Bag 'O' Bonez

I'm out of here

2006-10-29T12:10:00.000+10:00

The move is as complete as I can get it. All the posts are moved and I'll move the comments as soon as Wordpress get their import scripts updated.

My new blog is at blog.bagobonez.com. I hope I'll see you all over there.

Moving Blog Home

2006-10-28T19:43:00.000+10:00

Well I moved house a few weeks ago and now it's time to move blog homes. Blogger has been a great spot for me to get my start but I couldn't do some of the things that I wanted to.

I'm in the process of setting up a Wordpress powered blog on a new webhost and I will let you know when it is up and running.

Comment Problems should be fixed

2006-10-26T22:35:00.001+10:00

Venomous Kate from over at Electric Venom was kind enough to drop me an email and let me know that my comment links were having issues and that it took some digging to be able to post comments from some browsers.

The only place I could figure that the problems were coming from was the peekaboo comment code that I was using. I've removed that code now so that by clicking on the "X Comments" link it should now take you directly to the post comment page.

Chalk it up to being over eager and trying to add gadgets (the curse of being a techno geek). At some point I might switch over to Haloscan comments as they seem to be a little more robust and useful than the blogger stuff. For now the standard comments will suffice.

She also pointed out that the page doesn't validate correctly. After checking through a large portion of the 1200 or so errors, it would seem that they come almost exclusively from the following

Blogger's own code in the templates
External html being returned from a few of the hacks that I use
a few errors coming from Live Writer

Unfortunately that means that most of them are errors that I can't do anything about for now. Unless I move over to a different blog host that allows me more control over the template then I guess the errors are here to stay.

Technorati tags: blogger, comments, hack, Live Writer

Gahh!!!

2006-10-25T20:10:00.001+10:00

God has a wicked sense of humour! Here I sit, a blogger who for the past few weeks has been unable to stop opining over the latest woman in his life, when out of the blue I get a phone call from another unrequited love.

I toured a theatre show last year called "The Breath of Life". The stage manager on that show is an amazing person. I fell for her hard but couldn't do anything about it. I would have, believe me. For this girl I would have overcome every little insecurity in my body and moved heaven and earth. Why didn't I? I know that's the question that is bouncing around in your heads as you read this. She had a boyfriend. And not just any boyfriend. He is in the Australian Air Force and at the time that we were on tour he was serving in Iraq.

I am not condoning breaking up a relationship for your own ends. That is just wrong. But, how could I compete with someone who was putting his life on the line each and every day?

So, after three months I finished the tour. She went back to Melbourne and I went out on the road with another show. We still talked on the phone regularly but the boyfriend was still in the picture. Over time I stopped calling. It messed up my head to talk with her for an hour and then spend the next week wishing she was here or I was there.

Then, on Saturday night, while my phone was turned off during a show, she rang and left a message. She said that she had been thinking about me a lot lately and would love to catch up.

I called her tonight. We talked for nearly an hour, catching up on everything that has happened over the last six to eight months. She has been working on an opera in Sydney for the last 3 months. That means she is only 1600km away right now. In 10 days she goes back to Melbourne.

There was a warm day in Sydney the other day and she went to Manly where we had stayed on tour while doing the Sydney run of the show. While she was walking around Manly she saw the pub that we went to for dinner, and walked past the hotel that our cast and company stayed at. And she cried. She missed me.

And now, I miss her!

I don't think she has the boyfriend anymore either.

God has a wicked sense of humour.

Technorati tags: life, love

A visit from Girl A

2006-10-23T20:08:00.001+10:00

If you don't know who Girl A is check these two posts - A Surreal Evening and Isn't it supposed to get easier. (I call her Girl A because I don't know which of my friends might be reading this blog, and the last thing I want to do is embarrass people, and most importantly, her, by putting real names in my posts)

She is studying web design at the moment, but, her computer has been broken for nearly a month and a half. Understandably that makes it rather difficult for her to finish the assignments required for the course.

So, I volunteered to fix her computer so that she can get her assignments done. I've been playing with computers for years and so solving minor issues such as hers are fairly easy for me.

But, underneath my gentlemanly concern for her studies, there is an ulterior motive. You see, on Friday night at the party (A Surreal Evening) she mentioned that she was going to the guy's house that she has been seeing for the last few months to use his computer for her assignments.

I haven't sucked up the courage to ask her about this guy, and whether I might be replacing this guy in the foreseeable future. I will, in fact if I keep drinking this bottle of wine that I bought for us to share over dinner when she dropped off the computer, I might do it when she comes to pick it up after class. But, deep down, I secretly hope that by fixing her computer I can remove one reason to see my competition.

I am extremely jealous by nature. I can't help it. An ex-wife that slept around on me, followed by a string of girlfriends who followed suit, has left me with a nagging doubt about all my relationships. I cannot help but hate any person that is involved with someone I am interested in. It has nothing to do with them. They are probably great people. I just don't like them.

I know it sounds petty and insecure. I am completely aware of how childish my ideas are. I just don't care. I really like this girl. She complements me in more ways than I can count. I feel happy around her, empty in that one place in my heart that the rest of my life can't fill when she isn't near me. She is good with money, I'm not, and that's something I need somebody to push me with. She is driven to succeed in her career, and I detest people without aspirations. She wants to enjoy her life by seeing the world and experiencing new things, the reason I don't is that I want someone to share those experiences with.

I can't guarantee that I will ask her the question that is burning my brain tonight. I will probably wuss out and say goodnight like any nice guy would. Then, I will stand and watch her drive away, kicking myself for not asking, and then spend the next month wishing that I had said what I should.

Wish me luck.

By the way, we did at least have dinner tonight. Forty-five minutes of conversation and happiness on my part. Dinner was a Cajun Chicken Salad. It's the closest thing to healthy food that I know how to cook, and takes only twenty minutes to make. The perfect "I wish it was a date" meal if ever I found one.

Update: I wussed out. But we all knew that was going to happen, didn't we?

Technorati tags: life, love, relationship

Herman's Hermits and the Digico D1

2006-10-23T14:57:00.001+10:00

I had 60's legends, Herman's Hermits, at the theatre last night. It was the first time that I was able to use the Digico D1 with a live band. The show we just finished was a musical which let me test the snapshot stuff but it wasn't really a good test of the full capabilities of the desk.

The Hermits are a 4 piece with drums, bass, guitar and keyboards. 4 sends of foldback were run from front of house.

The input list was as follows:

Kick - Beyer M88
Snare - Neumann KM84
Hats - AKG C451
Rack 1 - Shure Beta 57
Rack 2 - Shure Beta 57
Rack 3 - Shure Beta 57
Overhead Left - AKG C451
Overhead Right - AKG C451
Bass - DI
Keys Left - DI
Keys Right - DI
Guitar - Shure Beta 57
Vox Guitar - SM58
Vox Bass - SM58
Vox Keys - SM58
Vox Drums SM58

The true beauty of the D1 is the compressors and gates on every channel. No more deliberating which channel deserved compression or gating more than another. If it needs it, it gets it.

Soundcheck was really quick, I found that I could dial up eq settings almost as fast as any analogue console. Foldback was just as quick and having graphics built in to the desk made it very easy to tweak settings as we went through and tame any frequencies that got out of hand.

During the show it was very easy to get a clean and clear mix on this console. It sounds far cleaner and more transparent than any of the Allen & Heath consoles we normally had to hire in for these types of shows. The EQ section allows very fine adjustments to be made which allows a subtractive EQ style to be utilised to its full potential. Any small frequencies that needed to be cut could be cut very selectively with the ability to use Q settings as high as 20.

The compressors and gates are amazing on this console. Unlike many digital compressors, the compressors in the D1 are extremely useable. Heavy compression doesn't produce the artifacts that smaller digital consoles such as the 01v96 suffer from.

In all, it was one of the best mixes I have ever done in my venue. I'm sure that over time it will improve out of sight.

Technorati tags: audio, digico, work, shows

A surreal evening

2006-10-21T23:59:00.001+10:00

I went to a friend's party on Friday night after I finished work. It's been three weeks since I moved to Ipswich and I haven't seen any of my friends in that time, so, I was due for some catching up and socialising.

These parties are normally quite riotous and fun. But this one wasn't. Sure the party was toned down a lot from what we normally have, but the people were still there that I wanted to see. The main problem was the two sisters that were there.

You see, one of the sisters, (lets call her Girl A for the sake of privacy),is the woman I am slowly but surely falling for. She lives at the house where the party was being held. I was really looking forward to seeing her because we have both been extremely busy lately and haven't had time to catch up at all.

The other sister, (Girl B), is what I can only describe as my first real love. Unrequited as that love may have been, it was still the very first time that I can remember being head over heels, follow her anywhere, do anything for her in love with this girl.

Nothing ever happened between the two of us. I spent years trying my damnedest to win her over but it never worked.

A few weeks ago I was talking to Girl A at a party and she mentioned that she had a crush on me ever since I first met both of them 12 years ago. We talked for an hour or so about things and she told me that the reason she had never done anything to act on the crush was because of how I felt about Girl B. She was worried that I would put her sister first before her, and that she would always be second best in my eyes. A fear that I told her was unfounded, now. Two years ago, or even twelve months ago it might have been different. But, in the last 12 months I had seen her grow into an amazing woman, who could stand on her own two feet.

She challenges me every time I am around her. I feel more confident, and at the same time, more vulnerable when I am with her. I feel happier in her company than I have felt in any other relationship in my life, ever.

As I sat in the lounge room talking to the two of them until the early hours of Saturday morning I realised something. For the first time in twelve years I didn't feel my heart twist up into knots when I saw my first love. Instead I looked at the two of them, listened to them talking and found that I was seeing all the faults that I had ignored in the last twelve years in one of them, and found all the things I am looking for in the other.

The whole night definitely ranked up there as one of the strangest nights of my life. I had to constantly double check myself in case I was showing too much attention to Girl B. Every time I started to get into a good conversation with Girl A her sister would butt in looking for the attention I used to give to her.

Very strange indeed.

Technorati tags: life, love, relationship

Comment Problems

2006-10-21T17:11:00.000+10:00

I only just found today that comments aren't appearing on individual post pages. They show up fine with the peekaboo comment script on the main page though.

Going to have to look into that on Monday.

Windows Live Writer continued again

2006-10-19T21:54:00.001+10:00

I thought that I had found a way to use Live Writer to add Blogger Beta Labels to my posts. Unfortunately I was only half right. I was able to make labels search links in the posts, but the labels for each post itself are not transferred to Blogger.

The only workaround I have at the moment is to insert Technorati tags and then manually copy those tag labels to Blogger by editing the post. It's a pain but hopefully they will include this functionality in the future.

Technorati tags: windows live writer, blog, hack, labels, blogger beta

Sound Guy Geekism / To be manly or sensitive

2006-10-19T20:48:00.001+10:00

This video is the ultimate in sound guy geek fun. You see, I'm a sound guy, and anything to do with audio that combines the following,

Great music
Principles of Audio demonstrated in an interesting manner
and most importantly FIRE

is right up my alley. The video is of a Ruben's Tube which demonstrates standing waves. I want one of these on my wall at home, or even better, sitting on the meter bridge of my console at work. It might annoy the theatre goers a little, and Workplace Health and Safety may have their issues with it, but I think it would make for the ultimate "Pimp my Sound Console" accessory.

Manly, or Sensitive

Neil at Citizen of the Month wrote a blog called Strong, Silent Type. He said that he was feeling worried about how he wrote and acted and if it was sufficiently manly and not too sensitive.

I ask myself this question every day. In my head of course, never out loud to actual people (not that anyone reading this isn't an actual person. The Internet anonymity means I can say what I like here).

I've never known exactly how manly or sensitive was expected in general society. I tend to follow the crowd and play along at whatever level is required. With "The Boys" I am rude, crude, often quite sexist, and generally a "Man", whatever that means. Around women I try to be sensitive. They are the easy going, emotionally secure, and open minded people in my life, who can handle me baring my soul and not judge or laugh at me.

But where is the line drawn in relationships with the opposite sex. I hear multitudes of varied opinions on what women want in a partner. The abridged list is something like this (in no particular order)

Strength
Sense of humour
Easygoing
Sensitivity
a Good body
a Good job
etc

I could keep typing for days (to be honest I'm probably too tired to think of any more so I'll let the reader fill in the list).

The line seems to move every day. One day she wants strong and macho, the next it's funny, and then sensitive. All without the benefits of an expert commentator to inform us what the "Play of the Day" is meant to be.

I like to think that I can read people quite quickly. Give me 10 minutes of conversation with someone and I can generally pick what type of person they are behind the facade that they present to the world. I just can't do that with women I care about, and as a result I never know what's coming next.

I've been blindsided during a joke and told I'm not sensitive enough and am always making light of important things. I play the strong, silent type and I'm not involving myself in conversations of any emotional significance. I try and connect on an emotional level and get brushed off.

I'm just wandering along unsure of what to do next, how to act, what to say, and there is a standard that says I am the man and don't deserve to be told.

Men - Ever been told "If you don't know, I'm not telling you" ?

Women - Ever said that?

That's me every single day. I wander around asking "What?, How?, Why?, When? Where?" and I get nothing back because she "isn't telling me". I can only guess most of the time, and I guess badly more often than I get it right.

So, from now on I expect new standards. If you don't tell me, I won't care if I know it. I can't waste time trying every play in the book only to be told I'm playing the wrong game. I'm just tired of it.

Labels: life, audio, geek, relationships

Technorati tags: life, audio, geek, relationships

I think I'm done for now

2006-10-19T19:08:00.001+10:00

It took a few days, a lot of hair ripping out as I re-taught my self the CSS coding that I had forgotten since I started doing the blog, and some poor attempts with Gimp to create a banner, but I'm finally, almost happy with the new template.

Let me know what you think about it.

Thanks go to the following blogs for providing the hacks that I have used

Hackosphere

Singpolyma

Peekaboo Comments

Hoctro's Place

Original Label Tabs Hack

Technorati tags: blog, template, comments

Beware of the new template

2006-10-17T21:30:00.001+10:00

I'm switching templates tonight. This one just seemed a little simple and boring and I want to try out some of the new features of Blogger Beta. So, for the next few days, expect the blog to look a little different and possibly lose some of the stuff I have added recently.

I'll get it working the way I want it to over the next week.

Labels: blog, template

Technorati tags: blog, template

Random Blog of interest

2006-10-17T16:16:00.001+10:00

Part of my blogging experience has been to read blogs at random. Generally I just hit the next blog button at the top of my page after I check for new comments etc. Sometimes they are indecipherable, other times they are news site regurgitators, and others are like this one by May.

When I hit a new blog I generally read only the top post. If it intrigues me then I read on. It's a big challenge to always have something interesting as the first post on the page, and I'm sure that quite often my blog falls well short of interesting, but as long as I apply that rule to every site I visit then it maintains the random rule that I chose to follow.

May Day Cafe opened today with Cinderella Man. She tells of a man that she met and became attracted to at first sight. That he was gay and a Catholic priest mattered little because his personality was the main attraction. She shared a few hours conversation with him and then he was gone from her life.

It struck me that some of the most amazing people I have ever met have floated into and out of my life at random, never to be seen again. They arrive with confidence, wit, amazing stories, and the ability to hold a room full of people in the palm of their hand. After a time they leave, and everyone in the room knows that they were in the presence of someone truly amazing. But, we never see them again in our circle of friends/work.

I love these people, because they offer me an insight into who I can become. If I let go of the nagging insecurities and just be myself, I could be one of those momentary sparks of life. Or, perhaps I am already and just don't know it. You see, I don't think that these people ever understand that they affect people in such a way as they do. They are just being themselves, not attempting to play to the crowd.

Remember this, somewhere there is a person that will think you are amazing just as you are. They will always remember the moments they spend with you, and will be inspired because of you.

Labels: random, blog, life, inspire

Technorati tags: random, blog, life, inspire

This day just keeps getting worse

2006-10-17T14:58:00.001+10:00

WARNING - Rampant whining content follows this warning!

Yes I'm going to whine and whinge in this post. There may also be a Star Wars related rant in the middle of it. Just remember that you were warned.

Today was supposed to be my day off. I have to work Saturday and Sunday on shows this week which means I can basically choose which other days I need off. This week, the most convenient days happened to be today and next Monday.

Over the weekend I got emails at work that informed me of the need to setup a PA with a radio mic and a lapel mic on Tuesday, had a client coming in for a meeting Tuesday afternoon (That I never booked and the front office never confirmed with me), and had to pull a radio receiver out of the musical rig that is set up currently as it was faulty and needed to go back to the hire company at lunchtime on....that's right.....TUESDAY!

Fair enough, I figured. It's all part of the job and at least I will get a sleep in and can have a late start.

WRONG!

At 8am my mobile phone chirped it's little chirp to indicate a message had arrived. I heard it, looked at the clock and decided to go back to sleep. Unfortunately, my mobile phone is an insistent little shit of a thing that likes to remind you every five minutes that it has a message/missed call with the loudest single beep ever heard from a small electronic device. This beep, even though it is in a completely different room of the house, is sufficient to jar me back from the pre-sleep doze that takes approximately 5 minutes to achieve.

So, I got up, walked into the lounge room, picked up the phone and discovered a message from the girl from this post. Knowing that we had a date tonight I was somewhat surprised to get a message from her. I opened the message and discovered that she had to cancel for tonight. Strike 1 for the day so far. I was really looking forward to dinner with her. I'd even bought a new shirt and was planning on making reservations at a nice little restaurant in Paddington that serves healthy Asian cuisine. So I went back to bed to try and recover from the late night of computer gaming I had.

I couldn't get back into a decent sleep as the day was starting to warm up and become uncomfortable. A few days ago I purchased Star Wars Episode 4 - 6 with the digitally remastered version and the original theatrical version of the movies, and so I figured I would watch Empire Strikes Back. (Warning - here comes the rant)

I had watched the original cut of Star Wars the day before and was ecstatic to watch Han Solo fire first with Greedo and all the other little Lucas retouches gone from sight. This morning I chose the remastered version of Empire. I know, I know. Thousands upon thousands of Star Wars fans are now screaming at their monitors (I'm predicting that just adding references to Star Wars will send my blog readership through the roof) that I should have avoided the remaster and stuck with the originals but I was curious. All was going well until they got to the Cloud City. So far any retouching was subtle, and, as I wasn't really paying attention (I was reading blogs and checking email etc), I didn't notice anything blatant. Then Boba Fett spoke. He spoke in the original also. That's not the problem. The problem is that the menacing bounty hunter voice that inspired fear in me at the age of 10 is gone, replaced instead by a New Zealand accent so that it fits with young Boba from Episode 2.

I'm Australian! I do not find menace and callousness in the accents of our neighbours across the sea. I know too many of them, and they are all nice people. At church they sing Hmms instead of Hymns, their engineers use splut puns instead of split pins, and when they go out for seafood in medium sized groups they order "fush and chups for sex"! It totally destroys the illusion all for the sake of two lines of dialogue maintaining continuity across twenty years. Surely they could have just found an actor with an accent similar to the original Boba Fett and made him the young Boba in Episode 2? DAMN YOU GEORGE LUCAS!! You irritated me at the start of an annoying day, and for that you are going up on my list of people to berate if I ever see them in person. (Oh and I'm watching the remastered Jedi right now, and the Sarlac looks like the damn flower from Little Shop of Horrors!!!)

With my Star Wars enjoyment destroyed for the day, I start getting phone calls on the work mobile. These aren't calls direct to my mobile because I never give the number out except to the office staff. These are calls being transferred from the office to me, while I am not at work, which they know because my roster is on the wall in the office, clearly stating that I will not be at work until 12pm. The calls aren't even urgent, just menial questions about events that are weeks away. This really starts to piss me off after the 4th or 5th call in an hour.

At 11:30 I headed in to work. I knew that someone from the hire company would be there to pick up their radio receiver at 12pm on the dot, so I wanted to get it out of the rack and ready for them. I walked into the office to grab the keys for backstage lights etc and said hi to everyone in the office. They had nothing to tell me so I headed backstage to get the radio gear together. At 12 o'clock, one of the girls from the office tells me that the lady from the hire company is out in the foyer and has been waiting for 15 minutes. Meaning, that she was there when I arrived and nobody felt the need to tell me. Sometimes I think they just don't get the concept of "Reception"!

Radio gear handed to the appropriate person I checked my emails and then headed to set up the PA equipment. It's not in the conference room that I thought it would be in. Not the large room that requires a PA system, but instead it's in the small room. No more than 30 feet to the back wall, about the size of a standard classroom. I look at the room setup. There are 3 rows of tables, with 6 chairs to a row. 18 PEOPLE! FOR 18 PEOPLE I AM HERE ON MY DAY OFF SETTING UP A RADIO MIC AND A LAPEL MIC!!

Pissed off royally now, I grabbed the old VHF Radio receivers and take them down to set them up. The lapel mic works but is stupidly quiet and sounds like ass. The handheld radio mic shows signal on the receiver but no audio at all. FUCK! I needed that mic for tomorrow on an external job. Now I have to hire in a radio mic. I decided to swap out the cheap old receivers for the new, high quality ones in the musical rig. I grab our old 8 channel mixer and take it down as well. It's old and doesn't sound great but for these jobs it works. Once everything is plugged in I put new batteries in the mic and tossed the old ones on the desk as a spare. When the batteries hit the desk from a height of no more than 2 inches, it began to emit an horrific honking sound through the speakers. GREAT! Now the small portable desk we use for little gigs is broken. Even tapping on it with my finger would create new and bizarre sounds.

So, I lugged it back up to the store room and brought down the 16 channel Yamaha desk. It worked fine, thankfully. And now it was time for my meeting.

What meeting? It seemed that both the meetings that I had been emailed about on Friday, had been rescheduled on Monday to tomorrow and Thursday respectively. Did I get a phone call from the office to tell me about it? No, I got an email, on my work email, that I couldn't check on Monday because I was not at work on Monday, which they knew!

Thankfully it meant that instead of working for five hours I only had to do one and a half, and I'll charge three at double time for working on a day off.

To make my day a little better, I hit the shops, bought some vegetables and a really nice, thick, juicy steak. Since I moved in to my new house two weeks ago I haven't cooked a meal. I've either been living off pizza, takeaways or eating at work before shows. Steak, beans, carrots and mashed potato is the order of the evening.

So, I guess my day can get a little better, although I would still rather be sitting in a restaurant tonight, across the table from a gorgeous girl, sipping red wine and enjoying good conversation. Maybe I'll get to the party at her house on Friday night. After the show that finishes at 11:30pm. And hopefully the party will still be rocking and I can see my friends for a few hours before I have to drive home for a show the next day.

Tomorrow had better go smoothly. Karma has to catch up eventually.

Labels: life, work, audio, movies, food, restaurant

Technorati tags: life, work, audio, movies, star wars, food, restaurant

Quote of the day

2006-10-17T10:20:00.001+10:00

I installed Google Desktop the other day and one of the gadgets you can install in it is a Quote of the day application. So, starting today I am going to add the quotes to my posts if they strike me as meaningful.

This one seems to fit my life at the moment, which is rather hectic and at times overwhelming.

Dag Hammarskjold:
"Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was."

Labels: life, quote

Technorati tags: life, quote

I guess I'm not alone

2006-10-17T10:06:00.001+10:00

Neil from Citizen of the month posted this - "I Don't Understand Women".

Read that blog first, then have a quick glance through the comments and then head back here.

Done? Okay. Here is my question to the world. Why are men supposed to do all the work? We are supposed to bring flowers, search the world for interesting and unique things/places to go/do on a date. We have to make the woman feel as though she is special, all the time.

What about us? When does a man get to be pursued? Told that he is wonderful? Even just calling us for a date for a change?

I'm not saying that I don't want to do all the things that women want me to do. It's just that once in a while, I want her to call first, or choose what we do when we go out.

Once, just once, after I have scraped 3 days of growth from my face, used gel in my hair so that it looks normal for a whole night without becoming scruffy, used aftershave and deodorant, chosen the best clothes that I have in my wardrobe (even buying new ones because everything was dirty on the day), when I walk in the door to pick you up.....tell me how good I look for a change.

You see, I think the sword cuts both ways. Women want affirmation from men. They want to know they are appreciated and desired. And that is fine by me. Just know that we men need the same thing. Probably not as often, but occasionally we want to feel special as well.

Labels: life, love, women, relationships

Technorati tags: life, love, women, relationships

Live Writer continued

2006-10-15T21:02:00.001+10:00

I found a quite handy part of Live Writer tonight. It has the ability to insert tags such as Technorati tags etc. The html for these tags can be edited so the appear as you want them.

A quick search through the source of the blog and it turns out that the new Labels addition in Blogger Beta is nothing more than a link to a search page for the blog. A quick cut and paste job and I can now insert Blogger Labels into the posts from Live Writer, as well as adding Technorati tags.

I don't know who Bill stole the idea for this software from but it was a good idea to steal. Simple and effective blog publishing for the masses. Not too complicated like other blog clients that are out there. Most likely it will be free which gives it another tick in my book.

Labels: blog, microsoft, live writer

Technorati tags: blog, tags, microsoft

Isn't it supposed to get easier?

2006-10-15T20:46:00.001+10:00

I called a girl tonight. She didn't answer, but that's not the point of this post. The point is, that at thirty years old, I still get nervous when I'm calling the opposite sex.

I thought that these things were supposed to get easier the older you get. Surely age brings wisdom and maturity, gives clarity of thought, and settles the nagging insecurities that plagued our youth.

Well, I guess it doesn't. I still fear rejection, worry that I won't know what to say, or say the wrong thing, or just be boring and self centred. In the back of my mind there is a small voice that whispers, "You just aren't that attractive/interesting/loveable". I know that voice well. It's the same voice that, as a child, made me shy and introverted around new people. As a teenager it convinced me that none of those intensely aloof, gorgeous women would ever talk to me, so why bother? When I was married, and unhappy, it whispered that this was as good as I could get and I should take the abuse and dramas.

That voice has held me back for 30 years. This girl is special. I think I'll ignore the voice.

Labels: life, love, fear

Technorati tags: life, love, fear

My Theatre

2006-10-12T17:54:00.001+10:00

More testing with Live Writer. The software comes with the ability to insert maps and/or satellite imagery into a post. So, as part test and part blog, here is the theatre that I work at.

The green roof in the center of the photo is Ipswich Civic Hall. The building was opened in 1975 by then Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. For the majority of that time it was run as a town hall and had very basic technical facilities.

Over the past 3 years we have upgraded large sections of the building to remove safety issues and to increase the technical equipment and services that we can provide.

In the past year we have had nearly 700 room bookings across the 4 rooms. Of those bookings nearly 200 were in the Auditorium which keeps us busy.

Next year is looking even bigger and I am looking forward to the continual expansion of the shows that we provide.

Labels: work, theatre

Technorati tags: Ipswich, theatre, gough whitlam

Let's see if Microsoft can make a useful piece of software

2006-10-12T17:30:00.001+10:00

Windows Live Writer (Beta)

That's what I am using to write this post. Now I am normally opposed to using much in the way of Microsoft products apart from the operating system itself. I refuse to use Internet Explorer. It is buggy, insecure, and is so slow and clunky compared to other options such as Firefox and Opera.

Office and Outlook are a ridiculous waste of cash. If only the myriad of users out there could be pointed to Open Office and Mozilla Thunderbird, they could find that almost all the functionality that anyone ever needs is contained in free software that is generally better supported and maintained than the hideously expensive offerings by Bill Gates.

Maybe, just maybe, the fact that Windows Live Writer is currently free, it might become a useful tool. Then again it might be made payware in the next six months and then I'll have to stop using it.

The advantages I can see right now are:

Support for Technorati tags

WYSIWYG editing that beats the Blogger Beta interface hands down

Edit, design and layout your posts in the way it will actually look on the blog

Unlike Frontpage, Windows Live Writer seems to keep the HTML code a lot cleaner and uncluttered

So far, I'm liking it. We'll see how it goes over the next few weeks.

Labels: computers, blog

Technorati tags: windows, open office, mozilla, choice

The switch to Blogger Beta

2006-10-11T13:17:00.000+10:00

I've made the switch to the new Blogger Beta. Unfortunately there is an issue with Opera and the sign in process that keeps sending me back to the sign in page. I'm not sure if it's my security settings in Opera or just a compatibility issue. The one good thing is that it works fine in Firefox so I don't need to use IE at all.

I'll let you know how the Beta works.

Edit: I got Opera working with Beta now. It seems my cookie settings were a little off and once I tolde Opera to accept cookies from the blogger.com site it was fine.

Labels: blog, computers

Technorati tags: blogger beta, opera, firefox

Things are settling down

2006-10-11T12:25:00.000+10:00

Things have definitely started to slow down for me. I've gotten some of the stuff
unpacked in the new house and the reduced travel time each day (down to 5 minutes from nearly an hour) has meant that I am getting a hell of a lot more sleep than I was.

This morning I even had time to take the dog for a walk. I haven't had the time or energy for that in a long time.

I've spent the last few days at work setting up and learning the new audio console. The Digico D1 Live is a phenomenal piece of equipment that is going to make my job a whole lot easier.

Overall, I am just enjoying a far more relaxed lifestyle than I had while I was living in Brisbane. The neighbourhood is much quiter, the pace a lot slower and living alone is finally becoming normal.

Life is great!

I'm back

2006-10-06T20:19:00.000+10:00

Thank goodness that is over with! Moving house is officially the worst possible thing that anyone could ever do. Two weeks of packing does nothing but remind you how much junk you have accumulated throughout your life, and how hard it is to throw anything out.

Seriously, I might need that old hard drive. It may only be 4 gigabytes, run way too slow, and probably not even work when I finally get around to using it, but something tells me that I can't throw it out, just in case.

Another interesting fact that turned up during the move is the amount of clothes that I have. After touring for 6 months last year I have collected a minimum of 14 days worth of clothes for any conceivable season. Unfortunately I only have closet space for around a third of the
clothes so I really, really need to get rid of some of those.

So, here I am in my new house. I'm living alone for the first time in my life. It's taking some serious getting used to. For the most part I am enjoying it, but it's still strange not having anyone around to talk to at the end of the day. Then again, I can walk around naked any time I choose, so there are some upsides.

Work has been really busy lately but I finally got the new sound desk. We finally decided to go with the Digico D1 and I am stoked to have a desk that is the cream of the crop when it comes to pro-audio equipment. It's going to make my life a lot easier on shows.

Well, that's about it for me now. I'll be back and posting a lot more often now that I am settled.

Sobering Thoughts

2006-09-14T18:45:00.000+10:00

This is going to be a quick one because I have the flu and work is ridiculously busy right now.

A friend gave me this link and I think it is possibly the most sobering and prespective inducing movie that I have ever seen. It's only short, but if you can watch it and not feel moved then you must be dead from the neck up.

Miniature Earth

2006-09-11T21:23:00.000+10:00

If only I had found this post 6 years ago I might be happily married today!
Dating Rules for Men

My Manifesto

2006-09-11T17:55:00.000+10:00

I'm single. Thirty years old and single. Have been for about six years now. Does this bother me? Not at all. You see, I've been married, been separated, and dealt with all the dramas of relationships that conflict with my job.

Working in theatre presents some interesting challenges to a relationship. I don't do the 9 to 5 Monday to Friday thing. Some weeks I do, others I work 8am to midnight, Monday to Sunday or any other bizarre combination of hours and days. I've found that a lot of people can't handle that inconsistency and it causes problems.

Over the past six years I've had some run ins with the opposite sex. Some have been fun, some would seem to have torn my heart from my chest and trodden it into mush on the ground. None have turned into anything more than a few weeks of fun.

In the last few months I have started to rethink my life. What is it about past relationships that has caused them to fail? Is it the women I choose to pursue? Or is it me, pushing them away before I get hurt again? Or maybe a combination of both?

All this thinking has led me to this....my Relationship Manifesto.

I will follow my heart and not my head (or other parts of my anatomy)
I will not change who I am but I can change what I do
I will not accept those who do not accept me for who I am
I will not hide my feelings in the interest of preserving a relationship
I will not overlook the faults of others out of desperation
I must be content in my life before I can share it
True love is not a pipe dream, it exists, and just needs to be found
I will not settle for less than my soulmate

Now that it's recorded for eternity on this blog, I aim to be held accountable. I can't break my own rules, anymore.

Digico D1 Demonstration

2006-09-08T19:53:00.000+10:00

Earlier this week I took a trip to Melbourne to have a demonstration of a new digital console. Thanks to the guys from Group Technologies for being very hospitable and looking after me for the whirlwind day.

The desk I was demoing is the Digico D1. I know that I said in an earlier post that the Digidesign Venue was an amazing desk, and it still is, but the D1 is in a class of its own. If you want to read my review of the desk, head over to this link - D1 Review.

Here is a very bad picture of the desk. Unfortunately by the time I remembered that I took my camera down with me, we were running out of time to get back to the airport so this rushed and blurry shot is the best I could get. Still, I think it makes it look cool.

Compare that desk to the rigs that I usually mix on

If I needed a piece of hardware for everything available on the D1, I would need 4 of those sound consoles, and easily another 2 or 3 of the stack of rack gear beside it. You can see why I want a new desk :)

A sad week for Australia

2006-09-08T19:39:00.000+10:00

I didn't post anything about Steve Irwin earlier this week. Mainly that was due to the fact that between me hearing about it, and arriving home, there were already dozens of sites and blogs with their take one the tragedy.

But today Australia lost another true hero. Peter Brock was one of the greatest race car drivers that Australian racing has ever seen. The winner of nine Bathurst 1000 races, a champion of road safety, and an all round great Australian. Brock died when his car ran off the road during a leg of the Targa West Rally in Western Australia. He died the way he lived, going fast and loving it.

There will never be another "Brockie".

Today I watched ants..

2006-09-04T21:08:00.000+10:00

Today I watched ants. I sat on a bench outside work to have a smoke and saw hundreds of ants trekking back and forth across the concrete. They ran almost randomly between their nest and wherever their food was today. I could see some of them getting lost. They would lose the scent trail briefly and would run around in circles until they got back on track.

As I walked back inside I noticed a single ant on the garden edging. He was metres from the rest of the ants. All alone.

The whole thing made me think. Do I act like the ants who lost the trail when I question where I am going in my life? I tend to get caught in cycles that go round endlessly, and stay that way for quite a while. Eventually, I always seem to figure out where I am supposed to go. The trail becomes clear again.

But what about the ant out by himself? Is he truly lost, worried that he has no idea where he came from or where he is going? Or, perhaps, he is the explorer, blazing a new trail, discovering a place that the other ants have never seen.

I guess I've always wanted to be that trail blazing ant. I'm tired of going where everyone else is headed. I want to stop running around in circles every time I get lost. The next time I lose the trail, I want to just blaze my own. Maybe people will follow me, maybe they won't. But at least I will end up somewhere that no one has been before me.

Either that or I will end up lost and alone. Therein lies the real risk.

The Drive for Renown / Duality unto others

2006-09-03T22:34:00.000+10:00

In the past few weeks of setting up the blog, designing the site and generally trying to figure out how this whole new side of the interweb works, I have noticed a rather annoying trend. Much the same as anyone setting up a homepage or business website, people creating blogs seem to be caught up in the hunt to be number "1". Comments on other peoples blogs are full of spam to promote the blogs or blog search engines of others, blogs are full of internet garbage like Ebay links, porn, or just junk with repetitive keywords to produce a better Google or Technorati result.

I've spent a large portion of today looking for interesting blogs. Not just groups of people who have only barely evolved from MySpace, or sites that are no more than a replica of a business website so that the company gets more exposure to search engines. I've found some that were vaguely interesting but hard to decipher, many that do nothing other than regurgitate CNN and BBC:Worldwide feeds, and only one or two that seemed as though they had something worthwhile to say.

Now, I am the first person to put my hand up and say that I am probably not the most interesting or innovative person on the 'net. I will however, endeavour to make every post here an original post. If I quote a news site it will be because I have something to say about that article, and I will say it.

So, now that I have made that rather worrying promise, I can point you to a site that I found today on my searches. This site is called Strangers Among Us. It is a collaborative blog by a few guys who take photos around their towns that capture people in action. Not posed or planned, but people living their lives. The post that really grabbed my attention was this one - Errands at Box Stores. More specifically the photo of the cashier at a coffee shop in the process of being abused by a customer. There is something in that picture that, I think, captures the duality of life. This poor cashier has no choice but to assist the customer, no matter if he was at fault, or if the person is just plain unreasonable, and all the while he must be thinking that he is better than this.

How many times have we all been in a situation where we have been on the receiving end of something that was undeserved and yet have had to bear it because at that moment we have no other option. It seems obvious to me that if people would only remember those times in their life, that we would be treating each other a lot better. What ever happened to "Do unto others.."?

Customising the site

2006-09-03T02:54:00.000+10:00

I've spent the last day or so getting the site redesigned a little. You can now subscribe to an RSS feed of the site or use the email subscription to receive a daily digest of any posts that I make.

I'm slowly working out the whole CSS stylesheet stuff and figuring out how I want the site to look so check back regularly to see what I come up with. Due to limitations in Blogger I haven't got categories sorted out properly as yet. You can search some basic categories from the sidebar but it doesn't really work the way that I want it to yet.

The next step is to get a calendar navigation widget added but that has a lot of editing etc that I haven't quite gotten my head around. Maybe some time over the next week or so.

Sounds from the studio

2006-09-02T15:40:00.000+10:00

I spent last Saturday in the studio with my friend Shane from the comedy duo The Laundromats. He has a side project going with another comedian doing music. No comedy, just some pretty cool songs etc. Check out their Myspace site at The Futons. It was great to be recording real music again after so long just doing live work and theatre.

Shane and I were in a band together back in 1999 and we wrote a lot of really cheesy punk songs about bizarre subjects such as The Tellietubbies and the cartoon show "Rocko's Modern Life". It's cool to see that we have both evolved from that point and can now write intelligent and mature songs!

You can listen to the rough demo of Shane's new song "One Pure One" from my webhost. Let me know if you like it, and I'll pass that on to Shane. You have to keep artists fed with ego improvement all the time or they start to self destruct.

I'm still working on The Laundromats' live album. All the final editing is done and now I just have to separate the 38 minute file into individual CD tracks for mixing. Then it's off to the mastering studio and I can hand the boys their second CD. I know that they are looking forward to it and so am I.

I need to get it finished ASAP because I have to move house very soon. The way my life is at the moment it could be some months before I get my studio gear set up in the new place and that would put quite a hold up on your enjoyment of the new album.

Digidesign Venue demonstration

2006-09-02T14:11:00.000+10:00

I got to play with toys this week :) No, not those toys! I know what you are thinking. Actually I got to demo a new sound console from Digidesign. This desk does everything I need it to do and then some. Plus it's a sexy toy that is guaranteed to induce envy in any other sound guy out there. Here's a rough breakdown of some of the tricks it does.

Remote control via a VNC client.

Hook the ethernet port on the local rack in to any existing ethernet network or wifi router and then use any freely downloadable VNC client software to access the desk interface. No more hassling with Windows only versions of remote control software. If your computer can run VNC then you can remotely control the desk.

This also means that if you have a separate Smaart laptop, you can VNC it also on the same network and carry one laptop or tablet PC to do both jobs

Up to 100 plugins (dependant on DSP resources)
Build 4 racks of 25 plugins each and then assign these as needed. Plugins can be inserted on each channel in the 4 available plugin insert slots, and can be moved around in order to alter the signal flow. Plugins can also be fed by the variable level Direct Outputs. This means that if you want a reverb on the snare and don't need that effect on any other channel, you can feed it from the direct out and avoid tying up an auxiliary send.

If DSP resources are getting tight, you can deactivate a plug in to free up processing power and reactivate based on snapshots.

The standard pack of plugins available with the system are:
VENUEPack 2.0

Digidesign Impact®
Digidesign Reverb One™
Digidesign ReVibe™
Digidesign Smack!™"
Digidesign/Bomb Factory® BF-3A
Digidesign/Bomb Factory Pultec Bundle
Digidesign/Bomb Factory Slightly Rude Compressor™
Digidesign/Bomb Factory Classic Compressors Bundle
Digidesign/Bomb Factory Moogerfooger® Bundle
Focusrite d2™
Focusrite d3™

Work how you want to
There are multiple ways to do anything on this desk. Assign channels to groups by selecting the channel and hitting the appropriate group assign button in the "Fat" Channel, or select multiple channels and assign them all to the same groups by selecting the group assign button, or select the Multi-Assign button above the group master and hit select on each individual channel that you want to assign.

The desk seems to have been designed in such a way that any method that you want to use, or a combination of all methods, is intuitive and fast.

Desk Config
There is a Desk Config button at the top of the main console. Hit this button and you can alter groups/aux configurations, add plugins to the racks etc etc. There is a mute in the audio when you alter the configuration and this needs to be done prior to the show or at the very least in a break between songs. Once you have the system set up the way you want it, hit the Config button again and nothing can be accidently changed during the show.

We did a complete change where we instantiated 24 graphic EQ's, changed the number of Auxes vs Groups and hit OK. Total time from audio mute to back and running was under 20 seconds. That would be bad during a show but quite impressive really if you think about the time it would take to repatch an analogue desk in the same configuration.

Adding plugins to the rack while mixing also creates a mute, so you have to get your racks built in advance. A plugin that was already in use and just needed another instance gave a mute of less than a second, to instantiate an entirely new plugin can be 3 - 4 seconds.

In the setup page it lets you know how many DSP chips are available at any time for use by plugins. Each chip can only run one type of plugin, but can run as many of that type as processing power permits. With 8 auxes, 8 stereo groups and 24 graphics running, we had 14 spare DSP chips to play with. When you consider that one of those chips had, I believe, 8 - 10 Focusrite D2 eq's on it and was still only at 85%, that's quite a lot of "outboard" gear that you can play with. Add more DSP cards and get more plugins.

Pro Tools integration
Digidesign have been quite smart about the interface between Venue and ProTools. There are two cards available as options. One is a Firewire card and the other is a HD card.

The Firewire card lets you plug a computer running ProTools LE into the FOH rack and gives you 18 inputs and outputs from ProTools. Record a multitrack of your show, playback studio backing etc, or record your soundcheck and send the band off for drinks while you finish your mix.

The HD card plugs into a ProTools HD system with Core or Accel cards and gives you up to 128 inputs and outputs. With that rig you can record every mic on stage and do a complete soundcheck after the band has left. Talk about a secret weapon!

Automatic Gain Setting
If you are in a rush and need to get rough gains in quickly, push and hold on the rotary encoder assigned to gain and the Venue will analyse the signal and set a best-guess gain to get you the best signal into the desk. Just another thing to get you through those festival soundchecks a lot quicker.

This desk is expensive so I'm gonna have to fight hard to get it, but I think it's the ideal setup for our theatre.

On a personal note, nothing much is happening. Lots of work and not much free time.

Catch ya later.

What a week!

2006-08-25T20:07:00.000+10:00

This week has been a wild ride! We had a large conference at work for regional planning that required audio and AV in 6 rooms across 2 days and all at once. On top of that I have been investigating options for a new sound console for the theatre to attempt to bring us into the present. That's where the real fun began

Earlier this week I sent out some requests for quotes and have been amazed by the responses I am getting back. I asked for a basic digital console spec (Almost all of them do the same things) with a console controlled digital core. If they couldn't come up with a digital core they had to provide an alternative with an analogue core and costings.

Here's a little exercise in contrasting and comparing:

Company A - a well known but small market share provider of digital consoles. These guys want to sell me a desk, What ever it takes, how ever they can, they want to sell me their product.

They know that we have a limited budget and large amounts of beauracracy to contend with on our end. But they have presented 3 or 4 options already, that give us power when talking to the higher ups.

This small company, can't get me a desk in my venue to demo. So, they are willing to fly me down to Melbourne, put me up for a night, and give me two days of training on their system while we work out options and pricing etc.

Company B - Returned an email with a forward from their console suppliers stating:
"No one is installing digital consoles in venues"
Except ME apparently

"Wait for 12 months until some other options arrive on the market"
I have to buy this financial year and am losing work to outside production companies because our desk is substandard

"Digital snakes are useless because no one elses' equipment will interface with them"
Anyone coming to our venue who is bringing their own FOH desk, will almost 99% of the time be bringing their entire rig. I have worked in a venue with ample in-house cores and patching, and not once in the 4 years I was there did a touring show use our snake.

"Digital desks are only used by touring artists who have one engineer, it takes too long to train"
I mix 90% of the shows where we provide production in house, 5% are touring engineers where we provide production (And who I always run through the system as set up and help them until they are happy anyway), and the other 5% are bringing complete production and don't use any of our in house gear.

The other companies all seem to be either stalling for their latest and greatest, unreleased and untested in the real world, systems to come out. Call me gun shy, but my very first venue gig had one of the first Allen & Heath ML5000's in Australia. For 2 years we fixed problem after problem with it. Yes the desk is a great desk.....now, and I would use one anyday, but I don't want to have to explain to my boss that a show went bad because I was beta testing the expensive piece of gear that I told him would be perfect for our venue.

Not one of the providers apart from company A has provided an alternative to my spec, or even called me to ask anymore than what my budget was.

What happened to people wanting to get their products out in the marketplace? Are the big console manufacturers so content that they have it all sewn up that they can't be bothered making the effort anymore?

It truly astounded me that there were people who supposedly want my business who not only wanted to tell me that I was wrong for asking for what I need, but then continued to say that they would not supply a quote for any other option that might meet my requirements, even though I specified that I was open to options.

On the upside, I got told by a local theatre company that they will be using us for their entire production requirements for their musical this year. This is a great thing for our venue as it's the first time in 3 years where we have had a tech department that was not only capable of providing the full needs for a large musical, but that the community clients have been open to us even giving them a quote.

I'm really looking forward to the show as it's been a while since I have mixed a musical, and the challenges that come with that are hard but enjoyable. Also it will allow us to showcase our abilities to other community clients and prove to them that we can not only give them a professional result, but that we can do it cheaper and with less hassle than external production companies.

With this production under our belt, and hopefully good reviews and feedback from the clients, I hope to be able to go to Council and push for more funding to expand our capabilities and provide for an even wider range of services for our clients.

I think it's going to be a fun 12 months or so with this new job :)

On the non-work side of life, I'm hoping to get the final mixing done for The Laundromats latest album. The live gig was really great fun to record, and the final product is going to be a great CD with plenty of belly laughs. Keep checking back here and I'll let you know how the mixing goes and when it is available for purchase.

I'm getting around to it

2006-08-23T20:54:00.000+10:00

Yeah I know I haven't updated anything here in the last week. Work is
kicking my ass, but expect a rundown on it over the weekend.

Physio and Drugs :)

2006-08-16T20:47:00.000+10:00

Ahhh...I can move my neck again :) Hit the doctor yesterday morning and he gave me some anti-inflammatory pills and sent me to a physiotherapist. There was an awesome hot receptionist there which made the $70 bill somewhat more bearable. Got my neck cracked, back cracked, pushed and pulled etc for about half an hour and woke up this morning with a massively improved neck which has done nothing but get better all day.

So now that I've gotten over the pain and the inconvenience I can get back into work. My manager left the theatre about two weeks ago and they have promoted me to Acting Technical Manager until they advertise the position. Basically they are going to advertise within the local council so it's pretty much a shoe in that I'll get the job full time.

It's strange to be working full time again. I had a permanent job at the theatre in Maryborough for 2 years, but when I left in 2004 I worked as a casual or contract technician until now. The lifestyle suited me well, lots of days off, no real stress and I made enough to pay the bills each week. Now I've got to do 40 hours a week, I make $48k AUD a year, but the stress has gone way up (at least for now). I'm finding that working within the Council is a red tape nightmare, with procedures for processes that regulate procedures. Something as simple as ringing the carpenters to get a door fixed ends up being an email to the Facilities Request address, then a guy comes out to look at it (and only it, don't ask him to fix something that isn't on his work order), he looks at it, figures out what it needs and goes away. Then, a week later, a different guy will come back and fix it.

And that's just for the small things. Want to purchase something that costs more than $50? Can't do that on petty cash, has to have a purchase order sent to the supplier who then supplies it. Need 4 things but could only get 3 of them at one store? Can't go to a different store that is in competition with the first one. The list goes on and on!

Thankfully I still get to work on shows which keeps my hand in. I don't think I could do this job if I never got to work on shows. The office/desk job has never been part of my plan, and I think I would go crazy within a month!

On a personal note, I wrote a song with a friend of mine about 2 years ago that ended up being recorded on his comedy duo's first CD. I did the recording, co-wrote the song, played all the instruments, and they sang it.

Today they got an email from Broadjam.com letting them know that the song had gone into the Spoken Word Top 10 Not sure how it gets into spoken word seeing as it's a full song but I'm stoked anyway!

I can't seem to figure out how to find the damn top 10 list but if you go to Broadjam.com and do a search for "The Laundromats" you will find the songs they have up on the site and you can have a listen. The song is called "Back, Sack and Crack Wax".

These guys have got a new CD coming out soon that we recorded live at the Sitdown Comedy Club a week or so ago. I'll be announcing it on here when it comes out.

Neck pain sucks

2006-08-13T11:24:00.000+10:00

Went to bed last night with some neck pain. Woke up at 5am with pain blasting from the middle of my back up to my head and down to my right shoulder. Neck pain sucks, thank God for Nurofen Plus and beer!

That kind of screwed up my plans of starting to pack all my stuff in preparation for the big move to Ipswich. I spent most of the day sitting on the couch playing Eve:Online and wishing that I could turn my head more than 20 degrees to each side or move faster than a sloth when I do it. At least I had a good time playing Eve.

First Blog - A really good gig story

2006-08-12T22:52:00.000+10:00

My first ever blog :) I've been meaning to get around to this for months now. We'll see if I'm able to stick with it, I have a tendency to get bored sometimes.

Anyway, I had a really good show on Thursday night. I'm a sound engineer for a regional theatre near Brisbane, Australia. On Thursday we had Aled Jones, a well known singer from Wales, performing at our theatre. Normally an international act like his would be touring with their own production crew and equipment, but on this tour he is doing whistlestop shows all over the country back to back so he is using in house engineers and gear to save on the logistics involved.

For me, this was a bonus. Most times I set up the PA and mics, assist the touring engineer with anything they need during soundchecks and then I head backstage to watch the show and then pack it all up. I probably get to mix about 10 or 12 decent acts a year and the rest of the time it is community groups/schools and corporate events with 2 lectern microphones and a CD player.

On this show I got to spec all the equipment we would need to hire in, organise the crew we would need and mix front of house sound. To be honest, I had never heard of Aled prior to the show being advertised for the theatre. I didn't know what his music was like, whether he would be a prima-donna, or if I would hate every minute of it.

To my great joy, Aled and his crew were great to work with. He and his musical director were perfectionists, but that is to be expected in this industry. I guess deep down I am a perfectionist also when it comes to live sound, because I know that when a crowd walks out of a great show they give credit to the performer, when it's a bad show they credit it to the venue. I've always tried to do the absolute best that I can so that my venue keeps a good name. The better the punters think of the venue the more tickets they buy. The better name we have with touring crew and promoters, the more shows that come to our venue. Both things keep me and my crew in work and helps me get new and expensive toys from the Boss :)

This was the first show on the tour so we had a few hassles getting their gear integrated into our rig and figuring out how the show would run etc. The biggest problem was fitting a 75 person choir onto a stage that already had a harp, a string quartet, a grand piano, Aled, and 11 foldback wedges on it. We eventually added extra risers and stood the choir around the string quartet. The choir director wasn’t overly pleased with the situation but I left it to the Tour manager to solve that problem. Sometimes it’s nice being able to handball the nasty stuff up a level.

We had a really long soundcheck/rehearsal due to the musicians being new to the music, and never having performed with Aled prior to this show. As with most professional classical musicians though, the MD gave them music and they played it as though they had been playing it for the last 10 years. It amazes me to this day that people are that talented. It also makes me wish I’d stuck at it when I started learning guitar instead of getting lazy and playing everything by ear. We started sound check at about 4pm and finished at 7:25pm, just 5 minutes before doors opened for the audience.

That gave me 20 minutes to chain smoke as many cigarettes as I could before I needed to be back at the FOH position. I don’t know why but I always smoke more just before a show than I ever do any other time.

The show started with the choir for 20 mins which was a pretty easy mix. Just 2 shotgun mics on the choir and the piano. Aled came on and the job got interesting. I had originally thought that this was going to be set and forget for most of the show. Instead I found dynamic changes throughout the performance that kept me on my toes, watching the musicians, spotting the person who just started playing the main melody, keeping them all balanced and most importantly making sure that every single member of the audience could hear Aled clearly over the top of it all. In our venue, which for that show was set with seats on the flat auditorium floor and seats in the balcony it becomes an interesting exercise in guesstimation. I was set on the floor at the back of the audience and so I knew what I was hearing was pretty close for the 3-400 people downstairs. The 150 or so in the balcony meant I had to guess how loud it was upstairs, and how loud I could get downstairs without annoying the crowd while still ensuring it was loud and clear in the balcony. At interval I had a few punters come and do the standard, “We can’t hear this, we can’t hear that”, comments. I just didn’t have the heart to tell them that most of the times they couldn’t hear the harp was because she was miming to a backing track and wasn’t actually playing.

At the end of the show I got great reports from my manager, the tour manager, the MD and Aled about the sound. It’s always nice to hear from the people who actually know what it should sound like that you got it right. Even better was the tour manager delivering a 30 pack of beer to our crew for a job well done. Now that’s the way to show your appreciation!

All in all this gig went from one where I expected a standard senior citizens entertainment evening, to a gig where I was challenged at every turn, and even more surprisingly, I enjoyed the music.

So that ends the good gig story. Fear not that bad gig stories will follow, and in fact will be more prevalent than good gigs. But, I figured that this gig was worthy of a first blog because it shows that my job is fun, and reminds me why I keep going back for the 14 hour days :)