or serious injury caused by equipment supplied by the venue. I'm not sure this would fly in the UK. Hired in equipment is always the responsibility of the owner in repairs and safety. The venue seem to have invested in new lights, seen increased running costs and passed them on. Accepting these charges places you in a dodgy area. If I was paying for repairs like this, I'd want to be told exactly why the repairs were needed and see the reports and possibly (if I had to pay contractually) find a different repair company.

My guess Tom, is that the simpler you can make it, the better it will be.

Bobby handed me a pile of bits in a carrier bag, and I asked what one bit was for? He said for the guitar. I looked around and said "What guitar?" He looked too and said he'd left it at home. Tommy gave him a daggers look and he wandered off and came back with the cheapest, nastiest guitar he could have bought. It was getting close to opening the house, so we plugged it in and it went twang - badly out of tune. Not to worry, chap, he said I'll tune it. He did the usual interruptions in the act with it and it sounded not too horrible - but the last sound cue was on "hit it" play the track - Rockin' all over the world. Bobby had tuned it to somewhere between E and Eb, and everyone winced as he played it. I've done hundreds of shows - summer seasons and one-nighters with them. In the later years they were no trouble at all. Back in the 80s, though, they were a nightmare. One season found Bobby in dressing room Stage Right, and Tommy Stage left. One would call me over and say can you tell Bobby when he does the table tennis, can he enter from this side, I'd wander off and Bobby would say no, tell Tommy he has to come on this side, and in the end I remember saying I did lights, not marriage guidance. That season was hell - they hardly spoke to each other off stage. Then after a while they got on much better again, than goodness. One time not too long before Bobby passed away, they were in the wings discussing what to do, and I asked if they still did the invisible tennis table - and they looked at each other and nodded. They'd forgotten it for years and put it in seamlessly. In the later years, seeing one or two dates always cheered me up - and the younger crew members who'd never heard of them were chuckling on comms - so the comedy still worked. Mind you, they had one routine with trumpet stabs as cues, and I've no idea why they kept it going because with no real rehearsal, so many venues, including ours, would mess the cues up badly - making it even funnier.

I have never even considered interrupting a show for this kind of reason. Using uncoordinated frequencies is very much at the users risk,and in the case of ch 70, OFCOM have no interest whatsoever, and users don't actually have any licence with conditions to follow. No contravension of licence conditions in a licence free band. If I were using coordinated frequencies, as we do at major events, then OFCOM might be able to investigate if an officer is on site, but realistically - it's an after event activity. Proper planning generally keeps these things controlled. In my case, a legal system was being used, and the bowls tournament were using something similar. In the case of licenced systems, the critical issue is surely the interpretation of 'interference'. My licence includes the word 'undue', and my interpretation is that this means things like deliberate use of a channel to access other systems, or generating emmissions to disrupt. In a crowded band, co-channel interference is common, and surely doesn't warrant the term 'undue interference' Indeed, with their own transmitter in operation, then capture effect would, at the distances involved, would have made both systems totally unaware of each other. I think the issue of copyright is irrelevant to this discussion, because almost every licenced system is playing music - however, the term that matters for this is broadcasting. Links, which radio microphones are, are generally considered as not designed for direct broadcasting to the public. The loudspeakers on the sea front of course would be. Luckily, the negligence in leaving them turned on is pointed at the bowls people. I see no negligence in operating a licenced or even licence expempt system. Show stops are not trivial things, and retuning a mic, even if possible, with no testing is not something to be done for situations like mine. In fact - stopping a show for something like this would have to be context sensitive. For C&B (who rarely added new material, but rearranged old stuff for their entire career)the accidental extra audience is simply embarassing. If the material had been 'difficult' I'd probably have brought an emergency cable mic into use. That's sensible as a solution for any of the shows that warn about being easily offended. Not for Canon and Ball.

If we're doing anecdotes - we had a bowls championship on Gt Yarmouth Seafront - with loads of horns cable tied to the lighting posts down the prom. During our evening show big panic as a chap came panting up the stairs and explained that Bobby Ball's microphone was loud and VERY clear down the seafront. They'd locked up and gone home and not switched the PA off and it was on the same channel we were using. We didn't comply with the request to stop using it. Next night it was Jim Davidson ....... now that would have been interesting, but I figured "Rock on Tommy" wasn't really going to upset anyone.

Well don't worry! I have resigned - so long and thanks for the slagging off today - you went too far with the accusations. Paul

I've got a couple of dongles David, but I want something freestanding - where I can apply power, shove the faders and lights come up. I don't want to use a computer, mouse and monitor - I have a flight case top that be just the right size - add a computer and much less convenient. Clearly I'm on my own here, which I do get - but rather hoped I wasn't a pioneer.

I take the point, but I could buy one of these, which offer vastly more than a five hundred quid control from any other source. There is also a growing shift in big names sourcing product manufacture to the Far East. The production cost for somebody making product in world wide numbers must be less than smaller factories making these things, so at some point in the chain from factory to user, where does the ten time or more hike in price come. So many firms now source product over there the old claims of poor quality and unreliability are sounding very hollow - when virtually everything is foreign sourced then imported. We also have difficulty in the difference between counterfeit, clone and grey import. I know of one well known manufacturer who has their products made over there, and the American versions suddenly had issues with compliance over there. I've been selling loads of genuine items here - the US spec models unable to be sold until they modify them over there, so I've been doing quite nicely. The UK main dealer is pretty unhappy, but resigned to it. They won't of course honour any warranty issues, but I bought enough spares to be able to offer people replacements under warranty and so far, there have been none. The Chinese moving head lights I bought twelve years ago and got the doom and gloom warnings here on the BR have seen out of 36 units, 2 faulty ones. One electronic, one mechanical. I've changed my tune. I've had a year of no work to adjust my ethics on this subject, and now I'm quite happy to throw £500 on a control that will do the job for me. I think the closeness to AVO is a step too far for selling them, because that still tugs at me - but for using it myself? I'd happily do that and consider it very good value for money. What I don't know is if they have just copied the shape and buttons, or the OS too, or maybe copied a bit and changed other things. This was what I hoped somebody would tell me from their own experience. Perhaps I expected too much. I presume AVO are busy with their current models - these older products haven't featured for a while, so anyone buying AVO with the AVO budget wouldn't be swayed? I assume AVO are made in the UK, well apart from the components that aren't, or is that assembled in the UK with foreign made parts. The totally unreliable Chinese bits wouldn't be in there, would they? Or are we saying that Chinese parts might be OK when bought by the good guys but bad when bought by the others? I remember Motorola being rather cross when the factory that made the components for their radios were left with piles of un-paid for components when models suddenly changed. So the factory gathered them up and had enough to put them together - which they did and sold on. If brands have their products made abroad, and don't do the Behringer thing of actually buying the factory, then they have lost control of their own product. Are these elderly spec controls a threat when the current ones are all touch screen and posh? If they said AVO on them, then they would be counterfeit and like Gibson Guitars - things can be done. Look-alike products build down to IP action, and often it's unworkable to take action in foreign countries. I have five hundred quid and want a control. Covid removed my income, I think the realities of self-employment rather than furloughing have changed my views on how I spend my money. First thing of course is to see how easy it is to build the library files - never done that on AVO, only MagicQ. No point buying one if it cannot work the lights. Did I mention these are Chinese too?

Since Covid - I've had a video studio up and running in a property I took over, and I put in a scaff grid for lighting - Initially TV style kit - LED flat panels that kind of thing but my theatre stuff crept in for a few jobs (music videos) and seem to live happily there now. Control wise, I'm using my magicQ - but this will hopefully be going back to it's proper home for the summer leaving mje without a DMX control - and while I could use a dongle and stick Magicq on a computer, I'd rather have real faders. I've spotted a couple that would work for me - and they're clearly pointed at the AVOs. R20 library. I'm not worried about reliability - and while clearly looking like AVOs, there are differences and no branding. A bit of research suggests they're really popular in India and China - but the non-roller version is really quite cheap. Loads of people understandably will hate them and the concept behind them - as in blank copying, but for the price - I'd get a very, very basic DMX control. Plenty of faders enough for the video stufff, and a few colours from the spare movers I have hanging there. I'm quite tempted because it's a power up, shove faders and away you go solution. Has anyone tried these things? Youtube brings up plenty of videos in Hindi!

I've always just ended up nibbling it away with side cutters. Never founds any product to dissolve it?

You're probably safe with it, but others? I sold a radio two weeks ago to a guy who said he wanted to get rid of the nasty European 2 pin plug and fit a 13A on the two core cable. which one was the live? He was going to cut off the switch mode power supply and put the 13A plug on the DC cable. I think if it was going to somebody else, I'd not like to send it out with the US wiring colours, but send it out with decent colour coded UK type cable, just in case in the future somebody needed to put a new plug on and wired it the wrong way. People can be thick - and there is always the chance that not doing it now could hurt somebody in five years time and who would they come after?

It's more interesting he was actually building stuff. Most new hams cannot even put a mains plug on, and I had to stop one the other day cutting off the 2 pin Euro charger and fitting a 13A plug to the DC cable coming out of it. Thank goodness he emailed to ask which of the the two black wires was the live one! Ham radio is actually very busy - but has changed focus to concentrate on digital comms - which does tend to make thing very complicated. I programmed one the other day, got a digit wrong and ended up talking to a guy driving down the old Route 66, not the small village just across the border in Norfolk.

You can get some quite tall (3m) wind up stands from our German friends for less than £300 now with quite decent head load too.

To many firms are using the vat change in europe for transaction that have nothing to do with the EU. The new system that is causing foreign countries to collect vat for us there is silly. The current collection and payment system works fine. It’s the damn consumer folk who hate additions they weren’t expecting who drove it!