Dirt Cheap High School Theater Sound?

Mainframe asks: "I am a student at a small (550 student) private school in Connecticut. I'm trying to bring theater here to a more professional level on a budget that is for all intents and purposes $0. I'm the sound tech, and at the moment we have a reluctantly two channel system with an amplifier and an 8 channel mixer. No CD player, no effects boxes, although everything is rack-mounted. Is there any software package that would make it simpler for me to run a show off of a computer? I need something that would allow me to play sound effects, mix in ambient sound, and perhaps even act as an effects processor for reverb, delay, etc through sound in/out. Right now I have an iBook running OSX doing effects, but it's hacked together using iTunes and a spectacular piece of software called Playthrough FX. OS is not an issue, since we have a robust IT department, so getting a PC with Windows, Linux, Unix, or a Mac with OS9 or X is not a problem."

Comments

beg borrow steal

[isorox]

well, maybe not steal, but talk to your local radio or tv station, or prodction house, about getting some old equipment, they are usually receptive, as they can write it off for tax (if your school is a charity), and not have costly disposal charges.

Yes, I forget what it's called

[nlaporte]

Yes there is, and speaking as a techie, I wish we had some at my school. I forget what it is called, but you may want to get in touch with the techies at the Signature Theater in Arlington, 'cause I've seen their system myself, and it looks pretty nice. I don't have an e-mail address for them, but the main phone number is (703) 820-9771. They are extremely nice and helpful. I wangled a visit to the tech booth after a show one night and chatted with them for about half an hour. They say that the software is nice, but occasionally crashes in the middle of the show. If you ask nice, they might have recommendations for you.

Your solution

[Takeel]

Run Pro Tools Free on your iBook; get it from Digidesign's website. As the name implies, the software is free. It meets all the criteria you've mentioned except for live mixing, and it can do that as well if you install it on a G4 minitower and add some of Digidesign's hardware.

Congratulations, you just got some potentially expensive consulting for free. :)

Re:Realtime Mixing

[tps12]

it might be worth it to find some cash

In my experience, it is almost always worth it to find some cash.

My experience.

[Big Sean O]

The theater company I worked with had a pretty basic setup (a tape deck, a microphone, a small radio shack mixer). We used to copy show music to cassette tapes, cue them up in the headset, and then play them over the PA. Some times we would lose a tape or it would get mangled. Othertimes we would screw up a cue because the tape wasn't rewound or it was miscued.

Last spring, I TD'ed a show where I also designed the sound. I ripped all the preshow music and sound cues to MP3s (at a pretty good bitrate -- I had plenty of space on the harddrive and the sound system was pretty lo-fi).

Then I renamed the tracks to match the Cue sheet and arranged them into a couple of playlists (preshow, first act, intermission, second act). I ran the whole thing over my laptop using -ick- Real Jukebox.

The nice thing about playlists is if you need to delay the start, or extend intermission, you can add a song in the middle, rather than at the end.

The sound out went into the mixing board, so I was able to control the fades with a slider, rather than mousing around. This was absolutely necessary, IMHO.

It went so well, that I donated my old PowerMac 7100 to the theater company. Since all you need is a decent MP3 player, most schools can get by with a low-end solution (late-90s desktop with good audio-out).

Maybe not the best..

[kmfdmk]

I work @ a radio station, a SMALL AM radio station for that matter (http://www.wmoaradio.com) one of the few Not owned by ClearChannel. Anyways..we operate on a fairly slim budget, always fixing up the old and busted till it breaks again.

The best that I could think of is to use the mixer for running audio to the speakers, have the mic's as inputs split, so you can run it strait to the mixer (then to the speakers), or into the comp to realtime add your effects.

Depending on the number of channels/mic's used you might need another 4 channel mixer.

If you ran 3 mic's & the computer, that would fill the mixer, I'm assuming 1 wireless, & 2 taped stage mics (it's what we had @ my HS), and then one channel for the computer.
You'll need A/B Selector switches available @ radio shack if you'd like to run the mic's strait to the PA, or run them to the Computer input for effects & such.

If you have a computer with a cd_rom you can play your audio off of that, however my choice would be off of winamp, and playlists @ 128kbps or somewhere close rate (hey.. it's not surround, just PA speakers).

However, if you could score an old Cart Recorder (look on ebay) these record what are essentially 8-track cassetes, that have 1/4 magnetic tape in an endless loop. We have about a dozen @ the station where I work, and they are impressively easy to use & reliable. However a Cart Recorder might cost upwards of 200 or 300 dollars. And most of the functions it can do, can again be replaced by a computer.

Another item you might find useful, is a Reel-to-Reel deck, a recorder obviously. But this again can be replaced with a dependable computer just as the Cart Recorder can.

So basically, some A/B switches, a fast computer with a Zip drive or Burner, and your 4 Channel mixer, leave you in pretty good standing.

My only suggestion is that if you have sound clips, bumps, & liners that you like, and use often, burn the off to CD to ensure that they won't get misplaced, or accidentally deleted. Hard copies are absolutely indispensible.

Oh yeah, I like tinkering around with audio files on Goldwave (http://www.goldwave.com) At the station we use SAW 32+, Studio Audio Works (http://www.sawstudio.com/) and it's pretty slick, I've used it for about 12 months, and still haven't figured out everything it can do. I think it costs though.