By now, we’re all painfully aware of the impact that the Coronavirus pandemic will have upon our industry and our livelihoods. Tours are being canceled, dates are dropping off the calendar, and most of the venues and churches that the sound reinforcement industry services on an (otherwise) regular basis are closed to the public. It’s an upsetting picture, but we have to remain confident in the fact that it will come back, even if it might be a few months from now.
While we wait for the go-ahead to resume normal activities, there’s going to be a fair amount of downtime. I wish I could say “go take the vacation you’ve been postponing,” but that will have to wait too, probably longer than any of us would like. There are, however, a lot of productive ways to stay busy (which can help keep your sanity) while ensuring that you’ll be ready to get back to work when life returns to normal.
Get Your Maintenance on Track
One of the obvious things to do with your downtime is perform maintenance on your gear. Shop work always seems to fall into the category of “I’ll get to that later” and well… later has arrived. Looks like I’ll finally have the chance to go through that box of questionable cables, test them and trash the ones that are broken. There are probably drivers in your cabinets that need repair or replacement, wheels on road cases that look like they came out of a Flintstones episode, and power amps with fan filters that haven’t been cleaned since Bell Labs invented the transistor. Now is your chance.
Those of you who rent gear to clients for long-term installations may have systems that haven’t seen maintenance for a while because they’ve been busy every night, and you’ve been busy every day. Take the opportunity to troubleshoot that rattling sound that’s been driving the house engineer crazy. The current restrictions regarding large public gatherings don’t apply to empty rooms, so visiting venues to check drivers, examine cables and tweak the hang will ensure that the system is ready to go when the curtains go up again. It’s also a good way to show your clients some attention. Many of you can repair your own gear, so why not offer the service to someone else?
If you have digital consoles and associated peripherals such as rack processors or stage boxes, this is a good time to perform firmware updates. We talked in detail about firmware updates in the Feb. 2020 issue of FRONT of HOUSE, but one of the big reasons people are hesitant to update firmware is that sometimes updates don’t go as smoothly as we would hope. As a result, it’s never a good idea to do it in the field, and may not even be a good idea to do when your gear is back at the shop in between events. Tech support is still available from most manufacturers, so if you run into a hitch or discover a communication issue after a firmware update between say, a digital console and its associated stagebox, you’ll be able to get help. In a weird way, it could lower your stress level a bit, knowing that you don’t have to get that system up and running two hours prior to the start of a show.
Get Educated!
One of the great aspects of working in pro audio is that it’s vast, and there’s always something to learn. As is the case with other disciplines, the internet is a huge resource for audio education. The JBL Professional Audio channel on YouTube has tons of tutorials on their products, ranging from rigging to software, and a lot of the information is useful, regardless of manufacturer. Audinate’s online training for Dante certification would be a valuable skill, given the rapid expansion of audio networking. Yamaha provides online training for its consoles including the CL, QL, TF and LS9 Series. DiGiCo has a series of online seminars and events. Soundcraft offers tutorial videos for its Vi, Si, and Ui Series of consoles. Tons of tutorials for live and studio applications are on Waves’ YouTube Channel, so there’s no excuse for falling behind on plug-in processing. QSC has online training courses for a variety of products including Q-SYS, TouchMix and KLA loudspeakers. And Avixa, the producers of the InfoComm show, is waiving access fees to all AV professionals for its extensive online training programs through June 12. You get the idea.
This is a chance to research an aspect of the business with which you are unfamiliar. I’ve never fully understood how 70-volt systems operate, so that’s one of the things on my list. Do it to enhance your audio depth, or so that you can offer clients a new service.
This could also be a good time to re-evaluate your presence on the web and in social media.
When was the last time you updated your resume? Does it reflect your current skills, experiences, credits and goals? Is your website up-to-date? How easy (or difficult) is it for potential clients to find you, and what do you promise to offer them?
Please don’t think I’m making light of a serious situation. There’s no denying that the next few months will be very difficult for all of us. It won’t be easy, but we will come out on the other side. When we finally get the go-ahead for business as usual, will you be ready?
Steve “Woody” La Cerra is the tour manager and front of house engineer for Blue Öyster Cult
