Unfortunately, my "normal life" has caught up with me, and my habit of blowing off responsibility has been put on hold. My work has recently hosted a very large conference, and being an audio nerd, I was appointed the pretend title, "Head of A/V". The beauty of this position, is that if all things go well, I don't have to do anything. The curse, is that when the ever-lurking chaos strikes, everyone is looking at you to fix it. So, blending a little bit of obsessive compulsive with my love technology, I set out to cover every angle for any disaster that could happen. I reserved equipment, double checked reservations, recruited sound people, bought five of every possible adapter, dongle, and cable I could think of. D-Day finally arrived, and I felt more confident about my preparation than ever. Aside from a few minor user errors, things went very smoothly both Monday and Tuesday during the pre conference workshops. My confidence evolved into cockiness, and I was sure this event would go off without a hitch.
However, there is an epidemic that is directly related, but stretches far beyond our music community. This epidemic is known as the Sound Man. The idea of a sound man is wonderful. A professional attentive to all things audio (usually video too), and to to deal with these issues as they appear. Ideally, this person would also be someone who has a good ear for mixing, dynamics, quality of sound, the room, and have a good idea how to actually use their equipment. But in reality, 80% of the population of sound men I've met, have absolutely no clue what they are doing. What's even worse are sound guys who do know how to run the show, but are a entitled lazy sacks of shite. Whether the sound man be "good" or "terrible", you almost always have to suck up. Why? Cause they'll make your experience a living hell if you don't.
I know many of you are beginning to grumble, and some are even plastering their computer monitors in frothy saliva from all of the F-bombs spewing forth from your mouths. In no way am I implying that I am the golden poster child to be worshiped for my audio glory. I like you, am learning more about this every day. But, I have had the luxury of working with extremely talented and professional sound guys. And in comparison, it's a night and day difference.
Let us return to my original story. We had rented out a very nice auditorium, for a simple keynote lecture that was to be given. One microphone, one channel, a projector, and a Power Point all hardwired. They were to provide all the equipment and staff, we just had to show up. Simple. A job you could probably even have a slightly agitated Wolverine fulfill with success. I arrived early, politely introduced myself, and met all of the A/V people. I scope out the person who looked most in charge of the event, let's call him Randy. I notice that there are a bunch of hanging microphones that are hanging in front our our screen. I ask if they can be moved, and why they weren't in the first place. "It's a lot of work to get them down, people will ignore them". Good excuse I suppose. I shrug it off. I then ask Randy who I need to give my flash drive to for the presentation. He points upstairs to the second level, and tells me there's a lady waiting for it. I give it to her. No sweat.
A few minutes before the presentation starts, Randy asks me to test out my slide show. I tell him I gave it to the woman upstairs. I am met with a blank stare. I reiterate our previous conversation, and how he instructed me to bring it to the second level to give to the woman at the computer. He replies, "Oh, she's just filming the event, she has nothing to do with us." Ok. Just a hiccup I say to myself. I retrieve my slide show and ask him where to plug it in. "Oh, you don't have a computer?" I become slightly annoyed now. No, I don't have a computer Randy, because there happened to be a contract that said that the auditorium would provide one. Guess you didn't read it. But I don't say that. Instead, while Randy picks lint out of his belly button, I hunt someone down with a laptop I can borrow. And we bring it up to the podium to be hooked up with a VGA cable.
By this point, most of the auditorium is full. We're about a minute away from kicking this off, and I'm up on stage scrambling around last minute like a chump. Once hooked up, I check the slide show on the screen. The image displays brightly for a minute, flickers, gives a standby signal, then flickers on. I ask Randy if that problem will go away. He informs me that he's never had this problem, so he doesn't know. I tell him we probably need a VGA Signal booster, because it's most likely that the projector is getting a weak signal from the computer (the cable goes from the main floor all the way up to the ceiling.) He shrugs his shoulders.
Shrugs his shoulders.
You wanna make this wombat foam at the mouth like a pestilent beast? Tell me you're going to do a job, and when an issue comes up, shrug your shoulders....
So my fate was in Randy and his incompetent crew. I spent a good five minutes trying to wave the man at the board down, so he could lift the mute on the mic. Whatever was on his cell phone was much more important though. The presentation itself went fine, minus the blinking projector for most of the lecture. Eventually, another technology person found a signal booster tucked away and swapped the cables quickly.
We had three other presentations at this auditorium which all went very similarly. This whole fiasco merely supports my previous grumpy stereotypes about most sound men. I've played too many gigs with absolute morons standing behind the console.
- Stonewall
PS (I'm hoping to start posting regularly again)
PPS (The gentleman who wanted to look at my DL4 for me, please message me!)
I know many of you are beginning to grumble, and some are even plastering their computer monitors in frothy saliva from all of the F-bombs spewing forth from your mouths. In no way am I implying that I am the golden poster child to be worshiped for my audio glory. I like you, am learning more about this every day. But, I have had the luxury of working with extremely talented and professional sound guys. And in comparison, it's a night and day difference.
Let us return to my original story. We had rented out a very nice auditorium, for a simple keynote lecture that was to be given. One microphone, one channel, a projector, and a Power Point all hardwired. They were to provide all the equipment and staff, we just had to show up. Simple. A job you could probably even have a slightly agitated Wolverine fulfill with success. I arrived early, politely introduced myself, and met all of the A/V people. I scope out the person who looked most in charge of the event, let's call him Randy. I notice that there are a bunch of hanging microphones that are hanging in front our our screen. I ask if they can be moved, and why they weren't in the first place. "It's a lot of work to get them down, people will ignore them". Good excuse I suppose. I shrug it off. I then ask Randy who I need to give my flash drive to for the presentation. He points upstairs to the second level, and tells me there's a lady waiting for it. I give it to her. No sweat.
A few minutes before the presentation starts, Randy asks me to test out my slide show. I tell him I gave it to the woman upstairs. I am met with a blank stare. I reiterate our previous conversation, and how he instructed me to bring it to the second level to give to the woman at the computer. He replies, "Oh, she's just filming the event, she has nothing to do with us." Ok. Just a hiccup I say to myself. I retrieve my slide show and ask him where to plug it in. "Oh, you don't have a computer?" I become slightly annoyed now. No, I don't have a computer Randy, because there happened to be a contract that said that the auditorium would provide one. Guess you didn't read it. But I don't say that. Instead, while Randy picks lint out of his belly button, I hunt someone down with a laptop I can borrow. And we bring it up to the podium to be hooked up with a VGA cable.
By this point, most of the auditorium is full. We're about a minute away from kicking this off, and I'm up on stage scrambling around last minute like a chump. Once hooked up, I check the slide show on the screen. The image displays brightly for a minute, flickers, gives a standby signal, then flickers on. I ask Randy if that problem will go away. He informs me that he's never had this problem, so he doesn't know. I tell him we probably need a VGA Signal booster, because it's most likely that the projector is getting a weak signal from the computer (the cable goes from the main floor all the way up to the ceiling.) He shrugs his shoulders.
Shrugs his shoulders.
You wanna make this wombat foam at the mouth like a pestilent beast? Tell me you're going to do a job, and when an issue comes up, shrug your shoulders....
So my fate was in Randy and his incompetent crew. I spent a good five minutes trying to wave the man at the board down, so he could lift the mute on the mic. Whatever was on his cell phone was much more important though. The presentation itself went fine, minus the blinking projector for most of the lecture. Eventually, another technology person found a signal booster tucked away and swapped the cables quickly.
We had three other presentations at this auditorium which all went very similarly. This whole fiasco merely supports my previous grumpy stereotypes about most sound men. I've played too many gigs with absolute morons standing behind the console.
- Stonewall
PS (I'm hoping to start posting regularly again)
PPS (The gentleman who wanted to look at my DL4 for me, please message me!)
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