Dampening the lonely dog serenade

I’ve been on holiday this week – no wait, that should read I’ve been away from the job this week.

So rather than spending 60 odd hours on my hands and knees lugging heavy stuff and taping things down at work, I’ve been doing it at home.

With the footstep noise from above and the lonely dog serenade from downstairs, we decided to fit soundproofing on the floors. I say sound-proofing, I mean sound dampening of course, in the same way that something that is waterproof is more likely to be water resistant
We ended up getting 5kg sound-proofing mat from Custom Audio Design to put under the carpets and underlay as the best compromise between price, size and effectiveness. We also, finally, got the floor tiles down in the bathroom.

Every room, apart from the kitchen, now has a couple of layers of mat laid down and we both have a mental note that, next time, we install this stuff before all the furniture. And that removing skirting boards from behind radiators or mains gas pipes is not the easiest job in the world.

And for good measure we had to trim down the edge of the bath to fit the bath panel under it as our bathroom installers failed to lift the bath furniture to allow for flooring to be added under at a later date. On the plus side, I know now that I can lift a toilet with a full 3 litre cistern with the minimum of spillage.

I love you all, but …

I’ve had the same email sent me from a few friends.

It’s one of those round robins that basically confirms your friendship with the other person. While I appreciate the sentiment, I honestly can’t stand the things.

Random jokes, crazy links to mad little website, links to crazy vids on YouTube, even life-affirming stories (there’s at least one on DoSomething Extra I like), well that’s all cool.

A multi-font prose piece telling me that I’m still liked, well maybe I’m just too cynical (don’t nod that quickly, please) but save the bandwidth.

[/Grinch mode]

From clay to leaves to carpet …

This weeks shows has been a whole lot simpler than the nightmare patch we had to deal with last week.

The first show had no masking of any kind with only a couple of cloths serving as backdrops. A large square (10m x 10m or so) was covered with clay, interestingly mostly for the noise it made as dancers did their thing though it did match the monochrome austerity used throughout
Five rows of florescent tubes started the piece an inch or so above the clay and were flown out which made for a nice visual effect.

Soundwise, like I said, it was fairly simple. We used the house O2R for control as LX and sound were in the control position. Add some onstage foldback and use the default speaker set-up and we were pretty much there.

The stalls are currently set in our ‘promenade’ format – basically a standing area not dissimilar from the Globe auditorium. This meant we had to spent a little time bumping up the front fills and altering levels to make them the perceived sound source. The music was classical, played back from CD and there was always that thought that the orchestra is missing.

The second show from this company was somewhat more involved. The first act of this show had the same no masking layout but wooden decking in the far up- and down-stage positions. There was the same reliance on a mainly HMI based lighting design, supplemented with several PAR bars but this one added scaffold structures that went the full depth of the stage at either edge and gave the impression of caging the dance area in (which had lost the clay and was now regular black Marley).

Music for this was from a string quartet in the centre of the upstage decking. They were miked; an AKG C414 on the cello and a Neuman KM100 on each of the other strings. Control was with a DM2000 with Apogee and a Lexicon 300, all set-up for digital audio.

A pair of Meyer UPJs was flown in above the quartet to support them then the house system was used, delayed back to the upstage position of speakers and quartet.

The most bizarre (and unneccesary) part of this was that the quartet had to be moved a couple of metres to one side in a pause between the two parts of the first act. This was only as far as to have the cellist second sitting position the same as the first violins original spot. So another pair of UPJs were needed for this new position and when we did this change, we were required to wear black trousers and a white t-shirt. The move came from the original staging but really broke the pieces up and did not serve any noticable purpose for the show here.

Then for the second act, everything was struck during the interval and false trees were flown in, mostly concentrated upstage right. Yet another HMI was used to create a kinda X-files light through the trees and red leaves were placed in each of the beams of lights that came past the trunks. Masking was mostly as a black box but the stage left side was still left fairly open.

This time the music was from our orchestra pit, which was set just higher than the stalls floor level (so, not a pit at all). The same quartet played, though they were joined by an additional viola and cello. Again, all were miked with either C414 or KM100 as appropriate. Delays were set from this position and the UPJs were not used.

The second show seemed weaker to me than the first. Act I was pretty depressing and monochromatic, and while Act II had more life to it, I guess it had more impact only because of the previous act.

Unusually for us, the final night was on a Friday. This is good for us as we get a day off before the next company arrive. Better for me as I’m not at work for the next week and so get an additional day to my time off. It’s not time away though – right before I left for work today, 139 sound dampening tiles arrived.

I will be spending a goodly portion of the next week on my hands and knees fitting these tiles under our carpets. (I’m sure I have a ‘woo-joy’ emoticon somewhere …)

The drama of modern theatre

Oh, say people, it must be exciting to work backstage!

Sometimes, it actually is. More normally it has a certain parallel to being in the armed forces: lots of waiting around, followed by moments of blind panic. Though with less bullets. Usually.

Anyhoo, I’m currently in the basement office while the current show is on (with a war theme as it happens) waiting to do a colour change in the interval on some hanging pool table lights (the colour for these is a sheet of gel about my armspan wide and double the length.

Then at the end of the show, we need to take out the set, most of the lanterns and a goodly portion of the sound so that the theatre is ready for the next incoming company. Who are due tomorrow at 9.00 AM BST (yes that is an ungodly hour and yes it does exist).

Oh the excitement of modern theatre. Oh yes.

Hello world!

Hi all.

 My first post on WordPress. All things being equal this post shouldn’t be seen all that often