Chrishaynor

Hi All Hoping someone may have come across this issue. We have a wired techpro system at 2 venues and have Altair wireless systems integrated with that too. Altair base station replaced the techpro psu. All plays nicely together with old techpro and strand comms packs, but as soon as you put new techpro packs in the system we get weird noises / if you turn the volume up too high you get strange modulating. Now I’m assuming this is something to do with power draw maybe on the newer packs as they have LED’s etc. Just wondering if anyone has had the same and if they had any fixes. Mind I wonder if there’s a way of putting the techpro psu into the system too, but not sure. Any advice appreciated! Thanks in advance. Chris

Sorry chaps, haven't been on here in a while. @dmxlights Sir you are a genius! I've just tested it with our hearing aid tester and indeed you are correct (I know you already know you are! 😂) Never even crossed my mind that would work. When our chap with hearing aids is in next I shall get him to give it a go and see how he gets on. Blueroom triumphs again! I did also get Canford to quote for a headset with a 3.5 mm jack output for a neck loop to plug in. As always the guys there were very quick and helpful, but we'd decided not to go down that route for the moment. Thanks for everyone's input.

Sorry I didn't come back on. Can you tell it's been a while since I logged in. @Bryson thanks for your input. That's a great summary. It's what we were generally thinking, very much my take on it as well. It's nice to hear it from others too though. Nothing more useful than input from people out there doing it. We often get riders for touring acts. Generally they will bring their own or are happy to use theirs. We've never yet had to hire something else in for someone. We currently have a turbosound rig at both our venues currently. We get a proper mix of 'it's got turbo written on it - I'm not using it', 'Looks and sounds nice, I'll use it', 'Great, we don't have to load ours in' etc. My common sense approach if I hadn't experienced these things from what I've heard and used is an nice high quality PA that is setup well and designed for the room would be perfectly fine. It's doesn't have to have a brand name on it. Quite a lot of people will specify D&B, Martin, L'Acoustic, Meyer, but still use ours when they come in anyway. I think our bigger shows that currently stack in a pile of Kara, etc will still want to bring theirs in if we have a point source system whatever brand it is and as long as fills are nice and well setup, they'll add those on top. In the new place we'll have ability to fly arrays as well which we can't do now. It seems a difficult one to judge, but thanks for everyone's opinions. We'll have some more discussions.

Thanks All. Have sent a few emails and see what people say. Kept getting stuck in a loop on the A&H website to find the find a service centre, so the direct link to the AT page is very useful. @bruce he does make some mighty fine DI's. We have a couple ourselves. Again thank for your help. Many thanks Chris

Hi All Just wondering if people have specific companies they use for desk servicing. We have 2x GLD consoles that are getting on a bit now. Both are having a few issues, the odd glitchy encoder, etc. We have tried to go straight to Allen and Heath but they don't currently seem to be able to give us a timescale, etc. Just seeing if there are other companies anyone could recommend. After a full service on 2 desks although we may have to stagger them going off so we still have use of them. We are in Somerset, so the more local the better I guess. Thank in advance for any suggestions. Chris

Thanks @kerry daviesand @sandall Building is currently in design, no building yet. Technical and acoustic consultants are part of the project, so stuff is being designed and integrated, etc at this stage. As far as pecking order I oversee the audio side of our current venue and this will continue in the new one. All our technicians are getting input to the planning to give as many ideas as possible. There will be one balcony. The consulatants have put together a couple ideas of options of pa, one being EM and the other d&b. There are pro’s and cons to both, but really this thread was for any touring engineers, etc to see what PA’s people liked in theatres they tour to / if people had particular thoughts on brands for this style of install. I’ve heard plenty of line array d&b, l acoustic, turbosound, nexo both touring and westend etc. I think the biggest consideration for us is if when people come in (even if it’s a nice sounding PA) if they want to use it if it’s not a d&b / l acoustic etc.

Thanks all Thats really helpful. Going to get some demos or do some visits to places with nice setups of some of the above PA’s. If anyone has any more input, the more opinions the merrier 🙂

Hi All I realise this is a very broad question, and everyone will have wildly differing opinions. Also I don’t have / can’t offer up specific venue data as its a new venue and this is early discussions. But… Medium sized theatre space 800 to 1000 capacity. Stalls, a few boxes and a circle. Standard end on proscenium affair. PA to be used for rock and roll touring shows, musicals, Panto, spoken word. Banded about a few options by different people. A d&b system has been discussed. Point source, mainly V series with other E5 and such like for fills. Also a similar designed system from EM acoustic has been proposed. I’ve not come across much EM stuff before and only heard d&b line array of various systems before. I’d imagine d&b is more likely to be used without question by touring companies purely on the name. Not sure if with an EM people would choose not to use, etc. Just thought I’d see if people on here had options if they’ve heard or compared EM. D&B is pushing the budget a little, and may mean we have to sacrifice some monitors / maybe less subs for the money, and add at a later date / hire in sometimes for a little more punch. System would be designed and installed by good companies and modelled properly for the room / incorporated into the build at planning stage. Thoughts from people would be interesting to hear. I’m aware it’s a bit vague, so apologise for that. Thanks in advance. Chris

Hi All Thanks for all the suggestions. Some nice ideas. Will look into maybe adapting an old headset into a loop instead of a speaker. Not loads of info around if the electronics side of doing that sort of thing but will have a look around. I think we have an old DT-108 headset around and don’t think he got on with that either. NHS audiologist wise I think at the moment to get anything out of them is months of waiting time, but I’ll suggest chatting to them. The direct into hearing aid will possibly work, he says he can select which ear does what / chose inputs, so that would be helpful. Not been on here for quite a while but was having a read through the bluecom stuff so will look into it further. I’ve dropped canford an email to see if they have any other products tucked away that may do the job. Again, as always a string of helpful reply’s, thanks all!

Hi All Thinking someone must have had a need for this / might have some ideas. We are a theatre with a primarily Tecpro comms system, with also a Altair wireless set as well. We have a tech who uses hearing aids and trying to see if there’s a solution that could help and would be compatible. Other must have had this need I imagine. The struggle is that with hearing aids in the headsets don’t sit in the right place to work well with the hearing aids, and if the hearing aids are removed the headset doesn’t quite go loud enough to hear properly. Has anyone got any ideas for kit, or solutions to this. My best suggestion so far was to get a Y lead from canford that splits the mic and headphone signals so a mic could be separate and the output could go into a small Bluetooth box that he has to feed straight into his hearing aids. In theory it would work, but is bulky and also mean it’s just the comms into the hearing aids and he’ll then not get ambient from the room / show feed as well. It’s also very clumsy / bulky if on wireless / anywhere else in the building. Not sure if squeezing a bit more out of the headset somehow would work without distortion / blowing it. Any thoughts / experience of this sort of challenge would be appreciated. I have a basic electronics knowledge so happy to look at tweaks to things myself as well as off the shelf solutions. Also looking at possibly a punqtum system in the future so anything that would move across to that would be great. Thanks in advance all! Chris

Thanks chaps, good to know. Have the 2 cell and single cell houselights in our other venue. We had 4 singles go out within 6 months. That was a diode in them all apparently that was too close to tolerances, so they replaced all the driver boards for the singles. So far so good. Interesting about the mains vs dimmable. I’m not sure what ours are, but if I had to guess I’d say mains, so that’ll be interesting. A bit of investigating then before I get in touch with them. Good to know it isn’t just us.

Hi All Had the GDS bluesystem installed for a few years (know they are now owned by ETC) We’ve had a lot break now and have 6 out of 9 not working. They are not used loads of the time, so wouldn’t have expected them to break by now. We had quite a few issues with their house lights too, but they are now sorted and was components on the drive board. Wondering if anyone else has the GDS blue’s and if they have broken quite soon too? Thanks Chris

Thanks Chaps Really useful. I assumed as much, but never assume and all that. I will of course save / revert if needed. Good to know the etc forum is nice and active. Just didn’t have time this morning to an create account. Thanks again! :-)

Hi All A quick one if someone knows the answer. In the middle of plotting a show. Have some Chauvet R2x washes. Dimming was looking a bit steppy on a couple of slow, low fades yesterday and turns out they are on their 17chan profile and need to be on their 22chan profile for 16bit dimming. Col, beam and focus pallets are setup already as well as being in cues manually. All pallets are recorded by type, so not sure the outcome if I change the fixture profile to the 22chan one. Does anyone know if it will know it’s the same fixture even though technically the fixture profile is different or if it won’t have any data if I change it over? Hope that makes sense, don’t have time to play today before I get back to it. Cheers guys Chris

Hi All We currently have a camera at FOH position feeding a monitor at prompt position. Really we want to upgrade this but not really sure what to go for. At the moment it’s a very old broadcast style camera someone donated many many years ago. We did trial a quite nice security style camera before that would switch to infrared automatically, but it took 8 seconds to switch to and from normal and infra. Just wondering what others use for this. Any models / brands or types of camera to look at. A nice high quality image, preferably auto switching to infrared. Would probably need to send over analogue cable ideally, but can look at other options. Thanks in advance.

Thanks. Assumed that was the case, but though I’d ask. Will design with full boxes in mind then. :-)

Hi Chaps A very simple one. Always bought pyro in full boxes previously. I know this is normally and is probably the only way due to delivery reg’s etc possibly. But just wondering if anyone does sell individually or not. Worth a shot. Have a talent show next year but only for one night and it would be handy to have 6 or so mines for example and 4 jets, etc. I know it’s probably a no, but I know someone will definitely know on here. Many thanks in advance. Chris