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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB: The Classic Live Audio Board => Topic started by: Neil White on December 08, 2013, 04:34:43 PM
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So I thought it might be interesting for people to share some thoughts about decisions that have been made in running a rental company that with the benefit of hindsight (maybe just a few months or years later) perhaps do not seem to be the best choice.
By way of example, one of the companies I have worked with, at some point in time purchased a batch of around 500 XLR cables and decided that the best location to brand the cable for length and company info would be around the female XLR connector, with several wraps of coloured tape and a sticker. This then became the accepted standard for the shop when all new cable was bought, made or marked up. In hindsight, it would have been better to have standardised on a single band of colour and a label at the MALE end of the cable so it is not so intrusive in general day to day on stage use, especially on shows with IMAG or Broadcast.
Other scenarios happen as a business grows over time, perhaps by amalgamating with other companies. I know of one company who has at least half a dozen different styles of audio multipin in use across different multicore systems, and maybe 6 or 8 different styles of cable trunk. In hindsight, it would be nice to standardise on a single style of connector and generic case dimensions as part of the business brand and ensure that everything that is made or purchased conforms to the standard.
So whether you run a rental company or perhaps work with several as a freelance technician, what are some of things that you wish would be done differently? Perhaps we can help someone who is making a similar decision to avoid the same mistakes!
Neil
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Standardizing is important. We are an L'Acoustics house. When we bought our new "A" rig, we sold off the meyer boxes we had. We now have an A rig, B rig, and 2 dozen various wedges, but everything is L'acoustics. Keeps wiring uniform, everything sounds the same (and looks the same, sometimes more important for some clients). We keep a bunch of KF/Sb 850s for sidefills or an easy C rig.
Secondly I would say to set a period for rental gear lifespan. Don't try to squeeze 15 years out of electronics. Even besides being obsolete, things get finnicky after that long, and the risk of ruining a show is not worth whatever you might save by trying to squeeze out another few years from a unit. I'm still trying to convince the boss to get rid of our old Sennheiser RF and get more UHFR.
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Placing company or length codes at the female ends of an XLR is a gross mistake. The cable vendor should have said "Are you sure?".
Paddle antennas should not have amplifiers built-in. They should be ready to transmit or receive. Necessary filtering or amplification should be done down/up stream.
Keep an inventory of replacement casters onhand. Casters should be replaceable with a single wrench, because high quality 6-prong T-nuts are their mate. If T-nuts aren't their mate the wheelboards were mis-spec'd, but should be brought up to snuff as an ongoing efficiency program.
My old rigs were mostly field-repairable with a No.2 Philips screwdriver or a 7/16 socket.
K.I.S.S !!
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So I thought it might be interesting for people to share some thoughts about decisions that have been made in running a rental company that with the benefit of hindsight (maybe just a few months or years later) perhaps do not seem to be the best choice.
By way of example, one of the companies I have worked with, at some point in time purchased a batch of around 500 XLR cables and decided that the best location to brand the cable for length and company info would be around the female XLR connector, with several wraps of coloured tape and a sticker. This then became the accepted standard for the shop when all new cable was bought, made or marked up. In hindsight, it would have been better to have standardised on a single band of colour and a label at the MALE end of the cable so it is not so intrusive in general day to day on stage use, especially on shows with IMAG or Broadcast.
Other scenarios happen as a business grows over time, perhaps by amalgamating with other companies. I know of one company who has at least half a dozen different styles of audio multipin in use across different multicore systems, and maybe 6 or 8 different styles of cable trunk. In hindsight, it would be nice to standardise on a single style of connector and generic case dimensions as part of the business brand and ensure that everything that is made or purchased conforms to the standard.
So whether you run a rental company or perhaps work with several as a freelance technician, what are some of things that you wish would be done differently? Perhaps we can help someone who is making a similar decision to avoid the same mistakes!
Neil
On the topic of standardizing, I highly recommend using NL4, four conductor speaker cable in all applications that require NL2 cable. NL4 will work with passive as well as biamped systems. FWIW, A local shop used NL2 with some double 18's subs where each driver was pinned separately, 1+1- and 2+2-. Only one driver in each box got power with the NL2. The mix person pushed the subs when the output was low due to only having 1 driver working and blew the remaining working drivers.
JP
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On the topic of standardizing, I highly recommend using NL4, four conductor speaker cable in all applications that require NL2 cable. NL4 will work with passive as well as biamped systems. FWIW, A local shop used NL2 with some double 18's subs where each driver was pinned separately, 1+1- and 2+2-. Only one driver in each box got power with the NL2. The mix person pushed the subs when the output was low due to only having 1 driver working and blew the remaining working drivers.
JP
Not knowing your gear is the cause for that problem. If you simply use NL4's, you have to also make sure your amps are configured correctly for that operation. Not all amps use pin 2 of the NL4, or if they do, it may only be on the first connector. The end result is, you've got to know what the heck you're doing, regardless of what you purchased.
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Yikes!! All Speakons should be NL4 and wired with 4-wire. Any conceivable cost savings goes out the window when the wrong stuff goes on a job. IMO No "pro" company needs 2-wire for speakers. That is MI world (e.g. 1/4" on speakers)..
Limit the menu! Plan for the future when you are not an owner/operator. Make things hard to get wrong.
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I work For a large University doing A/V we have convocation 3 times a week that is required for 10,000 students to attend! all of our cabling is colored according to length and its all the same no matter where we pull gear from i am so thankful for that. When concerts come through its always frustrating to figure out what XLR's are what length and all that. so all this to say i agree!
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Yikes!! All Speakons should be NL4 and wired with 4-wire. Any conceivable cost savings goes out the window when the wrong stuff goes on a job. IMO No "pro" company needs 2-wire for speakers. That is MI world (e.g. 1/4" on speakers)..
Limit the menu! Plan for the future when you are not an owner/operator. Make things hard to get wrong.
I definitely agree on the NL4. We use breakouts to feed subs if/when we need to, but NONE of our speakon is "NL2". That has disaster written all over it.
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I definitely agree on the NL4. We use breakouts to feed subs if/when we need to, but NONE of our speakon is "NL2". That has disaster written all over it.
I disagree. Put NL4s on your 4-conductor cable. Put NL2s on your 2-C. They look and feel different. Anyone who doesn't immediately see the diff when picking up a cable should not be wiring things.
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I disagree. Put NL4s on your 4-conductor cable. Put NL2s on your 2-C. They look and feel different. Anyone who doesn't immediately see the diff when picking up a cable should not be wiring things.
Why would it be good to have 2 different types of cables to keep track of? I've NEVER EVER needed or wanted an NL-2. All speaker cables should be 12/4 NL-4, even if you use only one pair. It's not much more weight or size, and is much more future-proof.
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Why would it be good to have 2 different types of cables to keep track of? I've NEVER EVER needed or wanted an NL-2. All speaker cables should be 12/4 NL-4, even if you use only one pair. It's not much more weight or size, and is much more future-proof.
And I'm the opposite. All of my cable is NL2. Since we don't bi-amp our tops, there's no need for NL4 connectors. Each speaker gets its own run back to the amp. No sharing cable for subs and tops. While that means running an extra cable, it also means a less complicated to understand setup.
If you're going to have different cable, definitely use the correct ends. NL4's on a 2 conductor cable can result in head scratching moments if you're expecting 4 conductors to be available to you.
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I disagree. Put NL4s on your 4-conductor cable. Put NL2s on your 2-C. They look and feel different. Anyone who doesn't immediately see the diff when picking up a cable should not be wiring things.
Part of our jobs as audio rental professionals is to try to reduce our customers problems. If I'm not going to be on their show site clearing up confusion about NL4 vs. NL2, then I'd rather just send NL4 which is compatible with everything.
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Part of our jobs as audio rental professionals is to try to reduce our customers problems. If I'm not going to be on their show site clearing up confusion about NL4 vs. NL2, then I'd rather just send NL4 which is compatible with everything.
BUT, if you don't need NL4's, there is a scenario where this could result in equipment damage. If the selector on the speaker is switched to biamp mode, generally, the tweeter is moved to pins 2+,2- on the NL4. If you use NL2 cables, you simply will have a non working tweeter. However, if you use an NL4 cable, and your amp delivers channel 2 on pins 2+,2-, the tweeter will seem to function normally, albeit on a different channel. However, the tweeter is now not running through any crossover. As soon as you turn things up, that tweeter will burn up due to the excessive power from the lower frequencies being delivered.
This is actually a somewhat likely scenario to happen. I know I don't religiously check to see if the biamp switch setting has been changed on my speakers each time I plug it in, since I wouldn't have switched it. But that's not to say someone else wasn't dicking with it and decided to flip the switch.
NL2 and NL4 cables each have their place.
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I disagree. Put NL4s on your 4-conductor cable. Put NL2s on your 2-C. They look and feel different. Anyone who doesn't immediately see the diff when picking up a cable should not be wiring things.
I completely disagree with this, I work in a shop that was originally NL-2 than started buying NL-4. We ran into so many issues even with properly labeled cables. Unfortunately things get missed during rushed load-ins etc. We quickly dumped all of the NL-2 for NL-4 and our entire inventory is now NL-4 and has solved a lot of issues.
I would highly recommend sticking with all NL-4 if you are going to have any in your stock.
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If I were to start a rental company today, one of the first purchases I would make, even before any inventory, would be a good rental management software package.
I have seen several companies start out using a combination of Excel spread sheets, Google Calendars and good old-fashioned memory to manage their equipment inventory and project info. After a while, the company reaches a critical point where it becomes essential to have a more robust solution in place. Sometimes this is because there is now a much larger pool of equipment, or more staff, or perhaps an all important piece of gear has been left off the truck one too many times. Having been responsible for implementing a rental management software solution (Easyjob 4.0) in an existing business with over 5000 unique asset barcodes assigned so far, it would definitely be my preference to implement a similar system earlier in the life of a business.
All of the software packages on the market allow the user to track an enormous amount of data with each item, from weight and dimensions to country of origin, purchase price and supplier info. It is almost impossible to accurately enter all of this data for a warehouse that is already full of equipment bought over many years. The best possible time to capture this information is at the point of purchase. As each item arrives it can be unpacked, entered into inventory and then have a unique barcoded asset ID assigned to it for branding and tracking. The software will be more useful to the business when there is more data available for reports and decision making.
Each rental management solution has its own variations on the way the software manages the main tasks of preparing quotations or loading equipment for example. It is far easier to build the company processes around the way the software works than to redevelop existing workflows to match the software’s expectations, or (normally unsucessfully) trying to force the software to follow "the way it's always been done".
There are many good software packages at different price points from developers such as Protonic Software, Navigator Systems or Flex Rental Solutions. Careful choice would need to be made for a start-up company to ensure that the software would be able to scale as the business grows. You only want to deploy a rental management system once!
Neil
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If I were to start a rental company today, one of the first purchases I would make, even before any inventory, would be a good rental management software package.
<snip>
There are many good software packages at different price points from developers such as Protonic Software, Navigator Systems or Flex Rental Solutions. Careful choice would need to be made for a start-up company to ensure that the software would be able to scale as the business grows. You only want to deploy a rental management system once!
Neil
A big +1, one of the first things I did when hired at my job 4 years ago was install and configure the POS software that moved a 15 year retail business from being paper-based to electronic.
It took about 6 months of solid effort to inventory bread and butter items, less important items were simply turned over and then inventoried when the replacements were ordered, at this point I would say that 99% of the inventory is in the system (odd ball items like Reeds that rarely get purchased are probably still kicking around in a bin somewhere).
A rental inventory has a much longer turn-over rate that retail items, our rental system is still paper based, moving that to electronic is on the wishlist for 2014... I'm scared.
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BUT, if you don't need NL4's, there is a scenario where this could result in equipment damage. If the selector on the speaker is switched to biamp mode, generally, the tweeter is moved to pins 2+,2- on the NL4. If you use NL2 cables, you simply will have a non working tweeter. However, if you use an NL4 cable, and your amp delivers channel 2 on pins 2+,2-, the tweeter will seem to function normally, albeit on a different channel. However, the tweeter is now not running through any crossover. As soon as you turn things up, that tweeter will burn up due to the excessive power from the lower frequencies being delivered.
This is actually a somewhat likely scenario to happen. I know I don't religiously check to see if the biamp switch setting has been changed on my speakers each time I plug it in, since I wouldn't have switched it. But that's not to say someone else wasn't dicking with it and decided to flip the switch.
NL2 and NL4 cables each have their place.
Sorry, I disagree. When you properly wire your patch panels on your racks you completely avoid this problem. Properly configured racks get I/O patch panels with pin 1 lift switches, pass through XLR's and Speakons that can be configured inside the rack for appropriate patching. They also get, where appropriate, Ethercon. Never leave that up to a client or a hand unfamiliar with your rig. That's when Murphy gets involved.
Lee
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Sorry, I disagree. When you properly wire your patch panels on your racks you completely avoid this problem. Properly configured racks get I/O patch panels with pin 1 lift switches, pass through XLR's and Speakons that can be configured inside the rack for appropriate patching. They also get, where appropriate, Ethercon. Never leave that up to a client or a hand unfamiliar with your rig. That's when Murphy gets involved.
Lee
I couldn't agree more. Patch panels alleviate way more confusion and if a rack is completely covered with patch panels, intake/exhaust panels, company logo's you have a much more professional approach. I know for certain I don't allow any unfamiliar hands inside our company racks! Make the panels swing open if you frequently change patch.
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Custom roadcases that are *too* custom. We've got a few cases that have been relegated to the, 'we're out of cases, gotta use these things' pile due to poor purchasing decisions. Better to have a more universally sized case with a bit of extra foam and lumber, than a perfect-fit case that screws up the truck pack.
On a similar line, and like the posts above, custom patch panels that are *too* custom. We've got a bucket of 'em. They're labelled things like 'hi' and 'low' outs, 'left/right/aux' ins, not enough ins/outs, etc. The new panels are simply labelled by number in, pin out, with multiple per pin pair, and if you don't know what the pinout goes to, you probably shouldn't be patching it ;).
As far as NL2 vs NL4, add me to the 'all NL4' group. Except we use NL4FX-5 (http://www.neutrik.com/en/speakon/spx-series/nl4fx-5)'s (green ring) on our NL4-2C cables.
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BUT, if you don't need NL4's, there is a scenario where this could result in equipment damage. If the selector on the speaker is switched to biamp mode, generally, the tweeter is moved to pins 2+,2- on the NL4. If you use NL2 cables, you simply will have a non working tweeter. However, if you use an NL4 cable, and your amp delivers channel 2 on pins 2+,2-, the tweeter will seem to function normally, albeit on a different channel. However, the tweeter is now not running through any crossover. As soon as you turn things up, that tweeter will burn up due to the excessive power from the lower frequencies being delivered.
This is actually a somewhat likely scenario to happen. I know I don't religiously check to see if the biamp switch setting has been changed on my speakers each time I plug it in, since I wouldn't have switched it. But that's not to say someone else wasn't dicking with it and decided to flip the switch.
NL2 and NL4 cables each have their place.
This may be a bit naive, and I don't operate a rental company, but if one is looking to standardize, and your rigs are run as a bi-amp, wouldn't it be prudent to eliminate the bi-amp switch altogether?
I guess that if that piece of inventory is being used as either a biamped piece or a full range piece, that would answer the question.
frank
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I would prefer to have the biamp-only option on gear, eliminating the cost of passive x-over (and shaping that is best done in DSP realm), but that is not the reality.
However, I do not know of any manufacturers' passive/biamp switch that accepts signal from NL4 pins 2+/- when in passive mode.
Red Herring..
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I would prefer to have the biamp-only option on gear, eliminating the cost of passive x-over (and shaping that is best done in DSP realm), but that is not the reality.
However, I do not know of any manufacturers' passive/biamp switch that accepts signal from NL4 pins 2+/- when in passive mode.
Red Herring..
EAW KF300 comes to mind right away, as I free lance for a local AV shop that has a bunch of them. I think the LA212 is the same...
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I would prefer to have the biamp-only option on gear, eliminating the cost of passive x-over (and shaping that is best done in DSP realm), but that is not the reality.
However, I do not know of any manufacturers' passive/biamp switch that accepts signal from NL4 pins 2+/- when in passive mode.
Red Herring..
Anything Nexo on an NL4 for a start.
Older PS line speakers upset many an engineer when they realised (whilst setting up a gig) that their amp put out signal on pin 1 and the PS8s, PS10s and PS15s received signal on pin 2. Pin 1 on Nexo boxes was always sub. It is fine if you are a pro shop with patch panels (and makes sense as you can run a cable to a sub and link straight out into the top) but it stitched up many a weekend warrior.
It comes from being consistent - their main system (using NL8) output sub on pin 1, bass on pin 2, mid on pin 3 and HF on pin 4)
I suspect that I am about to do the reverse and wire all of my subs for little rigs pin 2 hot just so that a sub and a top can link together. I just want all my little top boxes to work if you plug them in to any old amp. It seems really counter-intuitive to me though....
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I need 4 wire for mains and subs. Everything else only needs 2 wires.
I use only NL4 connectors.
Most cables are 4 wire. I have some 2 wire ones that go out with the B rig which has powered mains & subs. They save some weight and packing space. All the 2 wire cables have orange labels that say "2 wire".
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
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Early EAW's (Like 222) had switching problems. (Earliest had 1 x EP and 1/4" inputs, fuses, and an L-Pad, so it was loooong ago). This was relieved with their introduction of the twin switches w/ paddle input panels.
It has been stated on this site before: Make it hard for clients to get wrong.
Passive/Active switches in systems I built for SR clients over a decade ago could be toggled between settings w/o risk to amp or speaker. It seemed a no-brainer. That this situation exists in currently manufactured gear is a gross engineering oversight. A downstream switch out of position (by own staff, BE, musician, audience member, accident,etc.) should not cause "blooey"" immediately followed by "ca-ching".
I suspect NEXO would advise that their gear should be used with NEXO companion amp/controller to ensure proper pin orientation, among other reasons.
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If I were to start a rental company today, one of the first purchases I would make, even before any inventory, would be a good rental management software package.
I have seen several companies start out using a combination of Excel spread sheets, Google Calendars and good old-fashioned memory to manage their equipment inventory and project info. After a while, the company reaches a critical point where it becomes essential to have a more robust solution in place.
<snip>
Each rental management solution has its own variations on the way the software manages the main tasks of preparing quotations or loading equipment for example. It is far easier to build the company processes around the way the software works than to redevelop existing workflows to match the software’s expectations, or (normally unsucessfully) trying to force the software to follow "the way it's always been done".
And
Custom roadcases that are *too* custom.
<snip>
Better to have a more universally sized case with a bit of extra foam and lumber, than a perfect-fit case that screws up the truck pack.
The jump from the doc/spreadsheet/calendar/memory method to the "We really need a software-based inventory tracking method, yesterday" (Barcoded or not) happens VERY rapidly. Usually by the time you realize you need the latter, you are so far deep in the former the transition into a real inventory/scheduling/tracking system can be a painful process that takes much longer to implement.
With regards to the road cases, most small companies overlook this as well. By the time they reach the truck (and/or semi) transportation stage, the expenditure to revamp road case schemes is exponentially more than it would have been to plan in advance and have cases that fit common truck pack dimensions. Even from the van/trailer stage of moving equipment, the additional cost of a slightly larger case + wheels and adding a utility ramp far outweighs buying new road cases all over again in 3-5 years. In short, whether spending more time packing a vehicle with a bunch of oddball cases, or spending time to re-order/replace equipment and/or cases that no longer "fits": Time Is Money.
To this effect, ROI/resale value should be considered when purchasing equipment and dealing with the G.A.S at any level. Paraphrasing advice from a "former generation" forum member: Either buy the cheapest piece of junk that gets the job done, or BUY ONCE, CRY ONCE.
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And
The jump from the doc/spreadsheet/calendar/memory method to the "We really need a software-based inventory tracking method, yesterday" (Barcoded or not) happens VERY rapidly. Usually by the time you realize you need the latter, you are so far deep in the former the transition into a real inventory/scheduling/tracking system can be a painful process that takes much longer to implement.
With regards to the road cases, most small companies overlook this as well. By the time they reach the truck (and/or semi) transportation stage, the expenditure to revamp road case schemes is exponentially more than it would have been to plan in advance and have cases that fit common truck pack dimensions. Even from the van/trailer stage of moving equipment, the additional cost of a slightly larger case + wheels and adding a utility ramp far outweighs buying new road cases all over again in 3-5 years. In short, whether spending more time packing a vehicle with a bunch of oddball cases, or spending time to re-order/replace equipment and/or cases that no longer "fits": Time Is Money.
To this effect, ROI/resale value should be considered when purchasing equipment and dealing with the G.A.S at any level. Paraphrasing advice from a "former generation" forum member: Either buy the cheapest piece of junk that gets the job done, or BUY ONCE, CRY ONCE.
Very good advice.
I want to hammer on the "BO, CO" and how it relates to costs.
We're replacing some cases that were the right price but the wrong size (see truck pack comments). IF we're very lucky we'll sell the oddballs for about 50% of what we have invested in them. Aside from the cost of building or buying the 'right' cases, we still have to do the stenciling and customizing and then repack a whole bunch of stuff. Until the old items are sold they take up shop space. All of that represents a expense to the company. So we're going to take a 50% or greater hit on the old cases and another 2% (more or less) on storage/insurance/taxes until they're sold, and have to pay for shop time to finish the cases and move the goods. These are some of the not-so-obvious expenses of buying the wrong item. When you factor these in and add them to the price of cheap stuff it's not so cheap any more, and the cost of the "right" items becomes more competitive.
I'm very much on the side of "a wire for every pin" with regard to speaker cables. It prevents 'oops' moments, you don't have to segregate your inventory and removes a potential point of failure. For a professional user there is almost no justification to routinely have 2 conductor wire on an NL4. Note the words "almost" and "routinely"...
I also like cases that can be safely moved by 1 person on a hard, level surface. For some tasks I like having 2 or 3 smaller cases than one really large, heavy case, so I can put the case where the work is. PA cabling & flying hardware, for example. One case for SL, another for SR, and a 3rd case for whatever else (cross stage, spares, misc.).
I like racks with captive or self hiding door systems so we're not playing "who moved the rack lids" after the show. The Blackhurst/Stage Gear racks and the Olympic Fast Pack racks (and similar) are good examples.
Consistency of naming, labeling and color coding, if any (yeah, who doesn't?) to comply with common industry norms and internally within the shop so it will work with the inventory control system.
And that brings us back around to Neil's comment and your response... oy, such a segue! You're right, it's one of those things that once you realize you need it, you needed it 2 years ago and now your shop has an almost unbreakable legacy process. That's kind of where we are at right now, still using the legal pad, calendars & spreadsheets and finding it hard to change old ways... Any off the shelf system is going to require changes in the user's workflow no matter how customizable it is supposed to be and the users have to be receptive to those changes or you'll find people using legal pads and calendars - and their data not put into the system. We've probably got another year or so to figure out what we expect an asset management system to do for us and start looking at products.
Great topic.
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And regarding employees:
#1 - Screen for attitude. Then train for skills.
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And regarding employees:
#1 - Screen for attitude. Then train for skills.
+ 1 million!
I see a lot of skilled guys that I cannot employ, far more important to have the right attitude and desire to learn and a good fit with you and the team.
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Consistency of naming, labeling and color coding, if any (yeah, who doesn't?) to comply with common industry norms and internally within the shop so it will work with the inventory control system.
So much of what is being discussed here comes down to developing a standard that works for the uniquie business and following it rigorously, rather than making ad hoc choices as the need arises. Of course, it is best if those standards match up with industry best practises. Document these decisions as they are made for future reference!
Pick a range of cable lengths that fit the types of projects you undertake and then use those lengths for every type of cable - XLR / multi / NL4 / power. Choose a colour code scheme that works for your company, even if it doesn't match anybody elses scheme. Label all the cables with it and then tape a laminated chart of the colours and corresponding lengths into the lid of each cable case and also on the wall of the shop near where cable is stored. Equipment labels should be as future proof as possible (probably just company name and web address) to avoid having to rebrand if company details such as phone or location change in the future.
With regards to making wise purchasing decisions, another trend I have noticed, particularly with digital consoles, is that is often possible to purchase a system with a range of specifications. For example, an Avid Profile FOH Rack could have between 3 and 5 DSP cards, 1 or 2 Snake Cards, and various other I/O interface options. Whilst it may seem cost effective to only buy a basic package and purchase additional cards etc later, in my opinion it is better to build the system to the most comprehensive specification possible at purchase, minimising the risk of owning a console that doesn't meet all the requirements of a specific job, or incurring further costs in fitting additional hardware later on. Of course, multiple consoles of the same type should have identical configurations to further ease equipment scheduling, logistics and shop prep.
Neil
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I suspect NEXO would advise that their gear should be used with NEXO companion amp/controller to ensure proper pin orientation, among other reasons.
There were no Nexo amps for the earlier PS range (except later on and they weren't as good as the alternatives) Most people used Crown MA, Camco or QSC with the passive PS controllers.
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And
The jump from the doc/spreadsheet/calendar/memory method to the "We really need a software-based inventory tracking method, yesterday" (Barcoded or not) happens VERY rapidly. Usually by the time you realize you need the latter, you are so far deep in the former the transition into a real inventory/scheduling/tracking system can be a painful process that takes much longer to implement.
What I have seen that eases the pain the most are a few cheap laptops on the shop floor running the inventory management in a restricted mode on the company network. Then the people packing the shows can input their work directly into the system. Otherwise it becomes a large, slow job to resolve all the paper notes into the database. Also lets you deal with shortages and conflicts a lot faster.
One of the slow painful parts is making up all the "composite" macros for the inventory software, so that when say you rent an 8mix monitor rig, all the relevant cases, AC, Signal and speaker cables are moved to "not available" status. A lot of time up front but huge time and money saved later in not doing last minute cross rentals.
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What I have seen that eases the pain the most are a few cheap laptops on the shop floor running the inventory management in a restricted mode on the company network. Then the people packing the shows can input their work directly into the system.
Laptops with either USB or Wireless barcode scanners definitely helps, and is easier to use than having designated desktop stations set up around the shop.
In an ideal world, I think it is best to have a barcode for pretty much everything. When everything has been scanned, the job is loaded and ready to go. It minimises the chance of the shop picking the wrong type or length of cable etc. In practice, it doesnt seem to be much slower to scan a cable as it comes off the shelf and into the case than to count it all by hand and update the software afterwards. Of course, the onus is then placed on the operations guys or similar to make sure that the equipment lists that are being prepped contain absolutely everything that is required, even if not part of the original quotation by the sales guy to the customer. As John mentioned above, equipment packages are one way of making sure that the right equipment ends up on the prep sheet. We have lots of items with associated items, parts lists and optional suggested items so that as the equipment list is being constructed all of the smaller parts are automatically added.
I know Clair Global are using 2D barcodes on lots of their stock now, including one that fits between the pins of a male XLR for labelling microphones. If I was going to re barcode our stock I would definitely use 2D Datamatrix barcodes because they can be so much smaller than the 1D equivalent.
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We color code heat shrink our XLR and have wooden dividers in the cable trunks.
6'- black
15'- white
25'- red
50'- blue
We started out as an EP4 shop and converted a bunch of things over, now we're mostly NL4. I'd really like to convert everything back to Speakon, since having two different 4 conductor configured wires is a hassle.
Anybody have a recommendation on inventory software? Any inexpensive ones?