Is everything the same

Sunday, March 11, 2007

DARE2PLAY 3

yes yes... i know it's being a long long time since i last blogged... in fact, about 10 or 11 days already... but no worries cause this blog has not being forgotten by its owner... the owner of this blog has once again came to resurrect this blog again... haha... havent being blogging for the past few days cause has being kinda busy lah... because on 10th March 2007, there's a church youth ministry event, DARE2PLAY 3, and i'm in charge of sound of the concert... so it's my responsibility to get things planned and done lor... so no time to blog

planning the event was fun, but at the same time not fun at all... the process of learning how to plan things and stuff is enjoyable... especially from Mjay... he shared with me what are some vital things to have, be it in your mind or in hard copy... and we also talked about how we want the concert to be like, how things gonna get done... etc etc... but what was irritating was getting a lot of last minute info... even the equipments rental list was only confirmed one week before... consider things like having to feedback what more equipments that i need but are not listed... some of them initially got rejected because they say my request came too late... but what to do, i got my info late also mah... but thank god for Laurence... haha... he was like the medium person between me and the committee... those people hardly gave me much info until like two to three days before the event lah... but Laurence was the guy giving me the infos... and i came up with a tech rider... very useful and organizing ingredient... lol

approaching the event about three days before, i got more detailed info, particularly from the operation manager and the musicians... initially the operation manager gave me info that setting up of equipments is at 1630, musicians coming in at 1830, doors open at 1920... my eyes opened damn big sia, like 50 minutes can do what sound... so i replied for more time, preferably two hours... but on the day turned out of no effect as mentioned later... thank God that was agreed... 50 minutes was ridiculous lah... what's more, i also have last minute changes such as change in the console we gonna use, change in musicians such as from two keyboardist to one, from two electric guitarist to one, even from one worship leader to two... this was when the headache started to pile upwards... i tried to make do with the situation to accomodate those changes... and obviously make communication lines open between the people involved... it was a mess sia

one more day to the event... mjay and i have to make our final deciding calls, settle down with the infos we have and call it a day before the actual event... and on the last day was the day i didnt felt good... i somehow felt that things may not flow as what we gonna expect... even in school, the whole day in fact, the moment i think about the event, i was having butterflies floating around my stomach... but for now and then i had to remind myself God will be there and all things gonna turn out good

the day came on that very faithful Saturday... i just realized that the band-in-charge had been changed from Mark to Ray... i was like ants on a hot pot sia... i quickly called Ray up and lias with him... thank God the changes that were made werent as that diastrous... in fact he was actually better... for example the songlist... Mark only gave the song sequence, but Ray gave not only that, he even gave extra details i never had received, which are often left for me to interpret... he gave infos such as the leading vocals and leading instruments for every song... a vital part of the info in times of rushing and no time to interpret such details... i updated the songlist, the tech rider... etc etc... printed a few copies of them... and left for the event

Eugene and I met for lunch... but even then as i stared at the tech rider... somehow i felt has though there was something i hadnt done... somehow lah... then set off to Methodist Girls School... we reached at around 1430... Ray reached soon after us... equipments only reach at 1630... so we just wandering wondering around see see people play games... then the rest of the musicians came also... but Ray kinda disappointed sia... the musicians are here but the equipments havent setup yet... he was thinking that he can come earlier so sound check and stuff can being done earlier and better, but turn out he's the first one there... and still gotta keep the rest of the musicians waiting

anywayz... good news is there the vendor we rented our equipments from came in earlier... around 1500 rather than the expected 1630... so i asked the operation manager, if that the vendor crews came in earlier can we start setup earlier... of course permission granted lah... so we took hold of the privilege... but realized the crew was retardedly slow... probably them shifting the equipments up to the hall is a forgiveable situation lah... considering there was only one elevator for that purpose... they finished shifting the equipments at around 1600

line check was expected to start at 1745... sound check at 1800... at 1745, i told the boss say they are eating into my sound check and asked if everything could be done by 1800 latest... he told me only left a few things to cable up, should be able to be done in 15mins time... so i agreed with them... and check this out... they only handed us the system fully at 1900... super uber pissing... 20mins left for all the checks, so Mjay and i worked really fast and furious to get work done... we split up our task, like when drum check mjay was doing EQ for kick, i was doing for snare and hihat... fast fast... doing instrument check, one of us would do monitor, the other do house EQ... fast fast

earlier Mjay was setting up drum mics, and he didnt know how to use the mic clip... so he asked for assistance before he somehow spoils the clip... but they replied, "wah, you sound engineer you dont know how to use this thing ah?" when i doing vocal check, Mjay was trying to get the effects machine working... and there was one case the one wired vocal mic not working, somehow... i crank up my gain relative to that of other vocal mics, but the signal has barely a LED light jumping... so i decided to give it a shot to suddenly turn the gain full blast... got a super loud feedback lah... but at least i knew the mic was somehow working... but the vendor people were like laughing and clapping, "haha. good job good job. happy new year!"... they were probably looking at Mjay and i, mocking at us and wondering if we could actually handle it anot... everything was done before doors open at 1920... and needless to say, we had no time for dinner... especially for Mjay, sad sia

people coming in were like strolling around... the sound people were like trying to cool down and take things lightly before the result of our sound checks came out, the praise & worship concert... it was heart pounding wondering if the sound would at least turn out decent... and true enough it did... decent and good enough for a kick start... then we did further tunings within the first song and we were closer to a pretty good sound... it got better and better... but was still believing God would work through us... and true enough it did... there was one part where the worship was lifted up, my mix was just flowing with God... i could just feel like a supernatural feeling... even Mjay wanted to pang seh me on the console and worship... then a little stress sipped in me... the main church musicians came down... just wondering how they would judge the sound... thank God and to the grace of God, they gave pretty positive comments... God is so good right?

at the end of the concert, around 2145... finally Mjay and i got to eat our dinner... by then the food was cold and lost its flavor... even eating the food i only finished half the serving... but Mjay being a person with high metabolism rate, finish the food quickly and wanted some more food... so went to nearby Macs for supper lor... haha... it sure was a memorable event sia... we kept on talking about it all night... i'm still waiting to get a copy of the recording sia... i wanna get a preview of the sound again... haha

spoken adhesives at 01:44

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