When people give advice
Now, if you are into a particular field of study or interest, and you have someone ask you for advice, give them the best advice you can. If you are asking the advice. Listen to the people. if they are a friend of yours they should not steer you wrong.
Case in point, I was asked by a friend who is the director of a community theatre where I live. He asked me recently what we needed for a sound system for a touring show we are doing to the local elementary schools. Well, he got the mics, arranged for us to borrow a decent sound control board, and even got us two powered external speakers for the main outputs. However, I told him for monitors we would need a power amp.
Ok, here is some basic sound advice for those looking at running sound for big shows and musicals. Most good sound mixers do not have a way to power the output. Now for small bands, Peavy is good as it gives powered output. Peavy is REALLY REALLY bad for professional audio, like musicials abnd theatrical use. Now, when you have an non powered output source going into a non powered speaker, the sounds is going to be LOW. If you can get sound output, you are not going to get much of it, and when you do, it’s very easy to get it to distort because you are going to have to have it way too hot to get any output. Kind of like listening to an IPOD set loud with the earphones on the desk in front of you. Now, take a pair of speakers that are powred, and the audio sounds fine. Why is that you ask, well the answer is simple.
It’s because the powered speakers have built in power amps (power amplifiers) that take the sound, amplify it, and output it in one cabinet. These speakers have a power cord that plus into them and supplies the external power that the amp needs to function. Most powered sepakers also have both the subwoofer (for bass) and tweeter (for higher pitched sounds) built in the same cabinet as well.
Now today, at the rehearsal, one of the cast says, “I can’t hear the music”.. I nearly lost it. Not only am I stressed at not having a moment to do anyting except set up the system, let alone having to get the director and tour manager to set the wireless mics up, I get that. I reply, “Well, I tried to find a solution that was free for us. Sadly, it didn’t work.. So I am getting some other stuff later tonight to try to make it work.” To this the director, who I consider a real friend, said, “Don’t flip out.” At that point I shot him a look that could have melted ice. He doesn’t know how close he came to losing the only person he has right now that can run sound and knows what he looks for in tech stuff. I volunteer, and for a friend to to say that to someone who is giving their damn time to help him… That is not cool.
Now, I will take to chat cast member, who is a col guy. He was giving an excuse as to why he was messing up the song. I hate to tell him, but that about he times that he could hear the music and he messed up? But, thanks to our touring manager Daniel, we should have a power amp that I can jury rig to work with that we got. Just gotta get the theatre board to spring for come couplers, converters and good long mic/speaker cords. Of course, I will get the old, “But we dont have the money, I mean we just spent $6000 on wireless mics.. Why do we need to buy more things?” Sadly, they fail to realize that the wireless mics are but one component in a cascade that is sound design.
