...And am kind of going in 50 directions at once. My name's Jon, and I just became the AV tech at my church. Not because I have any idea of what I'm doing or have any training in AV mind you, just because I have a knack for troubleshooting, a semblance of patience and adaptability with, and lack of fear of high technology. Our church is becoming something of a prototype for others in the movement to hybrid services in the wake of COVID for parish to program sized churches, at least in our denomination and region. I started the AV committee several years ago, and a large grant has allowed us to seriously upgrade our system alongside an actual pro production guy, from whom I am learning loads.
I don't even know how to properly describe our current setup. The sound part is centered around a Yamaha LS9-16, and the video part around an ATEM mini extreme. The PA in the chapel is two speakers of unknown origin and make/model probably older than me wall mounted behind the stage, and two desktop speakers wall-mounted in the lobby, with the ATEM taking left stereo output and sending it to our livestream and the right channel going to the power amp to feed the ancient strata of ad-hoc wiring in our chapel. At least, I think, that's how it was with the old Behringer manual mixer with the channels that kept burning out; I was absent when the new mixer was set up and didn't get an idea of how the routing was designed. If you're getting Kafka's The Trial vibes, you're getting a sense of my current situation; but if you're not feeling at least slightly overwhelmed, how do you know if you're growing and learning?
So, I am starting at the beginning. Pure 101, just learned the 3 different sound levels, that there's things besides the equalizer in filters, different kinds of microphones, what 'monitor' even means, what a DI box is, etc. I have a copy of the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook, Eiche's Guide to Sound Systems for Worship (all the best reference manuals were written by engineers for companies in the mid to late eighties), with a couple more reference books on the way, the Yamaha LS9 user manual (289 pages, a book in itself), and the ATEM user manual, just all of the manuals.
I have to know what I'm even looking at before I know what questions to ask, and that's where I'm headed. I do know that we need more channels on our mixer, and I'm diving into that today; we need to stereo mic our baby grand piano, which only has one mic for now (and find the funds to do it), and what kind of microphones we want to use (the pianist would prefer her piano closed, so I'm studying boundary and contact microphones); we need to figure out why our not-that-cheap dual lav mic receiver/transmitter system keeps cutting out for 1-3 seconds a few times a minute even though the channels are set up correctly, the minister is only 2-3 meters away from the receiver, and the whip antennas and batteries on/in the body packs are in perfect shape; how to open the stage to get at the 40 year old homebrew wiring on the XLR receptacles going to the old snake; and why our PTZ cameras (two AViPAS 1281Gs controlled by an AViPAS 3104 joystick) aren't daisy-chaining correctly. Then there's getting audio, video, and internet to all the rooms in the church without knocking out walls, learning anything about IP AV beyond 1985, and figuring out what else to figure out once I've read more and even know what problems are problems to figure out.
So I'm more looking for where to go from here, and typing this out more to ground, center, and direct myself and start somewhere (this is my first forum I've joined for the purposes of connecting with those knowledgeable in what I've agreed to jump into) instead of casting about on Google and hoping I bumble into answers and the people that know them. If you've got any advice for the problems in the above paragraph, I'm grateful for, if not an answer, at least what direction to head in; Google can give me a billion possible leads, but a person can give me a few good leads.
And hi. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
I don't even know how to properly describe our current setup. The sound part is centered around a Yamaha LS9-16, and the video part around an ATEM mini extreme. The PA in the chapel is two speakers of unknown origin and make/model probably older than me wall mounted behind the stage, and two desktop speakers wall-mounted in the lobby, with the ATEM taking left stereo output and sending it to our livestream and the right channel going to the power amp to feed the ancient strata of ad-hoc wiring in our chapel. At least, I think, that's how it was with the old Behringer manual mixer with the channels that kept burning out; I was absent when the new mixer was set up and didn't get an idea of how the routing was designed. If you're getting Kafka's The Trial vibes, you're getting a sense of my current situation; but if you're not feeling at least slightly overwhelmed, how do you know if you're growing and learning?
So, I am starting at the beginning. Pure 101, just learned the 3 different sound levels, that there's things besides the equalizer in filters, different kinds of microphones, what 'monitor' even means, what a DI box is, etc. I have a copy of the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook, Eiche's Guide to Sound Systems for Worship (all the best reference manuals were written by engineers for companies in the mid to late eighties), with a couple more reference books on the way, the Yamaha LS9 user manual (289 pages, a book in itself), and the ATEM user manual, just all of the manuals.
I have to know what I'm even looking at before I know what questions to ask, and that's where I'm headed. I do know that we need more channels on our mixer, and I'm diving into that today; we need to stereo mic our baby grand piano, which only has one mic for now (and find the funds to do it), and what kind of microphones we want to use (the pianist would prefer her piano closed, so I'm studying boundary and contact microphones); we need to figure out why our not-that-cheap dual lav mic receiver/transmitter system keeps cutting out for 1-3 seconds a few times a minute even though the channels are set up correctly, the minister is only 2-3 meters away from the receiver, and the whip antennas and batteries on/in the body packs are in perfect shape; how to open the stage to get at the 40 year old homebrew wiring on the XLR receptacles going to the old snake; and why our PTZ cameras (two AViPAS 1281Gs controlled by an AViPAS 3104 joystick) aren't daisy-chaining correctly. Then there's getting audio, video, and internet to all the rooms in the church without knocking out walls, learning anything about IP AV beyond 1985, and figuring out what else to figure out once I've read more and even know what problems are problems to figure out.
So I'm more looking for where to go from here, and typing this out more to ground, center, and direct myself and start somewhere (this is my first forum I've joined for the purposes of connecting with those knowledgeable in what I've agreed to jump into) instead of casting about on Google and hoping I bumble into answers and the people that know them. If you've got any advice for the problems in the above paragraph, I'm grateful for, if not an answer, at least what direction to head in; Google can give me a billion possible leads, but a person can give me a few good leads.
And hi. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.
