Somewhere out there is a theater where the Lighting Designer gets no support. Where they are asked to rig the lights, repair the inventory, program the cues, run the light board without a single assistant. Where they are "accidentally" left out of meetings and schedule updates. Where they are expected to draft a plot without ever seeing a ground plan, focus without seeing a set, write cues without actors or blocking. Where they are given limited access, and when they ask if someone could please turn out the work lights so they could see what they are doing, they get laughed at. Where the inventory sucks so bad they have to bring in their own equipment as a free loan, and then watch helplessly as set movers smash into it, set painters splash it with paint, and helpful stage managers randomly pick up chunks of it and stuff them away in closets without telling anyone.
At this theater, incredulous laughter greets the idea that it actually takes more than a couple minutes to focus a plot, and it is a job that requires more skill than the random volunteer doing their community service. And when the Lighting Designer bothers to speak (having somehow not digested the way their emails go unanswered, their questions ignored, their concerns brushed off) every random person speaks up with what to them is the simple obvious solution. The Lighting Designer is trying to fill the stage with moonlight? "Why, just stick a blue gel on a 6" fresnel somewhere and voila!" they say, "I really don't understand why you have to make everything so hard." Except, of course, when they hit Opening Night, and the lighting sucks -- oh, then everyone blames the Lighting Designer.
I'm sure such a theater exists for Lighting Designers. There are some really stupid theaters out there. Thing of it is.....ALL theaters are like this for Sound.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Friday, October 24, 2014
For Archaeologists Who Have Considered Suicide When the Scion is Enough
And just to round things off, started Tomb Raider: Anniversary. That's the Crystal Dynamics (the first reboot group) remake of the very first Tomb Raider game.
It is definitely the hardest of all the Crystal Dynamics series. The controls are not even quite as fluid as Tomb Raider : Legend, and the camera screw is much worse. Particularly awkward are the wall runs; in those, the direction Lara will leap depends on the exact instant you jump, as the camera changes axis at the apogee of each swing.
The first two games give insight to just how mature Tomb Raider: Underworld was; much more fluid animation, better combat mechanics, minimal camera screw. Although Legend includes several vehicle sections, only in Underworld is the vehicle integrated into the same environment as Lara, meaning you can drive over the same terrain you can run over. And also meaning you can use the vehicle in melee.
Underworld also did the best job at integrating story and tomb exploring. The puzzles were, unfortunately, simplistic, but the tombs were monumental and the isolation palpable. For all that the tombs of Anniversary are equally without human presence (aside from your own and the occasional appearance of a story element), there is a distinct lack of context, of any scenes outside the tombs that can really give you a feeling of having pushed far away from the world outside. Instead it becomes a series of puzzles in some interior space, as hermetic as the (rather more intentionally so) Portal.
The puzzles in Anniversary are difficult and few of them are the contrived "shoot the beam that against all logic falls across the stone to knock it into the lever" types. There's been only one so far that I stopped and went for help on, though. And, pity -- I was doing exactly the right thing already, but the quirky controls were making my action fail.
The oddest reality break in Anniversary occurs in large part because of the hub structure of many of the puzzles. Frequently, a mistake will send you back to a common place where it will take you a long and frustrating time of recreating your previous moves. Or...you can step off a platform or into a whirling blade, and restore to a more convenient save point.
Literally, suicide is painless (compared with the alternative).
I think personally the hub nature of the puzzles doesn't help. In Underworld, you always had the sense of moving closer to your ultimate goal. Even in some of the more hub-based systems, you were visibly progressing across a long hall or up a huge structure. In Anniversary, you end up crossing a room multiple times; going up to collect a key, back down to open a door. This makes it feel less like you are accomplishing anything, and makes you impatient to finish that room and move on.
A number of the puzzles involve a similar lack of progression. More than one "flooded room" appears that requires you to climb down the room progressively turning taps to lower the water, do something at the bottom of the room, then climb all the way back again turning the taps back on again. And repeat this several times if you didn't position the thing at the bottom exactly right for where it needs to be when you are finally back at the top.
They even nest; one door might take three keys to open, which are each held in a hub of their own that takes multiple keys to open, each of which is, of course, some complicated little problem of ramps and spinning blades and so forth.
When you come down to it, it is boiled down to mostly pure gameplay. But considering that the story elements, character interaction, and so forth in the other games is extremely scripted and minimally interactive -- little better than watching a cutscene -- I'm not entirely sure this is a bad thing.
It is definitely the hardest of all the Crystal Dynamics series. The controls are not even quite as fluid as Tomb Raider : Legend, and the camera screw is much worse. Particularly awkward are the wall runs; in those, the direction Lara will leap depends on the exact instant you jump, as the camera changes axis at the apogee of each swing.
The first two games give insight to just how mature Tomb Raider: Underworld was; much more fluid animation, better combat mechanics, minimal camera screw. Although Legend includes several vehicle sections, only in Underworld is the vehicle integrated into the same environment as Lara, meaning you can drive over the same terrain you can run over. And also meaning you can use the vehicle in melee.
Underworld also did the best job at integrating story and tomb exploring. The puzzles were, unfortunately, simplistic, but the tombs were monumental and the isolation palpable. For all that the tombs of Anniversary are equally without human presence (aside from your own and the occasional appearance of a story element), there is a distinct lack of context, of any scenes outside the tombs that can really give you a feeling of having pushed far away from the world outside. Instead it becomes a series of puzzles in some interior space, as hermetic as the (rather more intentionally so) Portal.
The puzzles in Anniversary are difficult and few of them are the contrived "shoot the beam that against all logic falls across the stone to knock it into the lever" types. There's been only one so far that I stopped and went for help on, though. And, pity -- I was doing exactly the right thing already, but the quirky controls were making my action fail.
The oddest reality break in Anniversary occurs in large part because of the hub structure of many of the puzzles. Frequently, a mistake will send you back to a common place where it will take you a long and frustrating time of recreating your previous moves. Or...you can step off a platform or into a whirling blade, and restore to a more convenient save point.
Literally, suicide is painless (compared with the alternative).
I think personally the hub nature of the puzzles doesn't help. In Underworld, you always had the sense of moving closer to your ultimate goal. Even in some of the more hub-based systems, you were visibly progressing across a long hall or up a huge structure. In Anniversary, you end up crossing a room multiple times; going up to collect a key, back down to open a door. This makes it feel less like you are accomplishing anything, and makes you impatient to finish that room and move on.
A number of the puzzles involve a similar lack of progression. More than one "flooded room" appears that requires you to climb down the room progressively turning taps to lower the water, do something at the bottom of the room, then climb all the way back again turning the taps back on again. And repeat this several times if you didn't position the thing at the bottom exactly right for where it needs to be when you are finally back at the top.
They even nest; one door might take three keys to open, which are each held in a hub of their own that takes multiple keys to open, each of which is, of course, some complicated little problem of ramps and spinning blades and so forth.
When you come down to it, it is boiled down to mostly pure gameplay. But considering that the story elements, character interaction, and so forth in the other games is extremely scripted and minimally interactive -- little better than watching a cutscene -- I'm not entirely sure this is a bad thing.
A Feeling of Power
Bought a couple of those stick-on LED dome lights for the rather dark Orchestra Pit. Turns out they were designed to turn off automatically after five minutes. So I opened them up, and after figuring out the circuitry, cut the traces to the chip and soldered a jumper. Now they stay on as long as you want.
There's a real feeling of power in doing that. A lot of tech is going the Apple direction these days -- in which it decides it knows your application better than you do, and will actively get in the way of you using it the way you actually need.
Also repaired a wireless microphone I'd bricked myself. The mini locking connector for the microphone element is under a lot of stress in use, and tends to snap inside. I've learned the way to remove the old connector is to dike it into little pieces while still in place; then you can carefully de-solder the remaining bits and solder on a replacement jack.
The first time, though, I tried to pry the whole thing off, and ended up tearing the traces right off the PCB. Well, fortunately, all of the traces to the jack pads also lead to test points. And the test points are just big enough to take a drop of solder and the end of a jumper wire:
There's a real feeling of power in doing that. A lot of tech is going the Apple direction these days -- in which it decides it knows your application better than you do, and will actively get in the way of you using it the way you actually need.
Also repaired a wireless microphone I'd bricked myself. The mini locking connector for the microphone element is under a lot of stress in use, and tends to snap inside. I've learned the way to remove the old connector is to dike it into little pieces while still in place; then you can carefully de-solder the remaining bits and solder on a replacement jack.
The first time, though, I tried to pry the whole thing off, and ended up tearing the traces right off the PCB. Well, fortunately, all of the traces to the jack pads also lead to test points. And the test points are just big enough to take a drop of solder and the end of a jumper wire:
That's the tip of a miniature screwdriver visible there in the blur. This thing is small, and tightly packed. But the repairs passed the bench test. Next is to hook it up to the sound system and see if it is quiet and resists vibration.
Oops. So it did work after all -- after re-seating the RF daughterboard. But there's a shot button on the motherboard as well and I'm not quite up for reworking an SMD button.
And around again. Turns out you can repair one of these SMD buttons in situ; I carved a hole in the plastic with an X-acto, slipped the tip of the blade under the metal, and pushed up to crimp it slightly. Works now.
However...turns out the board has low RF. Maybe something shorting the antenna?
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Poppins_02: Development
In a show that went through a proper development process, I would have had a concept meeting with the Director, firmed up some ideas, and consulted with the Music Director about whether some of the cues are pit-generated or pre-recorded effects.
The next step would be a proper spotting session. I've done this on my own, and with the Director. The best and simplest is just to talk through the entire show with scripts open, and mark each moment with a bit of colored tape. I'd insert a picture here ...but my Poppins script is at the theater.
As a lighting designer, I'd underline the actual line or action in the script, with a line pointing to a circle within which appears the number of the light cue. Sound is more fluid; unless I'm charting for someone else, I just mark the approximate line. Often as not, these days, I don't even use cue letters. I just name the cue in QLab.
After trying a few options I've settled on colored plastic tabs from Post-it. They're pricey but I get a few re-uses. I follow an arbitrary scheme where one color is background ambiences and scene shifts, another color is spot cues, and a third color marks vocal processing and live improvisations.
With this in hand, you sit down at the Paper Tech. This is where Sound, Lights, and Stage Manager sit down to hammer out their cue numbers, with the Director there to keep the concept of the show's flow intact. Or so goes the theory. Practically speaking, a musical is such a huge lighting beast (250+ cues is typical) the entire 4-6 hour meeting is taken up with the Lighting Designer talking as fast as they can while the Stage Manager scribbles the data down in their script.
If sound is called cues (aka, if they are taken by an operator on headset) or if the Stage Manager is taking the cues themselves, then you need your cue list to go to them during this meeting.
There's been a bit of a pendulum going on with this of late. When I started in theater, large crews were the norm. Stage Manager would call. Light Operator and Sound Operator would run the boards. Then budgets shrunk, and the standard began to put the Stage Manager in charge of running light cues or sound cues. Sometimes both!
But then, lighting grew steadily more complicated. The standard for musicals these days is for a new look on almost every measure of music. And the smaller theaters are adding more rails and other moving scenery -- which also have to be called by the Stage Manager. And video, not infrequently; yet another set of buttons to press.
So sound is moving away from being one of the many tasks of the Stage Manager. Yet, with the shrunken budgets still in effect, this means sound cues get dumped on the plate of the already overtasked FOH mixer.
In my own design evolution, I think of many parts of the soundscape in increasingly musical terms. For Poppins, in fact, a majority of the sound cues are not going to be cues at all. They are going to be a performance.
Again, when a show is going smoothly, you can program in rough cuts of cues at this point. In some shows there may be a dry tech (set movements, lighting, and effects all without actors) but the usual is to go direct to Cue-to-Cue. This is where every part of the show is done all together with the exception of most of the dialog and singing. Or most of the costumes.
Cue-to-Cue is called this because that's the literal process; you go from a few lines before a scene change or the start of a song or a flight sequence, and keep going for a line or two until the Stage Manager yells "Hold!"
For all practical purposes, you don't do much in sound for this. There's a lot of lighting, and a lot of set movement, and of course all those annoyingly fiddly practical effects, to get through. I tend to blow off most of my cues except for those that are needed by the actors, and spend the time building sound effects. The most important thing I do all day is make sure the Stage Manager has a god mic.
But that is jumping ahead. Speaking effects, some shows really are bread and butter. Phones ring, OS toilets flush, there's a train station announcement. But I've discovered the majority of shows seem to have a distinct flavor, and that is often systemic in how it changes the effects and frames the entire conception.
For "A Little Princess," all the "Doll Magic" -- basically, anytime something mystical and unexplained happened, from the food appearing to the Timbutoo dream sequence -- was done with African Percussion. There was a lot of that palette in the orchestra anyhow, but specific effects moments I did with pre-recorded sounds (largely marimba and rattle).
For "Mulan" I executed almost all of the sound effects as if performed by a Beijing Opera orchestra; with gongs and bells and wood clappers. Some of the effects were sweetened a little or used more sampled material -- a little wind noise, a little fire crackling, the scrape of a sword.
In two very different directions, "Starmites" was largely synthesizer effects, and many of the spot cues were manually triggered from a MIDI keyboard instead of being played off QLab in strict sequence. "Charlie Brown," on the other hand, was standard spot cues -- created, however, largely from recorded children's voices.
"Poppins" has been incredibly hard to conceptualize. We've been going around for three or four weeks on the concept of wind. BERT keeps talking about the wind as he Greek Choruses his way around the outskirts of the plot, and MARY of course enters at least once with wind.
My problems with the idea are two; that the orchestration is so dense and so continuous, and yet really wants open textures and silences; and that I'm getting really tired of wind cues (I had wind playing through entire songs of "A Little Princess.")
Well, we did the first Set Rehearsal last night. This is usually done with running crew, and on larger shows is scheduled before Cue to Cue because figuring out how to move all that scenery takes up many precious hours. Idiot theaters will try to figure this out during Cue to Cue, and the really bone-dead stupid ones will try to run changes for the first time in black-out conditions, screaming "Go faster! Go faster!" all the while. Fortunately this company knows better than that!
In any case, the whirling scenery as it moved (relatively!) fluidly from location to location finally sold me. Sold me big time. I haven't even mentioned it to the Director yet but I know she's going to support me here.
I'm going to perform the wind. Rather than try to time out the set changes (which will change through the run) and create pre-recorded cues to suit, I'm going to set up a variety of hand-rolled wind patches on my keyboard and improvise, live, whatever the wind seems to want to do from night to night.
As part of the hybrid nature of this show, it is very nearly through-composed (the music practically never stops) and many of the magical "moments" are specifically underscored. I have a few crash boxes and thunderclaps, and I'm going to do something in environmental sounds to set up the Park and so forth, but these are all in the nature of sweetening.
In "Tarzan" CLAYTON is supposed to fire on a specific beat in the music. In "MULAN" the final fight scene is also set to four specific moments in the music. This show, pretty much everything except ROBERTSON AYE's kitchen accident happens in the score, on a specific musical beat.
Which makes it natural that the bulk of the "effect" for MARY doing her magic is something done by the keyboard player. My only part in these will be to add a little general sound effect to sell what it is her magic accomplishes, whether awakening a statue or rising up a chimney.
And that means, even more so than the usual musical, I can't write any cues yet.
I can not write sound cues without hearing the orchestra play -- any more than you could write light cues without seeing the painted set, or design costumes without knowing what the cast looks like.
Since sound is a multi-hatted job, I'll follow this post up quickly with one about the development of the wireless microphone plot, and the issues with orchestral support and monitors.
The next step would be a proper spotting session. I've done this on my own, and with the Director. The best and simplest is just to talk through the entire show with scripts open, and mark each moment with a bit of colored tape. I'd insert a picture here ...but my Poppins script is at the theater.
As a lighting designer, I'd underline the actual line or action in the script, with a line pointing to a circle within which appears the number of the light cue. Sound is more fluid; unless I'm charting for someone else, I just mark the approximate line. Often as not, these days, I don't even use cue letters. I just name the cue in QLab.
After trying a few options I've settled on colored plastic tabs from Post-it. They're pricey but I get a few re-uses. I follow an arbitrary scheme where one color is background ambiences and scene shifts, another color is spot cues, and a third color marks vocal processing and live improvisations.
With this in hand, you sit down at the Paper Tech. This is where Sound, Lights, and Stage Manager sit down to hammer out their cue numbers, with the Director there to keep the concept of the show's flow intact. Or so goes the theory. Practically speaking, a musical is such a huge lighting beast (250+ cues is typical) the entire 4-6 hour meeting is taken up with the Lighting Designer talking as fast as they can while the Stage Manager scribbles the data down in their script.
If sound is called cues (aka, if they are taken by an operator on headset) or if the Stage Manager is taking the cues themselves, then you need your cue list to go to them during this meeting.
There's been a bit of a pendulum going on with this of late. When I started in theater, large crews were the norm. Stage Manager would call. Light Operator and Sound Operator would run the boards. Then budgets shrunk, and the standard began to put the Stage Manager in charge of running light cues or sound cues. Sometimes both!
But then, lighting grew steadily more complicated. The standard for musicals these days is for a new look on almost every measure of music. And the smaller theaters are adding more rails and other moving scenery -- which also have to be called by the Stage Manager. And video, not infrequently; yet another set of buttons to press.
So sound is moving away from being one of the many tasks of the Stage Manager. Yet, with the shrunken budgets still in effect, this means sound cues get dumped on the plate of the already overtasked FOH mixer.
In my own design evolution, I think of many parts of the soundscape in increasingly musical terms. For Poppins, in fact, a majority of the sound cues are not going to be cues at all. They are going to be a performance.
Again, when a show is going smoothly, you can program in rough cuts of cues at this point. In some shows there may be a dry tech (set movements, lighting, and effects all without actors) but the usual is to go direct to Cue-to-Cue. This is where every part of the show is done all together with the exception of most of the dialog and singing. Or most of the costumes.
Cue-to-Cue is called this because that's the literal process; you go from a few lines before a scene change or the start of a song or a flight sequence, and keep going for a line or two until the Stage Manager yells "Hold!"
For all practical purposes, you don't do much in sound for this. There's a lot of lighting, and a lot of set movement, and of course all those annoyingly fiddly practical effects, to get through. I tend to blow off most of my cues except for those that are needed by the actors, and spend the time building sound effects. The most important thing I do all day is make sure the Stage Manager has a god mic.
But that is jumping ahead. Speaking effects, some shows really are bread and butter. Phones ring, OS toilets flush, there's a train station announcement. But I've discovered the majority of shows seem to have a distinct flavor, and that is often systemic in how it changes the effects and frames the entire conception.
For "A Little Princess," all the "Doll Magic" -- basically, anytime something mystical and unexplained happened, from the food appearing to the Timbutoo dream sequence -- was done with African Percussion. There was a lot of that palette in the orchestra anyhow, but specific effects moments I did with pre-recorded sounds (largely marimba and rattle).
For "Mulan" I executed almost all of the sound effects as if performed by a Beijing Opera orchestra; with gongs and bells and wood clappers. Some of the effects were sweetened a little or used more sampled material -- a little wind noise, a little fire crackling, the scrape of a sword.
In two very different directions, "Starmites" was largely synthesizer effects, and many of the spot cues were manually triggered from a MIDI keyboard instead of being played off QLab in strict sequence. "Charlie Brown," on the other hand, was standard spot cues -- created, however, largely from recorded children's voices.
"Poppins" has been incredibly hard to conceptualize. We've been going around for three or four weeks on the concept of wind. BERT keeps talking about the wind as he Greek Choruses his way around the outskirts of the plot, and MARY of course enters at least once with wind.
My problems with the idea are two; that the orchestration is so dense and so continuous, and yet really wants open textures and silences; and that I'm getting really tired of wind cues (I had wind playing through entire songs of "A Little Princess.")
Well, we did the first Set Rehearsal last night. This is usually done with running crew, and on larger shows is scheduled before Cue to Cue because figuring out how to move all that scenery takes up many precious hours. Idiot theaters will try to figure this out during Cue to Cue, and the really bone-dead stupid ones will try to run changes for the first time in black-out conditions, screaming "Go faster! Go faster!" all the while. Fortunately this company knows better than that!
In any case, the whirling scenery as it moved (relatively!) fluidly from location to location finally sold me. Sold me big time. I haven't even mentioned it to the Director yet but I know she's going to support me here.
I'm going to perform the wind. Rather than try to time out the set changes (which will change through the run) and create pre-recorded cues to suit, I'm going to set up a variety of hand-rolled wind patches on my keyboard and improvise, live, whatever the wind seems to want to do from night to night.
As part of the hybrid nature of this show, it is very nearly through-composed (the music practically never stops) and many of the magical "moments" are specifically underscored. I have a few crash boxes and thunderclaps, and I'm going to do something in environmental sounds to set up the Park and so forth, but these are all in the nature of sweetening.
In "Tarzan" CLAYTON is supposed to fire on a specific beat in the music. In "MULAN" the final fight scene is also set to four specific moments in the music. This show, pretty much everything except ROBERTSON AYE's kitchen accident happens in the score, on a specific musical beat.
Which makes it natural that the bulk of the "effect" for MARY doing her magic is something done by the keyboard player. My only part in these will be to add a little general sound effect to sell what it is her magic accomplishes, whether awakening a statue or rising up a chimney.
And that means, even more so than the usual musical, I can't write any cues yet.
I can not write sound cues without hearing the orchestra play -- any more than you could write light cues without seeing the painted set, or design costumes without knowing what the cast looks like.
Since sound is a multi-hatted job, I'll follow this post up quickly with one about the development of the wireless microphone plot, and the issues with orchestral support and monitors.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Makey Makey
East Bay Mini Maker Faire has a lot of amplified sound. The music stage is handled by a local sound company for a sweetheart deal, and I don't envy them -- there's a challenging bunch of groups to set up for. The smaller demonstrations and makers and so forth (like Game of Drones) bring their own PA (the school also has a few old speakers lying around). Between these extremes is me.
I'm covering 2-3 lecture rooms and presentations with whatever I can beg or borrow or cobble up. Year before last was insane; we were spread out all over and weren't given access until the day of the Faire. So I had to hand-carry self-powered speakers and other heavy audio gear across a crowded Maker Faire to one of the distant classrooms where I was setting up. I literally plugs in the mixer, turned on the speakers, popped batteries into a lapel mic and handed it to Chris Anderson as he went on as the first presenter.
Fortunately I'd guessed right in enough of my connections and settings, I had sound.
Helps a lot to know your gear, and know the acoustics. I've dialed in a rough mix on a band without actually turning on the power. I like to think it looks kind of cool to outsiders, when you walk up, select a mic and place it, walk back to the board and get a decent sound. (But then, outsiders really don't understand how incredibly critical having the right mic in the right place is. As I've said before; the right mic in the right place and a mix is all but done. Wrong mic in the wrong place, mix is all but done for.)
I went simpler this year and set up a mono system in the big room, with the mixer nearby instead of trying to set up an FOH-like position for it, and hooked in a pair of handheld wireless with a lav as backup, and a mono connection for people to plug in laptops for movies or slide shows with sound.
The outdoors stage is always problematic because the presenters there don't have outside voices. So we give them a lav and a desk mic and crank up the gain as far as we can. I didn't even bother with two speakers this time (the audience spread was narrower than in previous years and one speaker covered them adequately).
Then an hour into the show, a request came down to help out a children's string quartet. Since I was being simple, all I had was the extras I'd thrown in the box.
Single large-diaphragm condenser on the one tripod boom stand I'd brought. Passed through a Behringer micro-mixer only because of needing the phantom power. Put the mixer on top of the cardboard box it came in and set that in the dirt. Stuck the first speaker they asked for -- JBL Eon on a speaker stand, aimed towards the causeway to entice people over to listen to the quartet.
But since the audience was mostly congregating on the path, I dashed back to where I had the gear stashed, and made one more trip with a Jolly5 miniature (but powerful) powered monitor, and set that up on a chair directly in front of the quartet.
When I set out the condenser, I had it on omni to reach the whole quartet. I was also getting a lot of chatter from passers-by and other extraneous noise (including feedback). So flipped it to figure-eight, and turned it so one lobe was pointed at the talent and the other pointed at the sky.
And it was a decent sound. Pulled in all four strings and not too much environmental noise.
I'm covering 2-3 lecture rooms and presentations with whatever I can beg or borrow or cobble up. Year before last was insane; we were spread out all over and weren't given access until the day of the Faire. So I had to hand-carry self-powered speakers and other heavy audio gear across a crowded Maker Faire to one of the distant classrooms where I was setting up. I literally plugs in the mixer, turned on the speakers, popped batteries into a lapel mic and handed it to Chris Anderson as he went on as the first presenter.
Fortunately I'd guessed right in enough of my connections and settings, I had sound.
Helps a lot to know your gear, and know the acoustics. I've dialed in a rough mix on a band without actually turning on the power. I like to think it looks kind of cool to outsiders, when you walk up, select a mic and place it, walk back to the board and get a decent sound. (But then, outsiders really don't understand how incredibly critical having the right mic in the right place is. As I've said before; the right mic in the right place and a mix is all but done. Wrong mic in the wrong place, mix is all but done for.)
I went simpler this year and set up a mono system in the big room, with the mixer nearby instead of trying to set up an FOH-like position for it, and hooked in a pair of handheld wireless with a lav as backup, and a mono connection for people to plug in laptops for movies or slide shows with sound.
The outdoors stage is always problematic because the presenters there don't have outside voices. So we give them a lav and a desk mic and crank up the gain as far as we can. I didn't even bother with two speakers this time (the audience spread was narrower than in previous years and one speaker covered them adequately).
Then an hour into the show, a request came down to help out a children's string quartet. Since I was being simple, all I had was the extras I'd thrown in the box.
Single large-diaphragm condenser on the one tripod boom stand I'd brought. Passed through a Behringer micro-mixer only because of needing the phantom power. Put the mixer on top of the cardboard box it came in and set that in the dirt. Stuck the first speaker they asked for -- JBL Eon on a speaker stand, aimed towards the causeway to entice people over to listen to the quartet.
But since the audience was mostly congregating on the path, I dashed back to where I had the gear stashed, and made one more trip with a Jolly5 miniature (but powerful) powered monitor, and set that up on a chair directly in front of the quartet.
When I set out the condenser, I had it on omni to reach the whole quartet. I was also getting a lot of chatter from passers-by and other extraneous noise (including feedback). So flipped it to figure-eight, and turned it so one lobe was pointed at the talent and the other pointed at the sky.
And it was a decent sound. Pulled in all four strings and not too much environmental noise.
Friday, October 17, 2014
That "Aha" Moment
Got up, jumped into the shower, and while still waking up mused a little on Tomb Raider, and on the (stalled) fanfic. And boom -- realized if I put the SG1 usual suspects in a meetings, Doctor Frasier can mention a connection between what she's been working on for several chapters now, and something she found in Lara's bloodwork. Presto; reason for them to talk to her, and not so much information I give away the whole plot. And as long as they are all there, would be hilarious if Airman Harriman (the "Chevron Five encoded!" guy) is a Lara Croft fan. So I can open the meeting with him dropping a handful of magazines and books on the table.
Thought about Hammond's reaction to her hide-out weapon (gave her a North American Arms "Black Widow" while she was clambering about above Colorado Springs) and that led me to Carter saying she'd go armed as well on the "rather sketchy" trails up there (the words of at least one local resident, according to my research). Which led me to wondering why Miranda would jump into a stranger's car, and suddenly I'm in the middle of my stalled novel instead. And the obvious joke someone can make around my male protagonist that this isn't an urban fantasy, and he's not a werewolf. Besides, Miranda isn't fleeing a clan of vampires; she's fleeing elves. So what would that make him?
A dwarf, obviously, says this someone (probably the as-yet un-named former girlfriend, research biochemist, filk singer and general snarker who is becoming a more and more core character the further I go). Which hooks in perfectly with the various flavors of tech-v-art dichotomy that are going on here. And sets up the third act reveal -- Duergar (which is the band name, but is also the real antagonists; elves who are a little more comfortable with technology, removing my male protag's home ground advantage just as he realizes what is really at stake.)
Oh, right. I should really explain what the heck the novel is about before I go yammering about it. Maybe some day. I just had to write this down because it helps me think more clearly when I do. Seeing the words on the page, I can see better where they work -- and where they don't and need to be revised.
And maybe, with a lot of luck, today will see that flash of inspiration that pulls together my design for Poppins as well.
Thought about Hammond's reaction to her hide-out weapon (gave her a North American Arms "Black Widow" while she was clambering about above Colorado Springs) and that led me to Carter saying she'd go armed as well on the "rather sketchy" trails up there (the words of at least one local resident, according to my research). Which led me to wondering why Miranda would jump into a stranger's car, and suddenly I'm in the middle of my stalled novel instead. And the obvious joke someone can make around my male protagonist that this isn't an urban fantasy, and he's not a werewolf. Besides, Miranda isn't fleeing a clan of vampires; she's fleeing elves. So what would that make him?
A dwarf, obviously, says this someone (probably the as-yet un-named former girlfriend, research biochemist, filk singer and general snarker who is becoming a more and more core character the further I go). Which hooks in perfectly with the various flavors of tech-v-art dichotomy that are going on here. And sets up the third act reveal -- Duergar (which is the band name, but is also the real antagonists; elves who are a little more comfortable with technology, removing my male protag's home ground advantage just as he realizes what is really at stake.)
Oh, right. I should really explain what the heck the novel is about before I go yammering about it. Maybe some day. I just had to write this down because it helps me think more clearly when I do. Seeing the words on the page, I can see better where they work -- and where they don't and need to be revised.
And maybe, with a lot of luck, today will see that flash of inspiration that pulls together my design for Poppins as well.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Dynamiting Fish
Was just helping someone at the RPF rig up a Cree LED to "pulse" for a prop they'd built. Used an Arduino, because we had one.
Which is like dynamiting fish in a bucket. It is a deceptively simple problem; detect a trigger button, turn on an LED then dim it out. If it were an incandescent bulb, a capacitor would do it all. But LEDs can't really be dimmed that way. You need to PWM them; that is, you switch them on and off too rapidly to see, and you change the ratio between the time it is on and the time it is off.
Which you could do with the old 555 -- possibly the most-used IC ever after the 741 opamp, and certainly one of the most elegant chips ever. Use an external capacitor to change the timing as it discharged. I used to do that trick when I had 555's as sound generators. Even hooked one up to a resistor ladder attached to a binary counter. Made a wonderfully complex sound.
But you'd have to hold the button in until the LED turned "off" completely. So use the 556; the dual timer in a 14 pin DIP. One is operating in one-shot mode and detects the button and then holds the circuit "on" until the next button press. The other is switching the LED on and off rapidly, while a capacitor discharges to change the pulse ratio.
In the old days, you'd set it up on breadboard with a bunch of potentiometers while you dialed in the behavior, then start pulling pots, measuring them with the multitester and replacing them with fixed resistors. Which wouldn't quite work the same, because of all sorts of capacitive leakage between the various elements and other parasitic effects, so you'd pull those and randomly test a bracket of values until it worked again.
The last complex circuit I did in the pre-micro days, I didn't even use a 555. I used a hex inverter chip (which isn't an anti-magic shield, but six digital inverters in one package). You could make a pretty decent oscillator out of two or three inverters and the right discretes. If I remember correctly, it was a "power up" thing for a friend. Had a big rocket switch, and when you switched it a bar graph would crawl up to the top while a whine from a small speaker rose in pitch. All of that driven by a single beefy capacitor.
And these days, it is all micros. Because especially with the ATtinys, you are paying about as much per chip as you would be for the old integrated circuits -- or a pair of transistors, if you want to be really old-school -- and you tweak the timing in software instead of by trying out different resistors from your parts box. And they aren't any bigger; you can run the things basically naked, with their internal oscillator instead of adding an external crystal. And of course the program is stored on the same chip in non-volatile flash.
It is still dynamiting fish, but at least it is a bigger bucket. The example above, we had to fade the LED and latch the trigger button. That's just enough to make it easier to use a micro. The picture to the right, I soldered that up quick for a fire effect, using code to generate a random flicker on the red and green channels of the Cree (which, combined, make a more-or-less amber color).
And this episode reminded me once again, I really should get that PCB made. Ignore the RF for now; that's been distracting me too long. Just three MOSFETs, an ATtiny, some arbitrary ballast resistors, and a terminal or two to connect button or sensors. I just picked up some Chinese RGB's for under five bucks each, and I should be able to make the PCB for about another $5 even at the prices of a limited run at a fab house. So I could offer the complete kit for $15; a digitally controlled 3W RGB that could be user programmed and used in props or cosplay.
Which is like dynamiting fish in a bucket. It is a deceptively simple problem; detect a trigger button, turn on an LED then dim it out. If it were an incandescent bulb, a capacitor would do it all. But LEDs can't really be dimmed that way. You need to PWM them; that is, you switch them on and off too rapidly to see, and you change the ratio between the time it is on and the time it is off.
Which you could do with the old 555 -- possibly the most-used IC ever after the 741 opamp, and certainly one of the most elegant chips ever. Use an external capacitor to change the timing as it discharged. I used to do that trick when I had 555's as sound generators. Even hooked one up to a resistor ladder attached to a binary counter. Made a wonderfully complex sound.
But you'd have to hold the button in until the LED turned "off" completely. So use the 556; the dual timer in a 14 pin DIP. One is operating in one-shot mode and detects the button and then holds the circuit "on" until the next button press. The other is switching the LED on and off rapidly, while a capacitor discharges to change the pulse ratio.
In the old days, you'd set it up on breadboard with a bunch of potentiometers while you dialed in the behavior, then start pulling pots, measuring them with the multitester and replacing them with fixed resistors. Which wouldn't quite work the same, because of all sorts of capacitive leakage between the various elements and other parasitic effects, so you'd pull those and randomly test a bracket of values until it worked again.
The last complex circuit I did in the pre-micro days, I didn't even use a 555. I used a hex inverter chip (which isn't an anti-magic shield, but six digital inverters in one package). You could make a pretty decent oscillator out of two or three inverters and the right discretes. If I remember correctly, it was a "power up" thing for a friend. Had a big rocket switch, and when you switched it a bar graph would crawl up to the top while a whine from a small speaker rose in pitch. All of that driven by a single beefy capacitor.
And these days, it is all micros. Because especially with the ATtinys, you are paying about as much per chip as you would be for the old integrated circuits -- or a pair of transistors, if you want to be really old-school -- and you tweak the timing in software instead of by trying out different resistors from your parts box. And they aren't any bigger; you can run the things basically naked, with their internal oscillator instead of adding an external crystal. And of course the program is stored on the same chip in non-volatile flash.It is still dynamiting fish, but at least it is a bigger bucket. The example above, we had to fade the LED and latch the trigger button. That's just enough to make it easier to use a micro. The picture to the right, I soldered that up quick for a fire effect, using code to generate a random flicker on the red and green channels of the Cree (which, combined, make a more-or-less amber color).
And this episode reminded me once again, I really should get that PCB made. Ignore the RF for now; that's been distracting me too long. Just three MOSFETs, an ATtiny, some arbitrary ballast resistors, and a terminal or two to connect button or sensors. I just picked up some Chinese RGB's for under five bucks each, and I should be able to make the PCB for about another $5 even at the prices of a limited run at a fab house. So I could offer the complete kit for $15; a digitally controlled 3W RGB that could be user programmed and used in props or cosplay.
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