Production Week:Thursday

THURSDAY 28^th March 11am-12pm:

Thankfully we had a later start on the Thursday because of having a show the previous night, the previous show went smoothly will some problems but I have evaluated all of the roles  for that performance. The first thing that happened was that we had been feedback from the Director and Musical Director, their overall feedback was amazing and they were really pleased with the performance. As the wireless Microphone mixer I know that I had to step up and make the next show even more smoother when it came to mixing them. There we adjustments that needed to be made to some aspects of the sound but we were going to do this before the next show.

After this the Band did there warm up along with the cast vocal warm up, and then the band went over a couple of numbers with the cast. Then I requested for if we could go over a couple of the harder musical numbers that I messed up a little on the previous show. I just wanted to have a go at them and work out where I was going wrong so I could improve them on the night and give the audience a better musical number to listen to. After all of this was over and done we started the usual pre-sets of everything and the cast got their wireless microphones.

The only change sound wise to this 2^nd performance was that I was going to be do the extra announcement about the strong language used during the show. Other than that everything went ahead as normal.

Evaluation:

My evaluation of the performance would have to be that I felt it went a lot smoother, but there were still parts that needed to be improved, at parts during this show we were fighting equipment that was at points playing up, especially when it came to the wireless microphone on the characters of Julia and Robbie. We experience times where we lost the microphones and then also points where we had to cut off the microphone to stop feedback from happening. The sound crew role of dealing with the wireless microphones during the performance was done really well, but at points when we needed to get information about why a microphone wasn’t working we weren’t able to get hold of the person dealing with it, and the problem wasn’t solved as fast. We also started to experience terrible noises coming from the bass guitar, in the end we had to have it one mute or only on a fraction. One of the worst parts that we had been experiencing for a while was the wireless guitar microphone, it seemed as though it was picking up a radio frequency because every time we turned it on we would hear a radio start playing. In the end we couldn’t actually find a solution to this and still have no idea why that noise was there.  Although I think as a stressed out crew we managed to get through the situations and pull out some excellently sounding musical numbers. The band also were sounding 40% better than the previous show and was on track to sounding the best it has since the start. My mixing of wireless mic’s was still off in places but I was finding ways to deal with this and was trying to turn bad songs into better sounding ones as much as possible. As a sound crew we worked well with eachother, even if we at points snapped at small things but that was entirely down to stress levels being through the roof.

During the break, we talked about how the last show went and what we needed to do to get the best sounding show yet. One thing we worked out that could be the key was the levels for the band, the plan was to keep the band at a low level at the start of the show and gradually bring them up during certain numbers and towards the final numbers. This show then lead to a better sounding performance. We attempt to try and fix Robbie’s guitar microphone but we couldn’t find a solution so where going to have to work around it. My plan was just going to have to give it volume when he is playing and bring it totally off when he isn’t, so I was going to have to pay a large amount of attention to that part as well as the other mic’s.

With the last show approaching once again we had to make sure all the presets were done and we then implemented our plan to bring the band right down. One thing we found out just before the start was that we had 2 spare batteries, so if a wireless microphone died or needed new batteries it wasn’t going to happen. But to our advantages/thankfulness all the microphones had plenty of battery life to get them through the show.

Evaluation:

The final show was the best show no questions asked, I really stepped up the mixing of the wireless mic’s and cut the amount of mistakes down to only a couple through-out. As a sound crew we worked really well with eachother and experience no wireless mic problems during the show which was s huge bonus. And best on all when we did change the way we were going to be mixing the band it worked to our advantage and everything just slotted into place. Fine there were still really small things that weren’t brilliant, but if we had a couple more show we would have been able to make this show sound amazing.

Even though we came into this really hating the fact they had chosen such a hard show to do with the Live Band, wireless mic’s and the venue not helping us with certain aspects, we came out of it pleased with what we had achieved, as a sound crew we worked amazingly well together and by the last show me and will were a unit helping eachother out through-out the performance.

Unfortunately even through it took us a day to set-up, 4 days to get right, everything had to be totally de-rigged during the get out, during this everyone came together including the cast to get everything taken down/apart and then taken back over to the college. Impact Productions came back for their equipment and we helped them gather up all of their cabling, the 2 speakers and amp and then we gathered up all of our equipment and made sure that everything was taken back over to the college. 

Production Week:Wednesday

WEDNESDAY 27^th March 9am- 11pm:

So today was the day of the first performance so everything had to step up a gear and made sure that everyone and everything was ready for tonight’s performance. Unfortunately Will wasn’t able to come in until later so I was mixing the band and Microphones for the first rehearsal that day, which didn’t mind because I was only going to touch the band mix if I really had to. While the cast and band once again were doing there warm ups I started to look through the script so I could start to remember microphone changes. I also started adding notes at the beginning of scenes of what character had what microphone to remind me. After the first rehearsal of the day we got really positive feedback from the director saying that the sound really had improved since the day before which was huge leap forward.

There still was a couple of issues to address but these were only minor at the moment which was a really good sign that our work was starting to pay off. Some of the thing we had to change were the volume levels coming through the 4 foldback speakers we had and then a slight change in volume on the PA. I had to make a slight adjustment to the mix of the keyboards so that the Musical Directors wasn’t overpowered by the others.

Just after I had made these adjustments I had a break like everyone else before we moved onto a dress rehearsal, we were going to face new challenges here when it comes to the wireless microphones placement on their costumes. The one costume that we had to worry about was Julia’s Wedding Dress, because Erin has a great voice but it hasn’t got a huge projection to it so we needed to make sure we were still picking up the vocals and the speech.

Not long Will arrived with a box full of adaptors and extra cables that we order a while ago for the show, we now could change parts of the band set-up to make it sound even better because it meant at place we could do a correct job instead of a botched job like we had. After we had finished off these minor changes it was time to do the Dress rehearsal before the first show. This went alright, I was still making a couple of mistakes but I was just going to have to try not to make them on the night. After we had finished we did ask to go over certain numbers once more just to try them again and for me to take some notes. We had one final job which we remembered right at the last minute which was that we had to create a safety announcement with some of the characters, Will raced off to create something on the computers while I tidied up the sound area so it look tidier to the Audience.

Evaluation:

The first show in my opinion could of gone a lot better in terms of the mixing of the wireless microphones, I managed to make quite a few mistakes and cause a couple patches of feedback, I think this also was down to the fact I had only done it 2 times before this one so was still trying to figure out the play itself, the band was still maybe a bit to loud for some people liking but again it was still an on-going mixing battle through-out the performance, the radio sound that came with the guitar was rather much louder at parts so we need to see if there is anyway we can attempt to change this. Also right on the opening number and for a small period after we totally lost the lead actors microphone, we didn’t know why because after a small amount of time it just came back and started working again. For the first performance give the time we have had as a team we worked well together and tried to overcome the rubbish parts. There are a couple of things that need doing before the second show but we also need to take on board the director and musical directors feedback.

Production Week: Tuesday

TUESDAY 26^th March 7.50am-10pm:

On the Tuesday I seemed to arrive ridiculously early so the first thing I decided to do was continue the tapping of cables backstage where there were walkways. Again there were a lot of cables running along the floor from the staging to PA Systems etc.. So I taped all of these down to help with the safety of cast and crew when working backstage during the performances. I then also used duct tape to help keep the huge multicore cable above the Fire Exit, and then put a layer of tape over the cabling that ran down the wall.

Today was going to be when we got to do our Technical Rehearsal’s and then go into a full run-through for the first time, so today was going to be a stressful and fun filled day. By the time everyone had arrived everything had been turned on, while the band and the cast were doing their vocal warm up’s we were preparing the wireless microphones because they were going to be used during the technical rehearsal so Mark who was going to be mixing them started to practise. The technical rehearsal for sound was really only for the microphones. We only made slight adjustments to the band during the rehearsal, at points I did jump in and help Mark out with the wireless microphones at points where they got a bit harder.

The main points that came out of the technical rehearsal was the fact that one that the wireless microphones weren’t sounding great but this was just because it was the first time we had rehearsed with them, and then the cast were complaining that they couldn’t hear the lead actors over the band. To solve the second problem we rigged up my personal PA System at the front of the stage, then we purely sent the wireless microphone mix through them so the cast on stage would be able to hear cue lines etc...  Also during the Technical Rehearsal we did sort of play around with the mix of the band just to see what sort of effect certain changes would make.

After the technical run through and lunch, we went into just a normal no stopping run-through so that everyone could pick up on areas that they either needed to rehearse or if there were parts that needed changing.  After this it was apparent that there were musical numbers that needed to be rehearsed again and certain scenes as well. Also they were all saying that the band was still too loud and the volume needed to be brought down and the microphones brought up a bit, so we adjusted the way we were mixing everything through the speakers to alter how it was sounding, and the volume was adjust a tiny bit. One thing we did add at this point was that we added in a limiter to the system which meant we could make sure that the sound doesn’t get any louder than the level we set.

One task that we did have to try and figure out how to do was trying to get a Wireless microphone working on the lead actors guitar. Impact Productions had provided us with and adaptor for a guitar so it was all done for us all we had to do was plug it in, but we needed to add distortion to the guitar for the songs otherwise we weren’t going to be getting the right sound. After several different attempts/methods we got the now Wireless Guitar working with the distortion, but the downside was we were now experiencing a weird interference. What was happening was when we turned up the wireless guitar microphone we got a radio playing alongside, luckily it was a lot quieter than th guitar so we would be able to hopefully hide it during performances.

What then happened is they started a full run-through and aimed to get through as much of it as possible before they finished for the day, after this the stage crew realised that they were short-handed when it came scene changes and backstage duties so they needed and extra hand, Mark who was operating the wireless microphone wasn’t 100% confident with the mixing for this show so volunteered to help out with stage, I then moved onto doing the microphones for the show while Will who was just overseeing/assisting us now was going to be mixing the band.

Once everyone had disappeared we began to try and fix and eradicate the radio sounds that were coming out of the speakers when we used the wireless guitar, but this went no-where and whatever we tried failed so we knew we would just have to work around it when it came to the performances. Also we tried to help the acoustics of the theatre by sliding the thick black curtains past the PA speakers and then facing the speakers slightly towards them, when we then played sound through it, it didn’t sound like it had changed but we would need the band to see if it had made an effect. After this we packed up and called it a day.

Its here Production Week: Monday

MONDAY 25^th March 8.30am-10pm:

On Monday morning we didn’t have specific roles to stick to for the time being it was a case of all giving a hand with bring the equipment over to the Theatre. We all worked effectively here and managed to cut down the time it took by assigning everyone with a selection of the sound equipment to bring over, this meant that we only ended up doing 2 trips instead of multiple. After everything had been transported over to the theatre along with the set, this is when I started to work purely on a sound front, while the other members of the production team started on the construction of the set.

When it came to the three sound crew roles, at this point I was purely concentrating on the sound set-up, I found that this would more effective because personally I prefer to be left to complete a task on my own, also as I was going to be mixing the band it was my responsibility to complete the set-up of them. Shortly after we had arrived and finished bring most of the sound equipment over except from the Instruments, Impact productions arrived with the hired equipment.  

The first thing that impact did for us was assemble the staging that we had hired, this meant that the minute it was set-up I could start to get equipment into the places it needed to go and then start the huge job of cabling. The most important job that we had when it came to the sound set-up was the 50m Cable that connected all elements of sound to the mixer. This cable had to be run along the wall but also over 2 Doorway’s in order to get to the mixer, so this was going to present challenges. First thing I did was just unroll the cable into a pile and then placed the multicore part to it at the back dead centre to the band. Then with the help of Mark we managed to get the cable along and up to where it needed to go.

After this was done I had to get it all plugged in to the mixer and get everything powered up. What I did was get a huge blue flight case that is used to transport lights. After the Lights had been rigged I borrowed the case and used it as a sound desk for my Mixer. This case just happened to be a perfect size because we just managed to slide it down one of the rows of seats which added to it stability. Once I had this desk I placed the big 24 track Soundcraft mixer onto the desk and started to plug in all of the XLR Ends into their rightful XLR Sockets. Then after this we just had to get some power to the area for everything that needed power.

My next Job was the positioning of the band, the whole band had not long before brought over everything they needed, so it was my job to place everything where it needed to go. The first thing to be placed was the Drum Kit, this was the biggest item to fit onto the stage. I also got Joel the drummer to actually give me a lesson of how to assemble the drum kit while I was helping him set it up which was educational. After he was in place I started to place the keyboards where they needed to be and then moved onto the guitars, the amps were not going to actually be used as speakers but were being used for their effects to the instrument, I put the Bassist and Guitarist together along with the Reed player. These were all placed together because it was the best use of the space no other real reason. The three backing singers just were placed next to eachother but they had a section to themselves this then also looked like how conventional back singers are placed. After we had finished the Musical Director wanted to go ahead and just do an acoustic warm up which was fine because it meant we could carry on with other things.

Just after this the cast started to arrive in the theatre, this was a shock to us because we were expecting to have the day to ourselves so we could get on and get everything sorted without disturbance, this idea was obviously wrong. They had come over because they wanted to start doing some rehearsals in the space that they were going to be using, which at the time they arrived was covered in equipment, cables, set and just general mess but this wasn’t our problem. Because of their arrival we knew they were going to want to use the band to do some rehearsals so we would now have to rush to get the whole band microphones up and get everything connected. For the time being we weren’t going worry about the wireless microphones and purely aim our efforts at the band.

Just after 2pm Will who would be helping/assisting and supervising with the sound on this production arrived, by this time I had only connected up the microphones. So he then helped with pointing us in the right direction for what we needed to be doing first and so on. So Me, Will and Mark began the plugging in of all the Amps and keyboards into the cable drum XLR Inputs, but making sure we were writing down what was going into each input so we knew when it came to working it all out on the board. We also had to set-up the 2x EVSX300 Speakers and Amp that we hired as a band foldback, for this we had to run wires underneath the stage but to do this we used some string and just pulled it through. One thing that Will had provided was the Clip on microphones for the Drum Kit along with 2 Condensers and then a Clip on microphone for the saxophone. The whole process of connecting everything up and making sure everything will be able to be hear, was a long job that had to be rushed because of being pushed to finish. Because of this we made a huge mess of the stage which was then covered in wires. 

Because we were being pushed for time, we decided to set-up any other PA system while they were rehearsing, this would project the sound of the band towards the audience, it also meant that we could share the volume through 4 speakers instead of 2 meaning we were avoiding breaking the speakers but also it would help to make the whole general sound better. As none of the tracks had been EQed it didn’t sound very good and it would have to be correctly levelled and tweaked. During these rehearsals we were getting on with other jobs that needed doing.

The Cast rehearsed for a couple of hours before heading off and then once the band had finished there rehearsing, we could now fix the mistakes that we had made when rushing to get everything plugged in. I personally couldn’t believe the state the band stage was in and I had a OCD Moment where I neatened/taped and untangled all of the cabling on the stage. After about an hour of me doing this I finally finished, the whole appearance of the stage looked 100% better.