Simon Lewis

When I was working in an HE environment, our rigging equipment was included in the overall site's lifting equipment inspection, (which our department didn't have to pay for - so no problem if extra gear got added!). We showed the insurance inspector a pair of Manfrotto 087 stands, and he pronounced them to be lifting equipment and inspected them every year afterwards.

I should have emboldened the "hire and reward" part, but yes - this doesn't apply when carrying own goods (although other rules may well apply!). However, as Jon surmises, proving that you are not working for hire or reward may well be problematic. Also, the sort of events or tours that would opt for and work with a small van are probably not going to easily fit within the drivers hours regs...

Don't think I have seen this mentioned here before... Seems that from the 21st May, if you are driving a van or car and trailer with a MAM over 2.5t (up to 3.5t) for hire or reward in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, you will need a standard international goods vehicle operator licence. The application requirements won't be quite as onerous as for vehicles over 3.5t, but to apply, you will still need to have a transport manager with CPC, the correct financial standing and (as far as I can see) a fitted tachograph and follow driver's hours etc. I suspect that small tours, transporting goods etc. will be somewhat hit by this added cost and restrictions... Transport goods in Europe in vans or car and trailers from 21 May 2022

I seem to remember that grounding to the shell is forbidden in the DMX spec...

The other issue that caused problems was the immovable insistence that all IT related items must be purchased by, and through the IT department. IT related got defined as any type of software, any type of computing hardware and anything that happened to have an RJ45 socket, "because that must be for networking"... In the end it was better to keep quiet about the presence of such interfaces than to argue whether IT should be trying to buy electronics labs microcontroller systems, guitar effects pedal boards or turntable systems for KEMAR mannequins...

Yes - I've been in that situation too... but have to say that the constraints placed by my old employer's tendering process were far less helpful than their three quotes system. The purchasing department couldn't accept that you might know more about the market, the suppliers and the product than they did, and tended to assume that high end production equipment could be negotiated and bought in the same way as a contract for 5 years worth of toilet paper... 🙂

Be thankful if your college is happy to use the 'three quotes' approach... It's not unusual for FE and HE institutions to insist that larger projects go to competitive tender. You can end up not being able to closely specify the items wanted and having to buy what you don't want from the firm you'd rather not deal with... 🙂

In the same vein, diesel is now £7.50 a gallon near us...

Gravity make a couple of flat metal plate lighting/speaker stands. Admittedly a 35mm pole is not as svelte as a mic stand, and may need some suitable conversion to mount the speaker, but it is a readily available unit that's low profile and discreet, and is very solid and sturdy. It could also be used with bigger speakers...

It is good that there were no serious injuries or fatalities, but as a result it has hardly made the news. I'd hope every TV channel would show how quickly such fires can start and from what seemingly innocuous devices...

I suspect that the "likelihood of power cuts that last more than a few hours times the severity of being without communication" equation has been looked at, and the resultant risk was considered acceptable...

I didn't know they were still selling that.... Their later flagship desk, the M5000 somewhat ran aground, and although there doesn't appear to be any official information, I understand it's discontinued. I don't think there's been any development on the M300 for many years? It didn't have the best UI in the world 10 years ago, and it'll look somewhat out of place compared to more modern offerings. It appears to be available only from one or two AV companies... Your suspicion of "SQ5 or small dLive rig being the best way to go" looks pretty sensible to me!

Smart Stage and Soundscape under one umbrella... that's a good combination!

I've had the protective 'rubber' bumpers of some DI boxes go sticky over the various lockdowns. Removing this is always a balance between using a solvent that is so polar and aggressive that it will also remove a wanted paint or screen print layer or one that is gentle but isn't really effective. Although WD40 is often touted in these situations, and the aliphatic hydrocarbons it contains can be quite useful in getting off 'gunk'. I'm not so keen on getting the mineral oil from WD40 on gear or cables and am not a fan of the persistent smell either! I am wary of using acetone as it is quite aggressive, but if used to dampen (but not saturate) a cotton cloth and then the cloth is rubbed fairly hard on the affected parts (!) it seems quite good at removing the stickiness without noticeably damaging the surface.

I can recommend Paul Malpas... he has worked on major auditorium projects, has done normal acoustics and electroacoustics and now works for SSE in Project Development. He's a great guy who has excellent experience designing and adapting performance venues. Linked in

The TF has lots of little surprises.... It's quite a good desk, and there are those who find it easy or even preferable to work on, and enjoy the simplified interface. Sadly, I am not one of those people....

Yamaha do tend to keep spares for even discontinued desks... Although (as you say) it is a little long in the tooth, it's still a capable digital desk and one of the few that offers "a fader per input". It may be worth asking a Yamaha service centre what the cost of some love and care might be....?

I thought fibre was going to be mandatory, given some of the available commentary (after all, it's in various provider's financial interest to talk up the need for fibre!).

You won't need fibre to the property (although there's some obvious speed benefits if you do have that) just an internet connection. Your telephony provider will offer some form of VoIP package to replace the analogue service. If you have VoIP phones, these can just plug into the router. If you have analogue phones, it should be possible to get converters which will provide the D-A / A-D conversion and necessary line/ring voltages to make the old style phones work. For landline customers who do not have internet (mainly much older people) there should be a basic internet connection offered which will allow VoIP to work.

I do not think the sound guy is deaf... I think that collectively, many sound engineers have learnt or have been taught to mix with a "bass haystack" eq, that the kick has to sound a certain way with in and out mics, compressed and probably triggered too, that bass guitar doesn't get its own range anymore but is only allowed the bottom octave so as to give separation, that vocals are treated with multiple compression, dynamic equalisation and reverbs from endless libraries of treatments from a server that takes up the first 15 minutes of soundcheck to get working and on the right version to work with the desk, that tracks get added in, making the mix heavier and more complex and that the PA - once the weak link that struggled to get enough audio bandwidth and level in the larger venue - is now efficient, compact, can reach down to 30Hz with some ease and is deployed in sufficient quantities to ensure headroom is never a problem. I was at a community / charity bonfire recently. The bass was mixed so loud that it was almost as if the mid and high outputs of a three way crossover had been muted. There was some playback stuff and DJ stuff going which had bass that was physically uncomfortable. Then there was a couple of guys with acoustics, whose vocals couldn't be heard through the booming 120Hz resonance of the guitars. Even the acapella men's choir sounded rough, but they backed off from the mics and self regulated the levels somewhat. Songs from the 60s to 80s played back were largely unrecognisable, as the relationship between bass and kick to the rest of the voices and instruments was out by ~ 20dB. It was a good job the bonfire was far better than the audio...

Another thumbs up for Turbo iQ8 / iQ10 powered boxes....

I have long left the world of Environmental Impact Assessments, but one of the few things that I can remember was that it is easily possible to slant a 'cradle to grave' impact assessment, simply by carefully choosing which aspects of the contributing factors you choose to focus on. We can argue over what is desirable, what is possible and what is achievable. However, I doubt that we can simply carry on as we have done - the tide has turned beyond just a few hippies, tree huggers and eco warriors doing their thing in a field somewhere.

Thanks for the heads up.... I still can't see the benefit to them - or to me... but will start searching for free solutions again. I'm certainly not buying into a pay per month solution!

A similar tale when I worked at a Uni.... It may have been embellished a little with the telling, but the story went that having failed to get music out of one Macbook using a 3.5mm to two XLR cable (with phantom accidentally applied) that the hapless user then plugged the cable into two more devices and fried those as well... The XLR based cables were confiscated...!

Crumbs - that's an impressive memory recall, Kerry! The University of Derby certainly did have one of these back in 2010, but I only saw it once, and haven't spoken with the Estates guys about its use. I was based on another site, where we had a powered Genie scissor lift, and Estates would come and borrow this occasionally, so I'd guess they found enough jobs that the Monkey Tower couldn't do, to make collecting it worthwhile. I've retired from Uni, so have no contact with Estates anymore, but Kit Lane is still working at Derby, so might be worth checking with...