Lighten the load

Re: Lighten the load

John Roberts said:
This ad is from 2 decades ago but FWIW I was thinking about weight even back then (you must supply your own roadie.

JR.
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I worked with a band that owned one of those Peavey flight case mixers for a few years. All in all not too bad for what it was. I seem to remember a roll out cover of some sort that covered everything that came out the bottom. Did it roll out of the bottom or just hook there? Loved those "Supper Channels!" Wow! 20 years ago.........

Douglas R. Allen
 
Re: Lighten the load

Douglas R. Allen said:
I worked with a band that owned one of those Peavey flight case mixers for a few years. All in all not too bad for what it was. I seem to remember a roll out cover of some sort that covered everything that came out the bottom. Did it roll out of the bottom or just hook there? Loved those "Supper Channels!" Wow! 20 years ago.........

Douglas R. Allen
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It was a light weight (blow molded?) plastic case, with the flat mixer bolted into the bottom half of the case, the cover was removed during use. All I/O plugged down into the top surface.

Supper? Yes the "Super channels" were IMO very cost-effective, but I like all of my ideas. :) Why put pad, phantom, polarity, etc on all 20+ channels if you only need a few for any given gig... Much cheaper to patch into one of the super channels if/when you need the feature.

JR
 
Re: Lighten the load

With almost 4 decades of this stuff under my belt, the only way I have ever seen loads get lighter is to make the truck smaller: What used to take a 24 footer now goes in a 16. This is the moonshot approach. Reductions in size and weight of items always eventually sees non-essentials added to the new-found volume.

Or be incremental: Wedges go on stackable open frame dollies instead of in cases. Let someone else provide feeder/PD., etc.,etc. Or trailer first-in/last-out stuff. Be creative, because there is always efficiency to be squeezed out somewhere.
 
Re: Lighten the load

Lately I've been having issues overloading axles vs. the whole truck. I had CDL 26 out for a few weeks last fall that was ~1,100lbs under total GVW, but at some points almost 2,300lbs OVER on the rear axle! That was fun trying to put as much weight forward as possible!

As far as getting the whole pack down weight wise, well thought out "system packages" seems to be the winning route here. What's the least amount of shit you can get away with taking to a gig? Seriously. When festival season gets rolling, I often have the generator company supply feeder up to the stage so I don't have to haul out 100' it. 1/2 ton motors with 60' of chain instead of 1 ton motors with 75' of chain, efficient speakers and amps, digital snakes instead of analog snakes, smaller/lighter cases, ect.

One of my popular rigs I send out over the summer is 8/side d&b Q1(49lbs), 3/side dual 18's(200lbs), 8x d&b M4 wedges(44lbs), 3x amp racks(D12/PLM20k), Midas Pro 2 at FOH, digital snake, SC48 on mons, pair of 1/2 ton motors, plus a mic box, stand trunk, and cable caddy. The whole package fits in a 16' truck and will do many SL250 sized gigs just fine.



Evan
 
Re: Lighten the load

Evan Kirkendall;99544 As far as getting the whole pack down weight wise said:
It is simply heads-up management. When you sensibly lighten the weight load, you lighten the TOTAL load: Liability, theft, maintenance costs, labor, responsibility, etc. None of those items are profit centers.
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Re: Lighten the load

Bill Forbes said:
Tim,
Thanks for the info! Do you own Indy case Xframe cases? If so , how are they?
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I'm not Tim, but I have some of those Indy Case racks. They're great, and I really like them. I'll definitely be buying more when I need more racks.

Their footprint is 22.5" x 30", while I think the Olympic racks are 24" x 30". That might not be a big deal for some people, but that 1.5" makes all the difference in my truck pack. One thing I'll note is that I think the rack rails might be ever so slightly narrower than standard. Maybe 1/8" or so. It's not a big deal for normal things, but an APC 2200 UPS on it's shelf/slide brackets was a little tight.

I'm not sure they're lighter than a standard shock rack, but they're very solid. I'm a big fan of Indy Case. I have a couple of their workboxes too and they're great. The only negative I can think of is that you can't get handles on the lids, since there's not enough support there.
 
Re: Lighten the load

I just saw this thread. We've been spending some time for the past few weeks working on things for these same lines. What I've been concentrating on is repackaging some things to not only make them lighter overall, but to make them more manageable as far as stacking in truck pack. The lighting has went thru a lot of changes and our cable trunks haven't really been as well thought out to take advantage of those changes. Going totally LED US has led to the loss of a soco trunk, but we hadn't really taken the time to consider how much soco redundancy we were still carrying.... Twofers, breakins and breakouts, and orphaned that soco jumpers that serve no purpose now... but still in a case with stuff we do still need.

And it's like that in a lot of other places too... Where system upgrades have orphaned some things that we still carry for no good reason. In many cases it seems like redundancy, but in reality when I really start inventorying things it is redundancy for redundancy.

I'm also trying to find places where we can morph to lighter weight cases. Or maybe split out cases and have 2 cases that are designed to be riders instead of one case that might be too heavy alone to lift easily/safely that then would normally ride on the floor. With an eye toward having the cases divided and packed so for the gigs where we can, we just take one of those cases. We might lose a little redundancy, but we're not losing total redundancy. Maybe we don't have a backup for the backup. And as dedicated riders, we gain floorspace in the truck. Which is also part of the thought process here... Not just lightening the load but gaining floor space for the truck. And riders condense the number of things that need to be individually pushed as well.

And there are little things that out of habit become part of a show load, and the little things add up. Like bringing dedicated Clearcom cables whether we're using 3 stations or 12 stations. Yet already have a full case load of mic cables that we won't be using half of onstage anyway. Or taking the 250' DMX snake when we'll be using only 1 universe with only 100' needed and already taking a DMX cable trunk that has 100' DMX cables in it. But when a lighting rig is going out, usually out of habit the DMX snake gets put on the pick list... even when we could get by without it.

I was looking in the rigging trunks the other day, and they are loaded with stuff that's useful when needed, but totally taking up space and adding weight normally. And we should know when we'll need the type of things I'm talking about before ever getting to the gig... extra this... extra that.... Cheeseboughs with eyes... double cheesebouroughs and more double cheeseboroughs... and single cheeseboroughs... and pipe clamps.... Let alone excess shackles, truss picks.... yada yada yada....
 
Re: Lighten the load

Bill Forbes said:
Tim,
Thanks for the info! Do you own Indy case Xframe cases? If so , how are they?
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Brian Adams said:
I'm not Tim, but I have some of those Indy Case racks. They're great, and I really like them. I'll definitely be buying more when I need more racks.

Their footprint is 22.5" x 30", while I think the Olympic racks are 24" x 30". That might not be a big deal for some people, but that 1.5" makes all the difference in my truck pack. One thing I'll note is that I think the rack rails might be ever so slightly narrower than standard. Maybe 1/8" or so. It's not a big deal for normal things, but an APC 2200 UPS on it's shelf/slide brackets was a little tight.
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On the converse, we own Olympic Fastpacks, and one of the reasons why we went with them is the 24" x 30" footprint. They fit either a 90" pack or a 96" truck, and the shell of the rack+doors can be removed for rack assembly & wiring, and so you can adjust the position of the rack rails if needed. I've not measured the weight against a standard 12U shock so I don't know that they're any lighter. However, the pocket doors of these types of racks alone save space and time, and since they're all the same dimension there's no calling cases during the pack - just send it all to the truck.

Whether it's Indy Case, Opti Case or Olympic Case, they're worth looking into if you're in the market for racks.
 
Re: Lighten the load

Randy Gartner said:
Yes John, the good old days when they used T&A to sell gear. One more thing that went by the wayside due to political correctness.
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I wouldn't attribute it to PC so much. The fact is that the industry has matured, and so have (most) of the near-geezers buying equipment. I look at a promo like that and think "Hey! That is somebody's daughter!"
 
Re: Lighten the load

Randy Gartner said:
Yes John, the good old days when they used T&A to sell gear. One more thing that went by the wayside due to political correctness.
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Ironically perhaps I am a little proud that I broke the ice at Peavey with that ad, because prior to that any suggestive ads were frowned upon and not even presented for approval. My first version of that ad used the girl art designer from the in-house advertising department as her own model. It was a little uncomfortable when she and I presented that ad to Hartley to approve. He said something like have that guy in the ad face the other way. After an awkward silence I shared it was a girl holding the mixer, and we agreed to get a more attractive model. :-( The girl in the ad was an aerobics instructor from the local health club, and would never be confused for a guy.

I wanted to use T&A because that is why 99.9% of punks get into playing music (to score with the opposite sex). I guess you've never seen the Dean girls at a NAMM show. :) But in that ad the girl was also justified to support that the mixer was indeed light weight (she was an aerobics instructor not a weight lifter).

After my ad there were more suggestive ads, but Peavey did so little advertising they were few and far between... some guitar ads IIRC.

I expect a list of posts from indignant sound guys who totally reject sex as a motivation. :-(

IMO it (sex) makes the world go around. Advertising must first grab your attention, before it can inform you. That was my first and only ad with a girl in it, because I couldn't justify using girls or humans with most other product ads (the product must be the star of it's own ad).

JR
 
Re: Lighten the load

drew gandy said:
Ok, now I've gotta ask... were you responsible for the placement of the word "Handles" in that ad?
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No. I had to go back and look to see what you were talking about. I wrote the ad copy but the female art director did the layout including directing the photo shoot (I didn't even attend or help select the model). But she was in the same meeting where Hartley mistook her for a boy, so she was motivated to make it unmistakably a girl. I believe she succeeded. :) That looks like one of the intermediate ad proofs and may not even be the final ad.

My involvement was usually up front during the creative conceptual stage, and later at the final approval stage. The art directors are a little scared of Hartley and he doesn't want to waste his time on iterative tweaking so he usually only sees the ads when they are pretty much finished. This was one that went back to the drawing board for a re-shoot.

JR

PS: Another different mixer ad that was approved in a hurry to make a magazine deadline while I was out of town and I couldn't sign off on it, had bus spelled wrong (buss). I spelled it correctly in my ad copy and some junior art director thought he was helping me, and corrected my already correct spelling to the wrong way.. Whoever approved that didn't know better either. :-( I could have been a real butt hole over this but didn't press it since I didn't want to get anybody in trouble, but I expressed my displeasure forcefully to the individuals involved when I finally saw it for the first time in print.
 
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