My ideas of mixing...

So… A run down of how to set up a Sound Mix for a ship…

A couple of things to remember… You have to realise that most of the people aboard would be over the age of 50... This makes for a little adjustment of how you approach the console and the show. You have to remember that most peoples hearing deteriorates over time, and even if you do feel the need to pump up the bass in a venue (as we all want to do with a rocking show) it is not such a good idea. Older people have an especially low tolerance for bass (which they perceive as loud) and Mid freqs tend to hit them even harder. So it would be a good idea to go and have a look at what the mix needs most. I have found that a solid mix driven with a kick, a little Bass and keys does the trick. Ad lets face it, on ships most guitar parts are actually not even really guitar parts, but more a derivative of what the horns play. I haven’t worked with a lot of guitar players on a ship where they actually are able to play guitar with a little bit of feel and improv.

Next up would be the microphone choice. Now I know that most people would immediately go ‘58s work’ but go and play around a bit. I once ran a show where I had 4 vocalists, and I must say that what worked best for me was actually giving one of the singers an 87. I was lucky to have quite a few of the suckers lying around, but I did listen closely to the vocalists when I did my pre show talk with them before I gave them a mic. This was probably most beneficial when I worked with a certain act who was notorious throughout the fleet about having loud levels on stage and who wanted everything as loud as possible. I figured out by the way he was turning his head towards me whilst speaking that he was deaf in one ear (well, almost) and so I took a 87 (everyone gave him 58s), and played around with the monitor EQ for him. This proved magical, and also made a fleet wide record for a sound check for him on an analogue console. The normal rehearsal would normally take 3-4 hours with him constantly adjusting things that made no sense at all, but I got it down to 45minutes, including the band playing through the music. So yes, its possible… Apparently the fleet record is 35minutes, they however cheated ;-) they had a digico D5 to their disposal.

OK.. Lets move to another act. This consisted of 4 gents singing old school rock and roll. With one of the singers doing some noodling on his Fender. Firstly I had to get them all actually hearing themselves on stage, so there were 4 wedges for them, each with their own send (yes, you sometimes do have the luxury of having a load of Aux sends), and no, there is no dedicated monitor engineer with console onboard. For our production shows we also run overhead monitors to keep sightlines clean, and so I also used those suckers. Creating a bit of warmth for them and also trying to keep stage levels lowish. This I also managed by pulling all the amps off of the stage. The Bass amp was on stage facing into the wing next to the bassist. The Orchestra guitarist’s amp was in the wing on its angle legs facing up at him, also playing across the stage. The special acts guitar was also in the wing, just behind the main curtains drop facing across stage. I just gave him a bit of guitars in his monitor.

The vocals were a combination of 58s and 87s, esp. the lead vocalist was on an 87 to bring out a bit of air in his vox, and to stop the congestion that 58s cause.

What other acts… Well, the production shows always proved to be a problem. See, there are no real floor wedges and side fills in the wings, but only the overheads. And because the orchestra is sitting in the pit right in front of them they were being blasted by that and also the need for backtracks in the monitors. So it took a lot of effort to try and get it just right. I actually despise working on those production shows, because of the inconsistency of the singers on nights. But there are ways around that. They didn’t want comps on their vocals, well, sorry to hear that. They had very little compression on their main vocals, but on my group send I had a tube comp cleaning them up and making them all more punchy combined with an EQ on that group as well for FOH purposes. FX was my main toy, and trying to keep the girls from screeching the ears off of the audience I would ride that reverb hard… It just drenched the problem. Well, you’d say that I could ride the group, and I did, actually quite a lot, but sometimes you need the punch and there you had to play around with the various tricks to your disposal.

Another thing in the house to try and make things a little better was to get the delay stacks to work just right. Now there are various ways to do it. My favourite was to play music through the mains and then walk around with a DB meter. And then try and match the DB level from the main PA all around the venue to what it is 10 rows back from the front of the stage. Other than that I would just walk around during the rehearsals and have a look at what the venue did for me for that particular act.

Just more ramblings

Things you should know when applying…

Right, here we go… You’ve decided to have a stab at becoming a Light or Sound Tech on the mysterious ships. You’ve read stories, you’ve trawled the internet for info. But what do you really need to know?!

First of all, as in all jobs you at least should know what youre talking about. If you say you know how to do the job then you sure as hell should be able to do it. Its amazing how often you see someone who come aboard and has no idea how to do anything. So here first of all you should know what gear you’ll be expected to run.

Mostly the Analog consoles are on their way out. They are being replaced with a variety of digital ones. Consoles you’ll come across would probably be:

1. Analog consoles:

Midas

Yamaha

Crest

Mackie

Allen &Heath

These would range from the tiny format 16 channel consoles to the big suckers where you have between 48 to 72 channels under your control.

2. Digital Consoles:

Yamaha (O2R, O1V, DM2000)

Digico (D5, D1, SD7, SD8)

Digidesign Venue (these are few and far between, VERY far between)

Midas PRO 6 (there are rumours)

Other than that the PA systems will vary from company to company. But youd be expected to be at home with any of these. Don’t worry, you wont have to be able to fix everything, but at least know how the suckers work… Long live the internet!!!!

Outboard gear would also vary and with the digital consoles youd not have a lot of outboard, then again, do you really need it? Microphones would also be up in the air. You can look at the few things that youd expect to see though. Shure, AKG, Senheiser and in some case I ran across a lot of Crown stuff.

The different venues also have their own challenges. The guys who become Lounge Techs need to be a lot more involved with a wide variety of the gear seeing that you might find a LS9 in one lounge and then a O1V in another venue.

But in the end its your job to run all of those.

What else. Well, be sure to you know what youre getting in to when you get onboard be sure to have your head examined. If you show mild traces of insanity then its your place to be!! You must be able to work with a wide variety of people and aim to get the best out of all your team!!

OK... Well here are some more random pictures... I really should pay more attention to detail and go and size them correctly but, Im just too lazy...

These are just some random pictures taken of the venue onboard the Mariner of the Seas

Life as a Sound Tech on a Cruise Ship

Life as a Sound Tech on board a Cruise Ship

Well… Im writing this a little over a year since Ive last been on one and in two months time Ill be able to do more on the subject because yes, Im heading that way again. So here are my ramblings about what I encountered and what Ive learnt in that while. Ill try and cover as much as I can from getting the job to the final sign-off and everything in between.

So, after being caught up in the studio side of things for so many years and wanting to do more travelling and more live sound (South Africa has a nice industry but I hated working in mediocare facilities) I thought to myself, why not cruise ships? And so I sent off an email to my local hiring agent. A quick google search and making sure I typed in the right paramaters I got the people of Royal Caribbean. I must be honest, I looked at all the companies, browsed all the blogs I could find and read every piece of info I could find about the companies and how they were to work for. And so I sent off my resume to Royal and Princess. Royal was first to respond to my enquiry and also the fastest to set up an interview date.

A few points to remember though if you want to join as a full tech… They want to see experience. Yes a degree in entertainment does go a long way. I did however work with a few guys who didn’t have a lot of experience and so they ended up as stage staff with guys being full techs that probably had a bit more experience but no real talent whereas the stage staff did have the talent. I was in a position though to help some of those guys that I saw had star quality to end up as techs though.

So the interview is scheduled. I was to have a Skype interview with the HOD and the head shecdular. This went off without a hitch. The questions they asked were so elementary that I almost fell on my back… Seriously, who doesn’t know what a noise gate is?! After the the interview I was told to keep an eye on my emails and my local agent would be in touch in a weeks time. This I thought was fair and thus was very surprised whern I got a call an hour later from my agent saying Ive got the job plus a placement onboard. OK, this is the part where I do have to say that my resume is quite impressive and that must have worked in my favour.

And so all the paperwork started. I had to get a medical test done at a facility who specialises in cruise lines. I had to go get my Visa for the USA (I was to join the Mariner Of The Seas in LA). I also had to, for my own peace of mind, go get checked out on some of the gear that I was to work on.

Fastforward to the 11th of September 2009 (officialy 4 weeks after my interview). Im on a KLM flight to LA via Amsterdam. With Royal you pay for your first flight, and the rest they handle (I guess its to make sure that youre actually going to be there if you did pay for the flight). So with knowing nothing of where I was I landed in LA with my luggage and a piece of paper from my agent tha had my hotel details on them… Getting to the hotel was fun cause I wasn’t so use to the bus system they have in LAX. That night I had Burger King for dinner cause I wanted to eat that and slept like a baby to get ready for the next day. Sunday morning 13 September I woke up, had breakfast and got onto a bus to take me to the ship terminal in San Pedro. This was fun, cause I was now on my way to somewhere I had no idea about accompanied with my LOE (letter of employment), medical certificate and luggage. After wating for a bit in line to get checked out by out HR people I got on board, and boy was I in for a shock… For those not familiar with the Voyager class ships… Its actually not small… It is in actual fact massive (or that’s how it felt at first). I was shown around the ship (a quick tour that I forgot as soon as I did it) and told to be in the screening room for a debrief with the chief safety officer.

All of this stuff was ok, finding my room was less so… But I did end up finding it after a little while and then I spent the rest of the day getting to know the ship and went to my first rehearsal and show to check everything out. That night I went to my room to sleep… Cause for the next two weeks I had to sit through quite a few ‘educational’ sessions. It was just so boring. I did however learn how to sleep with my eyes open (these things were held early in the morning) and find my way around the ship with more efficiency.

When youre a tech you normally get a two week handover. That means that the previous tech will show you your day to day duties, get you up to speed on what is going on around the ship and what needs your attention. You also spend that time getting to know the production shows (if youre a main room tech) or getting use to the Studio B tech schedule (if youre on a ship with an ice ring).

OK, here I have to make a bit of a detour and talk about the different techs on board.

Main Room Sound Tech

This is the guy who runs the main theater sound. This is your main area of responsibility and where you will spend your time working.

Studio B

This is where the Ice shows are held. The Studio B tech (depending on the people who work out the schedules) will also mostly be the guy running some of the arb stuff that the lounge tech doesn’t have time for. This will mostly be on the Promonade on Voayger and Freedom class ships.

Lounge Tech

This is the stepping stone for guys who were stage staff to get into a tech position. The lounge tech is responsible for all the other venues. And making sure that they function. This sounds like a lot, but mostly its just CD players with some useless speakers connected to them. But if the Lounge cant handle everything the main theater guy will help out.

Back to my regular stuff. I found the first month the toughest. It takes time to get to learn the ship, and above that you have to also do your job snd have to learn the way the room works. The production shows are mostly so easy but you would have a few singers that are a royal pain.

My room had a Crest V12 with BSS processing, EAW PA and QSC amps. And in that chain a few other toys that made life easy. You would have to know a few things though. The production shows run off of TC and backtracks with a click for the band. This can be run from various formats, but on some of the ships this is done from a TASCAM 2424. A stable but sometimes slow piece of gear.

The lighting cues are also taken from the TC that the 2424 sends out.

The other acts are mostly bands or singers, or jugglers or comedians or air acts. Its just not a cut and dry are. Youll be exposed to a lot of different styles of music and acts.

The job part is quite nice. Depending on what needs to be done you’ll work either 4hrs to 9 hrs a day. My worst day was when a guest spilt a Coke on my console when we were not in the teater. That had me up fir such a long time rebuilding the console…….. Yes, I did have spares… Lucky me! I did however have one busy sea day a week where I would do between 9 to 12 hrs for the day, just depends on how idiotic the CD was with scheduling stuff in the teater.

OK, what else… Well lets go to spare time… The entertainment department is quite easy going and you do spend quite a bit of time in the bar… Or in your room hosting people or watching movies or doing washing or… well, I did end up writing some stuff when I was on board.

You do have the chance to rack up quite a big bar bill… and when you are on shore you have a bit of time to go explore and see the places around you…

And from experience I will answer this question as well… Most guys are more interested about the women aboard… Ok… if youre an ass, you probably wont meet anyone, if youre good, you also probably wont… Its up to chance… I ended up in a relationship which actually ended up nowhere. It was fun however.

Ship life is not for everyone however. It has its days where you want to jump overboard and swim back to shore. It has its days where you cant believe where you are. It has its day where you just roam around and look at things. The thing is, you have to be able to adapt and look at all the different people around you as an extended family… Youll hate each other, love each other, but at the end of the day you have to

co-exist with each other.

So here is a regular week (on a 7 day cruise out of San Pedro)

Day 1

Disembark and embarkation day…

9:00 wake up to go ashore and do stuff

16:00 get back to the ship

17:00 rehearsal for the welcome aboard show

18:30 dinner

19:30 get to the booth for showtime

19:45 show starts

21:00 show probably has ended and setting up the stage for the next day

Day 2

Sea Day

10:00 wake up, maybe…

12:00 rehearsal for the evenings show

13:00 lunch time

The rest of the day is either spent sleeping, doing some work in the theater or catching up with friends

The show times normally are quite late on sea days…

About 21:00 & 22:45

00:00 clear stage and setup fo the next day

00:45 probably hit the bar

Day 3

Docked

Depending on the act this can be an early or late rehearsal…

Either 11:00 or 16:00

So you schedule your time to get ashore during the off time…

19:00 showtime

21:00 second show

23:00 late night comedy

Day 4

Docked

This was my off day… There are not off days, but somehow my shedule had this worked out as one for me… So..

9:00 wake up

9:15 go ashore

17:00 back on ship

And then I went around through out the evening watching the entertainment that was happening around. This was part of my routine to see how the Lounge Tech was doing his job and if he was ready for promotion.

23:00 head to the bar with my mates and have a piss up

Day 4

Docked

Well, this all varied… But mostly the schedule went as follows…

10:00 wake up

11:00 rehearsal

12:10 get a quick lunch

12:30 get off the ship and go explore

17:30 get back to the ship

18:00 doors open

19:00 showtime

21:00 showtime

22:30 set up for the next day and then head to the bar

Day 5

Sea Day

11:00 wake up

12:00 rehearsal

13:10 lunchtime

Rest of the day same as the previous sea day

21:00 showtime

22:45 showtime

Day 6

Sea Day (I hated this day)

7:30 go for breakfast

8:00 head to theater for captains corner (a stupid talkshow with the captain)

9:00 Captains corner

11:00 backstage tour

12:00 rehearsal

13:00 Lunchtime

14:00 karaoke superstar (don’t ask, youre not ready)

16:00 2nd rehearsal

18:00 doors open

19:00 showtime

21:00 showtime

22:30 late night comedy

23:20 set stage for the next day and then head to the bar

Day 7 also doubles as Day 1

So, getting close to my contracts end was a bit of a pain… I was extended a few times cause of my replacement being unable to join on time. At the end though I was tired, I just went through a cast install, a visit from the companies head tech and went through the 2 week handover where I wanted to kill the guy..

So what did I learn in that time… To enjoy every moment… To not take everything so seriously… And to be amazing at my job!!!!