Learned something new today ; )

[MillburyAuditorium]

Well there are two people who come in to make sure everything is running smooth, us being students and all. One of them..doesn't know what he is doing at all I do not know how they came upon this guy but is soon to not be invited back because I proved to the directors that he doesn't know what he is doing. But then there is another guy, who's a real professional and actually knows what hes doing. Anyways, we are planning on getting a new sound system this year along with other upgrades that are past there due date, but we cant get it before the musical in a few days of course, so for now the good guy came in and temporarily installed two monitors for the pit, we have like 5 monitor connections, three inputs and two headset outputs backstage we don't even use.., so he got to monitors for the pit, and two for the audience in front of the speakers, a tweeter blew in the center cluster so its unusable and will need to be fixed but its going out anyways, a new amp to power these speakers and an audio processor so the FX knobs work on the board now. We didn't try it out yet with mics and everything but I will tomorrow. Should be great!

Anyways onto what I learned and what you guys are going to eat my head off for

Well we ae at the board redoing some connections for the new speakers and processor, and he asks me "Have you had these Low Cuts off this whole time?" I reply with a "What..?" And he explains to me the importance of the LowCut 75Hz 18dB/OCT button for the mic channels.

So we have been going with the rustling and thmping of wireless microhphones for a while now. But hey, I learned something

 

[Anonymous067]

Have you read through the manual for your sound board (and other related equipment)? I think it may help you understand the answers to some of the questions you've recently asked.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

I have skimmed the soundboards manual online but since I got here I have yet to find any documents on the soundboard. But I have read all the other manuals for the other equipment, well, really just the dimmer racks and the light board's. Not much else to read.

Our Status is like a crippled old man

 

[Morpheus]

Sometimes skimming manuals doesn't provide all the info you need...

And if you are unsure of what something does, asking on an internet message board about this kinda stuff is a good idea... i'm sure you know where to find one of those


But in all seriousness, reading and understanding the manual is an important part... likewise with asking questions. If you don't understand the answer, ask for clarification.

 

[SHARYNF]

It would probably only take a few seconds on google to find most of the documentation you need

http://www.mackie.com/pdf/archive/sr24-4_sr32-4_om.pdf

If you learn nothing else at this stage in your career, try to learn that school is all about LEARNING HOW TO LEARN, not just facts, learning how to investigate and research products and how things work and should work is something that typically by this time you should have learned

Sharyn

 

[DuckJordan]

+1 Sharyn too many times have i had other students come up to me and ask "can you show me how to do this" instead of researching it themselves. I of course oblige and a few weeks later the same person asking the same question. This is when i state if you haven't learned anything from me its to research on your own what could be the possible problems and then confer with others as to what your possible solution may or may not do. Also Milbury you may want to completely read the manual for all of your gear. I have found many things in our theater out the hard way (broken things, Blown Speakers) because a student did not read the manual or the signs posted on the sound board itself. Speaking of which i am going to refresh my memory on my console.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Well like I said I have read most of the manual for the board online. I just never really took a second look at these buttons. But now that I know that those ones are going to make it sound so much better I am about to go look and see what other buttons I might not be using. Although most of them are for tape decks and whatnot.

I am going to need to read a lot about the red FX knobs because I have no clue what hey do and now that they are in use, heh.

I have read the other manuals we have inside and out though
I just assumed that I knew about the soundboard, which of course I was dump to think so

 

[Morpheus]

Well like I said I have read most of the manual for the board online. I just never really took a second look at these buttons. But now that I know that those ones are going to make it sound so much better I am about to go look and see what other buttons I might not be using. Although most of them are for tape decks and whatnot.

I am going to need to read a lot about the red FX knobs because I have no clue what hey do and now that they are in use, heh.

I have read the other manuals we have inside and out though
I just assumed that I knew about the soundboard, which of course I was dump to think so

FX knobs on the board? Or processor unit?

 

[DuckJordan]

if there on the board they are to control how much of the fx unit you are pushing into the feed. this would be for re-verb, delay, chorus and the like we had an fx unit in our space. not too long after i got there we sold it because it was a piece of junk and wasn't designed for anything as far as professional use. think old time microchips to change your voice. then think about as cheap that's what it sounded like.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Morpheus, The knobs on the board.

I do not really know what these do at all but they guy told me they do something now, I do not really know what he did to make them applicable or what they do. I just know they never used to do anything.

 

[Morpheus]

Ok... good thing I "previewed post"... i typed out something, and now I see yours, i can change it.

Ok, so the FX processor he hooked up has to get signal off the board somewhere... I suggest tracing the 'IN' from the processor to the board, and see where it plugs in... then, do the same with the 'OUT' on the processor.

Now you know where they lead on the board, you can references that with the manual to figure out how it works.
Something that works for me is to visualize the audio signal -"ok, where does it start? Then where does it go? then where? etc. etc."

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Alright I will keep an eye out for those connections when I am reviewing the manual.

 

[SHARYNF]

Well like I said I have read most of the manual for the board online. I just never really took a second look at these buttons. But now that I know that those ones are going to make it sound so much better I am about to go look and see what other buttons I might not be using. Although most of them are for tape decks and whatnot.

I am going to need to read a lot about the red FX knobs because I have no clue what hey do and now that they are in use, heh.

I have read the other manuals we have inside and out though
I just assumed that I knew about the soundboard, which of course I was dump to think so

ARE YOU SURE you have a Mackie sr 24*4? AFAIK there are NO fx knobs on the board the Red knobs are AUX sends?



Are you talking about an external effects unit that is set up on an aux send?
Have you read page 14-24 in your manual?

I think we are going to have to start giving out homework assignments here ;-))))))))

There really is a reason that these manuals are written, a lot of the functions are not inherently obvious to the casual observer. It is not like folks approach to a lot of things today, "the manual is for dummies, I can just sit down and figure it all out my self" IF you have a lot of experience then you might be able to figure out how things work based on experience on other systems, but it is not like software where if you screw up you just exit out and reload. You can do real damage to some of these systems.
If you review the litany of problems in your facility a lot of them seem to be based on a "lets try it and see what happens approach" which makes for expensive learn

The rest of us who actually read the manuals are not really brain dead
.

As the saying goes
RTFM

)))

Sharyn
Sharyn