HI James,

On Thu 2011-Jun-23 22:04, James Bradley (1:342/77) wrote to Richard Webb:

 RW> Sorry, bumped a button, ended up replying to part II before
 RW> part I.  

JB> I *think* I can forgive you.  I'll let part two die for
JB> brevity. ...
KNow that feeling.  Been the week from hades around here.
GOt steered to a client that can't make up his/their mind(s) what they want. 
IF nothing else I'll walk away from them
with a consulting fee, but might steer the job to somebody
else just on general principles and keep the consulting fee.


 RW> GHost kick
 RW> drum pedals were well built, but the old sPeed king was
 RW> still my favorite.

JB> The Ghost... I never found a need for that reverse spring, but I
JB> never *did* spend much time behind one to tune it to my liking let
JB> alone get used to one. Stupid me at the time, I *had* to buy the
JB> heaviest HW on the market just to burn off some of that "youthful
JB> exuberance". In retrospect, it likely kept my out of trouble I
JB> shouldn't have been in just the same just carting the stuff from
JB> here to there. 

YEah me too, because it lasts.  NEver actually tuned the
ghost to my liking, but a friend who had two of them seemed
to like a kit set up pretty much as I did, and I played his
a few times.  A speed king however, I've tweaked a few of
those.  Nice kick drum pedals.  I still would suggest any
new drummer get a speed king.  THey last.

 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.

JB>  I *wish* I didn't know what you are talking about. 

I'm sure you do.  Roland is some of the worst, Alesis some
of the best.



 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.

JB> The amount of insight I garnered from those brothers' spec sheets
JB> ALONE likely surpasses 80% of the *full* manuals to the rest of my
JB> "library". No, even with this auto amp, when they say it's stable at
JB> a 2-ohm nominal load... Neither have *never* fudged their result
JB> that I've *ever* heard about. Just that I ran across their
JB> eight-step process to install the neon tube connection point this
JB> morning. (I didn't read it, but for to see how simple they had to
JB> make the dissassembly process. }|-) I mean to say, didn't Altec
JB> *invent* the "White Paper"? If they didn't, they sure made some
JB> interesting reading out of the format!

You got that right.  I never really got into their
documentation, but I wrestled enough voice of the theater
cabinets in my day.

 RW>   Some people shouldn't be allowed near such

JB> Due to legal reasons, I fear I've said too much already.

Can understand that.  I'm going through that with a buddy
right now, single sideband work, he wants to add a mic
preamp to his ham radio transceiver cause he don't think
he's getting enough mic gain on 10 meters.

 RW> Some folks are just too dangerous to themselves and others
 RW> to be let out without a keeper  Sometimes *today* I resemble that remark. 
YEah so does my lady at times.  SHe's got this long
umbilical for her oxygen concentrator, and she's always
rolling around the house in her wheelchair and gets that
hose all discombobulated, tangled in her wheels, etc.  I
keep telling her "think guitar player, know where your
umbilical is at."  When I go through the room now I just
automatically check to see where her umbilical is, feed it
so she can back up, make a 180 turn, etc. and not get her
hose all tangled, because if she kinks it or rolls onto it
and sits then that high pitched alarm is going to drive me
nuts until we get her squared away again .


 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.

JB> And that's likely a battle that will continue L-O-N-G after we are
JB> six feet under. When my two favorite publicly funded radio stations
JB> are boring me, (Check out ckua.com for a streaming-broadcast, if you
JB> need a cross section of my taste, and 80% of my "driving tunes".) I
JB> ALWAYS go toward "world" flavoured music stations. (Give me
JB> hippity-hoppity music with a tabla ANY day over The Black-Eyed
JB> Peas!) I've noticed one Mongolian (PLEASE: No racism should be
JB> inferred!) broadcaster after another (Be it, Aboriginal, Asian, E.
JB> Indian, S. American...) over-modulate their modulation. I *doubt*
JB> they *didn't* get "the speech" every time, but Jimminy it's
JB> frustrating for ME! I can't imagine how much useless work it is for
JB> their tech.

I know that feeling too.  That's why folks like me put hard
limiting on stuff.  I"ve told more than one dj that it
doesn't matter how much you try to pump it, you ain't gonna
get no louder bud.

 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.

JB> Pretend for moment I have learned *nothing* else from you, THAT
JB> little gem is going to the grave with me.

YEah I kinda hung onto it too .

 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.

JB> I've always carried a spare pair of steel-toed boots in every
JB> vehicle, but never had much of a need or supply of hard-hats until
JB> now. I *do* have two hats now in two of my piece-of-crap "haulers".
JB> (Oh, and I was going to mention on part two, that the latest
JB> addition to my "fleet" is a short school bus with a side loading
JB> door for the wheelchair bound has a 460-cubic inch plant.Sure wish
JB> they didn't remove the propane from it, with the price of petroleum
JB> being what it is!)

I can relate to that one.  IT's widely available so a viable option.


 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.

JB> I understand that every bolt can't be tethered way up there, but I
JB> was tearing down after a high-school dance during my incident. But
JB> isn't every tool supposed to be attached to the worker in larger
JB> shows? I imagine it is NOW, but that's little dispensation for
JB> hearing a whirl of wind just before a wrench insert itself into a
JB> sound-board.

YEah pretty much is now, riggers get a lot more safety
training now, but bakc then ... tHe piano incident was at a
theater, the weight, that happened at a community
auditorium.

 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.
PEople look at it and say that looks like fun, until they
realize it's actual work.
JB> I watched as an operator located a Dolby"A" card that wasn't holding
JB> calibration by doing exactly what you say. His notes told him that
JB> Channel #whatever was adrift every day be more than a typical
JB> amount. I liked that fella *before* that incident, and my admiration
JB> and respect for him only grew over time. Go figure, eh? 

IF you pay attention you notice such things.  WHen
characteristics of a piece of equipment change from norms
that's your first clue something's not copacetic.

JB> That was my first indication I should be nowhere near the equipment
JB> I was working on due to my pain. I *wasn't* learning something new
JB> every day. Then I started purchasing duplicate issues of the same
JB> magazine. When I forgot to secure a reel of film during a shipping
JB> operation, and the dammed thing slipped off its spindle to brake a
JB> bone in my foot - imagine forty pounds falling vertically about two
JB> feet with two aluminum vanes as a leading edge - I was off to see my
JB> doctor to get me off my feet from exhaustion if they couldn't find
JB> the real cause.

I can relate to that one too.  Just like with our equipment, when little
things start happening that shouldn't be, over
and over again it's our bodies telling us something.  WHen
conditions begin deviating from their norms on a regular
basis it's time to pay attention.  That's why if I hear
something out of the ordinary while we're tooling down the
road I'll look at Kathy and say "shut up and listen."  SHe
knows I'm not meaning to be insulting, I'm just wanting to
listen to the noises around me, to see what's different and
caused my attention to be drawn to it.  WE've had this new
to us van now for about 2 months, so I've just started
learning its regular acoustic signatures .  I feel a bit
better knowing that if something changes I'll hear it.
That's what told me the pimpmobile was changing from "hot
rod Lincoln" to "Not rod LIncoln."

JB> In projection work, we were tested on five areas: Electricity,
JB> Electronics, Optics, Film and, Mechanics. Naturally, we were also on
JB> probation even after passing the exam. We were more concerned with
JB> tungar rectifiers and how to balance a bank of six silicone diodes
JB> and the like, but we did delve into discrete PNP NPN transistors and
JB> quite a bit of reactance and their influences on potential
JB> difference and current. Naturally, MOSFETS and the like started
JB> showing up, but there came a point when my noggin' wasn't retaining
JB> anything else.

I never really knew what all went into that, but I knew it
was by necessity pretty complex.  kNew a tech in that
industry when I was a kid.  HE's the guy suggested I take
the 808 driver out of those voice of the theaters I had and
replace 'em with JBL 100 watt compression drivers.  FUnny,
when I did that, went Ferman crossover before the amps and
locked it in a rack I quit blowing 808 horn drivers all the
time.

JB> I knew about the mind-body connection, and I *thought* I had a hardy
JB> respect for it. ... NOT, as it turns out! Ah well... Better left for
JB> the Whining and Complaining echo I suppose. 

  YEp, there again, pay attention to what your body
tells you .

Regards,
           Richard
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 * Origin:  (1:116/901)