I like your idea Joe! Here's a good one.

I was working at NBC-TV in Washington DC engineering sound for Tom Brokaw's nightly news when I received a call for a last-minute job downtown DC. I was asked if I could stand in for an audio engineer that had just come down with the flu for a large Howard University variety/awards program, with the Sheffield Video Truck. Now this is a lovely large semi- trailer of the multimillion dollar variety. Because I was on the air and could not get away from NBC until 7 p.m., I would have to miss the rehearsal and then scramble downtown, jump into the truck and without a rehearsal, begin engineering the show audio. Now this is quite a task in an unfamiliar control room to begin with. I was told I would have to also deal with 10 wireless mike's. To which I asked " who is handling the RF stuff?". I was told a professional had been hired to deal with all of the transmitters and receivers providing me with an output of the discrete feeds of each receiver. So I thought that this would make the job a piece of cake?? BROTHER WAS I WRONG!

This "professional fool" that had quite an expensive integrated rig of numerous top-of-the-line Sony UHF diversity wireless receivers and transmitters, with numerous amplified receiving antenna arrays, tested each transmitter before show time, I was told. I was quite nervous as there was an audience involved and this would all be live to tape but I am quite good so I knew I could cut the mustard. What happened next was quite unbelievable.

The musical variety portion of the program involved numerous singers and dancers all on wireless microphones. What the "professional fool RF" guy unfortunately did not pay attention to is....... ALL MICROPHONES WERE ON THE SAME CHANNEL!!!!!! So when I took the cue for that particular persons microphone, it was somebody else's! Then that person was knocked off frequency and another person popped in, followed with another person, then another! They were popping in and out all over the place and only on a single fader on the board! What it came down to was anybody that was close to the receiving antennas would be the only signal received at that moment in time until someone else danced close enough with another transmitter to that antenna in which case it would jump to that person. A TOTAL FIASCO!!! CAN YOU SAY HEART ATTACK?? I almost had one. Everything that was wired to me was perfectly fine but this was a big portion of the " musical variety show" and it was a complete flop because of the "professional RF fool". C'est la vie

The director and producer's realized that the RF guy turned the show into a complete abortion. Quite unfortunate as it would have been an incredible production. Trying to keep a handle on that many wireless microphones is a specialty unto itself, especially in the over RFed world in downtown Washington DC and requires a very competent well-educated engineer. What was he thinking???

I love doing live crap because it can turnout so.....crappy when real professionals aren't used.
Ms. Remy Ann David

OK, you know how women can talk? Here's another good one!

Not quite seven years ago, NBC 4 in Washington DC decided to go all digital. During this incredible conversion process, a new digital audio console was also to be installed. I had seen the newer SSL digital audio console's at the AES show convention in New York City. It was there that they were also displaying what SSL referred to as their first for television, "live on-air console". It was very similar to the SSL AxiomMT digital board. It was called the SSL AsysAir digital console. We all know the quality of the SSL line of consoles in the studio. Well, NBC 4 management chose that you SSL Asys board. So I Figured It Was Probably a Good Pick Also but I really didn't know much about the board?

It was installed and it was one of the first in the nation with operating system 1.0. Now this worried me a little bit as I don't know of any computer operating system or software that ever worked well with version 1.0. It was a 32 fader desk, that was also dual layered. You had to press a button to switch between inputs 1 -32 and inputs 33 -64. Now I thought this a bit impractical for on air purposes during primetime news in a highly competitive market? That was only part of the problem.

We were into sweeps week and during the 6 p.m. news with our most highly respected news anchor Jim Vance the computer, which was downstairs from the control surface in the control room, crashed! The console froze! You could not turn a fader up or do anything with it! It was dead. We went to commercials.

The biggest problem with this particular SSL desk was that it was not a single piece of equipment. It was comprised of numerous outboard digital routers, analog-to-digital converters, digital and analog converters, preamplifier's, etc. and once the console is shut off, it must be powered up with a very specific sequence of timed events. You could not just switch off and switch on! If you did power up the desk with the proper sequence of events, it would still require 4 minutes to do so! Our commercial sets were not usually more than 2 minutes long.

OK four minutes had passed and YOU GUESSED IT! The maintenance engineers switched off the console and then switched it all on at once. 4 minutes later we're ready to go back on air and that's right, NOTHING! NO SOUND NO OPERABILITY STILL DEAD! So I'm screaming that the maintenance engineers must reinitialize the console with the proper sequence of events! 8 minutes of commercials later and we were ready to go back on the air again. EIGHT MINUTES OF COMMERCIALS DURING PRIMETIME NEWS! Do you suppose we lost our audience?? At least it provided the viewing audience enough time to down a complete sixpack of beer!

I'll take another Dunkle Hefe' Wiezen please. Make that a double!
Ms. Remy Ann David (hic)

Live broadcast stuff is nOT for the faint of heart, absolutely.

I recall a live event back in the early 90's (long before ISDN) that was SUPPOSED to be a live broadcast from the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. The phone lines were run, tested and ready to go. So we thought, at least as of Friday a.m. two days prior to the event.

When our remote truck got there at 11 a.m. that Sunday (for a 3 p.m. live b'cast), there were NO MORE PHONE LINES.

Seems the Bell Telephone crew (long before there was a Bell Atlantic or Verizon) had the paperwork wrong; they'd installed the line on a Monday, and removed it on a Friday. The gig was SUNDAY. D'oh!

After that, we began a policy of putting a 1k tone generator on the line the moment the install was ready, and it was checked daily, up until the broadcast date, to make sure it was still "ON". :roll:

Remy, you crack me up, honey!
About that 10 wireless on the same frequency bit. I ask myself, how is this
possible? A comedy of errors. Who would sell someone 10 mics on the same frequency? Who would rent 10 mics on the same frequency, without saying something like, "hey buddy, are you sure you want to do that?"
Thought this was possbly a joke........ but it almost happened here at my full time college job. The "head" of the audio/visual dept. got a price quote for some rental gear for a show. Included were 4 radio mics specified to be on the same frequency. Someone showed it to me and I said "Huh?!" What the F@#$! That's wrong. Handed it back... stayed away from that show.
About those wireless anyway. We are using them WAY too much. Got a punch of cameras?...... heck, just wire everyone and "they will deal with it in the mix!." Usually ends up with too much room sound and bad perspective.
The crap you gotta wade through.........

BRH, NO, REALLY! The RF fool on the Howard University job was the owner of this rather costly multiple Sony wireless microphone rig. I think he consumed all of the drugs that had been reserved for me?? I couldn't be at the rehearsal, because I was still working for NBC-TV and was brought in at the last minute because the original contracted sound engineer got terribly sick. I couldn't be there for the rehearsal, so I was flying blind. Now, these particular microphones were not sold on a single frequency basis but rather had fully adjustable and configurable UHF TV based channels! And for somebody who owned the rig, I can't for the life of me understand how he could have had all the transmitter packs adjusted to the same channel??? Truly incredible!

Can you hear me now? Good.
Ms. Remy Ann David

Well we have all had our share of screwups.

I was doing a live broadcast of the Cleveland Opera. We were about five minutes from the end of the opera when a stage hand trying to get out early and beat the rush goes out a door that he is not suppose to use and cuts our ISDN line so the end of the opera and the commentators outro do not get broadcast.

I was working at home and got an EMERGENCY call from a local church high school that was doing Jacob and the Amazing Dream Coat at a converted movie theater nearby. Their sound and lighting engineer had a nervous breakdown (you will understand why shortly) and they were opening that night and could I come up and get them going. I got to the theater and was greeted by the director who informed me that their sound and lighting engineer had ordered all the equipment and what was there would be what I could use. He had spent most of the budget on renting 6 Vari lights and with what was left he had rented a hodgepodge of mismatched audio gear that was sitting in a pile on the floor by the stage. There were some speakers, some microphones, some wireless microphones and a Mackie audio console. With the help of one of the students from the high school we set it all up and got some sound out of the speakers. There were all kinds of problems that the would be sound engineer had not considered and we were strapped for equipment and for microphone cables which he had "forgotten" to rent along forgetting to rent, a snake. It was a mess. But we got it working by borrowing some cables and a snake and some additional equipment from the theater . I was sitting down after busting my butt for three and a half hours non stop when the "administrator" for the high school comes over to me and says. We are not paying you to sit around so why don't you go home. I said OK and left sending them my bill for RUSH service which they paid. I don't know how the show came off but one of the reviews said the lighting was better than the sound-go figure!

I was doing a live broadcast of a radio show using some ISDN lines in a remote location. The broadcast went off well but until three minutes before the show was suppose to go on we did not have a working ISDN line. We later found out that someone had "used" the lines for a telephone hookup since the person in the cable room at the telephone company (Verizon) was new, did not know what the tags on the lines meant, and after verifying that there was nothing on the lines used them for a telephone line she was installing. Talk about white knuckle time.

We were doing a remote recording in a Church. The Father was very nice and we got set up and ready to record. Just when the choir started coming in the lights on our console started to go dim and then out. The good father had given us a dim able AC feed and when the house lights went down so did our AC feed. We got it working but we lost the first five minutes of the concert. We now carry a UPS to all gigs.

Great Topic

Thomas W. Bethel wrote: We were doing a remote recording in a Church. The Father was very nice and we got set up and ready to record. Just when the choir started coming in the lights on our console started to go dim and then out. The good father had given us a dim able AC feed and when the house lights went down so did our AC feed. We got it working but we lost the first five minutes of the concert. We now carry a UPS to all gigs.

Great Topic

I think we all have a power story like this... Mine was doing a choir concert at this church. The choir brought all sorts of lighting and when the show started, they turned them all on. They blew several circuits instantly. The electrician then started turning all the circuits on and off- including the plugs in the sacristy (where I was set up). Lost the first couple minutes of sound- luckily it was just opening remarks. I went out and purchased a UPS the next day.

--Ben

I'm glad to see this thread active again. I've got a new horror story to relate, and I've been debating posting it or not, and I don't believe in responding to unprofessional behavior with what might just be seen as carping. I also have the proof: AV clips that I MIGHT put on "YouTube" at some point, if I can find a way to expose the guilty and protect the innocent. ;)

If nothing else, I may post an audio clip here, of the worst moment from the folk show on day 3.....we'll see, I guess....

Part 1. Whatever Happened to Professional Courtesy?

Background: This was a recent outdoor, 3-day event (in the middle of the recent broiling July heat wave) with Orchestra rehearsals on day 1, Orchestra concert on Day 2 and 2 singer-songwriter headliners for Day 3. It is a local cultural venue not far from here that is celebrating its 100 Year Anniversary and in addition to several musical projects we've done with them, we're hired for an ongoing DVD production about the facility, its history, its features, etc. (Full access, in other words, to shoot HD video; it's a 2 yr production schedule from start to finish.)

Keep in mind that my company is involved with this client for the next 18 months and well beyond, so rocking the boat (at least at first) was not an option; I HAD to make nice to the knuckle-headed outside sound contractors, because I didn't know who was greasing-whom yet.

Recording AV for this event was included in the DVD budget, and our job was to shoot both days of concerts with multicamera HD video, and interface with the live PA (outside contractor) people. My advance emails and phone calls to the people in charge of this particular event didn't get me far, in fact an in-house contact (an employee of MY client who should have known better) didn't help much either in terms of coordination. Every email I sent this guy was responed with: "I am the director of...." (More concerned with telling me WHO he is, than answering my questions...BIG warning flag that I missed totally.)

Early on, it was starting to smell like none of these on-site live contractor sound folks were taking the "Movie" people (that would be US) seriously.

I was told by "Mr. I'm In Charge" we'd have full access, multiple outs from the main console, and the ability to mic a full symphony orchestra the way WE needed to, to captuer the audio properly for the commemortative DVD. There was also a 20minute piece of symphonic music commissioned/written specificially for this event, so a lot was riding on it all to come out right. (The composer is a good client of mine, as well.)

From the moment I arrived and saw the aging rock'n'roll JBL sound system setup, I sensed hostility and unwillingness to cooperate from the live sound guy - no hello, no friendly chat about strategy or mic placement, no desire to cooperate at all; just a grizzled, semi-mute dehydrated, slovenly dressed burnout who mainly ignored any and all direct questions, giving me mostly blank stares when I asked direct questions. (I'm serious. I think maybe he'd gone deaf!) In spite of what I'd been assured, there were NO multiple console feeds available (all 8 or 10 of them were all being used, he said - god knows what for - this was a classical & folk concert, barely even any reverb being used, other than lead vocs. Go figure.)

In place of some kind of "hello" or conversation, he gave me an earful on all the classical people he'd worked with in the area, as well as a couple of choice vulgar comments on what idiots he thought they all were. (I guess he just didn't care that I was one of them, and knew everyone he was speaking about?)

My offer to provide a transformer-split stage snake was rebuffed with: "No, we already have one." 20 minutes before the dress rehearsal downbeat, the entire crew were all at the console, frantically trying to figure out which mic was on which line, doing it the old-fashioned way: Plugging in one mic at a time and turning it up to the point of feedback. (With 75 mucisians onstage, and clients all around, mind you.) My request for a stage plot/mic list was ignored - to be fair, I'm sure they simply had NO IDEA what mics were patched where. (I think it was sunstroke, among other things going on that day...)

I asked them at that point: "No problem, I'll just do the same thing at my end, and plug 'em in one at time. WE're isolated, RIGHT????" They gulped and said: Errrrr, no, you're on the monitor mic side of the stage box with our feed, which is NOT transformer isolated, but you'll be ok."

Rrrrrrrrrrrright. (You can just see this coming, eh?)

The moment I plugged in line #1 into my console inputs (with phantom power OFF) it was: POW!!!!!!!!!! the loudest, rudest bang exploded out of the FOH mains. (Of course, few knew it was ME backstage, everyone glared at them instead.)

I bagged this idea immediately, and decided from then on they were just useless slugs, (an embarassment to good Live PA folks everywhere) and put up my own pair of DPA 4006's for the orchestra mains, and mic'd the dress rehearsal that way. In true rock and roll fashion, all the onstage mics were AKG 1000's or cheaper (model # escapes me right now) and several Sennheiser MD421's on the brass. Oh, and a few really beatup AKG 451B's on the winds. (This was a rock'n'roll PA company, so every instrument got a mic.....four flute mics (!!!) five brass mics (imagine!) and all kinds of other silly, inappropriate stuff for an upscale orchestral crowd that could have heard most of it all just fine with half that number of mics - not to mention the ugly, nasty comb filtering going on, coming out the PA mains.)

As rehearsal began (nearly 20 minutes late due to staging problems and mic patching) , a near constant 400-440 drone of feedback floated around in the monitors and mains, and got worse every time the conductor tried to use the HH wireless to address the orchestra or plead with the sound people to sort it out.

My client (the DVD coordinator/factility boss) and the composer came up to me at one point and said: "Can you imagine having to do something like this?" Thinking it was a rhetorical question, I said: "Yes, I used to do this all the time, and it sure wouldn't work out THIS badly!" They then said: "Oh, so the sound doesn't HAVE to be this bad? Can you do it for us next year?"

Still being a nice dumb schmuck and not trying to cause any problems, I said: "Hey, give them a few moments; they'll sort it out; they're no doubt getting levels for each mic, and little by little, the mix will improve, I"m sure." They said: "Oh yeah? Well there's NO ONE at console right now, (it was deserted for god knows what reason, in the middle of the rehearsal) ,and it sure ain't getting any better!"

Things did improve by the end of the rehearsal evening, but not by much, and I learned quite a few things that night about being Mr. Nice Guy to a fault. So much for being ignored and no cooperation; I was ready for day 2.

Fool me once....

End of Part 1

JoeH,
That's funny. The reason it didn't sound good to you was because you weren't smoking from the same pipe! That's why nobody was at the board...they had to reload.
Can't wait for Part 2 and 3.
I'm guessing you were double system, PA being different and it all didn't sync right in the end and was a big PITA.

Been there done that.

I can't wait for the other parts......

We we hired to do a concert in a converted movie theater. The sound company that they hired to do the PA was local and they were problematic from the get go. We were doing the recording and the radio show. They were doing the concert sound. We asked to get a split from their splitter but were told that they did not have a splitter and only had the feeds to their board which were direct into the microphone pre amps and from there fed at line level to the monitor mixer. So we asked to hook up our splitter to which they replied that it would cost $200.00 payable in CASH for the split.

Lots of talking lots of getting the record company and the hall promoter involved along with the radio station and someone came up with the $200 and we could split the microphones using our splitter. So we setup and get ready to record but there is hum on almost every channel. So we do some ground lifts (built into the splitter and we are in luck) then we start getting each feed identified and checked out. No stage plot no mic list. I go out on stage and bang out each microphone for the PA guys and for us. Most of the microphones looked like they were dragged behind the truck coming over. I ask if we can substitute some of our microphones for the "damaged" ones and am told no that if we want to change out microphones it will cost us $15.00 per microphone for them to change to our microphones and we would have to sign an agreement stating that they were not responsible for the sound in the theater.

So I decide to set up our own microphones next to their microphones but the sound "engineer" does not like the idea and nixes it. More talking to the radio station, the management of the theater and the artist get involved.

It is 28 degrees F outside and I have to keep going between the van and the the theater and we had to park about 50 feet from the venue due to fire laws. WE finally arrive at a settlement and we setup our microphones but of course our splitter is still in line so we start taking out our feeds and plugging them into the remote snake so we can have our microphones fed to the truck. The sound engineer comes down and says we are upsetting the ground scheme and we should remove all the microphones from the splitter and let him plug in his microphones into his console. OK so we start to unplug his microphones and he comes over and says it will cost us another $100 dollars for him to unconnected our splitter. I go talk to the record company and radio station and they convince the guy to let us unconnected for NO CHARGE. He is not looking too happy.

So we get setup about 1 hour before the sound check and everything on our side is find BUT he is running the PA so loud with so much bass and treble that the whole theater is booming and echoing so we have to abandon our crowd microphones and only use the close up Mic's on stage. We have a 24 input console and the star wants 32 microphones on the drums (because that is what she plays ) and has a very large drum set (actually two drum sets put together with lots of Latin percussion and play toys. WE agree on 12 microphones for the drums and the rest are used for band (Country Western). Everything is checked and double checked and it is all working. I look at the incoming AC voltage and it is about 115 VAC. I would like to have it a bit higher but what the heck. As the theater fills up for the show and the stage lights come up the voltage drops to about 100 VAC. Luckily we have a buck and boost transformer arrangement and so we boost up the voltage. We are now back at 110 and holding. We ran a separate AC power for the heater in the van and a separate feed for the audio and the heater seems to be putting out a lot less heat all of a sudden and we measure the voltage and it is 85 VAC and dropping. So we abandon the AC heater altogether and are prepared to freeze or to start up the van. I stays about 55 degrees in the van with the record company exec, myself, my assistant engineer and the radio station engineer sitting in the van all dressed for watching a hockey game.

The concert is about to start when I get a knock on the truck . I open the door and it is the "star's "engineer" / boy friend/ soul mate who has decided to mix the show (he was otherwise occupied during the sound check and the sessions before the concert) so I make room for him and send my assistant into the theater. The concert goes off well with way too much level from the PA system getting into our microphones but the station is pleased, the record company is pleased and we have everything captured to tape for the first reel of the show (since the assistant engineer's job was to break the tape(s) and put new tapes on it never got done.) oops oh well. I break the bad news to the record exec but he is not concerned because this was such a mess to begin with he really did not want the concert taped. The radio station is not so pleased and really wanted the tapes for later airing but too bad and I tell him that last minute changes are NOT a good idea and he agrees. So we pack up, drive home and have a good laugh about the whole mess.

The venue fired the sound company, they did not get paid and were put on the black list for the theater so I guess all their creating problems were for naught and the only thing they got out of the concert was the $200 they got paid for hooking up our splitter. I hope that was worth their time and trouble.

Tom, that's another incredible story, alright. I can't BELIEVE how you are able to suffer through these things so nobly (Well, maybe I CAN, but....)

Maybe we all need to have bodyguards or agents to kick some butts, eh?

I like the ending to your story - that S.O.B. who was CHARGING you for every little connect and disconnect should never be allowed to work professionally again. just UNREAL.

But as always, I think we all tend to put up with this stuff as it's happening, because for the moment, anyway, we have no choice and choose NOT to lower ourselves to their miserable, bottom-feeder positions in life.

I love doing live sound, (which is less and less these days) but I can't believe how many mean, grouchy burnouts I've encountered lately. They should just quit if it's that tough a gig for them.

Before I get to Parts 2 and 3 of my horror story, one other tale from ANOTHER recent event: My AV crew was sub-contracted to do video cams and multitrack audio recording of a HS graduation. We did not work directly for the client, but another AV producer, so my hands were tied the whole event, and I had to smile and ask for more while putting up with stuff I would NEVER have allowed otherwise.

Long story short; The live sound company was a miserable pack of incompetants who would NOT cooperate with us, would not take our split (we had it ALL mic'd and ready to go before they even arrived - 2 hrs before showtime). We offered them line outs, submixes, the works. Nope! The were three hours late for the load-in sound check, and were miffed that we'd put up all our own mics ahead of time.

These bozo's (name escapes me, otherwise I'd name names here, really) said their "CONTRACT" prevented them from using other peoples mics. (Translation: we're not gonna play ball with you!) WHen finally cornered, they said (i'm not making this up!) that our WINDSCREENS werern't as good as theirs (ours were actually better, but I don't think they'd seen professional mics before), so they were NOT going to take a feed or split from us.

In the end, we had double mics up for all the podiums, and they used one lone mic (a cardioid dynamic) pointed at the orchestra, and one lone mic pointed at the choir. So, the PA spit out a very nice solo saxophone (nearest the mic) and and one or two soloists who were unlucky enough to be near the other mic.

Fortunately, the video came out great, as did the multitrack mix of the audio. Client is happy, and we're lobbying to do the whole thing next season, including the live PA. If we get the gig again, I'll gladly post the name of the bozo sound company from Sun Valley, PA that did the live audio. They are another bunch of incompetants that give live sound a bad name. :evil:

OK so we get to the church to record a children's choir and start to set up. The minister comes up to us and tells us that we cannot run microphone or line level cords across the aisles since it is against the fire laws and he has been warned before. We are going to be setup in the Sacristy and try to figure out how we are going to get our microphone cables from the church choir area to the Sacristy without going across any aisles. We did not bring our snake and we had a case full of microphone cables but were not sure what was covered by "not crossing an aisle" did that mean on the floor or could we string our cables at 8 feet up and not be in violation of the fire code. After a lot of searching we find that there is a vent between the church choir and the Sacristy which looks like we can remove and replace after the concert. Our microphone lines are all strung and we are getting ready for the concert.

The choir director of the children's choir and I go way back to 1990 and we have a good working relationship. However this concert is NOT going to be directed by the normal Choir Director and is instead being directed by a guest conductor. No problems except that any attempts to talk to this person is met with "don't have time for this now possibly later" or "can't this wait until after the concert?" which makes conversations very short. We roll the DAT and the CD burner at 7:00 pm because the concert is suppose to start at 7:00 pm and I don't want to miss the processional which this particular choir director is famous for starting without telling anyone. So we are rolling for 10 minutes and no choir. We are in the Sacristy and cannot see into the church and so I send my assistant out to see what is going on, Of course as soon as he leaves the processional starts. He comes back and tells me that the director has decided to sing the first song from the back of the church (nice he told us) but without wireless microphones we would not be able to record it anyways since we could not cross any aisles. The rest of the concert goes off without a hitch. After the concert is over and we are striking the director comes up to me and asks why we did not have microphones on the choir for the first number and I explain the ministers admonition and that I did not know about the first song being sung in the back and of course the choir director says "well why didn't you tell me this before or ask me about what was going on" I was going to just punch him in the nose and be done with it but I thought better of it and just said "I'm sorry we did not get a chance to communicate before the concert" which was the truth but not because I didn't try.

Some choir directors need to be boiled in there own stupidity and I would like to nominate this person to be the first one in line.....

I don't think I have anything as bad as the last few here...but....

1st -

I was contracted to record a school event for a local school which was being shut down after 100 years. The event was being held outdoors on their football field which was over 500 feet away from the school. There was no power at the field (they never actually played night games there!).

I was also forced to set up a minimum of 300 feet from the ensembles. The problem was, it was outdoors, no power, huge cable runs and a chance of rain! (Because of which, I chose not to use a lot of my own microphones and used either borrowed 57s or some other dynamics when I got there.)

Well...the ensembles were 2 concert bands, 2 choirs, 2 orchestras (all school-level). All of the ensembles were set up in a line and each group would perform a piece then the next group would perform and so on.

Well...it turns out that the only power we could get to the field was coming from one circuit in the school. The guy doing live sound and myself had to come from the same circuit (which was apparently only 10 amps!) Needless to say, as soon as there was peak (such as a wind blast or loud spot in the orchestra), it pushed the amperage over the limit and circuit would trip.

So...I had to end up using direct feeds from the live sound guy's board. The problem is though, he had set everything up as mono. He used some no-name condensers with no windscreens over each group - 1 per group. I had to high-pass everything at about 220 Hz and try to create a stereo sound out of mono. (I used the other microphones as "ambience" and created stereo from that.)

In all, the disc sounded horrible, but it was the best I could do.

2 -

I recently recorded a live concert of a rather famous 70's pop artist. The live sound guy was the absolute biggest JACKASS you'd ever meet. And by big, I mean BIG. The guy was pushing 400 pounds (seriously!).

As soon as he got on site, he started bitching. According to him, his rider with the orchestra required the orchestra to have 4 strong, able-bodied MEN available to help him with load in. (Above and beyond his two support staff). He bitched and moaned because the only people working the stage that day were 3 small (and quite cute I might add) young ladies. So, he started barking orders at me to start unloading things out of his truck.

I kindly went to the director of the orchestra (with whom my contract is with) and explained to him that I would gladly do the work if HE would like me to because I did in fact arrive 4 hours before I even needed to be there and thus had some extra time.

I was told that I would have access to direct outputs from his console for things such as solo vocal, drums, etc. and that they wouldn't allow splitting. Also, I was told I could direct mic the piano and the orchestra with my own mics.

This JACKASS YELLED at me when I began micing the piano. I mean YELLED. Something along the lines of "What the F*CK do you think you're doing? Are you stupid or something? You can't use your own mics, it's against our contract!!!" I asked him to produce his contract, which he could not. So, I began flying my overheads.

When I went to the back and asked him when I could begin patching into the direct outs on his board, he again called me names and yelled at me. He was saying things like..."How long have you been doing this?" Have you ever recorded anyone FAMOUS before?" "You can't record their voices, it's against the law!! You'll break their copyrights and trademarks on their voice!!"

So, in other words, this guy wouldn't even allow me to take patches out of his live sound rig.

So...I recorded the entire event with a pair of Schoeps CMC64s in ORTF over the orchestra and CMC62s on the balcony so that I could at least pick up her voice over the PA.

When I took the 2 track bounce down to the artist's manager, he was delighted that I could get it to him so quickly and stated that George (her sound guy) would usually get it to her 6 to 8 weeks later! (Ah, so that's it...he didn't want me to give her the 2 track!!!!!)

When the show was completed and it was time to strike, George (the big, dumb, smelly, oafish sound guy) muttered something about being tired and needing a drink and walked out of the hall leaving his two lackey's (who, btw, were smarter and better than he was and NICE too!) to strike everything (including the 64 input Crest which had been gracefully propped up on theater seats).

I LOVE LIVE SOUND GUYS!!! THEY ROCK!

:lol:

I use to do a lot of concert sound work. I also do a fair amount of on location recording. I can see both sides of the problems that seem to develop when two different sound contractors are working the same job. Most times it comes down to communication between the sound guys (or gals) and the recording guys (or gals).

I have done some very complex shows where there had to be a lot of give and take between the recording and concert sound people and most times if you start off on a good footing it continues though out the concert. I always try and meet with the "other half" of the team way before the event and get some ground rules established. You can also judge what the other half will be like to work with given the pre concert planning meeting.Even with some pre concert planning what is discussed either does not filter down to the people who are doing the show or they take it upon themselves to rewrite the ground rules once they get to the venue.

Most of the problems I have run into on the road are because you are going by what is written into the contract and have not had a chance to talk in person with the other professional that is going to be working with you. Sometimes you are the only professional doing the gig. I have worked with concert sound engineers who are on something or have consumed large quantities of some alcoholic beverage and they are in a velvet haze. One such gentlemen was using some serious pharmaceuticals and was also smoking a lot of weed. He literally was holding onto the console to keep himself from falling down and he was so far gone that he thought he was doing an outstanding job but his reflexes were so slow that it took him a full two minutes to get a feedback under control.

I have also worked with some people on the recording side that were so into what they were doing that they messed up my concert sound to the point where the provider threatened to not pay us for the gig. In one case we had the whole concert sound setup done about 4 hours before the gig. The recording company had not shown up (they were driving from New York State) about an hour before the concert they show up and proceed to "rearrange" the stage for their own benefit and without asking start moving our speaker stacks out further on the wings of the stage and almost dumped the whole stack into the audience ( I found this out later from he lighting crew) . I was having dinner with my crew when one of my crew came down to tell me what was going on. I came upstairs and confronted the recording guy who had not even sought us out before he started rearranging the stage. He told me that we could not use monitors because it would interfere with his recording, he told us that the level in the hall could not be vary loud and quoted something like "no louder than a whisper" and he had cleaned off the stage, put down a rug, rearranged the chairs for the musicians and put all of his microphones up and taken ours and literally thrown them into a pile upstage. I had known about the recording but was not really ready for this jackass. The recording guy had his crew moving in mass quantities of equipment racks and was preparing to set up his recording stuff in full view of the audience on the floor of the hall and was going to block out a whole lot of seats that had been sold. I went and found the promoter and told him in the calmest way possible what was going on and that he sound come over and see for himself.

The promoter and I walked into the hall and the first thing I hear from the recording guy as he is walking over is "you should tell your concert sound guy here to be more helpful and the reason for this concert is not for the audience but for the recording" The promoter, who is usually pretty cool, says, and I quote "bull shit" It as a sold out concert and the promoter has a lot riding on the event to break even. He looks at all the gear (some of it in racks 6 feet high and they recording guy had taken out about 30 seats for his "setup" and was blocking about another 100 seats with the equipment he had stacked up. He also looks at the stage and realizes that it was MUCHO changed from the way we had set it up earlier in the day and then looks at where the stacks have been moved to and loses it. He tells the recording guy to stick his equipment where the sun doesn't shine and to put things back where they were. The recording guy refuses and out comes a signed contract with the artist that we had never seen. The promoter reads the contract and it basically gives the recording guy Carte Blanch to do what he wants. The promoter goes off to find the artist and they have a good long talk. About twenty minutes later the artist comes up and says that we (meaning the sound and recording guys) will have to work it out but that the recording guy cannot take out any seating and cannot move equipment on stage in such a manner as to make the concert unavailable to the audience from a sound or visual perspective and that is the way it will be. The recording guy takes the artist over to a corner and I see the contract coming out and the artist takes the contract and literally tears in up in little pieces and tosses it on the floor (very dramatic).

The recording guy is not happy and we are about to open the house. He tells his crew to put things back the was they were and to disassemble the equipment and reset in in the basement. I offer to help by redoing the stage and tell him that he can leave the rug and his microphones. We reset, put back the monitors, move the stacks into their proper places and are done just about as the audience is coming in the doors. The recording comes off, I am told, well and the audience got to enjoy the concert without all the sight line problems and poor concert sound due to bad speaker placement. The recording guy does not speak to me again for the rest of the evening and when the show is over he packs up and leaves without even shaking hands or saying a word. His blood pressure is way up and he is not a happy camper.

After the show I asked the promoter how he had convinced the artist to go along with the way he wanted it done. The promoter smiled and said" Easy I took the check and tore it in thirds. I told him I would give him the other 2/3 rds of the check when he finished the concert and the audience was happy. I guess the money angle is always the winning one.

Tom, that $200 for a split made me LOL in my office.
Around 1980 I got my first full time job at an audio house doing spoken word type of stuff. One of the main gigs was to go to real estate conventions and record the sessions. We did it with feeds to a shure mic mixer split to a cassette recorder and a slow speed Teac 4 track. One person handling 4 sessions at a time. Tried to master on cassette, but if we messed up or the casette master got eaten, we could go back to the reel to reel and make a new one. Straight away the cassette master went down to the lobby were a nice looking female sold them after us schlepers high- speed duped cassettes on those Wollensaks. God bless those Wollensaks, but they ate a lot of tape. We paid for "house feeds" Once at the Stouffers
in Washington DC we follow the "house engineer" back to the patch panel, which was in the AC mains room. We look at each other as said Oh-oh.
You guessed it. Feeds were full of 60-120-240-480 and whatever else. Just as loud as the audio. I quickly ran to each room and put a home made XLR splitter on the mic cables (never do this) and ran hundreds of feet cabling.
All the while the "house engineer" was giving me the eye, following me. Started saying something about "no splits" on their equipment. Almost a fight.
BTW, I didn't work there long. The owner had instructed the girl down in the lobby to tell purchasers of these tape to abbreviated the name of the company on the checks people wrote, which just so happened to be the owners abbrevited name. Half of the checks went to his own personal bank account. IRS got him and he was SOL.

Tom, do you know the Fries in Oberlin?

Until JoeH gets around to posting sections 2 and 3 of his epic novel....

We were going to record a children's choir in a beautiful Catholic Church. We got to the gig and the father asks that we not disturb the church or the congregation that will be at the concert. Sure no problem. He shows us where he would like us to set up. So we start to run our microphone cords and power cords and find that the church is all still two wire with no ground. Since we always have adapters along and since we run an ISO transformer on the AC no real problems. We get all setup and it is about 10 minutes before the concert is ready to go. In walks another priest and he asks us what we are doing. I reply that we are getting ready to record the concert in the church. He says that he is the senior priest and that he does not like where we have set up and we have to move our equipment immediately and it has to be in the the back of the church behind the audience. This is a BIG church. We already have about 50 feet of microphone cords between us and the microphone and the back of the church is at least another 75 feet away and we have five microphone lines laid out. Not a time to argue but I politely told him that the concert was ready to start and that we could not move all of the equipment in the time alloted. He was insistent and even went as far as to walk over and pull out the AC power cord. OK so this guy is somewhat of a jerk but since he is in charge we have to obey his wishes. I talk to the choir director tell her our problem and ask her to delay the start of the concert for a couple of minutes which she says she will do "but only for a couple of minutes" We move the bulk of our equipment to the back I get new microphone lines laid out and suddenly realize that there are no outlets in the back of the church at least none I can find readily and we don't have a 75 foot extension cord. There is an audience present while all of this is going on. One guy gets up and walks over and says he noticed what was going on and why did we decide to move everything at the last minute. I told him what had transpired with the father and he said he understood. He was a member of the church and when I told him that we could not find an outlet and that the concert was ready to begin he said he could help us. He went out of the church and came back with a 100 foot extension cord that was bright orange in color and was 3 #12 wires. It was, excuse the pun. a God send and we were back in business. After the concert the first priest came up to us an apologized for the older senior priest and told us that technically he was retired but like to still think he was in charge. The recording came off without a hitch and we were really thankful that the person from the congregation came forward when he did. He was literally "heaven sent"

We had been hired to do a recording in a church in Cleveland. It was of a musical arts society and we had never done them before. I went to the church early in the week to scout it out and it was in a very bad section of Cleveland and not a place that I would like to have been after dark but luckily this concert was in the day time. At the same time we were getting ready to do this concert we got another gig for the same day so the person who normally helps me was going to do the other concert at the same time I was doing this one. I talked to the choir director of the musical arts society and asked her for a floor plan of where things were going to be set up. She drew the plan and it was pretty normal with the choir in the choir pews and a small ensemble and organ closer to the front of the Church. This was a massive Baptist Church and had a domed ceiling. It was set up rather strangely in that the organ was dead center, the choir to the right in pews and the lectern for the minister on the left of the church. So I determined what equipment I would need and what would be needed by my associate and the day of the concerts we loaded up our vehicles and went to our concerts. This church that I was doing took up an entire block and I had to park on a side street. I went into the church to make sure it was open and walked inside. The musical arts society was rehearsing but their setup was not what they had given me. The ensemble was now where there lectern had been and part the choir had moved out of the pews and onto the floor in chairs in front of the organ. There was also antiphonal choir of brass that was in the rear of the church. I started to unload my equipment and setup and when there was a break in the action I went up to the choir director and asked "so why all the changes" she said "well we just decided this this morning" NICE!

I was going to use a Decca tree and some spot microphones but this was going to be a much bigger setup than I had anticipated so what to do. I had the Decca tree with me and two additional microphone and half the amount of cable I normally carry since my associate need the rest of the stuff for his gig. This church was HUGE and I was starting to sweat since I did not have anywhere near enough cable to run lots of cables. I set up to the left of the church in an alcove and set the Decca Tree in the middle of the church and the spot microphones in stereo on the ensemble.

The recording came out OK but with lots of reverb and space around it. The director of the musical arts society was pleased with it but it would have been much better if she had let me know in advance of all the changes as I could have borrowed some additional equipment from a friend and done a somewhat better job. It seem no matter how much pre planning one does it can get undone in a very short time by people who aren't thinking of the total picture and what their last minute decisions are doing to the successful taping of the concert. Oh well I love this business but some of the people - FORGET IT!

JoeH I can't wait to hear some of the rest of your epic.

Tom, do you know the Fries in Oberlin?

Yes I do but they have moved and are no longer in Oberlin.

Just in case anyone thinks that we have problems on every gig (as was pointed out to me in a private email) let me assure you that most of our gigs go extremely well and most people are very easy to work with. There are some gigs that will forever be memorable for how great they sounded and how great the recordings were of the concert but this thread is about Horror stories so they don't really belong here.

Being in the business for over 35 years one gets to accumulate a lot of fond memories and some not so fond ones.

I hope JoeH gets a chance to post some more of his epic fairly soon.

We did a recording last night in a beautiful new church. The client was one of our oldest and we have been doing work for them since 1990. The concert was a choral group and piano (or so we had been told). We did a pre concert site visit last Monday and it looked like an easy gig. The church would be letting us use their microphone snake and we had a nice place to setup at the back of the church. We were doing the video and audio recording of the concert.

Normally this client sends us a copy of the program but this time due to some last minute personal changes they "forgot".

We got to the church about 2 hours before the concert. The church was located about 45 minutes from our office. We decided to do the concert with PZM microphones (because of the video taping) and we brought along a couple of extra microphones (just in case) and one microphone stand.

When we arrived at the hall we noticed that there were music stands and chairs setup IN FRONT of the chorus. I asked our contact what was going on and she told me that they were doing Vivaldi's Gloria and that there was a chamber orchestra. (no mention of this previously and no program to go from)

We asked the church if they had any high stands but of course they did not. So we decided to go with what we had and use the PZM microphones. The sound in the recording was balanced a lot more toward the orchestra but it sounded good just the same.

After the concert as we were cleaning up there was a father who wanted to take a picture of his son at the piano and without looking stepped on one of our PZM microphones and like someone who has just gotten doggie do on his shoe he kicked the microphone off the stage and down three steps on to the floor. I went over to him and asked for his name and phone number in case the microphone was damaged. He demanded that we check it out right now to which I replied that we were in no position to do so at that moment and I would call him later. He said "well how do I know you will not just tell me it is broken" and I said "because I am a very honest person and would not do anything like that"

I will from now on ask for a program if it is not provided and will make sure they are giving me all the facts BEFORE THE CONCERT. I will also start carrying a high stand and X-Y mount in case we run into this problem again. End of story.... FWIW

I have nothing to compare to the stories of other members here, but I was a sound engineer (probably not valid to use the word "engineer" actually) at a home shopping network for a little over a year.

This network was financed on a shoe string with no money for wireless LAV's. At the same time the owners wanted the talent to stand on an open set and move around while they hosted the show. Sometimes they'd move from one set to another (a good 20 feet) dragging the tiny LAV cable behind them, stepping on it, and generally throwing tantrums because they couldn't get wireless mics.

It became common practice for the mics to go dead in the middle of a program, and cut to music while I took a new one out. Then I would sit back at my audio console and try to solder the tiny wires back into place before they broke the next mic.

Not to mention the lousy old IFB system, worn out board, consumer grade compressor (I was the only one who knew how to work it and the settings were always messed up when I came in), sharing equipment with other sound guys who had no idea what they were doing, etc.

We did a gig today at a converted movie theater. It was for a children's choir. We always seem to have problems with the owner of this place so we decided to have a pre production meeting with the owner about a month ago. The client was there, we were there and the owner was there. Everything was agreed on and the minutes of the meeting were sent to everyone for there comments and approvals. We thought it would be a worry free event.

Today we get to the theater. We were suppose to be there by 2:00 pm and we arrived at 1:55 pm. We unloaded the gear and got ready to set up. We were doing the audio recording and the video recording with three cameras. The concert started at 3:30 pm with the doors opening at 3:00 pm. We were going to use their audio board and our microphones. They have a good quality board and we have tied into it before.

When we arrived to set up the section of the technical bench at the rear of the house was not cleared as it was suppose to be and there is a video projector and a bunch of equipment laying on the bench where our cameras were suppose to go. I spoke to the client that had hired us and they went off to get the owner. He came in a while latter and said that he thought that we were not coming because we were not there when he expected us to be there at 12:30 pm. Even though the schedule we were ALL working from said we would arrive at 2:00 pm. We had agreed that we would be in control of their audio board and it would feed our equipment with a stereo feed but instead he said we had a MONO feed and he had someone working the board for sound check and the owner said "now would not be a good time to replace the person doing the concert sound." He said that if I really wanted to he would let me setup the board my way but that I would have to guess at all the levels since the sound check had been going on since 12:30 pm. I tried to explain how the board can do many things at once and that we would not be interfering with the concert sound since we were being fed off an aux output.

My associate who was running one of the cameras and who knew how important the sound is to the group said "we were promised a stereo feed at the meeting and now you are giving us a mono feed". "What gives" and the owner started to get huffy and at one point told my associate to "shut up or I will throw you out of the theater" Cooler heads prevailed and the owner went off to check his copy of the meeting notes.

When he came back he cleared off the technical bench and we set up our cameras and the audio recorders with the mono feed. The person working the audio board looked like he was about 14. The concert started and we started recording. At the first intermission the audio feed goes dead as the children's choir was going off stage. I look at the person running the board and he looks bewildered but realizes that we were depending on him for a feed. So he turns it back on just in time for the choir to start singing. We got some good video and some very mediocre audio but this is not the first time I have had problems with this owner and he ALWAYS says one thing in the meetings and then forgets or changes the game plan after we arrive. At the end of the concert as the parents were clapping loudly the board operator turns off our feed again but I think we can splice in some applause from an earlier time.

Not a fun experience....

Just had a horror story last night....
Fortunately, it didn't go as badly as it could have, but nonetheless, it reminded me of countless other similar situations...

So, I was recording a "multi-ensemble" event (with a wind ensemble, orchestra, choir, jazz band, etc.) This was the second week of the event and thus the second recording.

On the first week, I showed up a couple hours before the concert and found out about 35 minutes prior to the downbeat that there would be a mic'ed vocalist during one of the numbers. With no time to interface with the house system, I just had to let it roll.

When I showed up last night, I arrived about an hour before the downbeat. (Most of my stuff was still set up - I just had to hang mics and plug in the computer). Well, there were a handful of mics sitting on stands and a PA system on the front of the stage. Bear in mind, the auditorium seats between 350 and 400 and the stage is small. A 60 person ensemble fills the stage to capacity.

I went to find out what was going on and found out that one of the conductors had brought his PA system to mic the jazz band and to spot mic one of the choirs. The mics were 2 AKG C3000s, 1 C414 and 1 SM57 (or similar, didn't get a close look and there's only 50 mics that look like the 57 from 15 feet away...)

Anyway - the mic setup on the big band (roughly 25-30 person big band) was 57 in front of trumpet soloist in place (back row), C3000s in front of the saxes (front row) and the 414 in the bones in a Fig 8 (capsules facing down the row of bones). The purpose of the 414 was to pick up the trumpets. I didn't have the heart to debate the merits of aiming the trumpets at the null of a fig 8 for reinforcement.

For the choir, it was C3000s spaced over the choir, 57 over violin/flute soloists and 414 over piano (closed lid).

I will say to the gentlemen's credit who had set it up that the PA system was delightfully LOW in amplitude. Actually it was so low that I could barely perceive it being on. (Thank GOD!)

However, this brings up so many other horrible nightmares!

Lately, so many amateur orchestras have decided that they need to mic themselves for the audience in a concert hall..... :-? What the hell?!

A concert hall is designed to PROJECT the sound and any orchestra should never need to amplify themselves!!! I don't know where this trend is heading, but it scares me. For every 10 acoustic events that I do, 2 of them or more use reinforcement microphones inappropriately!!! Then they expect it to actually HELP me or make my job easier!!!

I actually had a (well-intentioned) client recently suggest that I could use his reinforcement system to record his (semi-pro) choir as the previous guy did. He assured me that his gear was top notch and they spared absolutely no expense. Fortunately, I showed up with my own gear since his system consisted of 4 SM58s and an old (very old) Peavey live sound board.

Anyway...venting over.

Cucco

I use to record the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center (the summer home of the Cleveland Orchestra) It is an outdoor pavilion and there are lots and lots of lawn seats for every concert. A good friend of mine did the PA and I did the recording and we both took off the same microphone splitter. One forth of July I was recording the concert and 'poof' all the microphones went dead all at the same time. I ran upstairs to the sound board and all his microphones were dead as well. We both rushed to the basement to the microphone splitter fearing the worst that the phantom power supply was blown and we would be down for the rest of the night. We walked into the room (which was down in the sub basement) and it smelled like burnt hair and burnt hamburger. There on the floor was a dead rat and he had gnawed his way though the power cord going to the power supply for the phantom and met his maker. We got some tools, a roll of duct tape and in about two minutes had the wires spliced back together and the circuit breaker reset and I was on my way to do the recording and my friend to do the concert sound. The rest of the night was uneventful.

As to why everyone has to amplify everything I have nary a clue but I think it has to do with an aging population who go to a lot of classical concerts and simply complain to the management that they cannot hear so the management puts in or rents a concert sound system. The problem is, and I have run into this more than once, is that a lot of the people supplying concert sound equipment and an operator are usually more use to doing ROCK N ROLL and have NO CLUE as to how a classical concert is suppose to sound. They mic everything and they try and balance the sound in the hall the way they would do a rock concert so the percussion and solos are REALLY LOUD and everything else sounds like a MUDDY MESS.

Better luck next time and I certainly feel your pain...

How we predict such things, thank for this thread we can see what can be

_________________

...With love to [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.fastglit…"]myspace glitter graphics[/]="http://www.fastglit…"]myspace glitter graphics[/]...

Amen! A funny, yet stomach wrenching story. If it's going to go bad, in these cases, you'd best hit the trenches immediately.

RemyRAD, post: 199596 wrote: OK, you know how women can talk? Here's another good one!

Not quite seven years ago, NBC 4 in Washington DC decided to go all digital. During this incredible conversion process, a new digital audio console was also to be installed. I had seen the newer SSL digital audio console's at the AES show convention in New York City. It was there that they were also displaying what SSL referred to as their first for television, "live on-air console". It was very similar to the SSL AxiomMT digital board. It was called the SSL AsysAir digital console. We all know the quality of the SSL line of consoles in the studio. Well, NBC 4 management chose that you SSL Asys board. So I Figured It Was Probably a Good Pick Also but I really didn't know much about the board?

It was installed and it was one of the first in the nation with operating system 1.0. Now this worried me a little bit as I don't know of any computer operating system or software that ever worked well with version 1.0. It was a 32 fader desk, that was also dual layered. You had to press a button to switch between inputs 1 -32 and inputs 33 -64. Now I thought this a bit impractical for on air purposes during primetime news in a highly competitive market? That was only part of the problem.

We were into sweeps week and during the 6 p.m. news with our most highly respected news anchor Jim Vance the computer, which was downstairs from the control surface in the control room, crashed! The console froze! You could not turn a fader up or do anything with it! It was dead. We went to commercials.

The biggest problem with this particular SSL desk was that it was not a single piece of equipment. It was comprised of numerous outboard digital routers, analog-to-digital converters, digital and analog converters, preamplifier's, etc. and once the console is shut off, it must be powered up with a very specific sequence of timed events. You could not just switch off and switch on! If you did power up the desk with the proper sequence of events, it would still require 4 minutes to do so! Our commercial sets were not usually more than 2 minutes long.

OK four minutes had passed and YOU GUESSED IT! The maintenance engineers switched off the console and then switched it all on at once. 4 minutes later we're ready to go back on air and that's right, NOTHING! NO SOUND NO OPERABILITY STILL DEAD! So I'm screaming that the maintenance engineers must reinitialize the console with the proper sequence of events! 8 minutes of commercials later and we were ready to go back on the air again. EIGHT MINUTES OF COMMERCIALS DURING PRIMETIME NEWS! Do you suppose we lost our audience?? At least it provided the viewing audience enough time to down a complete sixpack of beer!

I'll take another Dunkle Hefe' Wiezen please. Make that a double!
Ms. Remy Ann David (hic)

Haha that's crazy! I couldn't imagine what the audience was thinking.

In a more recent horror story than that, I went out to make a 8 track, 24-bit recording utilizing my desktop workstation. It was a low-cost recording and I didn't want to dig my 24 track machine out of the rack. It was much easier to just take the desktop workstation. Whoops! My DAW decided to blow up right at the beginning of the recording. Thankfully, I also had a couple of laptops with me that I threw together rather quickly to allow for 4 tracks of recording. It was probably one of the worst professional jobs I've done on the first half of the program. The second half after intermission, went a lot better but the first half was nearly a total loss of crap. So I DIDN'T make money on that recording instead, I lost money on that recording and my primary workstation.

C'est la vie
Mx. Remy Ann David

That'll teach me.

It's been a while but...the stories keep on going

This year we were hired to do a children's choir in a local community college's auditorium. We have done a lot of work with this group but they have recently changed directors and all their office staff is new.

This concert was to feature an 8 minute projected video. The concert was over an hour long. The use of the video projector precluded us from using our normal video setup and I made the new director aware of the problems this was going to entail.

She said "do your best"

We get to the gig about 2.5 hours early. We start to setup our video equipment but the auditorium's staff says that due to fire laws we will not be able to setup where we need to be (why they didn't tell us in advance is anyone guess) So we have to set up way right and way left in the center aisle that parallels the stage. We have one additional center camera that we rented for the event. The old director was always very helpful and would ask for our take when she planned to do something different or "new". The new director seems to forget that she is the working with other people and simply does not keep others informed or ask for their input. If it is her idea then there is no changing her mind even if it is shown that there are other ways to do something. The new director has also forgotten to tell us that for much of the concert there will be a completely black stage with colored lights on the children and an overall wash of color from the scrim in the back of the stage. I set up the audio with no problems and the staff of the auditorium is always great to work with when it comes to audio. They are less easy to work with when it comes to video. We get setup and we try and do a white balance check but there seems to be NO white lights on stage. So we do our best. We have a wireless headset ICOM that seems to work well most times. For some reason this time it did not work and the two camera people, who are use to being together in the middle of the back of the house, suddenly are unable to converse either in person or by wireless intercom. The show goes off and I get a good audio recording but the video is not good. Too many dimly lit performers and to much use of color on stage. We spent literally hours on trying to denoise the video from the three cameras since we were working with a foot candle level of less than 100 and sometimes less than 50. We lost a lot of money on the video post production and the new director was not pleased. At a meeting at our studio she told me that "I take movies of my children all the time in the back yard in the sun and they always come out perfect" . I bit my tongue and did not tell her that taking video of your kids in brightly lit sun is a whole lot different from doing the same thing in the theater with very low light levels. We finally got the project done but because of all the hassles we had with this new director I have decided to terminate our relationship after 23 years. I wish her well...

Shortly after this concert the new director fired her graphic's person saying that the had unreconciled artistic differences which really meant that the graphic designer did not see eye to eye with the new director. The graphic designer had been with the group for 9 years.

Not fun!

FWIW

Wow, Tom, that's a helluva story! So many bodies littering the floor in the aftermath..... I did an opera back in the spring with two camera ops that I don't normally use; one was OK, the other was just awful....(In hindsight "I" should done one of the cameras and put the newbie in charge of just monitoring the audio recording.) I also had some hard drive issues after I transferred the video clips out of the cameras. (It took forever to re-render 1-1 copies for safety/backup, but thankfully THAT part worked out ok. It was the main/master camera footage that was in danger of getting lost on the balky HD.) Then I finally got around to editing through the awful camera work and low-light issues. (Act 2 and 3 of this opera are in a "Cave" and as you can imaginge....the newbie cam guy didn't know how to increase the gain/sensitivity and as such I had footage that was not only too dark, but mostly out of focus as well. How DUMB can someone be???) In the end, I got it all done, using a lot more of the master shot than I normally would, but it all worked out ok. Sort've! :-)

JoeH, post: 407529 wrote: Wow, Tom, that's a helluva story! So many bodies littering the floor in the aftermath..... I did an opera back in the spring with two camera ops that I don't normally use; one was OK, the other was just awful....(In hindsight "I" should done one of the cameras and put the newbie in charge of just monitoring the audio recording.) I also had some hard drive issues after I transferred the video clips out of the cameras. (It took forever to re-render 1-1 copies for safety/backup, but thankfully THAT part worked out ok. It was the main/master camera footage that was in danger of getting lost on the balky HD.) Then I finally got around to editing through the awful camera work and low-light issues. (Act 2 and 3 of this opera are in a "Cave" and as you can imaginge....the newbie cam guy didn't know how to increase the gain/sensitivity and as such I had footage that was not only too dark, but mostly out of focus as well. How DUMB can someone be???) In the end, I got it all done, using a lot more of the master shot than I normally would, but it all worked out ok. Sort've! :-)

Sounds horrific.

We are constantly having to hire new videographers due to the fact that most of our videographers have just graduated from the local college and are only here in town because they are waiting for their girlfriends to graduate and move on.

The one we have now I wish I could keep but he is destined for greater things. Not only is he a GREAT videographer he also does graphics and animation and is great to work with.

Our last videographer was either on something or got off his meds.

He proved to be completely worthless and was working more for his own company than he was for us. He borrowed some equipment from my company for his own uses and then did not return parts of it. He is now in the badlands working on some project that he has dreamed up. Big talker little doer.

It is getting harder and harder to find good people to work with. Many video and audio people today got their training in college and it did not prepare them very well for the real world, They want to start work at 10 am have an hour and a half lunch and leave at 4 pm to go drinking with their friend just like when they were in college. If you need them for evening shoots or for weekends they tell you "sorry but I have plans" even if you give them a months notice. I wish them well in the "real world".

It is also getting harder and harder to work in the fields of audio and video. Too many amateurs doing work for nothing or very little and with budgets getting smaller and smaller for a lot of groups they take these people up on their offers of free work and all of a sudden you find yourself on the outside. When the free workers turn out sh!tty work the groups get upset and wonder why these "wunderkinds" cannot do what the professionals they fired could do.

I have been the pro audio business for over 40 years and this is the worst BS I have ever seen.

Best of luck!!! with your company.

Thomas, I love reading your rants on this. I can relate! I have a pretty good business here and do most all myself. I won't hire anyone unless its absolutely impossible to finish on time. I'm waiting for my kids to mature, hoping they might either take over or use what I've built to help their journey. In the mean time I'm working at the speed of 3 normal people. Which is just enough of a pace for me to break a sweat.

I'm beginning to wonder if the increasing stupid we're seeing everywhere isn't caused from all the "over attention" we're spoon feeding our kids right from their first birthday on. I mean. Helicopter parents , chauffeurs. Kids are being picked up and dropped off right from kindergarden up until we buy them a car. They don't even walk much. Not like all the past generations, that for sure.
Another big one is: Common sense is hard to find now. People are memorizing things but not really learning. It sure seems like this to me.

We took out kids out of the public school system and they are doing incredible now. The schools are one big commercially driven meat market. Its unbelievable.

I wish them well in the "real world".

that's exactly where there going man, 9-5 two kids a wife and a dog, and probably pretty miserable doing it. ever go to the bank, or the store and see the look of absolute misery on people.? creative people may get run down, or be snobby know it alls, but i find in general they are happy.

i just worked w/ an intern kid tonight who constantly goes on and on about all this equipment he used in his past four years in three different audio programs (which we all drool over, and i've never touched) and all his certifications, who's probably got less than a dozen recordings to his name, of any fashion. assignment plug in this rack (about 20 items) 8 hours later he goes 'look' and flicks the switch on w/ a huge smile the rack lights up. looks great from the front till i see a mass of cheapo power strips and spaghetti, to a level of my preschooler nephew discovering how plugs work, and not one audio connection.

man i'm not a blow hard, just regular dude, but the quality i'm seeing from these graduates is ridiculous. they spend 30k a year, 90 grand to complete the bachelor program and the live sound test does not involve setting up the stuff, room tuning or using groups, or multiple auxes. they are not taught from the ground up, alot of the time. and i blame the schools curriculum. your going to make someone know what the diff between resistance and impedance was but not make them even plug in a PA!? how bout a fake 'ground loop' hands on exercise. this kid was telling me his audio program doesn't even supply pro musicians to record, and they come out w/ a bachelors degree! what a scam. they have to 'go find them'. i say take that 90 grand and live off it while you go actively seek out the time consuming unpredictable thing that is audio, unless your sole purpose to to teach 'the book' at a school.

the owner i work for always says you can't teach attitude, personality, or willingness to work, you can teach the technical stuff. i dunno what your attitudes are about hiring people but thats his FWIW.

- quick horror story, 500 people sold out for national touring rapper (sold many platinums records), i show up to the usual club w/ my usual kit, hmmm none of the wireless mics work, batteries, routing, all ok, but no voice, only a pop when i turn the mic on/off. scratch the noggin, the transmitter is getting sound, but no voice, so i take the windscreen off and realize some ignorant person cut ALL the wires connecting the diaphragm to the plug on all house mics. so i got my one backup harwire emergency mic going, and scotch taped the other three together w/ about 5 min before the place packed. i guess even if ya work the same place for years, theres always that element of chance.

another- quick- a battery backup started smoking, and a digital board acted up on the first session of an e.p project right in front of a band i'd never met in a studio i just finished building, talk about blushing how 'professional' everything is. that was my first solo 'pro' session a few years ago. lol them on the couch, i'm frantically behind the board w/ the owner "well, we're having some problems" okay what "well something smells like its burning and the board is making a noise that sounds like a donkey being run over by a car" needles to say a couple hours we got it going and the band was very happy by the end. awww how sweet.

lol i realized i was out of touch when it was like a project for me to figure out the adjustment settings on an ipod the other day, sound guy huh? i sure havent stopped learning all around!

this thread is very entertain fellas, keep 'em coming!

audiokid, post: 407537 wrote: Thomas, I love reading your rants on this. I can relate! I have a pretty good business here and do most all myself. I won't hire anyone unless its absolutely impossible to finish on time. I'm waiting for my kids to mature, hoping they might either take over or use what I've built to help their journey. In the mean time I'm working at the speed of 3 normal people. Which is just enough of a pace for me to break a sweat.

I'm beginning to wonder if the increasing stupid we're seeing everywhere isn't caused from all the "over attention" we're spoon feeding our kids right from their first birthday on. I mean. Helicopter parents , chauffeurs. Kids are being picked up and dropped off right from kindergarden up until we buy them a car. They don't even walk much. Not like all the past generations, that for sure.
Another big one is: Common sense is hard to find now. People are memorizing things but not really learning. It sure seems like this to me.

We took out kids out of the public school system and they are doing incredible now. The schools are one big commercially driven meat market. Its unbelievable.

Lately I see the school bus in town stopping at every driveway to pick up kids. I guess the school "bored" doesn't want to tire them out before school. There is no phys ed in schools anymore and if there is the students do it in their school clothes and they cannot do any activity where they break a sweat since they cannot take showers afterwards.

When I was in high school I had to walk 1.5 miles just to get to the bus stop and then had a 20 minute ride to school. We had PE three times a week. We sweated a lot and took showers afterwards and it it did not make me a "bad person".

I had an intern recently that got all of his audio knowledge off the WWW. He would constantly tell me the "right way" to do something but could never tell me what made it the "right way". I also had an intern that was so caught up in learning all about audio that he asked to take some tech manuals home with him so he could do more "learning" when he was not here.

Helicopter parents are not doing their kids any favors and I know interns, who are college aged students, who talk to their parents three, four or more times each and every day. When I was in college I wrote a letter to my parents when I could and talked to them by phone maybe once a week at night. The helicopter parents don't seem to want to let the young people learn anything on their own. They want to think and act for them. Not good. Maybe they are trying to prepare them for living at home when they graduate from college. That is, after all, where many of them will end up.

I had the best parents in the whole world but would I have gone back to live with them after I had started my professional life...NO WAY! Today it seem more the norm, I just read on the WWW that 60% of all graduating college students are now living with their parents after graduation. I know the economy is rough right now but there are a LOT of jobs so why not take one while you wait to get the job you want.

As to horror stories...

I was doing a remote gig for a radio station. We were taking a split off the concert sound guys. It was being done of a live concert by a famous group and it was a "comeback tour". The show was being done at the end of a day in an outdoor amphitheater. It was being done in August with the temperatures running in the high 80s and no rain. There were lots of opening groups and the main performers were not coming on until 8 pm. The pre concert started at 4 pm. Everything, including the audience and the equipment was getting baked under the ever present sun and we measured the amphitheater temperature on the seats and it was over 130 degrees F. We finally get to the main act and they start to sing but instead of nice clean audio all we got was a lot of distortion. I started checking gain staging and everything else I could think of and then it struck me that they SM58s had been sitting out in the broiling sun since early morning and the diaphragms had probably been warped by the hot temperatures. We were carrying additional microphones and put them up at the set change and the problem was solved. When we took the SM58s apart the diaphragms were all warped and in some cases they were so hot that the voice coils had expanded enough so that they were permanently melted to the metal inside the microphone. What a mess and the radio station was NOT pleased that the whole first part of the concert sounded like ...well you know..

More latter.

I just read on the WWW that 60% of all graduating college students are now living with their parents after graduation. I know the economy is rough right now but there are a LOT of jobs so why not take one while you wait to get the job you want.

i dunno man, isn't the key word there 'wait' if your waiting your not doing the job you want, how is that really propelling your career? shouldn't waiting consist more of honing your skills and trying to get music jobs, than some bs job your not trying at anyway? just so you can finance a car you don't own, and rent a place you don't own? sounds a bit like a waste of time and resources to me. it is nearly impossible in america to make enough money to be self sustained unless you work full time. jobs like bartender are one of the exception (i used to avg around 200 per night two nights a week). and really how fresh and attentive are you going to be after an 8 hour grind. is 'after work' when your gonna deliver your best product?

i know what your thinking, but i'm not a college grad who lives w/ his parents, i'm a junior college grad who dropped out of 'real' college junior year, who lives w/ his parents :)

(please don't take this as anything but calm convo here man, i totally don't wanna 'sound' angry thru txt, just find this an interesting topic to bs about)

hear me out on this one. i got one of my good friends (at the time) a shot to work at a studio, he helped me build it, and after i expressed an interest to the owner to work on staff and eventually manage, my buddy expressed interest to me that he'd like to do it too. i had been messing around w/ a 4 track and cpu for a few years, my buddy had little experience. so i get hired, and i highly recommended my friend who also did shortly after. "ah finally working in a pro facility", so where is all the work? what i/we didn't realize that newbies ain't gettin many sessions, but shit, it's fun when we do. we even agreed to split the single engineers pay into a pathetic half so we could both 'work' more.
ah so a year or so passes buy, half a dozen projects, about as much as a job at a mall part time is tossed around. pressure from my friends parent to move out, get a job, get a job, (because apparently being paid to do music insn't one), so he does, he uses that degree that he'll never be able to pay the student loans for, and earned as much as he would (hourly) at the studio. quickly the late nights became a problem, so be came available only on weekends, enter girlfriend, now weekends became a problem, the kid hasn't bothered to call me back in 8 months, so i guess friends became a problem.

he wasted an opportunity that so many people never get(to work along side an engineer who won a grammy, and has earned platinum and gold records during his lengthy career) so he now works forty hours a week, and has less free time and money than i do (believe me when i say i am broke all the time), and he hates forty, oh make that 50 (overtime baby working on saturday!), of his life every week. and was generally too tired to do much when he had time.

you could argue that he didn't really wanna do it, maybe he didn't. maybe he didn't know what he was really getting into and got a taste of sacrifice for love of your job. my point is that up until the move out get a job, he was very happy, w/ the prospect of it all. it was the worse thing possible for his audio career, but again, maybe he just didn't want it bad enough.

if staying at home and being poor, but loving my work is my choice between the grind and still being poor paying rent, i know what i'm picking. i'm not a decorated uber experienced sound guy, but i do work w/ a couple (hopefully more, and more). i feel satisfied. instead of groaning all week till me check comes, i'm embarrassingly old living home and still poor. its a driving factor to find new people to record or make studios for, and rewards a sense of accomplishment when ya get sessions, or book a gig. it's trade between satisfaction, and security. but there's always other things, if i fail at my desires. whether it's teaching general music at a junior college or selling gear.

my long winded point is that if people are spending all their time staying afloat in a "job" how do they have a chance do develop the proper skills they would need to be proficient in something like recording or performing or live sound.? curious on your perspective on this.

fwiw, i'm planning on picking up some hours wherever after this studio project is done, w/ the understanding that i will quit on the spot if i have to chose a session or 'work', and if my live gigs keep steady all i need is 3-4 sessions a week to get outa the house, and be self sustaining, and in general happy to work. i'd rather regret failing, than not trying. not looking for a medal or anything, it just seems to me that most people who are successful (make a living) w/ audio didn't wait for an opportunity they created one. much respect man.

dude totally didn't know diaphragms could melt like that. gonna keep that in the brain.

kmetal, post: 407691 wrote: i dunno man, isn't the key word there 'wait' if your waiting your not doing the job you want, how is that really propelling your career? shouldn't waiting consist more of honing your skills and trying to get music jobs, than some bs job your not trying at anyway? just so you can finance a car you don't own, and rent a place you don't own? sounds a bit like a waste of time and resources to me. it is nearly impossible in america to make enough money to be self sustained unless you work full time. jobs like bartender are one of the exception (i used to avg around 200 per night two nights a week). and really how fresh and attentive are you going to be after an 8 hour grind. is 'after work' when your gonna deliver your best product?

i know what your thinking, but i'm not a college grad who lives w/ his parents, i'm a junior college grad who dropped out of 'real' college junior year, who lives w/ his parents :)

(please don't take this as anything but calm convo here man, i totally don't wanna 'sound' angry thru txt, just find this an interesting topic to bs about)

hear me out on this one. i got one of my good friends (at the time) a shot to work at a studio, he helped me build it, and after i expressed an interest to the owner to work on staff and eventually manage, my buddy expressed interest to me that he'd like to do it too. i had been messing around w/ a 4 track and cpu for a few years, my buddy had little experience. so i get hired, and i highly recommended my friend who also did shortly after. "ah finally working in a pro facility", so where is all the work? what i/we didn't realize that newbies ain't gettin many sessions, but shit, it's fun when we do. we even agreed to split the single engineers pay into a pathetic half so we could both 'work' more.
ah so a year or so passes buy, half a dozen projects, about as much as a job at a mall part time is tossed around. pressure from my friends parent to move out, get a job, get a job, (because apparently being paid to do music insn't one), so he does, he uses that degree that he'll never be able to pay the student loans for, and earned as much as he would (hourly) at the studio. quickly the late nights became a problem, so be came available only on weekends, enter girlfriend, now weekends became a problem, the kid hasn't bothered to call me back in 8 months, so i guess friends became a problem.

he wasted an opportunity that so many people never get(to work along side an engineer who won a grammy, and has earned platinum and gold records during his lengthy career) so he now works forty hours a week, and has less free time and money than i do (believe me when i say i am broke all the time), and he hates forty, oh make that 50 (overtime baby working on saturday!), of his life every week. and was generally too tired to do much when he had time.

you could argue that he didn't really wanna do it, maybe he didn't. maybe he didn't know what he was really getting into and got a taste of sacrifice for love of your job. my point is that up until the move out get a job, he was very happy, w/ the prospect of it all. it was the worse thing possible for his audio career, but again, maybe he just didn't want it bad enough.

if staying at home and being poor, but loving my work is my choice between the grind and still being poor paying rent, i know what i'm picking. i'm not a decorated uber experienced sound guy, but i do work w/ a couple (hopefully more, and more). i feel satisfied. instead of groaning all week till me check comes, i'm embarrassingly old living home and still poor. its a driving factor to find new people to record or make studios for, and rewards a sense of accomplishment when ya get sessions, or book a gig. it's trade between satisfaction, and security. but there's always other things, if i fail at my desires. whether it's teaching general music at a junior college or selling gear.

my long winded point is that if people are spending all their time staying afloat in a "job" how do they have a chance do develop the proper skills they would need to be proficient in something like recording or performing or live sound.? curious on your perspective on this.

fwiw, i'm planning on picking up some hours wherever after this studio project is done, w/ the understanding that i will quit on the spot if i have to chose a session or 'work', and if my live gigs keep steady all i need is 3-4 sessions a week to get outa the house, and be self sustaining, and in general happy to work. i'd rather regret failing, than not trying. not looking for a medal or anything, it just seems to me that most people who are successful (make a living) w/ audio didn't wait for an opportunity they created one. much respect man.

dude totally didn't know diaphragms could melt like that. gonna keep that in the brain.

To each his or her own. What works for you works.

How long are you going to live at home??? It maybe the normal thing to do today but when are you going to take your first solo flight? When you are 30 or 40 or are you just going to live with your parents until they pass on and you inherit the house? I personally think this "I am going to live with my parents until I find the perfect job" is a big cop out by a lot of young people. Lets face facts your home feels safe and you don't really have to do that much to survive. Life is not like that. You have to work and make money and experience living solely by what you make with your own two hands and your brain. Your Mom and Dad did it or you would probably not be around to discuss this.

There are jobs out in the real world. They may not be next door or down the block and they may not be "perfect" I know a lot of my friends took jobs in distant cities after they graduated from college just so they could start a career in audio. They worked for TV stations or did AV gigs just to get their feet wet and start a resume. Now most of them have good jobs or they own their own studio.

When I left the US Army I got a job within a month of my leaving. It was doing audio at a TV station about two miles from my parent's house. I stayed with my parents until I found another job one year later in a town 25 miles from my parents and moved there.

With your current thinking you are going to just stay where you are until the perfect job comes your way and it probably never will because you will always keep finding problems with what ever job you apply for since you don't want to give up a "good thing".

Again it is your life and you can do what YOU want to do. I do think you need to do some deep soul searching and figure out what life is all about and I can tell you from experience it is not all about finding the perfect job.

Best of luck and let us know how things are going...

nice story thanks for that..

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