A Sound and Video Production Company
TL;DR: How to use multiple compressors in a live mix, when your digital desk only has one compression plugin per channel. The Story: A lot of starting live engineers work vertically, adding EQ and compression on each channel individually, and then use groups/bussing for mixing and routing control. This is fine, but I often rely …
Continue reading “Multiple Compressors in Live Audio (Compression Part 1)”
TL;DR: Qlab is not just a tool for theatre. And it isn’t just for playing back media cues! The Story: I have been the North American sound engineer for Pain of Salvation (https://painofsalvation.com) for a few tours. I could go on at length how awesome that job is. One of of the issues we deal with …
Continue reading “Rock & Roll tours with Qlab (and help from Evernote)”
TL;DR: Use Qlab to control every application on your Mac, so you can focus on your show. Also, ToneGenerator is great for soundcheck and room tuning. The Story: By now, you know that I am a big fan of using Qlab for everything. Part of that is the unified interface with the shows I work …
Continue reading “Let Qlab run other applications with Applescript (with ToneGenerator as example)”
TL;DR: Sync your computer with the rest of your team when you receive a Google Drive share. The Story: As I will cover elsewhere, Google Drive is king of all of the sync services out there – plenty of space for free, everyone has a Google account, and the Apps for word processing, spreadsheets, etc …
Continue reading “Google Drive and syncing your show with Backup and Sync software”
TL;DR: QLab has a function that quickly and easily archives/bundles your show, copying all of the files you used, so you can remove it from your show computer or move it to another theatre…with a caveat… The Story: In an earlier way-too-long post, I described my Type-A method to organizing my files as I design a …
Continue reading “Archive/Bundle functions in QLab (Save your show after it closes)”
TL;DR: Cover your assets by working with versions The Story: I talk a lot about Qlab on this blog, but today’s installment applies to working in any application. I’ve always been pretty organized, even before I started using computers. (You know, before entering college in 1994…) Keeping things straight is critical to knowing where you …
This post has been updated after a Twitter conversation with the good folks at Figure 53 got me thinking…I’ve made this much more useful as a result, so you don’t pull your whole show down to a stop. TL;DR: Clearing out a buildup of cues in Qlab via a script, which is a little more …
Continue reading “Dirty Programming: Clear your Cache in Qlab”
The director chose this as an ensemble piece. It was for tech, too! February has fallen into a pattern over the past few years. It’s when things start picking back up from the quieter January. The gradual changeover between maintenance, and repair throughout the theatre leading into prep for my usual season of shows coming …
Continue reading “An Occasional Midsummer Night’s Dream (David Bowie)”
TL;DR: A primer on what you have to pay for – and what you don’t. And how it’s more affordable to use QLab than you might think. The Story: We have all been there. People use iTunes and Keynote (or, gasp, PowerPoint!) for a live production, because they don’t know what’s better out there. (That’s …
Continue reading “QLab licensing, costs, and what it all means”
TLDR: Combine audio hardware interfaces into a singular virtual device. The Story: As the head of sound and video for the theatre department at NVCC, I often will bring my own gear in for use in the show. It’s a learning-and-sharing thing for everyone involved, including myself. But it can also be a bad habit, …
Continue reading “Aggregate Audio Interfaces in OSX (to use in Qlab, of course!)”
