Stuff that will happen...

[Inaki2]

Oh, singers and mics is a whole new story on itself. I've gone thru so many weird situations (and no, I still haven't worked with Marilyn Manson). I once nearly loose a stage box because a singer threw his wired mic into the audience, and thank god a stage tech realized this before we ran out of cable and dragged the stage box as well!!!! :?
I've had broken mics, battered mics..mics stuck into unusual places..and by far the funniest was a singer that realized the Shure wireless was made of metal and was heavy, so he started bashing his drummer with it!!! That was just the funniest, most out of this world, f*cked up thing I've seen people do with a mic.

 

[DMXtools]

I swear, I'm going to physically remove the "mute" switches from my wireless mics.

John

 

[dj_illusions]

Im sure many of you know the gay little on off/mute switch that is on the base of the Sennheiser hand held microphones...

Someone in a band i did obviously had that exact thought dmxtools, he didnt know that u pushed it in
instead he musta tried sliding it and goodness knows what else but eventually he rooted the mic swtich so bad it actually fell out. cost him 350bucks to get it fixed too... thats about 600bucks for u yanks

 

[Mayhem]

cost him 350bucks to get it fixed too... thats about 600bucks for u yanks

Alright Jeremy - I am going to come to you when I need to get money exchanged whe I go to the US. The Australian dollar has never been that strong and buys about 75c US

That makes it about $260 US

 

[cmcner]

It will be known by all experenced people in the sound field, that tape is the most valuable tool in your possession. It is the cure all from wires to mics to even mixers at some points. It is also common knowlege that people just destroy a last second attempt at fixing a problem by stealing it.

 

[dj_illusions]

I dont get your last post Mayhem.. Im in Australia too, we're in this together lol

 

[Mayhem]

I dont get your last post Mayhem.. Im in Australia too, we're in this together lol

LOL - I know where you are Jeremy!

I was just thinking that based on your previous comment that I would be better off coming to see you when I want to buy American dollars, as (based on your $350 (AUD) = $600 (USD)) I would get almost $2 American for every Australian dollar that I gave you. Unfortunately, it is closer to the opposite, with the Australian dollar buying only 70 US cents.

Or perhaps Melbourne has a stronger economy than the rest of the country and it is just us other states that are poor?

 

[jim24]

To those of you complaining about body pacs....

Don't yours have a way to get them to lock on? I did that in the last show I did and ran them through a Yamaha 01v with the right mutes set for every scene....worked like a charm and the only other person who knew how to turn the mics off after they were locked on was my assistant

Keep in mind, though, this was a relatively small show (cast of 12, 8 mics, some being swaped).

Jim

 

[dj_illusions]

yeah, economy is booming here atm mayhem! lol

yeah i musta mucked up somewhere along the line, not thinking very straight... got a biggggg show on atm...

 

[halojen]

It will be known by all experenced people in the sound field, that tape is the most valuable tool in your possession. It is the cure all from wires to mics to even mixers at some points.

..amen brother.
i hear ye, i hear ye.

 

[halojen]

we used to do a lot of assemblies at college (high school in america)
and we would have the mic stand coming up one side of the lecturn then the boom come accross horozontally.

we learnt after an awkward prize-giving that when doing this you should always have it coming from the right hand side of the speechmaker.
this way, if they are short and pull down on the mic they will tighten the mic clip onto teh end of the boom.

we had one person that pulled down and loosened it so it flopped down and faced the floor cause it was coming from the wrong side.

 

[avkid]

if you do not have asbolute control the apprentice will make some fuggly( f*** ugly) sound and mess up the mixer

 

[falcon]

Our school has solved our problem with body mics being turned off during performance.
We just have a sound crew backstage, usually a couple of guys, that put the body mics on the actors as the go onstage and take them off as they leave the stage. It does get annoying, but it ensures that there are only 2 people that handle the mics making sure they are on and not muted when the actors are acting. The female actors usally have a problem with this and insist they put on the mic and remove it themselves, but our sound crew always checks to make sure they are on. The female actors won't let any guy but me handle the mic when on them :wink:

And as for bands, we use mics that don't have on/off switches on them. I have had one singer look at the mic then yell at me "where is the on switch?" this was usually about 5 minutes after I tell them that they have no control over the mic at all and there is no on/off switch.

 

[Inaki2]

Ooh...good one:
MiniMACS will crap out!

 

[Andy_Leviss]

Your dead on track I have had every one these things happen to me what fond crappy memories Now Im a do sound and lights at a church in Baton Rouge if they screw up on stage Ill kill the sound & lights while holding up my arms saying I din't do it musta blew somthing... see at church they don't throw things at ya...

Note to the students here: this is NOT a good attitude to have. No matter what a band, actors, directors, etc. throw at you, you want to be the one who remains calm and reasonable. There are ways to deal with things going wrong that are much more beneficial to everybody involved than cutting power and claiming it wasn't you.

 

[len]

It seems musicians will play softer when they don't know the part, and louder and more aggressive when they do.

Bass players are usually the most relaxed band members, followed by drummers.

Drummers can never sit down at the kit without bumping at least one mic

Keyboard players think they know the most about running live sound.

The more talented the guitarist, the fewer effects they have.

The better the guitarist, the better the quality of the effects they do have.

The older the musician, the more set in their ways they are.

Never trust a sound guy to have a dmx line available in the snake.

Always assume that the sound guy will want you to fry an egg on a leko lens, "just to see if it can be done."

If there's video, people will always duck and avoid walking in front of the camera as much as possible, but they'll walk betweeen a projector and a screen without a second's thought, even if it's blocked off.

 

[Inaki2]

LOL, I never thought about the projector, but its totally true.
As a side note to ducking in a camera, they'll duck, but they'll stand up again when they're not completely past it

 

[avkid]

frying eggs on lights, I have never tried that! We did reheat KFC in a spotlight a couple times, and it worked almost as fast as a microwave!

 

[Inaki2]

Yeah I remember a friend of mine was doing followspot in one of my horse auctions and he kept the pizza slices warm over the lamp housing

 

[Andy_Leviss]

Never trust a sound guy to have a dmx line available in the snake.

Even if he does offer one, you shouldn't use it. DMX is not intended to run on the same type of cable as audio signal. DMX needs a particular type of cable (based on capacitance and other things) to be happy. Plus if DMX does bleed into the audio lines, it won't sound happy.

--A

P.S.-You should have your own cable, anyway, we shouldn't have to supply you with one )