Vasantha Saparamadu - BMR 2007

Hi All,

Attached below is what I posted in Dayantha's BMR blog. In addition, I
would like to say (as I keep saying after every event which I had some
involvement with sound management) that we need to do something about
artists not providing sound tracks etc. until the very last moment.

Why does the Sound Manager (SM) need sound tracks beforehand? SM needs
to play and check them.  For example, we found out that one track had a
major sound problem for a period of 20 seconds. If SM doesn't get the
tracks early, he can't find out and correct such problems. The other
reason is that SM needs to make copies of all CDs, making sure they can
be played in the Hills Centre CD player. We receive some CDs that can
only be played in a computer - e.g. containing MP3 files. These need to
be converted to proper music CDs.  And then SM needs to play all CDs
and make sure they work. We are talking about 30+ items, most of which
have CDs. Multiply that by 2, for 2 copies for each item. Finally, SM
needs to go and give one complete set of CDs to someone else to bring
to the Hills Centre for the show (in case SM gets run over by a truck
on the way. - We can afford to lose SM, but we don't want to lose both
sets of CDs).

After all these are done and finished on the night before the show,
some artist wants to hand over the latest version of their CD, and SM
has to go and collect it, throw out the previously
copied/checked/labelled CDs for the item, and go thorough the process
all over again - and, in doing so, lose some much needed sleep as well
(after many sleepless nights in technical meetings leading to that
day).

This is a 100% guaranteed way of annoying the hell out of the sound
manager on the night before the show. It is not a very wise thing to
do.

Regards,
Vasantha

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BMR 2007 blog

Saturday, 28 April 2007
Hills Centre Issues

There were some technical issues with the Hills Centre.

   * Several artists complained about the low volume from foldback
speakers (These are the speakers that people on the stage hear from).
We hired the same lot of speakers as we did last year. So what caused
the problem this year? I don't know the answer. Something to keep in
mind for next year's meetings with HC.

   * During the HC meetings, we were told that their CD player has
the auto-pause feature (i.e. it automatically pauses after playing one
track). We were advised to make a single CD containing all items -
Each item in a separate track. Luckily we ignored this advice and made
separate CDs for each item, except for 'Raja Putuwa' which had 5
tracks in one CD to be played at different times during the drama. On
the day of the show, I was told that there was no auto-pause on their
CD player. This caused a big problem for 'Raja Putuwa'. Some tracks
were only 9 seconds long. In addition to the pressure of starting each
track at the right moment, I also had to keep an eye on the count and
hit the pause button at the precise moment - Hit it early, we lose
some sound, hit it late, we hear sound from the next track. It needed
less than half a second reaction time - from seeing the number on the
CD to hitting the pause button. This unnecessarily tight situation
could have easily been avoided if HC didn't give us wrong information.


Non Technical issues

   * HC hadn't read the documents we sent. Nihal clearly mentioned in
the specifications document sent to HC that we require the auto-pause
feature in the CD player.

   * HC didn't respond to many emails Nihal sent.

   * One HC technical staff member had a major attitude problem - not
just this year (The other technical staff were wonderful though). I
guess our technical team knows what I'm talking about, so I won't
elaborate here. Something to think about for next year.

- Vasantha