One From The Road
Tools, Toys, and Tales for the Theatrical Technician

Ok, I spent enough time bitching about my miserable customer service experiences last year, so I figured I’d do the right thing and give a shout out to the business sales office at the 5th Ave Apple Store here in NY. At work, I was building a new QLab playback rig (a redundant rig with two Mac Mini’s that’s quite sexy, if I might be so bold), and I called the Apple Store to arrange a purchase of a new Mac Mini, including an upgrade to 2 GB of RAM.

The guy I spoke to told me that they couldn’t hold the computer or RAM upgrade for me (I even offered to pay over the phone, but they wouldn’t do that), but assured me that they had it in stock, no problem. I made it clear that sending a fairly highly paid union scale technician over to pick it up was going to be expensive, especially since I had to wait for the RAM to be upgraded about an hour (and had to do it after hours in OT because we were crazy busy), so I couldn’t afford to send somebody on a wild goose chase if they didn’t have it, and he again assured me that it would be no problem.

Of course, I get there, and they’ve got the computer, but, “Oh, we’re out of the RAM for that machine. We might be able to get it by Thursday (this was Tues), but we can’t promise.” After a bit of back and forth, they agreed to waive the upgrade fee if I had to come back at a later time for the upgrade, or get it from another store (normally, it’s installed free with purchase of the machine, but after the fact, there’s an install charge to upgrade).

This is a preview of Great Customer Service!. Read the full post (604 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

Since getting packages delivered to an apartment when you’re not home is nearly always an adventure in head-bashing-against-brick-walls, most of us at the shop get the occasional mail order item delivered to us at work. On Friday, our apprentice extraordinaire, Jay, got a package from Cabela’s, with a new waterproof work jacket they had on sale for stupid cheap.

I’d been looking for a good work jacket for next fall and winter, since I’m tired of getting my everyday jacket filthy at the shop all the time. I had been considering the Carrhart version of this sort of jacket, but that was more than twice this price. I had Jay send me a link to the site, and thought you guys would appreciate it, too.

–A, who is trying to stock up on some new posts for y’all as fast as he can, it’s been way too long that he’s let the site sit dormant!

I just posted a “question of the day” over at Control Booth, a message board aimed at high school and college students interested in theatre tech, with a case study from a service call I did earlier this afternoon troubleshooting some “awful buzz” on a client’s intercom system. Since there’s been such good receipt of my past ClearCom tips and advice here on OFTR, I thought some of you might be interested in checking it out, too.

-A

Time for a simple recipe, that was a hit on tour when we had kitchens in extended stay hotels, and just about everywhere else I’ve made ‘em. And even a dope like me can make them…

Get:
-One box of Pillsbury Devil’s Food Cake mix (the kind with the pudding in it)
-Two eggs
-1/3 cup oil
-A cup or so of Ghirardelli 60% cacao dark chocolate chips

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix all the ingredients together until all the mix is, uh, mixed. Place heaping teaspoon size globs of the resulting dough on cookie sheets (for best results, cover the sheets with parchment, makes cleanup crazy easy, and keeps the bottoms from burning).

Bake ‘em for 15-20 minutes.

Let ‘em cool, and enjoy!

For extra credit, pretty much any other standard cake mix works well (although it’s my personal belief that the magic is in the mixes with pudding!). If you prefer a thinner cookie, you can go up to 1/2 cup of oil. Don’t make the mistake I did once, transpose the measurements of 1/3 to 1/2 cup as 1/2 to 2/3 cup. They were edible, but very messy!

–Andy

P.S.-Shouldn’t they be called bakies?

In an attempt to finally start posting more frequently, here are two OS X utilities I’ve stumbled across or been pointed to recently that have made my life on various shows measurably easier:

First, there’s Martian LifeBoat, which lets you define a thumbdrive (or any removable drive) as a “lifeboat", with a predetermined backup set. From then on, any time you plug that drive into the computer, it automatically backs that set of files/folders up onto the drive (with an option to skip the update if you desire) and then (again optionally) unmounts the drive. When you need it, the data’s there as a disk image, ready to be restored or transferred. During tech, I’ve found it useful for keeping offsite backups of my QLab files and cues. I’d love to find something (or see an update to Lifeboat) that can sync the copy on the removable media instead of just a one-way backup, but the price is right, and it’s incredibly useful as is.

Second, I’ve been in the midst of reorganizing all my effects libraries onto an external drive, and I needed something that would let me take a text file track list and rename a directory of WAV or AIFF files based on that list. After asking the folks on the Theatre-Sound List for recommendations, I was unanimously pointed towards A Better Finder Rename. After a quick demo, I was won over, it does this easily, as well as just about any other bulk renaming task you can throw at it. Again, very reasonably priced, so be sure to check it out! Although I haven’t tried it myself, they’ve also got A Better File Rename for Windows, that those of you who aren’t on Macs can try, too.

This is a preview of Two awesome Mac utilities (and one for Windows). Read the full post (306 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

Hey everybody, Just wanted to let y’all know that the site isn’t dead, I’ve just been a bit slammed lately. Show that teched in August, previews got extended two weeks to late September, and then have been doing that 8x a week in two languages since then, on top of the shop gig. And now factor in fulfilling my obligations to Local 1 on the picket lines, and things are more than a little nuts.

But I’ve got some tips, some stories, and more, all coming as soon as I have a chance to breathe and type them up. Including, in the very near future, a showdown on at least 3 (and maybe more, depending on what I can track down/scare up) models of sub $200 in-ears, and one mid-range pair, some of which are truly astouding, even compared to ones more than double the cost.

–A

Sorry for the long absence…previews of my new night/weekend gig (and day gig most days, till we open) got extended a few weeks for some reworking, so I’ve been pretty slammed.

Here’s one from the archives that I can’t believe I never posted before.

Let’s see…conductor shot? Check. Overhead shot? Check. FOH Infrared? Check. Simpsons? Check!

When I was out as the A2 for The Full Monty, our last tour stop had their own permanent color camera for a FOH shot, which they ran through a VCR to modulate it to Ch 3 for easy distrubution via the building’s cable system. Since it was a much better shot than the color camera we toured with, I tied into their system for our color shot. Since it did actually get TV signal, we couldn’t resist throwing “The Simpsons” up on the PSM’s console during some downtime between shows. Maybe next time we need to pack an antenna…

(And yes, those are moving lights in the overhead shot. Real estate was tight. I had to play lots of Bogen 3D mount games the first couple in’s until I get the art of getting a clear enough shot down, and even then it was a good thing the PSM didn’t need it during the big flashy numbers, since those two wigglies were dancing their little hearts out.)

This was a much longer post, but I hit the wrong tab in the browser and made it vanish into the ethers, so here’s a more concise (to your benefit, I suppose) take 2:

I discovered a neat trick on a recent trip to Syn-Aud-Con’s “Hums, Buzzes, and Things That Go Zap!” workshop in Salt Lake City. If you take the barcode your airline (well, Delta, anyway, can’t speak for others) sends you in your e-ticket confirmation and copy the photo into your cellphone (I’ve got a Treo, which works great for this), you can bring that photo up on the phone and hold the screen under the barcode scanner on the check-in kiosk to log in super quick.

It’s faster than using a credit card to identify yourself, saves paper, and saves the hassle of having to find a printer if you’re at the hotel and forgot/lost the printout for your return trip!

Best, Andy

Just a quick shoutout to Data Vision, the computer “superstore” on 5th ave at 39th in NYC. I went in last week to buy an external enclosure for a notebook hard drive (yup–I yanked the drive out of the dead Sony from my previous misadventures, and it’s now the backup drive for my MacBook Pro!). I didn’t have time to shop around, and didn’t want to mail order, so I took it on faith that their prices are usually pretty on par with anywhere else, and paid $39.99.

Imagine my shock when I got home, looked up the enclosure I’d purchased, and found that every other source (including that place I swore I’ll never give another dime to, see aforementioned Sony laptop) had it somewhere in the range of $14.99. So, with the still unopened package, I went back to the store and asked if they’d price match, since they didn’t have a posted price match policy I could find. I dreaded an argument when they refused that and insisted on enforcing their stated 15% “restocking fee” and only refunding it for store credit. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised.

After verifying the price on the evil store’s website, the manager (I think) I spoke to said he was going to go talk to their buyer, and he’d be right back. I waited about 5 minutes or so, and he returned and, no further questions asked, told the cashier to refund the difference between what I’d paid for it and the $14.99. And they refunded it right back to the card. (I’ve returned something there once before, and while they didn’t ask for the restocking fee (which I have mixed feelings about as a general concept, but will save for a different time and different blog) they were only willing to do it as store credit.)

This is a preview of Doing Business Right (and the Sad Fate of my Old Laptop). Read the full post (444 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Hey gang, In doing some research on something last night (I honestly can’t remember what!), I came across a really cool project for the motivated DIY’ers out there who work with MIDI, or with those who do. It’s Paul Paul Messick and John Battle’s MIDI Viewport, and it’s a really kicking little handheld MIDI analyzer. If you’re familiar with the old Studiomaster MA-36, it’s kinda like that, but on steroids. The MA-36 would just show you what channel was active, and what the type of signal being sent was, with an LED indicator–it couldn’t tell you the actual value of the data.

The Viewport actually has an LCD display, and displays the last 64 bits that were sent, allowing you to scroll through them; highlighting a bit shows you the detailed plain English translation “NOTE ON CH 2″, “NOTE C 3″, etc. Way cool! It’s like having MIDI Monitor (Mac) or MIDI-Ox (Win) in the palm of your hand. Sweet!

If you’re really industrious, you can download firmware for one of two models of chip and flash it yourself, or you can buy preprogrammed chips for $25. The site also sells the necessary opto-isolator, which apparently is trickier to find; the rest of the parts you’ll need to source yourself.

I’m really intrigued, and would love to trade up to this from my MA-36 to one of these if I can find the time to sit down and make it. If somebody else is feeling motivated and wants to work out some sort of trade or a reasonable fee for parts and labor (the license restricts making it for profit), I’d be happy for somebody to beat me to the punch, so e-mail me!

This is a preview of Cool DIY MIDI Toy (Not for the Faint of Heart). Read the full post (425 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

So, I just discovered by sheer chance of leaving my precision screwdriver set at the shop, that the little Phillips head Shure tweaker is the right size for the case screws on a MacBook Pro. Just in case somebody else might find it useful…

–Andy, who just maxed out the RAM in his MacBook Pro (hey, sometimes a guy’s gotta run Fusion)

Hey gang, For those who aren’t familiar with it, my tip today is actually a link to hundreds (thousands?) of tips, courtesy of Lifehacker. If you’re not familiar with it already, you could get lost there for hours, reading all sorts of tips for everyday life–work, computers, productivity, sleep, health, etc.

What made me think of it today was coming across a link to their “MacGyver” category, something I figure is up the alley of many an OFTR reader. So be sure to check these MacGyver-esque tips when you have a spare minute or 20, and then browse the rest of the site!

Best, Andy, who’s not ashamed to admit that his Treo’s default ringtone is the MacGyver theme!

P.S.-Being at Syn-Aud-Con’s “Hums, Buzzes, and Things That Go Zap!” workshop the last couple days reminded me of a tip that Syn-Aud-Con’s Pat Brown shared at a previous class of theirs I attended and was kind enough to let me share with you. As soon as I have a chance to take some pictures to go with it, I’ll post it; sometime later this week! Oh, and hi to the handful of OFTR readers I finally got to meet in person at the workshop!

You know how we all thought the CompUSA saga was done, my old laptop was fixed, they gave me a store credit to make up for the hassle, and all that? Well, as it turns out, the laptop isn’t fixed.

As you may remember, I bought a new MacBook Pro to replace that laptop mid-saga, so that laptop came home when they told me it was fixed, got turned on for a day to test it, and put in the closet. Well, today I had a need for it, so I turned it on. Wouldn’t you know, the second it powered up and started displaying the Windows logo, there was the same old video problem again. Seems when I told them it was the system board (since, y’know, the same problem was happening that led them to replace the system board a year prior) and they replaced the LCD instead, they were wrong.

Of course, since it worked fine the first day and a half I had it home, and I didn’t actively need it anymore, I put it away, and only discovered that it’s still acting up now, months later. And of course, if I call CompUSA, they’re going to claim it redeveloped the problem months later, and tell me to take a flying leap.

AARGH.

At the Broadway Sound Master Class a while back, I had the chance to finally meet Ed Fitzgerald, the VP of Marketing for ClearCom, who I’ve known in passing through his posts to the Theatre-Sound List for a few years. We talked for a bit, and traded some thoughts about troubleshooting and common issues people run into with ClearCom, and Ed passed on the following simple suggestion.

When you’re cabling your ClearCom system, whenever possible, design each channel as a loop. Now, obviously this may not always be possible in some complicated star configurations, but if you do lots of chains, it’s certainly easy to add one extra connection to bring the final station back to the main. Just like with redundant loop systems on digital consoles, this means that if you get an intermittent or break in one line, the rest of the system goes on carrying its signal. Since ClearCom connections run in parallel, nothing special’s needed to implement this sort of loop; however, of course, the limitation to this is that a short in one line will still take down the whole channel, but if you can find the short, removing that connection will restore the system without having to replace that segment of the loop.

Again, it’s not a cure-all solution, but it could save some headaches for some of you, so with thanks to Ed, I’m passing it on to all of you!

Best, Andy

For the Mac-owning sound designers out there, I recently created a set of templates/stencils for creating rack drawings in OmniGraffle. There’s a template with a generic plate border and title block, and a stencil set with rack units/blanks and racks of all sorts. If it’s of use, it’s yours for the taking, download the 52k zip file here.

(Click for a bigger/better preview image of the stencil set)

I’ll eventually expand it with a set of symbols for signal flow diagrams as well, so keep posted for updates.

Okay gang, the long absence is almost over. Finished up a show I was doing double duty as sound designer and engineer on for Columbia University (a production of LaChiusa’s amazingly complex The Wild Party), only to spend a couple weeks slammed with OT at the shop, and then into a last minute design/mixing gig for a teen theatre academy, with a 14-hour corporate party thrown in in-between!

In the interim, the CompUSA saga has finally ended. (7/8/07: Oh, wait. No, it hasn’t.) The computer, last I checked (see below) was still functioning properly, and I’ve gotten (and used) the credit Keith promised me. Geeky as it may make me, I’m now the proud owner of a networked color laser printer, which is really frickin’ cool, LOL. Auto-duplexing for double-sided scripts, and I can print wirelessly from my bedroom. I’m such a geek :-)

In the vein of new toys, the reason I haven’t checked the infamous CompUSA-fixex laptop lately is that, in the interim while that was being fixed, I needed a functioning laptop for (among other things) my work on “The Wild Party". At the urging of the rest of the guys at the shop, and nearly everybody else I know, I finally made the jump, and in late March became the proud owner of a MacBook Pro 15″ laptop. Within two days I was finding myself cursing under my breath when I tried Mac shortcuts on the PC at the shop. I’ve had to boot into XP (thanks, Boot Camp, although Parallels is becoming a must soon) for a few things, like AudioCore and my not-yet-upgraded-to-V6 Smaart, so it was definitely not a leap I could have made easily before the era of the Intel Macs, but boy, am I glad I finally did. It’s just so much easier all around!

This is a preview of Phew!. Read the full post (569 words, estimated 2:17 mins reading time)

On April 11, nearly a month after Sean told me he was waiting to hear from corporate with further instructions, I got a call from Pat, the new tech services manager at the store, asking if I was going to pick up my computer that had been sitting there for 3.5 weeks.

As he explained it, Sean’s no longer at the store (I have no idea the circumstances of this), but he apparently either didn’t follow up before he left, or didn’t hand it off to Pat (his replacement), so all Pat knew was that the note in the system said I’d been called to tell me that the computer had passed the burn in test. Our conversation was the first he’d ever heard of the screen problem or the corporate escalation of my case. I was rather upset that, after all these delays, holdups, and general screwups, my computer had now literally sat on a shelf ignored for 3.5 weeks, and asked him to please call Mr. Hain to verify the situation and then FIX IT!

About a week later Pat called to tell me that he’d ordered a new LCD screen for me, and was expecting it in 2-3 days, and would call me when it was ready. Finally, last Thursday, I went in to pick it up, took it home, and it appears to be working properly after a couple days burning it in. They even replaced every last screw and screw cover, save the self-stick tabs on the bottom of the case (but those were missing from a prior repair, so no biggie).

This is a preview of CompUSA, The Final(?) Update. Read the full post (846 words, estimated 3:23 mins reading time)

Sorry for the unusual (even for me!) lack of updates recently. Lots of craziness with a show I was designing/mixing and the shop, but I will be back with some backlogged reviews, tips, and a tale or two (including the resolution of the whole CompUSA fiasco) ASAP!

–Andy

For once, a truly brief CompUSA update. I finally spoke to Kevin Hain, the escalations supervisor, last Tuesday and arranged to bring my laptop back to the store (again!) for them to test. Because of work commitments, I didn’t make it there until Saturday, and I got a call from one of the technicians yesterday.

When I brought it in, the rep who took it in put a note for them to do a “burn in” test (as it was explained to me by the rep who took it in, this basically maxes out the computer and, “If anything’s wrong, this will make it show up"). (I’d given her a recounting of exactly what program I ran in what condition to get the problem to occur consistently, and she said she’d just have them do this, as if this didn’t show the problem, nothing would.)

Anyway, the tech called and told me that he was calling as a courtesy–although Sean was handling my computer–to let me know that the computer had passed the burn in test, and that I should call Sean today to discuss the situation.

So, this morning, I called Sean, who told me that while it had passed the test, what the other tech hadn’t told me was that it did in fact produce the video problem (not knowing what’s considered “passing", I can’t say why a screen with a huge video artifacting issue would pass the test, but that’s neither here nor there). Now, he’s just waiting for word from corporate headquarters on how to proceed.

So…positive progress :-)

–A

This tip’s primarily aimed at those who use Smaart and XTA’s AudioCore, although it’s also useful with any of the other system processor controllers.

For a while, there have been issues with XTA products that have recent firmware versions not playing nice with the available drivers that are supposed to allow Smaart to control them (not terribly surprising, since the drivers are, oh, 6 years old). They just don’t even recognize that a device is connected (this is with the serial port, I haven’t had a chance to try with MIDI).

I exchanged some e-mails with one of XTA’s tech guys, Phil Key, months and months ago, and while a new driver hasn’t come out yet (after all, their priority is to get AudioCore happening before they worry about supporting Smaart, understandably), I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Phil had kept my e-mail address, and some five months later sent me a note.

Phil wrote, “some engineers have told me they use a piece of freeware called ‘Glass2k’ to overlay a transparent screen of AudioCore over Smaart. I’ve written all small guide on how to do this and hope it may be of interest.”

I took a quick look at Glass2k, and while I haven’t had a chance to try this out myself, it looks like a workable, if a touch kludgy, solution. I can also see it being useful in other situations, as well…

Phil was kind enough to let me share his guide with all of you, with the caveat that I remind you that Glass2k is a third-party piece of software, so XTA can’t provide any support for this, it’s only being provided as a convenience.

So, with that said, check out Phil’s guide and have fun!

This is a preview of I See it All So Clearly Now!. Read the full post (306 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)