Recent content by hemismith

Thanks, true. It's just odd, it was fine until they plugged in the cable for the lighting controller/mixer/etc along with the lights. Lasted about 15 seconds, only 1 light was brought up. The next day same thing, except only the lights were plugged in; it was fine again with one light up for...

They already have.

It's not actually, all these outlets are standard 120 and we've been using them for years and I've measured the voltage before. My only thought is that maybe it's shorted.

Thanks. Someone else tested it and said the neutral is open, but first he said both were showing 120 to ground. So I don’t know for sure. The dimmer works fine on other outlets. Hopefully they’ll have someone look at it before I need to do something there again.

I'm sorry for this dumb question but I haven't been able to find a definitive explanation on how conventional theatrical dimmer packs work. Do they draw much power when the lights are down? I assume they don't or there would be heat issues.Specifically we have some of the cheap DP-415 4...

Thanks, I'll look into those. I do have an old laptop, and it's pretty cheap for the small number of users we would have. And you can pay for as little as a month at a time.

I do sound and lighting for little church and community productions that have no budget. We've tried all sorts of options for intercom with varying degrees of success. Right now we are back to cell phones. I think everyone has iPhones and we just used the conference calling feature...

Thanks. Yeah, an expander would be more useful than a gate for this, but the mixer I was using didn't have it (first gen Presonus 16.4.2). I ended up just focusing on the show, as levels were all over the place. Had a few off-stage noises make it through when the director told me to bring up...

Thank you both. Kind of funny but all too true. I'll play with things tonight during dress rehearsal but I suspect I may abandon it all and just do it the old fashioned manual way.

Thanks, yes, I was also hoping it could keep errant off-stage sound out if I wasn't quick enough to turn them down, but a cough or any normal speech would make it through anyway. I guess I'll just do it manually. Thanks again.

I'm doing a kids stage production this week, with a few area mics and a few lavaliers. I'm wondering if I should apply a gate to any of the mics. Most of what I read says not to gate vocals, but that's in reference to bands. Normally I just try to keep the mics down that aren't being used...

Thanks very much everyone. That's great that there's training here next week; not sure if I can get the time off work but will look into it.

Thanks, I'll look at those options.Didn't know about the ETC deal, I'll look into that. My wife was the drama teacher at a school but quit last year, but I am the tech director for our church so will see if that qualifies.

Ha ha, yeah, but since I own the lights I usually have some say in things. But I've found directors don't like to be "told".

Here's some background - The stuff I do usually has little or no budget. This all started years ago when my wife was directing some productions so she approved our purchase of some cheap lighting -- just some PARs, stands, dimmers, and a controller. I then did a couple shows for a director who...