Cell Phone

This is cool!
T-mobile came out today with a new Google-powered G1 mobile phone. This cell phone is nicccccccce, sleek, touch screen, keyboard, mp3, video, calendar, etc............. Far from the Side Kick 3.



My daughter sold me her Side Kick 3. (daddy helping out). I thought I was blowing up! A couple months later, I realized that I was in trouble. The pivot screen was too much.


Most of my friends are using the Black Berry models. Don't get me wrong. I used my Side kick. I took it to Norway, East Coast and West Coast. It didn't do so good in Lofoten Islands, Norway. Do not get you cell phone wet! See video!!

Hurry we need a water proof cell phone!

You saw the video. I survived! Next month, my contract will allow me to get a new cell phone and you know what I'm getting. The New G1!

I can't wait!

Chris Swann the Viking Warrior

Recording Session

Techies,

I'm in SD recording. Another sunny day in Oceanbeach. Listening to new music is great for your mind body and soul. Try it you might like it.

Well the session is going great. Get it on tape and mix it later. Levels are good and no distortion. Sitting in the controlroom is what I do. Making sure to get everything on tape.

See ya

Chris Swann

Recording Session

Techies,

This morning I'm recording the group "Give the Drummer Some". They are a 5 piece band . So far this session is going nonlinear.

The first morning session was just instrumental. We will lay vocal tracks later. The second later morning session is with instruments and vocals. So far the levels are good. No effects. I just need to record it down raw as possible. The band is tight. That really helps!

My thing is, " just get it on tape or hard drive". Then I'll master mix later.
Wow

Audio 101

Goodmorning!

I'm having a good day. I've been on location for 4 days at the Marriott in San Diego and the weather is sunny and warm. Ok, I'm doing sound in the main ball room. Here is my equipment list. Not much gear! It will do. Check it out?

Powered Mackie Speakers
MG24/14 FX Yamaha
EQ rack
Shure Wireless UR4DEW
300 SennheiserPodium mic
ProjectorScreen
Cables
Speaker stands

This sounds like a small show but the rooms are for sets 500 people. And they are very loud. I can use some delayed speakers. Maybe next time. Delayed speaker do help. It fills the room with sound. The people sitting on the back row will hear. And there ears will be ringing like mine. LOL. That's it for me. So remember, keep your EARS clean and Say No Noise.

Chris Swann

Power Point

Techees,

I'm glad to be here! I'm going to get right to it.

Presenters, they are so lucky. Meaning someone showing, sharing and telling informative organized information to collected individuals or a person in a setting. Presenters need two tools to get there point across.

One is powerpoint software by Windows XP and second a wireless transport pointer that advances the scene.

In todays society white boards are almost instinct. Who uses a white board? Engineers of course! It's Qiuck and Dirty and Easy. So, white boards still have there uses.

When a presenter want to make a powerful impact on individuals. One must use PPXP. PPXP made it easy for you to insert texts, pictures, graphics, movie clips etc... Powerpoint is a fun tool and don't forget you can paste youtube video on your pages. Practice. Try this, do a family slide show. Collect all your family pictures. Start inserting pictures in your presentation and place sub-titles under or on top of pictures. Add music, narration to give your presentation life.

Produce the heck out of it and become the next Bill Gates.

PS: use your pointer to start and stop your presentation.

Thank you

Chris

Audio 101

Today is going as plan. I'm in Irvine CA, running sound. This job is a critical audio engineering job. Last year was a big mess, distorted sound, signal dropping, recording was horrible, speakers where blown. Looks like a job for Super Geek! Here we go.

When I walk into the room the ladies all pulsed and laughed. It's Super Geek! LOL. The room is very big, 60 yards X 50 yards. A lot of natural reverb is in this room. Sounds are bouncing everywhere. I forgot to tell you that there is an airport across the street and this event is with an antenna development company. Antenna's surrounds us. 2 way antennas and 3 way antennas. Powerful stuff. You can feel frequencies hitting your face. And there are TV stations and radio stations around us.

Do you get the logiest of what I'm dealing with.

I'm going to be channel surfing and finding frequency's. No problem. I'm using UR4S, they can find any frequency in this area. This is what I'm going to do. First, I will set-up! I'm working with a Mackie, Onyx 1640 Premium Analog Mixer, Yamaha Q2031B, Klark Teknik DN410 Parametric EQ, Shure UR 4S and 3 X Wireless Lav and HandHeld, Sony CD Player CDP-C265, MP3 Player, 100ft snake, 2 X JBL EON 15, 2 X Pod Mic.. I can work this set-up! I just need another set of speakers for delay, because of the length of the room.

There are 250 plus people here. I will wire the system in stereo because of the video clips and the music. You don't know what's going on in the music mix. Sounds are coming from the left and the right. And there is nothing wrong with mono set-up. Oh yea, the stage is placed in the corner of the hall, so house left has more tables and chairs. So, I will give house left speaker more gas. Stereo it is! I still can do mono. You make the call!

Guess what, the mixing area or my command center is FOH (front of house). My perspective for mixing should be on point. It' going to be a party in here! The JBL's are going to be screaming. The JBL speakers have a function where you can set the switch for line level or mic level. On mic level there is more gain. I will leave it on line level. As of know the speakers are wire to the snakes output A and B, A for left speaker, B for right speaker. Connect the inputs of the snake into the mixers input. Podium mics are on channels 1 and 2, wireless systems are on channels 3, 4 and 5, computer audio on channel 6 and 7, laptop on channel 7 and 8, cd player on channel 9 and 10, mp3 on channel 11 ann 12 and VOG (Voice of God). And Everything that is on the board that needs to be in stereo is pan hard left and hard right. I forgot something. We must wire the Eq system in series. Mixer to Eq, Eq to speakers. That's going to help me to Eq the room. Find those unwanted frequencies! I love it. And I have a parametric EQ and I will wire this device as a loop or Aux 1. Just in case the wireless mics sounds awful. I can use the Parametric EQ to clean up the sound.

On the mixer make sure your gain structure is set properly. There is not much head room on this board. Stay away from distortion. Guitar players can have it. Audio Engineers can do with out it. I do not recommend this type of mixer on this type of event. I need more gas. Unless I set the JBL speakers to mic level mode. You figure it out! Remember when doing audio, be discreet as possible, without squealing like a pig. Be a Pro, clients love it.

See ya soon

Chris

Work Environment Characteristics

Swann Concepts Work Environment Characteristics

Passion

Integrity

Teamwork

Communication

Involvement

Constructive

Empowered

Trust

Change

Commitment

Accountable

Results



Chris

Is your TV ready for the switch

Techies and Friends,

It's been busy over here. I've been on the road mixing and recording. My clients are keeping me very busy. And I had some opportunities to operate some new awesome equipment. Yamaha PM5D! I'll tell you about it next month.

On the other note! Did you know that digital is taking over this country. On February 17th 2009, television stations across the United States will switch to digital broadcasting. So throw away your antenna', rabbit ears, aluminum foil. It's time to step it up! Go Digital! By law, all American stations are switching from analog to digital. Digital is cleaner, great sound, and you get all those TV channels and music . Digital can carry a lot stuff. Maybe one day we can get smells out of our TV Sets as well. Embrace it!

So please get a upgrade or make sure your television has a built in digital tuner, or get a digital converter box to receive your broadcast television. You don't want to miss out! Call your local station or send me an email. So get ready for the switch, February 17th, 2009.

Chris

Recording News

Hello!

There is a new world out here and everything is "Digital". Let's start with the Digital Workstation. Musician Audio Workstation, strictly does audio recording. You cannot surf the web, you cannot do power point, and don't even try to play video games. This might sound like an out dated recording tool. But one thing I must bring to your attention, this box rocks and it only does audio recordings. That's a good thing. It helps you stay focus. Specially when you are just beginning to learn the fundamentals of recording or working on a big project. When you are composing music you have to record it on tape or a hard drive, audio to digital. Get on it! IPOD, MP3 Players, etc...

If you are serious about your craft. Take class and learn the theory behind music and recording. I did! It's helpful. Hang out at the studio's and leave the beer and cigs at home. I don't want you to become substance abuser, before you create your first hit. Stay focus and keep writing.

Back to the audio machine. One of my favorite workstation is......... Drum Roll Please Please! Dit, dit, dat, dit, tic, tat,snap, tap tik, tik! Pull back the curtains. Here it is the Roland VS880 EX. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! This machine is off the chain. I have heard beautiful music produced, composed, edited, mastered on this box. I like this box. You can put down your musical ideas. Especially if you are a musician. That means, you play an instrument from the Renaissance age. That means an instrument that originally made by hand. VS880 really helped me with my music and ability to write an album and to copyright it with the US Copyright Office. My place of birth, District of Columbia.

The Roland VS880 or V Studio's has a learning curve as well. So, put on your thinking cap and get to reading. This box can record, play back, locate, 2 effects channel, eq, virtual tracks, master mixes, etc....there are so many things going on in this box. "IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND. "I think I'm in the Matrix". It will make your head explode. Be careful. Patience, little one! Stick with it. And the art will find you.

One of my friends bought one for $100.00. He was stoked! He dove all in it and he's having lots of fun. Also, he purchased mics, cables, stands. He has a full on studio. On the flip side, another friend of mine bought one for $300.00 and gave up, he said his head was hurting. He was so frustrated he gave it away. I wish he gave it to me. I would have linked the VS880's together. And went to town. When you link them together that will give you more power more tracks, more mixes, more fun. Just to see the 2 devices synced together is an awesome event to experience. Wow! I'm losing it right now. I'll calm down! The VS880 is a wonderful little box, that pack a mighty punch. So there it is.
Talk to you later

Chris swann

AV 101

Hello!

This week I'm at Orange County Fair Grounds. The client I'm working with is Nissan. I love there cars.

Ok, let talk Tech. We have a 16' x 9' screen. It's a good size and it' dressed out nice. We have 2 Barco CLM R10+ Projectors. One for Primary and the other for backup. In technology we have gremlins and they are nasty buggers. LOL. And don't forget 100' RGBHV cables. We carry lot's of cable. Then we have a DA 1 x 2. The DA takes 1 video input signal then turns it into 2 video output signals. What's nice on this show is the EXTRON USP 405. It's a swtcher that has a freeze frame button. When you are doing your powerpoint presentation, you switch on the freeze fame, the frame freezes on the screen, then you make your changes on the powerpoint, unfreeze and you back to pp on the screen.. Oh yea, we have PC1 and PC2, they are wire into the switcher VGA or RGBHV. The PC's provide video footage and pp. This is for the video techieees!

Now audio
I will start with the speakers. We have a total of 4 JBL's. 2 JBL EONs house left and 2 JBL EONs house right. I wired the system mono, next time I will do stereo because of the cool music that we're playing. Then we have 2 Yamaha Q2031B 31 band EQ, Letf and Right. You can really dig out those freq's. And we have 166XL compresser/limiter/Gate. Keep it tight! We call all these devises, outboard gear.

Ok! Are you ready! Here we go! The mixer! Spirit Folio 16 x 2. Our inputs are 1 lav, 1 handheld mic, pc 1 and pc 2, dvd, 1 applause meter mic, lap L, lap R, cd player for walk-in and walk-out music, abd backup dvd. So we are taken up 10 channels. Let's talk about the Master or Main faders or house faders. I'm using left master fader for house speakers (that's how I get my mono signal) and the master right fader for monitors. We have 2 Anchor AN-130 at our control booth. There several ways to wire up this mixer and mixer from all over the world. Remeber this is just one way to wire this mixer.

I have some good news for you up and coming techies, we have a new wireless mic system. We are using 5 Shure UR4S wireless receiver with audio reference companding. Go online and check it out. But what's cool about this unit is "no more searching for freq's, infared freq's finder and some other stuff that will blow your mind". Please check it out on the web.

And it comes with lav and a hh mic. And it sounds good. Yesaaa! Don forget power. I'm using 2 furman PL-Plus Power Condition. Ok, this is where I get off. I got do a show. Don't forget to check in.

Chris Swann
Swann Concepts