(georgetown, SC) can you turn that down?
two of my dearest friends got married yesterday. the ceremony was outside, where there was a woman who played violin and flute at various times. there was also the jetskier who apparently really wanted us to hear his fine motor.
my job for the evening was to "figure out the PA stuff" (bring the PA inside and set it up), help the other people who had prepared entertainment to share during the rest of the evening, and select "background music" to play over hors d'oeuvres and dinner. in between those two was a talent show, which replaced the more traditional stuff you usually find at wedding receptions. no cake cutting, no bouquet toss, no speeches, no garter. it was really a perfect wedding.
my friend damian was the emcee of the talent show. he had a pretty clear plan of how the evening was going to go, but i didn't. fortunately, jonathan was there to help me, and he was amazing. between the two of us, we managed to make things look and sound like they were somewhat planned. we were the sound people who make things work, but things would probably have gone more smoothly if we'd actually known what was going to happen. i find this a lot...the audio stuff is often an afterthought or there is generally not an appreciation of how much work it takes to get something to sound good or how much better it could sound with just a bit of proper preparation. for instance, a few hours before the wedding i was told there was to be a video presentation. when we got to the venue, the video screen was at one end of the room, and the PA was at the other. it also turned out that the dance DJ, whom they'd hired, had already set up her PA and it was a much better system than the one outside. after discussing various possibilities at length, we decided to try patching the video directly into the room's built in overhead speakers (mono). it was crappy, but fine. which they were, although there were a few of the classic amateur feedback problems throughout the program.
we made it through the video presentation, and then there were songs, dances, magic tricks, baton twirling, violin playing, and poetry. the magic trick involved squishing a banana all over the "stage" (dance floor) and when the baton twirler went out, there were still banana droppings. jonathan ran out with a rag. damian came up to me after the tap dancer during one of the songs with a cassette tape in his hand containing the back-up music for the baton twirler. sigh. i tried to imagine an expanding sphere around where i was sitting and how far it would have to expand before there might be an audiocassette player. he said the next performer needed a record player. i wasn't sure if he was joking. somehow before the number, they were able to get me the songs on a thumb drive and i quickly stuck them into my computer. i'm not sure what i would have done without jonathan, who was standing behind me with his computer open and ready to receive CDs and other media and convert them into something i could play.
after the talent show, we went back into the mode of playing the background music. there very few specifics about what this music should be - "upbeat, some 1960's, radiohead." hmmmmmm. i basically just went through and played stuff i liked that i thought would still be possible to talk over but would be interesting. radiohead is the groom's favorite band, so i played lots of that, but the thought of radiohead being background music makes me uncomfortable, so i think i was always pushing the limit of "background" volume. i know this because i was asked to turn it down twice. i don't really own much music from the 60s, so the only 60s they got were a few beatles songs and then stuff like mum, imogen heap, mozez, zero seven, boards of canada, jose gonzales, the best of cookin', st. germain, et cetera.
midway through the talent show the DJ showed up and had a mild panic attack when she saw what we'd done to her setup. she calmed down when it was clear that we were a) nice, b) being careful with her hard drive, c) knew what we were doing. fortunately, i got to turn everything over to her once the dancing started, and she got to bust out the dance jams and get the party started, yeah yeah.
my job for the evening was to "figure out the PA stuff" (bring the PA inside and set it up), help the other people who had prepared entertainment to share during the rest of the evening, and select "background music" to play over hors d'oeuvres and dinner. in between those two was a talent show, which replaced the more traditional stuff you usually find at wedding receptions. no cake cutting, no bouquet toss, no speeches, no garter. it was really a perfect wedding.
my friend damian was the emcee of the talent show. he had a pretty clear plan of how the evening was going to go, but i didn't. fortunately, jonathan was there to help me, and he was amazing. between the two of us, we managed to make things look and sound like they were somewhat planned. we were the sound people who make things work, but things would probably have gone more smoothly if we'd actually known what was going to happen. i find this a lot...the audio stuff is often an afterthought or there is generally not an appreciation of how much work it takes to get something to sound good or how much better it could sound with just a bit of proper preparation. for instance, a few hours before the wedding i was told there was to be a video presentation. when we got to the venue, the video screen was at one end of the room, and the PA was at the other. it also turned out that the dance DJ, whom they'd hired, had already set up her PA and it was a much better system than the one outside. after discussing various possibilities at length, we decided to try patching the video directly into the room's built in overhead speakers (mono). it was crappy, but fine. which they were, although there were a few of the classic amateur feedback problems throughout the program.
we made it through the video presentation, and then there were songs, dances, magic tricks, baton twirling, violin playing, and poetry. the magic trick involved squishing a banana all over the "stage" (dance floor) and when the baton twirler went out, there were still banana droppings. jonathan ran out with a rag. damian came up to me after the tap dancer during one of the songs with a cassette tape in his hand containing the back-up music for the baton twirler. sigh. i tried to imagine an expanding sphere around where i was sitting and how far it would have to expand before there might be an audiocassette player. he said the next performer needed a record player. i wasn't sure if he was joking. somehow before the number, they were able to get me the songs on a thumb drive and i quickly stuck them into my computer. i'm not sure what i would have done without jonathan, who was standing behind me with his computer open and ready to receive CDs and other media and convert them into something i could play.
after the talent show, we went back into the mode of playing the background music. there very few specifics about what this music should be - "upbeat, some 1960's, radiohead." hmmmmmm. i basically just went through and played stuff i liked that i thought would still be possible to talk over but would be interesting. radiohead is the groom's favorite band, so i played lots of that, but the thought of radiohead being background music makes me uncomfortable, so i think i was always pushing the limit of "background" volume. i know this because i was asked to turn it down twice. i don't really own much music from the 60s, so the only 60s they got were a few beatles songs and then stuff like mum, imogen heap, mozez, zero seven, boards of canada, jose gonzales, the best of cookin', st. germain, et cetera.
midway through the talent show the DJ showed up and had a mild panic attack when she saw what we'd done to her setup. she calmed down when it was clear that we were a) nice, b) being careful with her hard drive, c) knew what we were doing. fortunately, i got to turn everything over to her once the dancing started, and she got to bust out the dance jams and get the party started, yeah yeah.
1 Comments:
sorry, everyone. i know this was kind of a lame how-i-spent-my-summer-weekend post. i'll try to do better next weekend.
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