Age 40 going on 4

[Just Some Bloke]

Hi there!

 

Did sound last night for visiting singing group who once won the Eurovision Song Contest by getting the 2 boys to remove the two girls' skirts (initials BF) while they were making their minds up.

 

Atmospheric pressure was extraordinarily high and so we experienced a couple of problems with the radio mics. During the sound check (for which they arrived 40 mins late), one of the hand-held radios experienced some cut-through on its frequency so we swapped it for the spare. All continued well.

 

Unfortunately, as they'd started the soundcheck late and went on too long, there wasn't time to retune to a less dodgy frequency before the show, but the spare was fine so we went with it. During the show, the spare started to cut-out occasionally causing another problem for us hard-pressed noise boys. Luckily the singer in question was also wearing a headset which she wanted to use for some of the numbers and this was still working very well indeed. Naturally, I quickly swapped to the headset mic and within seconds the problem was sorted.

 

But said singer decided her hand-held wasn't working and therefore she couldn't be heard. She made more and more grimaces and hand gestures to the handheld but failied to see us (myself for the venue mixing voices and her own "producer" on playback) gesturing to the headset with thumbs up to let her know it was OK. At the end of the song she asked, on mic, if her handheld mic was working. Producer shouts "no, but you're on headset which is working fine". "Haven't you got a spare" she asks? "You were using the spare. Your headset is working fine - we don't have a problem" we shout back. Another of the singers says to her "your headset is fine, what more do you want?".

 

At this point she stamps up and down like a 4-year old having a tantrum as shouts "I WANT A PROPER RADIO MIC", literally stamping on the ground and having a "hissy fit"!

 

Clearly, nothing can be done and, indeed, nothing needs to be done because she can be heard perfectly well and the reason we couldn't retune the spare was down to their overrunning on the soundcheck. We even had a spare headset mic in case it should be needed, but it wasn't!

 

She eventually went on, after having made a complete t*t of herself on stage. If she hadn't reacted the way she did the audience would have been none the wiser, save for a couple of seconds of drop-out which would have been quickly forgotten.

 

Hey ho! :huh:

[J Pearce]

In these situations I remind myself,

 

How many people will turn round to me at the next gig I engineer and say do you remember that dropout in the middle of such and such. None

 

How many people will remind said singer of her tantrum?

[charlyfarly]

:huh: This reminds me of a similar thing that happened some time ago. I was working FOH for this band who shall remain nameless and since money was a bit thin they would use the house LD at all gigs.

On one particular show everything seemed to be going quite well when one of the band, on mic, yelled "Who's doing the lights?.....Stevie Wonder?". Suddenly the whole stage was plunged into darkness. I turned round to look at the lampie only to see him disappearing through one of the exits! Random booing broke out from the audience so I left the mixing desk and ran after him and whispered a few sweet nothings in his ear and told him that the band member IMO was an ignorant oik and that he should take his remarks with a pinch of salt.

I felt really sorry for the guy because I actually thought he was doing a great job especially since he didn't know any of the bands material. Well order was restored but I did have a 'quiet word' with said band member in the dressing room after the show, that he should keep some of his choice remarks to himself in future or splash out on an LD who would know the set! :D

[paulears]

There are two Bucks Fizzes. One has Bobby Gee and his wife Heidi (in the middle, below) very firmly in charge and he does know what he's on about. They don't tour with a manager - very self contained and great to work with. The other Bucks Fizz are, well, interesting. I suspect this may well have been the one you had, in this case, your post makes perfect sense.

http://www.limelight.org.uk/bucksfizz6.jpg

http://www.limelight.org.uk/bucksfizz8.jpg

So if it was this Bucks Fizz, I'm very surpised, if not these..... can't comment. It all went to court a while ago, and Bobby's Bucks Fizz are allowed to called themselves "Bucks Fizz" other versions have to add a name in front as in BLA BLA's Bucks Fizz

[Just Some Bloke]

Yup, we had the 3 out of 4 as opposed to the 1 out of 4 who got the name. Our boys and girls were called by their names plus "formerly known as...". Now that they're middle aged the whole thing with the skirts doesn't work so well. One of the "girls" had a middle aged spread, so seeing her in a leotard and tights wasn't what you'd call "sexy". The other was thin, on crutches (not her fault - footballing injury), and was wearing a pair of pants that were too big for her and held together with a safety pin at the back, with horrible folds and creases in around the front: not sexy either. Mike Nolan (who removed the skirts) looked suitably embarrassed!

[paulears]

Thought so. Bobby Gee is really a perfectionist, nice bloke too. They all went to great lengths to make the movements really work - videoing their performances and looking for small slips, that they could work on. We'd have them back any time!

 

It was Bobby who first introduced me to EV300's. He had two pairs either side and that was the first time I'd heard them.

[Pete Alcock]

Whatever kind of radio mics are you using? If the dropouts were due to intermodulation or busy frequencies, take a look at this. (AudioTechnica Frequency finder).

 

Pete.

[Just Some Bloke]

Whatever kind of radio mics are you using? If the dropouts were due to intermodulation or busy frequencies, take a look at this. (AudioTechnica Frequency finder).

 

Pete.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

They were Senheiser's very best! Intermodulation wasn't the problem. The first mic to go down was picking up something horrible on its frequency from outside and the second started to experience drop-out despite having new mic capsule, new antenna and new batteries. The day after that gig the next lot in the theatre brought their own sound company in who said "we had some awful problems with the radios and in ears yesterday". It was very hot and humid due to high atmospheric pressure. We were using channel 69 which, I guess, didn't like the high pressure. Either that or just sheer bad luck! Radios do go wrong and the "law of averages" (which I know doesn't exist, but you know what I mean!) says that every so often 2 will go wrong at the same time.

[paulears]

The "high pressure thing" - widely known to us poor devils who live near the sea, is very unlikely to be your problem. The phenomena of tropospheric ducting, which is what normally causes this problem with TV is due to strata of different temperature and humidity air streams. Essentially (and this is a bit simplistic) a duct is created where any radio signals in it get reflected internally at the junction between the layers - in practice, a tv transmitter signal in Holland, gets into the duct over the North Sea, and 'falls out' when the duct collapses this end. Living near the coast, the change from sea to land often breaks up the duct, and our local tv signals get replaced by stronger ones coming in from abroad. These ducts do extend inland, but weather conditions have to more extreme. Radio mic wise on channel 69, there shouldn't be any TV, so it is rare to get this problem. It does occur more in the lower bands when people are trying to squeeze things in between unused (in their area) TV channels. Depending on the weather, VHF may be effected more than UHF, but the offending UHF TV transmitters run very high power.

 

The good news is the signal strength at your receiver antenna sockets from your h/h's and packs will be quite high, and the receivers are not actually made that sensitive (well, they could actually be a lot more sensitive, but it isn't needed). This helps with co-channel interference. As Pete says, the most likely cause is intermod - possibly from things you aren't even aware of. The quality of your system isn't proof against intermod. It's a physics thing. If freq A + freq B = freq C, and this is what you are using, intermod makes a mess of it! Add all the other intermod posibilities and the internal mixing in the receiver, and it's amazing they work at all.

 

Tropo ducting is an amazing thing - I've had conversations on a UHF walkie talkie with someone on a Dutch beach on less than 250mW output.