Audio
Have you ever been put in charge of arranging a meeting, conference, event or concert where you where expected to provide some sort of audio amplification? Most of us in the corporate world reach for the phone book and get in touch with our favourite meeting planner or audio/visual company who look after all the technical details and equipment for us.
If you volunteer or sit on the board of a small charity with limited funds this may not be an option. I recently had this thrust on me and I had to rent a public address system and operate it myself. I used to play in bands and had some exposure to sound reinforcement, but had not touched a board in many years.
Here’s how I approached this challenge. I knew I needed some microphones, a mixing board, amplification and speakers. I also knew that A/V firms charge a small fortune for their rentals so taking the DIY route I headed over to Long & McQuade, a local music store that rents audio gear to musicians who know how to watch their pennies.
Back in the day, microphones all had long black cables that snaked from the stage back to the mixing board, but modern audio gear uses wireless technology to transmit the sound from the mics to the board. As some of the presenters at my event liked to roam and interact with the audience I knew that this option was for me. I could choose from handheld mics, headsets (think Madonna) or lapel mics that clip onto the lapel of the presenter. Each mic has to transmit on its own radio frequency, so I took a little lesson from their knowledgeable and helpful staff.
Next up was the mixer. The mixer brings all the inputs together (microphones, audio for the video we’d be showing, and the output from my handy iPod so we’d have music between presenters and pre and post event). I remember these mixing boards as being huge, so I was pleasantly surprised when this one-foot by a foot mixer landed on the desk. Each input has its own channel and each channel has an input volume, tone control (bass, mids and highs) a control to add or subtract audio effects like reverb, and an output volume control. If you remember this, all those millions of knobs don’t seem quite so intimidating.
Speakers came out next, these looked interesting. Back when I roamed the rock and roll stages PA speakers where huge, covered in carpet and weighed as much as a Volkswagen. These speakers where made of some sort of plastic with rounded edges and handles everywhere. While not light, I did no longer fear spending the weekend in traction.
Wait, something was wrong here? Mics, speakers and mixing board… where is the power amp, those slabs of metal and heat that took the sound out of the mixer and amplified it prior to delivering it to the speakers? The salesperson smiled and turned around the speakers showing me that the amplifiers where built into the backs of the cabinets. This eliminated a pile of cords and the advance math that used to be required to ensure the amps did not blow up the speakers. Now those speakers seemed positively feather weighted.
I picked up two cables going to the speakers from the mixer and a few power cords and I was good to go!
I was able to fit the whole thing into my car, schlep it up in the elevator to the meeting space and had it set-up and playing in just under an hour.
The only challenging part was ensuring the wireless microphones each had their own channel and that channel was free from interference from cabbies, couriers and others on the same frequency. But with a little trial and error I figured it out.
The event went off without a hitch and I learned something new.
All in all, a good day.
If you volunteer or sit on the board of a small charity with limited funds this may not be an option. I recently had this thrust on me and I had to rent a public address system and operate it myself. I used to play in bands and had some exposure to sound reinforcement, but had not touched a board in many years.
Here’s how I approached this challenge. I knew I needed some microphones, a mixing board, amplification and speakers. I also knew that A/V firms charge a small fortune for their rentals so taking the DIY route I headed over to Long & McQuade, a local music store that rents audio gear to musicians who know how to watch their pennies.
Back in the day, microphones all had long black cables that snaked from the stage back to the mixing board, but modern audio gear uses wireless technology to transmit the sound from the mics to the board. As some of the presenters at my event liked to roam and interact with the audience I knew that this option was for me. I could choose from handheld mics, headsets (think Madonna) or lapel mics that clip onto the lapel of the presenter. Each mic has to transmit on its own radio frequency, so I took a little lesson from their knowledgeable and helpful staff.
Next up was the mixer. The mixer brings all the inputs together (microphones, audio for the video we’d be showing, and the output from my handy iPod so we’d have music between presenters and pre and post event). I remember these mixing boards as being huge, so I was pleasantly surprised when this one-foot by a foot mixer landed on the desk. Each input has its own channel and each channel has an input volume, tone control (bass, mids and highs) a control to add or subtract audio effects like reverb, and an output volume control. If you remember this, all those millions of knobs don’t seem quite so intimidating.
Speakers came out next, these looked interesting. Back when I roamed the rock and roll stages PA speakers where huge, covered in carpet and weighed as much as a Volkswagen. These speakers where made of some sort of plastic with rounded edges and handles everywhere. While not light, I did no longer fear spending the weekend in traction.
Wait, something was wrong here? Mics, speakers and mixing board… where is the power amp, those slabs of metal and heat that took the sound out of the mixer and amplified it prior to delivering it to the speakers? The salesperson smiled and turned around the speakers showing me that the amplifiers where built into the backs of the cabinets. This eliminated a pile of cords and the advance math that used to be required to ensure the amps did not blow up the speakers. Now those speakers seemed positively feather weighted.
I picked up two cables going to the speakers from the mixer and a few power cords and I was good to go!
I was able to fit the whole thing into my car, schlep it up in the elevator to the meeting space and had it set-up and playing in just under an hour.
The only challenging part was ensuring the wireless microphones each had their own channel and that channel was free from interference from cabbies, couriers and others on the same frequency. But with a little trial and error I figured it out.
The event went off without a hitch and I learned something new.
All in all, a good day.
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