Subject: that time of year again (1/2)
Richard Webb to James Bradley on 06-22-11 01:43 re: that time of year again
RW> HI again James,
RW> Sorry, bumped a button, ended up replying to part II before
RW> part I.
I *think* I can forgive you. I'll let part two die for brevity.
...
JB> bass-drum, but there's idjiats like Tommy and me in the audience
JB> that will pass judgment on you as a musician for *dozens* of these
JB> issues.
RW> Indeed this is true, and what I've always argued. All
RW> those little things add up to a lot. I always thought
RW> GHost kick
RW> drum pedals were well built, but the old sPeed king was
RW> still my favorite.
The Ghost... I never found a need for that reverse spring, but I never *did*
spend much time behind one to tune it to my liking let alone get used to one.
Stupid me at the time, I *had* to buy the heaviest HW on the market just to
burn off some of that "youthful exuberance". In retrospect, it likely kept my
out of trouble I shouldn't have been in just the same just carting the stuff
from here to there.
...
JB> manuals *alone* require an engineering degree, and a masters in
JB> linguistics to reverse the logic used to to write such scuttle-butt.
RW> YEp, often translated from Japanese or something to English
RW> as well.
I *wish* I didn't know what you are talking about.
JB> Heck, even a JBL car amp with a built in active crossover has me
JB> frustrated at the moment! I've NEVER had a reason to suspect their
JB> specifications (Which I *just* found on the back side of the back
JB> cover page.) but the document was intended for the Thump-And-Bump
JB> crowd, and I expected at first view that a lot of stuff I find
JB> interesting would be glossed over. (The slope of the crossover
JB> band-passes. PS current dumping? ...) Regardless if it was
RW>
RW> YEah I can relate. I've never been into automotive sound
RW> that much, but I've always heard that one should take the
RW> specs they give on those things with a good dollop of salt.
The amount of insight I garnered from those brothers' spec sheets ALONE likely
surpasses 80% of the *full* manuals to the rest of my "library". No, even with
this auto amp, when they say it's stable at a 2-ohm nominal load... Neither
have *never* fudged their result that I've *ever* heard about. Just that I ran
across their eight-step process to install the neon tube connection point this
morning. (I didn't read it, but for to see how simple they had to make the
dissassembly process. }|-) I mean to say, didn't Altec *invent* the "White
Paper"? If they didn't, they sure made some interesting reading out of the
format!
...
RW> YEp, we were sure having fun, finally we said to heck with
RW> it, hooked up the studiomaster and went analog into the
RW> decks, got rhythm tracks down.
"Get 'er DONE!"
...
JB> "talent" finds to ruin a modulator's gain structure? [...]
JB> neighborhood a "free show". What a "clipping mess" that product
JB> sounded like!
RW> sOme people shouldn't be allowed near such
Due to legal reasons, I fear I've said too much already.
...
RW> Some folks are just too dangerous to themselves and others
RW> to be let out without a keeper
...
JB> index card on how to store and recall a snapshot for when Dwain
JB> comes in with his bass guitar. Maybe it depends on the
JB> pastor/volunteer tech, and their ability to learn? Maybe a high
JB> resolution snap-shot of a balanced analog board could supplant the
JB> automation?
RW> YEp, or, you lock up the limiters, the eq and all that in a
RW> closet, and give them familiar controls, nobody but your
RW> visiting tech who comes by once in awhile tinkers with the
RW> stuff in the closet, or the locked rack.
And that's likely a battle that will continue L-O-N-G after we are six feet
under. When my two favorite publicly funded radio stations are boring me,
(Check out ckua.com for a streaming-broadcast, if you need a cross section of
my taste, and 80% of my "driving tunes".) I ALWAYS go toward "world" flavoured
music stations. (Give me hippity-hoppity music with a tabla ANY day over The
Black-Eyed Peas!) I've noticed one Mongolian (PLEASE: No racism should be
inferred!) broadcaster after another (Be it, Aboriginal, Asian, E. Indian, S.
American...) over-modulate their modulation. I *doubt* they *didn't* get "the
speech" every time, but Jimminy it's frustrating for ME! I can't imagine how
much useless work it is for their tech.
...
JB> For the love of the Lord... YES! A friend told me those in-ear
JB> dohickys had a built in limiter/compressor. Not so?
RW> THey do have, of sorts, and they'll work, but often they're
RW> on the transmitter, and can be defeated. Even then, a good
...
JB> attempting to destroy a FOH system by trying to "MILD" it.
RW> DIg it! That "mild" isn't original with me, a guy I know,
RW> Fletcher at Mercenary Audio in Boston, Ma. coined that one.
Pretend for moment I have learned *nothing* else from you, THAT little gem is
going to the grave with me.
...
RW> flying stuff I tell him or her that you *will* get a hard
RW> hat from the truck, and it will be on your head.
I've always carried a spare pair of steel-toed boots in every vehicle, but
never had much of a need or supply of hard-hats until now. I *do* have two hats
now in two of my piece-of-crap "haulers". (Oh, and I was going to mention on
part two, that the latest addition to my "fleet" is a short school bus with a
side loading door for the wheelchair bound has a 460-cubic inch plant.Sure wish
they didn't remove the propane from it, with the price of petroleum being what
it is!)
...
JB> dropping the truss and ALL the pars to the stage four-feet from a
JB> BRAND NEW Gretch snare I had just crated, and closer to my head. I
JB> think that was my turning point if I was going to waste any more
JB> time with *that* band of thieves. Cripes, if I need steel toed boots
JB> AND a hardhat to play rock and roll, I needed to find a new
JB> profession!
RW> I've seen that before, watched a guy drop a wrench
RW> which barely missed me on the deck one night, same sort of
RW> situation. That's why if they're flying stuff overhead I
RW> insist folks working for us wear that hard hat.
RW> I watched another guy drop a weight from a line one night
RW> and do some pretty good damage to a piano. HE was tied off
RW> up there luckily, but the arbor for the weight was too long
RW> a reach, and he dropped it. IF he hadn't been tied off not
RW> just would the piano have been damaged, but he might not
RW> have survived the night.
I understand that every bolt can't be tethered way up there, but I was tearing
down after a high-school dance during my incident. But isn't every tool
supposed to be attached to the worker in larger shows? I imagine it is NOW, but
that's little dispensation for hearing a whirl of wind just before a wrench
insert itself into a sound-board.
...
JB> musicians are #2 in line for carpal tunnel and repetitive stress
JB> fractures, but I tried to explain the time commitment before you
JB> step foot on your first showcase gig, even IF you're an art-school
JB> punk band with better haircuts than equipment. Cripes, if he saw the
JB> price of *one* good guitar cable alone, I bet he'd learn how to care
JB> for the friggin' thing.
RW> I"ve seen plenty of them. Back in the day often you had
RW> better recalibrate the machine before you started work that
RW> day too. I"ve been in this business decades, and I still
RW> learn something new every job it seems.
I watched as an operator located a Dolby"A" card that wasn't holding
calibration by doing exactly what you say. His notes told him that Channel
#whatever was adrift every day be more than a typical amount. I liked that
fella *before* that incident, and my admiration and respect for him only grew
over time. Go figure, eh?
That was my first indication I should be nowhere near the equipment I was
working on due to my pain. I *wasn't* learning something new every day. Then I
started purchasing duplicate issues of the same magazine. When I forgot to
secure a reel of film during a shipping operation, and the dammed thing slipped
off its spindle to brake a bone in my foot - imagine forty pounds falling
vertically about two feet with two aluminum vanes as a leading edge - I was off
to see my doctor to get me off my feet from exhaustion if they couldn't find
the real cause.
In projection work, we were tested on five areas: Electricity, Electronics,
Optics, Film and, Mechanics. Naturally, we were also on probation even after
passing the exam. We were more concerned with tungar rectifiers and how to
balance a bank of six silicone diodes and the like, but we did delve into
discrete PNP NPN transistors and quite a bit of reactance and their influences
on potential difference and current. Naturally, MOSFETS and the like started
showing up, but there came a point when my noggin' wasn't retaining anything
else.
I knew about the mind-body connection, and I *thought* I had a hardy respect
for it. ... NOT, as it turns out! Ah well... Better left for the Whining and
Complaining echo I suppose.
--- Maximus 3.01
* Origin: -=-= Calgary Organization CDN (403) 242-3221 (1:342/77)
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