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[Mac Kerr]

I made it through another year of beer marketing. This year (my 6th with this client) we were in an opera house in Houston TX, the Brown Theater. I'm tired, but satisfied. These 16 and 17 hr days for a week at a time are tough on the old guys, but trying out the Martin MLA Compact driven with a Studer Vista5 SR was a happy experience. We had 10 boxes a side, and 2 subs a side because there wasn't room for the 4 subs a side we brought. We were so short of time we never touched an eq on the pa aside from the initial set up with the Martin software. Coverage over the Orch, Founder's Circle boxes, and first Balcony was great, and even the lavs needed very little eq, with no eq on the pa.

The Studer had the new software with the Studer automixer, which worked great. The console had 3 Vistamix automixers set up, two 20ch and one 8ch. I used one of the 20ch mix busses for the 10 lavs and 2 lectern mics.

All the video playback was from 2 Pandora's Box media servers, each with 2 virtual machines so he could run back to back videos on the same machine and have a second set up as back up through a Radial SW8. Each Pandora virtual machine was 3 outputs, stereo music and efx, and vocals. Unfortunately of the 40 or 50 videos, only one came with the specified audio format.

The musical talent was the Earth Harp Collective, which was about 35 inputs of largely home made instruments. Getting all their gack on and off stage as the presenters entered was a trial with almost no rehearsal. Once again the schedule was so short we never got to tech the last session of the day.

I didn't get too many photos this year because there was no "walkin' around" time, but here are some shots from the mix position of the band on stage, my office, and the console screens.

[Mac Kerr]

Lest anyone think I always get to use the cool gear, here are a couple of other shows. One is a mundane gig with mundane gear, the other a cool gig with mundane gear (at least the gear I was using).

The first is a financial meeting from a great location, the second mixing monitors for a network TV talent show.

[Mac Kerr]

A couple of weeks ago I was mixing a big computer company meeting at the Parker House in Chicago. At the last minute they decided I had to be in the balcony with lighting and stage management. Unfortunately there was no speaker coverage up there so the show was kind of a rumor to me. There was also no elevator so everything had to go up the stairs, including the amp racks and RF racks. Good thing the console was a CL-5 and didn't weigh much.

[Tom Young]

A couple of weeks ago I was mixing a big computer company meeting at the Parker House in Chicago. At the last minute they decided I had to be in the balcony with lighting and stage management. Unfortunately there was no speaker coverage up there so the show was kind of a rumor to me. There was also no elevator so everything had to go up the stairs, including the amp racks and RF racks. Good thing the console was a CL-5 and didn't weigh much.

Thanks for the report, Mac.

On this last show where you were banished to the balcony, was there no way to mix while walking downstairs using a wireless remote handheld device (Ipad, Iphone, tablet) ?

[Mac Kerr]

Thanks for the report, Mac.

On this last show where you were banished to the balcony, was there no way to mix while walking downstairs using a wireless remote handheld device (Ipad, Iphone, tablet) ?

No way where I could hit my cues on the Instant Replay. I wouldn't trust a show to a WiFi connection in any case.

Mac

[Riley Casey]

Our IR hasn't left the shop in two years Mac. Qcart and QLab have entirely supplanted it. What keeps you pushing those buttons?  Not that this has anything to do with running a show on an iPad.  WiFi works great right up to the moment it doesn't.

No way where I could hit my cues on the Instant Replay. I wouldn't trust a show to a WiFi connection in any case.

Mac

[Mac Kerr]

Our IR hasn't left the shop in two years Mac. Qcart and QLab have entirely supplanted it. What keeps you pushing those buttons?  Not that this has anything to do with running a show on an iPad.  WiFi works great right up to the moment it doesn't.

When QCart has tactile buttons, or even a reliable touchscreen I'll be happy to change over. Have you found a touchscreen that is 100% reliable on the first touch?

I'm also waiting for QLab type output routing on a button by button basis. Then I'll change over.

I would love to have real file management and better in app editing than an IR, but for now the threshold start recording and head and tail editing and fades are the right solution.

Mac

[Andre Vare]

Thank you for the posts and pictures.

Andre

[Tommy Peel]

Interesting gigs as always. Thanks for posting.


Tommy

[Riley Casey]

Hardwired USB numeric keypad works like a champ for me.  Small enough to velcro onto the top of the console.  I just use a maximum of nine cues per screen in Qcart and swap screens as needed when the cues pile up.  Cant stand the work flow of editing on the IR, much rather use a real editor on the Mac or even the top and tail function in the app.

QCart has plenty of places to go to rise in the pantheon of show playback apps but Figure 53's time and attention seems to be maxed out with the recent version of Qlab.

http://www.amazon.com/iHome-USB-Numeric-Keypad-IMAC-A210S/dp/B007X3VEB6/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1396731059&sr=8-6&keywords=usb+number+pad

When QCart has tactile buttons, or even a reliable touchscreen I'll be happy to change over. Have you found a touchscreen that is 100% reliable on the first touch?

I'm also waiting for QLab type output routing on a button by button basis. Then I'll change over.

I would love to have real file management and better in app editing than an IR, but for now the threshold start recording and head and tail editing and fades are the right solution.

Mac

[Mac Kerr]

Hardwired USB numeric keypad works like a champ for me.  Small enough to velcro onto the top of the console.  I just use a maximum of nine cues per screen in Qcart and swap screens as needed when the cues pile up.  Cant stand the work flow of editing on the IR, much rather use a real editor on the Mac or even the top and tail function in the app.

QCart has plenty of places to go to rise in the pantheon of show playback apps but Figure 53's time and attention seems to be maxed out with the recent version of Qlab.

http://www.amazon.com/iHome-USB-Numeric-Keypad-IMAC-A210S/dp/B007X3VEB6/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1396731059&sr=8-6&keywords=usb+number+pad

Nine buttons wouldn't do it for me, my beer show just used 2 IRs with 45 buttons on one and 30 on the other. I had sequences with 10-15 quick cues in a row, with overlaps, across the 2 machines. An X-Keys XK80 could be set up with double wide key caps to make a 5x5 grid with lots of spare buttons at the top for cursor controls, master stop, mute, fade, etc.

Recording VOs on the IR is way easier than recording to a file, editing that file, and then loading it into other software. There is no need to edit the head, and you stop the recording at the right place, so no need to tail edit.

File maintenance and control would be far superior with a file based system like QCart, but if I'm going to change to a new system, with the expense and learning curve, it needs to be the complete package, and QCart doesn't quite meet what I'd want to make the move. It seems not much has been done in the past 2 years either.

I'll be working on a couple of shows in the next 2 weeks with one of their tech people, I'll bug the crap out of him.

Mac

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