Sound gone bad (or why they should listen to me)

[dheafey]

So, my daughter's High School dance team recital was last night. The drama director, whom I'd built a set of Jack 12's for, had repeatedly offered his BF cabs, and the accompanying plate amp, to the dance team for their use. They said they had it under control. Apparently not.

The audience and myself were greeted with barely listenable "powered Yamaha's on a stick". Now, in a low volume application, I suppose these are ok. You know, a dance at a nursing home or something. But to fill an auditorium with decent sound, not so much.

We would've been ok if the dance team coach hadn't cranked the things to distortion. Oh, and did I mention they went thermal - twice - in the middle of 2 dances? Of course, it created one of the better moments of the show: NO music to cringe at and 100 high school kids singing the words to the song so the dancers could continue. Very cool.

Walking out of the auditorium, there's a tap on my shoulder and the drama director says, "I tried. I'm able to hear your cabs, crystal clear, down the hallway. They should've listened to me." At $900 USD for 2 "Yamaha noise boxes on a stick", a pair of Jack 12's, PLUS full range plate amp, come in at $300 less and they smoke 'em.

It's good to be right.

[Sydney]

How old is the auditorium?
Public Schools have layers of purchasing procedures that are designed for accountability, and verification all along layers of bureaucracy. Merchandise purchases often have to be verified and approved.
That demand for accounting and to prevent fraud strongly favors commercial solutions.
So often hands are tied so to speak.

Smaller schools are more flexible and some bid for contract services.
Independent schools are much more open and willing to listen to individual contractors.
They are often looking for technical advise; that's an opening for better ideas and implementations.

Syd

[dheafey]

How old is the auditorium?
Public Schools have layers of purchasing procedures that are designed for accountability, and verification all along layers of bureaucracy. Merchandise purchases often have to be verified and approved.
That demand for accounting and to prevent fraud strongly favors commercial solutions.
So often hands are tied so to speak.

Smaller schools are more flexible and some bid for contract services.
Independent schools are much more open and willing to listen to individual contractors.
They are often looking for technical advise; that's an opening for better ideas and implementations.

Syd

The auditorium is VERY old, like 40 years. They actually have NO sound equipment in the space and have to bring in whatever they need from parent volunteers. A new high school has been approved by the town and, when I ask if they need someone to help audit the new theater configuration, I'm told, "The consultant is taking care of it." This falls in line with what you're saying. Commercial solutions. I had dreams of making sawdust for some T39/T48 and OT12/DR250 for the new space.

[sine143]

Hmm, I know you stated it in your other thread (cant remember the name), but what plate amp did you use for the jacks?

[Ron K]

How old is the auditorium?
Public Schools have layers of purchasing procedures that are designed for accountability, and verification all along layers of bureaucracy. Merchandise purchases often have to be verified and approved.
That demand for accounting and to prevent fraud strongly favors commercial solutions.
So often hands are tied so to speak.

Smaller schools are more flexible and some bid for contract services.
Independent schools are much more open and willing to listen to individual contractors.
They are often looking for technical advise; that's an opening for better ideas and implementations.

Syd

The auditorium is VERY old, like 40 years. They actually have NO sound equipment in the space and have to bring in whatever they need from parent volunteers. A new high school has been approved by the town and, when I ask if they need someone to help audit the new theater configuration, I'm told, "The consultant is taking care of it." This falls in line with what you're saying. Commercial solutions. I had dreams of making sawdust for some T39/T48 and OT12/DR250 for the new space.

It's unfortunate that most public institutions must follow purchasing and engineering guidelines set forth by the state.Most of those rules and regulations are in place to protect the school district,state and student body and faculty. Most times the contracts are bid but the originator of the engineering data is usually the one securing the end contract as well.Basically it becomes an old fashioned hand washing deal but it's done behind a legal looking facade.Not every district is the same but the ones I've bid in here in PA are for the most part.

On another note offering up SR for recitals and such can often be viewed by the director or person who is supplying the PA (for lack of a better term) as a criticism. When you say hey I can provide sound for your event they are thinking "whats wrong with mine???" It can be tricky territory.I offer up my PA once for a model airplane flying event for a club I belonged to. Little did I know a guy who does just that at a bunch of these was previously invited and he assumed he was providing PA support. I show up and set up and about an hour later he arrives and asks where he can plug in?? I'm like who are you and he states hes the PA support for the event.As you can imagine the day was a big clusterf""" and i did my best to accommodate this fellow without hurting his feelings.I let him MC the entire event on my rig. He constantly made attempts to produce feedback by walking in front of the distributed speakers on sticks by was getting frustrated when the system stayed true. He even one removed his wireless Lavilere mic and tried shoving into the speakers horn. Fortunately I saw him and pulled the mic channel and from then on he called me the guy with the magic amplifier! I kept my cool but when the event ended I took him aside and offered to show him the inside of his asshole first hand. He said I stole his "work" (was a free bee and would have been for him as well) and I replied: I offered and they accepted. You were unofficially invited by someone who really didn't have the authority to do so but we didn't want to appear rude. We accommodated you as best we could but with your attitude and actions you certainly will never be invited back. To date the event is an annual thing and we provided the first 6 years. I soon after gave that event to a friend of mine and he passed it on last year.Mr. MC was never invited and subsequently died a few years later from too many jelly donuts!

Point is be very careful how you offer up your services or gear.If it's already being done you "are" stepping on someones toes even if it sounds horrible!

[dheafey]

Hmm, I know you stated it in your other thread (cant remember the name), but what plate amp did you use for the jacks?

Here ya go.

[dheafey]

Point is be very careful how you offer up your services or gear.If it's already being done you "are" stepping on someones toes even if it sounds horrible!

I think this is sage advice and exactly what happened. My co-captain daughter, a junior, offered up the system I built for the drama club but the captains, both seniors, had already "taken care of it". The bummer is I would've done it for free with a system that smoked the for hire one. Who knows what the politics were behind that one. Probably something I want to stay away from anyway.

[Ron K]

Yeah it suks when your intentions are honorable and viewed as hostile just because someone cant deal with their dam ego.

[Sydney]

Ego in Audio?
( Say it Ain't So! Joe! )
The problem with humanity are the people involved

Syd

[sine143]

The problem with humanity are the people involved
Syd

The earth would be a better place without us. Perfect and Pristine, like a toy no one ever played with...

[WB]

Perfect and Pristine,

It was before the fall.

[Tom Smit]

And the new one will be even better.

[SoundInMotionDJ]

That demand for accounting and to prevent fraud strongly favors commercial solutions.

No one ever got fired for going with IBM...

[Bruce Weldy]

I had read this thread.....then sure enough, I had my own "school" experience. One of the singers in the Praise band that I run sound for is also a middle school teacher. They were getting ready to have a talent show a couple of nights ago and he needed some help. I ran by the school and found:

- the mixer outputs plugged into the powered speaker's "mic" inputs instead of the line inputs
- every fader on the 9 band EQ on the mixer was pushed all the way up!
- master level was barely up
- channel faders were barely cracked open, but the gains were cranked
- mains were on sticks as high as they would go - on top of a 4 foot stage.

It was a mess. It took only about 10 minutes to fix all the above. The guy was ecstatic.

Saw him last night....as the show was about to begin, the guy who had left the system in the shape it was in came up and started to "adjust" the board. The teacher ran him off and they went on to have a great show and he was raving about the sound in that old gym.

Bottom line - this isn't rocket science. I would be more than happy (as I'm sure most of us would) to help schools set up their systems (even when the components are crap you can still make a difference), if they would just get the designated sound guy to drop the ego and be willing to learn.

[Radian]

A significant portion of the population is born with ears. Not many learn how to use them to their fullest potential.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Px-aPnk ... re=related