Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tim McCulloch]

People will walk on cords and cables if those cords and cables are where the people want to walk, stand, or just be in the way...  Cable ramps (big heavy metal ones and Yellow Jacket types), mats and gaffer's tape help mitigate potential problems.  It's one thing to keep people away from stuff they have no business being near but most of the "tripping over a cord" stuff is caused by musicians, performers, and crew, all of whom *should* know to look down when they walk.  We spend a lot of time "talent-proofing" paths to the stage, up stage crossovers, etc.  If you've worked a Trans Siberian Orchestra show you'll know what I mean.

The bit about unplugging a sub amp to power a coffee pot... well, don't get between me and the coffee bean and nobody gets hurt, ya understand?    Seriously, this is one reason many providers fully enclose the backs of their racks - to discourage unauthorized connections or changes and generally keep out strangers.

[Daniel Levi]

I suppose the one advantage of having powerCON's on everything is that no domestic stuff uses said connectors, they can't plug it in if it wont fir (won't stop them trying though!)

[John Fruits]

Ya, get out and see more.
i had one "helpful" person go in the back of an amp rack, unplug a sub amp, and plug in a coffee machine.
This was between Sound Check and Doors. By the second hit of the kick, I knew there was a problem.
Make it as idiot-resistant as you want. God always comes up with a "better" idiot.
Chris.

I wonder if it was that Nick dude who plugged his cell phone in to charge on the stage of a Broadway show. 
Hand to God

[duane massey]

Many stories from the early days here in Houston. Several of us started "sound" companies in 1969, and most of us were musicians. The number of odd consoles that would pop up were astounding, and I played thru everything from a 38watt Bogen to a 100w Atlas. We started building 6-8chan pa amps, all high-Z at first, and column speakers w/ 6x9 speakers.
First actual mixing console we built used the guts from Radio Shack/Archer 4ch mic mixers, hand-wired to sliders. Since we had never used one before, only pictures, we wired the sliders backwards. Didn't know it was wrong until we provided sound for Osibisa in Galveston. Thengineer kept looking at the console (of which we were quite proud of) but did the show without complaining. He did tell after the show that most consoles in England were built so that the level increased as you moved the fader UP. I rewired the board before we used it again.
Shared a multi-band show with ZZ Top right after they released their first album. The club provided the sound system, which might have been 2-4 Kustom speakers with the big round horns, but that was a long, long time ago.
And we did have a Kustom pleat and roll mixer for a couple of months in 1969(?).

[MikeHarris]

Houston...home of Stevenson aka Interface.
 About the best of the breed at the time...modular..slide faders..next step up was Midas. Maybe Mom's Wholesome Audio in between

[duane massey]

Interface was one of several innovative companies in the area. We were one of the earlier ones, but never quite turned the corner on more than limited success. Really didn't have the financial support, nor the stronger technical chops. Many long days and nights screening and etching copper-clad boards, drilling, loading, soldering, cutting aluminum, punching various holes, silk-screening, building, wiring.....I don't miss those days, but I'm glad I did it.
Ah, the old days....

[Ike Zimbel]

Interface was one of several innovative companies in the area. We were one of the earlier ones, but never quite turned the corner on more than limited success. Really didn't have the financial support, nor the stronger technical chops. Many long days and nights screening and etching copper-clad boards, drilling, loading, soldering, cutting aluminum, punching various holes, silk-screening, building, wiring.....I don't miss those days, but I'm glad I did it.
Ah, the old days....

Yep. I built lighting consoles and 4-way crossovers that way. Select Concert Products was the name of the company and many Canadian lighting companies started out with one or more Select consoles.
If nothing else, the experience building electronic products, literally from scratch, has served me very well as a repair technician. Knowing how things are built makes it easier to figure out how to take them apart, and more importantly, put them back together in like-new condition.

[Ivan Beaver]

Interface was one of several innovative companies in the area. We were one of the earlier ones, but never quite turned the corner on more than limited success. Really didn't have the financial support, nor the stronger technical chops. Many long days and nights screening and etching copper-clad boards, drilling, loading, soldering, cutting aluminum, punching various holes, silk-screening, building, wiring.....I don't miss those days, but I'm glad I did it.
Ah, the old days....

I built all of my first consoles.  The first was a 4 channel, then a6 channel with better eq, then a 12 channel that I used for a good number of bands in my early rental days.

I hand drew out the circuit boards, etched them in my bathtub, drilled the holes and mounted all the components, hand drilled the chassis etc.  Pressed the letters on one at a time.  VERY time consuming.

I built a 24 channel, but never could get the hum down to where I was happy, so I ended up throwing it away, after many hundreds of hours working on it.

Here is a photo of that 12 channel, along with the homemade amps, xovers, eqs etc. and speaker cabinets.  This was back in 1981

[duane massey]

This is picture of one of our consoles from 1975, which was used for the cover of our first album, same year:

[Rex Ray]

Anyone have pics of the custom live API console Jerry Cameron built for ZZ ?
24 X 8.  As dealer we provided mic pre/eq/faders/summing modules..lots of 2520s.
It replaced a Tascam (supply horror emoji)

Hey Mike! I've got some photos somewhere of me mixing the Outlaws on that desk. Also,Kevin McManus left Marshall Tucker Band to come to Nashville to be a studio guy,and I took over mixing MTB. I moved to Nashville in Feb 1997 and bought a house about 200 yards from the studio he ran! Small world! I'lltry and dig up those photos and post'em.
Rex

[ProSoundWeb Community]