Rip Van Winkle
Member
Hey all —
I’ve perused the forums a lot over the years, and have been impressed by the thoughtful, respectful, and productive conversations I’ve read, and the willingness of seasoned professionals to mentor and share their experience. I have just registered an account for the first time and have an etiquette/posting question.
I was a professional in theater sound for about a decade before I switched careers (although it remains one of my favorite jobs), with my last gigs passing early in the 21st century. Now I have kids, and I’ve volunteered to help their school’s (mess of a) theater. While the fundamentals haven’t changed, I face a learning curve with some of the specifics.
So I have a bunch of questions, the unifying thread of which is essentially, “What’s new in the past 20 years?” I’m really trying to elicit opinions on best practices, what important advances I may have missed in technology or technique, and what the best choices now for the future might be.
On the one hand, I hope that the community will find these to be engaging topics of conversation individually — some are broad, some are more specific, and I think they’ll generally elicit a range of opinions and experiences. On the other, I appreciate that I very little relevant current experience or knowledge to contribute to those conversations after asking the questions.
I don’t want to be “that guy” who suddenly appears and opens a flurry of new topics and then, let’s be honest, is likely to recede into the background after asking them. I’m tempted to lump them together in a single thread (maybe two), which, in the best case scenario, might prompt some wise readers to identify the important questions I’m NOT asking.
What do you think, one post or a series of individual posts?
As a preview, here are some of the topics I’d like to ask about. If you’re recommending that I make individual posts, please let me know if any jump out as interesting places to start! (Or, if you think “this guy just needs to get a copy of ‘xxx’”, I’m desperate for recommendations!)
**** Playback & playback innovations (Where’s all the cool stuff is expected to have available here in the future? Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places?)
**** Stage networking (Are there valuable advances I should know about? For instance, are small theaters really getting anything out of connecting lights & sound?)
**** Backstage (dressing room) monitoring & paging (what are best practices in 2023? Is video considered the norm?)
**** Powered speakers (esp. best practices for flown speakers & monitors)
**** Backstage administrating & organizing (how to deal with the mess of volunteer theater, effective inventory control, effective organizing tools & techniques, etc.)
**** Future-proofing your installed systems (it’s amazing how much stuff that was installed in 2016 is arguably just garbage in 2023!)
**** Working with kids as an adult (expectations and ethics)
Thank you so much in advance!
“Rip”
I’ve perused the forums a lot over the years, and have been impressed by the thoughtful, respectful, and productive conversations I’ve read, and the willingness of seasoned professionals to mentor and share their experience. I have just registered an account for the first time and have an etiquette/posting question.
I was a professional in theater sound for about a decade before I switched careers (although it remains one of my favorite jobs), with my last gigs passing early in the 21st century. Now I have kids, and I’ve volunteered to help their school’s (mess of a) theater. While the fundamentals haven’t changed, I face a learning curve with some of the specifics.
So I have a bunch of questions, the unifying thread of which is essentially, “What’s new in the past 20 years?” I’m really trying to elicit opinions on best practices, what important advances I may have missed in technology or technique, and what the best choices now for the future might be.
On the one hand, I hope that the community will find these to be engaging topics of conversation individually — some are broad, some are more specific, and I think they’ll generally elicit a range of opinions and experiences. On the other, I appreciate that I very little relevant current experience or knowledge to contribute to those conversations after asking the questions.
I don’t want to be “that guy” who suddenly appears and opens a flurry of new topics and then, let’s be honest, is likely to recede into the background after asking them. I’m tempted to lump them together in a single thread (maybe two), which, in the best case scenario, might prompt some wise readers to identify the important questions I’m NOT asking.
What do you think, one post or a series of individual posts?
As a preview, here are some of the topics I’d like to ask about. If you’re recommending that I make individual posts, please let me know if any jump out as interesting places to start! (Or, if you think “this guy just needs to get a copy of ‘xxx’”, I’m desperate for recommendations!)
**** Playback & playback innovations (Where’s all the cool stuff is expected to have available here in the future? Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places?)
**** Stage networking (Are there valuable advances I should know about? For instance, are small theaters really getting anything out of connecting lights & sound?)
**** Backstage (dressing room) monitoring & paging (what are best practices in 2023? Is video considered the norm?)
**** Powered speakers (esp. best practices for flown speakers & monitors)
**** Backstage administrating & organizing (how to deal with the mess of volunteer theater, effective inventory control, effective organizing tools & techniques, etc.)
**** Future-proofing your installed systems (it’s amazing how much stuff that was installed in 2016 is arguably just garbage in 2023!)
**** Working with kids as an adult (expectations and ethics)
Thank you so much in advance!
“Rip”