Fine Arts Career Services

This Monday I got to run sound and lights in the new High school room at Austin Ridge Bible Church.  The event was All-City Young Life Club.  There was about 600 kids packed into the room…it was awesome!  The PA in the room consists of two line-arrays (speakers that are attached to one another vertically that hang from the ceiling) and four 18″ subwoofers.  Lets just say it could melt your face off.  It was mostly iPod music and four vocal mics.  The one thing that made it difficult was the placement of the sound booth.  Where the tech booth is located is on the second floor in a corner that over looks the room.  The sound is much “boomier” and “bassier” in the tech booth than on the first floor, so you just have to trust that if it sounds muddy to me then it probably sounds good in the room but if it sounds thin to me then it probably is way too thin in the room.

All that said, I had a blast and finally got to mix in the room I helped make the mic and lighting cables for.  It was a great culmination of the semester.

This week I helped Jeff make acoustical panels to go on the wall behind the drum set in the new high school room.  The drums have a drum shield (clear plexiglass panels to block the sound from bleeding into vocal mics and such) in front of them but the drywall behind the drums shoots the sound right back out and is really bright.  The acoustical panels will help to absorb that sound so the sound engineer can have more control over the way the drums sound in the mix because all the drums are miked.  The goal is to have the quietest stage volume possible to get the best possible sound FOH (front of house).

We went to home depot and bought some 1 X 6’s for the frames and some pink insulation to stuff in them.  We made the frames, stapled burlap to close one side of them, put i the insulation, covered the other side with burlap then finally covered the burlap with a fire retardant black fabric made for use on stages called duvetyne.  Then we hung them on the wall behind the drums.  I have yet to hear how well they work, but I’m sure it will be a big difference.

This week I was on stage playing drums instead of being behind the sound console.  It was awesome to have now experienced both sides of the church service, playing drums and running sound.  The staff an pastors at ARBC have taken me under their wing and have been so helpful and inclusive, making me feel at home.  I have also made some contacts with the other musicians that play there week to week.

Also this week, I soldered a bunch of mic cables, which was a nice change from the stage pin lighting cables.  I learned alot about soldering…what a good soldering job looks like…what a bad soldering job looks like…how to prep and tin a mic cable and a connector.  It is amazing how much money you can save by making your own microphone cables.  A 25′ cable from Guitar Center costs about $50.  When you buy the cable in bulk, 1000 ft at $0.30 a foot, and the connectors in bulk, about $2 a piece, you can make the same mic cable with better soldering and connectors for about $11.  It’s amazing how much you can save!

These last few weeks I have been learning a bunch about stage lighting.  I have made about 100 stage pin cables, which connect lights to the dimmers.  I also made 48 par 64 cans.  A par 64 can is the most common type of stage light which has a 575 watt par 64 bulb in it and you can put any number of gel on it to change the color.  Gels are sheets of plastic paper that get put into an insert and then clipped on the end of the can to change the color of or diffuse the light.  There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of different colored gels made by several different companies.  Also, you can put stencils on the gel to make a pattern of light on the stage.

This week I got to hang a lighting truss in the new Jr. High building and put the par 64 cans on it.  I learned what good mounting points are (in the ceiling) and how to correctly mount the light to the

Sunday - This week a different worship band was playing, so Jeff (the audio engineer) had to re-patch the cables for the different instrumentation.  He showed me more about live sound mixing and that the snare drum ties the band together and cannot be too soft in the FOH (front of house) mix.  I also learned how important compression is on the vocals if the singer does not have good mic control, meaning if the singer doesn’t pull the mic away from his/her mouth when singing loudly.  The compressor essentially does the same thing but it sounds more natural if the singer has good mic control from the beginning.  Everyone at the church is really nice and has welcomed me with open arms and made me feel at home.

Tuesday - Jeff walked me through the three new buildings the church is building.  One for offices, one for junior high, and one for high school.  The junior high and high school buildings are identical and will have the same sound and lighting systems in them.  He then showed me what I will be doing for the next couple of weeks, which is making the stage pin cables for the lights in the new youth rooms.  He showed me the lighting system in the sanctuary starting at the transformer to the dimmers to the socapex cables to the two-fers to the lights. He explained all of that too, which was a load of information but I got most of it. I learned that one dimmer can handle 2400w witch is about 4 par 64 lights that are 575w each and how to use and set up the light board.  Now I understand what the stage pin cables I am making are for and how much power they can handle and so on.  I had no clue about all of this lighting stuff before hand, and am glad I am getting this experience.

So far I have learned a bunch of things that I did not previously know which I feel I need to know to be a great sound engineer and I look forward to learning more as the weeks go by.

My internship is at Westlake Bible Church with the head tech guy, Jeff Tucker.  I started on a Sunday morning at 7am, call time for everyone involved in the worship service for that Sunday.  I was amazed at the planning and organization that goes into the church service.  There is a schedule of events with notes for audio, lighting, and Shout.  Shout is the program that runs the powerpoints and movies for lyrics and sermons.  It is an amazing program made especially for churches with moving backgrounds behind the lyrics and everything.  The worship leader, Don, talks through the service to make sure everyone is on the same page.  Next, the service is run through start to finish with lights and everything except the sermon.

Jeff explained the new Soundcraft Series Five soundboard to me.  Its a huge 48 channel, 12 aux, 8 subgroups, with a 16X10 output matrix, and 10 VCA’s.  Once explained, it all made sense.  The only thing I didn’t know was what VCA’s were, which he explained.  Basically every high-end soundboard used for live sound and touring has VCA’s, which stand for Voltage Controlled Amplifier, which are basically fancy subgroups that control the selected channels levels pre-aux, pre-eq, and pre-subgroup so that if you turn the VCA for vocals down, the aux send for reverb also gets turned down.  Pretty much it is like controlling the gain for a bunch of channels with one fader.

Jeff showed me how he mixes and I got to watch the technical director call the cues through all three services.  It was a lot of fun and cannot wait to learn more and gain more experience in production.