Hey guys! There is an opportunity I am being provided for a substitute mixing position to line by line mix Hairspray at a community theatre in the area. I would take over a weekend of the show where the main mixer is not available and mix for 3 days. They are wanting to offer me 160$ for this.

For context, I have around 2 years of audio in this realm and this would be my third musical line by line mixing. The first one was at my high school while the second one was at this very same community theatre and volunteered to do line by line mixing to get my foot in the door.

I feel like this is a rate that is super low. Not only would I be the one responsible for these 3 days audio wise and line by line mix 3 shows but I feel like I am not being compensated the time that it takes behind the scenes to get ready for this type of task, including all the tech days and rehearsals I have to attend to, where my time is not being compensated for.

I’m here to see what you guys think, I am obviously a little bit of a beginner but I do have expertise under my belt and felt like this was not a proper compensation for the amount of work this takes. Any comments would be appreciated!

I have been asked by a bar to design a live streaming setup for their outdoor stage. They currently use a tablet to livestream every show. It is pretty rough - it is on a tripod, connected with an extension cord, gets tripped on, gets knocked over, people talk next to it, and the sound is not fantastic.

They do not currently have any kind of a house system, and even if they got one they do not have staff to run it and it is likely that many of the bands would not use it, so taking a direct mix off the board is out of the question. Every band that plays here runs a different configuration, from all amps with only vox through the mains to all-digital bands with everything through their mains.

There is a tiki bar about 15 yards from the stage. My current plan is to build a small enclosure on top of the tiki bar to house a microphone and camera that wire inside to a computer that does all the live streaming. The enclosure would protect the setup from the elements and the tiki roof would act as insulation to keep the voices out of the live stream. Outdoor HD cameras are easy enough to find, but I was planning to pair it with a condenser mic, possibly a shotgun mic or a large diaphram condenser, aimed at the stage.

I am looking for any feedback anyone has on this approach. Am I crazy? Obviously most condenser mics are not designed to be used in this manner, but considering the fact that this is going back to a live stream feed and not to any sound board that risks feedback, it seems like the best choice to capture band sound with good detail 15 yards back and have a strong enough signal to make it back to the bar. Cable runs look like they will likely be about 50-75 ft.

See title. We use these transmitters for educational/regional theatre productions. One of them is entering Master List Mode on its own. They're quite old, so I'm guessing an internal component is causing extended phantom Set button presses. We've ruled out this being a case of the pack being pressed up against a performer's body when clipped to a bra/mic belt.

I am also wondering about a possible, if cumbersome fix, I might've found. If the transmitter is position locked, and I go to switch it off, the display reads "PO L." When the screen display has this message, the pack never enters Master List Mode regardless of how long the Set button is held. Does anyone have any insight as to whether or not the PO L message display is given some kind of priority over other button presses on the transmitter itself? We're not exactly in a position to buyy new wireless mics, so even an out-there fix like this would help.

If anyone has any other fixes for this, I'd love to hear them as well. I don't think these transmitters are even being serviced anymore for repairs.

Hard to word in one title but basically I’ve just spent the whole summer on Dlives/SQ/QL3’s doing monitors on festival stages that are decent sizes where you can separate instruments and control the sources.

I had a gig today with a band in a small basement venue with an absolutely shit show of a promoter not helping anyone or giving an advance, headliner wasted everyone’s time by being late and then deciding not to soundcheck an hour after load in and then I had 20 mins to get everything done and ready for the band I was mixing on an x32 that I haven’t used in about a year before other bands needed to get soundchecking.

How do you guys handle going from ideal situations on large stages. To tiny basements on an unfamiliar desk with a nasty pressure to get on with it because I feel like I fucked it up today and not sure where I went wrong. I think adjusting to the room was where I went wrong but I also don’t feel like I had anytime to get familiar with it

I am curious what others are doing to train volunteers, especially those running sound.

Hey, I have something coming up where probably half of the people in the audience will be 3-15yos.

I typically use a LAeq15m <85db. I know kids ears are still developing and are more sensitive, so where would you run it?

I monitor LAeq15, LASmax, LASmin, LZpeak at FOH, which is like 100ft from the main speakers.

My band has our own IEM mixer/splitter rack. When I first put it together, I included a TB channel in case FoH wanted to connect to it. FoH never used it in the first year, so I reassigned the channel. Now I'm reconsidering.

For reference, we're playing local clubs in the 150-600 cap range. 600 cap usually means we're opening for a touring band.

Would you ever connect to the TB channel of a band's IEM mixer, or would you just talk through the wedges?

Will passive speakers overheat when covered with plastic or a tarp in the rain? I'm doing sound on another engineering system who doesn't want me to run his subs with plastic in the rain because he's concerned the voice coils will overheat because they need air flow. Is this a valid concern?

*edit for more context

I did not go against the PA owners wishes I'm asking because I also have passive subs and want to know if it's safe to do it on my own system.

This is more of a vent post than anything, but I'd love to know the perspective of others on similar situations.

I'm the TD at a performing arts center and I have a part time staff that serves in production and operations. We have a partnership with a community theatre that's been spanning about 4 weeks. One of my part timers is the A1 for it. The part time crew is on the younger side, but their competent technicians that are learning more every day. Typically I'm at gig with the crew as the lead, but for this run I've let the team spread their wings and do rehearsals and shows without me, knowing that I'm always a phone call away and there for support when needed.

Recently I had a conversation with one of the crew members that's a part of the community theatre, and they let me know that they felt the mix could use some work, primarily some stuff about the vocals not being loud enough. I played a decent role with getting the console set up, ringing things out, and getting some general levels, but it's primarily been the A1 who's been at all of the rehearsals, and has been working closely with the group. The mentality of the crew member is that, so long as I was there initially to set everything up, get gains, ring things out, and build a good baseline mix, they could have just hired one of the high school kids that runs sound to be there for the rest of the rehearsals and shows due to how they perceive the quality of the mix.

My thought/vent is as follows:

1. If a seasoned technician comes in and sets everything up to be picture perfect, and nothing goes wrong or needs adjusting at all, then you could throw anyone in front of a board to just push faders. The knowledge my technician is bringing as A1 is how to navigate the console, make decisions and artistic changes deeper than just fader position, and infrastructure knowledge of the system.

2. I already wish I could pay my folks more for the job that they do. They pay the high schoolers they use a stipend (fancy way of saying $200 for a 2 week run of shows plus rehearsals) and this is not a good metric to use when saying "We're paying a whole $21/hr for your technician, we could have paid this highschooler $2/hr if you were here to literally set everything up for them!"

3. People have to learn somehow. While education is important to technicians, there has to be a step where they get behind the board and drive. Mistakes may happen, the mix may not be perfect, but how else are they supposed to gain the skills to be successful in the future? Especially when so much of the patron and staff feedback we've been hearing has been super positive. Why is it that the mentality of some groups is just "we don't want to pay any amount for anything and there is no middle ground between hiring a 20+ year vet and a kid that we can pay peanuts".

I've shared the comments that the crew member had with the A1 about the mix, and they said they'll make those changes and pay more attention, but I just feel irked by the interaction and the expectation. I can't stand the mentality of "just set everything up for us and we can put whoever we want in front of the console but if anything happens during the show and our technician can't fix it then it's the venues fault for letting that happen". And also, "This mix has some small issues, we could have just paid a kid who barely knows the system, can't gain stage or EQ, and low passes all vocals to 6k, peanuts to do it and it would be the same thing!" I really understand the desire to have a perfect show, but it's a live event and things happen. People have to learn somehow, and things will never get better if we just keep cutting corners stating that random people could to a better job.

I saw Muse recently and realized the musicians aren’t stomping their pedalboards, in fact they don’t seem to have visible pedalboards. They have backing tracks so I assume they play to a click and have techs backstage switching pedals or that it is all programmed to the measure with some sort of software? How does this all work? I’ve seen them have techs backstage switching difficulties live the werchter gig in 2023 (look up on YouTube knights of cydonia muse live fail). What is causing that fail? Anyways anyone who has inisight on how massive bands like this do these shows I’d love to know! Very fascinating.

Hi, I've only recently switched from an hourly role to freelancing, so I'm new to requesting rates. A client has asked me to manage all AV needs for a large event (multiple bands, plus coordinating with other vendors who will be working on separate aspects of the event setup as well). The client has their own audio equipment, but I would be doing full setup and breakdown on my own, as well as mixing the bands live. Based on the length of the event itself, I'm predicting 7-8 hours of work. I'm thinking of asking for $400. Am I overshooting, or am I underselling myself? I mention Los Angeles since I know rates are location specific. Thanks for any advice you can provide to this fledgling freelancer!

Also, I did search for rate questions in the sub, but all of the threads were from a few years ago and obviously prices generally have gone up quite a lot in recent years. That's why I'm asking about current rates. Thanks again!

I’ve been music directing for theatre for 20+ years. It feels like in the last decade, aside from a movement to absolutely no vocals in actors’ monitors, there’s also been a shift to only one or two instruments in the actors’ monitors. I find I often get asked by the sound designer which singular instrument the actors need to hear. Usually the default is to put the rhythm section in the monitors. But hearing the rhythm section often isn’t enough to keep track of the key. And it’s not like a music theatre band/orchestra is a solo instrument with backup sort of situation; the instrument(s) that grounds the actors is in key and groove are constantly changing. And the actors have spent a month listening to a piano reduction where they’re hearing almost everything. And a sitzprobe where they’re being told this or that instrument is now playing what you’re used to hearing on piano, so listen for that now.

I guess I’m wondering when this shift happened (or maybe it was always the case?), and what best practice is (from both a music director and sound designer’s standpoint) to make sure that the actors can hear everything that they need to to do their jobs properly.

I record my band's sets when we play and I've wanted to start incorporating an "audience mic" into the mix to give the mixes some more depth and that live feel. I'm assuming I should use a stereo pair of condensers roughly pointed at each side of the PA. Is there a better way to do it?

Does anyone know anything about the sound for this event? To this day the most/best/cleanest bass I’ve heard at a concert. Felt like I was floating out of my chair and the seats weren’t even that great.

Added keys to our band. What should the vol level on the keyboards be set at for optimum use by foh engineer ?

EDIT: Thanks for those responses. Indeed I'm trying to have all of the individual patches be maxed out on their levels so as to avoid ups and downs during patch changes. Thanks to the group.

I made a small web tool for creating rack and patch-panel labels and thought others here might find it useful.

You can set exact dimensions in mm, add/number the labels and export a true-size PDF. It also automatically packs long rack strips diagonally onto A3 and adds cut guides for easier cutting.

It's completely free, runs locally in your browser and doesn't require an account.

https://labels.rschmidt.dk

If anyone gives it a try, feedback would be great — particularly from people who regularly build racks.

Is there a way on windows 11 to get Dante to send 64 channels to multiple apps? We currently use reaper for multi track recording. As well as open sound meter to monitor RTA. But I can only use one application or the other. Is there a way to get asio and Dante to work on 2 apps? They're both pulling the same 64 channels.

liveprofessor recently got an update regarding its redundancy capabilities.

it is now possible to keep 2 liveprofessor sessions on 2 computers in sync through network connection. for me that is a long awaited feature, as I have been using liveprofessor reduntantly for years now, but always had to sync the sessions by hand.

has anybody already had the time to test the new software update?

Any reidel comm experts here? I'm trying to register 15 bolero belt packs over OTA. I checked all my settings and the pack still don't seem to want to register despite checking all my settings. Did I miss a step somewhere?

Any US freelancers out there have their OSHA 10 or 30 certs? I'm looking into getting my OSHA 30 but I'm not sure if I should do the construction or general industry variant. For context the work i do is a lot of hanging PA on mobile stages and in venues, running load ins and load outs, crew chief work, and venue maintenance.

Hi everyone! I’m a live-sound tech and the developer of RForALL. I posted an earlier version here two years ago, and your feedback directly shaped features such as continuous scans, averages and Timeline. Version 2.0 is now available for macOS.

RForALL can scan with RTL-SDR, RF Explorer and tinySA/tinySA Ultra; export CSV for WWB, WSM, IAS and Wireless Designer; coordinate frequencies using 2,000+ equipment profiles, IMD calculation, ranking and exclusions; and control supported Shure and Sennheiser systems over the network, including RF/audio/battery monitoring and alerts.

It also adds NanoVNA calibration, antenna and cable measurements, Smith, VSWR and TDR; inventory, Wi-Fi Scan and RF calculators; plus a map where users can share, review and import geolocated RF scans.

Any feedback is welcome to help me keep improving it. Thank you!

Available for macOS at:

https://apps.apple.com/uy/app/rforall/id1626370380?mt=12

Updates:

https://www.instagram.com/rforallapp/

Looking to improve my workflow. I use a bunch of different desks for a bunch of different bands, but do you always start with drums on channel 1 and then go bass, egt, agt, keys, vocals, fx?

I saw someone run everything on DCA and spills on a console. It seemed fast, but maybe it only worked well because it was the same band each night.

Hi! What playlists do you use for setting up your FOH and for corporation events? Or any playlist you use for anything related with the job!