Critical Reflection

Critical Reflection

Personally I try to be involved with as many projects as possible, and have found that connections between projects often link in surprising ways. I've soaked in a lot of advice over time, and believe speaking to people and sharing knowledge is one of the best ways to learn. I'm very lucky to have the opportunity of working a venue that has a large variety of events that deal with a range of set-ups and industry personelle. I've found that people are more than happy to talk about how their equipment works, their experiences and opinions, with the added benefit that in this way I'm also making myself known as being keen to learn, which I've found people pick up on - leading to more opportunities.

While in the past I've been more open to say "yes" to project proposals, I've found that more recently I've had to organise my time management, and learnt to agree to projects that I believe will be ultimately beneficial to my development. This is a quality that I aim to retain, as I've found by agreeing to something I perhaps don't quite feel I'm ready for, necessity will force me to do research and practise so that I am ready when the time comes. In this way I'm constantly developing as a professional, with each new experience a step towards success.

I choose my tools and formats through research and advice, observing how and why other people work the way they do. I enjoy being resourceful and working to a brief with limitations, so as to find solutions where convenience and end result quality meet. I find that as my confidence is increasing, I spend more time evaluating new proposals so as not to rush things and end up spending too much time and money investing in something that isn't what I ultimately want to do, or isn't going to pay the bills.

During the time I've been writing this blog the majority of my personal projects I've been working on have been focused on my employment at The Forum Hertfordshire, or research and reflection on future aims. As an A/V technician, I've found there's been less space for creative conduct than I have been used to in the past, and work has been more along the lines of "how can I come to this end result with this equipment, with this amount of time and these limitations.". I enjoy being involved on the job and learning as I go, and find that my research in my own time on equipment, methodology and industry standards have a very positive impact on my work.

Maintaining this blog has been very eye opening in observing the way I work, and some of the actions I subconsciously make in my practises. In evaluating my strengths and weaknesses, I have a stronger understanding of how I work, which will benefit my development and choices as a future professional in the field of Music Technology.

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A/V - The Interactions Between Live Sound and Visuals - Part 2, Projection Mapping

A/V - The Interactions Between Live Sound and Visuals

Part 2 - Projection Mapping

Again delving more into the visual procedures, I have been aware of the process of projection mapping, but as I read through the manual of Resolume Arena 5 I learnt much more about the reality of delivery a good image projection. I decided the best way to learn about it was to get download Resolume Arena 5 and try it out for myself. I found guided tutorials on YouTube such as Aktion's tutorial series to be the most helpful.

I loaned a projector out from the Universities' loan store and set to mapping a still image to the shape of my bass guitar. After some trial and error, I followed Aktion's guide and ended up with footage I took while travelling in Vietnam onto the shape of my bass guitar, which I was very pleased with.

I begun to think about other possibilities of projects to work on, as well as ways to incorporate audio. Searching online I found a great blog which posts large scale audio/video projection map projects where syncronised animations are projected onto large surfaces, often buildings, in impressive displays for various artistic and corporate contexts.

An example of this was applied at the Forum's NYE party. A raised projector mapped a circus door entrance. Commercial applications. I'm learning that the reality of making a career out of A/V work has a strong backbone in corporate jobs, thought it appears that a large market for projectioning is down to visual content creators, which I very little experience in.

My next aim is to bring this process to a night I DJ at - a Funk night called "What The Funk". I have some white vinyl records in my possession and I think it would be interesting to map some funk related imagery onto these upon our DJ riser.

Bibliography

Video Mapping (2015) [Online] Available at: http://videomapping.tumblr.com/ [Accessed on 2/01/2016]

Aktion (2014) Resolume Area 4 Ep1 - Part 1 - Getting Started With Projection Mapping [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHz6IoLsDtA Accessed on [2/01/2016]

PA Systems and Setups

PA Systems and Setups

When it comes to live music performance, the sound systems have always been something I've noted - but not particularly considered in terms of set-up, positioning and behind-the-scenes operation. At The Forum, we have a stereo pair of suspended Funktion 1 line arrays, with 6 D&B J-Subs. Smaller 'fill' speakers are between the subs to provide sound projection where the suspended line array sound trajectories cannot adequately reach (see diagram below). Further back in the room there are delay speakers in the bars which project the sound at a delayed time, to merge with the sound from the main PA after the time it takes to travel across the room.

I spent some time around the venue and in the amp room, looking at the amps and determining the signal path from the DJ/band to the mix console to the speakers.

The signal route of The Forum's Main Auditorium is as follows:

1. Signals generated through DJ equipment/band onstage -->
2. XLR's fed into an onstage 48 channel patch bay -->
3. 48 channel snake runs under dance floor to Front of House (FOH) patch bay -->
4. Channels fed in via looms into mixing console and mixed -->
5. Mixed audio sent via main L+R output into FOH patch bay -->
6. Audio goes to amp room where it is distributed to various D&B D12 amplifiers -->
7. Amplifier speakon outputs return to stage and connect to corresponding multicores and speakers.

Personally, I'd like to know more about the industry standards in PA set-ups and standards, so that I am aware of and have attained knowledge of their application potentials should I encounter them in my career. Entertainment companies such as Vortex Events offer sound and lighting for events, often offering packages which may consist of visual, sound, stage sound. At a recent event at The Forum, I assisted Vortex Events in setting up a DJ PA in the main foyer. This consisted of a stereo pair of L'Acoustic Subs and stacked line arrays, which were positioned in two corners of the room due to convenience, ie. out of the way of customers and displays.

For higher end applications and permanent fixtures, careful positioning may be required to deliver the best sound based on the complex physical principles of multiple sound sources and frequency distributions. Upon research, I've discovered that projection visualisation softwares such as MAPP help plan PA positioning on these grounds. Some compromises have to be made in the name of practicality and budget.

In the image above, we can see the comparison of two speaker stacks (3 on the top, 20 on the bottom), and their predicted loudness trajectory in dB SPL denoted by colour, with red as loudest and dark blue as quietest. The X and Y axes provide room dimensions in meters. These visualisations are made at a frequency of 1KHz. Information such as this can be used to predict to a level the interactions between multiple speaker sources to give an idea of how effective placements will be on the listening quality from the audience's perspective. 

Bibliography

Sound On Sound (2006) Line Arrays Explained: The Science and the Magic [Online] Available at 

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar06/articles/live_linearrays.htm [Accessed on 2/12/2015]