mike257

You can get water based or oil based haze, both of which behave differently with different types of smoke detectors. In touring venues, it's normal practice to isolate the smoke alarms in the room during the show, so that haze/smoke can't trip them, and that's written in to risk assessments and safety plans. If you're going in to function rooms, pubs, whatever else, they may not be set up to do that and you'll likely meet some resistance.

Well, after a lovely tour in October with a full crew of top-notch people, we're currently back to the two-man setup on a European support run for a few weeks. After migrating the band on to IEMs for the UK headline tour, where we had FOH and monitor engineers with a dLive at both ends, I've had to figure out how we make that work in our stripped down setup to keep the production value up for the lads on stage. We're back on my SQ5 for this tour and we're squeezing every last drop of it's capabilities out of it now. Freed up a few buses in our FOH engineer's existing showfile and I'm now running four stereo IEM mixes and four wedge mixes from an iPad (whilst tour managing and guitar teching 🤣). Not too many compromises had to be made, all things considered. We've managed to keep the on stage shout mics integrated for comms between band and crew, and I have a spare IEM system fed from a matrix that I can send any mix to if we have an RF issues on someone's frequency. My IEMs are fed by the solo bus that the FOH and I are sharing between us for mid-show listening. It's taken some shuffling around but it's working really well and is pretty dialled in after the first week of shows

I'm at 98 so far this year, 24 left to go in the diary!

Cracking photo! I wasn't at the sound desk for this one - I've been doubling up as tour manager and backline tech for most of the year but I've got a full crew out for the headline tour so just wearing my tour manager hat and not pushing faders or wrangling guitars at the moment. Mostly swearing at Excel sheets and crying at the amount of emails in my inbox 🤣

I'll show them that photo, Jacob getting some serious height on that jump there 🤣 Glad you enjoyed the show, sorry I didn't get to say hello!

Didn't even know they did a Waves card for it! How's that working out? Sadly no mixing desk at all for me still - it's been a two man crew all year on my current gig (me as TM/tech, and our FOH engineer) but heading out on a proper touring run for three weeks with a full team, so I can just wear my TM hat. Just wrapped two days of production rehearsals, currently 2:20am on the tourbus having a wild night with my laminator and a pack of chocolate hobnobs on our way to Nottingham Rock City. It's all glamour, this job 🤣

Sounding lovely in rehearsals today. You're in for a treat!

I'm not sure what it says for how welcoming a space the forum is for them that Juliet hasn't logged in for two years, and Cici hasn't for almost a year!

Thus proving my point that @Misdee seemed so affronted by. Many corners of the music industry are not welcoming places for young women. More visibility of artists (like Ms DeTiger) that they can see themselves in will give them the confidence to be more present in those spaces, and help build the belief that they belong and can build a career. This forum is full of grumpy old men. There are few, if any, young female bass players here and it's no surprise given some of the commentary here. Thankfully, the majority of members, grumpy as we all are, appear to be on the sensible side of this conversation.

I've worked in live touring for over a decade and by and large, it's an absolute sausage-fest and not representative of the population as a whole. When I've spoken to young female techs and musicians, one of the big things I hear about is the lack of role models, or I hear that having a role model/mentor who they could relate to was a hugely important part of their journey. When I hear incredibly talented and capable women telling me they're leaving the industry because they're finding it hard to thrive in such a "boys club", it tells me something is seriously wrong. Having people (like Blu - although I hadn't come across her before this thread) who are visible and setting that example is, as I said, a positive thing. Your reply suggests you don't think encouraging people from more diverse backgrounds in to the creative industries is a good thing. Why is that?

There's a real, tangible gender inequality in the music industry (speaking as someone who works in it) and the more positive role models there from all demographics and backgrounds who can actively and visibly use their presence to show young people who might not otherwise see the creative industries as a viable career route that it's actually possible to follow your dreams and make a living out there, the better. If a bunch of young girls see Blu amongst the sea of typical blokes with guitars and think "maybe there's a space for me here after all?", then that's a positive thing. Doesn't sound like nonsense to me. As a dad of two daughters, and having given work and experience opportunities to many of my wife's students when she spent 10 years teaching in another male-dominated creative industry, I'm acutely aware how important it is for people to have role models they can relate to, and the difference that can make in how they perceive their ambitions and their chances of success. Honestly, it's sad to see such a negative reaction to someone trying to put positivity out in what they do.

I made use of some of that dead space on the rack ears with mine. Fitted it in a Gear4Music shallow 3u, drilled out the rack ears for a Powercon input and thru connector, put a 13a socket on the front so you could charge your tablet from it (pictured with a USB charger left in), and a 13a socket in the back for the router. All the electrical connections were made with Wago blocks inside a junction box velcroed to the back of the mixer. Router was a little TP Link Nano, also fixed to the back of the mixer with heavy duty velcro. The rack case had a zipped pouch in one of the lids, so kept the power cable, mini jack cable, and a cheap Android tablet all in there so you had everything to run it in one box. Worked a treat!

Love to see you're out and about keeping busy mate! Not much mixing console action from me of late. My regular gig taking up most of the year is tour managing and not getting near a console. Did a weekend of Euro festivals - Lowlands and Pukkelpop - some long and challenging travel days but a cracking couple of gigs. I did drop in for my last show of the summer looking after monitors for Peter Hook at the weekend, which is always a pleasure. Another nice Digico package from Solotech on this one.

I was production manager for last year's ATG. Sadly not there this year, but it's such a great festival (as is it's mildly less mathy counterpart, 2000trees). Run as a real labour of love by people who are driven by their love of the music there.

It's pretty much just 13 years of me and Matt nerding out over audio gear, I didn't think anyone else even ventured in 🤣