stuff

I bought one of these from a fairly anonymous source on ebay many years ago, and found it an invaluable tool for determining which cable run in a series is causing a problem (think multicore -> sub snake -> mic cable -> mic cable extension!). It's also very useful for testing an entire multicore when you first walk into a dodgy and unfamiliar venue, as so many of us have to on a regular basis. In one particular case, a young venue tech told me that

'Channel 21... or is it 22? Yes, channel 22 on the desk isn't working'.

Using this tool I was able to show him that in fact multicore line 21 was totally dead, and several other lines had pins 2 or 3 disconnected ('one legged', as one might call it) We didn't have time to fix the offenders, but at least we could work around them.

Fast forward to today, and I'm a bit more handy with a soldering iron than I used to be, and into designing / building my own basic circuits, so I thought I'd have a go at making some of my own tester tools. In short, a dual colour (red/green) LED is lit by the 48 volts phantom power from pins 2 & 3 of the microphone input of a suitable mixing desk or other preamp. In normal circumstances, we see an amber glow, created by the red and green LEDs working together. A pin two or pin three fault (either open or shorted to pin one) will cause the LED to glow red or green. No light at all indicates a number of different faults - for example a fault with pin one, a complete disconnection, or a mispatching!  Furthermore, by changing a resistor value I've improved the design, enabling it to show  a common enough fault that the 'original' could not detect - pins two and three being shorted together. In this case the LED glows a redder shade of amber.

The diagram below includes the 6K8 series resistance typically used in 48v phantom power circuits.

(a brusque guide for bands stepping up to the slightly-less-small-time)

  Hi, I'm the one sat at the on-stage mixing desk. What's that, you didn't even know that was a thing? Yes, that's how we do things at 'serious' club level - one engineer for the front-of-house sound and another for the stage monitors. It's what touring bands expect once the venue holds more than a couple of hundred people.

During line-check, while the front-of-house sound engineer is calling out individual instruments, it's a good idea to be building your monitor mix. If you want (for example) kick drum in your wedge, stick a finger in the air while it's being line checked, and keep it there til you've got enough.

During soundcheck songs or the show, point at / mime* / mouth / yell the name of the instrument in question, along with 'up' or 'down'. It's that simple. It's helpful if you confirm that the change I made was useful, by a nod or a smile - that way I can stop focusing my attention on you specifically and go back to general alertness mode. There's no need to point at the wedge you're stood on top of, which I might well misinterpreted as 'turn it down!'. Also don't try to be polite: 'More me!', whether yelled, mouthed or mimed, is a lot less work for me to process than a muffled 'could I possibly have a little more of my guitar in my monitor, please?', and frees up more of the noisy stage's limited communication bandwidth for the needs of your fellow musicians. Riffing on the same theme: if you need a shit-tonne (10-12 dB) more, then do ask for a shit-tonne rather than 'a bit' or 'a hair' (2-4 dB). By all means approach the desk if it's a more complex issue.

Resist the temptation to exclaim 'I can't hear anything!'. It's terribly unhelpful, and if you really can't hear anything at all you probably shouldn't be on stage in the first place, equal opportunities aside. Also, it's probably best not to ask upfront for 'a bit of everything' if you're a band with drums and amplifiers playing on a small to medium sized stage. If you don't know what I mean by 'small to medium', I mean any stage where you do your own line check. Oh, and nobody has high hat / cymbals / toms or reverb in their monitor wedge (except those that do, obviously).

* Guitar, keyboard, vocal and snare are straightforward enough mimes. For bass guitar, mime fingerpicking from above with two fingers. For kick drum, pound your fist into your chest or other (flat) hand. For backing tracks, make a circle with your finger like a spinning tape reel or CD. And if you can't get a hand free to mime, do try my lipreading skills!

I do live sound in several club venues of 700-1000 capacity. When talking to my accomplished but amateur musician friends they are often surprised to learn that I typically start work around midday. "Wow, what do you do all that time?", they ask. So here's a typical gig day schedule:

12.00 - Local sound/light techs and crew arrive. Set up and test basic funtionality of PA.

13.00 - Headline artists' crew loads gear into venue (usually with local help). Local techs liase with touring techs to setup and line-check microphones, lights etc.

14.30 - headliner soundcheck

16.00 - support soundcheck(s)

18.00 - lunchtime!

19.00 - Doors open, followed shortly by opening support act.

22.30 - headline act finishes, commence stripping stage and loadout

23.10 - all done, hometime for the local live crew.

Three hours to set up and soundcheck the headliners! That might seem like an unimaginable luxury to those accustomed to playing in smaller pub venues, but in the world of the touring professional it's normal and expected. The key factors driving this rather relaxed-looking schedule are the need to stay unstressed (remember, we're doing this for days or weeks at a time rather than once a fortnight, we can't be expected to operate in constant emergency mode), and the need to have everything in perfect working condition. It's all very well having to grin and bear it with a dodgy channel or two at a free gig in a pub for twenty mates, but for an event grossing in the region of £10,000 those little technical hiccups during the show are expected to be quite rare.