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Author Topic: A New First for Me  (Read 10361 times)

Tim McCulloch

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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2017, 05:26:38 PM »

I've learned to take enough time to abate the subjectivity of the moment in such cases.   I'd certainly want input from the client prior to offering any adjustment.

Once you 'give it back' you'll never get it back.
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Bob Leonard

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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #11 on: June 04, 2017, 07:23:09 PM »

Once you 'give it back' you'll never get it back.

Not always true Tim. I think in this case Bill is protecting a long term relationship against "possible" objections to sound quality. He's been doing the gig for quite some time, and he obviously has a good working relationship with the event coordinators.

The down side to any relationship of this type is that the customer will seldom express displeasure to the provider, but would rather let things go until the next event, leaving that provider out of the loop. Bill's gesture is a preemptive strike against possible repercussions he may never hear about.

I commend Bill on the refund in this case, but it sets a precedence he'll have to guard against in the future.
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #12 on: June 04, 2017, 08:10:17 PM »

Not always true Tim. I think in this case Bill is protecting a long term relationship against "possible" objections to sound quality. He's been doing the gig for quite some time, and he obviously has a good working relationship with the event coordinators.

The down side to any relationship of this type is that the customer will seldom express displeasure to the provider, but would rather let things go until the next event, leaving that provider out of the loop. Bill's gesture is a preemptive strike against possible repercussions he may never hear about.

I commend Bill on the refund in this case, but it sets a precedence he'll have to guard against in the future.

It sounds like there is more to this story than I'm currently aware of.
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Stephen Kirby

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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #13 on: June 04, 2017, 10:53:30 PM »

I had a similar thing happen to me just last night... plenty of power early in the day at sound check, but at show time, amps were limiting well before they should have and even went into protect a couple of times.  This was not at high SPL.  When I measured voltage at break, I saw 113V. 
I have not had this happen in years of using these amps, QSC PLX for mains and PL on subs.  This was the only explanation I could think of other than amp failure.  But 113v didn't strike me as so consequential and at that point, there was little to do about it.  Is that kind of small variation such a problem for these amps? 
Didn't mean to highjack, but seemed related...

Thanks,
Nils
I used to run an all PLX rig.  I've found them to be pretty intolerant of low mains.  (reliable and good sounding but needing a solid supply)  It may be that when the music was playing the drop was even greater than the 113 you measured at the break.  With a few hits being enough to drop the line to the point the amps went into shutdown.
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William Schnake

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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #14 on: June 04, 2017, 11:54:47 PM »

Not always true Tim. I think in this case Bill is protecting a long term relationship against "possible" objections to sound quality. He's been doing the gig for quite some time, and he obviously has a good working relationship with the event coordinators.

The down side to any relationship of this type is that the customer will seldom express displeasure to the provider, but would rather let things go until the next event, leaving that provider out of the loop. Bill's gesture is a preemptive strike against possible repercussions he may never hear about.

I commend Bill on the refund in this case, but it sets a precedence he'll have to guard against in the future.
Bob, you are correct, I have been doing this event for a very long time and on top of that it is in my mother's home town.  We finished the event today and I spoke with several people on the board all of who had nothing but good things to say.  It is more that I feel I let them down by not doing this right.

With me reputation is everything and that is how I run my company.  So, as you implied, it cost me a little bit of cash today, but in the long I will make all of it back and more from this client.

What I have been trying to describe is when you get digital clip it makes a chirping sound or at least that is what I assume has happens.  The speakers made an audible chirp twice during the show.  I am assuming that was me overdriving the input on the speaker's amp.  Maybe I am over reacting and maybe not.

Bill
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Brian Jojade

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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #15 on: June 05, 2017, 12:52:45 AM »

I don't understand the rationale of refunding a HUGE amount of 25% because your system hit clip twice throughout the night.  Big woop.  If nobody noticed but you, WHY would you refund the amount?  In what other industry would a refund be given for something that nobody noticed?

Now, what you need to do is figure out the CAUSE of the clip.  Was it because the source power was low?  Did the power company give the client a 25% break on the bill because there was a dip in power capacity twice throughout the event?  Highly unlikely.

Did you need more boxes for the event?  Who cares if you had some at the shop.  Did the client PAY for those boxes to be there?  If you speced and event, and provided what was speced, and something happened at the event that was beyond the original scope, it's NOT YOUR FAULT.

What if the crowd was bigger than expected, and the port-o-johns ended up fuller than expected.  Would the company refund because there weren't enough johns there?  No, they would charge MORE to come empty them, or to bring more units.

While refunding money might seem like the right thing to do, it may in fact backfire on you.  The client thought you did a great job, and paid the bill.  If you refund them for something they didn't even notice was a problem, that will instigate them to look further into the issue, and potentially cost you the job.

Best plan for this is to let them know that the event has grown, and next year, you will need to bring a bigger rig, and charge accordingly.  The customer is then happy, and you get paid for the actual services that you are contracted to provide!
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Mike Pyle

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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #16 on: June 05, 2017, 02:53:16 AM »

What I have been trying to describe is when you get digital clip it makes a chirping sound or at least that is what I assume has happens.  The speakers made an audible chirp twice during the show.  I am assuming that was me overdriving the input on the speaker's amp.  Maybe I am over reacting and maybe not.

I'm curious about what clipped because, in my experience, most decent speaker systems with power & processing built in are designed to handle being overdriven fairly gracefully, with a pretty good margin of limiting before anything like a hard clip. I'd think that the limiting would become apparent before the speaker system squawked from clipping. If it were the mixer clipping that should have been apparent at the meters.
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Nathan Riddle

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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #17 on: June 05, 2017, 01:04:25 PM »

Bill,
I don't want to pile on, but I agree with Mike here. I could be wrong, but it seems to me the AD converters were distorting not the speakers/processing themselves. If you were running DANTE then perhaps the digital levels were at FS?

I guess I'm just surprised something so baked in could behave strangely.

I'm curious about what clipped because, in my experience, most decent speaker systems with power & processing built in are designed to handle being overdriven fairly gracefully, with a pretty good margin of limiting before anything like a hard clip. I'd think that the limiting would become apparent before the speaker system squawked from clipping. If it were the mixer clipping that should have been apparent at the meters.

Bill, this is obviously above my level/pay grade. But could you elaborate on the 25% discount?

Perhaps it is different up at the nationals / big festival level, but for me if something goes wrong with a single piece (type) of gear  wouldn't you discount on that single thing? Not the entire event?

I'm just trying to learn for if/when that happens to me and how to 'save the relationship' with the client :)

Thanks!

I don't understand the rationale of refunding a HUGE amount of 25% because your system hit clip twice throughout the night.  Big woop.  If nobody noticed but you, WHY would you refund the amount?  In what other industry would a refund be given for something that nobody noticed?

Now, what you need to do is figure out the CAUSE of the clip.  Was it because the source power was low?  Did the power company give the client a 25% break on the bill because there was a dip in power capacity twice throughout the event?  Highly unlikely.

Did you need more boxes for the event?  Who cares if you had some at the shop.  Did the client PAY for those boxes to be there?  If you speced and event, and provided what was speced, and something happened at the event that was beyond the original scope, it's NOT YOUR FAULT.

What if the crowd was bigger than expected, and the port-o-johns ended up fuller than expected.  Would the company refund because there weren't enough johns there?  No, they would charge MORE to come empty them, or to bring more units.

While refunding money might seem like the right thing to do, it may in fact backfire on you.  The client thought you did a great job, and paid the bill.  If you refund them for something they didn't even notice was a problem, that will instigate them to look further into the issue, and potentially cost you the job.

Best plan for this is to let them know that the event has grown, and next year, you will need to bring a bigger rig, and charge accordingly.  The customer is then happy, and you get paid for the actual services that you are contracted to provide!

Bob, you are correct, I have been doing this event for a very long time and on top of that it is in my mother's home town.  We finished the event today and I spoke with several people on the board all of who had nothing but good things to say.  It is more that I feel I let them down by not doing this right.

With me reputation is everything and that is how I run my company.  So, as you implied, it cost me a little bit of cash today, but in the long I will make all of it back and more from this client.

What I have been trying to describe is when you get digital clip it makes a chirping sound or at least that is what I assume has happens.  The speakers made an audible chirp twice during the show.  I am assuming that was me overdriving the input on the speaker's amp.  Maybe I am over reacting and maybe not.

Bill
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Dave Garoutte

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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #18 on: June 05, 2017, 04:58:47 PM »

I'm curious about what clipped because, in my experience, most decent speaker systems with power & processing built in are designed to handle being overdriven fairly gracefully, with a pretty good margin of limiting before anything like a hard clip. I'd think that the limiting would become apparent before the speaker system squawked from clipping. If it were the mixer clipping that should have been apparent at the meters.

+1
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Ike Zimbel

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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #19 on: June 05, 2017, 05:47:27 PM »

+1
While I understand your feelings about wanting to do the best job possible, I'd want to be sure it was totally on me before I offered a refund. Like for instance:
In the early 80's I mixed FOH at a 3 day folk festival. One year, on the Sunday (the 3rd day), the PA briefly muted a few times during the final act. No indicator lights flashing, no mutes on the console (a Yamaha PM-2000-32), nothing, just a second or two of no sound. Back at the shop I checked everything, found a few things that might have caused it, like a loose wire in the FOH ac run (which at the time was a 14/3 cable). The next year, the same thing starts to occur later on in the 2nd day. At the time I had an early DMM and I hooked this up to an AC outlet at FOH and I could see the line voltage dip to around 100 volts when the PA cut out. Still no solution, but that night, when the lighting started causing the PA to cut out, I passed the meter to the LD and told her, "keep an eye on this and don't let it go below 100". The next day, the fault was getting to be more persistent throughout the day, but still seemingly occurring at random. Finally somebody figured it out: There were three rental trailers parked backstage for instrument storage, dressing room and production office. There was so much traffic in-and-out of the production trailer that the door was open all the time...which caused the air conditioner to run all of the time, until the coil iced up in the humid summer air. This caused the compressor to draw a ton of extra current whenever it tried (and failed) to start up, and the extra draw was dropping the line voltage at FOH. The low voltage was causing the power supply for the board to momentarily shut down (surprisingly gracefully, I might add). Turning off that air conditioner "fixed" the problem for the rest of the event.
So, if as others have suggested, there may have been a loss of headroom due to power issues, this may have been something that was well beyond your control. And finally, if "no one was complaining and everyone was happy" then I wouldn't bring this to their attention as it will just shake their confidence in you.
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Re: A New First for Me
« Reply #19 on: June 05, 2017, 05:47:27 PM »


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