Tech Work at Fremont Abbey Arts Center

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday February 11, 2010 – Tech Work at Fremont Abbey Arts Center

One of the other things identified at Monday night’s meeting as necessary and pressing was the exploration of sound reinforcement options for the show. We are not committed to using sound reinforcement, but there is a sense that it really needs to be explored seriously in order to make an informed decision. And we are very good at avoiding this one in favor of more interesting pursuits. At Capitol Hill Arts Center we had resisted adding this component – it is a major functional pain in the ass, requiring both a lot of extra work in setting up the performance space and a full-time sound person, not to mention the inevitable changes in the flow of the performance – but once we committed to it, the improvement was pretty stunning, and hard to imagine how we had done without it. When we moved to FAAC, we were first downstairs in the Café, where sound reinforcement had a much more optional feel, and never crossed our collective threshold of necessity. But since we have been upstairs the question has returned with a greater sense of urgency.

We decided that our first full evening rehearsal at FAAC, 2 weeks from now, would focus on this question. Travis’ sense was that we needed to do a little preliminary work to test it out, and that this would be best accomplished with a small team. Looking for an opening in the Abbey evening schedule, tonight was the best option. A couple of emails to the Abbey staff confirmed that it was available, and so we jumped on it.

Travis, Taylor, Jaxie and I arrived at Fremont Abbey at 8pm. We each had our guitars, a guitar cable, a DI box and a mic cable. Travis brought two speakers with stands, a small mixer and 2 amps – actually, he discovered he had left one of the amps at home, and had to run back to collect it, while the rest of us set up the system as far as possible without it.

When he returned, we completed the setup and did a quick soundcheck. We are working with a mono mix, as we did at CHAC several years ago, with the idea that it will fill in some of the holes in the sound. For the players it will improve hearing each other, with less time delay to compensate for. For the audience it will decrease the proximity effect, where they can primarily hear the players close to where they are seated.

Eye of the Needle quickly emerged as our primary test piece. Taylor or Travis noted that we were four of the five players who originally encircled the guests at the 2004 feast, and EotN was what we performed that night. This was the night Tuning the Air was born.

Our first run through was clearly too loud, and actually made hearing one another more difficult rather than easier. We noted that no matter the volume, the sound will always be subject to the reverberant quality of the room. The aim of sound reinforcement is to improve our ability to work with that quality, not to change it. If we wish to change the character of the room, that is an entirely different matter, and probably outside the scope of our capacities, since it would involve pretty significant changes to the space itself.

At a somewhat lower volume, our ability to hear one another improved vastly. We were working with 2 speakers, where in the final form it will be a 4-speaker system, so it was not a perfect test, but sufficed. At even lower volume, the sense of intimacy returned. We played In My Room, since Taylor, Travis and I form the triangular rhythm section for the piece, and it is always a struggle. In this the improved ability to hear one another was most striking.

We also worked with placing ourselves closer together, and further apart. Good information all around. It was clear and the sense unanimous that this was something well worth pursuing further. When we have our first tech rehearsal at the Abbey in 2 weeks, we will work with the full team and a full sound reinforcement setup, in order to make the final decision.

After 90-minutes and one rather terrifying mishap with a dropped guitar, we packed up and went home.