SLE Blog 3

Jefferson Waful is the lighting designer for Umphrey's McGee. He uses the Grand MA 2 console as well as a plethora moving head fixtures. Waful's lighting shows have become a staple of UM's live show and they consider him part of the band. Jeff uses the triangle  pattern of the light beams along with HEAVY haze to build patterns that surpass anything i have ever seen. He also uses a disco ball with multiple colored profiles directed to it for a rather glittery effect. He also uses multi-colored gobos to make patterns on the back wall and band while constructing the triangle patterns above them. I have read somewhere the Jeff uses 2 fewer hazers than the army uses to simulate nuclear fallout. The Tabernacle in Atlanta GA allowed cigarette smoking inside because of an ordnance prohibiting the use of hazers.   Jeff has also given me some great advice on how to look at the console as an instrument and to never stop thinking of different color patterns and what mood the invoke in me. He has lit everywhere from red rocks to radio city music hall to smaller venues. I am not sure how he got into lighting but i do know he has a journalism degree. He is one of the people who inspires me and one of the reason i decided to do this as a career. He is innovative and also uses multiple truss designs to manipulate his ever changing arsenal of colors and schemes. 

Anatomy Of A Service Call: Even Simple Sound Systems Aren’t Plug & Play Analysis

Anatomy Of A Service Call: Even Simple Sound Systems Aren’t Plug & Play Analysis
Adam Gray

This article basically breaks down the complete going on of what should be an easy service call. It is a church with two wireless lapel mics and all the problems you would expect in a system of a small chapel  distortion feedback etc.  This guy works with 2 cases case A and Case B. Case A is a case full of simple hand tools volt-ohmmeter, impedance meter, and minirator. Basically things that don't require a recharge. And well you guessed it in case b contains items which will require a battery. Since there could be many problems with this system he decided to start at the inputs and work to the output fixing as he went along. First he test to see if the mic are balanced or unbalanced. He hears 3 contact pionts and knows it has balanced potential. After a listen he finds out it is only making sinal through the tip. He then test the T R and S and finds it is the ring to sleeve connector. Overall the mics sounded good through a passive system and he ruled them out. First of all the amp rack was not sufficient for the application, the one input had 2 mics y'd into it and not enough output power to drive the aux. Since there is not a provision to driving a high impedance loudspeaker system but he goes with a transformer to achieve this. Even though he noticed a few things about the amps such as the input lables "LOW-Z". Over all it seems that the problem here was the receiver outputs were too hot for mic input level. This was not going to be a simple fix either. It has turned into a made to order transformer system .

"Portable Power: The Secret Life Of Generators" Analysis by Adam Gray

Portable Power: The Secret Life Of Generators

Analysis by Adam Gray

Most of the time on tour the one of the last thing you worry about is power. You tie into the venue's power supply check your distros and get the show on the damn road. However it is festie season. Festivals bring a whole new element of power and power distribution to putting on a gig. This is where is gets tricky considering the chances of having an electrician or generator tech on site could really go either way. Basically a power generator takes mechanical energy and converts it to electricity. There are four parts to a generator : engine, governing controls, distro, and a generating unit. Gasoline is the most common fuel for systems under 6000 watts. The drive shaft then turns the rotor which is connected to windings and the movement in the windings AKA stators generate power. Distro contains the circuit breakers while also protecting from overload  and the governor make sure that the flow of power is consistant. In our business we are looking for generators that are consistant and quiet. Show generators are quiet and operate with in 1.5% fluctuation from the desired power. We cannot count on a normal construction generator because they can fluctuate to up to 25% which is not at all desirable when running audio gear. They are also really freakin loud. Production generators are not only more quiet but also have very large fuel tanks as well as a fuel cell built into the trailer that tows it. Larger generators can carry kVa's but when you figure out what you need also up it some for seat of your pants changes. There are also a few common sense things that we need to remember when using generators. 1: Make sure you are up to code locally and larger. 2:When refueling park on a flat surface inaccessible to the general public. 3: Block wheels and put in a ground rod. 4: Check your levels as well as your voltage levels. 5: Breakers off before starting and stopping 6: Grond wire first then meter after all connected 7: Do not be an ass like really just use your head.   

1st diggio article Optimizing

"Optimizing The Low End: Run & Gun Subwoofer Arraying Techniques" Analysis by Adam Gray


When using low to moderate quality omnidirectional subs it is no uncommon to use more than one to produce more sound. When the size of the array is increased however, pattern narrowing is created. The only way to really grasp this article we need to know and i mean know what phase is. Phase is the off set of two separate waves measured in degrees, therefor 0 degrees would be in phase and result in a dB boost and 180 would result in a 100% cancellation. The waves interact with each other depending on their degree of phase. An addition of 3 to 6 dB is expected between 0 and 90 degrees and 0dB at 120 and 180 degrees. This pretty much tells us that we need to concentrate more on the 120 to 180 degrees because of the loss in dB that occurs. Phase is hard to grasp because we don't think in cycles of waves we think in milliseconds. "A 60 Hz sine wave is about 19 feet long, and takes about 17 milliseconds (ms) to complete (1/60 of a second)." (Pg 2).  Since we do not live in a perfect world there is no way that we can make an array with perfect dB boost where the crown is and no spill where they are not but we do not so we have to live with spill and variances in frequency. Subs are usually arranged so that there is a power ally right down the center. This is where at 30hz 60hz and 120hz are in phase straight down the middle but if you walk around the area you can hear the phase differences at 90 and 120 degrees.....also at 180 degrees but no audience should be there. In this set up and depending on the frequency a good portion of the audience is not getting to hear the subs. To fix this we need to consider another sub setup. Instead of a left and right sub lets try 6 subs in a line across the stage 6 feet long. In this pattern the coverage is greater but the main speakers reach the back of the audience and the low frequency does not. To fix this you can use a digital delay or arrange the subs in an arching patten and have physical delay. The physical way is cheap and fun. 




    

Well if is wasn't for the light creeping through my window i would have never made it to class on time today...

Got some life changing news today and went outside to think...it is amazing how warm light affected my mood.

I have never seen lightning in broad day light t=until today and it was a weird spectacle of light....