My Church Gig

This one is for geeks like me.  Yesterday I modded a new Furman PS-8R II sequential switcher so it would play nice with our old Atlas sequential switcher. For years our techs have had to turn on FOH then run back stage to turn on the amp rack which, ironically, has a sequential switcher.

Our Event Center has been the punk-rock club room of the building (and looks nearly as neglected) since we built and moved in.  The amp rack uses a big rack with an Atlas sequential switcher that we inherited from the building when in was a sports center.  (Our building is a giant remodel.)  I’m finally getting around to installing what I call the “One Switch to Rule Them All.”  Thing is, I bought a relatively inexpensive Furman for the FOH booth figuring that, since it has a momentary switch on the front panel, that it would have poles on the back tied to that switch for remote purposes.  I’m getting used to being wrong.  So, for a punk rock room here’s my punk rock solution.

After the jump: pictures and stuff.

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So after hosting the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, Pedro says to me, “You should write a post about talking to the sound guy during a service.”  Great idea.  Apparently some guy wanted to talk shop while the event was running.

There are a few types of people we meet by the sound booth.

One type is the clueless, socially oblivious carbon unit.  I really believe this person feels like they’re watching a life-long TV show; taking it all in and providing a running commentary.  You hear them walk into the auditorium talking out loud and loudly twenty minutes into a sermon.  I half expect to see them to pull out a Brawndo (it’s got electrolytes!) and a bag of chips after grabbing a comfortable seat.  Beyond training your ushers to shush people there’s not much you can do about that.  These are the guys who will come up behind you during a service and ask questions about the console.  It happens rarely but one time is one too many.

Another type is just as dangerous.  This is the person who waves cars through intersections out of turn because they’re so polite and nice.  By the way, people get hurt, cars get broken, and it takes a lot of folks to help you be that nice so please, don’t.  Ironically, this person has something critical to say like “there’s no sound in the parents’ room” but they don’t want to interrupt you.  They’ll stand behind you, make you wonder who and why, and wait till a transition to speak up.  I’ve missed announcement mic cues over these folks – my back to the stage, the announcement lady yelling so the room can hear her…

After the jump – a few tips on how to talk to your sound engineer when they’re working. Read the rest of this entry »

This week I want to mention the beauty of Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) and Flex.  I started wading in it a couple of years ago and now I’m all deep-sea on it.  I used to be a Flash and Actionscript hater but that was before AIR, Flex, and Actionscript 3.  It’s legit.

AIR offers common folk like you and me the ability to create desktop applications that run on Mac, PC, and Linux.  If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “All I need is a simple app that will just do [something only you would need]” and you can wrap your head around Actionscript (which is somewhat like Javascript) and a little MXML then you can create your own solutions.

After the jump: how we solved our switcher limitations and alphanumeric pager problem including pics and a download. Read the rest of this entry »