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Coordinating with the director to design all sound effects.
Designing the layout of speakers (especially for Sala shows) and coordinating with the TD to get them placed and cabled
Designing a mic plot (who gets a mic, and any mic handoffs that are necessary)
Deciding if the orchestra needs reinforcement, and designing that system if necessary
Setting up all sound equipment at the beginning of prod week
Running mic check
Recording the pre-show announcement
Running mic checks each night
Mixing the live performance and triggering sound effects
Taking down equipment at strike
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Ensure that the batteries are charged. The chargers automatically detect when the batteries are charged and stop trying to shove electrons into them; beware that sometimes this detection goes awry and the charger thinks a drained battery is charged. Plug all of the batteries in, and if one goes “green” in a suspiciously short period of time (it usually happens in under a minute), swap it with another. It seems to be particular battery/slot combinations that have this problem Make sure that all 32 batteries are fully inserted, as they often are slightly out of the socket and do not charge.
After the preliminary full sound check, you really just need to check that each channel is still working. Just ask to hear a bit, make sure everything looks like you expect, and release the actors to do other things.
Remember to shut everything down. Amps should be the first thing off. If you’re using a video monitor, turn it off too.
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If the show makes use of cap-firing prop guns (i.e., ones that make and actual “bang” on stage), have a gunshot sound effect cued up on a hotkey — the prop guns we use fail to fire about 30% of the time. Ask Jake Gunter for a sound that is a reasonable facsimile of the actual prop gun sound.
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MTG-Owned Equipment List
- 16x 17x wireless mic belt pack transmitter, receiver, and rechargeable AA batteries, ample headsets
- 1x Handheld wireless mic (SM58 with built-in transmitter), uses same receivers
- 5x technically illegal (due to FCC) receivers, with 4 3 body pack transmitters and 3 2 functioning handhelds.
- These are identical to the 1x body pack and 1x handheld that is owned by KLT. If in KLT, feel free to use them together.
- Behringer X32 32-channel mixer
- 4x Behringer MULTICOM PRO-XL MDX4600 (4-channel compressor/gate, for 16 total channels, largely unneeded with the digital mixer)
- ART HQ-231 (2-channel 31-band graphic EQ)
- Behringer DI800 (8-channel DI box)
- 2x Crown CE1000 power amps
- 560W@2ohm, 450W@4ohm, 275W@8ohm
- 12x “Pizza Pizza” speakers (4 with mounting brackets)
- 100W RMS, 6 ohms, 57Hz-30kHz
- 24x4 175’ snake
- 16x4 100’ snake
- XLR snakes (16 total channels), for going from the wireless receivers to the mixer
- Insert snakes (16 total channels), for the compressors
- All the cabling you could ever need
- Video monitoring system
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