is sign in required? always??

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  • #94756
    Profile photo of volounteervolounteer
    Participant

    turned on power and tried to sign in tonight.
    could not sign in. panic time!
    but… I was able to select the weds scene that i needed to use. go figure:)
    but also I could not adjust anything except the fader. “user not authorized”
    fortunately we had just enough gain on the orators lapel mike to record him on cd with the fader maxed out.

    does the Qu default to lowest level user without needing a sign in?
    was this just real bad user error? or had the sunday user not turned it off properly?

    [I did notice the A1 playing with the settings on sunday. at times echoey, others slight ringing, finally about righ. normally he just needs to ride the fader as the pastor builds up his volume over time] The A1 has been trying to ‘improve’ the quality of sound recently but without regard to intelligibility which IMHO is more important.

    sunday uses same level of user permission as weds night. nobody has admin rights except the music director.

    any ideas about what happened? and how to make sure it does not recur?

    #94757
    Profile photo of Mike CMike C
    Participant

    Sounds like the password was changed and you only had access to the most basic user level.

    Again with this post and in others of yours it’s sounds like you have a lot of overall sound team issues.

    #94764
    Profile photo of SteffenRSteffenR
    Participant

    does the Qu default to lowest level user without needing a sign in?

    no not really, it depends on the settings, you can set a user as user with no password
    with no passwords set the default user would be the admin

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    #94767
    Profile photo of MarkPAmanMarkPAman
    Participant

    If no password is set for basic user, but you attempted to sign in to it with your (standard?) password, what you describe is exactly what I’d expect.

    So, I guess that’s what happened.

    #94768
    Profile photo of Mike CMike C
    Participant

    Sounds like the basic level was left open/no password required with standard and admin
    both requiring a password.

    Hopefully your A1 or who ever was “playing” with the board as you say remembers what they did and the new password they changed it to.

    Like Steffen said how you get into the board depends on how it was set up, from fully wide open to every level locked down.

    #94770
    Profile photo of volounteervolounteer
    Participant

    Thanks to all for their info on this.
    I thought you had to sign in for all 3 levels, but not being the one to decide that or set up the passwords I was unsure.

    I suppose it is possible they changed me from standard to basic user without telling me.
    The only person with admin top level is the MD. He rarely tells us anything.

    I would like to think he did it to all of us, perhaps because the A1 was playing around with things too much.
    I do know the MD had wanted us all at basic level, but found we needed to do some things that basic did not allow so we all got standard, because he could not figure out how to give us all that we needed at basic level while blocking things he did not want us using.

    Saw the MD start down the aisle waving his cell phone at the balcony on Sunday before the service while the A1 was ‘tweaking’ things to ‘improve’ the sound. To be fair the A1 is just starting semi-retirement from his day job and has been trying to learn all the ins/outs of the Qu.

    I am guessing the MD did not think the sound was better. Maybe that is why he changed things on us.

    #94771
    Profile photo of Mike CMike C
    Participant

    It sounds like it was not an accidental password change!

    You run sound from the up in a balcony!!
    Are most of the people seated on the main floor?
    Unless the balcony has the same sound system coverage and “sound”
    as the main floor where most of the people are seated you can not
    effectively run sound for up there.
    You making EQ and mix level adjustments based on the mix location and not
    the location where the people are, or at least most of the people.

    You need to use an iPad and controlling the mixer and run sound from the main
    floor.

    I stand by this statement…..
    “Again with this post and in others of yours it’s sounds like you have a lot of overall sound team issues.”

    #94773
    Profile photo of volounteervolounteer
    Participant

    @MikeC

    Possibly not accidental. But not telling folks it was changing is odd.
    Now it could be because they are in the process of installing new mikes and acoustical panels to reduce echos and reverb issues.

    Yes, the audience is mostly on the main floor, while we and sometimes a few people are in the balcony.
    The balcony has pretty much the same coverage but tends to be louder than the main room below.

    We do what we can do to run sound. It would be impractical to do it on the main floor.
    And very hard to move as the snakes have been upstairs for long before the current pastor, MD, or volouteers arrived.

    Making mix tweaks is silly no matter what, because the audience does not care and cannot tell what is ‘good’ sound.
    But they do complain when they cannot hear, and understand, the orator, which IMHO is the key thing for a church to fix.
    We have extreme EQ in places just to stop the feedback problems. The A1 wanted to lower the cut at some freqs but I hope he found out that does not work well when the system whined two weeks ago and we still did not have the SPL for optimum intelligibility which I had computed at 15dB over the background noise from HVAC yada yada.

    The MD has an IPAD and has done things from the stage. I think I also some him walking around checking and tweaking from various places in the main floor area a couple of times.

    No argument about our people issues. Although I might have said management style issues, or team issues.
    But I suspect that many (most?) churches have their own issues too. Things are certainly done differenly from when I was working in the real world for companies both big and small from govt, private, and unis too. Well maybe not that different from some govt agencies and most unis:)

    On the music side the MD does a great job. And he is as competent as others on using the Qu, probably much better. For setting it up maybe less so, but he does have a good ear for the sound quality. Perhaps too good. He has big subwoofers somewhere (under the stage?) which I doubt anybody in the audience cares about. Keep in mind this is a conservative church not a venue for rock bands.

    The weird thing was that I did not see a place to sign in at all. Never entered any password. I would have expected to see that else how could anybody ever sign in? But I was able to access the scenes okay. That was what made me think the Qu was not turned off properly.

    I am sure the mystery will clear up later. If we are demoted to basic user so be it ; but there will come a time when we need to change something but wont be able to do it. I always had to increase the gain on the RF mike used on weds nights by 20dB for the audience to be happy. I could raise the fader 10dB but that would have been marginal and no way to do more if the orator were low that night. Once with Q&A in the audience I had to raise mikes they took around to the attendees and occasionaly raise them a *lot* more so the questions could be heard. Random audience people do not always hold the mike up to their mouth and talk normally:)

    #94787
    Profile photo of Mike CMike C
    Participant

    You really need to be down on the main floor running sound.
    You can have two iPads connected to the system at the same time both running the QU mixer app Qu Pad. It can be done on an iPad, I do it many times.

    Oh the general abbreviation for microphone is mic not mike, I’m Mike.

    Also quit calling the sound tech in training an A1, here in the US an A1 on a sound job
    is the person who knows the entire system front to back and can effectively run the show without any issues……most of the time.

    Over all I think you system is FUBAR and in need of qualified outside help to undo what all the helpfull hands have adjusted.

    #94789
    Profile photo of volounteervolounteer
    Participant

    @MikeC

    One does the best they can in the situation they have
    Maybe we should be on the main floor but that is impossible for us to do.

    Not sure about IPads but we also have to run video and ppt slides for the projectors from the same spot in the balcony, so moving that part downstairs would require yet another volounteer upstairs. And power on/off and other things would also require a trip to the balcony. Except for the sound being slightly louder than the main floor it is good enough for running FOH. What most ‘pro’ guys do not realize is that what they think is perfect sound is not what the audience cares about. They want intelligibility. The number of folks we have that could tell a comb filter was changing things is way under 1%. OTOH the number of people who tell me they can’t hear/understand the orator are everywhere. Nobody has ever complained about how the sound sounds to me. Some say it is too loud. The organist is too loud at times but I use earplugs then. Some say it is too soft. They are talking about the person talking. If you say we are correct because we split those complaints you would 100% wrong. The sound should never be too loud nor too soft ever.

    Mike is the correct abbrev as far as I am concerned.
    Microphone is the spelling when spelled out but fails badly when abbreved and would sound like mick not mike.
    And reading mike abbreved as mic hurts my eyes as much as the organist when she goes fortissississiissimo fermatissima maximus.

    https://hellomusictheory dot com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ffff-300×168.png

    A1 is the guy in charge who is responsible. Our A1 is an A1 even if you think his skills are short of yours.

    You are entitled to your opinion. I think our system works well enough. Of course it could be improved. And we are improving it slowly.

    #94792
    Profile photo of Mike CMike C
    Participant

    What most ‘pro’ guys do not realize is that what they think is perfect sound is not what the audience cares about. They want intelligibility. The number of folks we have that could tell a comb filter was changing things is way under 1%. OTOH the number of people who tell me they can’t hear/understand the orator are everywhere. Nobody has ever complained about how the sound sounds to me.

    You missed the point even though you more or less said it.
    How can you say “Nobody has ever complained about how the sound sounds to me.”
    It sounds like they do it all the time by saying they can’t hear or understand!!!!!

    The reason there telling you they can’t hear or understand the orator is because of the lack of attention to details, a properly set up and stable system and maybe not operating the system in the same location where the people who want to hear and understand the orator are actually seated!
    Until that happens you better get used to people telling you they can’t hear.

    You have never told us what the rest of the system consisted of make, models, system layout ect. or as they say a picture is worth a 1000 words.
    Maybe it’s total crap or good equipment just poorly configured or a combination of.

    Either way I know where it will eventually lead, after enough complaints a new system will be put in for better or worse and in no time at all the same problems will start again that no amount of hardware will ever fix.

    #94793
    Profile photo of volounteervolounteer
    Participant

    @MikeC

    That is your analysis based on what you assume.

    My analysis based on technical articles and computation says otherwise. I have seen the standing wave at the podium that caused instant feedback when a touring group used the facility with their gear.

    I know the background noise level. And we have discussed that in the past.
    NO, we have no control over the HVAC or room acoustics. But latter is being worked on slowly.

    The MD is having a local dealer install some acoustic treatment to improve the echo and reverb issues we do have and hopefully take that standing wave away too.
    Other than that I doubt the church is going to demand expensive changes to the system. Even if they could afford it.

    It is all complicated by some golden eared folks who think great sound is something else. I have told him several times that nobody in the audience cares about what he wants to do to make it sound better to his ears. Yet he still tries at times.

    Perhaps I should say nobody complained by saying something like there is a huge cut in freqs at 350 or similar problem.
    We get only a few of the too loud xomments which is the organ cranked up, and a larger number of cant hear/understand.
    We do have hearing assist devices that a number of people do use. The fix for that understanding problem is to provide 15dBSNR at a slightly higher SPL level and limited DR. Golden ear fixes cut into the margin before feedback making raising the SPL even more impossible. Those ears also limit the amount of compression we can use.

    The folks do complain about hearing and intelligibility but that is because the SPL is a bit too low for optimum intelligibility, and the DR is too wide. And we cant quite get there yet with the current risk of feedback issues which are being addressed with a local dealer and the acoustic treatment. Once that is in we will tune the room again by ringing it out using pink noise to set the output EQ, and later adjust EQ on mikes for any remaining issues.

    The system is vanilla. We have the Qu32 and it goes through some old devices to EQ the signal (Unused now but still in place from the old analog AH mixer and signal going through them) to the power amp that feeds that one main speaker flown high in the center just in front of the stage and before the audience and two sideways directed smaller speakers to fill the front sides of the room, all angled downwards of course.

    Basically it is adequate and certainly good enough even if we might do slightly better with an array type speaker. The power amp is plenty big and there is no distortion. Cant tell you the brand names of the old stuff that is in place. You will have to take my word for it being plenty good enough — else the MD would be pushing for changes like he did with the acoustic treatment.

    #94794
    Profile photo of Mike CMike C
    Participant

    Acoustic treatment will help but keep in mind just throwing a few panels on the wall in a large church with high and possibly curved ceilings with hard plaster walls will not do too much in big picture of things.
    Putting up enough to actually make a noticeable wow type of difference takes a lot of panels an would probably not go over well as far as the look of all the panels.

    Spacing them away from the wall a couple inches is a good idea by the way.
    The panel suppliers make brackets to do that.

    As for just putting some pink noise through the system and trying to use the eq to
    create perfectly flat line eq response is more or less a joke.
    A perfect flat line EQ’ed sound system actually does not sound that good when you
    hear music or voice through it.

    To do it right you need to use a program like SMARRT and take readings from a few different places.

    Also completely remove the old EQ.

    I would look at putting the down fills on a separate matrix output so they can be adjusted independent of the mains, unless there is a DSP unit in place already doing that.
    You mentioned a subwoofer, is it powered or ran with a separate amplifier? Is it fed from the main mix out or a independent mix directly from the board.
    If it’s powered from a separate amp is there a crossover unit somewhere in the system?

    After a quick bit of research the abbreviation for microphone “mic” has generally be in use since about 1960.

    #94796
    Profile photo of volounteervolounteer
    Participant

    @MikeC

    the MD picked the panels. Or maybe he picked the dealer who picked the panels.
    They used those in a meeting room which helped a lot but still not enough when everybody is there talking.

    I wanted to use half tubes which seems to have a better record for helping acoustics and are cheaper.
    Anyway the panels should help some to stop the echo from the back of the room.
    Although I fear they might not be enough to make a difference even though they are spaced away from the wall.

    The dealer will do the EQ using the pink noise. Not sure if they will try for flat or something else.
    He was going to use some program. Do not recall the name. Might be SMAART.

    The reference material we have found says to EQ out the problems. Not sure that makes the room flat.
    I dont think any room is ever flat except at one point.
    At least at the key location where feedback could be caused it should be lowered to give more margin so it won’t be flat there.
    While I do not want the room flat, but prefer more gain before feedback, the A1 seems to prefer flatish.
    The MD will go with what the dealer says to do.

    We will end up with new EQ on output to tune the room and later new EQ on mikes to fix any other problems and adjust them for ‘quality’.

    No idea about how the subwoofer is done. I suspect it comes from the same amp with a crossover somewhere but it might come from another amp under the stage fed by a snake. I do not think they have any DSP gear as they just got into the digital age last year. Everything else is all analog except for the new mixer that replaced the old analog one.

    Mic is common but illogical grammatically. Mike sounds right to the ears.
    Does your head say mike or mick when you read ‘mic’ ?
    What about when you mike the mice or mic the mice? Pitiful sound when they are stuck in a trap.

    #94808
    Profile photo of Mike CMike C
    Participant

    If the MD has been using the same dealer since day one and having them set up/tune the system at different times yet your still having feedback issues ect. I think that in it self points to one of your problems….the dealer!
    There are still some other issues tow work out.

    Using SMAART or something like it takes someone who can look at the lap top screen and actually know what it is there looking at.

    Spell check sees mice for mic, I see and know mic is a microphone.

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